[CA Race Lore] Dreadknights - Servitors of the Dark

[ScreamingDingo 20568]

Good to see you realised that your streak of poop pants lore stopped for a little bit and you had to reinvigorate it

[Samson Option 9652]

10 hours ago, Hawkeye_Gough said:

@Samson OptionI think it's a case of writers all assuming the other felt it best. I was of the assumption he felt it optimal for the lore to pass- and then may be amended, and I think he was of the assumption that I figured it would improve Dreadknights to rely on their special weapons. If it turns out we don't really think those things, it's not a necessary rule. In the morning we'll discuss removing it.
 

I agree! I don't think that a set of admittedly nerfing changes should be a "punishment" to existing Paleknight players. I tried to word my thoughts on the purpose to avoid the really common accusation of "bad faithing" pales. I do NOT think that there's an issue of Paleknights over-powering themselves beyond what their lore allows. I DO think that the current lore simply leaves them very strong against mundane folks in a way that promotes spamming easier fights. Rather than place blame on specific names, I would give the example that I very infamously behaved this way, myself. Not to a level of powergaming, I took the advantages of Paleknights' state of balancing to be pretty exceptionally "strong", and until a few months in I never had anything I really did besides go and kill people. Of the Paleknights I've spoken to while writing, many felt a similar lack of "stuff to do", even if they behaved better than I did.

 

That is fair. Is it permissible to edit the OP to make it clear that Oathblades can be spears, axes, falxes, etc or is it standard operating procedure that when a CA lore thread is posted that one can't edit it until a verdict is reached? Also, is it the agreed upon consensus of the writers that shields are no longer usable? If it is the agreed upon consensus, I would like to personally push back and say we should be permitted to wield common shields.

 

As to your point about 'lack of stuff to do', I purposely accepted the privilege of receiving a Paleknight from Kunuk (and a player I think who wants to remain unnamed because he plays a very shadowy figure) with the following premise in mind:

1. I wanted to play my Paleknight in a guerrilla fashion so I purposely lean towards creating a psychologically harmful "aura" around my character. This is why I very notoriously use the Devour mechanic. I would say, conservative estimate, 5 times out of 10 of my encounters don't even result in continued combat and instead lean towards players developing a reluctance to visit specific areas of the map or encounter my Paleknight in general.

2. Along with the guerrilla fashion of gameplay, I am likely one of very few Paleknights with an active and un-destroyed Eidola Keep that is actually in the wilds and not inside the Black Sepulchre (I'll show some of my cards, I do belong to Black Sepulchre). My Eidola Keep has stood standing for several months at this point. Kudos to mattiispice of Alba for being a lad and letting me build somewhere in his neck of the woods.

 

I am resistant however to the complaint that 'grr, Paleknights are very strong, this is not fair. Good guys MUST win'. I always found it ironic and laughable that some players complain that there is nothing to do, but then when they resist putting on their thinking caps and go 'hmm, how can we tackle this inordinately strong adversary?'. I do agree and which is why I argued in my previous post that we need to unionize and submit to higher scrutiny from ST/LT rather than vagueposting on the forums that 'certain unnamed paleknights ruin the game for me!' without ever showing screenshots or naming names but that particular issue is unrelated to this nice rewrite for our CAs.

 

Once again, +1 from me and I'd be excited if this passes and we transition from Paleknights to Dreadknights!

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

Pallo and I discussed oathblades and i thought we concluded that they should be any large, bladed weapon. I am somewhat surprised that it didn’t go through. Likewise, I am not a fan of lore enforced peace and love- if you are a lunatic raging soul trapped in armor, why are you “honor bound” not to kill? It seems more like it’s just going to have dreadknights bend over backwards to be forced to offer a kindness 90% of the server will not care to accept or return.

[luv 3469]

i remember when i learned how to make dreadknights before covid and was told if i ever did make one that i would be meta hunted and force pk’d and my teacher would get kicked out of his cool skype chat. now it seems like everyone and their mother is gonna be making dread knights since blood magic is basically modern day soul puppetry with how accessible it’s become.

 

i like it, don’t get me wrong. i do see it’s kind of weak and from the comments that’s the understanding i’ve come to, so feel free to correct me. i do think that making them a creature that can be made by both seems a little… odd? i feel like if blood magic is going to be watered down to cool rituals then it should eventually have a catalog of things and creatures it can make. dreadknights and sorvians were two of these super rare cas that were born of blood magic (iirc). that’s why blood magic to me feels so lame, is it’s basically a mart machine for aesthetic weapons? it’s ******* BLOOD MAGIC. i think dreadknights should remain a blood magic exclusive thing. with that being said, i wouldn’t be mad if this passed. i just think this iteration shines a light on just how gutted blood magic has become. 

 

+2, but -1 one for another thing blood magic got robbed of.

 

 

[TomFunks 756]

This looks really interesting and as someone who recently played a Pale Knight with someone else and was successful enough to raise both of them to Pale Lords within a short few months, I think it definitely needed a change. The wave of buffs/nerfs that came recently did not really solve the issues that Pale Knight had, though it was definitely an improvement. This overall rework of Eidola into Dreadknights, and the inclusion of Blood Magic, is something I'd commend though.

However, I do have a few concerns and because of them I'd have to -1 since I think they're enough that they should be tweaked prior to the acceptance of this CA. Firstly, though there are a lot of aesthetic differences between the Blood Magic versus Mysticism variants but I would have liked to see more actual mechanical differences because otherwise it comes off as simply cosmetic and takes away, I think, from the Dreadknights. One example of this might be to have variant-locked Augmentations with the current six Augmentations being the ones allowed for all of them (and maybe require that one of the variant versions is picked?). An augmentation that allows Dreadknights to use spells (with restrictions) from their variant-choices would be interesting. I do also think that there should be more augmentations to pick from and (unless I missed it?) I think there should be a way to change your Augmentation choices, even if it is costly (like making you vulnerable for a bit, or requiring Mystics/Blood Mages to assist). Lastly, on that specific subject, I think that the Mystic/Blood Mage variants should have their own minor passives. Eidolas had an interesting interaction with waters due to their phantasmal waters and seeing something small like that would be cool.

My main concern, though, is that there is an eventual lack of progression after you have your 2-3 Augmentations, taking 9 weeks total. Though this is fine for a CA, I feel like that grind from Pale Knight to Pale Lord was really interesting and something which motivated activity. Having to take a Lesser Augmentation to help my Mystic friends collect Souls feels a bit unfortunate, as well. I'd also think there should be some way to connect Menhirs to the Mystic-variant (and definitely something similar to mirror that of the Blood Mage Variant) so that that structure is still given some more use than simply a soul-storing device (as Pale Knights are birthed from it, for example and can create their weapons/tools from it). And, on the topic of weapons/tools, restricting the Oathblades into either a Greatsword or Titansword is an interesting choice but overall one that I disagree with. Even if not fully a free-choice, I do think there should be more choices for which weapon one chooses to fight with unless there's a strong justification for that, otherwise.

Also, not being allowed to kill things and Rusting if you do feels a bit limiting to the roleplay. Unless these CAs are intended to exist alongside Pale Knights (which feels strange) I don't understand why there would be a mechanic to limit their roleplay of killing. The Vigorbank augmentation, at that point, feels a bit strange. Why would a CA that doesn't want to kill people be fine with harvesting their souls (which are addictive according to the Augmentation?) and using them for evil occult rituals?

Overall, I just feel as though Pale Knights and Pale Lords are rather strong right now and a change is needed, but I think this solution in particular needs a few more modifications to make it something more complete. However, it's definitely moving in the right direction.

Edited May 5 by TomFunks
Added one thing

[chaotikal 2392]

It's an awesome written piece, and harkens back to some beloved lore, adding a good, efficient way to have similar creatures that still thematically diverge, under the same umbrella. It's a good piece, and given that the lore fits well into the current rewrite of BM, and it being endorsed by the bulk of mystics/ pale knights in the server, I'd say I see no issue with this being passed.

 

 

[Pallodium 3775]

o/ hello all; after consulting with many of you and talking with the others helping with this project, we've made a series of changes across the board to not only improve this lorepiece's feasibility but greatly expand the lens that one may take with it; of these, the biggest changes are as follows:

• The REFORMAT of the piece's more worse-off parts so the priorly-illegible table format across the piece is now gone, making this now able to be read easily on any device! sry for that, this should be legible on most phones and tablets now
• The REMOVAL of oathblades, letting them use any armaments or tools they want freely, rather than mindlessly preventing them from using anything but a certain level of armaments. This means that they are now free to use any type of weapon or materials they so wish to, alongside shields, tools, bows, and so on, thus opening many lens of unique playstyles without being too overpowered.
• The REWORK of rusting, making it solely a VISUAL and MENTAL downside that lasts much shorter rather than actually being combat-inhibiting.
• The REMOVAL of augments, a system that is in current lore sadly flawed, and likewise sadly does not work well here, causing people to prioritize corporeal gains and forcing individuals to not be able to mesh with others well. As such, we have also taken the advice to distance the two subtypes; BM-made ones now have Signates of their own, whilst Mystic ones have an innate Truesight. 
• The ADDITION of TWO MAGIC SLOTS, which can be used for Blood Magic/Mystic (depending on which magic made them) and Slotted Seerdom- this fixes one of the biggest critiques; a magic that was doomed to solely be CRP slop, and also adds something which many individuals have requested- a form of 'immortal' CA to mantle Blood Magic within whilst also bearing the potential to fit within the spells and magics of both pathways independently; additionally, this does NOT infringe on Wightdom anymore than Draugar does; a mystic-dreadknight would still be only with one of the subtypes, have a weaker armor, and only capped at T4 as opposed to a wight which gets the full value out of it.
• The INCREASE of their strength to be ORCISH at base, which permits for brute-style buids; however, if they have magics this is reduced to peak human for balancing purposes, thus permitting a unique benefit for going down a 'magicless' pathway

lmk if you have further feedback mreow

 

Spoiler

 @luv @Samson Option @Jaslaw@BonesOfTheEarth @King_Kunuk@TomFunks

[Jaslaw 602]

10 hours ago, Pallodium said:

 

• The REMOVAL of oathblades, letting them use any armaments or tools they want freely, rather than mindlessly preventing them from using anything but a certain level of armaments. This means that they are now free to use any type of weapon or materials they so wish to, alongside shields, tools, bows, and so on, thus opening many lens of unique playstyles without being too overpowered.
• The REWORK of rusting, making it solely a VISUAL and MENTAL downside that lasts much shorter rather than actually being combat-inhibiting.
• The ADDITION of TWO MAGIC SLOTS, which can be used for Blood Magic/Mystic (depending on which magic made them) and Slotted Seerdom- this fixes one of the biggest critiques; a magic that was doomed to solely be CRP slop, and also adds something which many individuals have requested- a form of 'immortal' CA to mantle Blood Magic within whilst also bearing the potential to fit within the spells and magics of both pathways independently; additionally, this does NOT infringe on Wightdom anymore than Draugar does; a mystic-dreadknight would still be only with one of the subtypes, have a weaker armor, and only capped at T4 as opposed to a wight which gets the full value out of it.
• The INCREASE of their strength to be ORCISH at base, which permits for brute-style buids; however, if they have magics this is reduced to peak human for balancing purposes, thus permitting a unique benefit for going down a 'magicless' pathway

 

The changes sound mostly really nice!

 

Starting off with the two magic slots is great, having magic lets you do a lot more. Personally as a darkstalker I do not get those but get to use necromancy to a smaller degree, and just being able to help with rituals while also having the doors open to do reaserch into the magic and actually do stuff with it is great so that is a +1 to make a CA more than just goons. 

 

The increase in strength is also good because it will let them actually be on part when fighting orcs, IMO it is bit of a shame they lose it when getting magic but it is an interesting way to incorperate it- I would still expect most to get magic with their CA but giving those uninterested in magic a boon is quite neat

 

As for the rework it is also good that the effects are more mental than outright crp related, I feel like rusting should remain as a deterant for the character rather than an outright punishment that could insentivise people to die to the knight [could be a major issue in group fights too if it were to remain combative] so good change as well!

 

Lastly for the full on removal of the oath blade- I would consider it a bit of a shame in truth, the idea was a cool concept even if its original version was very limiting 

 

Do not get me wrong it is good that the knights can use more weapons as options are great, but I would far more like to see oath blades becoming something like darkstalker Khor blades- something cool that they CAN use rather than something they HAVE to use.

 

For example by trying to reimplement them but giving an option to have them appear as different weapons other than just greatswords [with blunt weapons losing the main effect of not damaging the body perhaps?] Or giving them an option to have an oath blade and also use different weaponry alongside it! 

 

Basically my suggestion is try to look at Khor blades that have the same effect of turning outright deadly strikes less deadly [by necrosis and not hitting soul rather than body but still effect is quite similar!] and trying to implement it as such

Edited May 19 by Jaslaw
bolded parts of what I was yapping about to seperate it more

[PrimnyaQuorum 3999]

eeeeeeh.

removal of augments, while prob needed, feels bleh. the CA is now just CRP slop, or a BM/Mystic replacement. 

 

The no-killing rule feels strange; again, this feels like a cultural tenet that has migrated into lore, which shouldn't be the case. I enjoy the idea of rusting being a consequence for a keepbound dreadknight violating their agreed upon tenets as rusting is rn, but no killing is just...odd. No other player or lore forces their players to do such and with penalty if they dont. 

 

I think oathblades can work with more freedom but would make for an ok addition later. Overall, though, as a replacement to paleknights....these just feel like stronger mystics/BMs. Again, and again, why the hard PK DC? Who exactly benefits from such a mechanic? If the removal of such things is becoming common across multiple types of lore, why re-add it here?