Caves of Qud

Caves of Qud

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Telekinesis
   
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4 Mar, 2024 @ 10:10pm
15 Dec, 2024 @ 8:18pm
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Telekinesis

In 1 collection by Gravenwitch
The Witches Cauldron
23 items
Description
This mod adds new, and edits existing mental mutations in the school of 'telekinesis'. That is stunning force, force bubble, and force wall.

Changes
Stunning Force:
damage increment changed to
1d3
1d3+1
2d3
2d3+1
etc.
Now always explodes centered on the caster.
Cooldown raised to 100 turns.
Gains +1 charge every 10 mutation levels.

New Mutations
Animate Weapon
Cost: 4
Range: N/A
Cooldown: N/A
Cast: Animate a weapon from your inventory into a permanent floating companion.

AV: 2 * Tier
DV: 2 * Tier
Resistances: 10 * Tier
Physical Attributes: Player Ego
Hitpoints: Function of weapon material and weapon toughness


Telekinesis-> Telekinetic Barrage
Cost: 2
Range: 3 + 1/3 Level
Charge Cooldown: 25 rounds
Gains +1 charge every 2 mutation levels.
Cast: Perform a melee attack on any target within range. Attack receives bonus penetration according to your ego bonus.

The animation for this one is really goofy and I can do nothing to stop it from happening, revel in the chaos. Attack can proc literally everything a normal attack can, go nuts.

Mutation name changes in preparation for new update and to expand compatibility with other mods and Sifrah

Force Punch
Cost: 3
Damage Increment:
1d2
1d2+1
2d2
2d2+1
etc.
Range: 3 + 1/3 Level
Stun Save Difficulty: 10 + mutation level
Charge Cooldown: 50 rounds
Gains +1 charge every 5 mutation levels.
Cast: Deal a moderate amount of irresistible force damage, and knock your target back with a chance of a stun. Target takes additional damage for slamming into walls.

A miniature, single-target, ally safe stunning force.

Force Armor
Cost: 2
AV Bonus: 1/3 of remaining charges
Gains +1 charge per mutation level
Charge Cooldown: 25 rounds
Barrier Strength: 1 + 1/5 mutation level

A physical version of mental mirror. It is hard to explain but very simple to use.

It works by reducing "penetrations" aka the amount of an attack's base damage each hit deals to you (thats the x2 or x3). It can reduce each hit up to its barrier strength, any hit over it will allow some damage through. It is most useful when supporting a heavily armored character.

Why did I make this mod?
The Problem
Playing as an esper in vanilla qud is very feast or famine. Most mental mutations are easily outclassed by flaming ray in both damage, cooldown, and utility. Unless you are ascending to a quasar mind and rolling over the entire game, most mental mutations have very long cooldowns for underwhelming effects.

My Solution
The charge. They serve as the 'magazine' for your mental gun. I decided on charges existing per-mutation rather than a shared pool for several reasons.
1. Mental mutations are different areas of your brain. This is why your arms don't become weak because you have walked many miles.
2. A central charge pool disincentivizes acquiring many different mental mutations.
3. It already exists in vanilla, this is how light manipulation works. It is the gold standard of what a mental mutation should be in performance, utility, and flavor.

Notice
This mod is my first attempt at creating a mutation that is entirely my own work. There were no vanilla systems to implement these mutations meaning I had to create the tools to create the mod in the first place. This means there is a high likelihood for errors or unintended interactions. I appreciate your grace while ironing these issues out and greatly appreciate detailed bug reports.

Where does this mod go from here?
1. A significant balance patch with user feedback and my own perspective once I finish the telekinesis run.
2. Polish. Addition of ability and mutation sprites, and custom sound effects for abilities. (Note: if you are an amateur sound designer who wants to provide some "impact" sounds I will be eternally grateful)
3. (Post CoQ 1.0 release) an associated skill tree for telekinesis skills allowing for both the acquisition and upgrading of all skills in the school.

Whats next?
Illusion - Social Mutations: telepathy, ego projection, beguiling, domination, confusion, sunder mind
Divination - Informational Mutations: sense psychic, clairvoyance, psychometry, invisibility, light manipulation, precognition
Evocation - Elemental Mutations: kindle, pyrokinesis, cryokinesis
Vividuction - Life Manipulating Mutations: burgeoning, syphon vim
Munduscription - Space-Time Manipulating Mutations: teleport other, teleportation, disintegration, space-time vortex, temporal fugue, time dilation

Credits
Updated to 1.0 by Czyrek-Marc
Popular Discussions View All (1)
0
30 Mar, 2024 @ 11:25pm
Future Development
Gravenwitch
62 Comments
Gravenwitch  [author] 7 hours ago 
yep
NotaBear 8 hours ago 
does charge regen scale with willpower?
Gravenwitch  [author] 24 Dec, 2024 @ 4:41pm 
@Kairoro I can take a look in a bit. I am in the middle of updating my metamorph mod, but this mod is next on the list for a content / bugfix update.

Planned Update (no release date)

[list]
[*]A rewrite of the charge mechanic with an altered system I tested in a ttrpg one-shot. Centralized charges within each 'school' of mental mutations, with a charge locking / recovery system adapted from cyberpunk's netrunners.
[*]Heavily improved support for animate weapon. It was a post-release addition, which was a bit rushed. Adding support for tinkering and dismissal.
[*]Adding a skill tree where you acquire and improve telekinesis mutations for skill points. It lets you plan builds better and I float a few thousand skill points on espers anyways.
[/list]

Regardless of a content update, you can expect a bug-fix for the animate weapon freeze within the next few days probs.
Detective Costeau 24 Dec, 2024 @ 10:41am 
Really neat to have this working, more options for Espers is great.
I actually kind of like the slightly jank animation for Telekinetic Barrage, feels like you're doing the biotic charge from Mass Effect.
Kairoro 22 Dec, 2024 @ 8:07am 
question, im my foolishness i tried animating weapon made by WM's mod that makes esper swords, is the sword SUPPOSED to stay completly still? when i swapped minds with it via debug it froze (?) my game
Gravenwitch  [author] 16 Dec, 2024 @ 8:22pm 
@Vyklade an animated weapon overhaul is on my to-do list, but got lost in the rush to update everything to 1.0. There was some significant weirdness with health when an entity has both item and character health meaning that dismissing weapons caused bizarre save issues. Once I get that worked out I can add dismissals.
Vyklade 16 Dec, 2024 @ 10:03am 
how can I "Dismiss" an animated weapon? Do i just gotta hope they get destroyed?
Gravenwitch  [author] 15 Dec, 2024 @ 8:22pm 
Updated to 1.0, many thanks to Czyrek-Marc for updating this mod and Graven's Grimoire
Vyklade 14 Dec, 2024 @ 6:14pm 
Really looking to see this mod functioning! I really wanted to try making a pure mental mutations build but it seems it'll have to wait a bit. Either way take your time with your health issues, that is more important <3
Czyrek-Marc 10 Dec, 2024 @ 11:21am 
@rmfranco it looks like Graven's Grimoire has many of its .cs files in a zip folder, for instance the charged based mutation base class that the abilities in this mod inherit and without cannot function. There are other issues too, from the looks of it. I am going to see what I can do to get these working as I really like the idea of charged based mutations.