[Tournament idea][Interest & Review][V2.2] March of the Doomed

Babyhell

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Jan 22, 2019
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Welcome everyone to my (hopefully) first ever hosted tournament...but first, let's see if there's any interest from the community and get some feedback to see if it is launchable...or laughable ;-)

This idea went because I really like @Vang 's Random Tournaments. I am planning a start early 2022. What I need to cover the most is the class balance, if anyone sees a specific issue somewhere, any comment is welcome!

It will generate/require interactions between the participants quite often, which I liked in the Random Tournament 2020, and well it doesn't put a step too much into the Random Tournaments' territory so it could find its place in 2022, before the next edition of this gem.

Looking forward for your comments!

Updates:
> [V2] Birth damnation added, see 2.b.
> [V2] Precision added on reset, see 4.
> [V2.1] Random roll is now encouraged to be made by another player, see 2.a.
> [V2.2] Birth damnation removed, see 2.b.


The core mechanic is that each act boss (first) kill leaves you with a damnation, being here a skill lock that you are not allowed to use anymore.

Detailed mechanics and rulings are the following ones:
1. Basic liberties
  • no gearing limitation, with possible generated limitations (see below)
  • skill points can be put freely, with generated limitations (see below)
2.a. Damnation generalities
  • at the end of each act, one new skill is randomly chosen (cannot be identical to a previous one), and forever forbidden to be used AND put any point in. See section 2.b. for detailed mechanics.
  • rolls are encouraged to be made by another forum member. However, self rolling is accepted in case of limited gaming time/sessions.
  • case of an item granted skill: cannot be used if the skill is forbidden. You can take advantage of other class skills!
2.b. Damnation details
Lesser Evils are a menace for low tiers skills, whereas Prime Evils menace higher tiers skills as described below:
  • Andariel damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 1-12
  • Duriel damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 1-12
  • Mephisto damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 18-30
  • Diablo damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 18-30
  • Baal damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 24-30. For him, this can be refused BEFORE ROLL at the cost of a random non-weapon item location. The item rolled will then be allowed to be used magical only (socketing is still allowed).
  • If a forbidden skill had already skill point in, unlocked skills can still be used normally.
    For example, if you had a point in Iron Skin, and Iron Skin is now locked, you can still put points into Natural Resistance.
    But if Iron Skin had no point in before being locked, then Natural Resistance is not accessible, as no point can be put in Iron Skin as a prerequisite.
3. Blessings
  • Cow King must be killed before moving to the next difficulty (i.e. Normal and Nightmare only - so Hell Cows can be rerun in versions prior to D2R)
  • The Cow King reward: when you kill the Cow King in each difficulty (Normal and Nightmare only) for the first time, you are rewarded with a Royal Seal. This one allows you to protect a skill from damnation, and can be used at any time, on any forbidden skill. This skill can then be used as a normal skill, and have skill points spent in it at will. The seal is usable only once, and cannot be moved later to another skill.
4. Specific game functionalities
  • reset is allowed. But when putting skill points again, locked skills have this specific rule: locked skills lvl 1-12 can be put up to 5 points in (those are still not usable, but that allows some flexibility on synergies/passive skills). Locked skills lvl 18+ cannot be put any point in. However, it is still forbidden to put any skill point in a skill unlocked by a damned skill.
    For example, if you had Increased Stamina locked before respec, you can put up to 5 points in during respec.
    But even if you had points in Increased Speed before respec, you are not allowed to point any point in due to Increased Stamina lock.
  • any playersX setting allowed. Feel free to abuse it for chests or Countess!
5. Others
  • Single or Multi Pass untwinked journey.
  • Hardcore mode is preferred. But can be made Softcore, with the rule that the character is out of the tournament on death.
6. Scoring system
  • 3 points per act completed
  • 3 bonus points per difficulty completed when SP
  • -2 points when deciding to sacrifice an item location to Baal
  • 3 bonus points per unused Royal Seal at the end of the journey
7. How to roll?
Roll shall be made as follows, using our usual random.org/integers generator:
  • Count X the number of available skills in the tiers range (for example 15 after the first Andariel kill for the Paladin)
  • Roll 1-X, starting 1 on the left of the skill tab A to the right of the skill tab C, tier by tier (for example after the first Andariel kill for a Paladin, 1-5 is the range of the skills lvl 1, 6-10 the range of the skills lvl 6, 11-15 the range of the skills lvl 12)
Skills trees by class, stolen/adapted from the Random Tournament 2021 ;-)
Skill tab A
Skill tab B
Skill tab C
Amazon
Javelin & Spear
Passive & Magic
Bow & Xbow
Assassin
Martial Arts
Shadow
Traps
Barbarian
Warcries
Combat Masteries
Combat Skills
Druid
Elemental
Shape Shifting
Summoning
Necromancer
Summoning
Poison & Bone
Curses
Paladin
Defensive
Offensive
Combat skills
Sorceress
Cold
Fire
Lightning
 
Last edited:
The core mechanic is that each act boss (first) kill leaves you with a damnation, being here a skill lock that you are not allowed to use anymore.

For now, the detailed mechanics and rulings are the following ones:
1. Basic liberties
  • no gearing limitation, with possible generated limitations (see below)
  • skill points can be put freely, with generated limitations (see below)
2.a. Damnation generalities
  • at the end of each act, one new skill is randomly chosen (cannot be identical to a previous one), and forever forbidden to be used AND put any point in. See section 2.b. for detailed mechanics.
  • rolls have to be made by another forum member.
  • case of an item granted skill: cannot be used if the skill is forbidden. You can take advantage of other class skills!
2.b. Damnation details
Lesser Evils are a menace for low tiers skills, whereas Prime Evils menace higher tiers skills as described below:
  • Andariel damnation roll has to be made on lvl skills 1-12
  • Duriel damnation roll has to be made on lvl skills 1-12
  • Mephisto damnation roll has to be made on lvl skills 18-30
  • Diablo damnation roll has to be made on lvl skills 18-30
  • Baal damnation roll has to be made on lvl skills 24-30. For him, this can be refused BEFORE ROLL at the cost of a random non-weapon item location. The item rolled will then be allowed to be used magical only (socketing is still allowed).
  • If a forbidden skill had already skill point in, unlocked skills can still be used normally.
    For example, if you had a point in Iron Skin, and Iron Skin is now locked, you can still put points into Natural Resistance.
    But if Iron Skin had no point in before being locked, then Natural Resistance is not accessible, as no point can be put in Iron Skin as a prerequisite.
3. Blessings
  • Cow King must be killed before moving to the next difficulty (i.e. Normal and Nightmare only - so Hell Cows can be rerun in versions prior to D2R)
  • The Cow King reward: when you kill the Cow King in each difficulty (Normal and Nightmare only) for the first time, you are rewarded with a Royal Seal. This one allows you to protect a skill from damnation, and can be used at any time, on any forbidden skill. This skill can then be used as a normal skill, and have skill points spent in it at will. The seal is usable only once, and cannot be moved later to another skill.
4. Specific game functionalities
  • reset is allowed. But when putting skill points again, locked skills have this specific rule: locked skills lvl 1-12 can be put up to 5 points in (those are still not usable, but that allows some flexibility on synergies/passive skills). Locked skills lvl 18+ cannot be put any point in.
  • any playersX setting allowed. Feel free to abuse it for chests or Countess!
5. Others
  • Single or Multi Pass untwinked journey.
  • Hardcore mode is preferred. But can be made Softcore, with the rule that the character is out of the tournament on death.
6. Scoring system
  • 3 points per act completed
  • 3 bonus points per difficulty completed when SP
  • -2 points when deciding to sacrifice an item location to Baal
  • 3 bonus points per unused Royal Seal at the end of the journey
7. How to roll?
Roll shall be made as follows, using our usual random.org/integers generator:
  • Count X the number of available skills in the tiers range (for example 15 after the first Andariel kill for the Paladin)
  • Roll 1-X, starting 1 on the left of the skill tab A to the right of the skill tab C, tier by tier (for example after the first Andariel kill for a Paladin, 1-5 is the range of the skills lvl 1, 6-10 the range of the skills lvl 6, 11-15 the range of the skills lvl 12)
Skills trees by class, stolen/adapted from the Random Tournament 2021 ;-)
Skill tab A
Skill tab B
Skill tab C
Amazon
Javelin & Spear
Passive & Magic
Bow & Xbow
Assassin
Martial Arts
Shadow
Traps
Barbarian
Warcries
Combat Masteries
Combat Skills
Druid
Elemental
Shape Shifting
Summoning
Necromancer
Summoning
Poison & Bone
Curses
Paladin
Defensive
Offensive
Combat skills
Sorceress
Cold
Fire
Lightning
 
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March of the Doomed
Evil has taken the control of the lands. Peace is now a forgotten word, armies have fallen, heroes are dead or have left years ago...

Here or there, small villages survive, with people trying to hide as much as possible to avoid arousing interest of the hordes of demons who reign on the remaining cities.

In those villages, elder dies. And sometimes, babies are born. The latters learn to survive before even put a foot outside of the house. Swordsmen, mages, trapperess, any people with any knowledge of survival take part in the education of the new borns.

Since their birth, they live in fear. They live with the fear. But they want to live. And they are their only hope...

You are one of them. A nobody amongst the many, from one of these small villages, who has been taught how to fight, but doesn't know what is really outside. It is now your choice: will you fight to exist, or hide to survive?


~~~ Rules ~~~
The core mechanic is that each act boss (first) kill leaves you with a damnation, being here a skill lock that you are not allowed to use anymore.
1. Basic liberties
  • no gearing limitation, with possible generated limitations (see below)
  • skill points can be put freely, with generated limitations (see below)
2.a. Damnation generalities
Fighting evil is not without consequences... each victory has a cost.
  • at the end of each act, one new skill is randomly chosen (cannot be identical to a previous one), and forever forbidden to be used AND put any point in. See section 2.b. for detailed mechanics.
  • rolls are encouraged to be made by another forum member. However, self rolling is accepted in case of limited gaming time/sessions.
  • case of an item granted skill: cannot be used if the skill is forbidden. You can take advantage of other class skills!
2.b. Damnation details
Lesser Evils are a menace for low tiers skills, whereas Prime Evils menace higher tiers skills as described below:
  • Andariel damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 1-12
  • Duriel damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 1-12
  • Mephisto damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 18-30
  • Diablo damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 18-30
  • Baal damnation roll has to be made on available skills lvl 24-30. For him, this can be refused BEFORE ROLL at the cost of a new random non-weapon item location. The item rolled will then be allowed to be used magical only (socketing is still allowed).
  • The item roll is 1-9, with:
    • 1 being the Amulet
    • 2 being Ring1
    • 3 being Ring2
    • 4 being Offhand (note: this one impacts main and switch locations)
    • 5 being Headgear
    • 6 being Body armor
    • 7 being Gloves
    • 8 being Belt
    • 9 being Boots
  • If a forbidden skill had already skill point in, unlocked skills can still be used normally.
    For example, if you had a point in Iron Skin, and Iron Skin is now locked, you can still put points into Natural Resistance.
    But if Iron Skin had no point in before being locked, then Natural Resistance is not accessible, as no point can be put in Iron Skin as a prerequisite.
3. Blessings
  • Cow King must be killed before moving to the next difficulty (i.e. Normal and Nightmare only - so Hell Cows can be rerun in versions prior to D2R)
  • The Cow King reward: when you kill the Cow King in each difficulty (Normal and Nightmare only) for the first time, you are rewarded with a Royal Seal. This one allows you to protect a skill from damnation, and can be used at any time, on any forbidden skill. This skill can then be used as a normal skill, and have skill points spent in it at will. The seal is usable only once, and cannot be moved later to another skill.
4. Specific game functionalities
  • reset is allowed. But when putting skill points again, locked skills have this specific rule: locked skills lvl 1-12 can be put up to 5 points in (those are still not usable, but that allows some flexibility on synergies/passive skills). Locked skills lvl 18+ cannot be put any point in.
    However, it is still forbidden to put any skill point in a skill unlocked by a damned skill: it is therefore important to note the moment of the reset, to be able to know which skills were damned after the reset, for which the general rules from 2.b. still applies.
    For example, if you had Increased Stamina locked before respec, you can put up to 5 points in during respec.
    But even if you had points in Increased Speed before respec, you are not allowed to point any point in due to Increased Stamina lock.
  • any playersX setting allowed. Feel free to abuse it for chests or Countess!
5. Others
  • Single or Multi Pass untwinked journey.
  • Hardcore mode is preferred. But can be made Softcore, with the rule that the character is out of the tournament on death.
6. Scoring system
  • 3 points per act completed
  • 3 bonus points per difficulty completed when SP
  • -2 points when deciding to sacrifice an item location to Baal
  • 3 bonus points per unused Royal Seal at the end of the journey
7. How to roll?
Roll shall be made as follows, using random.org/integers generator:
  • Count X the number of available skills in the tiers range (for example 15 after the first Andariel kill for the Paladin)
  • Roll 1-X, starting 1 on the left of the skill tab A to the right of the skill tab C, tier by tier (for example after the first Andariel kill for a Paladin, 1-5 is the range of the skills lvl 1, 6-10 the range of the skills lvl 6, 11-15 the range of the skills lvl 12)
Skills trees by class, stolen/adapted from the Random Tournament 2021 ;-)
Skill tab A
Skill tab B
Skill tab C
Amazon
Javelin & Spear
Passive & Magic
Bow & Xbow
Assassin
Martial Arts
Shadow
Traps
Barbarian
Warcries
Combat Masteries
Combat Skills
Druid
Elemental
Shape Shifting
Summoning
Necromancer
Summoning
Poison & Bone
Curses
Paladin
Defensive
Offensive
Combat skills
Sorceress
Cold
Fire
Lightning

Good luck!
 
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Hey,

It's nice to get more Tournaments but personally I wouldn't participate. The reason is because I wouldn't like to limit myself on anything.
The MF/RF tournaments are completely free. Just pick any character, any area, any build and farm for those items which is something everyone has already been doing so such Tournaments can still help you stay on track for your goals and increase your motivation to play at the highest possible efficiency.

Reading your post, it already discourages me in participating. There are so many stuff to keep in mind, so many rules that I would always need to remember and basically they seem against the nature of the game. If I have to follow certain rules, they don't allow me to enjoy the game but on the contrary create me a headache. I don't know how the Random Tournament works so perhaps players like me are not the best to take into consideration.

In any case, I hope your format will attract other players and may it be a successful one!
 
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I’m maybe(?) in the minority of people playing D2 (D2R), since I have never really done much in the MF/RF mode.
It can be fun and I LOVE to see the green and gold, but whenever I twink any character I lose interest in a flash, must be some masochistic trait on my part.
So this format is right up my alley, I also have an assassin build I would like to revisit and this tourney might be the solution to that 😁
 
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@Excalibur yes there's a variety of tournament existing, and from time to time beating the game with limitations renews for me the interest of new journeys, like @Vang's Random, @PhineasB's Orange, @Dazliare's Overburdened, @OldSoldier's BBBBB, etc...to quote only ones I had a run our a start with.

Sometimes I fail, sometimes I don't, sometimes I complete or sometimes not. But I always take pleasure to discover those ideas and read them, think about how to make a workaround, the existence of those formats is one big plus of this forum community for me. That's also the reason of this, trying to add my own flavor to the existing cakes.

And I also take a lot of pleasure to have a MF tournament, to grab a DWeb and have a new character who finally put some unused skillers in his bag!

We'll meet in an upcoming MF/RF tournament then! :)
 
This sounds intriguing!

At first glance you will have to spread your early skill points if you want to avoid that certain later skills are unreachable because of an early damnation:

Say you didn't put a point in Frost Nova before beating Andariel and then you roll Frost Nova as a damnation, you wouldn't be able to ever use Blizzard and/or Frozen orb. This could potentially leave you locked without a usable effective skill in late NM and Hell in a scenario like this:

Some end-game skills get locked out because of crucial early damned prereqs where you didn't put any points into it. Later, the few end-game skills left which you used get locked because of damnations from later act bosses.

I'm no math expert though and don't know how likely that will be, but I guess everyone has to keep that in mind and better be safe than sorry (I. E. Put points into all prereqs of all skill trees to prevent that scenario).

Some observations/thoughts on strategy:

It might be good to take a look at those level 1, 6,12 skills (only Andariel and Duriel will damn those) and level 18 skills because they are less likely to get damned (only Mephisto and Diablo can do so) than level 24 and 30 skills (Mephisto, Diablo and Baal).

Taking a passive skill early and maxing it (e.g. Weapon Masteries) might be a good choice, because even if that skill gets cursed, you still get the bonus.

I wouldn't spend leftover points immediately before facing an Act boss unless you dearly need those additional skill points. Chances are they might get banned anyway.

Act IV Normal and level 30 skills:
It might be a good choice to put a skill point in level 18-30 one-point wonders. I wouldn't start putting points into skills like FO though, because you only get to level 32 in single pass in Act IV and chance are that skill will get banned after Diablo. Rather start pumping your desired level 30 skill in Act V Normal. That way, you will be able to almost max it before Baal's Damnation hits you.

So much for now. I'd be definitely interested but will want to finish my Random Necro before that.
 
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This is interesting. I've been really considering joining the Random tournament for some time now and this seems super fun. I also like the idea of a tournament that doesn't have time restrictions like the MF/RF ones, since I never have time when those take place. Other than that I don't have any input because I feel this will be really hard to complete and that's the only thing that I can think of right now.
 
So the Cow King's seals will remove a damnation, and keep a skill from being chosen for damnation again? Can you use it on a skill that hasn't been damned yet, to keep it from ever getting damned?

Also, by the time you get your third seal from Elvis, you're done, finished, complete...there's no point in using it, so it will just be 3 points (I suppose you could just ignore hell cows, the rules only say you must kill Elvis to move to the next difficulty, and there isn't one...) You may want to consider moving that reward to something besides hell Elvis, so that players will actually be able to access and use it before completely finishing the tourney!!

WoRG
 
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Alright, @Babyhell went back and forth with me to help finalize some things, so here are some of my overall thoughts.

Challenge: This is not as hard as Random Tournament, but somewhere along the lines as Orange You Glad That Rune Dropped: Craft-Centric Tournament and Weapons of the Commoner and the Blessing of the King Tournament.

Reasoning: You get to save 2 skills for use. All you have to do is not get screwed over with the first lock and your pretty much set as you can reach 24 prior to second lock. The other option could be: Start with a lock and at the beginning instead of end of acts. The Demonic Hordes curse you from the get go! The hardest class will probably be sorceress as you maybe locked into one tree.

  • Barbarian: Lock Zerk if you want a big attack, but be mindful your weapon my change based on your passive locks. (Though with respect you still get 5 points)
  • Assassin: Trapper or... wait till 2.4? LOL, Could be really challenging.
  • Paladin: Lots of fun options (Zeal+Aura of choice) but you may get locked out of a cool Holy Shield.
  • Amazon: Lightning Fury and Valk can take down anything as been proven time and time again.
  • Druid: Wait for 2.4 (I know I am specifically for a very specific build in this tournament)
  • Necromancer: Make skeletons, win! or wait for 2.4 for Blood Golem and Spear it up like my old character Bloody Spears..
  • Sorceress: Pick a good skill and lock it.

My only suggestion would be that any passive skill can have no point in if it is not a pre-req to an available skill during a respect. This includes auras that have passive abilities (Single Resist/Blessed Aim).

  • This will impact the character choice from the start and since items aren't locked behind anything worse than magical choices made early have a big impact, which I like. Example: Want to be Telsadin? Better pump that Resist Lightning quickly as if it gets locked you can't drop anymore in it and a respect hurts.
  • This also impacts leveling and sort of hurts/benefits both playstyles. As a rerunner I can force which act I get into earlier than a /p8 clear, but this could mean I'm cut off from a skill until NM and if I use my respect versus a full clear knows pretty much the level range of each area and able to full.
  • Either way you cannot bank on using a respect. @Grisu previous post was quite on point.
  • Most notably this passive rule impacts Barbarian, Paladin, Amazon, Necromancer, Sorceress, Druid. Assassin is overall an active class and saved from this.
@Excalibur I would say tournaments in general would not be your thing, as all of them have some sort of forced change be it skills or gear.
 
Count me in, though I'm a bit concerned about balance, which it looks like you are too. Sorceress has 30 total skills available (I think everyone else has 30 too but haven't checked), and I foresee situations where I'm basically locked out of any useful active skill, which makes for a very unfun playthrough. The royal seals help obviously, but I wonder if we were to "theorytest" this, what the results would be. For example, just make a hypothetical sorc. She kills Andariel at level 20 (if p8 SP is used). Spread the skills how a player might, then damnation one. Repeat for the other bosses, and just see where you end up. I'd be happy to help in the effort.

All that said, I know you're thinking about all of this, so I have faith that it'll be a fun tourney :)
 
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@Dazliare yes every class has 30 skills available, and except for the barbarian due to masteries, there are 5 for each tier.

So basically *as of now* (I see the interest of @Vang's proposal on starting damnation), for tiers 1-12, that's 15 skills, that can easily be covered during the first act, and on a p8 run one point can be put in each up to 24 before Duriel (who also damns 1-12).

Higher tiers come afterwards with the three brothers, and by Mephisto lvl should be close to 30, and on top of that lvl 1-12 skills are safe until Andariel NM death.

Killing the Cow King protects one skill for the remaining of the journey, which could be basically enough to secure a strong skill for NM, and the respec mechanic allows to build some synergies for skills 1-12.

I am currently thinking about allowing one point in any skill during a respec, so it can allow the rebalance of the build given the damnations (for example leaning towards a Blessed Hammer build, boom Concentration is damned... why not respec to Zealer if available, or Avenger... that could also offer the possibility to keep the Royal Seal(s... both, but I am mostly thinking about the first one here) for Hell, when it really matters. But that's a big impact...and less *doomy* :p

Anyway I will take some time to look after the passive limitations, and starting damnation. Then some testing could be done afterwards, for now it was mostly thinking about the concept and try to avoid unbalanced rulings. I'll PM you for this @Dazliare!

Thanks for input everyone!
 
I foresee situations where I'm basically locked out of any useful active skill
I faced that in Random Tournament 2020. Well... painful as hell, and it didn't end well either!

But that was early, here you can see all the effort doomed by Mephisto and Diablo Hell right on the end of the journey, hence the idea to help to keep Royal Seals for Hell.

But that's also the spirit to be honest, only one person IMO can succeed whatever is thrown at his faith, @Grisu is his name!
 
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I need a Paladin to complete my HC tourney Sept, but this looks really high chance of not-fun playthrough. Unless I miscounted, only 4 18-24 skills would be available to use at start of A5 Hell, unless one of two seals is used? Balance seems a bit off, especially when all elemental auras require synergies to shine, and combat skills the same.

I will likely give it a go either way (and I’m clearly stubborn as past tourneys have shown, and 99ers). But curious to hear feedback on approach for Pally to maximize likelihood of fun / non-unnecessarily-sloggy playthrough.
 
@PhineasB

Here is a random roll I did for paladin.

A1: 15, Charge
A2: 6, Resist Lightning
A3: 26, Vengeance
A4: 21, Holy Freeze
*A5: 29, Holy Shield
A1N: 1, Prayer
A2N: 14, Zeal
A3N: 22, Holy Shock
A4N: 27, Blessed Hammer
*A5N: 30, Fist of Heavens
A1H: 8, Holy Fire
A2H: 9, Thorns
A3H: 28, Conversion
A4H: 25, Conviction

*Optional slot before roll-I think most players will do this instead of sacrificing a skill.

It'll make the end journey unique, and I think the overall challenge of the tournament lies within a bit of luck and being able to adapt to a skill that isn't able to be used.

------------------------------------------------------------------

@Babyhell

What about gaining power back? In Hell after you defeat the act boss you can now use those two skills taken away previously, I imagine your chosen two skills are going to be enough, but it might add for some nice added power as you dive deeper into hell, and even thematically: You marched through Hell and defeated the demon and stole your power back?
 
@Vang the interest of the power gained back is for better building in Hell, that really seems to make sense.

However gaining back full skilling in the late Hell, doesn't help much, and probably doesn't make a lot of sense - except for the use of a respec when needed skills are finally unlocked, you can't really save points even for early hell, when you get back skills 1-12, but have to defeat Mephisto and/or Diablo Hell to unlock the juicy 18+ skills...sure the seals can do the trick meanwhile.

I have the feeling that it adds *more* to the storyline than to the mechanics - the core point is that it clarifies the possible build(s) at the start of Hell.

Another idea you added was the initial damnation. I think it could work, but needs to be tough to be significant as a rule - for example a set of damned skills to start with, not only one, and a reroll allowed on a couple. That could change the whole mechanic, but still being in the spirit.

Another set of rules could then be built around that:

One of each tier is damned at start, that makes 6 of each level 1-30.

Then after each boss you have to reroll a skill of a given tier of your choice (Andariel tiers 1-2, Duriel 2-3, Mephisto 3-4, Diablo 4-5- Baal 5-6 for example). Can roll the same, damnation is what it is...

After each difficulty, three random skills are added to the list, amongst pairs of tiers (one skill from tiers 1-2, one from tiers 3-4, one from tiers 5-6). After normal, that's 9 skills total locked.

Repeat for Nightmare, you're back on 12 skills locked for Hell.

Royal Seals could still be a thing: can be put on a forbidden or authorized skill to protect it from future rolls.

The key point here would be to give more control on things to balance the damnations.
I'm not dead. Just thinking ;-)
 
Another set of rules could then be built around that:

One of each tier is damned at start, that makes 6 of each level 1-30.

Then after each boss you have to reroll a skill of a given tier of your choice (Andariel tiers 1-2, Duriel 2-3, Mephisto 3-4, Diablo 4-5- Baal 5-6 for example). Can roll the same, damnation is what it is...

After each difficulty, three random skills are added to the list, amongst pairs of tiers (one skill from tiers 1-2, one from tiers 3-4, one from tiers 5-6). After normal, that's 9 skills total locked.

Repeat for Nightmare, you're back on 12 skills locked for Hell.
@Babyhell: While your latest thoughts are very well thought trough, I think it makes the rules a tad bit too convoluted. I honestly liked the inital rule set the best - btw, did you add the 5 points after respec in a damnation skill recently or did I just miss it in my initial read of the ruleset? I honestly liked the idea that you have to plan for potential disaster damnation that once a damnation hit a skill without skill points, the whole branch after that skill was locked out too. The points I made weren't to dissuade you from those rules, but to stress what it means for character planning (i.e. spread points to keep certain later skills open, pumping passive skills/synergies early on).

I can see that allowing to place one point into locked skills after a respec will be a boon for most players, because it prevents the lockout scenario I described. While I personally think it is not necessary, I can understand that most people would want a way out if they somehow messed up their skill choices by an unexpected damnation skill. The current rule set with 5 points in lv 1-12 skills but no skill points in lv 18-30 skills isn't that intuitive though to be honest :) And while I like complex rules it can be tedious to constantly look up rules. I noticed that most forumites nowadays prefer easy/short rules and scoring systems over complex systems.

Royal Seals could still be a thing: can be put on a forbidden or authorized skill to protect it from future rolls.
Using the seals to protect a certain skill seems too much like a free roll on your skill of choice. I'd rather have it the way you intended. Or at least as a kind of reroll on one of the damnation skills. That could open up some interesting tactics like: put points into some desired skills/synergies, then (potentially) free up a locked skill to put more points into that one as a usable skill (while another one in which you spent points as a synergy in now potentially gets locked preventing you from further putting points into it). On the other hand, reroll is ALMOST protecting your skill of choice for good...

Another idea you added was the initial damnation. I think it could work, but needs to be tough to be significant as a rule - for example a set of damned skills to start with, not only one, and a reroll allowed on a couple. That could change the whole mechanic, but still being in the spirit.
That would be quite similar to the Random Tournament rules (only reversed - you roll forbidden skills instead of allowed skills). I like your initial take more as a new flavour :)

Anyways, please take these thoughts as my thoughts only and not as "it is best done this way" - I will be happy with whatever will be the final version because I like the idea in general :)
 
did you add the 5 points after respec in a damnation skill recently or did I just miss it in my initial read of the ruleset?
It was in the initial ruleset. True it can be seen a bit complicated, but the synergies are (almost) mandatory for Hell journey, so...well.

I take note of the remark on the new idea of ruleset. You are right to point out that it goes a bit too much towards the Random Tournament territory, I'm fine with keeping things separated.

Let's just adapt, and not rewrite :)
 
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