Not "classes" exactly.

Slart · Post by **Slart** » Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:49 pm

Muds -- or any other form of game -- which allow a choice of race and class invariably end up with a best race for each class. We just cut out the middle man. Adding races back in so we can have dwarven warrior, elven mage, druid priest, kender thief, illithid psionicist just seems kinda redundant to me. Even on the first day I came to BR, I thought it made a lot of sense to combine race and class. They're connected anyway.

You can try to decouple them by throwing out a bazillion classes -- alchemist, ranger, paladin, barbarian, umpteen magic schools, umpteen priest devotions, smith, bard, jester, assassin, shepherd, knight, page, aes sedai, pirate, swordsman, soldier, sniper, psionicist, jedi, bounty hunter, smuggler, princess, evil businessman made of butter, slicer, witch doctor, medic, merchant, dragoon, monk, samurai, ninja, summoner, decker, rigger, whatever -- but that's a lot of work and makes an incomprehensible mess of the game, IMO.

Divebomb · Post by **Divebomb** » Fri Sep 05, 2003 8:09 pm

I don't think it matters for BR, but the games i've played - MUDs and pc games...

Elven healers, Elven invokers, Elven Rangers (more warrior than caster), Human Druid, Human Warrior, Human thief, Human monk, Human priest, Human invoker, Dwarven warrior, Dwarven priest, Barbarian Warrior, Barbarian Shaman, gnome warrior (funny huh?), gnome thief, gnome invoker...

They were all equally good and that's only scratching the surface. Classes offer more choice, sometimes for ease, sometimes for challenge - the gnome warrior is probably a bit of a challenge, but the option is still there.

I don't think BR needs to, should, or even could very easily implement classes, but i disagree that we're simply cutting the middle man or that a single race invariably matches to a class.

Lairian · Post by **Lairian** » Sat Sep 06, 2003 10:59 am

Plus it's just hilarious to to see a 2'5" gnome running into battle dual weilding longswords bigger than him screaming, "Waaar~!".

Gnooooome~!

disaster · Post by **disaster** » Sat Sep 06, 2003 6:26 pm

as an alternative to the "class" idea, maybe a reworking of how in-guild and out of guild exp penalties are assigned? currently, you have to be a moron to NOT practice your in guilds, even those as useless as word of recall. it may be interesting to provide many (around 3 to 4 times as many) more skills, but only allow a certain number of them to count as in guild, all subsequent skills being considered out of guild. or, more specifically, we could group certain skills, and you can either 1) get to choose only a certain number of them, and after you've chosen you can't learn the others or 2) only the first few of the skills from the group count as in guild, subsequent skills from the group will count as out of guild.

thinking of humans as an example (since they're both up for review and because the martial artist idea would be the most appropriate race to apply this to) you could have a group of skills being "dodge, parry, 5 style fist, 1000 palms" and only the first 2 count as being in guild. you can still get the others, but at an exp penalty. another group could be "medicine, laughing buddha, blindness". if new skills are added refering to skill with a certain type of weapon, that would be good for the first type: you can focus on X types of weapons, but after you've picked, no more for you. (or, no more until higher level).

Stars · Post by **Stars** » Sat Sep 06, 2003 11:46 pm

disaster wrote:currently, you have to be a moron to NOT practice your in guilds, even those as useless as word of recall.

Why? What if you do not practice any out of guild skills? Then what would be the point of practicing word of recall?

disaster wrote:it may be interesting to provide many (around 3 to 4 times as many) more skills, but only allow a certain number of them to count as in guild, all subsequent skills being considered out of guild. or, more specifically, we could group certain skills, and you can either 1) get to choose only a certain number of them, and after you've chosen you can't learn the others or 2) only the first few of the skills from the group count as in guild, subsequent skills from the group will count as out of guild.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that characters would be able to choose their own in guild skills from a larger list of skills?
I have another suggestion to add to this. Let there be a point system to help determine what is in-guild or out. Each race would get a certain number of skill/spells automatically in guild. Now, in order to specialize a character, the player can choose among a number of offered spells which he/she will also take.
The player is given 100 points to spend on skills. Let's say a dwarf is looking at what might be useful to learn and sees that third attack costs 20 points. Thinking that this will be useful, he quickly takes it. Now, the dwarf is thinking that a few other fighter skills would be useful and adds those: bash 5 pts, disarm 15 pts, and enhanced damage 50 pts. The dwarf has now spent 90 points, which leaves 10. The dwarf begins to think that physical attacks may not be all he should depend on so he takes a look at fireball, which costs a whopping 75 points. Figuring that it is worth the cost, the dwarf takes fireball, which puts him at -65 points. This will now begin affect his tnl cost. The deeper in the negative that a character's points go, the higher the tnl cost will be. So, someone with -100 will take significantly longer to level than someone with -50, which will take much longer than someone with 0.
Spell cost will be determined by race, of course. If an elf chooses fireball, then it's cost is only 20 (equal to the dwarf's third attack). If that same elf wants third attack, then it will cost 75 points. If that elf wants enhanced damage, then it would cost an incredible amount, rendering the character nearly immobile level-wise.
If a character chooses no skills, then their tnl will be extremely low, but they will not do terribly well in battle. If a character chooses all skills, then they would probably gain a level about once every year (real time).
I suggest that the skills natural to a race be lower level ones, like heal light and such.
I also suggest that when a player first creates a new character that they be given the option to customize, or take skills automatically. There will be a balanced pre-set skill list, which will be much like the ones we have now.
The skill points could be practice points, meaning that the total raises each level. It also means that some skills will not be available right away because the point cost will require the character to wait until they have enough.
I'm starting to get sleepy now, so I'll have to add any other thoughts at a later time....

Stars · Post by **Stars** » Sat Sep 06, 2003 11:56 pm

To clarify a bit, I suggest that what we consider more natural racial skills (current in guild) and unnatural racial skills (current out of guild) have different preset values, somewhat dependent upon what "level" the skill is (at what level a character would normally get it based on our current system). So, some skills will cost a great deal more than others. A player can choose to hold off on buying any skills until level 10, for instance, in order to get that really good skill earlier than usual.

The actual numerical values I have so far stated are certainly not meant to be the concrete foundation of any changes. I merely used those numbers as an example. I am sure that any finished product (if it gets anywhere near that far) would look much different.

Like all my ideas, feel free to criticize, improve upon, or condemn these suggestions. I like to hear it all.

Cord · Post by **Cord** » Sun Sep 07, 2003 8:13 am

disaster wrote:newbie asks: "so, what about classes?"

disaster answers: "We actually don't have classes here, only races. our skills are chosen on a per-skill basis, allowing for more customization of your character than just a set group of skills based on class. there are some "in guild" skills/spells that certain races are encouraged to learn, since they do so without an exp penalty, and then there is a large list of out of guild skills/spells which you can pick and choose from if you wish, depending on the style of play you want to adopt."

MUD responds: "Line too long."

;-)

Cord · Post by **Cord** » Sun Sep 07, 2003 8:30 am

Just IMHO, but I like that idea, Stars... would make for a much more interactive (and thus interesting) ig/oog system. But, if we were going to implement that sort of thing, it would be awful nice to allow spending practices to unlearn skills. How many practices? Maybe the same value your current int allows you to learn by, but negative. I'd also suggest that the number of practices people receive each level be fixed at some small integer.

Course, there's always the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" idea. Though, from a newbie perspective, I'd argue that oog penalties are one of the least-well-defined aspects of the game. *shrugs*

Divebomb · Post by **Divebomb** » Sun Sep 07, 2003 9:49 am

Could always reduce the five billion practice we get. I don't know that that would change anything, but at least people would stop submitting the idea "practice sessions could be used for enhances".

Anakin · Post by **Anakin** » Sun Sep 07, 2003 10:15 am

Divebomb wrote:Could always reduce the five billion practice we get. I don't know that that would change anything, but at least people would stop submitting the idea "practice sessions could be used for enhances".

You were, are, always will be evil. You big blue smurf.

DevilsAngel · Post by **DevilsAngel** » Sun Sep 07, 2003 1:10 pm

ROFLMAO....first time I laughed outloud today...thanks DB.

Everybody · Post by **Everybody** » Sun Sep 07, 2003 1:43 pm

Actually, making it so that you could use practices to unlearn skills (at, of course, some ridiculous amount) could be very useful for some characters, as well as giving us something to do with those...

disaster · Post by **disaster** » Sun Sep 07, 2003 4:47 pm

i like the idea stars. i think that there should still be a specific list of skills for each race though. no matter how much of an exp penalty, elves just shouldn't be able to learn enhanced damage or mental barrier, etc. as an added possibility, we could allow for two different ways to practice certain skills and spells, which would determine the amount of combat lag for using them. (similar to the current in guild/out of guild lag differences). i still think that for some skills it shouldn't JUST be a point system though, especially for automatically used skills. maybe use the point idea several times? to use your example stars, have 3-4 different spell/skill groups, each of which has some value based on skills chosen, and then disregarding any positive values sum up those that are negative t odetermine the oog exp penalty.