The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: Ra-TielWell, I'd like to hear what others think about this idea. It just seems reasonable to me to make decisions as to what skills the character is really good at using. It's the same in real life; even given the same manual dexterity or intellectual abilities, some people are just better in certain areas than others - even with the exactly same kind of training and experience. In my eyes it's more reasonable to build a system off of these "knacks", than off some abstract "class skills" or something.

Quote from: Ra-TielThe EQII d20 system is still level-centric, so it's the latter one. However, it's not as bad as it seems, because you can easily work on most concepts with the "weak" basic talents the archetypes and classes offer. Also, I do think in that case it's a good thing, as the talents of the advanced classes are quite strong and would be just inappropriate for lower levels.

Quote from: Ra-TielIt's not much paperwork at all. All it would need was a few boxes next to each skill (or even a seperate "advancement sheet") and that's all. And it wouldn't be more paperwork than distributing skill points at level up, imho.

Quote from: Ra-TielAnother "benefit" would be that one could also tie in ability increases into that system, just like with TES. Perhaps for every 5 times a skill increases, the associated key ability also increases, or something similar. Or one could remove the "advancement roll" from the system, making skill increases exclusively dependent on the number of uses and take out the "luck" factor.

Quote from: Stargate525Also, if we tie magic into the skills system, it makes modularizing the system as simple as swapping out skills like an old PCI graphics card.

Quote from: Stargate525The problem with that is that if you want to add classes, you've now got three separate types to deal with as opposed to the two (usually only one) that you have to deal with currently.

Quote from: Stargate525:?:

How in blazes do you come to that conclusion? You're advocating an additional SHEET for crying out loud. And it's not even the extra space I'm talking about, it's the need to remember to check the boxes in the middle of the game. I can't see how you can call that simpler than distributing 2-12 points once every level.

Quote from: Stargate525The only problem I see with this is that, again, you're adding a level of paperwork to the system. In order to do this, one would also have to balance out the governing attributes amongst the skills so that they are even, otherwise you'll get an unequal attribute growth.

Quote from: Ra-TielOk, perhaps it was not formulated well enough. What I meant was, that I don't think it's unplayable. Different systems work differently and have a different flow of information. Under this premise, I don't think the "checked boxes" version would be unwieldy or complicated. Not everything that makes things "more complex" than "spending 2-12 points once every level" is a bad thing. ;)

Quote from: Ra-TielWell, as for distribution I think it's ok. The only "critical" ability I can see would be Constitution, but you could compensate for that if you tie in HP (or whatever other damage tracking system we're going to use) with double the normal effect. And again, not everything that makes a system a bit more complex is a bad thing. It would of course feel distinctly different from cookie-cutter d20, but I thought that was -at least partially- wanted?

Quote from: Stargate525I just had a thought. What if, instead of having the base archetypes as its own class, then moving onto other things as you progress, you get to choose a class (in the traditional sense), then an archetype, which enhances and stacks with the class? So you could choose 'fighter', then choose from 'brawler,' 'boxer,' whatever. Or, you could have a list of classes and a list of archetypes, and let them choose. I'd like to see some of the combinations; Raging Wizard anyone?

Quote from: Stargate525Touché.  

Quote from: Stargate525It's just that I know from [far, far too much]experience that adding complexity is not always good. The problem with complexity is that it has to be justified. Does the keeping track of each skill use justify the increased organicness of the system?  

Quote from: Stargate525I like the idea of your skills increasing your abilities though...

Quote from: Kap'n XeviatI propose a class-less, XP = Character points system in which you use character points to buy your scores, skills, feats, and abilities. I propose that costs increase for higher ranks, thus allowing for generalized characters to exist alongside specialized characters. I propose Defenses, Attack Bonuses, and base Hit points be standardized for all characters, so that your ability scores will determine your character a bit more. [...]

Quote from: Ra-TielHowever, your idea with the "templates" is also interesting. But on the other hand, a "normal" class system again leads probably to insane redundancy (fighter, barbarian, swashbuckler, hexblade, etc all doing basically the same thing but with different class abilities).

But another idea: how about making some general classes, and requiring each character to select a "class template" like "wild" or "civilized" or "arcane" or "divine" or "psionic" or "holy" or "vile" that change and/or modify some aspects of the class? So a "holy fighter" would be equal to a paladin, a "wild fighter" would be a barbarian, a "wild rogue" would be a ranger or scout, a "civilized" mage would be a wizard, a "holy/vile priest" would be a favored soul, etc?

Anyways, we could also go and use Crave's "Uber Generics", basically allowing each player to make his own - more or less balanced - 20 level base class.

Quote from: Sir VorpalI think we should do that. So we have those types, but we have them select either "Warrior", "Mage", "Rogue", and "Priest". And, for multiclassing, you choose either another type of the same class, or another class of the same type. So, someone starts out as a Wild Fighter. Then, they multiclass out to Wild/Wild Fighter/Mage. Then, they multiclass out even further to Civilized/Wild/Wild Fighter/Fighter/Mage.

Quote from: Sir VorpalOr, we can add another group of types. For priests and  mages, there would be preparatory and spontaneous, for rogue there would be melee (assassin like) or theivery(brigands and theives), and for warrior there would be specialist(one weapon type and one armor type) and generalist.

Quote from: Sir VorpalI think also, that the preparatory casters should have more potent spells than the spontaneous casters, but the spontaneous casters get more spellsperday/mana/whateveritis.