OK, I've had enough of gadget mods (play once, throw away), and Acid Reign is taking too much time for nothing, doesn't have enough item variety by its nature (can't have a minotaur wearing a cap, can you?), would get beaten by Joel's mod anyway, and is too dependent on a patch that isn't coming, so I'm working on a normal mod now. Default char gfx. Yup. Name: Median.
But thanks to JOEL (worship him), with massively edited skills 1.10 style avant la lettre. The paladin will be a clerical mage, and can cast holy forked lightning, 'rosary beads' (think Holy Cluster Bomb of Antioch) and healing spells; the barbarian can not only melee but also throw axes (entire skill tree, too) and summon tribal spirits, the Ancients, guard towers that shoot enemies and do your weapon damage, and (Larzuk's latest inventions) cannon towers; the necromancer actually no longer has minions or curses but does have a lot of indirect damage, death spells (large AR penalty, but if it hits, it's lights out) and melee attacks (!); the assassin can throw knives (think homing multishot, and Soul Shadows that follow the enemy and throw knives at them) and attack with daggers... bye bye whirlwind, battle orders, frozen orb, phoenix strike, valkyrie, multishot, and the 204 other CLoD skills!
But Joel isn't entirely finished with it (and we all hope he'll be soon - if not: blood hunt), so currently I'm working on the items. There are no more normal/excep/elite items, but rather 6 variations of the same normal items, divided evenly between their base level and level 90 (eg. full plate can have ilvl 27 and 77-155 defense for 91 str, or ilvl 82 and 372-694 defense for 159 str). The armors also have different looks than in CLoD, besides having different stats. The six variations are calculated using obscure formulae of Excel juju, and should be nicely balanced.
All new affix pool, of course, with a few quirks. It is encouraged to make your char look like (s)he's supposed to look - no barbs with a green potato bag on their head, or paladins in a cacophony of colours. Light armors get spellcasting bonuses. Heavy armors get fighter bonuses. Plated belts are actually very different from heavy belts, if only because of the fact that they can get barbarian skills. Spiked shields are not the same as normal shields. Sorcs use staves for better reasons than just to look good - may have to do with the fact that they can get individual skill bonuses as both prefix and suffix, resulting in a potential +9 to three skills on a high level rare. There is something eerie about gothic shields and damage/magic damage reduction as well. This time I'm rabid about balance, and I hope to get everything nice and balanced before Joel's skill code arrives. Of course, I've never made any balanced mod, but this time I'm trying.
I have a site for it too, but I'm not going to upload it until the mod is nearing beta stage. Otherwise it's just going to sit there.
Alright, some item pics. Btw: as I said, I haven't done or started on the skills yet, so it still has the skills and skill names of CLoD. These won't be in, of course; +to (eg.) holy shock on an item will end up as something entirely else in the mod, +to tsunami or rosary beads or something like that. So don't read the skill bonuses literally. Also ignore the -not xlated call ken; haven't added the about 850 items to the tbl files yet. (how'd you be...?)
http://www.geocities.com/fortheeendymion/median1.html
Pretty paladin set.
http://www.geocities.com/fortheeendymion/median2.html
New armor looks.
http://www.geocities.com/fortheeendymion/median3.html
Will post some early skills soon, but I'm waiting for Joel's invention to do the major skill editing. At least it'll be before 1.10 for sure...
(Edit: 2 bad feedback emails and 0 replies... people don't seem to like it much apparently.
Well, it's either this or no mod. 
)
okay, how about these new 24 skills for each character??
