Paladin Class v 1.07 - now with Whirlwind

[CCCenturion]

Torchlight's Paladin class is here!

Most recent update: Version 1.07 is now available on the new RGF website (follow the link above).
Updates:
1) Added a Whirlwind skill to the Zealot tree. A placeholder skill was included in version 1.06; I have now updated the animation and stats for the skill. It still needs a new icon, though, and the animation needs a bit of editing (which is something I can't do on my own), but it's good enough for now.
2) Added a new skill icon for Vengeance, courtesy of Phanjam.
3) Rebalanced (somewhat) Holy Hand Grenade, Angelic Fury, and Vengeance. These updates weaken the character a bit, so if you enjoyed playing in God Mode, you might want to save older copies of those skills.




Version 1.06, posted 8/31/10. Updates:
1) Added an affix called Holy Blast to the Holy Bolt skill. This is a curse that affects the enemies you strike with a Holy Bolt. Their subsequent attacks will cause explosions to go off, damaging the monsters standing around them. The Holy Blasts will not do any damage to you or to the monster who is causing them.
2) Holy Hand Grenade no longer damages you and your pets.
3) Healing Spirit now has a unique skin (see above; thanks again, Phanjam!).
4) New skill icons for Thunder Punch, Healing Spirit, and Sanctuary (also by Phanjam; Vengeance is on its way too).
5) Added a Desummon skill that releases your Guardian Angel and Healing Spirit. (Rank 1 when you start the game, and you can't add more skill points to it.)
6) Changed Guardian's sword to an epic Sword of the War God. (Probably too powerful for early ranks; I'll work on this.) There were some problems with the earlier unique sword disappearing -- please let me know if there are still problems with this one!
7) Added new animations (thanks Jarcho!) to Vengeance and Holy Bolt.
8) Added a new skill that is still a work in progress. For now it has the working title "Slice-N-Dice", but that will be fixed in patch 1.07, which will hopefully come out soon. (Just waiting for the animation file to be finished.)
9) This last skill is taking the place of Ring of Fire in the Zealot tree. (I'll still include the RoF files in the mod package.) Ring of Fire is getting the axe for three reasons:

a) I never could get the particle effects and the damage effects to sync properly.
b) I was never really happy with how the particle effects turned out.
c) I'm not too crazy about the idea of a "click the mouse and everything on screen dies" kind of skill.


1.05.1 now posted. This minor bug fix enforces the shield requirement for Thunder Punch.

Version 1.05, posted 7/22/10. This version includes two new skills and modifications to Thunder Punch, Wind Wall, Holy Hand Grenade, and Shield Mastery. Thunder Punch now uses a faster animation speed as the skill level increases (which, coupled with Vigor, makes for a very fast melee attack). Wind Wall now has a fixed 33% chance to reflect missiles, returning 20% damage per skill level. Holy Hand Grenade has a new explosion effect, since the old one was bugged and was too similar to what I ended up using for Vengeance. Shield Mastery now provides slightly less of an armor bonus, but added chance to block, chance to interrupt enemy attacks, and lower chance of being interrupted.

The new skills replace Concentrate and Resurrection. They are seriously overpowered right now (which may be a good thing, depending on your philosophy), so I would love to hear some feedback. Here they are:

Vengeance: Based on the Diablo 2 Paladin skill with the same name, this is a melee attack that adds a powerful blast of elemental damage (Fire, Lightning, and Ice). Major fireworks on this one.

Healing Spirit: This skill summons a Healing Spirit to accompany you and cast healing and defensive spells to protect you. The spirit uses Syl's model and casts a healing spell and gives you a protective force field. I'm not exactly sure how strong her spells are, so I'd love to hear some feedback on this one. (Also, she needs a reskin; Theo is busy with another project right now but if anyone is up to the task, I'd love to see what you can come up with. I'd like to make her translucent, and bear as little resemblance to Syl as possible.)


Version 1.04, posted 7/5/10. I have not been able to post the mod to its usual page on RGF, which is apparently undergoing maintenance. So for the time being you can download it at mediafire.. The major updates in 1.04 consist of new item and skill icons (courtesy of Theo), a new layout for the Holy Bolt skill, and bug fixes for the layouts to Ring of Fire and Blinding Light.


Version 1.03, posted 6/22/10. Theo Romanus responded to a special request of mine to create a new skin for the resurrected Brink, and it looks spectacular! Also in this mod, I have fixed a bug with the Guardian Angel skill that lets you summon up to 10 Guardians at once (provided you summon one at each level). However, if your Paladin currently has an active Guardian (or several), this mod will cause the game to crash when you attempt to use the skill. There are two possible solutions: install the mod but don't use the skill until your current Guardian is dead, or wait until your current Guardian is dead before you install the mod. (Either way, don't use the new skill until your current Guardian is dead!)

All of the skills are now developed, but still have a bit of polishing off to do. I would love to hear any feedback, suggestions, bug reports, etc., that you may have.
I would also appreciate any help with creating some new skill icons. Gale's icons are great, but not always the best fit for this set of skills.

Special thanks to Theo Romanus for creating the Whitecloak skin for the Vanquisher class. (Hopefully you like what I've done with it.) Thanks also to cienislaw's wardrobe fixer, making it possible to use distinct wardrobes for classes based on the same model.




Zealot Tree
Concentrate - slow melee attack against a single opponent that grants a large chance to score a Critical Hit. (Modified version of Stab.)
Thunder Punch - enchant your shield with electrical energy and use it to bash your enemies. (Cloned from Soul Rend, changed animation to left slash, shield required.)
Angelic Fury - launch a volley of enchanted flames to burn enemies in front of you. (Implemented Flame Wave, an unused Alchemist skill.)
Aura of Charisma - grants a chance to convert enemies around you to fight on your side.
Holy Hand Grenade - Ka-BOOM! (cloned Pyre + Wind of Justice; changed WoJ damage type from ice to physical; I think I may need to tone down the knockback effect a bit.)
Ring of Fire - calls down fire from heaven to burn and terrify your enemies.

Guardian Tree
Cyclone Kick - powerful roundhouse kick that sends your enemies flying back. (Slash Attack, using a kick animation, powerful knockback bonus, decreased damage)
Shield Mastery - increases your defense when using a shield.
Wind Wall - passive missile reflection skill. (I originally intended to make it an active missile deflection skill, but it was just too hard to get the timing right.)
Aura of Intimidation - weakens your enemies, decreasing the damage they do and increasing the damage they take. (Applied the Frailty affix to Entropic Aura.)
Sanctuary - permanently increases your resistance to elemental attacks. (Passive skill.)
Guardian Angel - summons a fallen comrade to help you in battle. (Adapted the Summon Brink scroll from the Brink the Merc mod by Adastra, and increased the merc's strength at each rank of the skill.)

Priestess Tree
Holy Bolt - fires a magical missile at your enemies. (Currently using Seeking Shot, but I would prefer to have it look like Frost Pilum, while keeping the seeking effect.)
Blinding Light - a wave of energy that stuns your opponents. (Adapted from Blastwave, unused Destroyer skill.)
Vigor - permanently increases your movement, attack, and cast speeds. (Passive skill.)
Path of Glory - greatly increases your running speed and leaves a trail of fire behind you, burning enemies in your path.
Aura of Compassion - restores health to you and your allies.
Resurrection - revives the bodies of fallen adventurers to attack your foes. (Adapted from the gravediggers' "dig up skeletons" skill. Higher ranks decrease the cooldown time between raising skeletons.)


During its developmental stages, I had called this class the Valkyrie. Expectations are always going to be high when someone starts making a Paladin class for any RPG. However, this led to conflicts with the popular Gender Mod, and had to be changed eventually. I've decided that the time has come for a name change for three reasons: All of the skills are fully developed. The other Paladin class being developed by Orakk has been abandoned. (I've been in touch with Orakk; he stopped working on his class a few months ago.) There has been enough positive feedback from other players that I feel confident the class is ready to live up to its name.


COMPATIBILITY ISSUES: This mod conflicts with any of the other custom class mods. I highly recommend installing Torchleech to deal with these... Torchleech will automatically detect compatibility issues between your mods and allows you to temporarily deactivate mods that are causing conflicts.

[rpglover]

Cool class!! Can't wait for the final to come out. Here is a skill that you might be able to put to good use. In Wizardry 8 the valkyrie had a skill that gave her a percetage rate to cheat death, maybe you could come up with a way to fashion that into a skill somehow. Keep up the good work.

[CCCenturion]

Cool class!! Can't wait for the final to come out. Here is a skill that you might be able to put to good use. In Wizardry 8 the valkyrie had a skill that gave her a percetage rate to cheat death, maybe you could come up with a way to fashion that into a skill somehow. Keep up the good work.

Interesting idea. I think it could be do-able, since having low health is a game event that triggers you character saying "my health is low"... maybe I can come up with a skill that gives the "low health" event a chance to trigger a very speedy health recovery (not full health of course, but maybe like half of a health potion or something). I'll see what I can come up with, but don't expect final results soon. I still need to overhaul 12 skills here.

By the way, if anyone wants to lend a hand in developing skills for the class, I'd be glad to share my ideas for what I want the skills to do. Just PM me.

[Torchlover]

You are missing a line in your classcreate file...

<Property Name="ID" Value="11" />

If two classes have the same id value there may be some kind of conflict later.

[CCCenturion]

You are missing a line in your classcreate file...

<Property Name="ID" Value="11" />

If two classes have the same id value there may be some kind of conflict later.

Oops. I should note that I made my classcreate file using ugmojoe's Class Creator. If anyone is interested in trying this class (or any other fanmade classes, for that matter), I can't possibly overstate the usefulness of that program for keeping your mod classes straight.

[TomaLexi]

Hey. Added this mod to the Ultimate Modlist Thread Website. Let me know if you want the description to be changed by telling me in the Ultimate Modlist Thread or via PM (:

[NEW CLASS] Valkyrie is now playable, still WIP though
Here's my take on a female Paladin-type class. I have unique skills in mind, but right now I just included placeholder skills
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8905

[Kiba]

(Theo Romanus N designed the Whitecloak skin I've used in this mod.)

Here's my take on a female Paladin-type class. I have unique skills in mind, but right now I just included placeholder skills, all borrowed from other classes, using the skills I feel are most similar to what I have in mind for the final version. I'm releasing version 1.0 so people can play around with it and give me feedback.

Keep in mind, this is still a work in progress; none of the skills (other than the 15 shared passives) have been customized. See the readme file for more details on what I have planned. Right now I'm mostly interested in how people like the gameplay of the class, to see if I've picked out a good mix of skill types.

You can download the mod here.

Have fun, and let me know what you think!

Really good looking character, in the process of downloading now ^-^.

[CCCenturion]

UPDATED 12/11/09
Some of the files I needed for the wardrobe to display correctly were stored in other mods on my computer; I've added them to the latest version. Sorry about that.

However, I'm still having problems getting the Whitecloak wardrobe to display on the Valkyrie unless I also have them applied to the Vanquisher. So until I fix that problem, your Vanquisher characters will be wearing Valkyrie clothes when this mod is installed. The frustrating thing is that at one point I had it working properly, but then I changed something and now it's messed up again.

As for actual development of the class, I've made progress on a couple of the skills, but still have lots of work to do. Keep checking for updates!

[Kiba]

UPDATED 12/11/09
Some of the files I needed for the wardrobe to display correctly were stored in other mods on my computer; I've added them to the latest version. Sorry about that.

However, I'm still having problems getting the Whitecloak wardrobe to display on the Valkyrie unless I also have them applied to the Vanquisher. So until I fix that problem, your Vanquisher characters will be wearing Valkyrie clothes when this mod is installed. The frustrating thing is that at one point I had it working properly, but then I changed something and now it's messed up again.

As for actual development of the class, I've made progress on a couple of the skills, but still have lots of work to do. Keep checking for updates!

So, i might just wait till it's complete ill keep checking, got the raw version of it at the moment its fun still ^-^.

[Vector]

For a custom class armor skin pack, you need custom item files (that can't be generated by the class creator)

All ~1100 items the class creator would make for your class need to point to media/wardrobe/Valkyrie instead of media/wardrobe/vanquisher

At the moment, you'd need a custom script to pull this off... I've mentioned this issue to the class creator author, but until then...
If you know Python, editing the scripts posted by the author of the Necromancer mod to suit the job wouldn't be too hard, and I believe there are a few other scripts lurking around out there, but yeah...

[CCCenturion]

For a custom class armor skin pack, you need custom item files (that can't be generated by the class creator)

All ~1100 items the class creator would make for your class need to point to media/wardrobe/Valkyrie instead of media/wardrobe/vanquisher

At the moment, you'd need a custom script to pull this off... I've mentioned this issue to the class creator author, but until then...
If you know Python, editing the scripts posted by the author of the Necromancer mod to suit the job wouldn't be too hard, and I believe there are a few other scripts lurking around out there, but yeah...

Grrrrr... frustrating. Thanks for saving me the time, though. Sooner or later somebody's going to come up with that script. I'll just wait for that.

[Vector]

I got around to doing this for myself, figured you'd find it useful... modified version of nasarius' necromancer item patcher, adm.py is his entirely...
(nasarius' python files)

It pulls items directly from your TorchEd directory by default, which it expects in the default location, should be pretty obvious how you change it... it does read from .adm files rather than .dat files though, so if you want to use a set of modded files, you would need to have run Torchlight recently and have the .adms for them still...

It writes item file entries that expect to find their various assets in 'media/wardrobe/valkyrie' instead of 'media/wardrobe/vanquisher'
It also doesn't handle changes to item icons either... though that wouldn't be hard to pull off

Put wardrobe_fix.py in the base mod folder (ie ClassCreator or your mod folder) and run it from there, it will place items in './media/units/items/*'

You will also need to copy the entire contents of:
'TorchED/media/wardrobe/vanquisher' to 'Valkyrie/media/wardrobe/valkyrie'
(don't rename anything, and obviously don't overwrite anything that you already have in there)

wardrobe_fix.py

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Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import os
from copy import deepcopy

from adm import ADMFile, ADMNode

MEDIA_PATH = '%s/Runic Games/TorchED/media' % os.environ['PROGRAMFILES']
COPY_WARDROBE = {
    'VALKYRIE' : 'VANQUISHER',
}

def patch_wardrobe(root, fn):
    fpath = os.path.join(root, fn)
    adm = ADMFile(fpath)
    extra_nodes = []
    modified = False
    for (classto, classfrom) in COPY_WARDROBE.items():
        for n in adm.root.children:
            if n.name == 'WARDROBE' and n.get('CLASS') == classfrom \
                and n.get('MESH') is not None: # some (count=222) files have extraneous cruft? or a class restriction?
                valkyrie_wardrobe = deepcopy(n)
                valkyrie_wardrobe.set('CLASS', classto)
                meshto = n.get('MESH').replace('\\', '/')
                meshto = meshto.replace('media/wardrobe/%s' % classfrom.lower(), 'media/wardrobe/%s' % classto.lower())
                valkyrie_wardrobe.set('MESH', meshto)
                if n.get('TEXTURE') is not None:
                    textto = n.get('TEXTURE').replace('\\', '/')
                    if textto.find(classfrom.lower()) == -1:
                        textto = textto.replace('media/wardrobe', 'media/wardrobe/%s' % classto.lower())
                    else:
                        textto = textto.replace('media/wardrobe/%s' % classfrom.lower(), 'media/wardrobe/%s' % classto.lower())
                    valkyrie_wardrobe.set('TEXTURE', textto)
                if n.get('ITEM_MESH') is not None:
                    itemto = n.get('ITEM_MESH').replace('\\', '/')
                    itemto = itemto.replace('media/wardrobe/%s' % classfrom.lower(), 'media/wardrobe/%s' % classto.lower())
                    valkyrie_wardrobe.set('ITEM_MESH', itemto)
                extra_nodes.append(valkyrie_wardrobe)
                modified = True
    for n in extra_nodes:
        adm.root.children.append(n)
   
    relpath = './media/' + root[len(MEDIA_PATH)+1:]
    if modified:
        try:
            os.makedirs(relpath)
        except:
            pass
        outfn = '%s/%s' % (relpath, fn[:-4])
        fout = file(outfn, 'wb')
        fout.write(adm.root.toDAT().encode('utf-16'))
        fout.close()
        print 'patched %s with %d new class(es)' % (outfn, len(extra_nodes))
        return True
    return False

def main():
    pfcount = 0
    for root, dirs, files in os.walk('%s/units/items' % MEDIA_PATH):
        for fn in files:
            if fn.lower().endswith('.adm'):
                if patch_wardrobe(root, fn):
                    pfcount += 1
    print '%d files patched!' % pfcount
       

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

adm.py

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#!/usr/bin/env python

import ctypes
import struct

var_types = {
    1 : 'INTEGER',
    2 : 'FLOAT',
    3 : 'DOUBLE',
    4 : 'UNSIGNED INT',
    5 : 'STRING',
    6 : 'BOOL',
    7 : 'INTEGER64',
    8 : 'TRANSLATE',
}

var_tnames = dict((v,k) for k, v in var_types.iteritems())

class ADMNode(object):
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name
        self.variables = []
        self.children = []
       
    def toDAT(self):
        dat = ''
        dat += '[%s]\r\n' % self.name
        for v in self.variables:
            vtype, vname, vval = v
            dat += '<%s>%s:%s\r\n' % (var_types[vtype], vname, vval)
        for n in self.children:
            dat += n.toDAT()
        dat += '[/%s]\r\n' % self.name
        return dat
   
    def get(self, vname):
        for v in self.variables:
            if v[1] == vname:
                return v[2]
        return None
   
    def set(self, vname, vval):
        for v in self.variables:
            if v[1] == vname:
                v[2] = vval
                return
        raise KeyError
   
    def __repr__(self):
        return '<ADMNode %s>' % self.name

class ADMFile(object):
    def __init__(self, fn):
        self.fi = file(fn, 'rb')
        self.dat = self.fi.read()
        self.fp = 0
       
        fsize = len(self.dat)
       
        one = self.read_i32()
       
        handle_count = self.read_i32()
        self.rc = {}
        for i in range(handle_count):
            hkey = self.read_i32()
            hval = self.read_string()
            self.rc[hkey] = hval

        self.root = self.readNode()
                   
    def readNode(self):
        nodename = self.readString()
        anode = ADMNode(nodename)
        varcount = self.read_i32()
        for i in range(varcount):
            anode.variables.append( self.readVariable() )
        subnodecount = self.read_i32()
        for i in range(subnodecount):
            anode.children.append( self.readNode() )
        return anode
           
    def readVariable(self):
        vname = self.readString()
        vtype = self.read_i32()
        if vtype == 1:
            vval = self.read_i32()
        elif vtype == 5 or vtype == 8:
            vval = self.readString()
        elif vtype == 2:
            vval = self.read_float()
        elif vtype == 6:
            vval = str(bool(self.read_i32())).lower()
        elif vtype == 3:
            vval = self.read_double()
        elif vtype == 4:
            vval = self.read_u32()
        elif vtype == 7:
            vval = self.read_i64()
        else:
            raise Exception('unrecognized variable type %d' % vtype)
        return [vtype, vname, vval]
           
    def readString(self):
        return self.rc[self.read_i32()]
       
    def read_bytes(self, n):
        ret = self.dat[self.fp:self.fp+n]
        self.fp += n
        return ret
   
    def read_u32(self):
        return struct.unpack('I', self.read_bytes(4))[0]

    def read_i32(self):
        return struct.unpack('i', self.read_bytes(4))[0]
   
    def read_i64(self):
        return struct.unpack('q', self.read_bytes(8))[0]

    def read_float(self):
        return struct.unpack('f', self.read_bytes(4))[0]

    def read_double(self):
        return struct.unpack('d', self.read_bytes(8))[0]
   
    def read_string(self):
        slen = self.read_u32()
        return self.read_bytes(slen*2).decode('utf-16')

Also, if you'd like patched versions of the item files for use in your mod, I have them sitting around from testing, so PM me an email address and I'd be happy to send them to you.

EDIT: So I ran into some rather weird intermittent crash issues trying to replace the entire model directory... but also found that there's no need, the wardrobe directory works just fine all by itself for this purpose, updated my post accordingly

Not so intermittent, actually, it seems my game crashes the first time I try to load up a custom character mesh after clearing mod cache... only happens once after each cache clear, not sure what's up with that, but yeah

[CCCenturion]

Hey everyone, I'm going to need help finishing this class. Anyone who's interested, send me a PM or email me at nomadccc@yahoo.com if you're willing and able to customize a skill or two for me. You'll get a spot in the credits, of course.

[Agnonsupta]

Its a cool idea, but its too paladin-ish. In norse mythology, the Valkyrie was kind of an angel that escorted dead warriors from the battlefield to Ragnarok. In all the imagery that i've seen, they come in roughly 2 armored combat types: Sword/Shield, Polearm/Shield.

I kinda wished there was a female destroyer with it's own animations for the destroyer talents and the character model of the vanquisher. I also wished i had the knowledge to create my own classes. lol

[Rhyzard]

This class is promising!

[CCCenturion]

Good news folks, after taking a 3 month hiatus I've decided to get back to work on my class. Don't expect anything right away, but hopefully I'll be able to make steady updates over the next few weeks until it's done.

Its a cool idea, but its too paladin-ish. In norse mythology, the Valkyrie was kind of an angel that escorted dead warriors from the battlefield to Ragnarok. In all the imagery that i've seen, they come in roughly 2 armored combat types: Sword/Shield, Polearm/Shield.

I actually started this as a Paladin class. When I decided to call it something else and to use the Vanquisher model, I chose the name Valkyrie since the warrior angel motif shares a lot of the same themes as a holy knight.

And btw, Valkyries escorted dead warriors to Valhalla. Ragnarok was the Norse mythology equivalent of Armageddon, not the afterlife.

[Rhyzard]

Keep up the great work!

[VenomousRacoonKing]

I'd go for white leather skirt,

[CCCenturion]

Hey folks, I've posted an updated version of my mod over on RGF, so check out the original post to see what's new and where to download it. Any help from you TorchED experts in helping me polish off the class will be much appreciated, since I start a new job next week and will have very little time to work on my mod. I will still keep track of any work that other people are doing on the class. If you think you can get any of my skills working the way I've described them in the accompanying Excel file, PM me or email me and I will include your work in the next version of the mod.

Thanks, and enjoy!


P.S. Even though the class isn't finished yet, it is still very much playable. If you're not into modding, but want to play the class as it is now, I would love to hear feedback on any balance issues or other suggestions you may have.


EDIT: I've fixed the Shield Mastery skill so that's it's working the way it is meant to, and plan to upload a new version of the mod after I fix a few more skills. (I'll try to post updates as I come up with batches of 5 or 6 skills to add, or 1 or 2 skills that require a lot of work.) I also plan to release the Shield Mastery skill in a future mod that contains several passive skills that I've been working on.

[CCCenturion]

In case anyone is still interested, I should have a new update available some time next week. (I wish I could have it sooner, but work is keeping me busy.) In the next update, I should finally have all of the skills working, but I'm pretty sure there will be balance issues to fix. Wish me luck!

EDIT: Just to give myself a deadline, I'll post whatever I have by next Friday (the 30th). If I finish off all the skills sooner than that, I'll post them then. Right now I have 14 (out of 18) skills functional, with two more to be finished off soon. The last two will take a bit more work. Most of the functional skills need to be polished off a bit, but they're working well enough at the moment.