For about a year I've had this idea but I want to see what you guys think. I play Maxwell a lot, probably my most played character, and he's a ton of fun right now. I think this might be a fun change but there's some people here who seem to be a lot more experienced than me and I'm particularly interested in what they think. I'm also interested in what less experienced players think of this idea, too.
Flint's not particularly hard to get, outside of public servers where people like to disconnect with a stack of it in their inventory, and Maxwell's really good at getting NMF so that cost isn't particularly high either. What if instead of needing to use tools, and possibly even removing the NMF cost as well, Maxwell could freely summon shadows from his Codex Umbra but they had a sanity drain over time and were dispelled if Maxwell reached 0 sanity? It would give more depth to Maxwell's sanity (currently only really a problem in prolonged boss fights) and allow him to be more free in his control over shadows. I constantly see people complain that their shadows automatically do things on their own and they want to be able to turn them off, they don't want to punch the shadows because of the little cost in doing so. If they drained sanity over time instead of resources they wouldn't feel bad about dismissing their shadows anymore.
Maxwell would feel less compelled to need to deforest an entire area if he wants to summon his loggers since the cost of it would be proportional to the time spent. He'd still be able to deforest an entire area, obviously, but maybe he might bring along a little bit of sanity food to do so instead of needing to craft a few axes? It would allow for a less minmaxy and more impromptu Maxwell who can at any moment do any task instead of prepping for one and doing it to the extreme.
Maybe it could even allow for a Shadow Duelist buff, making them less niche and more well-rounded. I think it would be pretty fun to have a more powerful Duelist at the cost of it having a high sanity drain, allowing you to enhance your combat capabilities at the cost of sanity and the potential of them being dismissed if your sanity runs out. Maybe they don't even need a buff, but if you were able to summon them without spending 2 nmf, some flint, some rope, and some twigs people would be more open to using them.
I never specified any numbers and kept everything vague because it's the idea that matters and the numbers and such could be tuned to whatever is balanced. What do you guys think? I think it would make him more interesting but probably not affect how strong he is. The cost isn't really too much currently and Woodie can already get infinity logs for free free, so I don't think Maxwell being able to get infinity logs/rocks/etc for a sanity cost would be busted. I'd love to hear your feedback regardless of how much you play Maxwell. I think it would make him more accessible and more fun while still mostly being the same character, but maybe I'm wrong.