Loot-less Mechanic Ideas Other Than Unarmed + Hollow Palm Technique

I'm hyped GGG is adding a hand-to-hand style of combat skills, and how they're adding those got me thinking about the "Unarmed" status prerequisite. Your character is considered "Unarmed" once you empty your main-hand and off-hand equipment slots. Hollow Palm Technique is the Keystone that benefits from this status. One 'advantage' of this is that you have less loot and crafting to worry about; 2 out of your 10 equipment slots are automatically best in slot! Weapons are typically the most expensive parts of a build, and this mechanic simplifies things.

This got me thinking about other potential statuses we could acquire from emptying additional equipment slots, and how these statuses could 'add' build options.

1.) The "Unadorned" status. If you empty both your rings and amulet, you're thus considered Unadorned. With this status, I propose a Keystone that fixes the value of all your character attributes to 200 (or maybe 2 of all attributes per level). If this Keystone was easily accessible near the center of the tree, then you could test various skill gems with ease.

2.) The "Unsodden" status could activate from unequipping boots. The matching Keystone for this status could be named "Runners Blight" which gives you a flat 50% movement speed while "Unsodden." I really like this idea for going through the campaign, and before being able to afford boots with +35% movement speed.

3.) The "Unquenchable" Status could be for having no health or mana flask equipped. Then a Keystone that gives you a flat/percentage health & mana regen buff for your character. Some people might not enjoy the idea of using an emergency flask, and this could give them an option for opting out.

4.) The "Deft" status could be from unequipping your gloves. Similarly, there could be a Keystone that -and this one is a little wild- gives a +% value to all resistances based off your characters current attack/cast speed value.

5.) Or how about an "Ungemmed" status that activates if ALL jewel sockets on the skill tree are empty. Then a Keystone that gives +25% all resistances per unequipped jewel socket while "Ungemmed." Pathing to 7 jewel sockets seems attainable, and this also synergizes some with the gloveless idea which allowing some disadvantage while your character is debuffed.

6.) The "Unemcumbered" status could be from unequipping your body armor slot; body armor is quite cumbersome. Here the Keystone could gives +1500 HP or the equivalate ES value of 4000.

7.) The "Uncrowned" status for going helmetless could match with a Keystone named "The Third Eye." This Keystone could either give perfect accuracy and a projectile/spell casting damage boost or instead re-enforces your abilities in the arcane by unlocking a unique spell caster build based off your characters vision range and line of sight.

8.) The "Uncinched" status could be from going beltless, and maybe this Keystone could fill-in for armor/evasion rating.

What do you think of these other loot-less mechanics to 'add' possible build variety? If all of these were in the game, in some working fashion, then this could enable players to experiencing the story/world of POE without interacting with the loot. Once you've reached the Atlas map, each node could be pre-defined with modifiers, gain the ability to open/close freely, and scale based off your character's current level. Once you've navigated to the Arbiter of Ash and beaten him, the credits roll.


If you're a loot lover instead, what new base item could they add to scale the new hand-to-hand style of combat skills without locking it behind a Keystone and making it more accessible to other classes like the Warrior? Maybe claws could fill this role or brass knuckles or maybe some arm attachment mechanism.