Bunch of crazy ideas for new items (in General)

1. Amulet of Tutelage

Basically, a somewhat reversed rune of enlightenment, a supporter item most probably.
It drains 20% of the total XP gain of your team from the minion it is placed on (4/5 of all XP gain of a single minion in a 4-minion team, or 1/5 of all XP gain in a single-minion team) and grants the team's tattoo that extra XP.

You might allow multiple amulets on multi-minion teams, allowing up to 80% of the team's XP gain to go directly into the tattoo XP as long as they are being .
Of course, max tattoo level limitations still apply, so you can't level it above max tattoo level.
A single amulet would still not allow a regular tattoo to grow up to the max tattoo level, but two of them would (and you would have to alternate between 1 and 2 amulets used to keep a balance so no XP is lost), and you would need up to 4 amulets to even begin to hope keeping a lesser tattoo up to maxlevel.
It would however open up the possibility of temporarily sacrificing most MPR gains in order to level the tattoo to max level.

This item would be especially helpful for the "top players", which couldn't ever hope to get a tattoo of the maxlevel they can use right now.
It would slow down their short-term growth, but help them in the long run.

It would also benefit NUBs/NCBs that want to grow some tats as fast as possible, without the constant need to insta-up, while also providing a better XP-on-minion management in multiple minion teams (but without the +20% total growth bonus a RoE grants), making EEF, EEEF or even WEEF teams quite feasable (let alone provide an excellent RoBF counter in form of junctioned Ice Familiars).
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2 and 3. Etherial Shroud and Etherial Mail

These two armor pieces (a cloak and a body armor) would not grant any AC at all, but instead each + on them would grant a (say, ballpark figure) 1% (cloak) and 2% (mail) chance of IGNORING a direct damage spell entirely (including Decay).
Think of it as the very rough equivalent of evasion, but for magic spells.

As an extra drawback, any EO and DD spells trained by that character are nullified (set to 0 level), so single mages won't be able to wear this, nor can single tanks sporting AMF (ab)use it either.
Obviously, since it's a body armor and cloak, you can't use it in conjunction with a tattoo on the same minion, so no junction effects either.
Also, since it doesn't grant any AC at all, when the spells hit, they hit harder as usual, so it might not always be the best option for tanks nor walls at all either.

Again, it simply provides strategical options.

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4, 5 and so on. Lacking good names for any of them.

Basically, a set of items of moderate Armor Class, no spell penality, low or no skill penality (but possibly either heavy DX penality, or even a heavy ST penality, alongside, why not, even EO/ED penalities)... I mean, other than the only one existing right now that somewhat fits the profile, namely Mithril Chain Mail.

NOTE: the PR weight of these armor pieces needs to be LOW, I was thinking 0.1 maximum.

In other words, a set of armor with no particular benefits (but low added PR) that can grant a mage a decent AC level... if wall or heavy tank armor can reach 400 or so (with heavy skills/DX penalities) with naming and within less than 100 mil NW, what if around 300 would be doable with mage armor under the same circumstances ?
The double DX/ST penality might be necessary to avoid making it the prefred armor set of light tanks / evasion wall hybrids.

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Yeah, I know, a lot of text, but still.
Comments ?
:)

I like your ideas. I can really see how implementing all of these things would add a lot to the game, in a lot of different ways. I also like how you specified them in certain ways, so that they're balanced.

One thought hit me, though, when you mentioned the RoE and the AoT: What if there were a 2-minion team, one with an RoE equipped, and the other with an AoT? Then 2/5 of the second minions experience would go to the RoE, which then multiplies it by 120% and grants that to the tat-user? That could definitely be an interesting way to combat XP dilution, if the second minion is, for example, an enchanter who is getting way too much XP to know what to do with.

I also thought the Ethereal Shroud and Mail were quite creative, though I think one of the inherent advantages of DD is the fact that it doesn't miss (which is counterbalanced by AMF's dual reduction/backlash already.)

Thank you for your suggestions. I give them an official Colonel Custard thumbs up!

Some more ideas:

-->How about Reflective Plate that has AMF built in? It should be tough to forge (think HoD) or blacksmith only; with the % of DD reflected being based off the enchantment level?

As an additional drawback, if needed, ED spells would have a % of their effects 'reflected' off the wearer into nothingness (lost). This would discourage single-minion tanks wearing RP and training AMF at the same time; counterproductive.

-->In general, how about some ST/DX penalties for bigger weapons. I'm thinking the 'weapon-speed' factor from DnD. Larger weapons like a MH are surely more powerful, but the only real limitation for a user is that it costs a lot and is rare. If there was some kind of ST/DX penalty for using such a large-bore hammer, that might open up more strategies for characters using 'smaller' weapons.

Thank you a lot for the encouragement :)

Hmm, the RoS+AoT combo didn't even cross my mind, it would indeed be a quite powerfull combo for multi-minion teams.
The math would go like this...

2 minions, RoE on 1st, AoT on 2nd
2nd minion : 50%*3/5 = 30% XP
1st minion : 20%+50%*7/5 = 90% XP
Total 120% XP team gain, 1st minion is x3 XP compared to 2nd

3 minions, RoE on 1st, AoT on 2nd, nothing on 3rd
3rd minion : 33.33% XP
2nd minion : 33.33%*2/5 = 13.33% XP
1st minion : 20%+33.33%*8/5 = 73.33% XP
Total 120% XP team gain, 1st minion is (aprox) x5.5 XP compared to 3rd and x2.2 XP compared to 2nd minion.

3 minions, RoE on 1st, AoT on 2nd and 3rd
3rd and 2nd minion : 33.33%*2/5 = 13.33% XP
1st minion : 20%+33.33%*11/5 = 93.33% XP
Total 120% XP team gain, 1st minion aprox x7 XP compared to 2nd and 3rd minion

etc

That's intense. I want one.

I've got one:

The Platter:

A shield that gives a boost to Unarmed Combat. Base AC in the single digits, with an upgrade curve that makes it affordable to get up to about +15, and that's it. The idea is that it's a piece of metal that, when used properly, by someone trained in Unarmed Combat, for example, can be used fairly well to block blows, as well as to smack someone in the face with in between parries. It can also be used as a ranged weapon, but it's single-shot, with crappy accuracy (say 10% at base, and then 2% extra for every point upped). I'm trying really hard to make this idea worse. Please help me out.
For a downside, it gives a DX penalty, because it's a random piece of metal you grabbed off the table, and therefore is not designed for use in combat, and is rather unwieldy. The DX penalty goes down slightly with upgrades (just like its accuracy increases slightly), because the process of forging makes it gradually smoother, lighter, and more aerodynamic, depending on the skill of the forger. If you pull a Mushu, though, the DX penalties and accuracy crappiness increase proportionally, in addition to losing 50% of the Rough Progress Meter.

This is a joke. Flame me.