Re: CF: skill categories and sub-skills

["Doug wilder" <>]

How do you classify Moutaineering, Climbing, Woodsman. I see you have 
bargaining down but to tell you the truth i have never seen it do anything. 
Anytime i ever activated it it just says already in use (or some such). 
personally for Mountaineering, climbing and woodsman i don't think they 
should be given experience for using these skills. As all they do is allow 
you to move faster through the terrain types. But, they are skills.


>From: David Andrew Michael Noelle <>
>To: 
>Subject: Re: CF: skill categories and sub-skills
>Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 07:31:00 -0500
>
> > Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 19:59:03 -0700
> > From: Mark Wedel <>
> >
> >  Further refinement of skills and tying experience to the specific skill 
>and not
> > the skill category probably makes more sense.  I won't got into the list 
>of
> > skill categories & skills provided, but my personal thought is that gets 
>too
> > refined.
>
>What part of it is too refined?  Having seperate categories for swords
>and knives?  That list was just a rough approximation of the general
>idea I'm suggesting, and admittedly was influenced by weapon skill
>categories from AD&D2.  We definitely need something in between what
>we have now, one skill for any and all melee weapons, and having a
>seperate skill for each weapon archetype, some of which are merely
>different pictures of "a sword".
>
>We can hard-code the weapons categories and end up with a more
>datailed version of Object Type: weapon / Object Type: bow, or we can
>make skill categories archetypes of their own, or we can just expand
>the current list of skills to be more specific.  Personally, I'd go
>for the second option.
>
>
> >  I would note that lots of changes would be needed - objects would have 
>to note
> > what skill uses them - for example, right now you have nothing more in 
>the
> > object type other than weapons, so there is no easy way to know if that 
>is a
> > sword, knife, dagger, etc other than name, and that breaks down for 
>artifacts.
>
>Correct.  Each object that is "used" with a skill would need to know
>what skill that is.  Right now that's a function of object Type, and
>there's only one Type for melee weapons.
>
>Note also that some objects can be used with multiple skills, the most
>obvious example being a dagger.  As a melee weapon, one would use a
>dagger much the same way as a knife or a short sword, which is quite
>different from using a long sword or a spear, so it should have a
>pointer to Physique/Melee/blade/short or something to that effect.  It
>should also have a pointer to Physique/Throw/knife (as opposed to
>spear, axe, or rock)
>
>Are there other cases besides swinging vs. throwing a weapon where an
>object might be used with different skills?  Should one be able to use
>a dagger to try to pick a lock or a bow and arrow to light a fire?
>
>
> >  The idea of going to guilds to learn skills makes a lot of sense 
>instead of the
> > skill scrolls.  Guilds also provide a known place to learn a skill - 
>many
> > players get to a point pretty early on knowing they want to learn some 
>skills
> > and have the money for the scrolls, but have to end up spending time 
>hunting the
> > shops for them.  That doesn't make a lot of sense.  I don't like the 
>idea that
> > all skills are inherently known at exp 0 - I think having to learn 
>skills would
> > add another possible dimention to quests in the game.
>
>That's exactly the problem.  I didn't say all unlearned skills should
>count as "exp 0", which is level 1 in Crossfire (and most other RPGs I
>know of).  I said they should be "level 0", which doesn't exist yet.
>Currently, unlearned skills cannot even be attempted and cannot be
>learned short of application of a rather rare and expensive magic
>item.
>
>Perhaps some skills should be this hard to learn, like breathing fire.
>You have to be born with it or have a real good (magical) reason.
>Others, like mountain climbing, some races might be naturally better
>at, and some learning might be helpful for, but actually doing it is
>the best way to learn.  Somewhere in between, spellcasting supposedly
>takes many years or study to learn the basics of, and karate takes a
>good couple of weeks, but there's really no reason any player
>character might not be able to do both without resorting to rare and
>expensive magic.
>
>And then there's the lockpicks.  If you can get your hands, paws,
>talons, or psychokinesis on a set of lockpicks, you automatically
>start with level 1 skill at using them.  Disregarding the fact that
>you no longer have lockpicking skill when you're not holding those
>picks, and regain it as soon as you equip them again, this seems to
>work out okay.  The use of a holy symbol to pray without having any
>"praying" skill of your own makes perhaps a bit less sense.
>
>I think an important question here is exactly what skill level 1
>means, and whether there should be a skill level 0 at all.  It seems
>to me that level 1 means you know how to do it, but you don't actually
>have any experience.  That would mean that level 0 might represent
>having no idea where to start.  Is there anything in between?  A level
>1 character is generally assumed to start with level 1 (exp 0) in all
>the necessary skills for his class.
>
>Currently this means that everyone starts with level 1 in all melee
>weapons, which I'm not sure makes much sense.  Sure, even a wizard
>knows which end of a sword to hold and which end to hit someone with,
>but shouldn't a warrior start out with a little more than that?  After
>all, a level 1 wizard has supposedly spent years studying magic
>already, so what has the warrior been doing, chopping wood?
>
>
>The difference between level 1 (beginner) and level 0 (unlearned) is a
>qualitative difference, not quantitative, and as such depends on the
>skill.  The division between skills that can be learned by trying and
>skills that must be taught is pretty close to the division between
>skills that involve successfully Applying some item and those that are
>invoked by name.  I would suggest that any character should be able to
>pick up any weapon or tool and try to use it.  If they don't know how,
>they won't do very well, but if it's just a matter of practice, they
>can learn.
>
>For all the other skills, which are not invoked by applying an item,
>not having the skill means you don't know where to begin trying and
>you can't learn by yourself anyway.  For many of these, you should be
>able to find a teacher, whether they're sitting around in a guild,
>telling war stories, hiding on a mountaintop, meditating, or lurking
>in some dungeon waiting for a student to "prove their worth" by
>surviving the quest to find them.
>
>There are exceptions to this general rule, of course.  Books can be
>read by either Using literacy or Applying the book, but literacy isn't
>something that can be learned by trial and error.  It definitely
>belongs in the category of skills that must be either taught or
>magically granted.  Of course, learning literacy is rather bizarre as
>currently implemented anyway.  How exactly does one read a scroll of
>literacy?
>
>Identification skills might also be an exception.  After picking the
>first few thousand Perfectly Normal Arrows off of dead orcs, even a
>barbarian might tend to notice which ones are not like the others.  He
>wouldn't necessarily be any closer to knowing how to make them, as
>skill names like Weaponsmith, Armorer, Bowyer, and Fletching might
>tend to imply, but that's okay.  Those skills don't allow any of that
>anyway.  (A topic for another discussion.)
>
>
>The best solution I can think of at the moment would be to incorporate
>into each skill's archetype all the pertinent details about how it can
>be learned (innate / teacher / by use), what category it is a
>sub-skill of, and how difficult it is to derive it from that more
>general category.
>
>
>Examples: (not a suggested solution, just for clarification)
>
>Skill   	Category 	Learned 	Difficulty
>------------	------------	------------	------------
>Literacy	Mental		teacher		2
>Human		Literacy	teacher		3
>Dwarven		Literacy	teacher		4
>Elvish		Literacy	teacher		5
>
>Melee		Physique	by use		1
>Swords		Melee		by use		3
>Long Sword	Swords		by use		2
>Axes		Melee		by use		3
>
>Unarmed		Physique	innate		1
>Punching	Unarmed		by use		3
>Karate		Unarmed		teacher		5
>Claw		Unarmed		innate		2
>
>Oratory		Social		by use		2
>Bargaining	Social		by use		3
>Singing		Social		by use		4
>
>Spellcasting	Mental		teacher		5
>Alchemy		Mental		teacher		3
>Thaumaturgy	Mental		by use		3
>Bowyer		Mental		by use		3
>
>Find Traps	Mental		by use		3
>Disarm Traps	Agility		by use		2
>Disarm Pits	Disarm Traps	by use		2
>Disarm Needles	Disarm Traps	by use		3
>Disarm Glyphs	Disarm Traps	by use		4
>
>Lockpicking	Agility		by use		2
>Hiding		Agility		by use		3
>Pickpocket	Agility		by use		4
>Assassinate	Agility		teacher		4
>
>Praying		Wisdom		by use		1
>Sense Curse	Wisdom		teacher		3
>
>
>Note: Difficulty here is defined as the divisor used to derive the
>default level of this skill from the total level of the more general
>category it belongs to.
>
>Difficulty 1 means that any and all experience gained in the more
>general category counts toward this specialization.  This skill will
>always be used at default level, because you simply aren't allowed to
>have more skill in this specialization than the total of all skills in
>its category.
>
>Difficulty 3 means that if you know this skill at all, you have at
>least as much skill as 1/3 of the general category.  If you stop using
>it, but continue using other skills in the category, you can use it
>again at any time with 1/3 the total skill of the category.  If you
>start using it regularly again, you'll continue to do so at the
>default level until the total actual experience with this specific
>skill exceeds that default level.
>
>Difficulty 5 means that experience in the general category only counts
>for 20% toward the default level - most likely it won't count at all
>since if this specialization is used at all, it's well past 20% of the
>total, so the default level isn't being used.
>
>Note: unless a skill is learned by use, no matter what the difficulty,
>you still have to know the skill before you get that default level.
>On the other hand, skills that are learned by use already have that
>default level the first time you try.
>
>--
>             -Dave  "Unnecessarily Verbose"  Noelle
>             -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
>
>Disclaimer:Don't ask me; I just live here.
>
>Quote of the Day:
>from X-File #1X16: "E.B.E."
>Byers:   ...the most heinous and evil force of the 20th century.
>Mulder:  Barney?
>-
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