So reading one of Odrirgs posts, I fell upon the idea of finding a way to move APs away from the 'I need one really big unholy to pwn' way of living that makes most of them so short lived, and toward the 'I acquire more power overtime, but don't lose a great deal in death' style.

Unholy blessings currently have no known cap on charges acquired. This means any weapon can ascend into ungodly numbers, and give the player ungodly power. With the acquisition of edges, this gives an AP an amount of power that does not even compare to any liches we've seen since Zorszaul. I'm not very up on the current lich-guy status, but I don't forsee him or any other becoming feared and nasty on the scale of an iceballing 3000hp monster damage machine that has inherent lagging attacks.

So here's my plan:

Step 1: Limit the amount of charges a weapon can hold.

This means that any single weapon, will reach a point where it becomes so full it has immense problems containing more power without breaking out of it's confines. The AP is still free to gain control benefits from charges, but they won't continue to add to the weapon unless it loses some of it's charges and drops below maximum. What a fair maximum is, I'm not sure, but it'd have to be fairly high while not being ridiculous. This encourages APs to carry more than one weapon, and gives them more reason to use alternate weapons and vary their styles. Making them not only interesting, but hopefully more fun in the long-run of things. As a note - Two handed weapons (spears, polearms) would have to be able to hold twice as many charges as one-handed. If an AP is duelling a weapon that isn't full, when the primary is full, then there'd have to be a code to siphon it off to the right one.

Step 2: Give AP's a way in which they can consume souls for benefits.

This means draining a soul from their weapon, and using it to empower it for a control. Or using it to extend their aura of despair in some way. I'm not talking about forcing souls to be consumed - but giving them a conjurer-like option to infuse certain spells with any number of souls, for some kind of benefit. Bloodlust, for example, could have an option of sacrificing souls to the demons that empower the paladin with haste. Extending duration, strength+, dam+ and healing gained during it. The controls progs could fire more often if the spell has been soul-charged, duration could be upped and even the strength of their progs. This is less for the lower-level AP game, and more based around the Hero AP game. It also encourages more weapons because you introduce the idea of having 'storage' weapons for spell casting, as well as 'fight weapons' which are there just to add their stats to your power.

Step 3: More permenant benefits that augment their power based on their success.

This rewards the player who plays for a longer time, but not necessarily the one who builds up a huge collection of max-charged weapons. The advantage of this being that even if an AP loses their max charged weapon, they have a way in which they can quickly build up a semi-decent one for basic utility. Give them a way in which they can consume more of a persons soul when their weapon is near empty (also allowing ones who burned up souls, to be able to refill rapidly). Along with controls could come possible demonic transformations. This wouldn't be unlike the demi-elemental transcendance edge, or the reorganising organs edge, in that the study of their art has allowed them the choice (With edge points) to gain some permenant benefit with a drawback. Unrepentant sinner could be link to the defilement control.

Fires of Ninaarum - Bring the chance to gain a small extra fire resist, and a bonus to their fireball spell and the aspect of an Infernal of the Pit. Turning flame on this paladin enrages them with temporary +dam. The ap suffers from the loss of humanity in some way I've not thought up yet.

Icy Grip of Baalduru - Take on some of the strength of a true Death Knight. Gifting a stiff, undead-like quality to their muscles that gives resistance to some maledicting abilities like weaken, wither, chill touch, pwd-decay, rot, enfeeble and diseases. Also gain a slight resistance to the negative. All capped off with a well earned vulnerability to silver.

And so on.


There's a lot of creative ideas you could throw around with these, all that encourage a 'on the path to godliness' style of playing that some enjoy, but with only some of the previous drawbacks to dying, being full looted and having to restart.

What do you think?