I can understand removing or relocating who has access to soul absorb. Trying to fit it in, mechanically, feels like it would be a chore to do, properly.
I don't agree with removing the decline-centered focus of demons in favor of their skills just becoming a recolor of their Kai counterparts. Having the cost for demons to revive, for example, be solely at their own cost doesn't fit the image of a demon that I have in my mind. Having Demon teleport give a debuff instead of chipping away at their decline like it normally does is interesting, and I can see where the idea is coming from, but I can't say I agree with it. Decline absorb being the counter-balance to these two.
If the concern is that demons will eventually end up with a decline hitting the lower double digits, then a better solution would probably be to have decline absorb "refresh," the decline they would pass on, to a certain point. Have a cap that they couldn't go over, so people can't just stack up genetic-decline forever. That way if a demon plays their cards like a demon should, they don't lose anything for using their abilities.
In regards to the automatic hunting of demons, I don't think that removing their abilities will make it so they're any less of a target. People kill demons automatically, because they've got the IQ of a candy bracelet and won't stop just because of a few missing verbs. They'll probably still try it, so they can get that nifty status that tells them they're a good boy.
Instead of outright removing a skill(s), I think it'd be more fun to instead re-purpose or rework how revival/soul absorb could work.
Demons are assholes or want to gain something that benefits them or their own goal(s). So instead of having them only risk their decline and life to revive someone, why not shift the mechanics to reflect this. Instead of only shouldering the risk themselves, a demon would share the burden or take a 'fee' from the person they would be reviving. The fee would vary depending on how strong the demon is compared to the being they are intending to revive. If the being that would be revived by the demon is stronger, depending on the degree, the demon should try and siphon a portion of their 'Soul' to increase their own power for a temporary amount of time, but it'd permanently take away from the revived person. The catch is, if the person is MUCH stronger than the demon, the risk goes up based on the gap, and would start to take away the decline of the demon as a result, and the person being revived would have a harder time being brought back to their full power, if at all. There would need to be some kind of capacity limitation on how much could be taken from the target based off the strength of the user to prevent them from gaining too much from this. The reason behind this would be kind of like a battery. If a battery has the power to turn on a device, there wont be much of an issue. However, if the device requires much more power than the battery required, you get much poorer performance, if anything from it. So if a weaker demon tries to revive some SWOLE MOFO, that demon would have a low chance to revive the person, risk using his own decline to give them life, and potentially not only weaken the person they tried reviving, but not even revive them at all on top of it all. This would also make it so that demons(or kai as well if the % scales off of the power gap) have less risk of death to revive some of the smaller guys/weak folk who had died and can prove to be useful. That way instead of only the bigger fellows getting a chance of coming back, more often than not, it'd potentially make them less hesitant to do so with reason. So, instead of outright removing Soul Absorb (not saying it will be), it'd feel more appropriate to combine it with Demon Revive. Because as is, only the demon shoulders risk after using the skill which is very 'not for profit' of them mechanically. | |
Ciez wrote:
Instead of outright removing a skill(s), I think it'd be more fun to instead re-purpose or rework how revival/soul absorb could work. I feel you on this(+1) | |
I retract my +1 (Netro) because this is way too abusable for people like Gula. As anyone at all could use Demon Teleport to take people back and forth to and from the Afterlife with no consequences.
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People play demons how they want, they shouldn't be auto-attacked because of a pre-existing stigma behind them.\
I'm not sure of anyone whose one appeal to playing demons is getting decline, in-fact I've heard that it's a real bitch having to do it to begin with.
Come back with another alt next time.