Infuser Tweaks

[Fuzz]

Thought it warranted its own thread for a few suggestions. Firstly I'll just paste the entry so it's easier to refer to:



So I've been playing an Infuser for a bit and noticed it really flags behind many other Perks (particularly compared to Hydromancer, its counterpart "elementalist" perk). Part of this is limited spell selection, sure, though the addition of electric damage to Horzi's is great and honestly I think that's the least of the Perk's issues. Most of the tweaks I was thinking are more stylistic while also just improving overall utility. Starting from the top:

Spell Modifications -
These all rule and are fine so far, though I'd say Horzi's shoudl do 1d6 electric instead of 1d4, just to make it line up with how much charge it generates. The extra d2 of damage is pretty minimal but would help at low level, which is kinda the only point at which that spell is useful.

Flame Weapon -
With the new theme options on the server, this benefit is sorta minimal since they can do it anyway, but yeah, they shouldn't have a choice in making it another element, that's silly.

Infuser Orb -
This is a big one, and I don't know if it's possible or if it's hard coded based on NWN wonkiness with spell levels on items, but the caster level of the spells on your orb NEED to be matched to your actual level. The Orb has Gedlee's at level 3 (useless over level 4ish), while Lightning Bolt and Scintillating are both Level 5 (more useful, but still really, really underwhelming later on). Considering this thing is supposed to be the main class feature and essentially your primary mode of damage output with very, very limited ammo, that's REALLY underwhelming. If the caster levels can't be changed, then maybe the total number of charges or the number of charges restored via Horzi's could be increased? Also at level 9 they should get a cast of Lightning Ball from the orb for 10-12 charge or something like that, could also help.


Electrical Shield -
This is the interesting one and where I think it could be expanded a bit thematically and be the "major" change added. The Level 1 power level of it as is is perfect, the issue is you don't stay down there very long and once you get to level 5+ (which isn't overly challenging here) the feature is basically worthless since you don't want to be getting hit in the first place, and even if you do a 1d4 electric hit isn't gonna help much. I was thinking that maybe around level 6ish it could get an upgrade to turn it into a Capacitative type of shield... essentially, think of a Resist Elements but ONLY for electrical damage, and it's charged by ANY source of electricity, including, say electrical damage from weapons.

Conceptually it would be the opposite of how we think of Resist Elements, however, namely the thing can store 30 points of electrical damage before it overloads. In essence, it'd be a buffer for the excess electricity your electrical immunity (which you don't get until 8, sothat's 2 levels where you're REALLY exposed) can't stop, so when the "hp" on the buff hits zero, you would explode in a burst of electricity hurting everyone around you and taking flat magical damage (thus not affected by later immunity or electrical resistance) to yourself... you burn yourself out. Now you might say this sounds terrible, why the hell would you want a power so dangerous? Well, the benefit would be that once you have the shield it would work zap people attacking you to dissipate said shield... essentially heal it back up so it won't overload. This could scale up aggressively by level to 1d6 and then 1d8 electrical, maybe even higher to 1d10 once you're up near level 10. This is great if, say, someone with an electrical weapon is hitting you in the face. It is terrible if, say, you're fighting another mage who is shooting lightning at you, though.

Another thing you could do with the charge buildup would be to manually channel it through yourself, into the Orb. This would again cause direct damage to you, though in a MUCH smaller increment compared to the overload explosion, and it'd be an alternative, high risk way to recharge your orb. Probably something like 1d8 HP damage to recharge an equal amount of charge into your Orb. Another alternative could be that you don't recharge the orb with it, but while the shield is up it will supercharge your Orb powers and they get cast at 1 or 2 levels higher, damage and DC wise, or something like that. This is a touchy balance thing which would have to be explored.

The duration is another factor that could fluctuate... it's the kind of buff where sometimes you want it to last awhile, but often you probably wouldn't. 2 Turns as a flat duration before the extra charge "dissipates" would be fine, honestly, though that's a discussion topic on whether it should be longer/shorter. Any shorter and I think it'd be very hard to overload and die, which is not the goal, you want the whole setup to be dangerous and risky. Any longer and it becomes an albatross where you're stuck lugging around all this extra charge that could kill you at any moment, which is also not great.




The ultimate goal of the suggestion is to sort of make the Perk more focused in on a crazy electrical manipulator type of theme... you can redirect and channel lightning through your orb and around you, but it's freaking lightning - it's extremely volatile and can easily blow up in your face and hurt/kill you and everyone around you. This kinda helps to supplement the fact that unlike the other two "elementalist" Perks, there REALLY are not many lightning spells in the game (and all the good ones are at a level that's beyond the scope of this server... namely, Chain Lightning), nor would converting fire element spells to lightning make sense for them like hydromancer already does. So instead, where it lacks in variety, it makes up for it in funky mechanics. Ultimately, the shield mechanics and whatnot wouldn't necessarily come into play most of the time (unless some particularly crazy PC intentionally employs it, like intentionally standing close to scintillating spheres when they go off, but that's on them and also a totally valid high risk/reward way to play if they want), but it would make Infuser battles or an infuser battling anything with lightning supremely unpredictable but also very cool and strategic... a clever infuser could manipulate the electricity in such a way as to power flex and put on a fancy lightshow, while one with less skill might end up just blowing him/herself up, along with everyone around them. Either way, it's entertaining to watch and seems pretty fun.

And yes, I realize the shielding mechanics could be a bitch and a half/entirely impossible to actually code given the limitations of NWScript... but here's hoping.

Thoughts?


EDIT:
I fully acknowledge this is a total pain in the ass to code and is a bit much for a single power for a single Perk of a single class, but I'd say it could be reused for planar electrical enemies where overloading their electric DR so they explode could be a valid tactic (and safer for the meleers who would be taking electrical damage with each attack otherwise) or it could be used for puzzles/quests a la that planar defense Rift one where you charge tesla towers or some sort of Ring Device up with wants of jolt or something as part of the puzzle mechanic, and making it overload could be some sort of boss damage mechanic or I don't know what.

An alternative idea could be to make it a simple Electrical Shield ability they can use once/day or something like that, and it has a decent level of electrical damage it can absorb, but once it "breaks" it will explode on the caster and damage them. While it's up, it could give the electrical damage Death Shield (or Death Field, even) effect, or even at high level it could, not unlike the tesla coils in that quest, randomly discharge and chain to a couple targets nearby, friendly or otherwise, sort of like an area denial lightning power. That could be a neat compromise option too.
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[Dredi]

Love the theme personally, even if I dont feel huge changes are warranted, I'd suggest the following:

Light cantrip provides blue light rather than white.
Electric jolt has the electrical bolt visual effect
Allow a larger array of Electrical spells / damage sources trigger the passive and potentially improve the damage of the electrical magic shield (maybe based on spell level or amount of incoming damage?)
OR maybe give the player a tool to proc this themselves - taking electrical damage - as if they had cast the cantrip on themselves?

Allow the charging of your orb to charge 2d3 charges rather than 1d6, just to improve its efficiency slightly (3.5 average to 4 and minimum up from 1 to 2 chargest per cast)

and very importantly:
Fix :
GSF: Evocation (Electrical) - (Damaged targets spread 1d4 electrical damage to other nearby targets. )
Since this is either inconsistant as all heck, or its description doesnt give a proper indication of how it should work.