[crossfire] classes & guilds

[Juergen Kahnert]

Race / Class / Skill / Guild

1) Races primary set the max stat value and adds some intrinsic skills like
   levitation, clawing, flame touch, ...

   Problem here is the maximum (magic improved) hard limit of stats to 30.
   Why should an elf or gnome be able to get the same con value as a dragon?
   Just remove this hard limit.  The limit will be reached with body slots
   and item power.

   For example, the maximum natural con value for an elf would still be 18
   and for a dragon 26.  But with weared items giving a sum of +12 con the
   elf would reach 30 but the dragon a con value of 38.

   
   About the stat potion issue.  It's easy to give a character with xp 0 a
   perfect body by drinking a lot of stat potions.  This could be changed,
   if only one stat increases by reaching a new level.  Which stat will be
   random as long as you didn't used a stat potion.  If you've drunk a stat
   potion, the last quaffed stat potion will overwrite the random selection.

   An additional effect of the stat potion will be, that this stat will
   increase by 1 as long as you don't drink another one.  Than the old
   effect vanishes and the new one will take effect.

   For example.  str 16, con 15, now you drink a strength stat potion, you
   will get str 17.  After that, you drink a constitution stat potion, your
   str will drop back to 16 and your con rises to 16.  Another con stat
   potion will have no effect, your con stays at 16.  Now you reach a new
   overall level and your con will be permanent set to 16.


   And the races needs more balance of the advantages / disadvantages.  For
   example the fireborns are far to weak.  Levitation isn't that useful and
   nothing special - everybody is able to levitate by spell or items if not
   already an intrinsic leviation is available.  Flame touch does only fire
   damage, so no chance to break doors or walls or usable against fire
   immune creatures.  The dragon clawing also do physical damage, too.
   That's much better.  And besides that, everybody is able to use weapons
   doing fire damage and much more.  Every body slot missing needs some real
   compensation.  Being unable to use weapons is a real disadvantage,
   because all those weapon improvement - either selfmade, god given or just
   by the weapon - aren't available.  What's the bonus for that for a
   fireborn?

   Other races may need some tuning, too.  Removing 2 con and giving 2 cha
   isn't the same, so the "netto skill change" of 0 is somewhat misleading.

   Balancing the race attributes needs more discussion.


2) Classes don't have any distinctions at the moment.  Just remove them as
   an attribute of the character and replace it by something like a title.
   "You are what you do" will be the new motto.  Classes as a concept will
   still exists, but won't be a fixed attribute of the character - see
   guilds.


3) Skills needs bigger changes to work well with the "classes via guilds"
   system.  The goal is to have real distinctions between high level
   character; not those uniform ones we have right now (everybody can do
   everything on the same level).

   For that we introduce different versions of skills (up to master degree).
   The pitfall is to create complexity without effect.  If a master skill of
   level 10 is the same as novice on the same level, you end up again with
   everyone having everything on the same level.

   Or you deny classes to learn some skills which are not likely for the
   class.  This will work good in party oriented game engines, but not so
   well with CF.

   That's why I prefer a more sophisticated skill system.  This is based on
   the gained experience (xp) which defines the level of a skill; nothing
   new so far.  And another skill "capability value" (I formerly called it
   "affinity value").

   The capability value will be a range between 5 and 0.2 and is used as an
   divisor for the xp gain and also for the effect of the skill.  Having a
   capability value below 1 means, you gain faster xp and makes more impact.

   The level of the skill is used for guild rule checking and still for all
   the other checks e.g. ability to learn a new spell.  But I also think it
   would be a good idea to use it for item usage (weapons, rods, ...)
   instead of item power or in combination with it.  This is a different
   topic, so I won't extend it here.

   The capability value can be improved after reaching a new overall level.
   The capability value of the five skills where the character gains most xp
   between two levels will become reduced by the following formula:

      Cn - new capability value
      Co - old capability value

      Cn = Co - Co * 0.04

   Starting with the capability value of 5 you'll get this grades after x
   advances:

      capability    grade        advances
      -----------------------------------
      5.0  - 3.4   Unskilled      1 - 10
      3.4  - 2.3   Novice        11 - 20
      2.3  - 1.5   Apprentice    21 - 30
      1.5  - 1.0   Amateur       31 - 40
      1.0  - 0.65  Adept         41 - 50
      0.65 - 0.44  Expert        51 - 60
      0.44 - 0.29  Master        61 - 70
      0.29 - 0.20  Grand Master  71 - 80

   After 80 advances you reached the lowest possible value of 0.2.  That's
   not the same with level 80 of that skill!

   For example, between level 4 and 5 (8000 xp needed) a player used skill A
   to get 500 xp of those 8000, skill B 1500, skill C 750, skill D 2000,
   skill E 250, skill F 1000 and skill G 2000.  The five best skills (D, G,
   B, F and C) will be reduced by the formula above.  The other two skills
   won't - not enough training to become better there (see guilds for
   exceptions).

   If the character just used a single skill to get those 8000 xp for the
   new level, only this skill will get one advance.  The other four advances
   are lost.

   This system can be tuned by having more or less skills which will become
   better after level gain.  Or by using percentages, like all skills above
   5% of the xp gain for the new level will be improved.

   We also need to change the xp table because it's now much harder to gain
   levels than before (for low level characters).


   In combination with the guilds this will result into a clear distinction
   between members of different class guilds.


4) Guilds play a central role in this concept.  After character generation,
   in the HallOfSelection, the player won't choose the class for the
   character, but the class guild to join.  The difference is, you're able
   to leave a guild to join another one, to learn a new profession.

   Changing the guild is not as easy as it sounds.  The character has to
   fulfill the guild rules.  For example members of the warrior guild have
   to make sure that the fighting skills are much higher than all others.  A
   warrior having a higher skill in magic than fighting won't be accepted or
   even become ostracized.

   Guilds will have a bunch of skills they teach.  Without a teacher you
   never ever get a chance to advance over amateur grade of the skill
   (lowest capability value of 1.0).  So you have to be member of the guild
   to reach the "adept" up to "grand master" grade.

   The choice of the profession will limit the capability but not the skill
   level.  Think about the skill level as a measurment of how much time you
   spent for the skill.  And the capability is how good you master it.

   The "guild skills" will advance every [overall] level as long as you got
   a few xp in them.  If the top 5 skills (where the character got most xp
   between two levels) aren't guild skills, but there are also xp gains in
   guild skills, more than 5 skills will be advanced.  That's because the
   guild masters are able to teach the skills and offers deeper knowlegde.

   If the character just uses one "guild skill", only this one skill will
   advance.  Without using a skill / training no learn effect at all.

   This can't be abused, because if a fighter kills just one monster each
   with one handed weapons, two handed weapons, missile weapons and karate
   and gaining most xp with magic, than the fighter will become ostracized
   of the guild after a few levels, because the fighter no longer follows
   the guild rules.

   The guild rules for the warrior guild could look like this.  The skills
   missile weapons, one handed weapons and two handed weapons has to be at
   least twice as high as magic skills.  Also at least one of clawing, flame
   touch and / or karate (depending on the race) has to be twice as high as
   the magic skills.

   For example a warrior with

      karate              9
      one handed weapons 12
      two handed weapons 11
      missile weapons     7

   will be rejected to enter the guild and getting advantages over the guild
   if at least one of the magic skills evocation, praying, pyromancy,
   sorcery, summoning or use magic item is 4 or higher.

   Maybe we also add alchemy, inscription, literacy, sense curse, sense
   magic and probalby more or all other skills, to make a more clear
   distinction between the guilds.  Needs to be balanced between all the
   possible class guilds.

   
   The guild will offer an "apartment" for the player.  A uniq room for the
   character to place stuff.  This room will also be extentable after
   solving some quests for the guild.  For example teleporters to other
   regions, a magic box like in the extended scorn apartment, ...

   This extensions of the "apartment" (should be called a room if it's part
   the guild) are fixed to the guild the character solved the quests for.
   Don't make the rewards like teleporters moveable it the character changes
   the guild.  Betraying the way of living of the guild should be a
   punishment.  Enforce more role play gaming.


   Also good class items are also available through the guild.  For example
   the pyromancer will be able to get meteor swarm once the level is high
   enough and the quest is solved for it.  No other than the pyromancer as a
   member of the pyromancer guild will get access to this powerful spell.