I\'m a Lord of Chaos, and proud of it.

When was the last time you heard somebody say that?

Yeah, I said it, and I mean it. LoC was my very first guild choice for my very
first character and I stuck with it all the way up to level 30. I ignored the
numerous suggestions and advice such as \"LoCs suck, reinc to <insert
guild name here>\" and the constant impressing upon me, when tyring to
get a group, that LoC make lousy tanks.

Anyway, as I\'ve said elsewhere recently, I\'m pretty new to the game. I\'ve
been playing a year on and off (20 days gametime) and BatMUD is my very first
and only mud ever. I hope that this helps me bring a fresh perspective into a
game that is dominated by people who have been playing for literally years.

I really do like the guild. Do I think it\'s perfect? No. Are there things
I\'d like to see improved? Of course. That\'s why I came here to post tonight.
I want to share some of my ideas with you all. Do I think everything I suggest
is just the most awesome idea ever? No, not really. Do I really think they\'ll
be implemented at all, ever? Who knows. I\'m sure that there are legitimate
technical problems that will prevent some of these ideas from being used, and
others, well, who knows. Maybe they just don\'t fit with my perceptions of the
guild.

Besides, it looks like this board could use a little life support, what with
no posts in over a year... Maybe this will help generate discussion. Maybe
these ideas have already been incorporated into the fabled \"New
LoC\" guilds that I\'ve been hearing about since I started playing.

I\'ll stop rambling and get right down to it.

This guild is about offense. Pure, unadulterated,
steal-your-soul-when-we\'re-done chaotic butt-kicking. Our guild leader
freaking soloed a dragon!

However, it is widely considered that we\'re one-trick fighters--we\'ve got
Vampiric Blow and nothing else. Sure, we have skills like Force of Chaos and
Throw Weight that support our offensive prowess, but all we\'re known for is
VB. It\'s quite rare that I\'ve ever seen another LoC use any other skills,
including Destructive Rage, and, well, frankly, even though old Grimoor can
cast Killing Cloud, we don\'t get any spells worth mentioning. I\'m also the
only person I\'ve ever known to use Blade of Fire. All right, all right, I\'ll
get on with the suggestions...

Skills-

Vampiric Blow-
I\'d like to see VB, at higher skill levels, start draining SP and maybe even
EP along with HP. Not to mention, it would be nice to have the amount of
health restored tied more tightly to the strength of the VB itself. I\'ve
gotten 30 HP back from \"weak thrusts\" and 6 HP back from
\"blankets of rage\". Now, on average, the HP returned has steadily
improved as the skill has improved, but it would be nice if there were some
sort of minimum imposed on the stronger hits. Regaining some spare EP would be
a blessing, too. It doesn\'t even have to be much--maybe 5 or 10 if we get
really lucky. Anything would help.


Bloodlust-
Poor Bloodlust--the unused prerequisite to VB. The last few times I\'ve used
you have all been as accidents because I never removed your button.
I commonly face a problem such as this: I\'m fighting with a group and we\'re
facing a casting mob. We run in, fight for a round or two, and leave. This is,
obviously, not enough time to get off VB or any other skills, and a LoC not
using skills is not nearly as much of a threat as usual.
Adjust Bloodlust so, at higher skill percentages, the casting time is reduced,
preferably by at least a round or more. Give us the ability to do a quick,
powerful offensive strike at the cost of somewhat higher EP.. It would most
certainly help out during those two-round in-out encounters, because, really,
I feel almost useless when I fight like that. I have nothing to contribute to
our cause but some rounds of melee that could happen even if I weren\'t at the
keyboard.. Make Bloodlust an alternative to VB under certain circumstances.


Destructive Rage-
I admit, I really can\'t see a tangible difference when I use this skill. I
certainly feel it when it flips my alignment and have to go regain my evil
nature. As I don\'t really know what this skill does, I have difficulty
commenting on how to improve it. Maybe it already does some of what I suggest
below. At any rate, here are some random thoughts. Choose whichever you like:

a) lessen the chance of us getting hit by crits

b) reduce crit damage received by a tangible, visible amount (say, 25% to 50%,
based on skill level?) and add a message showing that this skill was
responsible (i.e. \"Your rage fills you with a hideously unnatural
strength, and you ignore pain that would kill a lesser being.\")

c) Give a visible and at least somewhat measurable increased resistance to
physical damage or general damage, and provide a message saying so.
(\"You become more resistant to physical damage.\")

d) Randomly and completely negate the damage from hits. Make it as random as
critical attacks. I suppose this could be considered to be encroaching upon
\"Parry\", but you get the idea. Every once in a while--BAM! We just
completely ignore getting hit and take no damage from the successful attack..
Special effects (such as stun) that would be delivered by this hit do not take
effect.

e) Give us significantly imrpoved resistance to being stunned, having our
spells/skills interrupted, and/or other similar effects.

f) Give us +damage the more damage we ourselves take, in combination with some
of the suggestions above


New skill idea- \"Spell Parry\"
Okay, so we\'re using these incredibly powereful magical blades, right? If you
look at it you can clearly see that powerful spells are enchanted into the
blade, right? How about we let that work to our advantage every once in a
while?
Spell Parry allows our blade to sometimes block and render completely
ineffectual an incoming direct damage spell such as Fireball or Magic Missile.
As far as I know, there are no ways to avoid being hit by spells in the
game--you can\'t dodge them and there\'s nothing that comes to mind that will
otherwise absorb them. (I have yet to experience most of the better
tarm/channeler/etc. prots though, so don\'t bite my head off if I get this
wrong.) There are, at least, no skills that I know of that will do this. Think
of this as sort of the classic \"character uses the force of his will and
his magical abilities to catch, fight with, and eventually dissipate the
incoming spell\" things one sees every once in a while in various fantasy
sources. Give this a chance to damage the weapon too to sort of even out this
power.


Spells-

Darkness-
Poor Darkness, what purpose do you serve? None, really, as far as I can tell
and as far as anyone has ever told me. We\'re evil, chaos is our thing..so why
not use darkness to our advantage? Ideas include (and remember, choose one or
more as your desire. Personally I like \"a\" and \"b\" the
best):
a) Darkness gives us +avoid while active (it\'s hard to hit a shadowy
something standing in a big writhing mass of darkness)

b) Darkness allows us to possibly conceal offensive actions such as VB

c) Cast offensively on another creature, it might lower the creature\'s
defense or attack ability just slightly

d) Darkness gives us +damage or +attack while active (generic \"we\'re
evil\" reason here)



Blade of Fire-
Ah, Blade of Fire--the spell that is very unreliable, costs a lot, and
doesn\'t last long. This one is simple...
a) Increase duration
b) Increase duration and give decent +damage

New Spells-
Give us Blade of Fire-style spells for different elements?

Give us some sort of STR/DEX/CON/whichever leeching spell. We leech the stat
(debuff, if you prefer) from the monster and get our stats temporarily boosted
in return. Give it a quick casting time, say, a round or so.



Add a handful of existing spells-
Grimoor seems to have some spell abilities we don\'t...say, for example,
Killing Cloud. Give us some of those abilities. Don\'t severely step on anyone
else\'s toes, but, hey, some variation would be nice. A good Poison Blast, Acid
Ray, Venom Strike, Psi Blast, Magic Wave, etc. would be pretty handy. And,
seriously--Killing Cloud. C\'mon. You know you want to.



New SKill to go along with New Spells
Give us the ability to store one spell (that we cast) into our blade, to be
released through a particular attack skill. Call it, say... Spell Strike.
We\'ll also need a companion skill for this...say, Spell Charge.

Spell Charge would allow us to cast an offensive spell into our blade before
battle. This spell would be stored for later use.

Spell Strike would work much like Bloodlust or Vampiric Blow, except that when
Spell Strike hits, the spell is instantly released and has the same effects
upon the target as casting it normally would have, with the same resist
chances and whatnot. Give it the potential to damage the blade (as per most
all our other skills) and all the usual prerequisites. This would fit in with
the whole \"crazy, crazy offensive death machines\" idea of Lords of
Chaos and also seems like it might be within th real of our various text and
roleplaying descriptions and whatnot. Plus, it would certainly give those of
us without useful healing spells something to do with our SPs, which typically
regen to full faster than HP or EP after battle.

Presumably this would work for any spell we could cast, including those from
other guilds. Yes, that would give this the potential to be very, very
powerful with things such as Harm Body stored up within.



Quest ideas and generic rambling
The text does indicate something to do with the Staff of Elements as I recall.
Create a quest to obtain/use/etc. the staff? Grant special bonuses (like
additional elemental damage, or resistance?) if we have the staff in our
inventory? Allow us to combine it with the use of our blades somehow via the
use of a very powerful skill and blast the living crap out of something?
(Maybe this could be made so powerful that it unsummons our sword or drains
most or all of our EP and SP? That would certainly keep it from being
overused. Or, heck, just set a use timer on it, like twice a day or something.
Or, it drains all of our SP and deals damage 1-to-1 for SP used, and has a
limit to how much it can be used per day.) I mean, seriously--this was how
Grimoor soloed a dragon. This would be cool!



Okay, okay, there are my ideas. I\'ve rambled on much longer than I originally
planned, and I should definitely go now. Tell me what you think, and don\'t be
afraid to suggest changes or improvements to the content here. Even better,
don\'t be afraid to actually code some of them!

Let\'s make more of our guildmates say \"I\'m proud to be a Lord of
Chaos!\", and let\'s make it mean something!

Wow. That was a damn long post. Maybe cut it down just a bit before posting.
But anyway. Ok, so you're a newbie. That happens to everybody at some point,
so it's not a sin.
However, being a n00b, you missed some facts from your post.
Like, sure, LoCs are one trick ponies. But the one trick isn't vb. It's summon
blade. That's pretty much the whole contribution the guild brings to
multi-guild combos.
Than about destructive rage. As you requested in your option e, it gives stun
resistance. Feel free to rejoice.
Spell parry already exists, but it's a knight skill. Kc given to a tank guild
would be 100% ridiculous. Your suggested spell charge would be offbalance for
locpriests.
And what's maybe the main point, even though we don't get spammy about it,
many people already are proud and fond of our locblades.

Last but least, there's all that "new locs" talk, that should be coming into
game when somebody feels like picking up the project.
So that's my two euro cents.

First of all - I'm glad to see someone else is enjoying the guild also. I've
been LoC for the better part of the thirteen years I've played this game, and
I'm still enjoying what the guild has got to offer.
As Mazzon pointed out - Destructive Rage is already useful in giving you stun
resist. Bloodlust is also useful: the damage it does depends on what damage
type you've selected for your blade in the quest. Comes in very hand when
monsters resist magical damage done by Vampiric Blow. I've even used Overbear
occasionally (very rarely) as it in turn does physical damage. About the Staff
of Elements I'll only say that it already is useful to us.
I wanna comment particularily on one of your ideas. Parrying spells. It's
true, as Mazzon points out, that a skill like this already excist in the
Knights guild. However, with a few modifications, I could see it spicing up
the LoC guild also. Make it a spell instead of a skill. Casting it would
create an aura on your blade that would allow you to deflect part of the
damage done by offensive spells. The higher spell percentage, the greater
percentage deflected. The remaining part of the damage could have a chance of
bouncing back at other monsters or players in the room and/or damage the
blade. The type of damage you are able to deflect could be the damage you've
chosen for you blade. Combining this spell with Blade of Fire would allow you
to deflect fire damage.

For the part of the "New LoC guild" "coming into game soon". Bah, I won't even
bother, there's another post there somewhere in the general group that pretty
much sums up what I have to say about that.

CM