Re: CF: skill categories and sub-skills (was: Quest & Characters and Alchemy)

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

> From: "Doug wilder" <doug_wilder@hotmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 22:34:51 EDT
> 
> 3 things that we might also think about:
> 
> 1: the way its set up right now if im surounded by caldrons i only have to 
> throw the spell once and it works in all of them.
> 
> 2: PLAY BALANACE - if we do change this then a really good look should e 
> made at the potions themselves and what level they would be assigned to.
> 
> 3: Cursed items being made - personally i think if we were to change this we 
> should make it so that they are rarely made. Its a giant flaw in the game 
> that i can just dump an item in and throw the spell and somehing appears 
> (its cursed) and i can sell it as long as i dont identify it and make GOOD 
> money doing it. I dont suggest that the items not come out cursed, I think 
> the 95% of the time only Slag comes out if you fail.

I think this speaks to a problem broader than just potions.  I think
we need sub-skills or skill specialization.

"Melee Weapon" includes dagger, quarterstaff, morningstar, longsword,
Bonecrusher, nunchaku, etc...

"Missile Weapons" includes both bows and crossbows, which have about
as much in common as any of the above.

"Disarm Traps" applies equally to pits and runes.

"Literacy" - Is there more than one written langauge in this game?


I propose a skill "tree" with more than the two levels we currently
have - attributes and skills.  Something along these lines:

Physique
Physique/melee
Physique/melee/unarmed
Physique/melee/unarmed/karate
Physique/melee/unarmed/judo
Physique/melee/unarmed/wrestling
Physique/melee/unarmed/punching
Physique/melee/unarmed/touch (fireborn, wraith, acid blob...)
Physique/melee/unarmed/claw
Physique/melee/unarmed/bite
Physique/melee/blade/
Physique/melee/blade/long
Physique/melee/blade/short
Physique/melee/axe
Physique/melee/club
...
Physique/missile
Physique/missile/bow
Physique/missile/crossbow
...
Physique/throwing
Physique/throwing/blades
Physique/throwing/spears
Physique/throwing/axes
Physique/throwing/rocks

Agility
Agility/disarm
Agility/disarm/needles
Agility/disarm/pits
Agility/disarm/glyphs
...

Mental
Mental/literacy
Mental/literacy/Human
Mental/literacy/Elvish
Mental/literacy/Dwarven
...
Mental/alchemy
Mental/alchemy/balms
Mental/alchemy/salves
Mental/alchemy/figurines
Mental/alchemy/missiles
Mental/alchemy/dusts
Mental/alchemy/potions
Mental/alchemy/philosophical


Under such a system, each weapon belongs to one or more categories,
such as "blade/long" for a longsword and both "blade/short" and
"throwing/blade" for a dagger.  Each trap and each alchemical product
belongs to one category.

Experience gained is added to an experience object within that
category for the specific object type successfully used.  The
experience level of the category is the total of all experience gained
within that category.  Each sub-skill and specific skill has a
"difficulty" rating from which a default skill can be determined when
attempting a new skill of a known category.  The effective level of
any specific skill is the greater of a) the total experience for that
specific skill or b) the total for the category divided by the
difficulty of that specialty.

Example: a warrior who prefers long swords will have a great deal of
experience with that specific weapon archetype, and all that xp will
count toward Physique, Physique/melee, Physique/melee/blade, and
Physique/melee/blade/long as well as the specific weapon skill
Physique/melee/blade/long/longsword.  If he's never picked up a
broadsword before, the first time he uses one, his skill will default
to Physique/melee/blade/long divided by the difficulty of using a
broadsword, which will still be pretty good, but not nearly as good as
his usual weapon of choice.  On the other hand, if he were to pick up
a quarterstaff, with no skill in Physique/melee/club, he'd have to go
back another level to Physique/melee, divide by the difficulty of the
"club" category (probably not too high) and then divide that by the
difficulty of using a quarterstaff.  Having a high total level in
Physique/melee will still allow any weapon to be used effectively, but
not with equal effectiveness.  Generalists will seldom be without a
reasonable default, and specialists will quickly become extremely
skilled with their weapon of choice.

Example 2: an alchemist's initial skill with a new recipe depends on
his skill with similar recipes more than his overall skill with
alchemy or "mental" skill in general.  A recipe book/scroll could be
made into an experience object, like a talisman or holy symbol, which,
when equipped, would grant a certain default skill level for that
specific recipe, assuming that the character's own skill hasn't
already exceeded that level.  Similarly, alchemical tomes for whole
categories could be extremely valuable for experimenters, though they
might not grant enough skill to make the really difficult and obscure
recipes significantly easier.

In this way, a player who knows the proper ingredients can still
"experiment" with alchemy and build that amount of skill without
recipes, but it could be rather difficult to accumulate a significant
number of successes with a sufficiently difficult recipe.  If the
character had acquired the appropriate written recipe on the other
hand, the base skill given by the scroll would help make those first
few successes that would allow the character to build his/her own
skill further.


Implementing this system would be a significant change, and would
require many archetypes to have an additional field or two, but it
wouldn't be as difficult to program as it might sound.  We do already
have the basis of nested experience objects, albeit not very deeply
nested.

Perhaps then we can get rid of these silly "skill scrolls" and make
skills dependent solely on whether you use them, rather than on
whether you've read a scroll and have some skill with that experience
category.  The fact that a mage has never picked up a bow should not
prevent him from picking one up now and trying to figure it out,
especially if his experience with a dagger (read: letter opener)
somehow gives him a basis for using a broadsword (not to mention
halberd).  It should merely require that he start from the very
beginning (skill level 0).

-- 
            -Dave "Unnecessarily Verbose" Noelle
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org

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