Dark Oppressor Pacts

[Atrele]

This is something I wanted to bring to discussion since I am given to understand that Pacts aren't particularly impressive right now as a support option. This is a suggested full rework of the pact system, to make it more responsive and give more options for use both by DOs and their would-be debtor.

The Pact
A Dark Oppressor with the skill "Scribe Pact" gains the ability to create "Pacts" under the "Pact Tab" that grant use of the Dark Oppressor's abilities... for a price to be paid, of course. A pact costs 3 AP to scribe, and a varying number of MP to scribe, depending on what options are chosen during the Scribing process. Finishing the creation process results in a 1 weight "Pact" which will note what skills the pact has bound to it. This pact can freely be given or dropped as long as it has never been activated.

The Pact permits the use of up to six of the Dark Oppressor's spells, alchemy formulae, or skills of up to 40 CP, including Dark Oppressor skills. One skill is always Desecration, and is a non-negotiable part of the pact, leaving the other five skills to the Dark Oppressor's discretion. Note that skills that have child/parent skills involved with it will also apply: Offering Spell Combat will also grant the benefit of Battle Magic if the Dark Oppressor has it, for example, and offering First Aid will also give the benefits of Surgery, for example. A Dark Oppressor may also offer Hand to Hand Combat, which will grant the benefit of Hand-to-Hand, Martial Arts, and Advanced Martial Arts if the DO has them but NOT Boxing, which must be offered separately)

Exceptions to this offering is the Defiler skills Spellcasting and alchemy, and the Dark Oppressor skills Lord over Domain and Pledge Vassals.

Each skill is granted multiple additional options. The first options involve the option of subsidizing the MP cost of the skill, if there is one. Subsidization CAN bring a DO into negative MP (very DEEP into negative MP if their pactholders make heavy demands!), but if the DO holds any Soul Ice they automatically consume it (for no AP cost) to return to positive MP. Four options for subsidization are available and all four may be chosen:
Full (Dark Oppressor pays all MP costs)
Low MP (if the caster does not have MP, the Dark Oppressor will cover the cost)
Split (The DO and caster split cost 50/50, with any rounding up being paid by the DO)
Split-Low (Split cost until caster can no longer pay, then DO pays full cost)

The next option offers the option of immediate repayment of the use of the skill. Usually, if the skill has a material effect (such as creating items, or granting an award) the DO gains a portion of this benefit.

Pact Power
The Power of a Pact is a value between 1-1000 that determines the strength of the pact. Adding abilities grants base Pact Power, with stronger abilities (such as high CP skills, or skills that derive benefits from trees) granting higher Pact Power. Spells and Alchemy Formulas grant the lowest pact power. Note that Desecration also has no options save for repayment (which is always offered), or effect on Pact Power.

Offering any subsidization options will increase the Pact Power of each ability, but only the highest chosen effect matters (Full, Split-Low, Low, Split). Offering a repayment option lowers the Pact Power of that ability.

A Dark Oppressor's pacts not only cost 1 MP for every 50 Pact Power of the final pact, but are limited in Pact Power to the number of vassals the DO may have times 10. This means that a level 30 DO with all proper skills can have a Pact Power of 1000, while a DO good enough to be a Master of a Stygian domain can create pacts with Pact Powers of up to 1500.

The Power of the pact is relevant to both Dark Oppressor, and would be pactmaker.

Using the pact
A pact that has never been used is "uninvoked", and may be traded freely between characters (that are not, of course, alts of the Dark Oppressor). A Neutral or Good character has the option to "Burn" a Pact, which destroys it for 1 AP and 1 MP for every 50 Pact Power but they will gain 1 MO for every 100 Pact Power. One that IS invoked may not be dropped or traded any further: it is now bound to the debtor, even if the debtor pays off the pact. The option to Burn it remains if the character is Good or Neutral, but the results of turning ones back on a demonic pact are grievous indeed.

Invoking the pact is very simple. The Pact Holder simply "Uses" the Pact to open a Pact tab that lists all the skills offered by the Pact. The holder may choose any or all of the five abilities offered (desecration is always granted), as well as the duration they want to hold the abilities, to a maximum of 36 hours in increments of 6 hours. They may also choose any one of the subsidization options for each skill, as well as the enabling the repayment option for each skill. Increasing the duration of the Pact and choosing a subsidization option will increase the price of the pact in Pact Power, while choosing immediate repayment will lower the price in Pact Power. Once the pact options are chosen, the Pact Holder spends 1 AP to sign the Pact as well as 1 HP for every 50 Pact Power in price. In general the base power of a pact will allow all five chosen skills to be available for 24 hours, without any other options chosen, provided that those are not high powered skills. The Pact Power of the designated pact is charged to the pact, and the abilities are granted. All abilities remain through death: only the end of the pact dismisses those abilities.

Note that any character can only have ONE pact at a time active, and cannot even be GIVEN another pact while one is active. The character must wait until the pact has passed before invoking another pact. The only exception is invoking the currently active pact anew, either to add more abilities or extend already established ones, providing the pact has not been fully invoked and spent already! As long as there is Pact Power unspent in the Pact, the Pact can be invoked as many times as wished.

Repaying the pact
Once a debtor invokes a Pact, the Dark Oppressor immediately gains boons equal to 150% of the price of the Pact. Also determines the timeout of any particular pact debt: each pact debt lasts a maximum of 6.6 minutes (396 seconds) per point of debt incurred, with a minimum of 24 hours.

These boons can be used to draw benefits from that particular debtor similar to the way the debtor drew benefits from the Pact although with far more extensive options. The Dark Oppressor has access to ANY and ALL of the debtor's skills, as well as drain AP, MP, and HP (or even Dark Power if the debtor has it!), and temporary transfers of Max HP/Max MP/Inventory Capacity, or even peek into a debtor's inventory and make a direct material demand of a specific item! All abilities taken are restored once pact debt times out, and no sooner, even if the Dark Oppressor uses all of the boon immediately. However, the easiest and perhaps most common way to for a debtor to pay off a pact is simply to die. Whenever a debtor with active Pact Debt to a Dark Oppressor dies, the Dark Oppressor gains a Vestige pet that can develop unique abilities, and a small portion of the pact is paid.

The Vestige
A Soul Vestige is a special pet acquired by the Dark Oppressor in one of two ways. Either the debtor dies, or the Dark Oppressor rips it out of the still-living debtor's soul for 30 HP/MP of the debtor (which cannot kill the debtor, and instead charges additional MP for any HP not spent). However, if a debtor dies when the Dark Oppressor has an active Soul Vestige of them, the Soul Vestige gains a free Rejuvenation and "levels up" into a more powerful vestige, to a maximum of four levels. A Soul Vestige gains additional AP, HP, and MP as well as attack damage. A second level vestige will have an ability related to the second class of the debtor and attack flying targets, a third level vestige will have an additional ability related to the third class of the debtor, and a fourth level vestige can see invisible. The Dark Oppressor can rejuvenate Soul Vestiges at a cost of 5 + (5*Level) MP: 10 at 1st, to 25 at 4th. The Dark oppressor can even charge the MP cost of the rejuvenation to the debtor as a boon! Note that the Dark Oppressor can only summon Soul Vestiges providing the debtor is in active pact debt and does not already have a Soul Vestige summoned. Note to "level up", the Dark Oppressor must already have an active soul vestige of that particular debtor. If another debtor dies, it will summon or "level up" their specific vestige.

Ending a pact
Once a pact has been invoked, ending the pact is a trickier affair. The pact holder can burn the pact providing that they have no active pact debt on that pact. This will cost 1 HP and 1 MP for every 25 Pact Power of the pact, but also gains 1 MO for every 150 Pact Power. This damage CAN kill the pact holder.

On behalf of the Dark Oppressor, this is a much easier affair. If there is no pact debt, the Dark Oppressor simply spends the same about of AP and MP they spent crafting the pact. If there is pact debt, it's immediately sacrificed to the Dark Powers at the cost of HP, MP AND MO of the debtor, but both Dark Oppressor and debtor lose access to all benefits of the pact that are not set to time out from a prior pact debt. If the Dark Oppressor has benefits that have yet to time out due to pact debt, they are immediately lost and the Dark Oppressor gains Dark Power depending on the pact debt lost this way.

Vassals, Pacts, and Contracts
A Dark Oppressor's vassals gain the ability to draw even greater power (for slightly lower prices) from the pacts of their masters. A Vassal may invoke 150% of the Pact's Power, and the Dark Oppressor receives 130% of the Power drawn as a boon. This allows vassals to draw on pacts more deeply and/or often. Furthermore, a Dark Oppressor with Pledge Vassals gains the ability to make special pacts known as Contracts. The Dark Oppressor may create one Contract plus one more for every skill in the Pledge Vassal tree the Dark Oppressor possesses. Contracts are not counted toward the Dark Oppressor's normal pact limit.

Contracts may only be given to Vassals, and Vassals may destroy them, but gain no benefit from destroying them. A Contract is not much different from a pact except that always has the maximum Pact Power the Dark Oppressor can create regardess of what skills or options used, and it gains two more set skills that are permanently active on the Contract holder once the Contract is Invoked along with Desecration: Scribe Pact and Pledge Vassals.

A Contract holder with an active Contract (That is, one that has been invoked at least once) can offer their own limited pacts: They may offer up to three skills (on top of the mandatory Desecration), spells, or alchemy recipe of 20 CP or less that they possess, with the same restrictions on skill choice as Dark Oppressors (No spellcraft or alchemy). They may also draw boons from their debtors in a similar way (skills limited to 30 CP, no transfer of maximum attributes). The Dark Oppressor not only gains Dark Power when a Vassal's pact is invoked, but gains a boon from the Vassal equal to 30% of the pact's price. A Contract holder may craft one pact for every ten levels the Contract holder or Dark Oppressor has, whichever is lower (to a maximum of 3 if Contractor and Dark Oppressor is level 30).

A Contract holder may also have as many sub-Vassals equal the number of pacts they can make. Contractors may also manipulate and invoke Dark Power, but will always lose at least one point a day. If the vassal loses more than one point of Dark power on rollover (or whenever Dark Power is charged), any over the first point is awarded to the Dark Oppressor, BEFORE the Dark Oppressor makes their own Dark power tithe. Sub-Vassals are functionally Vassals of the Dark Oppressor, and may freely abandon their master for their master's master, if that Dark Oppressor has available slots.

As long as the Contract has been invoked at least once, the Desecration, Scribe Pact, and Pledge Vassals skills remain on the Vassal as long as the Contract exists and the Vassal remains in good standing. However, a Vassal can only destroy a contract by killing their Dark Oppressor master or otherwise freeing themselves from their servitude. This will have dire effects on the ex-vassal, especially if any pact debt is accrued. The Dark Oppressor can withdraw a Contract like any other pact, although the Contract is automatically withdrawn if the Dark Oppressor dismisses their Vassal. A Contractor that loses their contract loses all vassals and annuls all pacts completely. Any Dark power the Contractor has accrued is immediately transferred to the Dark Oppressor.


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Okay, I know I have more, but this is all I can work out right now, loves. Any thoughts?

[Mousus6]

Two things that occur to me, there are almost certainly going to be some T3 skills that are funky to pass to others so it is almost certainly worth limiting skill granting from vassal contracts or returned to the DO to T2 skills rather than finding skill after skill that is excitingly unbalanced in some combination.

The other one that stands out as relevant to my thoughts current gameplay loops is the temporary dark power for sub-vassals could easily run into a fascinating interaction with the unholy grail and I'm not sure what the ideal way to deal with that would be.

I could also see still wanting to cut back the options a little bit as it may well still be a little overwhelming on the pactee side in terms of what you want to select any given time. It may well be better for that to be fixed by the DO on pact creation without the option for the user to fine tune it each time.

Probably AP should be exempt from DO claiming as payback as that gives slightly too much opportunity to funnel AP to a single character.

[Atrele]

With the Unholy Grail, I'd say it's fair to say the Unholy Grail is above such issues and as such a Dark Oppressor Master has no right to the Dark power in the Unholy Grail, and will be unable to claim it from an Fallen ex-vassal. The Dark Oppressor will just have to live with the tax they receive and the knowledge that there are beings of evil far greater than they who have an interest in this struggle.

I will note that the reason that the DO can choose multiple subsidization options is to make them available. The pactee can still only choose one subsidization option.