UgaritRL Upgrade Design

By Steven Fletcher

2011/08/04: XP table differentiates between ranks.
2011/08/03: Renamed upgrades. Eliminated Infestation as a stat, added Leadership.
2011/07/10: Reduced the amount of skill upgrades from +4/5/10 to +2/3/4
2011/07/05: Upgrades are renamed and organized in a less confusing way.
Created 2011/06/13

This page describes the upgrades that are anticipated to be available in Ugarit RL. This is still in flux, but this is the best information available at this time. This page may be updated later to reflect changes made to the upgrades in the game... or it may not be. In any case, this page serves as a sort of design document for one part of the game.

Upgrades are split into two groups: Tier I and Tier II. Tier II upgrades are improved versions of tier I upgrades. They cost more XP than Tier I upgrades but provide some kind of bonus that the Tier I version doesn't.

Furthermore, upgrades are split into 3 categories: Physical, Angelic, and Demonic. Each species will be "strong" in one category, "average" in one category, and "weak" in the remaining category. In the strong category, the upgrades will cost 10% less XP. In the weak category, the upgrades will cost 10% more.

To raise a Tier II upgrade to level N, the corresponding Tier I upgrade must have already been raised to level N.

Attributes will have to be dropped to make this work, but that's an acceptable sacrifice.

Tier 1 Upgrade	Tier 1 Description	Tier 2 Upgrade	Tier 2 Description
Physical
Life	+10 Life	Immortality	+25 Life, +120 Regeneration
Fencing	+2 Melee Accuracy, +1 Melee Damage	Heroism	+4 Melee Accuracy, +2 Melee Damage, +1 Leadership
Archery	+2 Ranged Accuracy, +1 Ranged Damage	Zen Archery	+4 Ranged Accuracy, +1 Ranged Damage, +1 Mental Defense
Speech	+2 Speech	Telepathy	+4 Speech, +3 Telepathy
Crafting	+2 Crafting	Alchemy	+4 Crafting, +3 Necromancy
Angelic
Halo	+10 Halo, +180 Halo Recovery	Glowing Halo	+25 Halo, +450 Halo Recovery, +1 Emit Light
Lifecrafting	+2 Lifecrafting	Genetics	+4 Lifecrafting, +3 Shapeshifting
Healing	+2 Healing	Resurrection	+4 Healing, Chance to be automatically resurrected upon death
Prayer	+2 Prayer	Singing	+4 Prayer, +1 Critical Chance
Peace	+2 Peace	Pax	+4 Peace, +3 Telepathy
Demonic
Assimilation	+2 Assimilation	Digestion	+4 Assimilation, +10 Carry Weight
Druidry	+2 Druidry	Witchcraft	+4 Druidry, +3 Shapeshifting
Levitation	+2 Flight Range	Flight	+5 Flight Range, +1 Dodge
Speed	+10 Speed	Quick Action	+25 Speed, +1 Action Point
Sorcery	+2 Sorcery	Telekinesis	+4 Sorcery, +3 Necromancy

I'm not going to provide a complete explanation of what all these things are, but I will provide some random notes:

Assimilation has a low chance of hitting but automatically kills an enemy. The enemy is "assimilated" and slowly digested to gain Life faster. No more enemies can be assimilated until the first is completely digested. If the assimilator is killed during digestion, whatever's left of the enemy is freed. At high levels, the player can gain an "Infestation" ability that allows laying eggs inside the enemy. The larva eat the enemy from the inside out and then attack other enemies.
Emit Light: In general, the player needs a torch or other light source when underground. However, a player with the Glowing Halo upgrade emits a small amount of light, allowing him to do without a torch (especially if combined with light-emitting equipment).
Flight is really short range teleportation.
Halo is a Protoss-like energy shield that regenerates faster than Life.
Leadership gives allies a bonus to morale checks.
Lifecrafting is Geneforge-esque shaping of allies.
Peace is a "stealth" ability. Anyone nearby you can't attack when you use your "Peace" ability. You and your allies can't attack them either.
Prayer produces some kind of buff that affects either just you or your whole party. The number of prayer effects that can be active at one time depends upon your prayer statistic.
Regeneration and Halo Recovery are per hour values. 60 = 1 per minute.
Speed determines what point during the combat phase the character acts in, and Action Points are spent during the character's turn to perform actions.
Telepathy provides the player with more information about the NPC in dialogue. At high levels, it can be used to exert mind control over the NPC. It will also be useful for mind control in combat.
There is some crossover of secondary skills between categories: Telepathy (Physical and Angelic), Necromancy (Physical and Demonic), Shapeshifting (Angelic and Demonic). This is intentional. I tried to think of some reason why it should be this way, but I did it just to make things a little more interesting.

XP will be acquired by killing enemies and possibly from crafting objects or allies for the first time. Previously, XP was supposed to come from completing quests, but that doesn't make much sense in a rogue-like. There will only be a handful of quests in the game, if any. Since XP will much more common, the XP costs to buy upgrades must be increased. Here is a list of what the XP costs of upgrades may be:

Tier	Rank 1	Rank 2	Rank 3	Rank 4	Rank 5	Rank 6
I	100	110	120	140	160	190
II	250	275	300	350	400	475

Different species are weak, average, or strong in different categories of upgrades. Weak upgrades cost 10% more XP, and strong upgrades cost 10% less.

Special abilities are not acquired when statistics are upgraded. Instead, the player must find Tablets of Destiny to obtain new abilities. They can be purchased in the town or found in the dungeon. Each Tablet of Destiny has some kind of minimum skill requirement before it can be read, and the more powerful abilities may require multiple skills (even skills from different categories).