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.