Spelunker Class

[eagleon]

Back from the dead! I posted here a long time ago, and I've recently started playing Portralis again in my spare time. The addition of a Mining skill inspired me to dream up a new class - it seemed lonely all by itself on the second skill screen.

Some abilities will probably require changes to the code, which I'm not too uncomfortable with but which will slow things down for me. I'll be working on this off and on, since I want to learn a little more of both Lua and C anyway, but I wanted to see what you guys thought in terms of balancing him out, as well as general impressions. I tried to use other classes numbers as a reference, but since I'm a casual player there are undeniably places where they could be improved. All flavor-texts are intended goals for that ability not necessarily what they are good for.

Base Class: Spelunker

+25% to intelligence
+25% to constitution
+25% to firearms
+50% to mining
+10% to stealth

A Spelunker is an expert in cave exploration. He has no fear of closed-in confined spaces, nor the literal and figurative pitfalls of subterranean excavation. Though many Spelunkers are Dwarves and Gnomes, they are an attractive career choice for nearly any adventurer. Their skill in firearms do not rival the Gunner's, but they are a versatile and tough opponent to face, and many have survived encounters they should have been obliterated by thanks to their skill at manipulating their opponent's senses and an acute, at times preternatural awareness of their own surroundings.

Class Abilities

Level 1
Cavelore:
+5% Earth, Mud, Darkness resistance per level
+2% Physical resistance per level
+20% bonus to-hit when blinded per level
Effects only apply in non-wilderness areas

A skilled spelunker will learn to use his surroundings to his advantage when avoiding danger. Dodging behind pillars, throwing sand in enemy's eyes, and embracing the darkness around him. A spelunker is at home where others may tremble and trip.
Though weak at lower levels, combined with Nightwash, the bonus to-hit can tip the balance in the Spelunker's favor when confronting skilled opponents, and the increased Physical resistance will protect him while he searches for a good spot to pick off his enemies.

Nightwash:
+5% Darkness resistance per level
+5% Darkness damage per level
Grants an improved blinding area of effect ability:
5/(Int -5) Darkness damages (one-third Magic Missile) per point
Radius 4 circle blast, +1 radius every 5 points
+10% chance to bypass any resistance to Blindness per level
+1 unresistable damage to self per level.
Blinds opponents and self; 1 turns per level for self, 4 turns per level for others.

Spelunkers have perfected operating under the cover of darkness and using it to their advantage. They have sought out advanced alchemical formulas in ancient ruins, and have uncovered a special type of magical ink that explodes in a wash of darkness on contact with air, blinding everyone around them as well as themselves. They hold this ink in their blood, conditioned to be immune to its otherwise poisonous effects by long trips in disease-infected hell-holes, and may release it at any time.
Though less useful when not used in conjunction with Cavelore's bonus to-hit when blinded, Nightwash is a useful trump card for a short respite from combat. Many higher level enemies resist being blinded, however it can be useful to overcome swarms, which may be temporarily confused - long enough to use a healing spell or Word of Recall scroll when truly screwed. The fact that it may be used without mana cost is an additional benefit. Its bonus to Darkness damage is also nothing to sneeze at if confronting non-immune opponents.

Flare:
Grants the ability to convert a light-source item into a burst weapon:
15/(Crafting - 5) Light damages per point, plus (turns remaining/100) additional Light damages (or +(depth * 1000) * radius for non-fueled permanent sources)
At level 15, the Spelunker may choose to make his Flares deal Fire damage in addition to Light - half of the damage is converted to Fire when this mode is on.
At level 20, the Spelunker may permanently modify a firearm to be activateable for the Flare's effects, once per (depth)-turns.
Radius 4 circle blast, +1 radius every 10 points
+5% chance to bypass any resistance to Blindness per level
Blinds opponents; 3 turns per level

Though most experienced spelunkers would choose to keep a spare light-source handy rather than use such an underhanded tactic, there comes a time when another torch for the stack becomes more of a fire-hazard than anything else, besides being heavy.
Similar to the Nightwash's blinding abilities, Flare will bypass resistance to blindness, though at a decreased rate. The two bypass levels do not stack. Unlike Nightwash, there is no chance for you to be blinded as well. The damages of Flare are greater, and also more versatile at high levels - many common enemies resist or are even immune to Darkness damage. The fact that a relatively rare item type must be consumed to use Flare is a disadvantage, although very powerful permanent light sources (which can be any item type - so long as they emit light they are useable) make for particularly devastating Flares.

Headlamp:
Allows the Spelunker to attach a light source to a piece of headgear, giving it any magical effects the light source possesses and freeing room for another light.
+5% resistance to Darkness to an attached item per point
+10% to-hit to attached item per point
+2 point bonus to Mining to attached item per point

Often bypassed for their weight and awkwardness, a good headlamp is a Spelunker's best friend. Allowing the explorer to hold another light source for closer inspection of ancient hieroglyphics, increasing his awareness of his surroundings, and holding the darkness at bay, this is an often overlooked ability until you need it most.
Headlamp is good for giving your headgear that extra bling it needs most - a huge glowing orb, or a nice bird-cage lantern. People may laugh at the Spelunker, until they see that orb boost the wearer's magical ability, in addition to whatever nice magical light-source the Spelunker may also possess. Even artifact lights may be affixed to helmets. A spelunker may detach the light at any time, so there's no harm in using this ability on powerful items. On the other hand, magical lights are relatively rare - you may wish to wait until you find one before tossing a point into this ability.

Exit:
Gives the Spelunker an innate ability to seek out a path to safety, no matter what the cost.
10% chance to Phase-door each turn after being activated, plus 10% per point
75% resistance to Physical and Magical until Exit is achieved
-90% to all damage inflicted on enemies during this period
+20 pts bonus to Stealth skill for 10 turns after Exit achieved, +10 turns and +1 bonus to Stealth per point

When all else fails, the Spelunker is the master of clever exits. Magical or not, his ability to slink past murderous opponents is uncanny and sometimes unnerving. You can always tell when they have decided to call it quits - the Spelunker will focus nearly all his efforts on defense, only landing token blows, and single-mindedly dash his way to safety when an opening is found.
Exit is especially useful for guns-focused Spelunkers that find themselves caught in the open and surrounded by enemies they cannot hope to defeat fast enough. At higher levels, the Stealth bonus becomes a significant asset to sneaky characters, as Exit becomes progressively more reliable and faster to use.

Diamond Ring:
5% chance to convert any resisted damage immediately into Earth damage, +5% per point. Toggleable.
At 10 points, if the Earth damage is resisted, another attempt is made at half chance (25% at 10) to convert the Earth damage into Physical damage.
At 15 points, if the Physical damage fails, another attempt is made at half Physical's chance (18.75% at 15) to convert the Physical damage to Mud.
At 20 points, if the Mud damage fails, another attempt is made at half Mud's chance (12.5% at 20) to convert the Mud damage to Acid.

A Spelunker is undeniably closer to the earth than most would ever be comfortable with. As a result, he may see ways to damage his opponents using the dungeon around him that others would not – a rock formation here, a reactive mineral cluster just waiting to turn to hydrochloric acid there, etc.
This ability, unique to Spelunkers, may be used as much or as little as the player would like. It works for any source of damage – including the area of effect Flare and Nightwash abilities, and melee attacks. Converted damage cannot be reflected – the effect is incidental to the Spelunker's surroundings and not related to his own immediate actions. It is otherwise subject to any resistances the opponent may have. At high levels, the chain of damage increases, further altering to additional elements if one is resisted.

Level 6
Gemologist
A Spelunker may use his Mining skill as Crafting, up to +10 Crafting points per point invested
Mining counts towards Intelligence – (Mining/10) + 1 per point bonus to intelligence.

A Spelunker is a versatile scientist and engineer of the Deep – he has learned the physical properties of so many minerals and materials that it augments his ability in creating works of art. His constant search for ruins and gold has improved his mind beyond mundane limits, verging into the Arcane.
With this ability, the Spelunker may focus his efforts on improving his mining abilities for the rewards it brings while still being a decent crafter. It also improves intelligence, providing synergy with the class's percentage bonus to intelligence. Useful if you want to focus more on physical or ranged combat statistics, but would still like to have a decent amount of mana.

Careful Excavation
+10% percent chance the depth of a dug-out item is improved by 1, +10% per point. If the depth is improved, the chance is halved, and an attempt is made again. This process repeats until the depth is not improved.
+5% percent chance that an item is made magical if possible, +5% per point.

The Spelunker has learned to detect signs of archaeological finds, and improve his chances of acquiring them undamaged. With this ability, the Spelunker leverages the Mining ability to make better finds more common and exciting.

Entrenchment
The Spelunker may see through rubble, and walk over it without removing it at 1/4th speed
A Spelunker gains an AC bonus when in rubble equal to this ability's level times his Mining skill
+1 attack and +1 shots while in rubble, increasing by 1 every 5 points

With this ability, the Spelunker may wriggle his way into collapsed sections of the dungeon and create a defensible position from which to snipe his enemies. Because Mining can create rubble at high enough ability, and because the AC bonus is improved at higher levels of Mining, this can easily make an impossible encounter much less difficult.

Level 10
Support Trap
The Spelunker gains the ability to sabotage the dungeon ceiling and make it fall on opponents, causing half-Physical half-Earth damage equal to ((size of room * ability level) * Mining skill / 10), and trapping enemies in rubble
Multiple Support Traps may be laid in a chain
1% chance to bring down the entire dungeon per collapsing beam in a suitable room.

This ability is an incredibly destructive version of Ceiling Crumble. The Spelunker sets up a ceiling support beam, and excavates any other supporting structures. A fuse is then laid – the Spelunker must carefully place each section of fuse (using the 'U' key) in a chain to the support, unless he wishes to be caught in the cave-in as well. When the fuse is lit, the support beam folds, and a check is made for a room in the surroundings. If a room is found, it is utterly destroyed. A random amount of rubble is dropped, and any enemies within the room are dealt a large amount of damage.
The fuse may be led to multiple support beams – it is consumed when the Spelunker lights it off. 1 and 2-tile wide corridors are safe from cave-ins, and the support beam must be placed where every adjacent tile is empty in order to cause any cave-in at all. The checking algorithm uses a flood fill method – if a tile has no adjacent walls, the adjacent tiles are marked as being in the room, and these are recursively checked the same way. The final count of affected tiles is used as the size of the room in the damage calculation. The time and effort it takes to set up a Support Trap offsets its potentially tremendous damage.

[kipar]

Interesting idea imho. Abilities are funny and fits to many different character builds.

Class bonuses seem too big, but right now Mining is underpowered so all is ok.

All %chances should be replaced to test (ability level vs monster stat+level).

Blindness doesn't hurt anybody, because every player with level >=15 have telepathy. I've no idea how to fix it.

Headlamp giving additional slot is a 'must have' for every crafting-based character. Not very useful for anybody else, because every character have light radius 5 and afaik there is only one artifact light source.

Gemologist - there is a problem: mining can be raised using crafted items in order to create more powerful items which raise mining even more in order to create etc. But as far as it's limited to 10\AP it is all or nothing ability. I'm not sure i like it, but i like the idea.

Support Trap - do you mean you will use it empty rooms (but why? No monsters here and you won't run from monsters through corridor to this room, then through this room - you will teleport or get killed in a few turns) or in rooms already filled with monsters (so they will look how you are intalling strange blocks and then lay fuse)? But this ability seem fine while there are no alternative trap-like abilities (except maybe Fields spell).

[eagleon]

For Support Trap, the idea is that if there's a Big Bad that you've run away from with other abilities (Exit, creation of rubble, teleportation spells, etc.), if you're a fair distance ahead you can set up a very nasty trap for him. Any room 3x3 or larger should be suitable. You'd wait just around the corner until the enemy was inside, and then light the fuse.

It isn't useful for regular combat, and the fact that it has a very small chance of destroying the entire dungeon (killing you in the process) makes it not something you want to attempt many times, but it should be a viable option for very dangerous enemies, especially with Diamond Ring's resisted-damage conversion. Even if you don't kill the creature outright, there's a good chance it will be trapped by the randomly placed rubble. If you mine out a larger area, it can get even more powerful. Obviously that would take time, and it wouldn't work for special levels. I don't know - I'm a Dwarf Fortress player, so I like dropping the dungeon on people so to speak

Nightwash... yeah, that is a problem. That and I'm not sure monsters are affected by blindness, either. Maybe it should disable telepathy for the player and creatures too? ;D Would be evil. I just like the idea of the player having to fight intelligently with it - guessing where monsters must be and positioning themselves where they can cause the most carnage just by swinging randomly.

Maybe for Headlamp, like with Flare, any item with a permanent light source could be useable. Makes it even more silly - attaching a glowing sword to your head? Well ok... ;D That might be a little bit too powerful. But say it only gave you a certain percentage of the object's benefits based on the radius (100*radius, so 50% of any numeric stats like resistance, damage of activations, etc, for crafted objects with 5 light). That becomes a little less twinkish while still being pretty attractive. Thoughts?

And yeah, the Crafting bonus had occurred to me. A solution to make the bonus from mining only applicable to the test for making/decomposing an item (and not for giving extra tweak points), which really makes sense considering it's not a magic-oriented class on the surface, would be a little messy to implement I think. I'm not sure. Still trying to sort out where everything is in code/scripts, and what I need to do to get started.

[sekira]

First off, I want to say, this is awesome, keep up the interest in adding content. Authoring and coding the Kensai class was very fun and when I was finished turned out to be quite rewarding to see what I had created.

I'm not quite sure how it is that firearms work for a spelunker though... If it is about using explosives to tunnel, then an ability based on potions (fire potions? grenade potions?) might fit better.

I like the stealth bonus, but 10% is kind of lame. 50% mining is too much imho.

I'd say remove firearms... (perhaps add 25% alchemy bonus instead?) Increase stealth bonus to 25%, lower mining to 25%.

Of course I'm seeing the spelunker as kind of a sneaky demolitions expert (for combat, perhaps not the whole picture of the class) based on what I see in the abilities... several circle based effects that look like they could be either the result of a smoke effect (nightwash) or explosive (flare, support trap)

I agree on changing the % resists to power vs power rolls. The reason for this is because if the % resists have no cap they are too powerful (100% resist anything, sign me up) if they have a cap lower than 100% than they are too weak. taking even 1% of the damage a monster deals can be deadly at higher levels. A power vs power roll can be very nice, quite effective at helping avoid damage, but not letting you abuse your defense like 100% resist can. Also, it is a standard practice so it balances well.

Nightwash's "blindness" effects seem similar to the Shadow Stalker's Dark Mist ability, perhaps there is a way to use that same effect.

To avoid problems with extra equipment code and wear locations code, headlamp could just let you "improve" any lightsource type item similar to Paladin's Shining armor or blessed weapon abilities. The bonuses would have to be much greater since it doesn't effectively give you an additional wear location.

Exit seems too random to be useful. Even with 75% resist all, you will die instantly at higher levels if you phase into a room full of certain types of enemies. I would suggest something like this:

Exit:
move 3 spaces. You may not perform any other action (attack, abilities, Activations, spells, etc) other than movement.
Become temporarily invisible after done moving.
Invisibility power: 25
Invisibility duration: 4
Extra AP: Each AP +5 invisibility power, +1 invisibility duration, +1 movement

Might seem weak, but moving several spaces in a single action can be quite powerful... It basically gives you 3 one space jumps each use... more as you invest more AP.

I love the concept of diamond ring, but the execution seems strange... the chance you will ever get the Acid conversion is virtually nothing... even with 20 AP in it, that is less than 1.6% chance Acid will kick in on an earth, physical, and water immune monster. with 50 AP it is still less than 20% chance on the same monster. You need 160 AP for a 100% conversion rate on all of the 3 secondary types.

I think the issues with crafting have been outlined on the previous post, but I like the name of the ability, perhaps letting mining give a bonus to alchemy (3% of your base mining skill per AP?, low because Alchemy is meant to be a skill you have to invest in to get, it doesn't come on items) and/or lets you change the effect type of potions you find based on your mining skill (perhaps you need to be adjacent to a pile of $, and the potion type is determined by the type of $)

(as you might have guessed I'm a fan of alchemy much more so than crafting)

Love careful excavation, but the magic item bonus might be too high... not sure.

Entreanchment and support trap both are extremely creative, How balanced/playable/etc they are remains to be seen though.

Personally I would love to see an ability that lets the spelunker make interesting use of brands some how (again along the lines of alchemy)

I know, the whole alchemy theme over firearms theme is totally me inserting my view into your class, but you can just say "screw you" if you want. It is your class after all. I guess I just couldn't wrap my head around a guy with a bunch of cave diving and mining equipment pulling out a big ol' sniper rifle ... its too dark and short range in most caves (natural ones like spelunkers dive into) to use something that long range! Just my $.02

EDIT: The crafting ability I mentioned was of course Gemology. I also wanted to say I don't like the whole "if it works try again at half the chance..." thing with careful excavation, not sure that hole recursive trys at half the chance each time thing is really effective... with Careful excavation, to have a +5 depth item would be 1 out of 102,400,000 chance with 1 AP... with 20 AP it is still less than 1.6% to get +5 depth, even though +2 depth is 100% chance... 3 more depth drops the chance by a factor of 64. Perhaps something like this:

Careful excavation:
When you mine a space and get an item, you have (AP*5) power vs (dungeon depth) power constested roll to get an item with increased depth, the depth increase is a random amount from 1 to (AP spent in this ability) Also, items gained by mining have an (AP*2) power vs (dungeon depth) power contested roll chance to be automatically magical, and the magic rank is increased by a random number from 0 to (AP/2)

[kipar]

Nightwash's "blindness" effects seem similar to the Shadow Stalker's Dark Mist ability, perhaps there is a way to use that same effect.

Blindness on monsters = confusion (maybe partial, same as dark mist)on monsters. There is no problem in execution this. There are problem in how make blind bad for players.
Something like telepathy-disabling blindness which cannot be resisted by blindness resistance and cannot be removed by Restore Status spell - pretty strange condition. Maybe use confusion instead of blindness - but that will make it too dangerous (if monster resists its effect but you won't...) .

About Diamond Ring - maybe replace %chance of try to %of damage applied?
So with 20AP you deal 1 mil. damage, if resisted it is switched to 1mil damage of earth, then to 500k damage of physical, then to 250k of mud, then to 125k of acid.
Anyway this ability is broken when you play a Zulgor: it will convert damage from Chaos to Physical. So it is overpowered for zulgor spellcaster-type characters.

[eagleon]

This is exactly why I posted here - great feedback on all.

I see the Spelunker more in the traditional Indiana Jones-esque archaeologist - extremely clever, very fit, versatile, willing to use magic as a means to an end but more interested in geology and exploration than gaining personal power. He uses light sources, of course, but he's still not helpless in the dark. He chooses guns because he wants a way to dispatch more powerful enemies from a distance that doesn't require a lot of space to maneuver or a great deal of prior training - I personally can't imagine using a longbow underground, but I can definitely see bringing a pistol or breech-loader. Pistols can be used at close range, and he'd rather get the hell out of there than confront some demon with three-foot venomous fangs with his pickaxe. Using a bow from an entrenched location is out of the question. It's a question of flavor really; it takes time to learn to use a bow, or even a crossbow, time the Spelunker would rather spend reading.

There's the problem of ammo, which concerns me. Gunners can use class abilities to make their ammo, but what will a Spelunker do? Maybe Gemologist could provide an additional chance to find ingredients for bullets, as well as other valuable stuff - the ingredients for blackpowder would be easier to find underground than not, after all.

I played a little bit with the mining skill, and you seem to get a lot of ingots at lower levels, which aren't needed so much and could probably be occasionally replaced with other ingredients. Also a lot of cowls, clothing, and random weapons once you get Treasure Finding, which are OK sometimes but shouldn't really be common. The chances for finding an item at moderate skill seem very overboard, especially without the need to eat to balance things out - I was digging through walls like butter and finding something nearly every tile. The cheatish class I made had the 50% bonus to mining, which was kinda crazy with a dwarf. Probably needs to be toned down, hehe.

I don't see the same problem with Diamond Ring. The chances are pretty good you'll get extra damage in on a creature that resists, considering it affects every damage source a creature resists, including Nightwash and Flare - 20 AP guarantees you'll at least get Earth damage. The chances improve for every damage type with each point you have, so even if you're rarely getting Acid (and you should rarely have a monster that resists all the prior damage types anyway), you're still getting more of Mud, Physical, and Earth. Add to that that counters can't return the damages... Well, there's no reason I can't try both of our formulas

I like your concept for Exit. I wasn't sure how many creatures saw through invisibility.

For Nighwash, I'm wondering if it's possible to disable any light-sources in the player's possession temporarily. That would still make Telepathy useful, make it inconvenient enough that you wouldn't want to use it constantly (bumping into walls constantly to figure out your surroundings is time-consuming and dangerous, and it gets worse with more AP invested), and fairly thematic as well. I'll take a look tonight after I get home from work.

Hadn't really thought about Zulgors, but I'm not too concerned - there are always ways to exploit the system. I like Diamond Ring too much to change it for that, really

[kipar]

There is no problems with ammo - only enchanter can have good (better then bronze) ammo now. So if Gemologist will work with crafting, not with alchemy this ability will be enough to craft ammos.

I don't see any difference between blindness and light radius=0. You still see walls because you've seen them before using this ability. Blinding is even better then setting lightradius to 0 because and you can't just cast power1radius20cost0 light ball spell to fully neutralize it.
But if you think that penalty of this ability shouldn't be combat penalty but just an annoyance - both blindness and disabling light will work fine. The real penalty is spending precious APs to Darkness-damage ability, not blinding yourself in process.

One more thing - entrenchment is very abusable (same as Grow Trees spell in previous releases) - surround yourself with rubbles, then walk on them, hit, step back, rest, repeat. Perhaps either monsters should be able to remove rubbles after some time or creating rubbles should be impossible in quest levels.

[Variaz]

Let's analyze the various abilities of the class...

Cavelore:
+5% Earth, Mud, Darkness resistance per level
+2% Physical resistance per level
+20% bonus to-hit when blinded per level
Effects only apply in non-wilderness areas

A bit weak, to be honest. With 20, you do get two useful immunities plus Mud(immunity to Mud doesn't make you immune to Earth and Water), but the physical resistance is a bit low, and getting a bonus to_hit while blind ism a bit strange, since it pretty much also requires telepathy to work well. Then you actually have to become blind, which gets pretty rare later on.

Nightwash:
+5% Darkness resistance per level
+5% Darkness damage per level
Grants an improved blinding area of effect ability:
5/(Int -5) Darkness damages (one-third Magic Missile) per point
Radius 4 circle blast, +1 radius every 5 points
+10% chance to bypass any resistance to Blindness per level
+1 unresistable damage to self per level.
Blinds opponents and self; 1 turns per level for self, 4 turns per level for others.

The darkness resistance is a bit redundant from the previous ability. 5% darkness damages is a bit low(10% would be better), and the activated effect is very weak, and costs almost nothing to reproduce via a standard spell.

Still, a combination of damages boost AND resistance to the element is a pretty nice combo.

One thing to note is that enemies do not have a "Blind" status. Dark Mist doesn't give a status ailment to enemies, it gives them random movements while they are in it, as well as a penality to their hit rating and defense. Otherwise, it would work pretty much like confusion, so I don't know if I will implement one or not.

To be honest, just making it a passive like:
+10% Darkness damages per points.
+5% Darkness resistance per points.

This makes the ability good enough. 10 points for double damages with Darkness and 50% resistance, and 20 points for triple damages and immunity to Darkness.

Flare:
Grants the ability to convert a light-source item into a burst weapon:
15/(Crafting - 5) Light damages per point, plus (turns remaining/100) additional Light damages (or +(depth * 1000) * radius for non-fueled permanent sources)
At level 15, the Spelunker may choose to make his Flares deal Fire damage in addition to Light - half of the damage is converted to Fire when this mode is on.
At level 20, the Spelunker may permanently modify a firearm to be activateable for the Flare's effects, once per (depth)-turns.
Radius 4 circle blast, +1 radius every 10 points
+5% chance to bypass any resistance to Blindness per level
Blinds opponents; 3 turns per level

15 is a weak power. Basing it on Crafting limits it's scope of use.

In this case, a better option would be to give a base damages value to light sources, and use that instead, and make it a bit stronger. It would also allow the lanterns to gain more damages if they're magical, or levelable. And make it something relative to the ability's level, and not to a specific skill.

Also, I'd probably remove the Firearms bonus. They are already powerful enough as they are.

Headlamp:
Allows the Spelunker to attach a light source to a piece of headgear, giving it any magical effects the light source possesses and freeing room for another light.
+5% resistance to Darkness to an attached item per point
+10% to-hit to attached item per point
+2 point bonus to Mining to attached item per point

Again, resistance to Darkness is redundant.

The +10% hit is pretty good.

The +2 to Mining is a bit useless. A more fun effect would be to make it harder for "dark" enemies, like undeads and demons, to hit you, because they are blinded by the light.

Exit:
Gives the Spelunker an innate ability to seek out a path to safety, no matter what the cost.
10% chance to Phase-door each turn after being activated, plus 10% per point
75% resistance to Physical and Magical until Exit is achieved
-90% to all damage inflicted on enemies during this period
+20 pts bonus to Stealth skill for 10 turns after Exit achieved, +10 turns and +1 bonus to Stealth per point

Sounds interesting on paper. In practice, however, random phasing might make the escape HARDER than without it, and you might still have to fight your way through some enemies before the recall activates. The stealth bonus wouldn't help all that much against enemies you really want to run away from(like Nightmares).

In the end, it would also have no use in quest levels, so it would become a one-point ability. Personally, I would probably skip it.

Diamond Ring:
5% chance to convert any resisted damage immediately into Earth damage, +5% per point. Toggleable.
At 10 points, if the Earth damage is resisted, another attempt is made at half chance (25% at 10) to convert the Earth damage into Physical damage.
At 15 points, if the Physical damage fails, another attempt is made at half Physical's chance (18.75% at 15) to convert the Physical damage to Mud.
At 20 points, if the Mud damage fails, another attempt is made at half Mud's chance (12.5% at 20) to convert the Mud damage to Acid.

Well, this is a new concept.

I like it because it's really fun! No abilities currently do something like this, and it could become interesting to resist types that have very little resistances available for them(like Mana).

I am already thinking about many ways I could have players use something like this...

Kudos for the idea!

Gemologist
A Spelunker may use his Mining skill as Crafting, up to +10 Crafting points per point invested
Mining counts towards Intelligence – (Mining/10) + 1 per point bonus to intelligence.

Unfortunately, the Rogue has proven that this type of ability does not work well, because the ability itself does not give any real bonus by itself. While this could be an interesting bonus on it's own, it would have to bring something else, like an offensive bonus, or a defensive one.

Careful Excavation
+10% percent chance the depth of a dug-out item is improved by 1, +10% per point. If the depth is improved, the chance is halved, and an attempt is made again. This process repeats until the depth is not improved.
+5% percent chance that an item is made magical if possible, +5% per point.

With 50 points:

500% chance of getting +1.
250% chance of getting +1.
125% chance of getting +1.
62.5% chance of getting +1.
31.25% chance of getting +1.
And so on.

You'd get +4 and sometimes +5 most of the time, rarely higher. +5 to depth provides very little benefits to the item's quality, would not even turn a steel weapon to mithril, and would make a negelctable bonus to magic items rolls.

We are talking 50 points here. Greatly underpowered ability if you ask me. The concept is interesting, but it needs to be improved a lot.

Entrenchment
The Spelunker may see through rubble, and walk over it without removing it at 1/4th speed
A Spelunker gains an AC bonus when in rubble equal to this ability's level times his Mining skill
+1 attack and +1 shots while in rubble, increasing by 1 every 5 points

Interesting idea. I'd say it should work on some other types of terrains, like Mountains and dirt. This would be great for the Ivhala dungeons and the Flow.

The exact amount of defense might need to be buffed a bit, and I don't think shots should be boosted. But otherwise, I'd gladly give this to a Dwarven Defender!

Support Trap
The Spelunker gains the ability to sabotage the dungeon ceiling and make it fall on opponents, causing half-Physical half-Earth damage equal to ((size of room * ability level) * Mining skill / 10), and trapping enemies in rubble
Multiple Support Traps may be laid in a chain
1% chance to bring down the entire dungeon per collapsing beam in a suitable room.

Not sure about the damages, might need a buff, but the concept is interesting. Abilities that places traps, however, can be difficult to use properly, so we'd have to make sure it doesn't end up being too hard to use.

In which case, we could turn this into an attack based on melee damages, that does damages over a radius, is combat-feat and would also drop rubble on enemies.


As for the bonus, I'd take away Firearms and Intelligence, and only 25% for Mining. Maybe add 25% Crafting then, however.


Overall, interesting ideas, but some are a little redundant(like resistances bonus). Careful Excavation really needs to be redesigned however.

Diamond Ring is by FAR my favorite.