/tg/Station 13

Liches. The things wizards turn into, that resurrect at a specified object when they die. Put simply, they're imbalanced. For one spell point, a wizard can be functionally immortal so long as their phylactery isn't destroyed - and there's no way of knowing where it is.

I propose the following nerfs balance changes:
* If a phylactery exists on the z-level, the pinpointer will point to it.
* The phylactery cannot be moved once deployed, and isn't an item (so it can't fit into lockers).
* Upon the death of the wizard, instead of "The wizard's soul flies southwest" (etc), it says "The wizard's soul flies towards {location of phylactery}".

This way, it still acts as an extra life, but it's a lot easier to find and destroy (done through judicious laser fire or bashing, like a dominator).

Opinions?

(tl;dr: I ded, pls nerf liches)

It literally already says which direction it is when they resurrect, something like 'X's soul drifts to the southwest'

Which direction, yes. The actual location, no. "Southwest" is really rather vague, it being anywhere between due south and due west.

The drifting mechanic isn't as useful as it should be, because to byond anything that isn't absolutely straight cardinal is described as a diagonal. So if a lich phylactery is 20 tiles to the east and one tile to the south, it reports as "south east", even though to most people that sort of bearing would just be called "east".

As for lich, yeah it's pretty powerful and could use some balancing. People suggest the pinpointer thing all the time but it just doesn't make any sense. I've played with the idea of a reskined pinpointer that spawns temporarily when a lich respawns, and the more the lich dies the longer the pinpoint sticks around.

Not wild about unmovable phylacteries, that's kind of part of the experience to me. Any suggestion to make them harder to hide in other objects is something that could be done though.

Also now that we have wizard points out of ten we could always make lich a three point spell, admit it's pretty damn useful, and call it a day.

Bawhoppennn wrote:It literally already says which direction it is when they resurrect, something like 'X's soul drifts to the southwest'

Yay, on average you now only have to search a fourth of the entire map.

Yeah, and the fact it can be damn near anything doesn't help. You can make it a medipen in a toolbox halfway across the station if you want. People are very unlikely to ever find it, especially because wizards have what is functionally all access and will therefore hide it in electrical maint, or whatever.

Make phylacteries bulky, light giving, impossible to hide in lockers, whatever. Just make it impossible to miss. It'd make the thing much more balanced.

If you're a real bitch, you can jaunt into space and just drop it in deep space, on the station z-level.

This makes it fucking 99.999% impossible to find, and when you respawn you can just throw something/teleport/jaunt back to station.

lumipharon wrote:If you're a real bitch, you can jaunt into space and just drop it in deep space, on the station z-level.

This makes it fucking 99.999% impossible to find, and when you respawn you can just throw something/teleport/jaunt back to station.

I was quite careful to make sure that a lich doesn't have anything to throw that isn't vital to him (a piece of his robes or the phylactery itself) to prevent that problem, but jaunt and teleport still defeat it.

Or Instant Summons on his staff.

It isn't OP, gib the corpse and praise byond.

it's not hard to destroy the gibber and incinerator, as a wizard.

Toss it into the singularity or use a bomb.

callanrockslol wrote:Toss it into the singularity or use a bomb.

Good luck getting the corpse all across the station/making a bomb in the 10 seconds before it respawns

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:

callanrockslol wrote:Toss it into the singularity or use a bomb.

Good luck getting the corpse all across the station/making a bomb in the 10 seconds before it respawns

It takes like a minute and you can cuff them and keep beating them as it happens.

callanrockslol wrote:

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:

callanrockslol wrote:Toss it into the singularity or use a bomb.

Good luck getting the corpse all across the station/making a bomb in the 10 seconds before it respawns

It takes like a minute and you can cuff them and keep beating them as it happens.

Cheat death happens instantly if it's had time to cool down, and it's not like lings, he respawns back at the phylactery.

I should take Lichdom before it gets nerfed to all hell, sounds interesting.

Why not comprimise and make it only give a set limit of lives to the user, so instead of infinite lives you only get two lives before your phalything is exhuasted.

It gives the Wizard what it wants, a way to cheat death, but at the same time it does not make it too stupid to deal with.

Also Lichdom should cost about four spell points, to further make it a investment. Maybe further upgrades to Lichdom, by spending a spell point, will give the user a additional life.

Steelpoint wrote:I should take Lichdom before it gets nerfed to all hell, sounds interesting.

Why not comprimise and make it only give a set limit of lives to the user, so instead of infinite lives you only get two lives before your phalything is exhuasted.

It gives the Wizard what it wants, a way to cheat death, but at the same time it does not make it too stupid to deal with.

Also Lichdom should cost about four spell points, to further make it a investment. Maybe further upgrades to Lichdom, by spending a spell point, will give the user a additional life.

The balance for lichdom is that each time you die, the cooldown before you can resurrect again doubles (or is it quadruples?)

so it starts at 60 seconds the first time you die, then 2 mins, then 4 mins, and the crew slowly homes in on your phylactery

How about the phylactery item is actually a mob and needs air and floor to live. That should sort it.

Is the Phylactery Item moveable or replaced upon death or is it permanent?

Steelpoint wrote:Is the Phylactery Item moveable or replaced upon death or is it permanent?

It's moveable, not replaced upon death.

Which yeah, makes the scenario I outlined not really work. But that's the intention (They need to be made anchored)