The Praetorian Kheldian Archetypes

I just came up with this idea in another thread, and figured I would repost it here to see what the general Kheldian population thought... And to help me expand the concept.

It'd be great if the Praetorian Epic AT was a new version of a kheldian that was actually a shape shifter. Part of the concept for khelds is that they absorb the forms of other organisms they are close to (Nova, Dwarf) so there should be a 'new' Kheldian that can absorb the forms of team mates and enemies.

Obviously it shouldn't be too broken, same rules apply as the pre existing forms.. ie: You can't access other powers while you're shifted. You would have access to your targets attack chain and appearance, and pick up their stats (perhaps with exception-- I know they wouldn't want a bunch of Marauders running around, beating the crap out of Marauder.)

In terms of memory, I'm not too sure how that would work. Maybe the Kheldian can only absorb up to 2 forms at a time, so for balance as with the VEATs not being able to pick powers from two of the additional branches.. If you pick this new shape shift power you miss out on either nova or dwarf. Every time you absorb a new form, you lose the last one you absorbed. Also, you should not be able to absorb the form of anything higher than your level.. Once again for balance purposes, I'll let someone else iron out the details on that one.

I would also like to see there be two 'branches' of this, one with fire attacks and one with ice attacks. Have the fire set be very similar to how warshades currently work (some version of eclipse, and lots of other sadistic evil powers-- Fire is dark and scary like warshades) and the ice version work much better than peacebringers currently do with the same general idea in mind. Also take this opportunity to fix peacebringers.

Any other ideas or detail ironing welcome.

Cool idea but I have one question:

How would we slot these characters if they are able to absorb the forms of different enemies at random?

I was thinking about that, especially with set bonuses when absorbing the forms of other players. Simple answer: You have no control over the slotting. You get the exact totals overall and per power that your target has. The power should only accept recharge bonuses (or perhaps accuracy if a to-hit check is required... I actually hadn't thought of that...)

However, no powers that you click while shifted will have lasting effects once you drop back to human form, so you won't be able to absorb someone's form, hit hasten, drop to human and stack it with your own. It gets tricky when you think of whether it goes both ways... It would probably be WAY too broken to have double stacked mires and eclipse carry over when you take another form, so it would have to be that the form can't be buffed by other forms.. There might be a better way to work that out but I can't think of one.

Too dynamic a system. You're basically asking the system to add and remove *integral powers* at random, without level ups.
Please try again. This time, consider the lore of Praetoria, which includes "No known Kheldians".

The lore of praetoria can be changed easily, by one dev post saying "yeah they have kheldians too." It's already broken anyways... Next time I bring my warshade into Praetoria for a zone event I'll take you a screenshot.

I don;t understand how it's 'too dynamic,' it would just be copying over forms that already exist in-game. I don't have any experience with game design so I'm not sure how hard of a process the coding would be, but I really doubt that it's undoable.

You're basically asking for the equivalent of an "on-demand, uncontrolled" respecification of the character with this system.
The only time the system allows you to "pick" powers is at the leveling screen. You're asking them to change that, too. To mess with fundamental code that works, all for the sake of then having a random form.
It's like having a physical book, and then tearing out chapters and inserting different ones. The book is going to be a ragged, unworkable mess after a while.

This is a cool idea, but it won't work and many players woulnt bother with it.
Why? Because you absorb the other players abilities then you have a bunch of new powers to use that are randomly placed in your power tray. Then you have to fiddle around with your trays then...powers are gone then you start over. The concept is great but unpracticle. I'm all for a preatorian kheldian but not one like you describe, it would be way to much work for the devs to do that. They could however make a held that has a tree format while leveling. One side would be ice or something else, the other would be fire or something else, you would still get nova and dwarf but each would have access to this tree to selec ice or fire(for example). That would be a possibility, even adding all the blaster options for the nova and all the tank/brute options for the dwarf in a tree format would be possible but this too would be very unlikely to happen.

As for the Lore in my idea it would be as if a kheldian merged with a fire blaster it would get the fire attacks from the blaster. Then it would merge with an ice tank to get the ice powers. This kheldian could be considered the parasite of the great Preatoria. Or they can just make a new shapeshifter AT called the parasite. =P

IF they make a PEAT, I would assume to fit the lore that it would be something that fit the lore better. There's a few things that could go with existing EATs, such as copying an existing villain group, or using aliens. I was thinking it would be like this:

Malfunctioned PClockwork with free will (Dismantler/Mender type of branching, or Neuron/Anti)
Praetorian Police sent to infiltrate powers division because PPD mistrusts them (VEAT concept)
Change the lore to say Antimatter/Neuron are exploring diff dimensions and add some Rularuu ATs.
And I'm sure there are many more possibilities.

This next one would be my prefered new EAT path, but I doubt it will ever be remotely close to happening. Have 2 new EATs for Prea. Only have one start off in RI, and one in PC, then invert the Praetoria line, and add a 20+ zone into Praetoria and have them get missions there, like Cole was recruiting strong primal heroes and villains to help him take down Primal Earth. The concept would be that the PC starters would want to defeat LR so badly they join Cole and are corrupted by him, and the RI starters would want to destroy States so badly they leave LR and join with Cole. These missions would go to 30 or 40 and "train" the characters to take down the inner circle and Freedom Phalanx. The characters would still be able to go in and out of Praetoria as they please, but could not have any out of Praetoria contacts active other than tips/radio mishes. Their allignments would still be hero or villain.

I know it probably won't happen, but that last one was my hopeful PEAT, and the top ones are some realistic ideas that I think are more probable.

Devouring Earth mutations would be the most thematic PEAT's IMHO.

Something harnessing the power of Hamidon.

But it's flawed because there ARE kheldians in praetoria. All the time! Just last night, I was playing one of my new characters in Nova and a peacebringer hopped in through pocket D. We got on a team, void hunters spawned and everything.

edit: I'm not going to take any points of lore into account at all, just to put that out there. The Kheldian lore sucks and it's full of contradictions anyways. Like in another thread I started, Voids don't attack PPD Awakened or White Dwarf/Novas, even though part of the kheldian lore is that they exist to do just that. Twilight's Son tells you that he's the last Kheldian, and you wouldn't understand, but he needs warshades and peacebringers to help his people. He's just as vague with you as he is with Joe Scrapper. The lore is dysfunctional and contradictory so I place no credibility in the point that "there are no Kheldians in Praetoria." Once again, all it would take is one post saying "yeah they have kheldians too."

Even if Praetoria had Kheldians, that doesn't give grounds for them to behave any differently just because they're from goatee paragon.

Sure it does. Exposure to different things could let them take on different forms. In my opinion, the current kheldians *should* be able to absorb forms also... It doesn't make any sense to me that the kheldian energy magically forgot how to absorb forms after just two creatures, and every bit of it in the known universe only managed to pick up the same two ones.

Like I said before though, the lore is broken and contradictory anyways, so instead of trying to sort out the rationale behind it the new kheldians would just have access to new forms "because they do."

But the black dwarf looks like a black dwarf, smells like a black dwarf, and attacks like a black dwarf. Why is it that other forms can't be adapted also? What is it about those 2 forms that makes them the ONLY ones the kheldian energy is capable of absorbing?

They're not the same being.

They still have the same attacks as the kheldian base.

If the powers belong exclusively to the Kheldian and not to the being they absorbed, they would be accessible in all forms.

I'm proposing that these new Kheldians could have different bases. Heck, scrappers are able to have different bases. Fire, Ice, whatever. How come aliens can't come with versatility too?

VEATS and HEATS are both Range/Melee with some form of armor (resist/defense). I want to see something totally different. I want Control primary /Armor secondary (stalker equivalent). I want to control to be a less of a mag than controllers and dominators, but do more damage. I would call these guys Riot Control. Then the second Epic AT would have Armor(Scrapper equivalent) /Pets(without BG mode) with melee instead of range. I would call them Enforcers.

I think the OP is missing the point of Kheldian Shapeshifting. Kheldians don't 'absorb' the forms of the beings around them. Kheldians shapeshift into the forms of alien beings which the Kheldian has bonded with, in the past. So, as a result of bonding with a human, Kheldians now have 3 'forms'.

However, in all cases, the Powers are Kheldian in nature and the forms are irrelevant, except in the way that they are like 'macros' for a given configuration of powers. Nova is the hover-blaster, Dwarf is the pocket-tank, and 'Human' form is the utility-blapper. A Kheldian does not 'absorb' the powers of its host and certainly doesn't absorb the powers of its enemies! Instead, it grants it's powers to the host.

Be Well!
Fireheart