Ideas for character classes

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@soda.berkeley.edu>]

  (I mailed this out already under another subject, but I thought
it was important enough to send out for consideration in it's own right.)

  Someone else suggested an omega-style division of experience.  How about
this: three major ability/experience divisions:

  Summary:  Have four experience divisions.  How quickly you advance
levels in a division depends on your stats.  Different actions contribute
experience to different divisions.  Player bitmaps become dependent on
their levels in different divisions.

  magic casting experience  -->  magic user level
  cleric casting experience -->  cleric level  
		(would we have to invent prayer points, dependent on wisdom?)
  fighting experience	    -->  fightning level (wc, dam, weapons speed)
  thief experience	    -->  thief level

  Killing monsters hand-to-hand adds points to fighting experience.
  Killing monsters with offensive magic adds to magic casting exp.
  Successfully casting clerical spells adds to cleric exp.
	-->  this should be dependent on the difficulty of
		the dungeon you are in.  (That way someone would
		at least have to go somewhere dangerous to go up
		levels)
  Successfully casting non-offensive magical spells adds to magic
		experience, dependent on dungeon difficulty.
  Successfully disarming directors, bulletwalls, lightning walls,
		firewalls, traps, opening doors.... leads to
		thief experience.

  For thieves:  how about the following:  let's regard such things
as spinners, directors, bullet walls, lightningwalls, firewalls,
as traps.  Characters would have the chance to disarm these.  How
much "killing" each trap would be worth would depend on the level 
of the trap, and the difficulty of disarming that trap would depend
on the thief level.  The thief skills should be dexterity, and charisma.
(But OFFICER!  I WAS ONLY....)  The thing is, we'd have to allow disarming
of bulletwalls, etc....  If someone wanted an invincible bullet wall,
though, he'd only have to set the wall's level to 999 or something.

  Now here's the caveat:  how much good the experience does you is
dependent on your stats.  I.e., it takes someone with an intelligence
of 10 twice as much magic exp. to advance a magic user level as someone
with an int of 20.

  For fighting experience, it should be St + Dx + Con which determine
how quickly you advance, and for clerical, wisdom.


  I think this is reasonable, because of this situation:  suppose
you have a warrior with a St. 10, con 10, and dex 16.  (Unlikey,
but hang in there) and Int 20.  Obviously, warrior or no, this character's
real aptitude is magic, and only a fool would play him otherwise.  (Okay,
Wis 14 too).

  This proposal preserves strong class differentials in a sensible way:
you advance quickly in things you have skills (stats) for, if you practice.


  Now here's an interesting proposal:  vary the character's bitmap based
on his relative character levels.  Someone with equal fighting/clerical
should have the priest bitmap, equal fighting/magic should have a mage
bitmap, a dominant magic user should have the wizard bitmap....
Get the picture?

  This wouldn't be TOO hard to implement.  And after a while, it'd
be very clear if the game needed balancing.  Everyone would have one 
bitmap, if the game were badly balanced.


Regards,

Peterm