mrcrusty wrote...
Lotion Soronnar wrote...
Yes, I want my mage to swing a sword. I want him to be able to learn (to a limited degree) how to use it. He won't be much good with it, but why should he be able to do it?
I think they they should go somewhat back to the Origins model.
Aside from a more meaningful and transparent stats system, there ought to be a split between class-specific talent trees (specialisations) and generalised ones (talents). The generalised ones speak to general skillsets such as various weapon wielding trees, crafting, social skills, even areas like leadership (tactical slots, party buffs and bonuses in conversation) whereas specialisations speak to actual jobs and "specialists" relating to the class.
So, if say, a Mage meets the right attribute requirements, (s)he can gain access to the Weapon and Shield Talent Tree but there's no chance to access the Ranger Specialisation Tree.
This naturally means that the equipment ought to be restricted by attributes only as well. Don't restrict equipment to classes. That really doesn't make sense unless the item itself has magic properties that restricts specific types of people from using it. Why is a Warrior unable to dual wield? Why aren't Mages allowed to wear plate armor? And so on.
To add to this, I'd like a lot more passive and sustained abilities with the ability for sustained abilities to work and combine for more powerful effects. Not only will it add more layers of tactical thinking and character building, but they are probably easier to implement than activated abilities.
So, for example, combining Arcane Shield w/ Shield Wall ought to provide even more bonuses to defence and Constitution, but should also carry an extra penalty to Dexterity.
I like that.
Only I would keep the highest and most specialized warriors skills out of mages reach.
A mage would never be able to get heavy armor proficiency. He could wear an armor, but the warrior has a lifetime of training with it and teh physique to match. so a mage could wear the armor, but unliek the warrior, he would be able to make best use of it (fatigue, movement, etc..)
Lotion Soronnar wrote...
Agreed. A few difficult opponents beat a bajjilion worthless mooks any time. Of course, if oyu have explonentional leveling, this presents a problem.You can't have a hero become too powerfull in such a "primitive" way as buffing HP and damage. It doesn't scale well. It doesn't work well. That's a very narrow and shallow represenatation of power.
New skills and player tactics work far better than just inflating numbers. Honestly, you cna have a game where a character starts and end the game with 100 HP and still feel like you've become very powerfull.
Yeah. I think what it should come down to what tools are available to you. At lower levels, you're locked out of items and abilities and the ones that you can use are limited. At the end game, even if your physical stats don't change much too much, as long as those options open up, you can feel Godly.
I don't much like the idea of scaling damage, stats or HP/MP for levels. I like the idea of character builds themselves being the most important.
One way this can be done is for passive bonuses for leveling up Talent Trees - Proficient, Expert & Master.
For example, Weapon & Shield. Getting 1/3rd of the talents gets you Profiency, giving you a 10% boost in damage & defence when you use a sword and shield. 2/3rds of the tree learnt gets you Expert, a 20% boost and Mastery (full tree learnt) gives you a 30% boost.
But it's tied to the skills/talents/abilities, not the levels. So in essence, I'd like a system where a level 10 w/ the right attributes and focusing on Weapon & Shield would be better at pure Weapon & Shield combat than a level 20 who raised 10 levels on Archery, 5 levels on Dual Wield and 5 levels at Weapon & Shield. Instead of them being close to equal or even the level 20 winning out due to the boost the levels give.
I accept that some stats ought to be raised but I want the primary advantage for the level 20 character to be that (s)he's got more tactical options, abilities and fighting styles to use.
A generalized wepon skill, and a more narrow specilization in a specific weapon (liek you have in D&D) is the way to go IMHO.
Geting bonuses to the weapon of your choice (and to a smaller extent weapons in the same familiy).
Also, the progression tree should be logical. In other words, mroe complex weapons (like for example two-handed swords) are higher on the tree than simpler ones (like clubs)
As far as weapon progression itself - again, limited. Not really that huge a difference between weapons. No redicolous scaling there either. I don't want to see a dagger, no matter how well-crafted, out-damaging a two-handed battleaxe! I dont' want to see a "crappy swrod of rejects" at the start of the game that does 10 damage, and havea "sword of uber-badassery" at the end that does 1000000 damage.
Doubling your starting damage should be way more than enough. After all, unless I'm mistaken, even in D&D the weapon didn't make such huge leaps.
Damage of 2-12 or 1-8 would jump to 7-17 and 6-13 respectively.
A master-crafted sword (non-magical) should enough to get you to the end of the game. Magical weapons should be more about effects and special abilites than pure damage buff.
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