new illithid ideas

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xilissisix
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new illithid ideas

Postby xilissisix » Tue Sep 07, 2004 7:06 pm

I think the illithids should have a new low level ability ... should be introduced between levels 12-15. Phasing, the ability to pass through locked doors or maybe even walls. This is after all a canon psi ability.

Illithids should also be able to see invisibles or at least identify them since their minds are not invis and we should be able to understand drow sign language.

We should also be all powerful from level 1 ;p
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Re: new illithid ideas

Postby Delmair Aamoren » Wed Sep 08, 2004 1:23 am

xilissisix wrote:I think the illithids should have a new low level ability ... should be introduced between levels 12-15. Phasing, the ability to pass through locked doors or maybe even walls. This is after all a canon psi ability.

Illithids should also be able to see invisibles or at least identify them since their minds are not invis and we should be able to understand drow sign language.

We should also be all powerful from level 1 ;p


Can you say broken? Not a chance in hell i'd say.
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Postby xilissisix » Wed Sep 08, 2004 11:12 pm

To be honest I don't understand you. Do you mean that even one of these abilities would cause psis to become overpowered?
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Postby Delmair Aamoren » Thu Sep 09, 2004 1:11 am

With adding the !pick flag, some doors can be REQUIRED to have a key.
If a psi could just pass through the door, then you could have the
illusionist fold, or hell, have the psi wormhole or whatever, and *POOF*
you have just skipped an hour or two of a zone. Also passable would
be doors that require keywords or are "riddle" activiated. So as far as
passwall and passdoor, forget about it! =P

As far as detect invis, if someone casts invisible on themself, what makes
you think their entire body isn't magically invisible? the mind was a part
of the body last i checked. Adding a "detect invis" or "true sight" ability
at higher levels might not be unwarranted, but your idea of a "mind" not
being invisible is rather absurd to me.

As far as ability to understand drow sign language, in the UD reality from
what i understand, the illithids and drow usually don't get along. The
society of the UD is rather racist. I don't think drow would spend enough
time in the presence of illithids for them to be able to learn this language.
Even if they spent some time in their presence, it is doubtful the drow
would allow the language to be learned, and even more unlikely that
they would share it with an illithid. Or any other race for that matter.
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Postby Xisiqomelir » Thu Sep 09, 2004 2:22 am

Xilissisix, looking at my copy of The Illithiad I also see that Illithids are meant to have 95% MR. Much as I would adore for that to be implemented, realism will have to take a back seat to balance there. ^^

Delmair, you have to draw a distinction between an invisible brain and an invisible mind. Also, an Illithid wouldn't need it's attention on finger waggles to understand signing. ;)
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Postby moritheil » Thu Sep 09, 2004 10:11 am

Delmair Aamoren wrote:With adding the !pick flag, some doors can be REQUIRED to have a key.
If a psi could just pass through the door, then you could have the
illusionist fold, or hell, have the psi wormhole or whatever, and *POOF*
you have just skipped an hour or two of a zone. Also passable would
be doors that require keywords or are "riddle" activiated. So as far as
passwall and passdoor, forget about it! =P

As far as detect invis, if someone casts invisible on themself, what makes
you think their entire body isn't magically invisible? the mind was a part
of the body last i checked. Adding a "detect invis" or "true sight" ability
at higher levels might not be unwarranted, but your idea of a "mind" not
being invisible is rather absurd to me.

As far as ability to understand drow sign language, in the UD reality from
what i understand, the illithids and drow usually don't get along. The
society of the UD is rather racist. I don't think drow would spend enough
time in the presence of illithids for them to be able to learn this language.
Even if they spent some time in their presence, it is doubtful the drow
would allow the language to be learned, and even more unlikely that
they would share it with an illithid. Or any other race for that matter.


Okay, insofar as "UD reality," the illithid hive mind has many, many drow slaves. I'm sure the elder brain could take the information from their minds, and has for years. Whether or not it's giving out that information to individual illithids is another matter.

Re: passdoor, this is simple. Just don't let them phase through NOPICK entrances. Say there's a magical barrier in the doorway that disallows phasing through. But regarding coding it, let me put forth the real argument: how often do illithids want to be the first one of the group into a hostile area? Even ogres are leery of doorbashing as a substitute because they often die right after.

With all that said, DnD has psionic invisibility, and that is one thing that I would think would not be overpowered in the least, some sort of self-only invisibility available to higher level squids. It's kind of silly that most mages can just invis through lowbie agros but squids have to deal with them.
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Postby Delmair Aamoren » Thu Sep 09, 2004 3:16 pm

moritheil wrote:Okay, insofar as "UD reality," the illithid hive mind has many, many drow slaves. I'm sure the elder brain could take the information from their minds, and has for years. Whether or not it's giving out that information to individual illithids is another matter.

Re: passdoor, this is simple. Just don't let them phase through NOPICK entrances. Say there's a magical barrier in the doorway that disallows phasing through. But regarding coding it, let me put forth the real argument: how often do illithids want to be the first one of the group into a hostile area? Even ogres are leery of doorbashing as a substitute because they often die right after.

With all that said, DnD has psionic invisibility, and that is one thing that I would think would not be overpowered in the least, some sort of self-only invisibility available to higher level squids. It's kind of silly that most mages can just invis through lowbie agros but squids have to deal with them.


I'm not certain as to what mind powers exist, but it is my understanding
that to compel someone to do something (ie be a slave) doesn't require
ones mind to be read. And with innate magic resistance and whatnot, not
to mention years and years of dealing with the illithids, i'd assume they
have some sort of resistance (but who knows, we are talking about a
fantasy world here).

As far as going invisible, yeah, like i said, i have no problem with that,
and seeing invisible, at higher levels, etc. Would DEFINATELY need to be
a self only ability, as this is how most psi powers seem to work. As far
as the passdoor, and !pick flag, etc. do we really want to take something
like that away from rogues? As it stands now, they are the way to get
around doors. That is one of their specialties. Next you'll have psi's
opening chests and stuff. Then we'll have the knock spell, then....
as you can see the list could go on. There is a reason that rogues and
and their subclass are the only two that can get through some locked
doors without keys.
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Postby icecillam » Thu Sep 09, 2004 3:55 pm

Hrm invis would be nifty. Tho if it were a "mind shield" or similar I'm guessing it would have to be coded much more like a hide instead of just plain invis. That might be overpowered, but without sneak I'm not sure. Probably abusable of course. Or the skill could be basic invis, at high skill levels invis/hide, with no sneak of course. This would of course force me to master yet another skill which would be a pain.

Passdoor would make certain high level zones far too easy, and would probably be too hard to balance.

True sight the way its coded would be nice, but doesn't make sense. A di/sl "sight" skill would fall more in line with the feeling mind thoughts. As having dgood/devil would make detect align useless (not like dalign is useful, but more useless).

As to reading drow sign, its more of a reading their minds to determine what they are "saying". Not learning what the actual finger gestures mean as Illithids could care less what figure gestures do what.
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Postby Xisiqomelir » Thu Sep 09, 2004 3:56 pm

Delmair Aamoren wrote:I'm not certain as to what mind powers exist


Exile, book 2 of the Dark Elf trilogy by RA Salvatore has a very nice extended bit about Illithids where Drizzt and that stupid svirfneblin become slaves for a few weeks.
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Postby selerial » Thu Sep 09, 2004 11:50 pm

For what it's worth, there's already a precedent for passdoor in the mud: fire and air elementals can pass through doors that don't have a lock of some kind. That means, if the door has a lock that has to be opened via key, pick, or passphrase, they can't pass through it, but if all it takes is "open door" to open the door, then they can. I don't think that's entirely what the topic is aiming for, and, in fact, it's kind of annoying when a nasty aggro is on the other side of a non-lock door and your mental flees through the door while fighting something on the other side.
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Postby Sesexe » Fri Sep 10, 2004 12:40 am

In order for an illithid to know what a drow was signing, he would have to focus his psionic powers upon the individual drow's mind doing the signing. He would then in essence be reading the drow's mind.

For an illithid, or any psionic for that matter, to follow a conversation between two or more Drow signing, he/she/it would have to be able to establish mental contact with each drow before hand and then enact the appropriate powers (detect thoughts/read mind/etc).

Simply walking into a room and understanding drow signing going on.. No. I don't think so. You'll have to do a lot better then that.

Furthermore, Drow are not a telepathic race. That is to say, they don't project their thoughts telepathically on a normal basis. Illithids communicate telepathically the majority of the time, do they not? Therefor as a telepathic race, it would be understandable that any Illithids in a room could pick up on each other's projected thoughts/dialogue, as they are already projecting them telepathically.

It is therefor understandable that Illithids, as the only existing telepathic race on Toril, should in fact, have their own telepathic language unique to the race itself. I have no ideas or suggestions on what to call such a way of communicating, but it would make sense nonetheless.

If you'd like to give Illithid's the 'Contact Mind' ability and 'Detect Thoughts' just so they can understand Drow Sign language, sounds fairly unlikely to be implemented since there would be no other use for these skills that I can immediately think of.

-=-=-=-=-

Illithids can't have passdoor for the same reasons Necro/Lich can't have a wraithform spell = twinkability.
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Postby selerial » Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:32 am

Sesexe wrote:It is therefore understandable that Illithids, as the only existing telepathic race on Toril, should in fact, have their own telepathic language unique to the race itself. I have no ideas or suggestions on what to call such a way of communicating, but it would make sense nonetheless.


--begin obvious answer
um.... they already have project?
--end obvious answer
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Postby Artmar » Fri Sep 10, 2004 7:49 am

project is an unique form of communication, not an unique language. Such an unique telepathic language as Sesexe mentioned would be understandable (and noticeable) by Illithids only (and maybe by psionics from other races, if they existed)
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Postby chandigar » Fri Sep 10, 2004 1:51 pm

Actually, I'm pretty sure every class in Soj is somewhat telepathic, since I can send a tell to someone half way across the world or even on another plane without anyone else hearing.

Ooooo... scary brain powers...
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Postby icecillam » Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:13 pm

Sesexe wrote:In order for an illithid .... focus his psionic powers.. etc, read her post.

The whole needing to concentrate to read one's mind makes sense insofar as a partially psionic person would go along and reading a persons mind. Say a human with esp powers, or Professor Xavier from the X-Men (making up random examples now).

The question is, does a completly psionic race, with no real need to "say" anything and actually can't vocally project anything, actually be "listening" with ears to any of the conversations going on? Or would it be easier for them to just read all the minds of people involved?

Given that all the abilities of the Illithid are mental in nature, and pretty spectacular when you think that no physical/somatic/casting type rituals are needed, reading everyones mind seems like a trivial thing to be able to do. "Reading" drow sign isn't difficult by any means, as well as understanding any languages when they just read everyone's minds.

Also food for thought, the act of "speaking" from an Illithid involves projecting a sentance to everyone in that room's mind simultaniously. Or in a group, projecting a sentance to every member in the group. And this is not a difficult task for them by any means.
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Postby chandigar » Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:53 pm

Most illithid skills are based on projection though, IE imposing your will on others, rather than reception.

Being able to project a thought or, heck, mindblast, is the same as shouting in crowded room, but being able to read minds is like trying to hear a whispered conversation on the opposite side of that same room.

Squids might have the equivalent of super-sensitive hearing in that case, but they still need to concentrate and filter out all the other stuff going on nearby to figure out what one particular thought is, and it'd be prone to error.
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Postby Sesexe » Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:54 pm

Artmar wrote:project is an unique form of communication, not an unique language. Such an unique telepathic language as Sesexe mentioned would be understandable (and noticeable) by Illithids only (and maybe by psionics from other races, if they existed)


One BBS Gold Star for Artmar! :)

chandigar wrote:Most illithid skills are based on projection though, IE imposing your will on others, rather than reception.

Being able to project a thought or, heck, mindblast, is the same as shouting in crowded room, but being able to read minds is like trying to hear a whispered conversation on the opposite side of that same room.

Squids might have the equivalent of super-sensitive hearing in that case, but they still need to concentrate and filter out all the other stuff going on nearby to figure out what one particular thought is, and it'd be prone to error.


Precisely. Unlike an Illithid, Drow are not normally projecting their thoughts outward on a telepathic wavelength. One BBS Gold Star for Chandigar! :)

Also, Illithids do have hearing organs and a mouth to talk with if they so choose, as has been illlustrated in various FR literature. Even in the event that these organs are not currently working, there are Psionic abilities to bypass this. (Hear Light, Feel Sound, etc.).


-=-=-=-

Furthermore, if anyone would like further information on psionics in and unto itself, I suggest reading the Psionic Handbook for starters, and with strong emphasis on reading the Darksun suppliment "The Will and the Way," as well as much of the overall Darksun campaign material. Darksun is a world where everything is psoinic, so they go into extensive details about psionic powers and even mental psionic combat.
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Postby kiryan » Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:50 pm

letting them pass through doors that aren't !pick doesn't bother me, passing through !pick doors = broken.

tells shouldn't be stopped by invisible and hidden, it exists outside the game.

i have no problem with squids being able to sense life forms innately, innate DI wouldn't make as much sense.

being able to understand drow sign should really be left until a point in time where languages are re-evaluated and looked at. I'd think it could be a skill and %chance based to understand any language.
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Postby xilissisix » Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:21 am

What if the phase ability was instantaneous so you'd say phase e. That would get rid of the flee past nasty doors potential. It would just be useful for those squids that want to, for example, enter towns and not wait for the gates to open.
.
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Postby Sesexe » Sun Sep 12, 2004 5:18 pm

xilissisix wrote:What if the phase ability was instantaneous so you'd say phase e. That would get rid of the flee past nasty doors potential. It would just be useful for those squids that want to, for example, enter towns and not wait for the gates to open.
.


You mean you can't just dominate the gate guards? They are a lesser and inferior species.. are they not? *whistle* ;)


Sounds more like you're talking self blink?
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Postby chandigar » Mon Sep 13, 2004 1:57 pm

On a side note, if the locked doors thing doesn't pan out, what if phasing worked like escape? So you could phase away from a fight in one direction if you're tanking.
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Postby kiryan » Sun Sep 19, 2004 12:20 am

you can shift out of combat, dont see why we shouldnt imp a "phase e" command.

not sure how useful it would be, squids die because they ultrablast and the tank flees out while they sit lagged for 3 rounds not because they failed a flee or fled in the wrong direction.
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Postby Tilandal » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:03 pm

What Squids really need is a target skill that does damage to wraithform mobs who have mindblank up.

It would also be nice if synaptic static was more usefull. Ive yet to see anyone use that skill in combat.

Also catfall should be reflexive. I squids dont strike me as the base jumping type.

While on the wishlist it would be nice if you could re-flesh armor once stone skin falls.

It would be great if we could use combat mind on grouped players to impart a small ac/hit/dam bonus.

Aura sight would be nice if it worked on a room basis and not a target basis. Would also be nice if it showed hidden and invis mobs in the room.
ie: Something has a blinding red aura around it.

Would be nice if we could darken the room next to us sorrta like elementalists can fog the next room.

Also does equalibrium actually negate blindness and para spells at high levels? Its a hard skill to practice.
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Postby icecillam » Tue Nov 02, 2004 6:13 pm

Tilandal wrote:Also catfall should be reflexive. I squids dont strike me as the base jumping type.


I basejump all the time, ask the gods. stupid %#%$($ catfall (97)

Tilandal wrote:Also does equalibrium actually negate blindness and para spells at high levels? Its a hard skill to practice.


Yep, don't ask me when it does that tho, equalibrium (99).
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Postby icecillam » Tue Nov 02, 2004 6:43 pm

Synap is useless in any grouped combat situation. Its mostly supposed to be that way based on what the skill actually does currently.

Aurasight would still be pointless if used on a room per room basis, needs to be sorta like self only true sight to be useful.

Flesharmor stone still needs to be looked at. at slevel 99 it still fails to stone a lot.

Cmind was suggested a long time ago.

Globe of darkness supposedly benifits in 2 ways, longer duration and castable mid fight. Tho fog might be castable mid fight now, and its duration might of been uped. If thats the case it needs to be looked at again.
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Postby Disoputlip » Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:24 pm

I only quickly read the thread, mabye it is mentioned.

About that phasedoor ability. When doorbash first came in there was a problem for the ogres. Now it is balanced, and some doors are made so you cannot doorbash them.

If illithids get the ability then it could just work on the same doors you can doorbash.
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I don't think illithids should be able to understand drow sign language. (although i fully understand the argumentation). The reason is that it is something that makes the drow very unique, and when it is used it is mostly to offend other races. When used in silentrooms as a form of communication it is also good that it is limited because then the group have to move to talk to the rest.
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