Abilities

From Neverend

Listening, allows you to get a general idea of things based on direction. Monsters and threats will tell you "you hear something to the west." Listening happens more often when threats are nearby, rather than friendly creatures or players. Increased skill improves range and angle. Listening is used by rangers, and cyborgs with hearing enhancement.

Hiking, allows you to walk up diagonal surfaces. Increased skill allows walking up steeper angles. Hiking is most useful for small races that find mere bumps and mounds to be obstacles, and must hike over them. Increased skill allows fast hiking that makes the obstacle barely a problem. Hiking is also increased with walking sticks and staffs.

Breath weapon (type), allows a breath attack based on an element. This includes fire, ice, wind, mist, gas, electricity, ether, magic. Available to rare monsters and dragon related races.

Claw weapon, allows attacking with claws if no weapon is held in that hand. Includes werewolves, dragons, and other creatures. Enabled forhumanoids with claw weapons. Also, cyborg/robot claw enhancements.

Climbing, allows scaling vertical or near vertical surfaces. User adopts a "climbing" animation with all fours, trying to scale a flat surface, climbup a ladder, or climb up a rope or pole. Low skill means a greater chance of slipping and falling down.

Seduction, causes target to stop attacking, and increases chance of being captured.

Yell, causes target to hesitate or feel fear, may stop an attack. Used by warriors. Animals use "growl" and "roar" which have the same effect.

Shadowform, user is turned into a shadowy figure, and blends well into shadows, especially at night.

Phasing, user appears to blink and fade out of existence.

Transparent, user is transparent and barely visible.

Sneak, user has a sneaking stance which creates a low profile, prevents hearing detection and sight detection. If seen openly, others will laugh at you.

Balance, user can walk across a narrow surface such as a wall or horizontal rope. Low skill increases chance of falling down.

Tumble, user jumps on to ground and rolls. Used to get away from a fight or around an opponent.

Grapple, user grabs an opponent.

Wrestle, user grabs an opponent on the ground in order to use "hold".

Hold, user holds an opponent and can use a skill such as seduce or threat, and can use handcuffs.

Escape, resists grapple, wrestle, hold. Advanced escape can slip out of chains and ropes, and tentacles.

Acrobatics, user flips in air rather than standard jump. Enables some "flip" attacks and dodges.

Self defense, resists grapple and hand to hand combat by using pressure points and balance.

[edit] Stances

Stances are abilities that change how a player or NPC focuses in combat. Stances temporarily give bonuses and penalties to different combat areas, such as increasing speed and lowering attack, or increasing defense and lowering attack.

All players use a stance in combat. When gaining a class, the stance will change to the default stance for that class. Additional stances can be unlocked through training, especially for monks and fighters. Holy Knights and Warriors different stances. A Paladin has a much more defensive stance, while a Warrior would holds his weapon with confidence. Thieves crouch, mages stand upright, etc.

Stances replace default standing animations with a different animation, showing different hand and leg positions. Some stance abilities will replace normal attacks with different attacks. For example, a monk using punches will use kicks instead, or will use a mixture of kicks and punches. A critical hit uses a unique animation instead of a standard animation.

Different stances effect subsequent attack animations. If wielding a great sword from a high stance with an overhead chop, the next animation would be a low attack or shoulder bash, or readying for a frontal arc swing lifting back over the head. The pattern would be random but follow a logical path of what position to attack in (high, medium, low).

Stances balance out player stats and skills by adding penalties and bonuses. A guard focuses on either an offensive playstyle or defensive playstyle. A monk chooses fighting mainly with kicks or mainly with punches. A Shadow Knight focuses on melee or on shadow magic.

Stances enable specific sub-abilities and special effects associated with that stance when the stance is active. For example, a Praying Leaf stance will enable a minor healing ability, and a defense bonus. Once the stance is changed or cancelled, the abilities are no longer available. Each stance has a list of abilities, but only those unlocked by the player are visible. These abilities are unlocked by meeting specified skill reuirements. A healing palm requires 5 skill in bandaging, a Viper Fang requires 5 in swordfighting and an equipped dagger.

A mage who uses magic "drawing" to temporarily cast an enemy spell will be less effective in melee or casting regular spells. A character who relies on potions and thrown items in combat would effective at using thrown items, but have mediocre regular attacks.

[edit] Abilities

Beast killer: Player is more effective at attacking certain monsters but less effective at others. Player chooses a monster type.

Elemental prowess: An elemental mage increase their natural elemental defenses or weaknesses.

Summoners could focus on style of summoning, choosing quick summoning, summoning, or powerful summoning.

Beast empathy: The player lowers the chance of aggressive attacks by a specified creature type.