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Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Printable Version

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Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Nautilus - 03-17-2013

Once upon a time in Donut v1, the wizard role was completely replaced with the Illithid/Mindflayer which had the ability to turn people stupid before killing them. They generally had the same objectives and functions as a wizard but had a psychic attack as one of their default powers which had a major delay between uses. Ontop of that, I believe they had the ability to consume the brain of whoever they had in their grasp.

During the conversion between trunk to dev, a lot of the old features that were implemented by then weren't ported over. It'd be cool if the Illithid role could be brought back if only to change the objective of wizards having to corrupt the station, and instead rely on consuming/taking brains.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Veriox - 03-17-2013

I totally agree with this, it would also be pretty cool if there was more wizard variants that had their own special spells.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - ISaidNo - 03-17-2013

Could be done as an option for wizards from their spell book. Not sure what perks should come with being an ithillid though.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Anticheese - 03-17-2013

Head tentacles and the ability to use brains in spellcasting? Like eating them to refresh your cooldown, but extracting them takes a lot more time than shocking grasping a dude.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Dachshundofdoom - 03-17-2013

Anticheese Wrote:Head tentacles and the ability to use brains in spellcasting? Like eating them to refresh your cooldown, but extracting them takes a lot more time than shocking grasping a dude.

Yeah, if Illithid was a spellbook option, the wizard should get that (I guess it would work like Absorb DNA), plus maybe a slow-recharging Psionic Blast power that's functionally identical to the Vampire's hypnotic stare.

The head tentacles could let the wizard place any small item on their "mask" slot, giving them what amounts to a third pocket, but they'd have to remove it to eat a brain.

Maybe it should cause all your spells to recharge a little slower, just to balance it out and to encourage brain-eating? Then again, you have to keep in mind the major disadvantage: you're no longer human and the AI will be out for your blood even more than usual.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Nautilus - 03-17-2013

FYI there are already sprites available for the illithid somewhere deep in the recesses of the sprite assets, but this was before looking at different cardinal directions was implemented.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - atomic1fire - 03-17-2013

Make all the illithid's powers dependent on eating brains, and maybe give him some mind type powers.

e.g create space madness/paranoia, some kind of knockout spell, cast illusion, mind control, zombies?

Zombies could be pretty overpowered, but perhaps it could be the last ability that the mindflayer can unlock, because then the wizard has to eat like 30 brains before he even has a chance to summon zombies.

Zombies is probably a dumb idea, but it matches the whole brains thing. plus a good one will have plenty of corpses laying around.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Anticheese - 03-18-2013

30 brains is a shitload


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Klayboxx - 03-18-2013

Not if you disguise as a botanist and harvest synthbrains before you open up your spell book smile


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Anticheese - 03-18-2013

Synthbrains are just empty calories. [Image: QqErBGE.gif?1?5148]


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - atomic1fire - 03-18-2013

I figured I'd set the number arbitrarily high as a starting point so that it doesn't look like a dumb idea.

I just figure mind wizard would probably involve zombies in someway.

Also that blindness spell could probably work too.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Seizon - 03-18-2013

zombies are terrible end of story


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - FrontlineAcrobat4 - 03-18-2013

Seizon Wrote:zombies are terrible end of story
this exactly. No zombies at all and I'm fine with this


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - Nautilus - 03-18-2013

Just trying to remember the old features of the Illithid, I believe being near it would give that weird high pitched eagle screaming sound and you'd incur a bit of brain damage if you stick too close to it. Its main power was a psychic roar, which basically incapacitated a person for a certain length of time and made them go dumb the more it was done before eventually (I think this was after 5 successive hits) the person would just go brain dead. It also made the attackee's display flash different colours.

Now that doesn't mean if its reimplemented that the same features should be put in. Frankly the system for brain damage is really annoying, but I like the idea of the illithid making himself a bit of a beacon if he's in the proximity of people, with the other edge of that sword being he'd slowly drain the competence of people near him. What I'd like to see is a bit more of the nethack qualities added for the mindflayer, too...

I think it'd be great if the illithid could come with a blindfold, which he could willingly blind himself with to see all mobs in his screen regardless of physical obstruction, much like thermals. That way even though he broadcasts his relative location with the sound of psychic damage, he can get a more accurate representation of threats and ambushes. I'd say for game play purposes that the mindflayer should not get the ability to attack with his main psychic attack through walls because of 'interference' (but really because its lame not seeing the dude that's murdering you. See also why TK doesn't, or shouldn't atleast be able to effect people through sec cams). It might even give him the ability to see things if he closes his eyes for whatever reason (Gets knocked unconscious, gets cloned etc).

If there are multiple illithids or wizard/mindflayers, the dynamic needs to be ironed out. Illithids wouldn't effect other illithids, and would have psionic properties which don't allow them to get hurt by the illithid's main attack, and the attacking illithid is damaged instead due to feedback or something, idk, its a D&D rule. Wizards can probably stand to have more of a threshold to deal with the passive psionic attack as they are god damn wizards. If they get grasped by the mindflayer and the mindflayer takes a bite out of the wizard, the illithid gains one of the wizard's powers disincluding the lifeguard enchantment.

If the round is mixed, a Traitor himself should be able to protect himself relatively from an illithid. The radio jammer could have a secondary effect of preventing the passive psionic damage and dampening the main attack so the traitor has a chance of escaping. The idea behind it is that antagonists should be more against the station than each other, but I'm sure theres a cool mode idea behind having a wizard vs a traitor vs an illithid in there who decided to battle on the station, and everyone is just in the cross fire.

Space lubing, greasing and/or dabbing alkysine on helmets is a really good idea against illithids. However, I know that space lube also makes you untouchable for some reason and that negates an illithids ability to get psionic powers or whatever by eating a brain, so just say they have super advanced sticky hands which work like gecko feet or something and can still grab people.

Tin foil hats are a must. They don't actually help (Hell, I think an experiment proved they'd amplify signals if worn) but the fact people think it'd work is good enough for me, and frankly having a crew turn into paranoid fools sounds amazing.


Re: Bring back the Illithid/Mindflayer wizard varient! - bladex454 - 03-20-2013

Nautilus Wrote:Just trying to remember the old features of the Illithid, I believe being near it would give that weird high pitched eagle screaming sound and you'd incur a bit of brain damage if you stick too close to it. Its main power was a psychic roar, which basically incapacitated a person for a certain length of time and made them go dumb the more it was done before eventually (I think this was after 5 successive hits) the person would just go brain dead. It also made the attackee's display flash different colours.

Now that doesn't mean if its reimplemented that the same features should be put in. Frankly the system for brain damage is really annoying, but I like the idea of the illithid making himself a bit of a beacon if he's in the proximity of people, with the other edge of that sword being he'd slowly drain the competence of people near him. What I'd like to see is a bit more of the nethack qualities added for the mindflayer, too...

I think it'd be great if the illithid could come with a blindfold, which he could willingly blind himself with to see all mobs in his screen regardless of physical obstruction, much like thermals. That way even though he broadcasts his relative location with the sound of psychic damage, he can get a more accurate representation of threats and ambushes. I'd say for game play purposes that the mindflayer should not get the ability to attack with his main psychic attack through walls because of 'interference' (but really because its lame not seeing the dude that's murdering you. See also why TK doesn't, or shouldn't atleast be able to effect people through sec cams). It might even give him the ability to see things if he closes his eyes for whatever reason (Gets knocked unconscious, gets cloned etc).

If there are multiple illithids or wizard/mindflayers, the dynamic needs to be ironed out. Illithids wouldn't effect other illithids, and would have psionic properties which don't allow them to get hurt by the illithid's main attack, and the attacking illithid is damaged instead due to feedback or something, idk, its a D&D rule. Wizards can probably stand to have more of a threshold to deal with the passive psionic attack as they are god damn wizards. If they get grasped by the mindflayer and the mindflayer takes a bite out of the wizard, the illithid gains one of the wizard's powers disincluding the lifeguard enchantment.

If the round is mixed, a Traitor himself should be able to protect himself relatively from an illithid. The radio jammer could have a secondary effect of preventing the passive psionic damage and dampening the main attack so the traitor has a chance of escaping. The idea behind it is that antagonists should be more against the station than each other, but I'm sure theres a cool mode idea behind having a wizard vs a traitor vs an illithid in there who decided to battle on the station, and everyone is just in the cross fire.

Space lubing, greasing and/or dabbing alkysine on helmets is a really good idea against illithids. However, I know that space lube also makes you untouchable for some reason and that negates an illithids ability to get psionic powers or whatever by eating a brain, so just say they have super advanced sticky hands which work like gecko feet or something and can still grab people.

Tin foil hats are a must. They don't actually help (Hell, I think an experiment proved they'd amplify signals if worn) but the fact people think it'd work is good enough for me, and frankly having a crew turn into paranoid fools sounds amazing.
that is an amazing idea.