Beastmaster Concept

[Leukah]

BST Gauge: Rapport
This gauge fills as the BST heals and buffs his active beast. When full, it triggers a combo attack, with the BST and his beast attacking simultaneously - sort of like a miniature Limit Break. If a beast is removed from the field (either by Whistle or by knockout), then the gauge empties. Different multipliers can exist - for example, healing a beast that has 30% HP remaining will increase the gauge more than healing a beast that has 90% remaining. A beast at a higher training level will have a baseline multiplier across the board ('cus he trusts his master, of course!)


Beast Charming Mechanics
Alluded to above, but Charm is a timed cast and is interruptible, so the BST will need to stun his target to give himself time to cast. The effectiveness (the likelihood he will tame his target) is based on the monster he's targeting and whether or not he has used lures. And maybe HP %age.

Lures will increase the likelihood of Charm working, depending on what lure was used for what creature. And a note - I'm picturing fairly general things, here. Like an applecake for herbivore creatures. It doesn't have to be creature-specific.

Traps will increase the length of a stun, again depending on what trap was used for what creature, and again in general.

Traps and Lures would be used like current lure/trap quest items - the BST would set it to their hotbar and use it that way.

The BST can have charmed as many monsters as he wants, but only one of each monster type, and only 3 will be "summonable" at any one time.


Beast Training Level Mechanics
All beasts will begin at training level 1, no matter the level of the beast caught in the wild. They will earn experience through battle just as the player does. New skills/traits are unlocked as the training level increases.

The Arena
Obviously we can't have a creature capture minigame without an arena to force our beloved monsters to do battle. The Arena will be a Duty where players can either choose to queue for a PvP battle or a PvNPC battle (sort of like Lord of Verminion). The BST himself won't participate in battle, but will command his beast to attack from afar. I feel like this would work best as a turn-based Duty, but I don't know. Beasts that participate can earn exp this way as well. Maybe their lvl/skills could scale the way that Duties for players do.


Anyhoo. This kept me up last night so I just wanted to put it out there, so it wasn't rattling around in my head anymore. I feel like it'd be a really fun way to incorporate all of the current aspects of the game into one job, it scratches the itch for completionists and creature collectors, and it adds a new type of combat. Curious to hear everyone's thoughts.