TheRPGSite

Just an idea I've been pondering. Very unformed as yet. Instead of every character getting one class at first level:
*Give characters a number of points at first level
*Make different classes cost different numbers of points.
 
So in this system you wouldn't balance classes equally; a class gets whatever abilities are deemed appropriate then gets a cost, so Merchant is cheaper than Noble is cheaper than Wizard (or whatever). A multi-classed character would be one that purchased two classes, which is going to be easier if both classes are crummy ones...sort of how its easier to be an Arts/Law graduate than Medicine/Engineering.
 
I'm not sure if the point budget would be fixed, or based off ability scores, or if classes would just be bought using skill ranks so that surplus points are spent on 'general' skills.

If you're after balancing this, one question: any reduced prices for similar archetypes? If there's overlap between mage and scholar, does that reduce the cost of one or the other?

Probably easier just to give bonuses to overlapping skills. The points could also be age based, with further bonuses for time spent in that class, balancing out against age related penalties. Say +1 on each skill in a class per 3 years over the age of 15 spent in it, to a maximum bonus of +3. Or the player could select skills to specialise in rather than a blanket bonus.

Quote from: beejazz;603071If you're after balancing this, one question: any reduced prices for similar archetypes? If there's overlap between mage and scholar, does that reduce the cost of one or the other?

That's a pretty neat idea..quite possibly yeah. Having overlapping skills as The Traveller said would be another way to balance it. Or, the system could prevent overlap by letting the character take extra general skills instead of a skill that would have been duplicated.
 
Other things I was considering might be:
*giving elves, dwarves, etc. more points (balanced with a tradeoff in some other area), so that they are more often multi-classed. I suppose age-based points would do that too.
 
*having some classes perhaps be straight upgrades, so you can take a "prestige class" by paying the points difference.
 

Quote from: The Traveller;603073Probably easier just to give bonuses to overlapping skills. The points could also be age based, with further bonuses for time spent in that class, balancing out against age related penalties. Say +1 on each skill in a class per 3 years over the age of 15 spent in it, to a maximum bonus of +3. Or the player could select skills to specialise in rather than a blanket bonus.

I don't really like age-based systems as a personal thing, though it could work. Blanket bonus may run into issues with the classes not being balanced too (10 years as a wizard vs. 10 years as a peasant); I was thinking to going with blanket advancement, with classes having variable "level up" costs, although it could get messy.
 
Anyway thanks for the help guys!

If you're including age as a cost for certain classes (magic ones especially) then lengthening the life of demihumans may be a fun and unique way to encourage elfish magic users and such. Their long lifespans would offset the penalty associated with the class.

eep thread mutation...

Could be interesting I guess. World of Synnibarr theoretically has something like that but perhaps the other way around...characters are supposed to add together training times of all their skills to calculate their starting age, although I don't think there's an ill effects from age system.

I'm also vaguely reminded of Ars Magica: it has a game structure that assumes a lot of gaps/downtime between adventures for training and research. Not sure if it has demihumans exactly - there might well be a Merit that gives a character nonhuman blood that may extend time between rolls for Decrepitude.  

I think a system where power is keyed to age perhaps needs to assume a lot of down time between adventures; I'm more used to games where the characters get from 1st to 20th in about a year of game time but if you need X years of training to become a wizard that's not going to work.
Having ageing as a game mechanic runs into some interesting balancing issues too since being "Immortal" becomes awesome instead of being just flavour text.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603299I think a system where power is keyed to age perhaps needs to assume a lot of down time between adventures; I'm more used to games where the characters get from 1st to 20th in about a year of game time but if you need X years of training to become a wizard that's not going to work.
Having ageing as a game mechanic runs into some interesting balancing issues too since being "Immortal" becomes awesome instead of being just flavour text.

I'm talking more about starting age than continuous aging (though aging magic can bring that back in).

So let's say that a wizard rolls 2d10 X4 for his starting age. He'll average 40 but could start as high as 80. And for a human, there'll be penalties (let's say weaker saves against illness, lower strength, whatever's appropriate in system). Elves would roll the same starting age but at 50 they'd be as healthy as if they were in their late teens.

Using starting age as something similar to a points cost, or in parallel to a points cost, in a multiclass system is sort of related right?

Really weird idea: Penalize xp (or xp multiplier or whatever you have) for higher age categories. A person could be two high-age careers, but would advance more slowly. Sure, this would work a lot like older edition multiclassing, but it has some added in-world logic.

Starting age as points works I guess. Two ways you could go?

*determine a starting age. Say 'apprenticeship' age is about 12, and additional years can be spent to buy classes; 10 years for wizard, 4 for craftsman, 3 for barbarian, or something. You could buy multiple classes, or multiple terms in one class for greater skills.
Nonhumans would probably have higher 'apprenticeship' ages as they mature a bit more slowly, but also higher starting age.
 
Or...

*determine what classes you want, then roll ageing dice for each profession, with magic using classes getting worse dice (+d4 for thief, +d6 for warrior, +2d10 for wizard, perhaps ?). This wouldn't be much different to how D&D works except you probably want multi-class age costs to be cumulative, and you'd add stat penalties for ageing starting quite early (30 say? I believe 45 was considered pretty old in the dark ages).

I don't like xp penalties so much... Systems where high skills are harder to improve (e.g. Runequest) could help balance higher ages though.

I was thinking on this...

From a HERO System PoV what this concept comes down to is templates and packages. A HERO GM could design all the desired 'Classes' and then say divide the cost by 10 and round to the nearest- and offer them to the players for together with a point budget suited for the divided costs.

In addition to classic things like classes, you can also offer attribute packages- like "normal Joe", "Athlete" or "Old Man" which focus on stats.

Thus everyone would buy at least one attribute pack and at least one Class pack. So you'd get things like a player buying "Old Man" for cheap (i.e. low stats), thus saving points for buying "Wizard"...

In fact now that I think about it, one could use HERO to do the ground work for other game design.

Look at Rolemaster/MERP and Warhammer both fantasy and 40K for inspiration because they do exactly what you're envisioning except for classic multiclassing which isn't really needed for different reasons depending on which system is being used.

the standard apporach to this is to have different class components and allow the GM (opr sometimes players) to construct classes from the class components. Fights like a warrior but can't wear armour and can cast a few spells, cool we'll call him a Battlemage. Can do a lof of non combat thief stuff and has some charm magic sure we will call him a Mountebank.

My heartbreaker has 3 classes , rogue, warrior, caster, but many many archetypes or sub-classes which the GM creates from a tool specific to their settign which are a blend of the three elemts (whcih represent skills, combat and magic respectively).

So in theory all class-archetypes are blanced.

Quote from: gleichman;603318I was thinking on this...

From a HERO System PoV what this concept comes down to is templates and packages. A HERO GM could design all the desired 'Classes' and then say divide the cost by 10 and round to the nearest- and offer them to the players for together with a point budget suited for the divided costs.

In addition to classic things like classes, you can also offer attribute packages- like "normal Joe", "Athlete" or "Old Man" which focus on stats.

Thus everyone would buy at least one attribute pack and at least one Class pack. So you'd get things like a player buying "Old Man" for cheap (i.e. low stats), thus saving points for buying "Wizard"...

In fact now that I think about it, one could use HERO to do the ground work for other game design.

Hmm HERO could work for that. Perhaps the question is how useful the final point costings are; they could be expected to stop working if the assumptions of the game and other rules based on that in the design are radically revised, but it would be a starting point, and a good one for an essentially HERO-based system I would imagine.

Spending attribute points to buy skill points and flavouring it as being old would work in most cases, and be more straightforward. It doesn't readily duplicate the older demihumans getting extra skill points for free, though, without more tomfoolery  - I'm not quite sure how to do it in HERO system.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603430It doesn't readily duplicate the older demihumans getting extra skill points for free, though, without more tomfoolery  - I'm not quite sure how to do it in HERO system.

You could make the racial packages free to the demihumans. In HERO terms those are typically worth a fair number of points- nightvision (or better), Long Life spans, and certain stats being higher. One could also toss in racial abilities like Dwarves getting OCV bonus vs. Orcs, or Elves getting Bow Skill levels if you think things like that are a racial characteristic.


What it doesn't do is solve multi-classing for you. However what might is a lower cost version of each class with more limited abilities (thus representing from a different direction the demi-human level cap limits in D&D), and having those open only to demi-humans.

Quote from: gleichman;603432You could make the racial packages free to the demihumans. In HERO terms those are typically worth a fair number of points- nightvision (or better), Long Life spans, and certain stats being higher. One could also toss in racial abilities like Dwarves getting OCV bonus vs. Orcs, or Elves getting Bow Skill levels if you think things like that are a racial characteristic.


What it doesn't do is solve multi-classing for you. However what might is a lower cost version of each class with more limited abilities (thus representing from a different direction the demi-human level cap limits in D&D), and having those open only to demi-humans.

On a similar theme check out - http://www.mindspring.com/~ernestm/classless/

Which is a much better implementation of the Skills and powers idea form 2e+ (that was dreadfully put togehter by TSR)

Quote from: jibbajibba;603434On a similar theme check out - http://www.mindspring.com/~ernestm/classless/

Which is a much better implementation of the Skills and powers idea form 2e+ (that was dreadfully put togehter by TSR)

Converting D&D to a point system usually does highlight the unfairness of demihumans vs. humans - all the racial abilities, and then extra classes on top.  2E skills and powers was bad in that you could see how much stuff the elves got that the half-elves didn't in actual point terms. Same with many of the classes. And multi-class characters just got double points.

(addressed more at Gleichman) - Building the races playing up the disadvantages could work (starting with HERO say) although difficult to duplicate some features of D&D meant to give balance - racial stat requirements like elves needing 8+ Cha, or experience costs for multiclassing perhaps.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603448(addressed more at Gleichman) - Building the races playing up the disadvantages could work (starting with HERO say) although difficult to duplicate some features of D&D meant to give balance - racial stat requirements like elves needing 8+ Cha, or experience costs for multiclassing perhaps.

Require stat packages could deal with racial stat requirement part.

And as I said, I only allow them to buy less effective classes in their multi-classing so they'd be rather balanced and I don't have to worry about duplicating the level cap. That may not be to your taste however.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603448Converting D&D to a point system usually does highlight the unfairness of demihumans vs. humans - all the racial abilities, and then extra classes on top.  2E skills and powers was bad in that you could see how much stuff the elves got that the half-elves didn't in actual point terms. Same with many of the classes. And multi-class characters just got double points.

(addressed more at Gleichman) - Building the races playing up the disadvantages could work (starting with HERO say) although difficult to duplicate some features of D&D meant to give balance - racial stat requirements like elves needing 8+ Cha, or experience costs for multiclassing perhaps.

The point system I linked to takes that into account and you buy the racial package (it suggests no mix and matching) and that costs you somethign that someone else can spend on wilderness skills or a higher HD or ... whatever.

Quote from: jibbajibba;603482The point system I linked to takes that into account and you buy the racial package (it suggests no mix and matching) and that costs you somethign that someone else can spend on wilderness skills or a higher HD or ... whatever.

Sorry just felt the need to rant about skills & powers :)
Thanks jibba, I'll check it out.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603505Sorry just felt the need to rant about skills & powers :)
Thanks jibba, I'll check it out.

Yes it was quite the most dispicable anathema in the world.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603070Just an idea I've been pondering. Very unformed as yet. Instead of every character getting one class at first level:
*Give characters a number of points at first level
*Make different classes cost different numbers of points.
 
So in this system you wouldn't balance classes equally; a class gets whatever abilities are deemed appropriate then gets a cost, so Merchant is cheaper than Noble is cheaper than Wizard (or whatever). A multi-classed character would be one that purchased two classes, which is going to be easier if both classes are crummy ones...sort of how its easier to be an Arts/Law graduate than Medicine/Engineering.
 
I'm not sure if the point budget would be fixed, or based off ability scores, or if classes would just be bought using skill ranks so that surplus points are spent on 'general' skills.

It seems to me that you'd achieve the same end more easily by having a skill-based system, but offering suggested 'packages' of skills with the cost already worked out.

Quote from: Age of Fable;603841It seems to me that you'd achieve the same end more easily by having a skill-based system, but offering suggested 'packages' of skills with the cost already worked out.

I'm sort of coming to that conclusion, although some 'skills' might be best kept as exclusive features of certain classes - magic use, perhaps.
If that's not the case, the question is if the packages are there just for convenience, or if they offer some other benefit.
 
I was at one point fooling around with a system where classes were built as groups of skills I could maybe adapt; in that, characters could buy skills with disadvantages for a point discount - class skills had the linked disadvantage (meaning all the skills had to be raised together), while characters who didn't have classes could take other disadvantages to cheapen them e.g. limitations on what the skill could be used for, need for spell malfunction rolls, language skills minus literacy, etc - representing that they didn't have formal training from a mentor or guild.
 
The thread seems to have generated a lot of useful ideas so has been good...other things I'm pondering are:
 
*with demihumans and multiclassing, even if it is possible to reassign ability points to skills to represent ageing, the demihumans could perhaps have as part of their racial abilities, a longevity power which just grants free bonus skill points.
 
*whether a general skill list everyone can pick from + pre-built arrays of skills by class, is better or different to the point-based systems such as Skills & Powers or its offspring...I had another system much like that myself and was finding that really what constitutes a 'skill' and what constituted a 'class feature' was a bit unclear, and often classes were handing out bonus skills as class abilities.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603877*whether a general skill list everyone can pick from + pre-built arrays of skills by class, is better or different to the point-based systems such as Skills & Powers or its offspring...I had another system much like that myself and was finding that really what constitutes a 'skill' and what constituted a 'class feature' was a bit unclear, and often classes were handing out bonus skills as class abilities.

I ended up with a bunch of skill lists but with skills appearing on multiple lists. A number of these were "environmental" another set "professional"

They currently are
Wilderness
City
Maritime

Nobility
Criminality
Athletic
Military
Scholastic
Artisan


Now in my game there are 3 threads. Skills, Combat, magic. So skills by defintion do not cover combat skills or magic skills.

So a Warrior - Ranger will have access to the Wilderness skill list . If in the particular culture rangers were a miltary force then they would have Wilderness & Military

As each archetype (subclass) is built from points the military ranger would loose something the non milarty ranger had to make up for access to this skill list.

Like I say the same skill will appear on multiple lists and I am trying to stay at 30 skills.
So tracking is a wilderness skill and a military skill and a criminal skill
Appraisal is a criminal skill, a city skill and a nobility skill
Heraldry is a military skill and a nobility skill and a scholastic skill

etc etc

What's interesting me currently, is actually not the non-combat skills part, so much as the combat and magic abilities i.e. comparing a class-driven point-pool system like Skills & Powers (or perhaps that game you were working on awhile back) with a purely skill-driven system where everything is a skill.
 
Say you have a thief class, the skills and powers setup gave you a set backage of rogue abilities (base saves, to-hit progression, skill points/level) +80 CPs of optional abilities which included (cost in brackets):
Backstab (10), Bribe (5), Climb Walls (5), Defense Bonus (10), Detect Illusion (10), Detect Magic (10), Detect Noise (5), Escaping bonds (10), Find/remove traps (10), Followers (5/10), Hide in shadows (5), Move silently (5), Open Locks (10), Pick Pockets (10), Read languages (5), Scroll Use (5/10), Thieves' Cant (5), Tunneling (10), Weapon Specialization (15).
 
Or instead of being a thief, you could say be a fighter in which case, you got the base abilities of that (exceptional strength, fighter saves and to-hit progression, d10 hit dice, multiple attacks per round) plus 15 points to spend with abilities of: d12 HD (10), building (5), defense bonus (10), followers (5/10), increased movement (5), magic resistance (10), move silently (10), multiple specialization (10), poison resistance (5), spell resistance (5) , poison resistance (5), supervisor (5), war machines (5), weapon specialization (5).
In either case a character would then also get an allotment of non-weapon proficiencies.
 
The Mindspring thing was interesting in that they'd taken out classes completely so that they just had a single list of abilities, with even to-hit and save progressions bought off the table. It still seems more awkward than a pure skill-based system, though. The skills and powers system let you build a fair array of characters - like the fighter who is a quick runner and good with siege machinery vs. the swashbuckler type who's specialized in an array of different weapons - but that was still a range of character types that a skill-based system would generate just by letting a character choose either Artillery skill and Running, or skill in Dodge and higher ratings in more weapon skills.
Likewise, there's perhaps not a huge difference between choosing between Rogue class and Fighter class in a class-based system (more skills that are defined as non-combat based, vs. higher weapon-based abilities) and a purely skill-based system where the list of 'skills' also includes combat and magic skills, so you have lists of skills e.g. perhaps
Weapon Use (particular weapon), Spellcasting, Sneak, Disguise, Craft, Dodge, Artillery, Sleight of Hand, Armour Use, basically everything else imaginable.
 
EIther way, you're given the option of having either more combat abilities or more non-combat abilities... so I'm trying to work out if the different class lists with costs of abilities like Skills & Powers have any benefit vs. the purely 'skill-driven' system (where skills also includes weapon proficiencies and spellcasting), where you customize just by buying extra skills. Maybe the extra uniqueness to classes with the first method is still good to have (shrug). The skills & powers approach also doesn't call its abilities "skills" so perhaps some of the stuff there can also includes backgroundy things and weirder special abilities.
 
I think there may also be a difference in the way things scale with level, in that the point-driven system seems to assume binary abilities (you have it or you don't; usually after you buy it the abilities functions at [class level] ) whereas skill-driven systems usually let you buy variable ranks of abilities (i.e. instead of just buying Move Silently [10], you can take Sneak 1 rank or Sneak 10 ranks) and put in more ranks as you level up.
 
Don't know if that's making any sense or not...

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603940What's interesting me currently, is actually not the non-combat skills part, so much as the combat and magic abilities i.e. comparing a class-driven point-pool system like Skills & Powers (or perhaps that game you were working on awhile back) with a purely skill-driven system where everything is a skill.
 
Say you have a thief class, the skills and powers setup gave you a set backage of rogue abilities (base saves, to-hit progression, skill points/level) +80 CPs of optional abilities which included (cost in brackets):
Backstab (10), Bribe (5), Climb Walls (5), Defense Bonus (10), Detect Illusion (10), Detect Magic (10), Detect Noise (5), Escaping bonds (10), Find/remove traps (10), Followers (5/10), Hide in shadows (5), Move silently (5), Open Locks (10), Pick Pockets (10), Read languages (5), Scroll Use (5/10), Thieves' Cant (5), Tunneling (10), Weapon Specialization (15).
 
Or instead of being a thief, you could say be a fighter in which case, you got the base abilities of that (exceptional strength, fighter saves and to-hit progression, d10 hit dice, multiple attacks per round) plus 15 points to spend with abilities of: d12 HD (10), building (5), defense bonus (10), followers (5/10), increased movement (5), magic resistance (10), move silently (10), multiple specialization (10), poison resistance (5), spell resistance (5) , poison resistance (5), supervisor (5), war machines (5), weapon specialization (5).
In either case a character would then also get an allotment of non-weapon proficiencies.
 
The Mindspring thing was interesting in that they'd taken out classes completely so that they just had a single list of abilities, with even to-hit and save progressions bought off the table. It still seems more awkward than a pure skill-based system, though. The skills and powers system let you build a fair array of characters - like the fighter who is a quick runner and good with siege machinery vs. the swashbuckler type who's specialized in an array of different weapons - but that was still a range of character types that a skill-based system would generate just by letting a character choose either Artillery skill and Running, or skill in Dodge and higher ratings in more weapon skills.
Likewise, there's perhaps not a huge difference between choosing between Rogue class and Fighter class in a class-based system (more skills that are defined as non-combat based, vs. higher weapon-based abilities) and a purely skill-based system where the list of 'skills' also includes combat and magic skills, so you have lists of skills e.g. perhaps
Weapon Use (particular weapon), Spellcasting, Sneak, Disguise, Craft, Dodge, Artillery, Sleight of Hand, Armour Use, basically everything else imaginable.
 
EIther way, you're given the option of having either more combat abilities or more non-combat abilities... so I'm trying to work out if the different class lists with costs of abilities like Skills & Powers have any benefit vs. the purely 'skill-driven' system (where skills also includes weapon proficiencies and spellcasting), where you customize just by buying extra skills. Maybe the extra uniqueness to classes with the first method is still good to have (shrug). The skills & powers approach also doesn't call its abilities "skills" so perhaps some of the stuff there can also includes backgroundy things and weirder special abilities.
 
I think there may also be a difference in the way things scale with level, in that the point-driven system seems to assume binary abilities (you have it or you don't; usually after you buy it the abilities functions at [class level] ) whereas skill-driven systems usually let you buy variable ranks of abilities (i.e. instead of just buying Move Silently [10], you can take Sneak 1 rank or Sneak 10 ranks) and put in more ranks as you level up.
 
Don't know if that's making any sense or not...

It makes sense and that link I posted uses a similar model.

Basically the only reason to keep classes and levels is to try to prevent everyone coming out the same and drive some idea of niche specialisation and to enabel you to compare levels roughly for balance. So a 4th level character should be about as tough as a 4th level monster. Now you could 'optimize' that character to be a combat specialst and maybe that means in combat he woudl toast a 4th level monster but how would he cope with a "4th level" trap etc . Now this is somehtign that has been in D&D from the get go. I am not proposing a 4e balance driven game I am merely saying that in general a trap you find on the 4th level of a dungeon was likely to be more powerful than one found on the 1st level. A 40 foot pit as oppsoed to a 10 foot pit a volley or arrows as opposed to a singel arrow etc etc . In the same way a 4th level PC would find an Ogre a challenge where as a 1st level one woudl be challenged by a goblin.

So levels are a basic shorthand you use for comparison.

So if you decide to keep classes and levels then how to integrate with a more felxible model of what they mean. For me that means giving the GM a kit to build their own classes and providing examples built with the kit. Now the skills part is one element you also include HD, attack bonus armour choices, weapon styles, magic abilities, casting, class powers - turn undead, polymorph, detect evil, etc .
Now for me to prevent player optimisation and the greying of the model I opt to build those inside a class structure and call then archetypes (templates, sublclasses etc ) and I only allow GMs to create classes.
Now using the design space I focus 3 classes on 3 areas of class design , skills, combat, magic = rogue, warrior, caster.

The net output is I end up with lots of warrior options that still feel like warriors, etc.
You can in this model build a fighter-magic user but they will be substantially weaker in both areas than someone of smilar level in either specialism. The really gotcha in D&D is that multiclassing was so much stronger in most games rather like Demihumans so you end up with the optimiser nearly always picking a multiclasses demihuman which goes contrary to the HUman centric statement of intent and you get teh counter-intuitive level limit model as a kludge which is meaningless when most games happen under 7th level anyway.

Quote from: jibbajibba;603946It makes sense and that link I posted uses a similar model.
 
Basically the only reason to keep classes and levels is to try to prevent everyone coming out the same and drive some idea of niche specialisation and to enabel you to compare levels roughly for balance. So a 4th level character should be about as tough as a 4th level monster. Now you could 'optimize' that character to be a combat specialst and maybe that means in combat he woudl toast a 4th level monster but how would he cope with a "4th level" trap etc . Now this is somehtign that has been in D&D from the get go. I am not proposing a 4e balance driven game I am merely saying that in general a trap you find on the 4th level of a dungeon was likely to be more powerful than one found on the 1st level. A 40 foot pit as oppsoed to a 10 foot pit a volley or arrows as opposed to a singel arrow etc etc . In the same way a 4th level PC would find an Ogre a challenge where as a 1st level one woudl be challenged by a goblin.
 
So levels are a basic shorthand you use for comparison.
 
So if you decide to keep classes and levels then how to integrate with a more felxible model of what they mean. For me that means giving the GM a kit to build their own classes and providing examples built with the kit. Now the skills part is one element you also include HD, attack bonus armour choices, weapon styles, magic abilities, casting, class powers - turn undead, polymorph, detect evil, etc .
Now for me to prevent player optimisation and the greying of the model I opt to build those inside a class structure and call then archetypes (templates, sublclasses etc ) and I only allow GMs to create classes.
Now using the design space I focus 3 classes on 3 areas of class design , skills, combat, magic = rogue, warrior, caster.
 
The net output is I end up with lots of warrior options that still feel like warriors, etc.
You can in this model build a fighter-magic user but they will be substantially weaker in both areas than someone of smilar level in either specialism. The really gotcha in D&D is that multiclassing was so much stronger in most games rather like Demihumans so you end up with the optimiser nearly always picking a multiclasses demihuman which goes contrary to the HUman centric statement of intent and you get teh counter-intuitive level limit model as a kludge which is meaningless when most games happen under 7th level anyway.

The 4th level fighter probably would deal with the fourth-level trap not so well, but hopefully there's a L4 thief in his party too that can help with it. Anyway...I think the question of whether or not to have 'levels' to have some idea of what characters are capable of, is separate to the question of whether to have 'classes' vs. having skills; there are some level-based skill-driven games though not many i.e. Rolemaster or Palladium, although they do have classes they're mostly skill-based. Arguably Talislanta (it has 'archetypes' but apart from racial abilities, everything is handled by skills).
So IMHO while having levels in a game is not unreasonable, wanting that sort of balance doesn't especially suggest a need for classes.
 
I'd agree that limiting player min/maxing is a good thing, a skill-based system that's more flexibility I guess automatically means more opportunities for abuse. And I do like having every character not be the same, which I guess can be a risk with skill-based games.
On the other hand, I wouldn't necessarily want to kill "grey area" characters - a lot of interesting literary characters have abilities that are hard to pigeonhole into single class lists, and having it be possible to create them with the game rules and not just Fred the Fighter is good.
 
For this sort of reason I sort of like [Classes + multi-classing] to either purely skills, or single-classing-only, since with an effort a character can grab some abilities outside their classes (albeit often with extra stuff you didn't want) but can't just grab all the most powerful skills from every area, same as everyone else, as can happen in a game where a character is just given X skill points and told to go wild.
Or maybe I just like multiclassing since I am a min/maxer, dunno. (I'd aspire to be an immersionazi, but I always score higher on power gaming and probably need to be flagellated every once in a while to get the rules lawyering under control :( Figuratively speaking.)

Is there an underlying formula for how much a particular skill/ability costs?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;603313*determine what classes you want, then roll ageing dice for each profession, with magic using classes getting worse dice (+d4 for thief, +d6 for warrior, +2d10 for wizard, perhaps ?). This wouldn't be much different to how D&D works except you probably want multi-class age costs to be cumulative, and you'd add stat penalties for ageing starting quite early (30 say? I believe 45 was considered pretty old in the dark ages).

Oooh, that's good. I'd try to make the class tree more complex - kinda like WFRP's, so rather than have "Wizard: 2d10 years", you'd have "Student: d4 years", "novice Wizzie: d6 years", etc. Multi-classing works perfectly - roll both die sets, job done.

Quote from: ggroy;604021Is there an underlying formula for how much a particular skill/ability costs?

Which system or in general?
I don't know about jibba jibba's system; Skills & Powers was largely ad hoc; sum of the abilities a class normally had equals the classes' CP allotment was about the only rule, but some things were overpriced (like priest Spheres) and could be mostly sold off to get more other stuff.
 
Building a new system that's like those from scratch I'm not quite sure where you'd start building a costing formula; damage-based point costs perhaps, for things like specialization or magic use?  Or starting with HERO as Gleichman suggested.
 

Quote from: Ladybird;604051Oooh, that's good. I'd try to make the class tree more complex - kinda like WFRP's, so rather than have "Wizard: 2d10 years", you'd have "Student: d4 years", "novice Wizzie: d6 years", etc. Multi-classing works perfectly - roll both die sets, job done.

Ooh maybe. Apprentice/Journeyman/L1 wizard/L2 wizard ?
Or Scholar (no magic powers but reading n' stuff)/Apprentice/Journeyman (L1)/ Mage (L2).   I sort of like Scholar as an entrance profession from WHFR, but it conflicts with the idea of teenaged Wizards mopping their master's floor.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;604199Which system or in general?

In general, I suspect there isn't any definitive formulas.

That hard part is figuring what criteria one wants to base it on.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;604199I don't know about jibba jibba's system; Skills & Powers was largely ad hoc; sum of the abilities a class normally had equals the classes' CP allotment was about the only rule, but some things were overpriced (like priest Spheres) and could be mostly sold off to get more other stuff.
 
Building a new system that's like those from scratch I'm not quite sure where you'd start building a costing formula; damage-based point costs perhaps, for things like specialization or magic use?  Or starting with HERO as Gleichman suggested.

Magic is something that would be hard to price in a precise manner.

For example, how would one price a "wish spell" or an "insta death" type spell.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;604199Ooh maybe. Apprentice/Journeyman/L1 wizard/L2 wizard ?
Or Scholar (no magic powers but reading n' stuff)/Apprentice/Journeyman (L1)/ Mage (L2).   I sort of like Scholar as an entrance profession from WHFR, but it conflicts with the idea of teenaged Wizards mopping their master's floor.

The advantage to using a tree-system, though, is that you can do that, and add "professions" as options characters could pick up to support their non-adventuring lives. Add a "servant" class to your game (Or maybe even a "slave" class... BoL has one), make "wizard's apprentice" one of it's career exits, mention wizards in the fluff texts for them, and you're good. Keep magical scholar as an alternative route into the wizard class tree, too.

You'd probably want to be careful about the amount of crunch each class adds to a character, but it doesn't need to be very much.

Quote from: ggroy;604212Magic is something that would be hard to price in a precise manner.
 
For example, how would one price a "wish spell" or an "insta death" type spell.

The pricing is easiest for evocation-type direct damage spells. Instadeath is in theory equivalent to inflicting an unlimited amount of damage to a single target, but in practice the actual value isn't higher than [damage = HP of the strongest creature in the game]. Chance of the spell failing then weight the final value I suppose.
I think in point buy games there can also be a sort of 'feedback loop' that operates in the cost process; the rules don't just get created and then used to set point costs, rules tend to be added after the point cost to justify them. In cases like "instadeath" for example, it may be that the spell will have a Hit Dice cap that assigns an upper limit to the possible damage it can inflict. Or D&D Minis had a dragon that had about 500 HP and treated "death" effects as just dealing it 100 damage; again that sets a maximum value for the effect for pricing.
 
For wish? - not sure...damage as a measure is perfect, just an idea. If wish can do anything then the fair cost is "priceless" (minus cost of drawbacks caused by the casting), while if it duplicates the effect of other spells or abilities I guess you start with the cost of the costliest spell it can copy, then add a premium for the versatility??

Quote from: Ladybird;604216The advantage to using a tree-system, though, is that you can do that, and add "professions" as options characters could pick up to support their non-adventuring lives. Add a "servant" class to your game (Or maybe even a "slave" class... BoL has one), make "wizard's apprentice" one of it's career exits, mention wizards in the fluff texts for them, and you're good. Keep magical scholar as an alternative route into the wizard class tree, too.
 
You'd probably want to be careful about the amount of crunch each class adds to a character, but it doesn't need to be very much.

Thanks Ladybird. Yep I like the idea, though I'll have to ponder a bit further what direction to go in (out of all the ideas floating around here) before definitely doing anything specific.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;604226The pricing is easiest for evocation-type direct damage spells. Instadeath is in theory equivalent to inflicting an unlimited amount of damage to a single target, but in practice the actual value isn't higher than [damage = HP of the strongest creature in the game]. Chance of the spell failing then weight the final value I suppose.
I think in point buy games there can also be a sort of 'feedback loop' that operates in the cost process; the rules don't just get created and then used to set point costs, rules tend to be added after the point cost to justify them. In cases like "instadeath" for example, it may be that the spell will have a Hit Dice cap that assigns an upper limit to the possible damage it can inflict. Or D&D Minis had a dragon that had about 500 HP and treated "death" effects as just dealing it 100 damage; again that sets a maximum value for the effect for pricing.

Awhile ago I was trying to figure out how something like the cleric's turning undead ability (from older editions) can be defined in such a manner.

It was very much opening up a can of worms, in attempting to define abilities which don't always involve direct damage, such as spells like sleep, fear, hold, dispel magic, etc ...

You could genericize the tree with apprentice/journeyman/master for each class.

Wizard would be student (no magic)/ritualist (slow magic)/full caster (rituals plus spells).
Fighter could be conscript (hp and attack bonuses)/soldier (proficiency bonuses, armor use)/warlord (featlike entities or leadership stuff).

And so on.

@beejazz: yup could do. Or as with WHFR there could be more complex trees for the classes, with multiple entrances/exits to each package...the mercenary fighter might skip the 'conscript stage' for basic training that real soldiers get, instead needing just basic fighting from some other occupation? Otherwise the stages are really "levels" rather than being distinct classes.
 

Quote from: ggroy;604237Awhile ago I was trying to figure out how something like the cleric's turning undead ability (from older editions) can be defined in such a manner.
 
It was very much opening up a can of worms, in attempting to define abilities which don't always involve direct damage, such as spells like sleep, fear, hold, dispel magic, etc ...

I get what you're saying - these are more tricky.
 
For sleep, I've played solo PbP games...for lone PCs (or monsters) sleep = death. Other systems I've seen, LegendQuest for instance use fatigue points with sleep giving the target Fatigue i.e. its still damage, but a different sort of damage.
 
For Turn Undead, fair costing is tricky since I guess how often undead are going to come up will be campaign dependent. If a game comes with random encounter tables, perhaps that gives some idea of frequency, but if a game has no undead its worthless. Or giving the ability some alternative uses (as 4E channel divinity?) built in could perhaps give the ability a minimum usefulness.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;604414@beejazz: yup could do. Or as with WHFR there could be more complex trees for the classes, with multiple entrances/exits to each package...the mercenary fighter might skip the 'conscript stage' for basic training that real soldiers get, instead needing just basic fighting from some other occupation? Otherwise the stages are really "levels" rather than being distinct classes.

Whether they act like levels or classes depends partly on the specifics of the surrounding system. If age penalizes XP, the conscripts will get to a higher level faster, while the warlords would have less of a numeric boost and more tricks. If there's room for a barbarian and a fighter in the same system, I could see this working too. Naming conventions could be less specific than "conscript" as well. Maybe just leaving it at apprentice/journeyman/master for all classes could work.

I'd be against branching unless it made a really big mechanical (and not just flavor) difference.