Character classes

[Macatron]

From what I have seen so far, Arcanity's world is going to be a lot like Wizardry 8's (for more info go to http://www.wizardry8.com). They are both set in the "medieval" time period, but there is still a hint of technology floating around. Well, if you're wandering where I'm going with this here goes. In W8 they are introducing a new class called the Gadgeteer. They are a special kind of class that can make very complex items out of hardly anything. And they are also skilled in manipulating things that are "high tech" in nature. Being that Arcanity is going to have remnants of a high tech society also, maybe there should be a similar class for it. You could call it a Tinkerer or even something as simple as Engineer. What do you think guys/gals?

*And I'm not I'm trying to get you to sleal W8's ideas, but rather expand on it's possiblities.*

__________________
"Even a stopped clock, gives the right time twice a day" - Orbital

[Edited by Macatron on 09-20-2000 at 09:52 PM]

[Slitherrr]

Yeah, tinkering skills! Of course there'd only be some cultures that would consider such things... The others would be like "Hmph, silly people, spending so much effort on a broken past" in their respective languages. Then again, there might be only one or two NPC's that even consider looking at it, due to the extremely rare nature of anything worth tinkering with... So the guy that trains the skills would probably be in some far off place, so he could be in solitude, which would lower the number of PC tinkerers... It'd be arduous and frustrating, thanks to low availability of anything from the past, so not many players would go for it (making the ones that do and succeed all that much cooler).

[Macatron]

My sentiments exactly! Just think of what could be accomplished by this class. High levelers would have several different devices/inventions that only they know how to use effectively. But, like you said, their mentor would be located far off (which is not neccessarily a bad thing). That would make playing the class more difficult than others, thus making them have some special bonuses (hence the cool devices that they can create). It'd be even better still if not too many PC's embraced this particular class because it would give it that mysterious quality. I hope that they look in to this!

__________________
"Even a stopped clock, gives the right time twice a day" - Orbital

[Edited by Macatron on 09-20-2000 at 10:10 PM]

[Lordosis]

One quick thing to remember is that there are no "classes" in Arcanity. It's purely skill based. But back to the topic here, they're might be skills that have to do with high-tech stuff. BUT, the high-tech items are hard enough to find. It will be at least as hard to find someone with skills pertaining to those items, that they might be willing to teach you.

[Dyson]

I like the idea of Tinkering skills, but it'd wreck the mystery of the game world's past to have people start out with them.. Perhaps the skills could be introduced several months into the game? That way, the tinkerers would have to "grow up" in a world already populated by high level fighter, wizard, priest, and rogue types..(I'm all in favor of the Skill system, but most people probably will emulate class structure, so I think it's practical to refer to them as such).

While we're on the subject of class, how are we handling skills? I know Arcanity currently has them listed under "Melee, Magic, and Special," but I'm wondering if perhaps this is clear enough. Under that system, things like Picking Pockets, Climbing Walls, Farming, Pottery, Dancing, Tumbling, and Blacksmithy are all sort of lumped together. I'd like to see the skills broken down a little bit further in the broad classes- something like "Melee (Weapons and combat skills), Magic (Magic skills), Adventuring (rogue and other doing-stuff-on-a-quest-that-isn't-fighting skills, like Climb Walls and the aformentioned Tinkering), and Trade (the passive skills used to make things, like Blacksmithing, Farming, and Tailoring).

Any other opinions on this? I think this is one area that'd be good to nail down early on.

[Lordosis]

You can lump skills into sub-categories, but it's all in your head. The game doesn't care what sub-category a particular skill is in. All that matters is whether it is primary (melee and magic) or secondary (anything else). We thought of having a big complicated "skill tree" but decided against it after experimenting with both systems for a couple of days. It was just added complication without added benefit, kind of like the United States income tax system.

[Rolfe]

Right. Something I don't think we've mentioned is the fact that special skills and trade skills are all secondary skills. The distinction is in the fact that secondary skills won't generally give you an advantage in battle. The line there gets blurry with some magic spells, but magic obviously has to be tied together and 95% of magic spells DO give you an edge in battle.

Now when you're playing the game, the NPCs and the PCs will all likely make catagories of skills in their heads. So, like we've mentioned, you'll go to a wizard guild to learn what NPCs consider wizard skills.

Grouping all wizard skills into a wizard class in the game code doesn't make sense though. The groups of skills are created in the mind, not by some law of the universe. This is really best illustrated with an example. Dyson, you're an ogre and you train all your life to become an ogre warrior. I'm an Ack from some remote, primitive tribe somewhere that doesn't have any enemies because the area we live in is so remote and desolate. So our warriors are really more like hunters since we don't have anyone to fight. I've trained all my life to become a great hunter. We can both fight very well, but my warrior "guild" taught me to track and yours didn't. In my tribe, to be a great warrior, you need to track or else you can't find food. What the hell good are your fighting skills if you can't find anything to fight and kill for food? What the hell is wrong with you dumb ogres that you don't understand that? Are you guys stupid or something? Did you get that big picking berries? What are you thinking about? You never learned to track? Are you dense? What do you mean your women find food? Do the men bare the children?

Well the answer is that you ogres perhaps farm your food and raise cattle for meat, so why would any of you learn to track?

Another example:
I'm a Minotaur Magic User and Dyson is a Human Magic User from Sanctimonia. My wizard guild teaches necromancy and Dyson's does not. In Sanctimonia, they aren't big on necromancy, because raising and commanding the dead is associated with evil and it is against the will of their gods. But myself being a Minotaur, I would likely believe necromancy to be one of the essentials for learning to become a great magic user.

[Slitherrr]

Bravo, Rich and Rolfe. Keep in mind Dyson, there wouldn't be anyone "starting out" with any skills, simply cause you have to go somewhere to learn said skills. Make the tinkerers rare, make them mysterious, and make them hard to get too, and only a few people will be learning these things. Add to the fact that there will supposedly be next to no futuristic-items-from-back-in-time, and this will be a rarely played class, but it'll give those that would like to do that a chance to do so, meaning it'll appeal to more people, meaning more food for the developers, heh.

[Dyson]

Both examples make a lot of sense, but wholly seperating groups isn't realistic. Yes, fighting and tracking are different things, but things like Necromancy and say, Divination are both magical skills. The same basic spell-casting and energy channelling you learn for Necromancy could be applied to Aeromancy, at least, more then it could be applied to fighting. Yes, you can limit
who has access to what through teachers, but pure skill-based systems are nightmares when you're dealing with persistent players who look to get the merest edge they can. Example: For two months in UO, all the PKs wore dresses over their platemail because it "stacked" to give an extra point of AC. Needless to say, it didn't exactly do much for the fantasy setting. I totally agree with your ogre example, but I think in terms of the magic (especially healing, which practically all the warriors are going to try to learn) a bit of segregation may be in order-- not a lot, but just a touch.