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A Character Concept that I've spent WAY too long on


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So I often make my own character concepts for this game, and especially when I'm gearing up to start modding in a new character. I've recently spent a while at the drawing board, and I've come up with many detailed character concepts, coming out at four of them so far. Of course, since I am in fact me, I came up with a particular character concept that connected with my brain so unimaginably well that I ended up thinking of what is probably way too many ideas. And so here I thought I'd share this character concept, since I'm looking for actual opinions on my ideas, since nobody in this day and age will give me anything past "It's cool". Anyways, mini-rant aside, here it is!

 

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Belthemar Written Character Concept

(Call him "Welthemar" if you want I guess, but he's not a W name because he was made like 2 years ago)

 

Belthemar, the Mutant King

HP - 100

Sanity - 50

Hunger - 100

DMG Rate - 0.75x

Speed - 0.8x (Removed, now has default speed)

Temperature Hurtrate - 2.5x

- A horrific mutant

- Determined to survive

- Able to make offerings to the Red Sun for new mutations

 

Belthemar is... Well he's a bit of an odd one. His main design is based around a more expansive version of WX-78's upgrade system, except instead of eating gears to upgrade, you make offerings to the Red Sun in order for it to bless you with new flesh-melting mutations. He's got a few perks to his name, but he's mainly centered around his ability to mutate.

 

[A horrific mutant]

Belthemar is a horrific mutant at heart, with an ugly, monstrous appearance, along with rather unfortunate starting stats... Belthemar starts as one of the many unlucky mutants of his world, with most of his mutation simply being his flesh warping and melting, as well as one of his eyes falling out... Of course, this leads to him having a weakness to extreme temperatures, as his damaged skin is ill-equipped to handle drastic changes in temperature… However, due to his horrific appearance (Of which he is well aware of), he isn’t bothered by the more grotesque creatures of this new world, and he suffers 50% less from monster sanity auras.

 

[Determined to survive]

However, his poor physical form is not enough to break his mind, as he is determined to reach the top and become the king of all mutants (yeah technically his title of "The Mutant King" doesn't apply yet). Belthemar is certainly weaker than most, but he's hard to put down for good. If Belthemar has any mutations when taking fatal damage, he will instead lose all of his mutations and restore his health to the maximum, while also gaining 90% armor for the next 5 seconds. Additionally, Belthemar will passively remove any maximum health penalties applied to him, removing 1% of the health penalty every 5 seconds, while also healing for 1% of his maximum health. 

 

[Able to make offerings to the Red Sun for new mutations]

Being a mutant from an apocalyptic world of religious mutants, Belthemar is able to make offerings to the Red Sun, which is a deity of sorts. Belthemar is able to press a hotkey (R by default) or a clickable widget at any time to invoke the Red Sun, causing a large, red star to appear near Belthemar for around 1 minute. The Red Sun also emits heat and light, but it can't be invoked during the night. Belthemar can trade with the Red Sun, bringing up a sort of crafting menu, which displays various mutations, along with what they do, and what Belthemar will need to offer in order to gain that mutation. Mutations vary in terms of effects, granting Belthemar anything from increased max health to the ability to spit acid or walk on water. There are also three types of mutations, those being stat mutations, ability mutations, and also cursed mutations, which come with a downside, but are also cheaper and often stronger than other mutations. Stat mutations can be granted multiple times, up to a cap of 300 for each of the primary three stats, 240 of each type of insulation, 100% wetness protection, 70% armor, etc. Ability mutations can only be granted if you don't have them. Additionally, some mutations require you to have other mutations before you can obtain them. Stat mutations will often require different foods to be offered, Ability mutations often require gems or trinkets, along with some basic materials, and cursed mutations often simply take a chunk out of your current stats, along with some very common materials. The mutation selection will change every time the Red Sun is summoned, with all stat mutations showing up every time, along with 3 ability mutations and 3 cursed mutations also showing up. Additionally, some ability mutations take the form of active abilities, which replace your unarmed attack, which means that you can only have one active ability mutation at a time, though some will take the form of right-click abilities as well. 

 

[Additional concepts/examples]

Examples of potential ability mutations:

(Acidic Gland)

Cost: 1 Green Gem, 1 Phlegm

Effects: Allows you to right click to spew out a large corrosive ball at the target location, which applies acid to any enemies hit, as well as dealing 50 damage. When the ball of acid lands, it explodes into a pool of acid, which lasts for 6 seconds, applying acid to anything that stands in the pool. Acid is a debuff that makes those afflicted with it take 8% of their max health as damage every second. Bosses instead take 4% max health damage, and Robots instead take 12% max health damage. The acid debuff lasts for 6 seconds, and this ability has a cool down of 60 seconds.

 

(Ignore Pain)

Cost: 2 Purple Gems, 4 Hound Teeth

Effects: You are no longer stunned when attacked, but you instead lose 5% movement speed when hit. Your movement speed will return to normal after 5 seconds of not taking damage. Additionally, 50% of the damage you take is instead dealt over a period of 5 seconds.
[Level 1 or higher of Strong Bones is required for this mutation to appear]

 

(Volcanic Ventilation)

Cost: 1 Scales, 1 Red Gem

Effects: You are immune to fire damage, and you now emit a burst of fire every 10 seconds, igniting enemies and dealing a small amount of damage to them as well. This ability will also make any nearby flammable objects start to smolder, and the igniting properties of the burst will also affect nearby players. If your temperature is above 65 degrees, you will instead emit a wave every second, while also losing 1 degree each time that you emit a wave, stopping when the player falls below 55 degrees.

(Hellfire Halitosis)
Cost: 1 Fire Staff, 1 Red Spore
Effects: Your unarmed attacks will now make you breath fire in the direction that you are facing, dealing damage and lighting enemies on fire. Fire will also be left around in the area that you ignited, with the center of the area having a stronger fire that causes increased damage and heat gain.
[This mutation requires the “Volcanic Ventilation” mutation in order to appear]
[This mutation will prevent you from obtaining the “Hellborn” mutation]

(Hellborn)
Cost: 1 Scales, 1 Fire Staff
Effects: You now heal for 5 health for every second that you are on fire, and you emit fire bursts every second while on fire as well. You will now also catch on fire directly (Like DS Wormwood), and this lasts twice as long as it normally would. Additionally, your unarmed attacks light enemies on fire and cause you to gain heat at 2 degrees per punch.
[This mutation requires the “Volcanic Ventilation” mutation in order to appear]
[This mutation will prevent you from obtaining the “Hellfire Halitosis” mutation]

 

(Sea Legs)

Cost: 3 Salt, 1 Blue Gem

Effects: You are now immune to the negative effects of drowning, and you can now walk on water as long as you have under 50% wetness.

 

(Eagle Eyes)

Cost: 1 Yellow Gem, 1 Desert Stone

Effects: You now have night vision and are immune to storms (similar to wearing desert goggles or astroggles)
[Level 1 or higher of Mega Mind is required in order for this mutation to appear]

 

(Red-Dot Sight)

Cost: 1 Red Gem, 1 Yellow Gem

Effects: Your unarmed attack makes you wind up and shoot a laser in a straight line in front of you. Right-clicking will instead make you spin in a circle 3 times, shooting lasers in a circle around you, but also making you tired afterwards (Like Weremoose after charging into a sturdy object)
[Level 1 or higher of Mega Mind is required in order for this mutation to appear]

 

(Pounce)

Cost: 2 Hound Teeth

Effects: Right-clicking will cause you to pounce forwards, quickly leaping towards the cursor (though there is a limit to the range that this has) and dealing 51 damage to the first target it hits. This ability has a 5 second cooldown.

 

(Feral Claws)

Cost: 2 Down Feathers, 6 Hound Teeth

Effects: Your unarmed attack now makes you perform a flurry of attacks, hitting several times in a short period of time. Right-clicking will instead make you spin around, becoming a fast-moving bladed cyclone, damaging anything near you rapidly. After 15 seconds, you will stop spinning and fall asleep for 3 seconds. Additionally increases your unarmed damage to 34.

[This mutation requires you to have the "Pounce" mutation in order to appear]
[Level 1 or higher of Ruthless Radiation is required in order for this mutation to appear]

 

 

(Blood Geyser)

Cost: 2 Red Gems, 1 Telltale Heart

Effects: Makes you gush extra blood when hit, making you take an extra 3 damage when hit, but slowing anything close to you by 66% for 3 seconds. (This effect has a cool down of 5 seconds)

 

(I'M TAKIN' YOU WITH ME!)

Cost: 1 Purple Gem, 4 Nightmare Fuel

Effects: You will completely explode on death, dealing 1,000 damage to nearby enemies (Reduced by 90% against players). Instead of losing all of your mutations when taking fatal damage, you will die and lose this mutation.

"We'll all go together!"

[This mutation requires you to have the "Blood Geyser" mutation in order to appear] 

 

(Screamer's Throat)

Cost: 1 Purple Gem, 1 Royal Jelly

Effects: Right-clicking will make you scream, scaring enemies, slowing them by 25%, and making them take double damage for the next 8 seconds. This effect also applies to players. Additionally, the scream will automatically happen when you fall under 25% health. Both of these abilities have a cooldown of 30 seconds.

(Screecher’s Beak)
Cost: 2 Purple Gems, 8 Jet Feather
Effects: Instead of scaring enemies, slowing them by 25%, and making them take double damage for 8 seconds, your scream will completely immobilize targets by reducing their movement speed by 100% and making all targets take quadruple the damage. However, you will not automatically scream when falling under 25% health, and the cooldown of the scream is increased to 45 seconds.

[This mutation requires the “Screamer’s Throat” mutation in order to appear]

 

(Black Powder Claws)

Cost: 4 Gunpowder, 6 Hound Teeth

Effects: Your unarmed attacks now explode, dealing 50 aoe damage in a small area around the target, as well as dealing an additional 30 damage to the initial target. The damage of the explosion is reduced for any entities with explosive resist.
[Level 2 or higher of Ruthless Radiation is required in order for this mutation to appear]

(Unbreakable)
Cost: 1 Iridescent Gem, 3 Moon Rocks
Effects: You no longer lose all of your mutations when taking fatal damage, but the ability to withstand fatal damage has a cooldown of 8 minutes. Additionally, if you are dealt more than 100 damage from an attack, that damage is halved. This mutation is lost after 2 deaths.
[This mutation will not appear if you have the “I’M TAKIN’ YOU WITH ME!” or “Second Heart” mutations]
[Level 3 or higher of Strong Bones is required in order for this mutation to appear]

(Invulnerable Ice)
Cost: 4 Blue Gem, 4 Ice
Effects: Your minimum temperature is increased (in absolute value) from -15 to -45, and you gain increased armor based on how cold you are, up to a maximum of 95%. Additionally, you are immune to damage normally taken from freezing, you are healed for 50 health if you are frozen solid, and you also break out of being frozen solid 3x as fast as a normal character.
(Note: This mutation will reset your natural armor value, making other mutations that increase your armor effectively useless)
[This mutation will not appear if you have the “Volcanic Ventilation” or “Searing Skin” mutations]

(Olympian)
Cost: 1 Walrus Tusk, 4 Down Feathers
Effects: You slowly gain movement speed while moving, which caps at double your original movement speed. Additionally, any players walking behind you will also receive this movement speed buff.
[Level 1 or higher of Freaky Legs is required in order for this mutation to appear]

(Leader’s Lung)
Cost: 1 Beefalo Horn, 2 Spider Glands
Effects: Right-clicking will befriend all nearby creatures that can be tamed, and they follow you for twice as long. Players and followers near you will also chop, mine, and hammer twice as efficiently, as well as gaining sanity while near you.

 

Cursed mutations examples:

(Bone Spikes)

Cost: -40 sanity, 8 bone shards

Effects: +15% armor (does not contribute to the cap of 70%) and enemies take 5% of their max health as damage when attacking you, but you passively lose 1% of your max health every 4 seconds, and body items you wear will passively lose durability at a high rate.
 

(Searing Skin)

Cost: -25 health, 8 grass

Effects: Immunity to overheating damage, gain temperature faster, deal up to 1.5x damage based on how hot you are, but take 10x damage from freezing, and winter clothing does not give you any insulation.
[This mutation will not appear if you have the “Cold Feet” or “Invulnerable Ice” mutations]

 

(Hyperactive Adrenal Gland)

Cost: -100 Hunger, 2 spider glands

Effects: 50% increased movement speed while in combat, but your movement speed is halved after exiting combat for 30 seconds, and you have 25% reduced movement speed while outside of combat.
 

(Second Heart)

Cost: -25 health, 1 Telltale Heart

Effects: Lose this mutation when taking fatal damage instead of all of your mutations, but your max health is halved while you have this mutation, and you cannot heal your health penalty.

(Cold Feet)
Cost: -25 health, 8 Ice
Effects: You are immune to freezing damage, you gain resistance to being frozen solid, and leave a trail of small ice pools that damage, slow, and freeze enemies that stand on them. However, you take 10x damage from overheating, and summer clothing does not give you any insulation.
[This mutation will not appear if you have the “Searing Skin” or “Volcanic Ventilation” mutations]

(Skin Satchel)
Cost: -25 health, 2 silk
Effects: You have 8 extra inventory slots, which completely pause the spoilage of any items inside, but your maximum health is halved, you do not remove maximum health penalties, and you move 10% slower if any items occupy the slots. However, you are still allowed to wear a backpack alongside this mutation.

 

Of course there's also stat mutations, which would be like some of the following:
 

(Stronger Bones)

Cost: 2/2/3/4 meat, 2/2/3/4 bone shards

Effects: +25/25/50/100 Max Health (Max of 300 total Max HP)

[Note: This mutation can be acquired 4 times, with the price and effects of this mutation moving on to the next value each time you redeem it]

(Mega Mind)

Cost: 1/2/3/4 Forget-Me-Lots, 1/2/3/4 Gold Nuggets

Effects: +25/50/75/100 Max Sanity (Caps at 300 Max Sanity)
 

(Grand Gorge)
Cost: 1/2/3/4 Monster Meat, 2/4/6/8 Charcoal
Effects: +25/25/50/100 Max Hunger (Caps at 300 Max Hunger)

 

(Scaled Skin)

Cost: 2 Leafy Meat, 2 Gold nuggets, 2 Rocks

Effects: +10% armor (Max of 70% total armor)

(Ruthless Radiation)

Cost: 1/2/3 Peppers, 1 Hound’s Tooth
Effects: +25/50/75% Extra Damage (Each tier stacks, so you would have 250% or 2.5x damage if you had all three levels of this)

(Freaky Legs)
Cost: 1/2/3 Drumsticks, 1/2/3 Frog Legs
Effects: +25/50/75% Bonus Movement Speed (Each tier stacks, leading to a combined total of 250% or 2.5x bonus movement speed if you have all three levels)

(Extra Fat)
Cost: 1 Koalefant Trunk (Third Tier requires a Winter Trunk), 1 Ice

Effects: 60/120/240 Winter Insulation (Each tier does not stack, instead setting your insulation level to the new value)

(Cooling Gland)
Cost: 5 Petals (Third Tier requires 5 Cactus Flowers), 1 Fire Nettle
Effects: 60/120/240 Summer Insulation (Each tier does not stack, instead setting your insulation level to the new value)

(Porous and Yellow)
Cost: 3 Salt, 1 Tentacle Spot
Effects: 25/50/75/100% Wetness Protection (Each tier does not stack, instead setting your insulation level to the new value)

And uh.... if you enjoyed, I'd really appreciate some actual thoughts on this... :wilson_resigned:

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35 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Movement speed debuffs suck and aren't fun even if they're temporary. Looks like an interesting concept for a mod character, though.

Well that's certainly something that I was looking for in terms of feedback. I'll keep that in mind, since I felt that the lower base speed was relatively unnecessary

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I've went ahead and created a few visualizations of my ideas here
(Sorry for the poor UI art, I'm and clean stuff)
I'd also like to mention that I wanted to be more extravagant with the "mutant" aspect of Belthemar, but ultimately decided to tone it down, seeing as not only would it be harder to fit into the shape of a normal survivor, but Belthemar has been stated as a mutant with nothing but insignificant changes, with little more than his skin falling apart making up his mutations.
BelthemarVisualConcept.thumb.png.4434729b68362aae18c0d7fbd69651ac.png

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Seeing as this character seems pretty overpowered compared to most vanilla characters, a big debuff is in order. Having lower base speed works but as we saw with wolfgang people get really *Ahem* 'angry' when you remove speed. What I learned from reading a lot of people complaining about wolfgang rework (Not all, but many, mind you) is they want characters to be as overpowered as possible. Sure, give him extremely high damage and a speed up for eating meaty stew. Why not?

Also, maybe some sort of cave debuff because he is further from the sun, and a mutation that gives him a light source or something but drains hunger to power it? Just concepts.

Seeing how goopy he looks, you could have some sort of damaging goo left where you walk or make that another item or mutation IDK.

 

Oh yeah one last thing. Cancel it all. His name doesn't start with a 'W' so you are not legally allowed to keep coming up with ideas.

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2 hours ago, SmallBirdHungry said:

Seeing as this character seems pretty overpowered compared to most vanilla characters, a big debuff is in order. Having lower base speed works but as we saw with wolfgang people get really *Ahem* 'angry' when you remove speed. What I learned from reading a lot of people complaining about wolfgang rework (Not all, but many, mind you) is they want characters to be as overpowered as possible. Sure, give him extremely high damage and a speed up for eating meaty stew. Why not?

Also, maybe some sort of cave debuff because he is further from the sun, and a mutation that gives him a light source or something but drains hunger to power it? Just concepts.

Seeing how goopy he looks, you could have some sort of damaging goo left where you walk or make that another item or mutation IDK.

 

Oh yeah one last thing. Cancel it all. His name doesn't start with a 'W' so you are not legally allowed to keep coming up with ideas.

> My goal is not to keep him within the same power budget as vanilla characters. While I do agree that he needs additional downsides, I wish to stand firm on making him a strong, yet enjoyable and complicated character.

> The cave idea is pretty good honestly, it fits well with his thematic and religious views of sunlight, so it would absolutely make sense for him to be uncomfortable, or perhaps even weaker if he strays from the sunlight. I did also consider a few light mutations, but I ultimately didn't write any down just because the concept already felt a little bloated. Of course there can always be additions and subtractions to the list of mutations, as this is ultimately just a concept.

> He does have the "Cold Feet" cursed mutation, which makes him leave a trail of damaging and freezing ice pools.

> W names feel so constricting to me, I hate em. There's only so many not-dumb names that start with W, and most of em have already been used!

Also, as a final note, one of my main balancing factors here has been the easy loss of all of your mutations, the randomness of certain mutations appearing, and the requirement of certain other mutations in order to obtain more powerful mutations. Of course, I feel as though some of the costs are not quite adequate for the ability mutations, but I feel as though many of the cursed mutations are great where they are.

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19 minutes ago, Left 4 Sharkbai said:

> My goal is not to keep him within the same power budget as vanilla characters. While I do agree that he needs additional downsides, I wish to stand firm on making him a strong, yet enjoyable and complicated character.

> The cave idea is pretty good honestly, it fits well with his thematic and religious views of sunlight, so it would absolutely make sense for him to be uncomfortable, or perhaps even weaker if he strays from the sunlight. I did also consider a few light mutations, but I ultimately didn't write any down just because the concept already felt a little bloated. Of course there can always be additions and subtractions to the list of mutations, as this is ultimately just a concept.

> He does have the "Cold Feet" cursed mutation, which makes him leave a trail of damaging and freezing ice pools.

> W names feel so constricting to me, I hate em. There's only so many not-dumb names that start with W, and most of em have already been used!

Also, as a final note, one of my main balancing factors here has been the easy loss of all of your mutations, the randomness of certain mutations appearing, and the requirement of certain other mutations in order to obtain more powerful mutations. Of course, I feel as though some of the costs are not quite adequate for the ability mutations, but I feel as though many of the cursed mutations are great where they are.

Yeah I agree coming up with W names is very tough now. Somehow I missed the cold feet mutation, but good to know you thought of it too!

I think there should be SOMETHING in the caves for sure, maybe a sanity loss for being away from your deity, or loss of power in your abilities since they are not 'fuelled by beliefs' anymore.

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5 minutes ago, SmallBirdHungry said:

Yeah I agree coming up with W names is very tough now. Somehow I missed the cold feet mutation, but good to know you thought of it too!

I think there should be SOMETHING in the caves for sure, maybe a sanity loss for being away from your deity, or loss of power in your abilities since they are not 'fuelled by beliefs' anymore.

I think it would be relatively interesting to weaken him whenever he's in darkness, halving the effectiveness of his raw stat mutations, and possibly even disabling things like his ability to avoid death, instead making him die AND lose all of his mutations. Of course that'd only apply at night or in the caves, since his willpower and faith are not as strong. The only thing I can think of that would make this absolutely SUCK is fighting something like the Eye or Twins of Terror, or even the Celestial Champion. (Or idk, the cave bosses?) I think it would be fair to perhaps make an amulet item fashioned in the image of the Red Sun that he can wear to avoid the negative effects of night time, but this amulet requires you to first acquire some materials that typically require caving, such as thulecite or rare gems. This amulet would kinda fix the anti-fun issue with the darkness nerf, as it would be extremely frustrating to want to fight the select few bosses that require you to fight them in the caves or at night, only to be severely hindered while doing so, with no ability to prevent this debuff. I've also toyed around with the idea of making him slowly lose his mutations if he stays in the darkness for too long (This would require you to be in the darkness for several days), as not seeing daylight, nor a sign of his deity for hours upon hours would likely diminish his faith, his health, and his abilities that were granted him by the deity that he is starting to forget about...

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