I've puzzled over the previous skill ideas for awhile, and I've come up with a completely different idea. So scrap everything from the previous conversation, because this will be an evolution/replacement for that system.
In game terms, your character is defined by his or her race, class(es), path(s), and background(s). These four things describe your character and act as qualifiers for actual in-play abilities. That much hasn't changed.
At first level, your character may choose five actions. These include many of the basic combat skills we had before. For example, Melee Weapon 1 is now an at-will action that anybody can buy and which acts as a prerequisite for most weapon-delivered attacks. Armor use, shield use, unarmed attacks, ranged attacks, and the like fall into this category as well. You can use your action selections to pick at-will actions or prepared actions.
As you gain levels, you learn additional actions, specifically one per character level and one per class level. If you're a single-classed character, you simply gain two per level. The action gained per character level can be spent on any action for which you qualify, including racial actions. The action gained per class level can only be used on actions of that class.
A key difference here is that you can no longer learn every action for which you qualify. People want more distinctiveness between characters of the same race, class, and path. The ugly flip side to that coin is that, as a consequence, characters can't have every possible action. This accomplishes that by forcing you to select what you want to use.
Finally, we have merits. These are like feats in D&D. You gain one merit at first level and one at every third character level thereafter (3rd, 6th, 9th, etc.). Merits are used to enhance your character in certain ways, like so:
- The Fortitude merit increases your character's health by two.
- The Professional merit increases one of your character's professions by 10 (or whatever other amount is appropriate once that system is fleshed out).
- The Treasure Hunter merit allows you to draw an additional tag from which to choose your adventure rewards.
- The Versatility merit allows your character to learn three additional actions.
- Many class- or path-specific merits allow you to take a specific known action and make it at-will. For example, a monk can spend a merit to use Meditation (Rest, Self, "Trance") at will, a hierophant can spend a merit to use their Spell, Packet, "Recover" action at will, etc.
There are still many details to fill in, but I feel like this fits the bill better than the previous proposal. It allows you to flesh out characters in a very organic way, choosing exactly what they are, what they can do, and what they're good at, with enough freedom to define a huge spectrum without being too terribly complicated.
Questions? Thoughts? Scathing criticisms?
Adding things to the revised guide as I write them. The experience chart is here. Reading quickly, a 10th-level character is equivalent to a 7th-level / 6th-level (both have 150 XP).
Character level is the chief metric of power. It determines the number of treasure draws after an adventure, the number of merits you have, the number of actions you can prepare (right now I'm thinking character level plus two), etc. This last bit is exactly as you're describing, Scott; giving multiclassed character more prepared actions would unbalance things in their favor.
Class level is more a metric of versatility. The multiclassed character in the above example would know three more actions than the single-classed character. I'd like to do it this way to avoid the disappointment of gaining a level in a class without gaining any actions. For example, if I have 24 overall XP, gain 8 from an event, and spend 6 of those becoming 1st-level in rogue, I've gained a class level but not a character level (I'd need 36, not 32). So I don't really have anything to show for my shiny new class except a badge that says, "I'm technically a rogue, even though I can't do anything roguish."
It sounds like merit is just another name for skill, since they seem to be doing almost exactly the same thing as they did before, we just get to pick a lot less of them.
I'm still not a fan of having to choose your actions, for various reasons. Certain actions are just going to be better than others. Certain actions (fumble, maim, etc) are just going to be required for everyone for them to be able to function properly in combat. Pretty much everyone will pick the +damage actions. I don't think this is going to vary characters as much as you think it is. Inevitably, it will become obvious which actions are worth taking and which ones aren't. It was already the same way in the old system, when we picked which of our actions to prepare.
I'm not liking the idea of armor and shield selections using up action selections. A fighter who wants to wear armor and use a shield is going to be using up 5 or so actions just to be able to do that. They won't have anything left to use any actual fighter actions. A wizard, on the other hand, picks spell 1 and then goes on about their business learning all their wizard actions.
I'm not really a fan of getting only 1 merit selection per 3 levels. At 6th level, I'd have something like 2 fortitude merits and a treasure hunter (and it sounds like if I want to get one of the cool new At-Will actions, I won't even get those 3). It will then be 6 games (with boon) before I can pick another. In the meantime, I'll be learning actions that I won't necessarily even use and churning out my profession(s). (Professional merit seems a waste at that point).
I DO like this better than just making everything actions though.
Also, do we still need to prepare at-will actions as one of our choices?
Yes, Nathan, a merit is largely the same as a skill. The difference in nomenclature is meant to reflect that it's a knack or bonus the character possesses, a bit more special than skills were previously. Those things that can be actions will be actions; merits encompass everything else.
The trick to achieving variety is, and always has been, giving people many good options. I won't deny that some things will become considered as more vital or effective than others, and there may even be truth behind some of these opinions. To a certain degree, this is unavoidable in any game with a social component. However, when you're done picking the popular choices, you'll still have a few choices left over to pick something more distinctive and interesting. That excess, I think, is where we'll see the greatest variety.
There may be some wiggle room in first-level action selections, but five's not as bad as it sounds. A fighter can pick up Armor 5, Disarm, Melee Weapon 1, Shield, and Weapon Damage + 1 with five selections, which is fairly solid. Heavier armor or shields will be a trade-off, but a fighter who wants more can always choose the Versatility merit and get them. The same fighter wouldn't be able to pick up Fortitude as well, of course, but assuming he's got the armor, the extra armor actions will be the better option anyway.
Merits, by necessity, must be limited because they're so useful. One per level would be far too much. One every other level may be doable, but the merits will have to be balanced accordingly. I'll have to weigh it and see what works best, but merits will certainly be the least frequent of the character attributes.
As for the Professional merit being worthless, I agree, but I thought of a better way to do it this morning. What if it knocks off a day from every activity with a particular profession instead (minimum of one day, of course)? That way, it doesn't give you a straight boost, but it gives an increasingly significant boost over time since you do every professional activity faster, including training. All of a sudden, I want to get it for my enchanting. ;)
Overall, I'm glad everyone's on board. Let's see if we can't brainstorm some more merits, flesh out the idea a bit, and see if we still like it afterward.
would the "at-will" merit be availabe for everyaction or just some? If it is avaible for all actions then this takes the of making characters immune to certain effects (i.e. A fighter picks up at-will fumble now he could counter every fumble thown at him.) This would be nice but we would have to find a way to balance it.
Some other merits I thought might work are Initiative (Based off of the current skill in game. First attack per refresh is at +1. Not first attack on each monster but just the first swing after a 1min refresh.), Medicine/First-Aid (Same as in current game but only have to take once making it a 1min count to stablize and a 5min to fix maimed effects.), Merchantry (Same as in current game but does what both ranks do.) and then Black Market Merchantry (Allows access to a seperate market of poisons and poppets that the normal citizens can't see.)
I don't like a Black Market Merchantry SKILL whatsoever. That gives anyone the option to become involved and completely takes away the point of a black market. I also am not very sure about involving KNOWN stolen goods. I don't know too many people who are going to be willing to purchase something they know is stolen, and there again it puts a stamp on PVP only. Good aligned characters can not be involved in stolen goods. Leave the black market to head of plot and let it be dished out as to who can get what and when. That way all players can have a chance without having to flag just to buy something.
i had an idea for foe specializtion where foe specialization 1 (un dead) gives you extra damage for say levels 1 through 5 of undead and that acts as a pre req for foe specializtion 2 (undead) but you couldnt get foe specializtion 2 (dragons) if you have foespecialization 1 (undead)
OKie Dokie. Call me nuts since I am a Ranger and you get 5 foe specs in D and D, but I don't love the idea of it. If we add it in, we're going to be right back in the difficult math situation where we start calling odd damages. I think the idea we are going for is simplifying things like that. It also ties more into lore to beging with. Outside of Undead or Dragon, you may not know exactly to the t what it is you are fighting to even know to use your extra damage. In the heat of battle think of it this way. You are a sammich! You are in the middle of two monsters. The one on your left is a goblin, but the one on your right is undead. Do you really want to remember that the one on your left just got hit for one damage, but the one on your right gets hit for two? That can get massively confusing and very easy for players to break.
This would be easier if we had multiple colored tabbards to depict what type of monster the NPCs. (Black Tabbards for Undead, brown for beasts, red for fiends, etc etc... but its a bit of work for someone to make up all of those tabbards first)
I see no problem in someone having multiple foe specialties... so they're better at hitting a bunch of stuff? sure.., someone who's better at undead, dragons AND fiends will never be as good as someone that specializes in just hitting undead, and all those points could be theorhetically spent somewhere else as well.
Besides that, Its not that we're using a cost system anymore, you only get a certain number of abilities now, so the "cheaper" foe spec isn't as nice of an option anymore compared to general weapon spec except for flavor unless foe spec did +2. However, being that they should be stackable... it does give a slight bonus to damage in levels where you could not normally gain extra damage, so it does balance out a bit in the end.
I agree there as well. With 50 plus people at events now, one person calling "What Do I See?" is going to be infinitely harder to hear across the field of battle. I like the idea of different colored tabbards somewhat, but it always creates an area open for error in the Dragons Den by yours truly. If I'm sending out randoms and sending monsters to NPC mods, I see that getting a bit hectic trying to add in ensuring they all have the correct colored tabbard on; if that makes sense. I like the idea, but it seems like it's making it more difficult to add it in than just dropping it all together.
Shouldn't be terrible. While we're doing the revamp for the dragons den, just add the tabbard color to the tags as an additional field. That way if we decided to go this route people could make sure they have the right tabbards to start with by looking at the tag, makes it a no brainer and that much harder to screw up.
As far as mods go, its very rare that we actually send in multiple types of creatures in the same mod anyway. If we do, its one or two as a random change of pace, or in a special situation. Other than that we could use makeup, but makeup takes forever and isn't really worth it for randoms. (but this is taking things slighly off topic.... we now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion)
Needs some balancing, first thing that I can see is that multi classed characters no longer initially feel weaker than a single classed character. Without referencing a chart and just tossing out rough numbers (I believe we said that a level 10 single class was equivalent to an 8/8 multi class), a straight lvl 10 anything will have 20 skills (10 class 10 character). An 8/8 will have the option to take 26 skills (16 class, 10 character). Merits are balanced fine across the two as they're strictly character level.
As we learned in previous games, characters that have more useful actions are better suited as adventurers. Are we going to suggest and accept that this is alright, that multi classed people can simply do more things without specialty? Frankly, it fits the jack of all trades theory where you can do a little of everything but nothing very well - especially if we put some REALLY good abilities higher up in trees to make someone desire them, but its something we need to think about at this stage of development.
This could also be easily counter balanced by saying the number of actions that you can prepare are limited by character level - making multi classed characters more versitile, but not more efficient. Just my quick read on the situation. I'm still trying to form my opinion on class level vs character level and what each means to a character without digging into a deep pit of confusion, but... thats what discussion groups are for... right?