Bane Circle Siege

Bane Circle Siege Idea

This is inspired by the original plan for siege warfare in the early beta of Shadowbane. One team controls a city, at the heart of which is a Tree of Life, which has the magical ability to bring the dead back to life and repair damage to city buildings. The other team is laying siege to this city using several Bane Circles, positioned a short distance outside the city walls, which sap energy from the tree of life.

Each player controls a hero (or maybe more than one), and I was planning on basing the heroes on Shadowbane professions and disciplines. Heroes all start at level 10 and cannot increase in level (in fact, the only reason they need to be heroes is to leverage the builtin skill selection mechanism).

When an attacking hero is killed, they are out of play for a certain time, and then reappear at one of a small number (1-3) of Rune Gates near the extremes of the map (the player chooses which one). When a defending hero is killed, they are resurrected immediately at the tree of life with reduced health and no mana, but are afflicted with a temporary Death Shroud (resurrection sickness) which dramatically reduces their abilities for a time (I was thinking something like half movement/attack speed, half damage, and greatly reduced health and mana regeneration).

If the heroes are killed again while still under the death shroud, the duration of the death shroud should increase and its effects should become more severe.

The city's defenses feature two enclosing walls, each with several gates that can be opened and closed by any hero (from either team), but only from the inside. The defenders also have the benefit of several guard barracks, each of which supports a small number of guards (each substantially weaker than a hero) which patrol the general area around the barracks but are not under the players' direct control. If a guard is killed, the barracks will automatically begin producing a replacement (at no cost), but will never exceed the number of guards the barracks can support. For variety, different types of guards (soldiers, archers, magi, captains) could be introduced.

Walls should block line of sight and it should be possible to walk on them, with ramps leading up to them at various points on the interior of the walls. When they are destroyed, it should be possible to see and walk through (on ground level) where they used to be. I believe this could be implemented well by using a bridge with a building or destructible in front of it, using triggers to kill the bridge when the building/destructible dies.

The attackers are given five siege weapons, with a long range and fantastic damage output, but they are slow and can only target structures. The attackers can control their siege weapons directly. Walls and barracks can be damaged either by the attacking heroes or by the siege weapons, but they have a lot of health and armor and the siege weapons do considerably more damage to them. If the siege weapons are destroyed, new siege weapons are constructed after a certain delay. These could be constructed at one or more Siege Tents on site (giving the defenders another target to hit), or possibly brought in through the rune gates.

The Tree of Life initially has the capability to send healing energy to up to 5 buildings at once. These healing energies can only be redirected by the single hero which leads the defending force (you could provide capability to change which hero is the leader, but it should take some effort, and attackers should always know who the leader is). He can only redirect the healing energies when standing near the Tree of Life, and he cannot redirect them while under the death shroud. Five untargetable dummy units around the tree of life can supply the healing energy by casting reverse life drain on the structures, so that everyone can see what buildings are being healed. A single building can be healed with several "shares" of healing energy if the defenders desire it. The Tree of Life has a small natural regeneration, but cannot directly heal itself.

One "share" of the Tree of Life's healing energy should restore health to a building slightly faster than a siege weapon can damage it, so the Tree of Life can counter all of the siege weapons if it is correctly directed. However, the attackers have a small number (3-5) of Bane Circles which are draining energy from the Tree of Life. When the energy drops below certain thresholds, the Tree of Life can no longer heal as many buildings. Eventually, if all of its energy is drained, it cannot provide any healing at all, and the siege weapons will be able to batter their way in fairly easily unless the defenders constantly destroy them. Of course, energy will not be drained as quickly if some of the bane circles are destroyed.

The defenders break the siege and win the map by destroying all of the bane circles; the attackers capture the city and win the map by destroying the Tree of Life. The defenders cannot play a waiting game because their Tree of Life is constantly losing energy; the attackers cannot play a waiting game because the defenders can return to battle more quickly when they die unless the attackers can fight their way in to the Tree of Life and start chain-killing defenders under the Death Shroud to keep them out of the fight longer.

All heroes have five hero skills, each with a maximum level of five, and one non-hero "ultimate" skill which they get without spending points on it. Some heroes have abilities that will enable them to get past walls or to affect the energy of the Tree of Life.

Any player may swap out his hero and choose a new one, but his current hero must travel to one of the Rune Gates, and the new hero will appear at one of the Rune Gates.

Some ideas for heroes I was working on (this does not nearly exhaust all the professions in Shadowbane):

Warrior
Solid warrior, good damage, hard to kill

Weapon Mastery - Consumes mana, increases damage on attack (not sure how it would be implemented; might play around with Orb of Annihilation and short duration/long fade time Wind Walk)
Block - Gives a chance to avoid attacks (works like evasion)
Indomitable Will - Self-only dispel debuff (requires triggers to be selective)
Trip - Reduces target's movement speed, short range, low cooldown
Shield Bash - Brief, short-range stun
Ultimate: Rally - Unstuns all nearby allies; high mana cost, low cooldown

Berserker
High health/damage, low armor and mana

Shout - Very short duration area-of-effect stun (could be based on War Stomp)
Revenge - Returns damage to melee attackers
Indomitable Will - Self-only dispel debuff (requires triggers to be selective)
Toughness - Increases maximum health
Athletics - Increases maximum mana
Ultimate: Rage - Dramatically increase move and attack speed, maybe grant spell immunity or at least stun immunity (probably requires triggers); high mana cost, high cooldown

Crusader
Holy Knight of the All-Father

Block - Gives a chance to avoid attacks (works like evasion)
Censure - Direct damage
Benediction of St. Lorne - Increases damage of self and nearby allies (works like roar)
Benediction of St. Clarinus - Increases armor of self and nearby allies (works like negative howl of terror)
Aid to the Faithful - Increases health recovery of self and nearby allies
Ultimate: Blessing of the Healing Hands - Targetable mega-heal, low cost, long cooldown

Assassin
Stealth killer, high damage, low health

Backstab - Invisibility, reduced movement speed (faster at higher levels), backstab damage
Slayer's Focus - Personal stun immunity for a time (requires triggers)
Blind - Gives a target a high chance to miss, also reduces armor; high cooldown
Silence - Renders a target unable to cast spells for a time; high cooldown
Black Mantle - Dispels healing over time and prevents heal spells from being cast on a target for a time; high cooldown
Ultimate: Passwall - Short-range personal teleport; shouldn't remove invisibility (probably requires triggers)

Scout
Expert in detection; high sight range and movement speed; uses a bow

Detect - Passive truesight with range that increases with level
Shot to the Leg - Long-range, low-cost movement speed reduction
Camouflage - Targetable invisibility; dispelled if the target moves, attacks, or casts a spell (requires triggers)
Pathfinding - Increases the movement speed of self and nearby allies
Sneak - Invisibility, reduced movement speed (faster at higher levels)
Ultimate: Reveal - Reveals all nearby enemies (actually removes the buff that makes them invisible)

Priest
Supportive casting hero, low damage

Aid to the Injured - Direct healing spell, self targetable, high efficiency, low cooldown
Divine Recovery - Single-target healing over time
Sanction - Powerful single-target stun, low cooldown, high mana cost
Blessing of Strength - Targetable buff temporarily increases the strength of a hero (requires triggers)
Blessing of Agility - Targetable buff temporarily increases the agility of a hero (requires triggers)
Ultimate: Psalm of Recovery - Works like Tranquility

Prelate
Warrior Priest of the All-Father

Touch of St. Wend - Direct healing spell, self-targetable, lower efficiency and higher cooldown than the Priest's heal
Censure - Direct damage
St. Lorne's Ire - Area-of-effect damage, excludes allies (possibly based on Starfall?)
St. Victor's Vigor - Mana restoration over time, targetable, long duration, cooldown is around 1/4 the duration
Blessed Protection - Increases target's armor
Ultimate: Resurrection - Targets the recent corpse of a hero; immediately brings him back to life with half health (if defender, removes the death shroud and teleports hero to the location of his death), long cooldown

Doomsayer
Scion of Chaos, low health/armor

Unleash Blight - Direct (instant) health drain (probably requires triggers)
Glyph of Madness - Direct (instant) mana drain (probably requires triggers)
Unleash the Taint - Health drain over time, not channeled (requires triggers)
Leech of Souls - Mana drain over time, not channeled (requires triggers)
Bounty of Chaos - Direct healing spell, weaker than Prelate's
Ultimate: Doom - Prevent target structure from being healed by Tree of Life (channeled, requires triggers)
Might need an alternate ultimate for defending team

Channeler
Elemental Mage/Healer

Blessed Mending - Direct healing, no cooldown, not mana efficient
Ignite - Fire damage over time
Hoarfrost - Direct damage and slow movement speed
Cone of Lightning - Strikes all enemies in an area with lightning (Forked Lightning, large number of targets)
Flesh of Lead - Buff; absorbs a fraction of the damage to a target until a certain amount has been absorbed or the duration expires (requires triggers)
Ultimate: Ride the Winds - Temporary flight (probably requires triggers)

Wizard
Dedicated Mage, high damage, low health

Sign of Sorthoth - Magic damage over time, reduces attack damage and/or speed (probably requires triggers in order for the damage to count as being magical)
Conjure Familiar - Summon a companion
Hexagram Ritual - Increases susceptibility to magic (triggers - add modified ability from Runed Bracers item)
Translocation - Teleports caster and nearby allies a limited distance (requires triggers); more distance and less cooldown as levelled
Stun - Medium-length stun, high cooldown
Ultimate: Disrupt Energies - Channel on Tree of Life to drain its energies faster, channel on a Bane Circle to reduce its ability to drain the Tree of Life; significant range (requires triggers)

Bard
Master of song, more fighter-like than a mage

Canticle of Inspiration - Targetable buff temporarily increases the intelligence of a hero (requires triggers)
Rhythm of Steel - Increases the attack speed of the caster and nearby allies
Song of Warding - Makes the caster and nearby allies more resistant to magic (requires triggers)
Restive Melodies - Increases health and mana recovery of the caster and nearby allies (probably requires triggers)
Ritardando - Reduces the movement and attack speed of all nearby enemies
Ultimate: Dance of Derrac the Dauntless - Makes the caster and all nearby allies invulnerable for a short time

All concepts and ideas on this page may be freely used by another in implementing any WarCraft III map. If you implement this map closely following the description above, please email me so that I can take a look.