Things to do with Empathy, eh? They're not all necessarily high level material, but that's okay. I'd like to:

-Contest my Empathy skill directly against an attack made against someone else, reducing the damage they take based on how successful I am.

-Temporarily project emotional states onto objects, mostly weapons, armor, shields, and crafting tools. These states should have actual literal effects on how those objects perform their respective functions. That guy's weapon is actually angry and looking to hurt something. There should be both beneficial and detrimental effects.

-Use LINK in reverse to help someone else be able to do something better. A way to unite several minds to the benefit of all of them would be cool, too. I'd like to be able to do such a thing even in combat.

-Do something horribly detrimental to undead beings. I still want to be able to unmake them, but I'd settle for negatively affecting them somehow at this point. Failure to develop this has been one of the greatest disservices to the guild to date.

-See post #903 in the Suggestions folder.

That's all I've got at the moment.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

These are some fantastic ideas.

>>-Contest my Empathy skill directly against an attack made against someone else...

Yes. But you have to be linked with the person at the time. And part of the wounds appear on you (a sort of instant transfer, but can protect them from insta-death from complete destruction of a part).

>>-Temporarily project emotional states onto objects

I like it, but more along the lines of aligning the dimensions or the "flow" of the item in an "angry" manner, rather than making the item actually angry. I could see this being very useful for enchanting, and possibly have a very slight effect on everyday items -- say, increasing the balance of a weapon by 1 point.

>>-Use LINK in reverse to help someone else be able to do something better...unite several minds...in combat.

++ to all three.

>>-Do something horribly detrimental to undead beings.

Yes. Maybe if it required the Empath to be very still and took a longish time?

Other ideas:

- Empathy alignment. Make it so you can align to a certain race, animal, or even plants. Aligning to a race would make it easier to heal that race, also to tend, LINK, shift, cast spells on, and track them via HUNT. Aligning to a certain animal would make it easier to track, dodge, and skin. (Though this would not work on constructs/undead.) Aligning to plants would give a foraging bonus. Any alignment also comes with a penalty -- e.g., if you align to Gnomes you are automatically less-aligned vs. Gor'Togs.

- MYCHAR interaction. I'm pretty sure the MYCHAR verb sees almost no use. But it would be a neat RP perk if Empaths could sense when someone they are linked with uses this verb to express a feeling. E.g. "MYCHAR feels overwhelmed with fear at the sight of the dragon." This would send a message directly to any linked Empaths, possibly to non-linked Empaths if skilled enough.

- Special Empath-Moon Mage interaction via Seer's Sense. Allows the Empath to detect and strengthen the Seer's link by LINKing to the Moon Mage. Gives the Empath the ability to receive info about the mage, and the mage ability to see more health info about the Empath. Could be other benefits.


-- Player of Eyuve

I thought I mentioned a spell/ability that would allow an empath to heal multiple patients at once. This would be different than creating several links at the same time and trying to heal everyone. I'm thinking more along the lines of the cleric room rejuv, or an advanced Regeneration spell that pulses healing to all members of the empath's group, provided the empath focus/concentrates on it. I'd love to see uber high perceive health/empathy be used for more than healing just one person at a time.

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We've decided that instead of spells Paladins will be a new arm of the Bard guild utilizing interpretive dance moves.

~GM Zeyurn

>>I thought I mentioned a spell/ability that would allow an empath to heal multiple patients at once. This would be different than creating several links at the same time and trying to heal everyone. I'm thinking more along the lines of the cleric room rejuv, or an advanced Regeneration spell that pulses healing to all members of the empath's group, provided the empath focus/concentrates on it. I'd love to see uber high perceive health/empathy be used for more than healing just one person at a time.

I like this idea and have mentioned something similar to this as a possibility before, but I haven't run it past the Powers That Be as yet.

Melete

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[Turmis] I'm about to shoot beards in the face

>>+ Manipulate [person] understand - uses your empathy skill to force someone to feel the pains of empathic restraints. It's a save vs will "attack". They would get the touch ability and >>suffer shock for taking any offensive action. Shock (in practice a stun/nerve damage) is only present while the link is active and all consequences fade when the link breaks

I haven't figured out exactly why yet, but I LOVE this idea. Do you imagine the link is only present while you're in the room with a person, the same as a healing link?

I would also think this would be particularly effective against necromancers or constructs, forcing them to feel what they have forsaken/cannot because they are risen.

~Player of ChelmorAes

>> For years I have secretly imagined empaths can do this. If this was made a game mechanic reality I might make strange SQUEE noises in real life for days. Even if it was fairly limited and only worked on say, one attack, I would use the heck out of it. I can see doing funny things to creatures while hunting with that ability.

I had seen it as a way of protection, so same room only. Basically a "sure, you can kill me; but you'll be wounded by your own sword/eye for an eye move." The idea of casting/manipulating it on a creature gave me a real life chuckle. I imagined a goblin falling to the ground writhing in pain on each swing.

As for the constraint, I thought it would be the same as a healing link. In the same room - kept active for a short amount of time unless refreshed, and would break if the empath fell or left the room. Higher levels of empathy could probably resolve the empath falling bit, but it would be nice if you could keep the link open if the target left the room (prevents them going east, hiding, stalking west, sniping). Maybe a disc drain that pulsed irregularly. It increased substantially as the target went further and further away, but would refresh if you saw (or could sense) someone with perceive health?

I don't know if this was suggested yet, but I'd love to see higher level Empathy start emulating how the First Empaths functioned, only lower in scale and focused in a way that permits IC "functionality" (or maybe not?).

1) Being able to generate a "healing vacuum" of sorts, where simply BEING in a room and flipping a mental switch has the Empath start absorbing wounds. No touching everyone required.
2) Being able to "direct" wounds to new locations. You can absorb head wounds in your hand, leg wounds in your back, etc.
3) Empathic Links that hold for longer distances, which then expands into the next two points.
4) Being able to detect life at a "wider" (and more complex?) range, and express that knowledge to a target. Say Empath X is linked to Barbarian Y. Empath X uses his Empathy skill mixed with his perception skill to detect that Thief Z is two rooms away and hiding (Empathy controls the range and Perception controls the detection in this situation). Empath X is THEN able to send that knowledge via a that link to his Barbarian friend, who can then actually point out the Thief because of the Empath working by proxy through the Barbarian's eyes.
5) Being able to provide vitality at a distance, similar to how Clerics can provide spirit at a distance. This then can later become outright at a distance, too. So a Paladin could be in the thick of things while linked to an Empath a few miles away.

Just some thoughts on possible abilities for higher level empaths:

1. Group Combat Mechanic: The empath can link with everyone in the particular group and take wounds as they are received by the group members. Upside: Protects the group longer, Downside: The empath must concentrate fully on the task and can not heal during this time period and must break the link to heal up himself or others.

2. Combat Triage: The empath can place a patient in a self-induced coma while he/she works on other patients. Upside: While in the coma, the patient heals a bit over time and no further loss of vitality happens while in the coma, Downside: The patient is in a coma and can do nothing.

NOTE: Potential offensive use but hard to kill the target because of the self-healing component.

3. Anti-Weapon Abilities: Weapons cause harm and this is contra to the philosophy and life of an empath. Because of this adversity between healing and injury inducing weapons, the empath has the ability to cause a weapon to cease doing damage for a period of time.

4. Mental Aspects: To invoke empathy also leads to the ability to invoke greater emotions. The empath can focus her pain into the mind of another once a link is established. Basically, this is MB for an empath or a nerve-damaging ability|spell.

Good luck in your abilities empaths! I hope some of these suggestions make sense.

Madigan

I always liked the idea of an Empath being able to go into a state in which their Empathy allows them to perceive incoming threats, and avoid them accordingly. Since this would be a different paradigm of Empathy use than healing, they may be unable to cast healing spells while within this state, but would accordingly gain an evasion/armor/parry boost scaled to their Empathy skill.

Interesting general direction, but I really don't like the specifics you've suggested. Empathy should be able to do something immensely detrimental to undead beings and/or other applications of Necromancy without being crippling to the Empath. And we need abilities that we're actually supposed to use, not more of this forbidden nonsense that Shift introduced. The guild itself teaches exactly one ability (the Transference of injuries), and that's utterly ridiculous. So yay on ways to combat Necromancers in some manner, but boo on the idea of making it a rogue ability that also destroys ourselves in the process.

Thanks,
-Life Sustainer Karthor

>>You don't think manipulate is an ability taught by the guild?

No.

http://elanthipedia.org/w/index.php/Manipulate_ability

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TG, TG, GL, et al.

"Disagreement with the fundamental plan at this point is akin to supporting Richard III vs the Tudors."
-Raesh