Now, for something completely different!
Being able to hit your opponent at a distance, while he cannot hit you back, is an effective combat tactics, we've discussed about the matter once already. Despite that, there's no (semi-spell user) profession specialized in any, preferring either melee combat enhancement or elemental, magical, attacks. For my part, I guess that, after watching
Desperado , I fell in love with the concept of an expert in thrown weapons. Wanting to create such an expert, I found out the aforementioned points in RM2: you couldn't easily tweak an existing profession to such a concept.
So, I made my own, the
Mystic Sniper, a semi-spell user of Essence, though Mentalism would fit him as well!
--> skill costs: same as Beastmaster,
--> special skill costs:
- Thrown weapons 1/3,
- Juggling 1/3,
- Yadomejutsu 1/3,
- Brawling 1/3,
- Runes 14,
- Stargazing 4/12,
- Divination 6,
- Circle lore 10.
--> profession bonuses: +3 to thrown weapons BUT +2 to all other combat skills, +2 to athletic skills, +1 to concentration skills, +1 to general skills, +1 to medical skills, +2 to perception skills, +1 to subterfuge skills.
--> base spell lists:
- Essence's Perception, from the SL (Open Essence),
- Bladerunes, from the RoCoI (Arcane),
- Distractions, from the RoCoI (Nightblade base list),
- Range Weapon Mastery, which is the Weapon Mastery spell list from the SUC with the following spell replacements:
- 2) Bola,
- 5) Cabis/hurlbat,
- 6) Warhammer,
- 7) Kynac,
- 8) Javelin,
- 10) Long kynac,
- 13) Chegain,
- 17) Typh.
- Thrown Weapon Mastery,
- Phantom Ways.
Reasoning for the skill costs. There are fundamentally two Essence semi-spellusers: the Warrior-Mage and the Beastmaster. I didn't use the former because his costs were around the fact his spell lists have elemental directed spells, making the latter more appropriate.
Reasoning for the skill tweaks. They are the tweaks used by the Shaikan, the warrior-type specialized in thrown weapons, in the ArmsC, therefore an obvious choice on which to base my Mystic Sniper.
Reasoning for the profession bonuses. They are based on the bonuses of the Shaikan, corrected because the sum of the Shaikan bonuses doesn't equal 10. Notice though the little irregularity the Mystic Sniper has, with his +3 to thrown weapons whereas he only has a +2 to combat skills. My reasoning was that I didn't want to increase his combat bonus to +3 because that would have made him as efficient in general combat than any warrior-type, making him
very dangerous (unbalanced?) in combat, but I didn't want to lower his thrown weapon bonus to +2 either, since that would have made him less efficient in his own field than any other warrior-type.
Reasoning for the spell lists.
- A combat-oriented semi-spell user should have a spell list enhancing his combat prowess; since the Mystic Sniper is specialized in thrown weapons, Thrown Weapon Mastery was an obvious choice. However, even with it, the Mystic Sniper has a major default, compared to other fighters: he can easily lose his main weapon. The reason why is obvious, since he throws away his weapon; even with the Thrown Weapon Mastery spell list that allows him to increase his probability to get it back, chances remain high that he loses his main weapon. The answer to that problem is to give him a way to create temporary, one-use weapons. For that, the Weapon Mastery from the SUC was an appropriate answer, concept-wise; tweaking it to make it more range weapons-oriented made it an ideal answer.
- What was next? Well, at any level, a major help in combat is given through the enhancement bonus of used weapons; most fighters probably have their favourite weapon a +something, even if a mere non-magical +5 at low levels. Alas, weapons created through the Range Weapon Mastery spell lists don't have any bonus. I hence wanted a list giving temporary bonuses; permanent enchantments such as the ones given through alchemical, Magus and the like process were obviously useless. Two lists sounded appropriate, RoCoIV's Weapon Alterations and RoCoI's Bladerunes, with the latter a better choice because the bonuses it gives are only effective once, which is exactly what a Mystic Sniper needs.
- Since the Mystic Sniper fights from far away, I gave him Essence's Perception, so that he could spy on his targets from a distance.
- Another consideration I had for him was that, not only does he to see his target from afar, he also needs to be able to keep his distance! Three lists fitted the bill: Lofty Bridge, Highriding and Distractions. I didn't want the former, though, because of the Teleportation spells that are more IMO "travelling" spells than "staying at a distance". So, Distractions it was.
- At last, since a Mystic Sniper biggest asset is to avoid close combat, I estimated his usual tactics would be attacking from a distance, and usually by surprise, hitting from a hidden position then going back into hiding. As such, I wanted for him a spell list uniquely based on dissimulation, concealment, etc. Since no spell list is only focusing about the matter, I created my own, mixing several lists. Of course, since some spells, such as Invisibility, are cancelled as soon as the Mystic Sniper attacks, he still should develop his Stalk/Hide to the highest degree, so that he could attack while being invisible, become visible, hide through normal means long enough to become invisible again, etc. ^_^
Anyway, there. Enjoy!