Re: CF: skill categories and sub-skills

[Scott Wedel <>]

I would strongly suggest that skills be seperate from exp and
that skill levels are measure as a percentage and not as level.
Having both skill and exp level is confusing.  Plus, skill level
really is a matter of a percentage success at achieving something
so instead of making player look up the table of skill level to
determine their likelihood at being successful, just keep track of
the skill proficiency as a percentage.

Danger to the player should not be required to increase skill 
proficiency.  Otherwise, certain skills will never be advanced.
Skill proficiency should be increased based upon doing something
difficult for the player.  Players should get only one chance at
successfully using a skill to gain skill proficiency.  Ie if it is
possible for player to retry picking a lock then only if character
opens it first time should player get the chance at increasing their
skill level.

There might also be a skill deteriation feature that the really high
proficiency skills must be occasionally practiced or they are
decreased.  Also, games that limit total number of skill points by
level seem to work out pretty well.  That way a player is forced to
make decisions as to the type of character as compared to being
perfect at everything.

							sdw

> Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 20:39:35 -0700
> From: Mark Wedel <>
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> Subject: Re: CF: skill categories and sub-skills
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> 
> David Andrew Michael Noelle wrote:
> > 
> > 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".
> 
>  Your list below is a bit more appealing than the first.  My issue is 
that I
> would target crossfire to have about 30 skills or so at most - more 
than that,
> it gets to be overloaded.  also, in your prior list, you had broken 
alchemy out
> to at least several sub categories, and I think that starts to get 
too narrow.
> 
>  I generally agreed with most of what you said before.  Some notes 
below:
> 
> > 
> > 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.
> 
>  True.  If a 'level 0' is added, the problem is then how linear is it 
- for
> example, if the gap from level 0 to level 1 is basically the same as 
from level
> 1 to level 2 (in terms of success rates), that level 0 may not mean 
much.
> 
>  The problem of both a mage and warrior starting out with the same 
effective
> ability in melee weapons (ignore the difference in stats which would 
likely make
> the fighter better) is a valid one.  One solution to this is to give 
the skills
> that are native to a class some bonus level/exp.  Now it would be odd 
for that
> start character to have 'level 2' in spellcasting.  But I wonder if 
we even need
> to make the level of the skill public - you could instead go by just 
more
> verbose listings.  Sure, the experienced player will know that 'your 
are a
> master in melee weapons) means his skill is in the 20-25 level range 
(lets say),
> but you can't help that.  But by giving out descriptions and not 
absolute
> numbers, at least you don't get what is apparantly odd behaviour.  I 
note that
> literacy against written items uses this logic - it doesn't say you 
need 5
> levels before you can read it, but instead uses 'you are 
few/many/tons of levels
> away from reading this' type of messages.
> 
>  The ability of items to give skills is pretty odd.  I think the more 
correct
> behaviour would be that the skill is needed, but you may need to use 
some other
> object (lockpicks, holy symbol, etc) to use the skill.  This is 
effectly true
> with alchemy - you need that cauldron to actually make something.
> 
>  One problem with the current skill system is awarding experience.  
Some skills
> are used so infrequently (simply because you can't use them that 
much), that you
> get lots of exp for any use of them.  I would wonder if there is a 
soluation to
> that.
> 
> 
> > 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
> 
>  Until a lot more use of written stuff is added, adding sub languages 
doesn't
> make a lot of sense.  I would note that in terms of realism, once you 
have
> learned one literacy skill, that skill could teach you other 
languages (think of
> many of the language books currently in use today).  But even if 
other languages
> are added, just as good a solution would be to have books written in 
those other
> languages need a higher literacy skill.
> 
> 
> > Oratory         Social          by use          2
> > Bargaining      Social          by use          3
> > Singing         Social          by use          4
> 
>  While I know the above 3 skills currently exist, I wonder if it may 
not make
> sense to collapse them some.  Oratory and singing have pretty similar 
affects,
> and you would also think that oratory and bargaining would go pretty 
hand in
> hand.
> 
> 
> > 
> > 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
> 
>  The disarm skills have the problem I mentioned above - lack of 
places to
> generally use them.  Subdividing them further would seem to generally 
make it
> harder for these skills to become usuable.
> 
>  My personal thought would be to remove the top level experience 
categories
> (mental, agility, etc.).  Make the skills still stand on their own.  
The
> abilities (str, dex, con) would still make a difference - having high 
stats
> would increase your chances of using the skill and thus increase exp.
> 
>  Now this is my personal opinion, not sure what others think, but my 
own
> preferance is to have a game that is easy to play and get experience 
up in more
> or less what categories you want without having to worry about 
managing what
> skills I use where and how I use them.
> 
>  Re followup message on woodsman & mountaineering:  I would say if 
there is no
> risk/challenge in using a skill, getting experience for the skill 
doesn't mak a
> lot of sense.  For mountaineering at least, you could add the risk of 
falling,
> for woodsmen you could add a risk of getting lost (ie, losing time or 
going in
> random direction), but both of those are probably pretty harmless.  
The problem
> is that those two skills are probably the ones that are easiest to 
use as much
> as you want, so granting experience for them seems like it opens up 
to all sorts
> of problems.
> 
>  Now one thing you could do is have experience for those, but it 
doesn't
> contribute to the players overall experience.  So sure, if that 
player wanders
> through the forest all the time, he can move pretty quickly through 
it.  But
> that won't give him any more hp/sp/grace (you could argue that hp 
should be tied
> to physique/melee experieince, sp tied to magic use, and grace to 
praying and
> not tied to overall level in any case).  For the later two, that 
makes more
> sense and probably doesn't really harm anything.  For the first one, 
it sort of
> throws playbalance off or would force other classes to use melee just 
to get the
> experience total up.  One option would be to use the highest level in 
any skill
> to base hp off of.
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