[crossfire] race/class lacks distinctions

[Alex Schultz]

Mark Wedel wrote:
>   It has long been discussed that with a few exception (the non humanoid races 
> and the classes that prohibit weapons/armors), a lot of race/classes tend to 
> blur together.
>
> There are several reasons for this:
>
> - There are not really any race/class restrictions for objects (or conversely, 
> not any objects that only clerics can use, or that only fighters can use, etc). 
>   While there is a 'ring of the paladin', you don't need to be a paladin to use 
> it for example.
>
> - Pretty much all the skills are learnable, so what skills you start out with 
> are not very important - you can learn everything else later.
>
> - Most differences in stats can be overcome fairly easily by use of items that 
> improve your stats.
>
>   In terms of these issues, I think the first could be fixed by adding new items 
> and a little code - use a key/value to store what class/race can use an object, 
> and add some code in the apply logic to check for it.
>
>   For the skills, my thought would be there should be different levels (for lack 
> of better term) of skills.
>
>   For example, there may be 4 different skills of sorcery - basic, expert, 
> advanced, mastery.  However, these all tie in with the same skill.
>
>   The sorcery class starts with the mastery skill.  Some of the other classes 
> (if they get several casting skills) maybe get those at advanced.  Skill scrolls 
> would give you basic skill, and perhaps quests or other harder to do things give 
> you expert.
One little note, is personally I don't think any such quests should
allow one to go beyond expert. Perhaps make one *extremely* high level
quest that could only be done once per player, that would allow one
skill of the player's choice to be put to advanced, but I think that
nothing should ever allow one not in a class native to the skill, to
advance to mastery, and advancing to advanced should be something that
should be so rare, that a given character could only do once for one
skill ever IMHO.
>
>   What exactly these differences mean would have to be worked out.  At a most 
> basic level, it could determine the rate of exp you gain in the skill (basic 
> gets 25% of normal or something). There could also be level caps - mastery caps 
> at 110, advanced 75, expert 50, basic 25
This seems like a good idea to me.
> (however, the fact there really aren't 
> many spells above level 20, this may not mean a lot).
This I believe is a separate problem, personally I think that both more
spells are needed, and the level on many of them needs to be increased
very significantly (i.e. meteor swarm I would put at level 50 to 60 or
perhaps even higher, and would put comet around 30 or 40). Also, I think
this is a rather important problem to deal with, though being a separate
one from the rest of this post.
>
>   Maybe for fighting skills, it means you get some extra hp (1/x skill levels?) 
>   Maybe only experts/masters get that bonus?  Or get a better bonus?
>
>   I think various cool bonuses for different skills could probably get worked 
> out.  But what this does it make your class selection more important - you can 
> choose a wizard and really play them as a fighter - sure, you can still fight, 
> but a person who plays a fighter will become a much better fighter.
Little bonuses seem like a good idea to me, perhaps even allow those
with a high level of pyromancery skill very small fire resist bonuses.

Actually, a few times I have mentioned a little idea I had that was
essentially the same as this, calling it a sort of, 'attunement for
skills', as it would be sort of similar to spell attunements in some
ways. Personally I think this idea is a very good one, and the details
of your proposal I like better than the details of my old 'attunement
for skills' idea.

Also, I personally believe, that the skills need to be rebalanced such
that there is not such a desire to want every skill. I believe these
things would make classes actually matter, however I believe that too
many maps and monsters, are vastly easier to do by spellcasting, or in
some cases, vastly easier to do by melee. I believe there should be some
variation, however I believe the variation currently would be too
extreme once classes were made to matter.

>
>   I don't really have any good solution to the stat problem - I don't think that 
> is really solvable.
Well, adjusting or removing the stat limit of 30 would allow those base
stat differences to matter more at higher levels, however doing that may
cause more problems than it solves. Also, something I've saw some muds
do, that might deal with that, is when one gains a level, randomly, some
stats will increase depending on the class. Of course, those muds did
have their stats on a different scale (starting stats ranged from 7 to
30 or so depending on race and class, with stats of the very very very
high level players getting to like 500 even).

Alex Schultz