[CF List] Experience Categories

[Mark Wedel]

  Going to respond to this entire thread here...

  First, adding some values like 'skill_resist_{singing/stealing/whatever}' to 
monsters (or even objects) wouldn't be that difficult.  I'm not sure the term 
resist is proper - what these should really be are modifiers to the creatures 
effective level when something tries to use a skill against it (however, for 
monsters, I'm not sure, but it may be simpler to make those absolute values, 
since the values otherwise used may depend on various factors).

  Doing this IMO would be a really good thing.  Currently, there is logic in 
place so that 'special' monsters (which basically mean if it has a 'msg' buffer) 
are immune to many skill effects because it wasn't considered proper that 
players could perhaps avoid the encounter with a monster and get the key or 
other quest item.  Putting in those skill_resist basically removes that need - 
if you want to make it so that you can't steal from the quest monster, you just 
give it a really high skill_resist_stealing value.

  I'm not sure if there is much use for players to have these values - you could 
certainly include those values in racial or class modifications (the barbarian, 
not knowing the ways of the world, is easier to steal from or something).  But 
since currently only players really use skills, there isn't a lot to gain in that.

  It would certainly be interesting for some monsters, like the cunning gnomes, 
to use stealing.  Things like singing and oratory obviously don't work against 
players, since they can still decide who they want to attack.

  An extension of some skills could also be in order - allow players to set 
traps, and if the trap kills a monster, they get exp in the appropriate category 
(either int or agility, or perhaps both).  Players (and their party members) 
could safely pass over their own trap - this would allow for example a character 
to set a bunch of traps along a hallway, and then lure the monster down it, 
hopefully killing the monster.

Some have said you could make a bard like class that uses singing for various 
effects.  IMO, this should be much different than the wizard or cleric classes - 
eg, it shouldn't have yet another mana/grace it pulls from to cast effects.  I 
think it would be more interesting that there is no limit to the amount of time 
you could use the singing, but they just effectively have a long casting time.

  Musical instruments, or tools for all the skills, could certainly be added. 
IMO, these tools shouldn't modify the stats, but instead modify the skill level. 
  Thus, a 'masterwork lockpicks', to borrow the AD&D term, might give +1 
effective level to lock picking.  The bagpipes of sounding give +2 to perform 
(singing).  To do this would mean that you would have to add something like 
'skill_adj_{singing/stealing/lockpicking/whatever}' to the archs, but that 
shouldn't be that hard to do (the skill_adj and skill_resist would use the same 
index numbers and just have a static array).  Better names for these should 
probably come it.  These skill bonuses could also be given to classes/races.

  You could even extend this some - all races/classes start with most all 
skills, they just have a 'unlearned' penalty of say -10 until they learn them. 
Realistically, anyone can try to pick a lock, but without training, your chance 
is very low.  You could even add various magical books (use once) that give 
permanent adjustments - eg, Twainers Book on Advanced Lockpick may give you a +2 
permanent bonus to lockpicking as long as your current bonus is less than 25 or 
something.

  Lots of ideas.  Some harder than others.

  But I would like to finish this by saying that everything doesn't have to be 
equal.  Granted, there may be desire for players to have everything maxed out at 
110, but for some things, being level 110 vs level 20 may not really mean very 
much in terms of actual game play (physique, magic, and praying have obvious 
game implications high levels mean more sp/grace/wc.  But really, do you need 
level 110 agility for anything?  There can certainly be desire that maybe there 
is that level 60 monster you can steal from, but once you get sufficient level 
(not sure what the odds are, but I would think it is level 80), you always 
succeed stealing from the level 60 monster.  The fact that there is a maximum 
always comes into problem - you now have level 80 stealing, and perhaps nothing 
intresting to steal from, and so on.

  Certainly, the skills should be made more interesting, and be more usuable. 
But I think that trying to balance the skills so that it is equal difficulty in 
getting to level 110 physique and level 110 agility will likely be very 
difficult - if you jack up the exp you get for doing agailty things, you have to 
be careful that it isn't jacked up too much at low levels so that getting to 
level 10 is now trivial easy for example.  Many of the skills are somewhat 
gutted right now because without the restrictions, people were finding ways to 
get to level 110 in oratory in a couple hours of play.