I logged on day, and as you might see. I read up on a bunch of posts and started shooting down ideas. Then I got an idea of my own. Great timing huh? The idea struck me when I was scrolling through the cleric spells and thought about an intended role of a good align cleric. This would help clerics play a more supportive role. The spell is called 'Allotment of Affliction.' A gen 1, level 35-45 spell. It cannot be casted on oneself but only on others in your group. What the spell does is that once casted on someone, the cleric and the target will share one-way damage from the target to the cleric by 30-60% of the damage. For example, the cleric (cleric) casts Allotment of Affliction on you (you). I see: You stare at you and utter 'qwinur poir'. you looks more relieved. You see: cleric stares at you and utters 'qwinur poir'. cleric has relieved you of the weight of pain. (in your affects list) The weight of pain has been lifted by cleric. A mob comes by and attacks you, dealing damage from hits, skills, or spells. cleric will receive 30-60% of the damage delt to you (not reduced by cleric's damage reductions)

i.e. the mob punchs you deals 100 damage. now let's say cleric has casted Allotment of Affliction on you. the mob punches you and deals 70 damage. cleric receives 30 damage

I believe this spell would help put good align clerics back out there and increase the usage of spells such as group heal or group armor. Of course, the values are just food for thought, don't let it restrict your thoughts.

Yeah! Good idea man!

lol!

yo i love this idea!

would be kinda fun, and that way, u can take clannies out and don't have to worry about them getting killed that easily…

one question though… would u think that u should receive status effects when the other guy got hit by one? like let's say stun, poison, or bleed?

I don't think the affects of status changes should be transferred over to the cleric. It would definitely discourage the use of the spell especially if the partner is prone to status changes.

Though, it could be considered if it were controllable. (Ability to turn it on or off/change receiving damage %, just like mana shield)

By the way, if you find an idea worth the time to consider, that might be nice addition to Tempus, or just plain fun, then advertise it on the game. It's good to keep the conversation in the threads to reduce unnecessary spam in the game. But, the forum has its limitations. I'll be willing to bet that only three or so people will provide some feedback until this thread completely dies out.

o, o, one more question, how many people can u have that effect on? and if u can have many people that ur tanking for, is it 30-60% per person or 30-60% in total?

The obvious question this raises…

Is the role of the cleric to be a tank?

Even if only a 30-whatever percent tank. This is still tanking, and I don't think their role is tanking. It's behind the front line, tending to those who are tanking. Just like the mage role is behind the front line, tending to those who are beating up the tanks, in a not-quite-so-tender sorta way.

This would fit nicely with the Good Knight's role though.

cast: If you're asking my opinion about whether or not the spell can should be allowed to be casted on more than one person by the same person, then I'd say yes. Otherwise I don't know. You ask me as if the spell is already part of the game. Why don't you make some suggestions about whether it should be allowed to be casted on more than one person?

narc: In some aspects, it can be seen as the cleric tanking. It can also be seen as giving extra damage reduction to the tanker. Correct me if I'm wrong, but clerics have already become tanks. Given that, sometimes it might not be worth having knights ard barbarians with all that hp if they can't tank better than a cleric. I believe this spell will change roles back to a more roleplay'ish way. Barbs or knights tanking and the cleric supporting with heals and stuff. If the spell was given to a knight, then the knight wouldn't be tanking.

By the way, I think good clerics need some type of cure status spells. But, maybe that belongs in a different thread.

hey narc, ur a mage right? but u can tank pretty good right? schizo is a mage, and from what i've heard from him, he can tank all 7 lvls of hell. i'm sure shaba, can tank a whole mountain of mobs as well. i haven't seen any good clerics in action, but from what i can tell, they should be able to be awsome tanks too with all the buffs and redux.

see my point? the magic casters are not nessesarily at the back row… although i believe that they should be able to stay at the back row and not get touched by the mobs that the tanks are blocking… but the way things are now, magic users can still be targeted physically by mobs even when you put like 20 tanks in front of u…

i can't speak for the physical attackers since i never got around to playing one… but things on tempus aren't all that logical… because of the player base, characters were built so that one can solo the tough zones when no one is around to help them.

y r u reeding zees? mai pa oast ees up zere, abauve zees lion ne.

I think everyone's got good points on this. Cast, you're right that things are a bit backwards…. High-gen mages and clerics can out-tank a borg or merc any day of the week. But that doesn't mean that's how it should be. If we just keep giving classes new skills/spells that fill a gap they're missing, eventually every class will be able to do anything and we'd lose the variety that makes it fun.

As for whether this spell is more appropriate as a cleric or knight spell, I'm somewhat torn… I would tend to agree in general that it would be a knight's job to be absorbing more than his share of the attacks. The way Tempus works, however, means one person absorbs all of it and the rest of the people stand behind and attack worry free. Because of this, using the spell would place the caster behind the front line and absorbing the damage while easing the burden of the knight or barbarian taking the hits. Because of this, I agree that it is a cleric spell (although, it could be implemented for both seeing as there are already so many shared spells).

Assuming this is solely a cleric spell, I think it should require some continuing concentration. A cleric casting this spell should not be able to attack 4 times a second. In fact, I don't believe they should be able to attack at all. They can still cast spells, and if they are attacked by a mob, the spell will be broken. In this way, the cleric is taken out of combat and instead turns solely into a super-healer, giving both massive effective damage redux and heals to the party while not contributing offensively, turning the cleric into exactly what it should be.

Well I could murder my father. And in one aspect it could be looked at as murder, but on the other hand you could say I'm easing the burden of my mother's dinner plans.

A gross over-example but the point is, I can take anything and put a twist on it for the positive. As Kitano said before, what is (or isn't), and what should be, aren't always the same thing. Infact, that's why these boards are here, for people to discuss just that discrepency. Mages and Clerics have no buisness tanking. Mages lost damage reduction to manashield a few years ago because of this very principle.

There is something to be said for the lack of playerbase however. Yes we don't have enough "tanks" out there for a cleric to consistantly be able to group with so that they can be played as they are intended. But that does not mean they need to start aquiring skillsets that are geared towards things that are out of their job description. What happens if you have 3 clerics doing this? 90% dam reduction for the tanks but each cleric only taking 30% of the total damage? Group heal anybody? This is tanking likes of which Tempus has never seen before. And never should see. Does nobody else see how very careful you would have to be with a skill like this to keep things from getting out of hand?

I thought I would weigh in on this discussion. Deneb, this is a great spell idea. While I think it is a great idea I don't think it is necessary or would even be used. Good cleric doesn't need anything nor does good cleric need anything to promote grouping. A good cleric can is a fantastic groupie as they are and a good cleric already is arguable the best tank in the game. Cleric can obviously heal group member but can also give more damage redux than any other class with sanc and shield of righteousness. With the defend ablilty(which I think only fighting class should get but that is another discussion) a cleric can take hits for everyone in his group already and he CAN do this easily. I think good cleric is a rock solid class, potentially too powerful.

The problem is people need to want to group. I know this is beating a dead horse but people don't need to group. With grails, chalices, black roses, potions, and eq. People don't need a group. I'm not saying this is good or bad it is just a fact. If people want to group they will and if they need a cleric they will get one.

So what would help a cleric in a grouping environment? A Little tweak to the group status screen would help clerics in a group just as much as a new spell. Currently when you type group you see the group members current hp mana mv and align it would be very nice if we could see current hp/max hp. This little change would help a cleric in a group hugely.

Narc, I think your point of multiple clerics making the spell overpowered can be easily solved. Just limit it to one spell casting per player. Another idea is the cleric will reduce damage by 30%, while they cleric takes 50% of the damage, again not reduced by redux. If the tank isn't high on AC and redux, the cleric is going to squish fast.

Rothdyn, I always thought that typing "group" should show current/max hp, mp and move just for convenience, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. I believe it does so because of formatting issues. If it showed all of that information, it would require two lines to display one player's information. It isn't too big of an issue, it's fairly easy to remember that a barb with 500 hp needs healing while a psion with 500 hp is probably in okay shape. Or, you can just look at them and see what their status is (big nasty wounds and such) OR if that still doesn't work, ask everyone to type report occasionally or when they want to be healed.

Woo woo! Good idea! Guy with the imm said it!

Another point that I want to get across is that if you think it's a good idea, then it's probably worth some time to consider it as a new part of Tempus instead of deeming it as unnecessary. It may not be necessary for clerics to get this spell but it can be something nice for clerics to have. I can argue that mages don't need that new remort spell firebreathing but it was added anyway because it's a good idea and now a cool spell. I can also argue that monks don't need zen of translocation, but they still have it. "This class doesn't need this, it already has this. This class is already this, they don't need that." On the contrary, no class has a spell quite like this! Whether or not it should be added to the game is up to the uppers. My point is that we shouldn't say it's something we don't need and forget about it. The fact that you think it's a great idea should be enough to put in some feedback to improve the idea. And, maybe we can present something to the imms that'll rock their world, and in turn, allowing us to have a fun spell to play with.

You know how I could buy this idea.

If it were an added effect to the cleric casting sanctuary on another player. Sanctuary atleast is a sort of divine intervention to the damage someone recieves. So it's feasable that you could have divine redirection of that damage through this sactuary. If you want to get everybody in the group, you have to cast sanc on everybody in the group individually. maybe as a remort spell of greater sanc or something. Perhaps it could simply progress the same way monk's zen of awareness progresses as levels increase. This has a built in feature of preventing stacking as if a player has sanc he already has it, he would have to get rid of it for the cleric to cast it on him to gain the redirection effects. Also, as this redirection is coming from sanctuary, it's not going to be restricted by sanctuary. Meaning, that 30% you suck down isn't going to be reduced by your own sanctuary spell or another cleric's sanctuary spell on you, the ttl of damage redirection would be 1 hop, for us nerds.

I'm a nerd and I don't know what ttl or hop means.

time to live for damage to "hop" from one player to another due to the effect. The ttl would be how many hops are allowed.

Nice post Deneb. I like that idea very much.

I still think this is a great idea, just needs refining.

To be honest, I'm not sure if Good clerics need another spell to help their group out.

From what I've seen from playing a good cleric all it majorly lacks is a more powerful way to strike out against evil aligned mobs/chars.For the most part I'd like to see Righteous Penetration be an overall damage increase against evil aligned mobs/players rather than just a negation of Evil aligned Sanctuary.

I look at it from this angle, I'm not an evil cleric because the appeal of being a good cleric wasn't great enough. With spells like Vampiric Regeneration and Unholy Stalker for evil clerics. There is little incentive to play a good cleric and major incentives for playing evil. That's to say, perhaps the role of good cleric needs to be defined better than just a healbot. Perhaps good clerics and good knights alike should both be great icons of the positive energy as much as their evil counterparts are for energy.

As of right now there are far more incentives (more powerful spells, and soulessness) to play evil aligned divine characters in general. And I think that's a major problem.

Nothing, or Nevermore (I forget who) said that one of the problems with good aligned and evil aligned clerics and knights is that we often think of them too much as equals in every respect, doomed to fight each other for all eternity. And by that, we tend to create ideas that would allow them to be equals in evil and in lawful ways. For example, many have asked for a good aligned version of soulless. This is just silly, even though I already call Mildain one of the brotha's and replaced the spiked silver helm with IceCube's Afro and every Saturday at noon I ride a train that always seems to play great dancing music.

If anything I think Good aligned knights should get more abilities in fighting evil, not good aligned clerics. As a good aligned cleric, I would like to play support, even if there aren't many zones that require such support. Yet.

With this idea, what happens if more then one cleric cast this spell on the same target.

For example:

Xero and 2 good clerics are grouped with him. They both cast this spell on Xero. Someone punches Xero and does 100 damage. Xero takes 70 damage and the one of the clerics takes 30 damage if there was only 1 cleric with him. Now, with 2 clerics would it spread the damage out?

Xero gets hit for 100 damage punch and takes 50 damage. A cleric takes 25 damage? B cleric takes 25 damage?

Or once your under the effects from someone, you can't stack the spell with another cleric…?