HG:L - Slacker Variant v0.02

A Slacker is a character who doesn't take all this nonsense about demonic invasions too seriously. He just can't be bothered to do his utmost to push back the demonic horde. Truthfully, he'd rather be at the beach. As a result, he's generally disinclined to practice new skills, or to discipline his mind and body to new levels of performance, or even so much as to bother trying to figure out complex equipment. Unfortunately for him, fate has decreed that he shall have a role to play in stopping the incursion, and so he finds himself chivvied along the path of destiny, regardless of how half-hearted his efforts might be.

The Slacker bumbles along as best he can, adopting a relaxed pace and attitude, even if the role fate has cast him in requires a certain dogged persistence. While he takes note of his surroundings, and is quite content to smell the roses along the way, he devotes little of his energy to actually learning anything from his experience. It's only when he confronts and overcomes a truly notable challenge that he stops to reflect and perhaps come to some new understanding of a manner in which he might do things more easily in the future.

At birth, Slackers by default may use no equipment, may use no skills, and may allocate no characteristic points. Anything more complicated than punching something in their civvies is beyond their understanding, at first. Luckily, they can learn (if slowly) to unlock their potential in four categories; in each category, a Slacker must learn the first ability before moving on to later ones, as follows:

Equippables*
1) Ability to use white items
2) Ability to use enhanced (green) items or items with enhanced properties
3) Ability to use rare (blue) items or items with rare properties
4) Ability to use legendary items or items with legendary properties
5) Ability to use any item type
*Note: Quest items are always equippable, regardless of quality level.

Equipment Sources
1) Ability to use Mods
2) Ability to use Vendors/Crafters*
3) Ability to use Delux De-modificator
4) Ability to use Augmentrex/Nanoforge
5) Ability to Trade or Twink
*Note: Includes buying consumables from vendors. Prior to this a Slacker is effectively living off the land.

Attributes
1) Able to assign up to 1 attribute point per Clvl (incl. retroactively)
2) Able to assign up to 2 attribute points per Clvl (incl. retroactively)
3) Able to assign up to 3 attribute points per Clvl (incl. retroactively)
4) Able to assign up to 4 attribute points per Clvl (incl. retroactively)
5) Able to assign attribute points freely

Skills*
1) Able to use skills up to slvl 1 and not totalling more than 5 points
2) Able to use skills up to slvl 2 and not totalling more than 10 points
3) Able to use skills up to slvl 3 and not totalling more than 18 points
4) Able to use skills up to slvl 5 and not totalling more than 30 points
5) Able to assign skill points freely
*Note: This restriction includes starting skills such as sprint and skills gained from equipment. If a piece of equipment would put a Slacker's assigned skills over the skill point or slvl cap, he may not use it.

Even though a Slacker at birth knows none of these abilities, he is not completely bereft of a sense of the appropriate. When fate casts him in the role of saviour, he does elect to undergo some basic training and acquires two (2) "ability points" to be used to select abilities from the above lists. Thereafter, any time a Slacker completes an act in the play fate has in store for him (acts 1-6), he earns one additional ability point. In keeping with his Slacker nature, he may choose to save unused ability points and assign them later at his convenience -- in fact, doing so could be considered a point of additional pride for a Slacker. Once assigned, an ability point may not be changed. A Slacker with an equippable pet (e.g. an Engineer's Drone) obeys the same rules for the pet that the Slacker does regarding attributes and allowed equipment.

The Slacker must complete all quests for any given act before moving on to the next act, but full-clearing is optional. Slackers must journey solo or with similarly-challenged variants only, ideally other Slackers. They prefer not to associate with anyone that can show them up by blazing through the minions of Hell faster than they can.

Slackers see no reason to suffer undue pain and suffering for a cause as unimportant (in their view of things) as ending the demonic invasion. A slacker who finds him or herself at death's door too frequently in pursuit of a quest will tend to abandon it for the moment, and return later better prepared, rather than bull blindly forward, making progress in small increments by sheer persistence. That said, a slacker who is adventuring with others, and finds himself taking a dirt nap, is perfectly within his rights to rejoin his companions with all due speed so as not to inconvenience them. (Translation: progress by graveyard zerg-swarming is discouraged, but this is a judgement call area. An occasional death is ok; repeated deaths in a short interval mean you're in over your head and should consider quitting, rethinking your approach, and starting again from the nearest station -- especially in a party wipe situation. Exception: the 5 tests of the truths. These are FPS-styled mini-games, and as such, a quick respawn after death and an immediate return to the fray is to be expected and encouraged.)

Version 0.02 Notes
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- Updated after having had a test character complete Normal difficulty. Future fine-tuning of the variant to adjust the challenge to desired levels for Nightmare/Hell is probably a given. At this point it is also designed to be played in 'normal' mode, and may need adjustments for subscriber-only modes such as Elite and Hardcore.
- Hell difficulty is as yet unavailable, and the specifics of when and under what form it will be released are as yet unclear. For the moment, the variant is targetted to having the variant restrictions removed by the time the character completes Hell difficulty, but this could change.
- Completion of acts 1-6 refers to discovering each of the 5 truths, plus defeating Sydonai and completing the game, once per each difficulty level (Normal / Nightmare / Hell.)

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