Meta

Ancient
Mallius Odium
Players Playing Bloodbath Demo
Grim Scribe
Old World
Harbinger
Mar 16, 2021
72
1
68
148
Texas
I was giving some thought to Liches possessing new bodies and losing their old ones today, and the thought occurred to me that if you abandon your body, aren't you abandoning all of your gear at the same time? So my mind went to work thinking of ways around what would be an obscenely annoying system of having to go back to your fallen corpse every time you die to reacquire all of your dropped gear.

Soulbinding Gear

As the name suggests, you can, for a cost, have your equipment bound magically to your own soul/essence, and so where it goes, the gear follows and will remanifest onto your physical form once you do. This would solve the majority of that problem for all of the classes. Anything that isn't Soulbound, however, would still have to be picked up again. So if you just got some really good loot, and you take an exploding silver crossbolt to the back of the head, you might respawn with all of your normal gear, and just have to go pick up that new loot again. It wouldn't be as much of a fool's errand though than trying to fight through the same enemies again without having anything equipped at all.
Naturally I'm sure there will be differences in the types and nature of equipment that each class will utilize, but anywhere the system would share some of the mechanics this rule would cover.


A Potential Bit Of Fun

Perhaps the enemies will grab up anything you drop and attempt to flee with it, thus keeping the tools of their enemies away from their hands (or claws). There could be a mini-event where you have to track down that unit and kill it before it escapes the battlefield with your dropped gear. If it does manage to successfully escape with it, that could open up a special mission type where you have to assail a stronghold to get your stuff back. It would be a more challenging mission type than usual as these strongholds would be designed with the intent in mind to keep those spoils out of your reach, so higher risk than normal. There would be a chance for higher rewards as well, though, due to the nature of it being a treasury. If you can crack the stronghold open, then you would at the very least get everything you lost back.
Perhaps there could be a secondary race against time element included, where deep within the stronghold, mages are working to destroy or relocate the best of the spoils. So if you could complete the race to the vault before they finish the ritual, then the superior loot would be yours, whatever it is, in addition to your own lost gear.
 
my thoughts about Liche gear were this:

As a Liche you find gear..be it armour or weapons or artifacts. As the Liche you then enhance those items to help you. Maybe they are inscribed with runes that make casting easier or quicker...or add to protection. When you leave your body and ultimately the gear you are wearing the runes simply disappear leaving the armour in its normal state. If its something SUPER rare or valuable, then sure you may want to go back after it. Otherwise you just find or craft new gear, and apply the same runes or better runes.
 
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I was giving some thought to Liches possessing new bodies and losing their old ones today, and the thought occurred to me that if you abandon your body, aren't you abandoning all of your gear at the same time? So my mind went to work thinking of ways around what would be an obscenely annoying system of having to go back to your fallen corpse every time you die to reacquire all of your dropped gear.

Soulbinding Gear

As the name suggests, you can, for a cost, have your equipment bound magically to your own soul/essence, and so where it goes, the gear follows and will remanifest onto your physical form once you do. This would solve the majority of that problem for all of the classes. Anything that isn't Soulbound, however, would still have to be picked up again. So if you just got some really good loot, and you take an exploding silver crossbolt to the back of the head, you might respawn with all of your normal gear, and just have to go pick up that new loot again. It wouldn't be as much of a fool's errand though than trying to fight through the same enemies again without having anything equipped at all.
Naturally I'm sure there will be differences in the types and nature of equipment that each class will utilize, but anywhere the system would share some of the mechanics this rule would cover.


A Potential Bit Of Fun

Perhaps the enemies will grab up anything you drop and attempt to flee with it, thus keeping the tools of their enemies away from their hands (or claws). There could be a mini-event where you have to track down that unit and kill it before it escapes the battlefield with your dropped gear. If it does manage to successfully escape with it, that could open up a special mission type where you have to assail a stronghold to get your stuff back. It would be a more challenging mission type than usual as these strongholds would be designed with the intent in mind to keep those spoils out of your reach, so higher risk than normal. There would be a chance for higher rewards as well, though, due to the nature of it being a treasury. If you can crack the stronghold open, then you would at the very least get everything you lost back.
Perhaps there could be a secondary race against time element included, where deep within the stronghold, mages are working to destroy or relocate the best of the spoils. So if you could complete the race to the vault before they finish the ritual, then the superior loot would be yours, whatever it is, in addition to your own lost gear.
What if "soulbinding" an item took up one or more slots on an item that could possibly be used for other enhancements.

As far as the potential but of fun suggestion. I don't think many would consider that fun but more of a hassle. To not just get back to your corpse but now have to fight against time and fleeing enemies seems a little over the top.
 
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What if "soulbinding" an item took up one or more slots on an item that could possibly be used for other enhancements.
That's a good alternative as well! And perhaps only items above a certain threshold of rarity would possess these "augmentation slots," so while you could use mundane gear, it would be riskier to do so, if you're prone to entering one of the death states anyway. :LOL:
As far as the potential but of fun suggestion. I don't think many would consider that fun but more of a hassle.
I can understand that perspective, but I'm also one of those weirdos who enjoys the occasional challenge or test of skill. To me, going up against tougher odds with higher stakes and the potential for substantial rewards upon victory sounds amusing.
Perhaps there could be a service available in several places that would seek to reclaim your lost gear/loot, or otherwise replace it.
"Death Insurance" :ROFLMAO:
Perhaps those looter enemy types would only be present on higher difficulty levels.
Perhaps even at those higher levels, maybe there would be an option under the gameplay menu where you could disable the spawning of certain "pesky" enemy types.
Perhaps the more challenging options you have present, the higher chance the gods will smile upon your efforts and reward you with increased luck. (higher challenge = higher chance for better loot/rewards/rare tarot cards)

I like having more options available like that, that way everyone can play within their own comfort/fun zones. ;)
To not just get back to your corpse but now have to fight against time and fleeing enemies seems a little over the top.
I'll be honest (can usually count on me for that), if the rewards for the "assault the loot stronghold" mode were significant enough, I'd probably die and let the looters steal my stuff on purpose just to play that mission type. :p
 
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I can understand that perspective, but I'm also one of those weirdos who enjoys the occasional challenge or test of skill. To me, going up against tougher odds with higher stakes and the potential for substantial rewards upon victory sounds amusing.
While I understand that perspective, going up against tougher odds without your gear, in order to get it back just seems like a negative feedback loop that will send you back to the starting levels in terms of gear, which would just be annoying, and no fun at all.
 
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That's a good alternative as well! And perhaps only items above a certain threshold of rarity would possess these "augmentation slots," so while you could use mundane gear, it would be riskier to do so, if you're prone to entering one of the death states anyway. :LOL:

I can understand that perspective, but I'm also one of those weirdos who enjoys the occasional challenge or test of skill. To me, going up against tougher odds with higher stakes and the potential for substantial rewards upon victory sounds amusing.
Perhaps there could be a service available in several places that would seek to reclaim your lost gear/loot, or otherwise replace it.
"Death Insurance" :ROFLMAO:
Perhaps those looter enemy types would only be present on higher difficulty levels.
Perhaps even at those higher levels, maybe there would be an option under the gameplay menu where you could disable the spawning of certain "pesky" enemy types.
Perhaps the more challenging options you have present, the higher chance the gods will smile upon your efforts and reward you with increased luck. (higher challenge = higher chance for better loot/rewards/rare tarot cards)

I like having more options available like that, that way everyone can play within their own comfort/fun zones. ;)
I'm all for more challenging... I like to play one life challenges and don't mind restarting 100 times till I get it right. But the avg player would not like this. Maybe as a special event type thing where you race against the clock because some of the enemy spell casters hindered you and you need to defeat them for some reason and the more you defeat the more power you regain and the quicker you do it the better the prize
 
But in just about every game out there people do not like losing things they spent time collecting. It takes away from their fun and turns them away from the game
 
While I understand that perspective, going up against tougher odds without your gear, in order to get it back just seems like a negative feedback loop that will send you back to the starting levels in terms of gear, which would just be annoying, and no fun at all.
In this scenario you'd still have all of your Soulbound gear, and you'd probably be able to grab some temporary gear to fill in any empty slots, so you wouldn't necessarily be going in completely defenseless.
But in just about every game out there people do not like losing things they spent time collecting. It takes away from their fun and turns them away from the game
I guess it would need to be at the very least a balanced level of risk and reward.
You've reminded me of the Kuva Liches in Warframe now...those were annoying, but you never had the risk of permanent loss of what they stole, and they never stole anything vital to continued gameplay. I guess that would have to be the case here, as well, probably. Instead of the risk of destruction of your loot, maybe it never gets destroyed and could merely, at worse, be moved to another location if you fail to complete the mission.

Come to think of it, you wouldn't run into any looters or strongholds in Iron Man Mode, even if it does become a thing. 😏
 
Or like i said...as a liche...you just create new gear with new runes...go in and wipe out your "killers" and take what ever they had. Bodabing badaboom.
 
Big bada boom.., lelu dallas multipass!
 
My thought is that soul bound items might not disappear or anything like that when you die, but rather sort of (almost) treat your character as an anchor.
You can think of "account bound" items as binding to your characters soul upon pick up, and that items only become "Soul bound" when used by your character. When your character "dies" and comes back, your own stats and even equipment might be weaker for a time as they attempt to recreate themselves fully. After a period of time the magic is fully restored and they are now 100% operational again. This would mean that while you are punished for dying, it's not as extreme as losing everything but does give you a fighting chance while also giving you a period where you're building your strength back up (it can be either through time or via bloodshed or possession(Magick, physical, ethereal)).
In short, account bound items might treat you as their anchor to existence. Hence why they would not tradable because they are literally latched onto you. Whereas equipment might only latch onto you when you use them after a period of time or equip them. Perhaps if you use them long enough, the requirements for getting them back to full power will be less and less as they're more attuned to you.
This is a possible explanation and idea I have for how soul binding gear and even non-tradable gear might work.