Imbuement

Base Ability: Imbuement - Katsurou can Imbue one weapon at a time with an element or elements of choice, giving his basic attacks added elemental damage based on his character tier. He can Imbue one element per tier, giving a maximum of 5 elements at T5. Katsurou can only Imbue or remove one element per post, he cannot Imbue and remove an element in the same post, and he can only Imbue an element into a new weapon when all of the Imbuements in the previous weapon have been removed. As normal, all elements (including combinations) that are not/are not composed of Katsurou's primary elements are less effective with this skill, but they can still be used.
Base Ability Cool Down: N/A

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Tier One
1st Skill: Battle-Mage - Katsurou can use spells of the same element as his current Imbuement as if they were skills, forgoing MP costs and instead giving a cooldown equal to MP Cost / 5. This cannot be used with the same spell twice in a row.
2nd Skill: Burst - Katsurou can push extra power into a single swing, giving a moderate boost to elemental damage for each Imbued element. [Cooldown: 3 posts]
3rd Skill: Extend - With this skill, Katsurou can send a wave of his weapon's currently Imbued element towards the opponent at will, similar to a low-level spell, dealing the Imbuement's elemental damage as appropriate. However, the range is slightly shorter than that of a normal spell. [Cooldown: 1 post]
4th Skill: Glint - While his weapon is Imbued with the Darkness element, Katsurou gains a moderate boost to Speed.
5th Skill: Blaze - While his weapon is Imbued with the Fire or Wildfire elements, Katsurou gains a moderate boost to Strength. When imbued with both, an extra, moderate boost is given to Agility.

Making your Base Ability rely on magic allows it to be affected by magic, which it is normally not. Personally, I feel you've added too many stipulations and clauses that inhibit the power of the ability.

The concept I'm seeing is, "Character imbues weapons with magic in order to add elemental damage. Based on the elemental alignment of the weapon, the character gains a variety of bonuses."

It seems like you're making the Synth stat a skill tree, but only applying it to one weapon. Since items themselves can be made with abilities, I'd suggest you look over the Synthesis statistic, in order to have a better understanding.

https://miragehearts.rpg-board.net/t420-characters-tiers-stats-elements#1429

If you have further questions about the stat or the system, feel free to PM me. If you want to pursue this Skill Tree after reading up on it, then I will do my best to help you optimize the tree. Feel free to spitball ideas too, it's all about helping you get what you want.

What it primarily is is that the character imbues the weapon with magic, giving it some elemental damage, yes, but this is also the base level. I plan to expand on this, making abilities that are much, much more powerful, like a dark-flame imbuement that acts as both Darkness and Flame at once. However, this also allows for more freedom than the Synth stat, if you're getting what I'm saying. The power is based off of the character's MAG stat, and the duration is based on MP, making it something that also grows with him and can be very effective.

Though, yes, I would definitely like ideas and such to help me balance it out. The intent is a very much high-risk high-reward ability that can help to devastate those who lack proper elemental defenses.

EDIT: It also serves as a way to cast spells without an MP cost (as MP is already being used), and frees up SYN abilities for more... devious things. Just thought I should throw this in there.

Skill Trees can grow without magic. Magic is actually the weakest of the three systems. In regards to power scale, it is Skill Trees > DP > MP. Making it magical allows it to be negated and silenced.

Base Abilities are not inherently the weakest abilities. I'd suggest you make it, "The user may imbue an item with an element. For every tier in this tree, the user may imbue an additional element."

This allows you to potentially have 5 elements on a single item at a time (when you're t5). Then, you can create abilities that scale, by increasing their strength the more elements you have imbued. By limiting it to a single weapon, you can subvert the drawback of an overall time limit. However, there'd be an ability limit, to prevent you from switching in and out of weapons and various elements instantaneously.

This also gives you more potential with your skills, since the first two are inherent to the base ability, meaning you don't have to waste slots on the ability to imbue specific elements, which gives you elemental diversity. Keep in mind, your mastered elements will always do more damage than the ones you haven't mastered.

Thoughts on the proposal? Once we nail the base ability, we can move on to the rest conceptually.

That sounds at least mostly good, but I have a quick question.

When you said, "By limiting it to a single weapon," do you mean by limiting it to one type of weapon, or do you mean that I can use it with only one weapon at a time, or that a single weapon can only be imbued once per topic? Sorry, that part just confused me.

One weapon at a time.

Ah, alright. I'll go ahead and make some edits, and see how that is.

The following is the strongest version of the base ability you can have:

The user may imbue an item with an element. For every tier in this tree, the user may imbue an additional element. The user can only imbue or remove 1 element per post. They cannot imbue and remove an element in the same post. They cannot imbue another item until all imbued elements have been removed from the original item.

Copy and pasting it is your best option, but feel free to try for something else. After, you can create the T1 abilities and we'll move onto that. Bump when you're ready.

That should be good. I replaced the two skills already, as well. Check it out.

If you want those limitations you can have them, but they are weaker than what I wrote. Your mastered elements are Darkness, Fire, Wind, Moon. So, when I mentioned that your mastered elements would be stronger, I meant those four would be stronger than you using other elements (which, as a somebody, you can do.)

If you want to scale the power, you should scale it to your character tier. That way, you have scaling power, but without the drawbacks that magic brings. No one can negate your skill tree. No one can silence your skill tree. And if you're going to have magical drawbacks, you shouldn't waste an entire skill tree on it.

Ultimately it's up to you, and I won't be forcing anything down your throat after this. I just wanna ensure you get the best out of this tree.

That's what I meant, by that. I usually see the ones I chose at the beginning (Darkness, Fire, Wind, Moon) as "Primary Elements," and all others that I didn't choose as "Secondary Elements," though they could be referring to something completely different. But, I could take that part out if it's just redundant.

And... Yeah, I'll do that character tier thing.

Understood, with the primary and secondary. Intent is more important than wording, so no need to edit that.

All Imbuements are removed upon being forcefully disarmed.

Unfortunately, you'd have to remove all the elements manually. No easy ways out (unless you make a separate skill for it.)

NOTE: Usable combination elements can be used with this ability.

This functions the same way as your other elements, where the ones made out of your primary elements are stronger than combination elements made of secondary. Just clarifying.

For the 1st skill, when your imbued element matches the spell, if you have a 10 MP spell, it'd instead be free and have a 2 post cool down? And a 50 MP spell would have a 10 post cool down? If I'm mistaken, let me know.

You cannot double the power at the first tier, but you can have a powerful, elemental strike in relation to T1, but why not just make this and the third skill a spell and have the first ability apply to it? Just throwing ideas out there, so you can have more passive abilities that constantly upgrade you a la 4th and 5th skill.

For the 4th and 5th skills, you cannot increase stat points. We do not allow augmentation of the point system, but you can, however, give yourself a moderate boost in those respective stats.

You are correct on the first skill. However, would that allow me to go around Silence, or would I need another higher-tier skill to allow that to cancel Silence?

The only reason I'm really keeping those abilities is because they're more innate abilities that come with the use of elements. However, I'll probably make a more powerful, spell version of Extend to go with it, this is just meant to be a weak quick-fire thing that can be used a lot if necessary.

Other than that, though, the necessary edits have been made.

It is still considered magic, you're just using a skill to prevent having to use MP to cast it.

If you're dealing magical damage with the third skill, it can be affected by magic. By removing the word magical, you'll get the same result without the penalization.

Tier 1 abilities can never give more than a moderate bonus, which usually requires a drawback (needing an imbued weapon). Therefore, for the fifth skill, you cannot double the bonus. Instead, you can give a moderate bonus to another physical statistic.

Oh, could've sworn I used 'elemental' in there. I edited it.

For Battle-Mage, you won't be able to target the same spell consecutively.

This means, if you use the skill on your Fireball spell, you can't use it on your Fireball skill again until you've used it on another spell first, regardless of cool down.

Edit that in. After that, you should be good to go, unless Game Master has any objections. Bump when you're done editing and I'll give the stamp of approval.

Done.

Approved.