Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta New Talents to replace the boring +1[Ability] ones

Rumors say that Larian is going to ditch all the Talents that are boring and only do +1 to a certain Ability. If true, that means they’re going to need a whole bunch more to fill in the gap.


Talent: Trained Ears - Beings outside your line of sight can now be detected by their movements little indicators pop up indicating their position. In fact, you could even do an outline of their body, by making use of a bug in the current version. Right now enemies affected with Poison or Wet show up as a translucent outline if they’re outside of your line of sight. If you could figure out how to keep that bug specifically for “Trained Ears”, it would be great.

Talent: Bloodlust – Doing [ X% of your maximum health / X% the targeted enemy’s health] in damage in one turn grants you +1 Recovery AP for your next turn only. (Maybe too powerful or too boring)

Talent: Throw Enemy - With this, you can drag to throw small or medium sized enemies (distance is based on the stronger of either your Strength or Telekinesis). This does not act as a knockdown, the enemy will recover after landing, and if applicable, they then have to make any saving throws versus surface effects (ice, burning, poison).

Talent: Frenzy – Getting the killing blow will double your Movement value for the remainder of your turn. (It is useless if you use the last of your AP to kill an enemy, but great if you kill the enemy with the first of your AP. Does not stack with itself - if you kill an enemy, then move kill a second, you do not get an extra bonus. Does not work for kills made while Sneaking.)

Talent: Breakdancer – When afflicted by the Downed status, your chance to evade attacks is greatly increased.

Trait Pair:
- Multitasker - Gain a small damage boost with each consecutive attack made on alternating targets.
- Single-minded - Gain a small damage boost with each consecutive attack made on the same target.
Bonuses are only applicable when there’s more than one enemy in the combat.



Even I think these aren’t very good ideas:

Talent: Hyperthermic - Your abnormal body temperature makes you much more resistant to the Frozen status effect (+25% to saving throws versus Freezing). However, you’re much more prone to Burning (-25% to saving throws versus Burning). Useful for characters who have the health to take a couple rounds of burning, but would rather be able to move than to be frozen.


Talent: Hypothermic - Your abnormal body temperature makes you much more resistant to Burning (+25% to saving throws versus Burning) . However, you’re much more prone to Freezing (-25% to saving throws versus Freezing). Useful for characters who have low health, and would rather trade losing a turn for burning to death.
(The problem with these two is that Burning is generally preferable to being completely unable to act. I don't know what the new "Chilled" Status does.)


Talent: The Quick and the Dead – Increased chance of dealing a critical hit, and an increased chance of RECEIVING a critical hit.

Talent: Carrot Eater - Increased vision range at night. (Assuming that night normally lowers vision range)

Talent: Herbalist - Slight chance plants are not consumed while crafting -AND/OR- increased chance of finding extra ingredients when harvesting plants in the world.

Talent: Blacksmith - Slight chance certain* ingredients are not consumed while crafting weapons/armour. *(So you don't combine a wooden shield and metal scraps and get an inexplicable wooden shield from nowhere.)

Talent: Scavenger - Can harvest ingredients from corpses -OR- increased chance of extra ingredients dropping from enemies on a kill.


I'd like to think of one that could be useful for talking to NPC's, but I can't think of one that would work in a sensible way (that isn't covered by existing social skills).

Where did you hear this rumour from, was it from one of the interview videos?

Though if it's true I'm quite happy that they will make a better talent system as they're allot useless ones and your suggestions is really great.

I also love the throw enemy ability, hopefully the engine can actually support characters grabbing (I would love to see a camera close up view while they do that too). It will also make sense to improve the game mechanics of using more of the environmental surfaces into combat.

Really great Ideas you always pull out Stabbey!

Very good stuff! It's good idea to remove the +1 to stat talent, which made the lvl 1 even more broken.

This is what I’ve come up with for dialogue Talents, but I don't think they’re a good idea. They kinda duplicate the point of the Abilities.

Talent: Politician - Boosts your chances of succeeding at Charm checks, but lowers your chances at Intimidation checks.

Talent: Brute - Boosts your chances of succeeding at Intimidation checks, but lowers your chances at Reason checks.

Talent: Dilbert - Boosts your chances of succeeding at Reason checks, but lowers your chances at Charm checks.

(All of the other ones I could think of calling this one were "Wallflower", "Actuary", and "Accountant", but none seemed appropriate. I'm sure there must be a name for some boring guy who is smart and no one likes. For now All I can think is to call him "Dilbert", but that's not going to be acceptable in the final.

Only one idea today, and it's terrible.

Talent: Treasure Hunter - A small chance that digging at a random spot produces a crafting ingredient or a small amount of gold.

Terrible because free stuff, even in small amounts is too good to pass up, and terrible because you'd have to code in checks so digging up the floorboards does nothing.

I already thought about this (you know, I love randomness and world interactions)
Lets make it a Foraging (of course, tied to a skill...)
Make a random spot appear here and there (should be easy to do, it has been in all mods I coded), and give it a generic name, like:
"Something on the ground draws you attention..."
Then, when the player interacts with it, make a "Foraging" check, to see if he does find anything, with success or failure. Of course, a skilled forager should indeed find something almost everytimes, and so on...
In case of success, a convo appear, with randomized multiple choice sabout the result, or saying you need some Tools, like a shovel, for example.
And there you go.
Results could be:
** A half buried corpse (of course, toying with it could reveal a little treasure or whatever, but could also "Wake up" a zombie, a ghost, you could catch the disease that made this creature die...
** A batch of herbs (you would require a second herboristery check to identify and pick it up...)
** A small purse of money
** Some animal tracks (require tracking skill to follow them, easy to do (well, already done in previous NWN2 mod...)
** An old fire camp
** an abandonned whatever
++ An X marks the spot, dig it (need a shovel) !!!
...

Whatever Larian does with it, I will add this feature in my randomized/highly interactive mod (If I can of course...)

I would really rather not see "zero sum" talents - the "+5 to this, -5 to that" sort. At best they're "Why bother?" and at worst they're an exercise in gaming the system.

I'd actually favor having fewer, bigger talents where you don't take one very often, but when you do, it's a big deal in terms of its impact on the character. It's difficult to avoid math-based talents in a computer game environment, but something like the "Throw Enemy" suggestion is a good start, but I'd be inclined to expand on it so that taking the talent means that throwing stuff around - in combat or otherwise - is a defining element of the character.

When I said 'terrible', I was just saying that I knew there potential issues and pitfalls with the idea.

Yeah, I know that a lot of these are not great. I'm not a great fan of zero sum talents as well. I simply couldn't think of anything else for social Talents that the Abilities weren't already doing.

Hmm I was thinking when they are re-doing the talent system, will they make unique talents for different classes (Mages, Warrior, Rogue etc)?

If they are it will make sense for talents to be visible for certain characters. Though I also don't mind if all the talents are in together, it will just remind me of perks from original fallout games (It's just it might be messy seeing most of the talents are for certain characters such as with the mages we have right now).

For example one other great ability for an Knight (Or Two Handed users) is hit two enemy's at once with a special swing of the two handed weapons. (Half damage to both enemy's from original attack). This talent will be useful in combat for other members to try weaken the other enemy or to get the last final blow.

Talent: "Swing Strike" - Using a two-handed weapons special swing against two enemys (close distance) facing you at 180 degrees)

Edit: Wait scratch what I said about the certain talents to be visible for certain classes. I know that talents are mainly perks that doesn't require any required class. The one I suggested could mainly for an ability for the knight to have.

I'm definitely in favour of a "Way of the Rogue" - I think there's a case to be made for a melee character focused on Stealth/Evasion instead of tanking. I've thought up potential bonuses for five levels of that skill. I wouldn't mind a "Way of the Wizard" either, although I haven't many ideas about what might go into it. There's some pretty big changes coming in the next patch though.

A couple more "probably not great" ideas.


Talent: Sure Shot - Reduces the chance of your arrows hitting friendly targets in your line of fire with the arrow (does not prevent them from taking damage from AoE effects). I'm not sure if this is possible, but it might be, since arrow FF is currently off (but will be on in next patch).


Talent: Walk it Off - (This one is really generic and more of a vague concept.) Reduces the duration of certain negative status effects by one turn. Note: Does not reduce the duration to under 1 turn (it won't cancel a status out, you have to live with it for at least 1 turn).

Nice that's what I'm thinking about with my previous post, maybe add in your thread about the knight ability I have previously mentioned for "Way of the Knights".

Abilities and Talents are passive, but that's an interesting idea for a warrior-class Skill.

Yes it will be great for a skill for a certain unlock level, I just got side tracked of how the system talents should be like. Your suggestions are great ideas for the developers to look onto or hopefully they have the same idea and might be in the coming patch.

Hopefully we wait and see what they have improve on the talent system and the balancing in game

Would love some unique talents or even twists to existing or well known "perks" Like if my mage has telekinesis combined with a high perception and a point in a perception talent, that would unlock an "illusion" talent that would make enemies have a chance to start attacking things art are not really there or when used on NPC's cause them to hallucinate and wander off. (great for pesky guards that just won't budge)

Never been a fan of abilities with curses myself and those are the ones I never get. If you went with a talent that bumped up a stat by say 25% but decreased another by same amount, it's not much of an improvement and most certainly a downgrade to your chars abilities.

Say you put a point in +25% fire -25% ice talent for half your party (or worst case even all party members) in order to get past a tough fight or environment with lots of fire effects, you then either HAVE to put next talent point in +25% ice -25% fire talent just to get back to where you were originally in resistance or potentially have your party members be almost useless in frozen combat.

Talent: Master of Unlocking - Lockpicking takes half the time it used to. (Reference: Resident Evil)

Would be even funnier if you got that from some NPC as reward for doing a quest.

"Thank you for getting that item for me. I appreciate the fact that it must have taken great skill to open the safe it was hidden in. Therefore I would like to give you this special set of lockpicks that you - the master of unlocking - should have."

A "Counterattack" talent would be cool. Strike back at an enemy when attacked.

I concur!

Yeah, that sounds neat, although I'm not sure how it'd work for bow-users.



This one may not even be possible at all, or one they're unwilling to implement because it could possibly break script triggers:

Talent: Lightfoot - 50% chance to not trigger traps/trap triggers which you walk across.