I know the Outlander balance thing is quite overdone, but I do have one suggestion.

The goodie Outlanders have beast call and bioempathy.

The neutral Outlanders have beast call and feral rage and subvert.

The evil Outlanders have... nothing that's really on par with this, with the exception of subvert (which can be an awesome, but limited, skill).

I love the fact that evil Outlanders should be the most vicious, unscrupulous, mean hunters of all three eschelons in the cabal, but they're not equipped in the same way to do this. As a result, I think we see an overabundance of neutral Outlanders (there would perhaps be more goods if there was a Sunwarden, but that will come in time), and only a couple of evil Outlanders. Powers really shouldn't make all that much of a difference in whether or not you join a cabal, and they shouldn't be grossly overpowered understandably. However, I would like to suggest and invite suggestions as to what can be possible. If from a standpoint of the three tiers, the goodie Outlanders should stay and protect the wilderness, the neutrals should be wilderness hunters who sometimes enter the civilized areas to hunt, and the evils should be the gung-ho civilization destroyers. Ignite and vandalize seem to fall a little short of the main goal of the latter. Perhaps if ignite and vandalize were tweaked a little, it would even things out between the three. Say, ignite could cause a timed fireball in the city that would hurt those within PK range a good deal and cause fires to start and spread, maybe burning a little hotter than others. Because of the lack of regard for some of the more subtle approaches of other Outlanders, this fireball could harm Outlanders too if they are standing too close. Vandalize could be changed to something like Riot in which the citizens will start attacking each other, the law, the cityguards, and anyone tied to the Empire.

These powers would significantly enhance the anarchy-minded evil individuals who seem to be rather non-existant in the cabal and perhaps provide incentive for staying to the higher ranks of those who follow the Nightreaver.

I really enjoy the Outlander cabal and know things are being looked at, tweaked, enhanced, and left out in order to make a cabal really work. The way the cabal is currently, it is fairly powerful and near the peak of what the balance should be. However, I think the evil Outlanders really get the short end of the stick when they should be the most offensively oriented side of the cabal. Suggestions, comments, burns are welcome from every side and I'd like to thank for all of them in advance.

Ever thought that an evil character has a whole lot of evil cabals to join already? So I'd think the evils in Outlander is meant more for RP reasons than for powers.

Just my $0.02 view.

All this said, playing evil in the cabal has been a far more popular choice than good, so far. It was always my hope that the cabal would be neutral dominated, and thus far it has been. For what it's worth, good Outlanders (the few that there were) complained that they didn't have enough to bring to the table when trying to hinder civilization, in relation to neutral and evil. Neutral is the most balanced, good has a defensive/in the wild bent, and evil has a cause-havok-in-the-city bent. Evil Outlanders also have the greatest amount of liberty regarding who they hunt and why - couple that with camo and whatnot, and that in itself is pretty wicked - I'd really hesitate to give them anything else offensive in the wilderness, like beast call.

We are keeping a close look on things, but I'm not inclined at this point to make a judgement regarding anyone getting tweakage. If anyone, it would be good (and even that would be because of the coolness/fun factor, not because of "power" factor.) The stuff evil Outlanders uniquely have may not help to land lots of wicked player kills, but they sure irritate people and can be great fun, in my opinion.

The powers that are specific to evil, I do them solely for roleplaying purposes and no other reason. Ignite actually is a hinderance on my character, and the bonuses from ignite are so short lived and small, if I didn't do them for roleplaying reasons I would never do it at all.

After extensive use of vandalize and finding so many shops I can't even vandalize, for example I cannot vandalize the wizard shop in Galadon where everyone buys return potions, nor can I vandalize any of the used food shops, nor can I vandalize the best shop in Hamsah, it states there is nothing of "value" although I'm staring at a potion of return I want, and has substantial value. Its difficult to hit "civilization" where it hurts as the helpfile says when I can't affect the most popular and useful shops to civilization.

It would be a useful skill if I could choose what I wanted to try to take from the vandalization process, but I can't, and out of the 20 successful times I have vandalized the apothecary (again for solely roleplaying reasons), I have gotten a potion of refresh 9 out of every 10 tries. Its extremely high failure rate is another reason why it is a hinderance. It would also be more useful if I could abscond with more than just 1 of the item. How useful is one flying potion every 10 ticks or so? Evaporation would take them away from me quicker. Couple that with actual use, it is too much a chore. Granted that is even if I randomly get the flying potion, most of the time its something absolutely useless (i.e. poison ingredient). The random number generator makes the skill pretty much useless, and you cannot even do it to be annoying because the shops I would use if not an Outlander are protected.

All in all, camo and windwalk are the powers. The evil individual ones I have to side with Wildgirl. They are purely rp powers, and in most instances they are a chore to use and hinder the character instead of help them.

Now, the lag on it, and the high failure rate, make it a chore to use and actually leaves you quite vunerable for a long time sitting in the city. Also for some reason Tribunals have made ignite a warrantable offense, might as well make it an offensive spell then, since they think it is.

Suggestions:

Make ignite an actual offensive area affect spell. Can do it once every 10 to 15 ticks, have a number of various effects that are random.

Evil Outlander focuses upon the civilization around him and wills the raw materials to revolt against what they have become, causing the stones making up the road to detonate!
Evil Outlander's shards of stone and rock *** DEMOLISHES *** you!
Evil Outlander's shards of stone and rock MANGLES the mayor!
Evil Outlander's shards of stone and rock MASSACRE the cityguard!
Evil Outlander's shards of stone and rock DISMEMBER the special guard!


*** Piercing damage explosion, chance of fire, causes damage to all in PK in room and all mobs ***

Evil Outlander focuses upon the civilization around him and wills the raw materials to revolt against what they have become, causing the wood of the buildings nearby to roar with flame!

Evil Outlander's fiery blaze *** BLASTS *** you!
Evil Outlander's fiery blaze TORCH the mayor!
Evil Outlander's fiery blaze RAZE the cityguard!
Evil Outlander's fiery blaze SEAR the special guard!
A building nearby bursts into flame!

*** Fire damage goes through room, causing fire to surroundings, and damage to all in PK in room and all mobs ***

Evil Outlander focuses upon the civilization around him and wills the raw materials to revolt against what they have become, causing part of the city structure to give way and fall down around him/her/it!

Evil Outlander's falling debris *** DEMOLISHES *** you!
Evil Outlander's falling debris MANGLES the mayor!
The mayor is crushed under the falling debris!
Evil Outlander's falling debris MASSACRES the cityguard!
Evil Outlander's falling debris MASSACRES the special guard!
The special guard is crushed under the falling debris!
The falling debris causes enough damage that a fire is sparked causing a building to burst into flame!

*** Blunt damage, small chance of fire, causes damage to all in PK in room and all mobs, chance to crush down, trip stun ***

Possibly make chance of each coming up 25% for pierce one, 25% for blunt one, 50% for fire one. Don't know about doing it in battle or not, possibly or possibly not. Too tired right now to come up with echoes from each different perspective. But you get the idea.

As for Vandalize, allow for some kind of control over what you can get. Perhaps make the syntax "vandalize heal" will try to vandalize a heal potion. If that is too powerful, when you do successfully vandalize a store, perhaps get away with 1 to 10 of that item. i.e.

Echo:
(couple it with the normal vandalization echo, but instead of abscond, use this one)
You fill your hands (claws) with a number of the shop's supplies!

And so you have to actually check your inventory on what you got. Let it fill up past your dex number, have checks to see if it is something the shopkeeper sells or something sold to them. If sold to them, only get one, if armor or weapons, one, but if its potions, pills, one use items, perhaps more.

Okay this got long. But to conclude, ignite and vandalize, as they are set up now, are purely RP powers and nothing else, and are chores to use, and if could get away with not using them, I wouldn't. The bonuses are outweighed by the lag, the vunerability, the high failure rate, and the pure annoyance. Especially shopkeepers being always aggressive to you from that point on. Just another drawback to deal with making it not worth it, especially in a place (city) that is already extremely unfriendly, even more so when WANTED.

Thanks for letting me throw out my opinion.

Evil Outlander

Ignite needs to be able to stack with berserk,frenzy, etc. and it needs to last longer. Right now it's just lame. I won't even go into how useful vandalize is to an always wanted character.

>We are keeping a close look on things, but I'm not inclined at
>this point to make a judgement regarding anyone getting
>tweakage. If anyone, it would be good (and even that would be
>because of the coolness/fun factor, not because of "power"
>factor.) The stuff evil Outlanders uniquely have may not help
>to land lots of wicked player kills, but they sure irritate
>people and can be great fun, in my opinion.


While I think this is an interesting direction for cabals in general to take - powers that decline on the "power/PK" side and upswing on the "RP/fun factor" side - I think confusion generates because this standard is not equally applied to every cabal. For example, imperial powers have remained largely the same as they were in the days when they competed with transform, walls of thorns, and insect swarm. When I last played, I dreaded dealing with Sect Leader and Emperor powers - centurions remain substantial death traps. The classic counterargument is that only one out of 100 imperials gets the big powers - but while theoretically that is true, in practice, 1 out of every 2 given imperials you actually will face have the big powers. Empire is just one readily available example.

Anyway, Outlander would not be perceived as getting the short stick if every cabal were measured by the same stick.

All cabals but Outlander (evils) powers/skills/sups all assist in the PK/power of the character in some, direct, and desireable way. Tribunal manacles are the only powers I can see that could be described as an rp/fun power, mainly because of its limited scope of use. Although when it can be used, it is very powerful. Yes, ignite has a very slight, direct PK/power affect, but that affect is offset because it cuts off other abilities/things you can do, thus totally offsetting any usefulness that is gained. When the other avenues have more benefits and less drawbacks than igniting, the skill is useless when other, easier, longer lasting, better effecting things can be done, inside or outside the cabal.

The positive affects from vandalize come so rarely, and with such infrequency, that it loses all luster. Who wants to charge into town, WANTED, dodging guards, special guards, tribunals, manacles, for a small chance to shut down a hardly used shop and possibly have a 20% chance of escaping with something useless, with a 1% chance (if even) of getting what you want. On top of that, you make the level 55 mob angry at you and now aggressive/tracks (depending on what shopkeeper) and as you flee away from this mob that is totally immune to your attacks, you lose a couple hundred hit points for your effort (and that is against an easy mob, that does not include shopkeepers who cast high level invoker spells that can do 500+ hitpoints in a cast). The desire for that fly potion or that rare return potion suddenly goes away when faced with this.

I cannot think of any other cabal power which has such drawbacks to their use.