Wow, seems like just yesterday I was hacking and slashing my way through the cathedral in the original Diablo. Since then, hewever, Diablo 2 has come and gone, and now Diablo 3 is making waves. Blizzards Diablo 3 site, over at http://www.blizzard.com/diablo3/index.xml works well to get my imagination pumping.

They have so far announced 3 character classes, The Barbarian, The Wizard, and The Witch Doctor. While I have to say that it’s nice to see the Barbarian back again, it’s also nice to see a few new classes. Although the Wizard appears to be different from the Mage of Diablo 2 in name only, there will (hopefully) be more differences in the game play style of this character. And then there is the Witch Doctor, a completely new class which looks quite interesting and fun to play. I’m really hoping they continue along this line and introduce new, never before seen classes. While I like the old classes very much and hope a few of them return, it would be very difficult to ignore a class that is not based on magic or physical damage.

Since the beginning of gaming, there have been two major forms of damage dealing, physical damage, such as a sword or a bow and arrow, and then magic damage. Magic damage has seen many adaptations, such as fire damage, cold damage, even holy damage, but one thing remains… this is all still magic damage. This is annoying, because even if you see that there are 10 classes in a game, odds are they are nothing new or unique. Just more of the same-old same-old.

Consider this variation. There are mages which are able to wield magic at will, and then there could be wizards who rely on magically imbued rods / staffs, or other pieces of equipment. This would add an interesting dynamic to the game. You could then have a class that would be something along the lines of a mentalist. They would maybe utilize psychic, or psionic abilities to control / influences the minds of their enemies. Perhaps give them the ability to posses an enemy, while there own body temporarily disappears. They would still take a percentage of “mental” damage that the body they are possessing takes, and when the body is destroyed they have to wait a certain amount of time before they can posses another. This may make them a little like the necromancer of Diablo 2, but without the army aspect. With only one “minion” at a time. After the body they have possessed is either destroyed, or the duration of the ability expires, they will have to fall back on secondary metal abilities in order to deal damage and dispatch their enemies.

Some food for thought.