Game Mechanics A Weaponless Class?

I feel like this is a lot more possible now with spellbound. With the whole ability tree thing, we can solve some problems that could arise with a weaponless class design.

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I think most of the problem arises from the fact that a lot of technical functionalities are tied to holding a weapon (casting spells, main attack damage, mana/life steal, etc.). A way I can think of to solve this is by placing an invisible item on the player's current slot when they're not holding anything (only for the weaponless class). The invisible thingy would then benefit from identifications, spell-casting, and even gain base damage for damage calculations (it's also what you'd be renaming for whenever you cast a spell lol).

Since you'd be holding an item, you can view its info stuff by hovering over it in your inventory. Now I don't think it's a big deal. In fact, you can use this to display some important stats like your current base damage. Though as much as it has some proper use, I'd prefer keeping the item invisible and nameless for ✨immersion purposes✨.

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Before we proceed, we should answer a very important question: Why?
Mostly I just think it's neat lol. Like, a weaponless class? unique af. It just sounds so cool.
Well inventory-wise, a weaponless class would have more inventory space since you'll just sell every weapon you get anyway (ironman btw). A new class is also one of the many ways you can keep the game fresh. It adds a new perspective of the meta, adds a new playstyle that exploits previously unexploitable enemy weaknesses, and just adds a new way of playing the game in general.

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With that out of the way, let's talk balance.

The main thing a weapon provides is damage. The weaponless class can have a passive "Base Damage" where all their main attacks and spells compute their damage from. It's basically their "weapon" stats but without the weapon. They can have something like a +10 neutral at LvL 1, which would increase as they level up. This would be tied to the invisible item thingy I previously mentioned.

Now this wouldn't be enough to carry them throughout the whole game. It also denies them that strength variation that the other classes get with their multitude of weapons. One way to deal with this is by adding Base Damage modifiers to the class' ability tree. Essentially, players would be slowly building up their own "weapon" damage by picking up these nodes as they go down their ability tree.



This isn't the only solution, of course. There's a lot more ways we can integrate damage to a weaponless class. If you have more ideas, share them in the replies!



Another thing a weapon provides are identifications. With one less gear, you'll have one less source of these stat buffs. An easy way to compensate for this is by adding a permanent buff to all your id's.


(25% is just arbitrary don't think about it too much)

This would be the class' *insert weapon* Proficiency I node. They don't have a weapon anyway so this would be a convenient replacement (it'd also buff mythic stats so not having mythic weapons wouldn't be too much of a loss).



Lastly, there's powder specials.

They can very much just be nodes lol. As much as a class can reasonably thrive without powder specials, I do want to consider an option where they won't be excluded from this experience. Maybe they're on the side of the first page of the tree, or maybe they're a natural part of the ability tree. They can even require archetype investment! There's a lot of ways to go about this.



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I know this is just scratching the surface of what it means to have a weaponless class. If you have questions, ideas, etc., leave them in the replies!

 

Here before Deusphage

Balancing this in multiple level ranges may be an issue

 

yeahh I agree with that. I'd have better ideas if I know more about item balancing.

tho I think it won't be too different from balancing crafting, so it's not too far-fetched.

also yay congrats

 

I actually thought about this, but I never worked out the details. I think it would be pretty fun!

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A big advantage of this would be that the item team wouldn't need to make a ton of weapons for this before it can be released and that there aren't more weapons that need balancing. Therefore it would probably be easier/faster to implement then a new class that uses a new weapon

 

yep yep that's a really good point

also if you have more insights about the idea of a weaponless class, I'd love to hear them!

also how did you do that line thingy

 

You get that line thingy when you post multiple times directly after each other

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like this

 

maybe it can have an ability like flow state but it builds up damage as you attack?

 

yeah that's a good way to add some damage to the class if it feels lacking. though it'd be pretty limited to builds and archetypes that can rapidly attack multiple times at once (it won't be as effective with playstyles that have slow, heavy-hitting attacks, etc.)

that is to say, it can't easily support the class as a whole. but it can defo work as a more specific archetype ability

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as for spells and archetypes for a weaponless class, I like to keep it pretty loose for now since they can pretty much look like anything. we need to make sure a weaponless class would work to begin with first

also eyy line thingy

 

line

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thingy

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is

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cool

 

idk when it happened but we have more votes for "yes" than "yes but it would suck" now, which is interesting

 

- Poison -

 

poison thorns lmao

 

WHAT THE fruma

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yeah that

 

*roblox oof sound*

 

this idea is why minecraft skins dont have actual hands

 

skin issue