Techniques

StrikesBrain

Here's an idea for an alternative to arts, Techniques.  Techniques follow a few rules of arts, they are learned and advanced in the exact same manner as an art.  A technique has an elemental prerequisit to learning it, like an art, though a lot of techniques are tied to dreamsoul.  Techniques are not actively used however.  Some can be toggled on and off, while others are always on.  In most cases they do not cost anything in use, but they may have drawbacks to having them active.

Techniques would have their own panel, it would list their name and their level and possible max, like an art, but next to each technique it would have a little toggle button indicating whether it is on or off, so a dreamer can quickly assess what they are using.  They could then be toggled using the buttons or a hotkey.

All in all they'd be similar to those original UL arts "Gatekeeper" "Soulmaster" "Fatesender" "Dreamseer" except they got their own class and window now.

Here are a few ideas for techniques.

Chaos Strike - toggle - details can be found here towards the bottum http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion.cfm/load/forums/loadforum/577/loadthread/34358/setstart/1/loadclass/194

Avoid Nightmares - Toggle - The user of this technique learns the cloak the very specific energies of their avatar that lesser mares seem to get attracted too.  While this is active, lesser mares have less of a chance of attacking the person.  If successful they will completely ignore that dreamer's presence.  The odds of this working depends on the level of the technique compared to the power of the lesser mare in question.  This is NOT invisibility towards them.  If you attack a lesser mare that is ignoring you, it will immediately attack back.  Dark and daymares are not affected by this ability.

Provoke Nightmares - Toggle - This art is the opposite, while active, any lesser mares in the room will single out the person with this art active.  At higher levels they'll persue this individual at the exclusion of all other goals.  This is used when you want to force a mare to target you, allowing a weaker individual to either practice arts on it, or hunt it more easily.  It is possible that this technique can fail, allowing the mare to target someone else in the room.  If you are the only one persent in the room, this technique is a moot point.

Endurance - Always active -  This technique allows the dreamer to mitigate the harmful affects of various adverse rooms and conditions.  In fact this ability can be used to block dreamers from certain nasty areas in fact.  Maybe the rifts roil with such chaos that anyone who lacks this technique finds themselves quickly at critical dreamsoul.  Maybe at level 10 they can endure the area for limited amounts of time, and maybe at level 20 they can downright ignore the damaging affect of the rifts.  It would make sphere locks obsolete on a few areas.  If a dreamer steps into a room and finds their dreamsoul vanishing fast, they will do an about face and exit pretty damn fast.

Sense Nightmares - Toggle - The dreamer gets their avatar so intune with the nature frequency of greater nightmares that they gain a sixth sense as to their presence.  The odds of this ability kicking in depend on how chaotic the area is.  The natural chaos of the rifts interferes heavily with this ability, while being near the threshold offers little interference.  Having this technique at a higher level allows a dreamer to counter the interference.  When a greater mare's presenence gets close to the dreamer, within a few rooms, or possibly just same plane, then the dreamer gets an alert that a Greater Mare is nearby.  They are not told the name of the mare or where it is, but it does give them a few precious seconds to whip out their gear and brace for impact.

Sense Newly Awakened - Toggle - Those who are particularly helpful find it useful to train on being able to single out the unfocused energies of the newly awakened.  While this technique is active, it behaves very much like the "Sense Nightmares" technique.

Aura of Pain - Toggle - A common technique for the antisocial, this ability allows the dreamer to surround themself in a roiling miasma of chaos while outside a sanctuary.  Anyone who invades this dreamer's personal space suffes damage.  Higher levels of this technique yield higher damage.  While this aura is active it inteferes with the function of shields, it also mitigates the affects of any alterors or recovery arts used on the dreamer with the aura, making it harder for them to restore dreamsoul and other elements.  Auras may NOT be mixxed.

Aura of Recovery - Toggle - A dreamer with this techniqe is capable of channeling the elements into nearby avatars rather then their own.  While it is active, the bearer of the aura stops recovering their elements naturally.  All nearby dreamers find their recovery rates increased slightly.  Higher levels yeild higher recovery.  Auras may NOT be mixxed.

Burdening Aura - Toggle - A dreamer with this aura is able to pull in a burden of chaos, similar to curse.  Anyone in the aura has a high fail rate on arts, similar to a curse.  The affect leaves IMMEDIATELY upon leaving the aura.  The tricky part is getting the aura on top of a hostile evoker long enough to make them fumble.  The person who bears this aura is NOT protected by it, they find any art use impossible.  To further complicate matters this aura knows no friend or foe, it affects ANYONE in it no matter what their disposition to the bearer of the aura.  Higher levels yield a broader aura.  Auras may NOT be mixxed.

NighthawkUL

Very cool idea... Here are some more possibilites for feats or techniques.

Focus- This technique would affect how quickly you regain points and would work in conjunction with meditation. It doesn't affect how many points you get back but rather the speed at which you get them back.

Fit of Rage- this technique would affect how much damage you deal/take. When active you are more suseptible to damage but you are able to deal out much more damage as well.

Trickster - This technique allows you to move faster and jump higher and maybe harder to land arts on but you deal less damage.

One with the wall- when active (GK?) you become part of the city wall. You heal faster and blend in perfectly with your natural environment (I.E. the wall) but you cannot speak, attack, move, attack, or evoke. You must be next to a wall when evoking and maybe you'd be suseptible to shatter? Perhaps there could also be an art that draws you out of the wall.

Focus- you evoke arts faster with less of a chance of failing, however you are also more suseptible to arts or you take more damage because you're focusing more on your arts and less on combat.

-night

StrikesBrain

I do see those auras being a nice trademark skill for advocates by the by.  Also here's some more off the top of my head.  Got a few nice ones there snipe.

Overcharge - toggle - This is a favored kabalist skill and linked to dreamsoul.  This technique involves studying the dynamics of how a talisman draws from its energy to power its use.  Through understanding of this dynamics a user with overcharge and draw more power from the item's charges, allowing for more potent hits.  When firing a talisman with overcharge toggled on, the user can hold down on the use key.  While doing so, they "charge up" their talisman, the process drains from it charges, when the user finally lets go of the use key, the item finally performs its function, but with more pronounced affects.  This is not entirely too useful with some things like elemens, but with chakrams they can unleash nasty whammies.  Alterors when overcharged create a burst of their affect around the user, though this usesage does not discriminate between friend or foe.

The amount of charges charged up affects how potent of an affect you get.  The process is not 100% efficient, 2 charges from a chakram drained into a single shot will not produce 200% damage.  The actual efficiency of this process is dictated by the level of overcharge.  Kabalists do get their charge conservation affect with overcharge, thus reducing the amount of charges burnt with this process.

Talismans were not created with this purpose in mind and trying to overcharge one can be dangerous beyond a certain safety level.  While a more skilled overcharger will have an easier time keeping the reaction under control, if someone keeps charging an item for too long it will explode.  Also draining the last shot of an item will cause its structure to collapse before it gets its affect off, the item will explode in those circumstances as well.  An overcharger would be wise to keep a close eye on their charges.

Aura Eye - toggle - This technique is most widly used by dreamseers to read their surroundings and foes to get a good reading on their status.  The user of this technique has trained to focus their vision on the auras of the dream rather then actual visual aspects of it.  Upon focusing on this ability, anything inanimate, such as the terrain will darken dramatically, which can make navigation harder in some of the darker areas.  Yet auras of dreamers become visible.

A dreamer's base aura is based on their elements.  Dreamsoul sets the intensity of their glow.  Will, insight, lucidity, and resilience, all kick in their color to the aura.  If you see a dreamer who's glowing faintly of yellow, you know they are a low level person who's focusing on willpower.  If someone is a real bright red, then they are of high level with a lot focused into lucidity.  Damage is also very visible with aura eye active. 

A damaged dreamer seems to leak this ghostly viscous steam which floats away slowly and dissipates.  Low amounts of damage may have only faint amounts of this stuff escaping, but a dreamer new collapse may be a roiling cloud of this vapor. 

At higher levels one may even be able to pick out active arts on the avatar in question visible as a surrounding aura around the main glowing body of the dreamer.  Though if a dreamer has a lot of arts active on them, pinpointing particular arts would be difficult.

Here's the other interesting thing about Aura eye, a few things in terrain may glow.  While most of the world is dark with this technique active, portals glow.  Planar portals glow stronger then regular ones.  A portal that blocks people on a criterea also will have a stronger glow, generally a color of the aligned faction it allows through.  Other odd features of a plane may glow too, such as damaging areas.  A few areas may be particularly blinding. Someone may be facing someone in a dark room in one of the rifts, and try using this technique in order to make the dreamer show up more visibly, only to be blinded by the riot of bright colors and lights that the otherwise invisible aura of chaos in the room was creating.

I kind of like this over "judgement" because instead of being told a few specifics, you are given vague visual information and you need to infer the knowledge you need to figure out specifics.

Also you can have overpowering auras, dreamers and darkmares with tremendously strong power may cause the screen to flare white as you try to stare at them, as if you were staring at the sun.  Forcing you to either turn off aura eye to see clearly or not stare at them directly.

Stalwart - Toggle - This technique allows a dreamer who is intimate with the workings of willpower insinuate that element into their avatar, thus increasing their defense.  The affected avatar suffers less damage from talismans.  Though, this technique leaves the user MORE susceptible to arts while its active.  Higher levels produce a more pronounced affect.

Fluidity - Toggle - This technique allows a dreamer who is knowledgeable in the ways of resilience to insinuate the fluidity of that element into their avatar.  The affected avatar gains a resistence to all offensive arts.  The tradeoff is they are more susceptible to the more physical attacks of talismans.

Aura of Empowerment - Toggle - This technique allows a soulmaster to empower the arts of nearby dreamers through a special process of osmosis.  Whenever someone uses an art while in this aura, the affect of that art gets boosted.  The holder of the aura, however, ends up paying half the cost of the art they just empowered, whether they like it or not.  If they lack the proper amount of that element to pay the toll, then they fail to empower that art.  As always, only one aura can be active at a time.

StrikesBrain

And now, as a bonus round, the Demon

Disciples of Kiarn:

The following techniques are not for the weak of heart.  They were developed by a follower of martial arts who achieved the dreaming, Kiarn.  Kiarn wished to take the whole body as a weapon thing to the dream, but he was unable to achieve much with his fists and feet with the wierd physics that made up this realm.  After a while, he realized that the avatar is muteable and with practice he was able to combine elements of a talisman with his avatar, making it a weapon.  The affect twisted his form irrevocably, in the end he had huge nasty horns spouting from various portions of his body while his skin was a hard carapace completely masking his body, even his face, save his two eyes.

Kiarn was not one to be concerned with asthetics, and he deemed the experiment a success.  He could hunt and fight without the aid of talismans or items.  Others, though, felt differently.  His appearance had grown distinctly mare like.  Many thought he had drawn on taboo powers of chaos that no dreamer should touch.  Others just thought he was a demon.  Though the most shocking were he managed to gather some students, training them in his technique and twisting them as he had twisted himself.  Those who opposed him saw his spreading of his "affliction" as an abomination,  they stroke to stamp out both him and his disciples.  Yet, despite their efforts, there was always a dark stranger in an alley willing to teach someone how to make themself more powerful, if they were not concerned with asthetics.

Both of these techniques change your avatar.  It can not be changed back with anything short of removing the technique from your list of known techniques, which is no easy ordeal.  It does have a few benefits.  People with these powers are often known as Demons or Demi-Mares for obvious reasons.  Whether or not there IS such a link to either and these techniques is debateable.  But it isn't like it's been the first time that dreamers have gone to war on a maybe.

Striking Horns - Always on - This technique when learned causes large horns to sprout from the disciple's forearms.  The horns curve and eventually end at two nasty points going parrallel to the arms and ending beyond the hands.  The horns give the user weapon that they always have so long as they have coherence and never takes up an inventory slot.  Furthermore, the horn attack can also be bound as a secondary function.  A warrior can use the horns as an offhand attack that does NOT interfere with the refire rate of whatever item they are using.  This allows someone to get in extra attacks if they manage to get in close quarters between chak shots.  The higher the level this technique, the more damage you do with your horns and the more rapidly you can strike with them.  In the end a disciple grows horns on his head, all down the arms, and a row of horns down his back ending in a long whip-like spiked tail.  If you make a horn attack with this ability and you have multiple horned regions, the game randomly picks an attack style and executes it, either an arm swipe, or a headbutt, or a tail swipe.  Either way, all of those attacks have the same affect, it's just for asthetics.  The last thing you want to do around one of these guys is evoke an art, between the chak blasts and the melee attacks you'll be ripped to shreds in short order.

Skin of Stone - Always on - This technique causes the skin to harden and grow a shell like layer.  At first it is just plates on various regions.  But as it gets to more advanced levels the entire avatar gets covered in a carapace.  The face is completely masked over with the exception of the eyes and becomes expressionless.  A person with this art will not get any dates any time soon but they DO get a degree of natural armor that never goes away.  BUT, a user of this art can no longer use shields, they need to depend on their natural armor to protect them.  The shielding starts at 10% levelling it up increases the absorption of the armor.

NighthawkUL

I think that has the potential to look extremely cool but it might make them *too* powerful.

Being able to hit multiple times and having a shield always absorbing damage seems a bit much. There should be some sort of tangible disadvantages to these two techniques...

Maybe being covered in a shell would make you move more slowly or be less suseptible to helpful arts.

Maybe the horns could carry the risk of you accidentally hurting yourself by mistake every time you use them (with the risk decreasing the higher the skill gets).

Should they be toggle-able instead of always on?

NighthawkUL

P.S. How come we have about the same # of posts but you've got 5 stars and I only have 3?

I want to be leet too damnit!

StrikesBrain

The disadvantage of the natural armor is it never gets as good as an abyss shield, so someone with good items can stay ahead of the game.  The disadvantage of the horns is they are melee only and not OBSCENE damage but at the same time they are extra damage.

The big disadvantage is you put negative IC PR on the arts.  This would be a roleplay situation, do you really want to turn yourself into a weapon or not?

The always on IS the disadvantage, in UL people do judge books by their cover sometimes.  People will look down on those who take the road of power.  If you take that art you brand yourself as one who only seeks to better himself in the martial arts.  Everyone will instantly recognize that brand, and some will call you evil, and some will think you are an acolyte of the chaos and openly try to collapse you.

StrikesBrain

I am not too entirely sure the criterea for making my rating this high.  But I suspect it has to do with my long windedness.  If you look at ANY of the numerous ideas I post, I don't just post a couple of lines, I post a damn essay.  I mean my original post on techniques is at least a 2 page paper right there.

Even when I'm doing a lot of quickie one liner ideas I grouped those into one monster post and did a few other moderate sized posts that day.  I am long winded on all my posts.

Now, I noticed that your posts tend to be a few lines each.  I mean just at todays fluster of posts from you, it probably is no more in words then this first post alone.

So, my long windedness is unexpectedly playing for my favor for once.