Ideas for new weapons, armors, items, feats, and psionics

[JohnyCrown]

Thought I would make this topic since I had some ideas for some of these things.  Anyone else feel free to ad your ideas as well.  Maybe we can use this topic to put all ideas for these things to keep it organized and in one topic. 

Not sure if any of these things I name are planned but thought I would mention them anyway.

New weapon ideas
-Shotguns - Something I think is missing from the game and could add an extra layer and option for gun users.  In theory they might be overpowered compared to handguns and machine guns but this could be offset by having them be more expensive, have lower accuracy, or higher AP cost.  Maybe if not too difficult to implement have a feature where it spreads over a certain distance and can attack multiple targets at lessened damage.  For instance bewteen 1-3 panels have it hit main target for full damage but at distance of 4-5 panels have it able to hit main target and any target 1 panel adjacent for 50% damage and for a distance of 6-7 panels 2 panels adjacent to main target at 25% damage or something like that.  Also have standard and specialized shotgun shells (electric, armor piercing, etc.) 

-Rocket or grenade launchers -  Should have high Gun, Str, and possibly mechanic prerequisite since they should be powerful and hard to use.  Yeah you can just put points on throwing and use grenades but the launcher can provide further distances and not have that cooldown that throwing grenades require.  Can also have specialized missiles that can cause different effects (for instance a rocket that explodes toxins on impact poisoning anyone it impacts along with bio damage.)

-Swords - A melee weapon I would like to see and could give a couple more unique character and enemy types.  Having that bushido/samurai type or even the knight in not so shiny armor type.  Similar to daggers but a little stronger and have a slightly higher AP cost.   Maybe even have a perk or two designed for sword users. 

-Axes - Another melee weapon that can function similar to a sledgehammer but that can also cause bleeding wounds and do a little more damage maybe at the cost of more AP.   

-Spears - Another melee weapon that can pierce more armored enemies and have a distance of 2 for striking.  Is 2 handed so cannot wield two weapons or shield. 


New Armor ideas (these could also be implemented as armor craft parts to give desired effects to current existing armor)

-Mirror or rubber armor - Armor or armor craft part that has anti-electric properties.

-Blast suit - Armor or armor craft part that is resistant to explosive type attacks.

-Asbestos - Resistant to fire based attacks.

New feats ideas

If swords or axes or implemented
-Behead, decapitate, or executioner for name.
At the cost of double or 1.5x AP can attempt to auto-kill an enemy who is not wearing a helmet.

Others
- Scavenger -  Finds 20% more loot and any currency based loot is 10% higher.
- Silver tongue - A 10 point bonus to persuasion and mercantile (maybe intimidation also)
- Vampire - Able to restore 5% of health of dead human enemy based on the enemies max HP. 
- Scientist - A 10 point bonus to chemistry and biology skills.
- Engineer - A 10 point bonus to mechanic and electronic skills.
 -Block - Melee skill that when turned on can block and unarmed attack at 75% or other melee attack at 50%.

New Psionic ideas

Thought Control
-Mindflay, Chaos, Mindstorm for name - When used on an enemy causes confusion and causes the enemy to attack his friends for 2-4 rounds. 

Psychokinesis
-Biokinetic Chain, Biokinetic Levitation - Can move an enemy up to 6 tiles away from their current location and can smash them into the ground for maximum damage or into another enemy at 50% damage to each.

Metathermics
-Boiling blood, Magnus Fever for name - Causes an enemies internal temperature to keep rising causing increased damage each round up to 5 rounds, if the enemy dies during that time they expode and lightly damage any surrounding enemies.   

These are just a few ideas for now.  I tend to come up with things on the fly sometimes so if I think of anything else I will keep adding ideas to this topic.

[Elhazzared]

Shotguns wouldn't be hard to implement, you just have them lose damage over distance and give it a penalty against armor to offset a high base damage.

Rocket launchers I dunno. Let's take into account this is an underground setting and big explosions especially when uncontroled could easly cause cave ins so I'd say no to that but a grenade launcher would work. Quite frankly though, I have never seen the need to throw a grenade that far and far shots due to the usual darkness penalties and so on are extremelly difficult to land. Still I don't see a reason not to have one.

More types of mellee weaponry would be nice albeit mostly flavor if not for the introduction of feats based off it. I can see how in a modern world they would be off place but taken into account that this is a pos appocaliptic setting and people scavenge what tehy can, it's not hard to imagine people making tools of war that belong in the past simply for the simpleness of aquiring the materials and how much those weapons would last when compared to a gun which needs bullets. This being especially true for bandids.

The armor ideas are ok but unnecessary. Basicly resistence to certain elements already exists in the manufacture of armors so making element specific is unnecessary, if anythign it would mean you needed a walking armory behind you so you could switch to the right armor type previous to the battle which could be a pain in the ass given the weight system that was implemented.

As for the feats.

Auto-kill is never a good thing, it breaks up balance no matter how it is implemented.

I'm not sure vampire would be adequate given the somewhat realism the game is supposed to have.

Block probably needs to be readdressed but the core idea is fundamentally good, it's just that the bonus is too high.

Skill bonus feats are ok, but I feel they are ultimatly not really worth that much. Of course I speak for myself but I'd never take a bonus to a skill over something like say aimed shot or any other real tangible combat advantages.

As for the psionic abillities. I kinda like them but the boiling blood doesn't seams that good. From what i've learned on this game you don't really care that much about dots, you want to kill everything and quickly least you take fatal damage in the proccess although maybe you could make something like a combo abillity. Maybe something that woud not only do a decent amount of damage as fire, but would also leave the character pretty weakned against cold damage so that you could chain into a cold attack next for even more damage than the cold attack would normally deal. It would also combine well the with feat that has you alternating between fire and ice spells.

Overall good sugestions here, could use some tweeks here and there but good ideas indeed.

[Barrelsoup Chef]

Yes! Shotguns! I really would like to see some of those!

[JohnyCrown]

Thanks for the feedback guys. 

@epeli - My main thing about the armor was from the Bio Suit that has 25% resistance to bio based attacks.  My main thought was to make other armor that just specializes in reducing those things like the bio suit does with bio based attacks.  I know you can craft certain qualities in the armor or buy armor with those qualities but it isn't specialized like a straight specialized armor would be. 

Yeah I should have looked at the wiki better for some of those perks that I named.  Thanks for pointing those out.  I did run across deflection during my playthrough but not the other two. 

The toggle is a good idea for the metathermics psionic.  I could see that working better than my original idea. 

@elhazzared - Thanks.  My idea with the auto-kill was to have the accuracy reduced to 50% of what the normal hit rate would be.  So 47% if hit rate is normally 95%.  So there would be some risk in using it.  I do see the logic of it possibly being broken though.  And as epeli pointed out there is a feat that does something similar already so probably no need to implement this feat.  Vampirism idea was just kind of thrown out there.  I think it could be a neat alternative to restore HP though. 

And yeah skill bonus feats are kind of a toss up.  Some people like them and some don't.  When playing similar games I would occasionally choose them but not very often.  Just thought they might be nice alternatives for people who want a less combat intensive game. 

NEW IDEAS

Psychokinesis Psi
-Centripital Force, Blowback, Repulsion for possible names - Forces any enemies surrounding the player to be pushed back 4-6 panels, and if they are pushed into a wall, or another enemy they will receive damage. 

-Repel, Energy Bounce, Forcefield for possible names - While activated will reflect any bullets directed at player in forcefield back to the shooter.  Can last up to 3 rounds but has a slight chance (maybe 10-15%) each time it is struck to dissipate.

Items
-Health Hypo MK2 - Restores 150 HP but player also loses 1 Perception for a certain amount of time.
-Energy Booster MK2 - Restores 80 PSI and 30 every 5 secs but player loses 1 Constitution for a certain amount of time.
-Flashlight, Lantern - Uses Energy Cells.  Lights up area ahead of where player is facing and while activated increases perception by 1.  Also shows stealthed targets.

 

[Elhazzared]

The flashlight would probably need to be changed to, increases chances to spot stealth cause stealth isn't based just in making use of the darkness but also possible terrain features and other things. Also flashlight would have to make it impossible for you to get in stealth. Still a good idea.

Energy and health mk2... Quite frankly, I've seen this in fallout 2 and some other games and to me, it makes no sense. Why does a better regeneration has to come with a drawback? As you go up in levels you need something better because what you previously used isn't healing nearly enough, this is supposed to be something that simply follows character development, no need for a negative side effect attached to it. More likelly they will be more expensive and require more materials or rarer materials to craft which will make up for the extra bonus it provides.

Repel I'm not sure how it would be balanced because things will have to be rebalanced once energy shields are released and this basicly is another for of a shield. I like the idea but it would probably have to wait for energy shields to be out and then if implemented some rebalancing would be required again... Besides with it not being a scaling abillity one would have to account that being so good every character would go into that even on 3 will just to get that specific spell and then move on the points somewhere else. Still ther eis potential to be explored I'm sure.

Repulsion is kinda nice but I'd make it just single target, little energy cost and little AP cost as well since it wouldn't be such a great spell anyway although it could have a minor amount of utillity. The basic idea to make it single target instead of AoE is that not only you might under some circunstances prefer to have it target only one specific target, but you already have a feat to make that tree of Psi AoE anyway, so if you need it to go AoE, the feat is there to provide the versatibillity.

[WolveNZ]

Christ, first post in a lonnng time


But, I think asbestos could find its way as a early fire resistant component, trading off effectiveness and maybe making the user more vulnerable to bio damage, or if possible inflicting whatever % bio damage when hit (as Asbestos is only bad if inhaled, so if you get shot, would flake off, causing a slight damage?) or maybe just degrading quite fast

Shotguns
We already have the burst attack that allows targets, not targeted to receive damage, else could also use some of the grenade logic as well? with it being % chance that anyone inside the target AOE gets 1-5 shot causing XX damage
Also, would be nice to see act as a crossbow, for pure firearms characters, being able to load slugs, Shot, Explosive (With a smaller AOE than grenades of course) and maybe even some more Improvised things like Incendiary Slugs etc...
Also, would be cool to see sawnoffs, using pistol buff's maybe? Low ammo, say 25AP use (so two shots a turn about), high Close quarters damage, and Small AOE. Would be very nice to have if you get swamped by Rats/Spawn etc.. But leaving you at a disadvantage as very low effectiveness at range, and only two shot

Swords/Axes
I can see Swords, along with other improvised Type thingys, but with Axes I would think Hatchets would also be good. Like Knifes but heavier, more AP use, more damage? And Maybe axe's having slightly lower AP than sledge hammers, but less damage and bleeding wounds?

Spares
Seam out of place, maybe in the hands of some Mutants or something, but else, I dont think it fits personally

Blast Suits
Explosives use Heat and Mechanical, so I guess high Mechanical resistance/threshold? as we already have heat things. Also with very high Armour Penalty and weight? Good for taking on Rathounds and other Beasts?

Rubber
I think rubble would be good as a Armour extra, adding in some Mechanical (not much, rubbers quite easy to perice if not with steel inside. like tyres have) and some electrical but decreasing stealth, increasing weight?
 

[Elhazzared]

WolveNZ - While I see what you mean with spears do think about it for a second. All that is required to make a spear is a long stick, can even be from a broomstick or something and something in the front that will stab, a simple piece of metal from somewhere, maybe even a shard of glass. It's and incredibly cheap and easy to make weapon in a place were resources are scarse. A spear against a knife is at an obvious advantage and not only that but against many creature like rathounds it's better than a knife cause it keeps the opponent at bay (at least from a reasonable standpoint, obviously game mechanics say otherwise but realisticly that's how it would be seen)... Add this to the fact that you live in caves and metro system which means narrow passages. A spear can easly keep any mellee opponent at bay because it is very hard to bypass it... If anything it has even more place than sword or axes from my bview point but I do belive all of them have reasons to exist.

[JohnyCrown]

A couple more ideas...

Metathermics Psi
Wall of fire - Makes a circular wall of fire 2 spaces out from the player and surrounds the player for 2-3 rounds.  Any enemy crossing over the fire will take damage and have a 50% chance of catching on fire.  Could be useful for fighting melee enemies.
(Alternate) Wall of ice - Similar to fire but enemy can become frozen instead of catching on fire.

Fever - Makes the enemies temperature rise giving them a bad fever.  The enemy loses half of their hit/evasion/dodge and resistance rates for several rounds.

Thought Control Psi
Psi Apathy - Destroys the Psi power of one target enemy.  Either does PSI point damage or prevents enemy from using PSI for a select number of rounds.

FEATS

-Strongman - Adds 20 to carry weight and reduces mechanical damage by 5%.
-Battle Savvy - Reduces AP cost of all attacks by 1-2 points.