Quote from: CRKrueger;537598Basically the discussion between John and Jibba highlights the problem with a pure class system, or a class system that attempts to add in a robust skill system.  On the one end, you have archetypes with mostly class powers, which leads to class bloat (why was the Barbarian created?  because the AD&D Fighter can't do Conan - and don't try to tell me it can, you're wrong ), or you have a skill system with some class powers, and the distinction between classes is minimized (which isn't too much of an issue for me, niche protection is childish specialsauce).

Rolemaster did the best I think at providing a robust and diverse skill system while still having effective differences between classes due to varying costs for those skills.

Very true. I am trying to get to a happy medium.
I think Rolemaster did a lot of things well but it can be distilled down to a simpler model. Likewise what has been posted here about Hackmaster. it uses a lot of the things that I came to myself but just seems overly cumbersome.

Article is gibberish or crap, as it ignores the fact that this is about a game.

QuoteRogues are tricky opponents, because determining what they might do next is almost impossible. A smart rogue always keeps a few tricks in his or her back pocket, ready to spring them when the time is right. Whether it's throwing a handful of caltrops under a bugbear's feet as it tries to charge, leaping from an ambush to drive a blade into an ogre's back, or dodging beneath a dragon's claws and tumbling into the shadows to hide, a rogue always has a trick in mind.

Rogues may be tricky opponents, but what about a the rogue's player? We know what he or she as up his or her Rogue's sleeves, because we can read the character sheet. (As for the things not on the character sheet, they would be possible with any other character.) So how does one play a Rogue?

@Jibba Jibba: I think I'm in the opposite camp since I found Rolemaster's approach a bit bland. Inventing a new class looked like a simple task of setting the development costs for some skills and (at worst) inventing a couple of new skills, but new classes e.g. out of the Companions were pretty well redundant - you could have made something that looked like most of them with another class and the right skill selections, it'd only have fiddled around some of the development costs. Few if any had unique features. So while I think its understandeable to want to have a system that works for creating new classes easily, I do think it sucks some of the life out of them.
 
I'd like an approach where a degree of customizability is built into the classes themselves - a choice of class features where necessary - instead of having the skill system do all of the job of customizing the character. That would make it possible to have skill-less characters while still playing your "Fighter/barbarian" or "Fighter/cavalier" and at the same time cuts down on min/maxing in the skill choices (same with rogue there could be e.g. a Thief/Acrobat option...but do you want everyone taking Acrobatics if its just a general skill?)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;537607@Jibba Jibba: I think I'm in the opposite camp since I found Rolemaster's approach a bit bland. Inventing a new class looked like a simple task of setting the development costs for some skills and (at worst) inventing a couple of new skills, but new classes e.g. out of the Companions were pretty well redundant - you could have made something that looked like most of them with another class and the right skill selections, it'd only have fiddled around some of the development costs. Few if any had unique features. So while I think its understandeable to want to have a system that works for creating new classes easily, I do think it sucks some of the life out of them.
 
I'd like an approach where a degree of customizability is built into the classes themselves - a choice of class features where necessary - instead of having the skill system do all of the job of customizing the character. That would make it possible to have skill-less characters while still playing your "Fighter/barbarian" or "Fighter/cavalier" and at the same time cuts down on min/maxing in the skill choices (same with rogue there could be e.g. a Thief/Acrobat option...but do you want everyone taking Acrobatics if its just a general skill?)

My actual system works like this

3 classes each class has many archetypes. You select an archetype. The base game coems with 6 archetypes for each of the 3 classes but also includes the toolkit for GMs to create their own to suit their world. Only GMs get to build archetypes.

The classes are each focused a sphere of the dsesign space. Figthers dominate Combat, Casters magic and Rogues skills. the archetypes are made up of a combination of options drawn from a simple list.
this includes attack bonus, defense bonus, HD (d6/8/10/12), weapons options - which are effectively skills, armour options agians the same, skills, and magic. The general skills are deived into lists and the lists are applied to the template. I am trying to stick to 30 skills but they appear in multiple lists and lists are themselves categories as environmental or focused.

So a Fighter/barbarian will probably look like

HD d10
Attack: 2  (this is a cost to improve their to hit bonus)
Defense: 2 (as above)
Weapon Styles: All 2 (cost to get ranks in weapons styles)
Armour: Light - 2; Medium 2
Skill lists: Wilderness
Freebies :    1 Rank Wilderness Survival
      1 Rank Combat from - Mounted/one handed/two handed/archery/sheild
      1 Rank Endurance
Skill cost: 2

A fighter/Cavalier might look like this

HD: d10
Attack:2
Defense: 2
Weapon style: All (except Thrown and Knive fighting) 2
Armour: Light; 3 Medum 2 Heavy : 2
Skill list : Courtly, Military
Freebies:    1 Rank Mounted Combat
      1 Rank Heavy Armour
      1 Rank Heraldry
Skill Cost 2


Very simple but hopefully with enough color applied through context.

For Rogues

Rogue/Scout

HD:d8
Attack: 3
Defense: 3
Weapons Styles: Archery, Single Handed, Fencing, Knife Fighting, Thrown
Armour: Light- 3
Skill list: Rogue, Wilderness
Freebies:    1 Rank Stealth
      1 Rank Tracking
      1 Rank Climbing
      1 Rank Observation
      1 Rank Wilderness Survival
Skill Cost: 1

Rogue/Buglar

HD: d6
Attack: 3
Defence: 3
Weapon Styles: Single Handed, Knife fighting, Fencing, Thrown
Armour: Light - 3
Skill List : Rogue, City
Freebies:   1 Rank Stealth
      1 Rank Climbing
      1 Rank Pick Locks
      1 Rank Appraisal
      1 Rank Observation
      1 Rank Criminal Subculture
Skill Cost: 1



I haven't got my notes with me to check the exact details but from memory that is pretty close.

I am trying to create variation and depth without rules bloat and unique subsystems for each archetype.

Quote from: CRKrueger;537598Basically the discussion between John and Jibba highlights the problem with a pure class system, or a class system that attempts to add in a robust skill system.  On the one end, you have archetypes with mostly class powers, which leads to class bloat (why was the Barbarian created?  because the AD&D Fighter can't do Conan - and don't try to tell me it can, you're wrong ), or you have a skill system with some class powers, and the distinction between classes is minimized (which isn't too much of an issue for me, niche protection is childish specialsauce).

Rolemaster did the best I think at providing a robust and diverse skill system while still having effective differences between classes due to varying costs for those skills.

Hah.  
So true.

All my PCs think I use a straight skill system.  The truth is that since their are guilds that each player belongs to (dozens of them avaialble in a medium sized town, many more in larger ones, example here from my online Steel Isle Town game) , these operate in some ways as classes, in that a player can choose a starting school that has is advantageous in the skills they want their player to have.
The nice thing here is that as players and NPCs move on and build relationships, they can learn skills from other schools, allowing for them to really build what they want.  which makes the game about 85-90% skill based and 15-20% class based on the continuum.

Quote from: LordVreeg;537634All my PCs think I use a straight skill system.  The truth is that since their are guilds that each player belongs to (dozens of them avaialble in a medium sized town, many more in larger ones, example here from my online Steel Isle Town game) , these operate in some ways as classes, in that a player can choose a starting school that has is advantageous in the skills they want their player to have.
The nice thing here is that as players and NPCs move on and build relationships, they can learn skills from other schools, allowing for them to really build what they want.  which makes the game about 85-90% skill based and 15-20% class based on the continuum.

Sounds like WFRP-style careers.

Quote from: Dodger;537640Sounds like WFRP-style careers.

Or at least, in the same direction on the continuum....

I think it is important that a 'Thief' be less capable than a fighter in an open field melee. I like backstab in its 1E version; I dislike 'near constant flank attack uber damage bonus' of later editions.

As for skills, as someone above said, give the Thief some 'Thief Skills' for free, as part of the Thief class, independant from skills anyone can have.

If a Fighter really wants to pick pockets, let him multiclass with Thief.

Quote from: Bill;537647I think it is important that a 'Thief' be less capable than a fighter in an open field melee. I like backstab in its 1E version; I dislike 'near constant flank attack uber damage bonus' of later editions.

As for skills, as someone above said, give the Thief some 'Thief Skills' for free, as part of the Thief class, independant from skills anyone can have.

If a Fighter really wants to pick pockets, let him multiclass with Thief.

right, and more, the thief does not have to be as valuable in combat at all...since there are other areas he is more valuable in.

Quote from: Bill;537647I think it is important that a 'Thief' be less capable than a fighter in an open field melee. I like backstab in its 1E version; I dislike 'near constant flank attack uber damage bonus' of later editions.

As for skills, as someone above said, give the Thief some 'Thief Skills' for free, as part of the Thief class, independant from skills anyone can have.

If a Fighter really wants to pick pockets, let him multiclass with Thief.

I have no issue with that. I do think that having the theif roll his thief skills on %dice roll under and all other skills in the system being D20 target is a bit odd and I do think that in order to simplify you might want to allow some sorts of other characters have access to a subset of those skills. So a ranger gets move silently or a barbarian gets climb walls.

Its not rocket science (that skill woudl only be open to the sage class obviously )

Quote from: Acta Est Fabula;537435Let me clarify.  If a player showed up like that, they wouldn't automatically get kicked to the curb, but if there was already a thief in the party and a player memorized all those spells, there would be problems.  Mainly from everyone else saying, "We need you to act as artillery and crowd control.  We need you to identify items we can't.  Those are things we need you to do, and if you insist on just trying to be the thief, you should have played a thief because we already have one and don't need another one.  What we need is what we mentioned."

Not to mention, the vast majority of time spent playing (especially in 1e) was from level 1-7 or so, and spells were at a premium, and using up all those spell slots to do what the thief could do was a waste in most people's eyes.  Luckily, I've never had a player play a MU with the purpose of replacing the thief.



Yeah, that's a great way to keep players playing together.

Get over yourself.

Quote from: One Horse Town;537527The "M.U makes the Thief redundant" argument has always been bullshit.

The spells that M.Us get that replicate thief abilities (or those of any other class really) are there to fill a gap in the party's ranks, not as competition, should you have a full compliment of classes.

Does a thief render M.Us redundant if they gain the ability to read scrolls?

This

Quote from: John Morrow;537534As someone who has played far more skill-based role-playing games than class-based role-playing games, I would argue that you are ignoring the fact that a fighter's combat abilities could also be considered skills, as can a wizard's casting ability.  All characters are a "collection of skills".  You have no problem with combat abilities of a fighter or the casting ability of a wizard being handled by a non-skill subsystem, but you insist that a thief's distinctive abilities be skills, which also implies that anyone could learn them.  The solution to keeping the Rogue's abilities distinctly Rogue abilities is to make them special class abilities rather than simply skills that anyone could learn if you didn't artificially starve them of enough skill points to be as good at it.

Later on, you argue that a 1e thief has essentially 4 skills.  Two of those skills are movement abilities of the sort I was talking about -- Stealth (the ability to move without detection) and Climb Walls (the ability to move up or across vertical surfaces).  The other two are not necessarily something every Rogue needs.

I'm going to back up a bit and repeat your last couple of sentences because they also link in with the next part of my reply.



Here, I'm also going to pull in one of your replies from the other thread where you list some more of your archetypes:



On the one hand, you complain about rogues being confined as a single narrow archetype out of many and then you turn around and confine fighters and wizards to single narrow archetypes, assuming that as long as they can hit things in combat or cast some spells, that's good enough and they don't need to do anything else.  I think that's nonsense.  What if I want to play a warrior scholar?  How about an investigative wizard?  How about a charismatic preacher cleric?  Without skills, I can't do that very well, so does it make sense that I'd need to dual class with Rogue to make those concepts work?  Or does everyone else have to one dimensional out of combat to carve out a niche for Rogues?

And not to put to much of a point on it but I would argue that several of your iconic Rogues look more like fighters to me, not Rogues.  By such an expansive standard, I would argue that the Three Musketeers would also be Rogues.  As for Bilbo, his "skill" is basically a magic ring.  He's about as much of a Rogue as any other random D&D peasant.

As for supporting the "fat greasy fence", I think that archetype is about as relevant to the typical D&D game as Friar Tuck would be as a Cleric archetype or David Copperfield would be as a Wizard archetype.  Nobody is taking a fat greasy fence into a dungeon.  In D&D 3.x terms, I'd represent the fat greasy fence maybe as an Expert, not a Rogue.  And if that's not convincing enough, I could provide you with dozens of potential Fighter, Cleric, and Wizard archetypes that your "they don't need skills" approach would also not support.

Just to add to what's already been said, the fact also is that combat "skills" are something that all player characters get, not just the fighter. Why shouldn't rogue skills be the same? Fighters are better at the combat skills, and they should be, just as the rogue should be better at rogue skills. However, I'd like to see all characters be able to be stealthy, possibly educated, capable of deception, attacking from concealment and even able to at least spot traps. I would just agree that rogues should be better at those things. Now pick-pocketing, extreme acrobatics, picking locks, and maybe "hiding in plain sight" could be rogue-exclusive abilities IMO. Add in more skill points if a skill system is used, and I'd be happy. Maybe it would make sense to make rogues have the potential to be poison masters as well (perhaps sharing the herbalist type skills with the ranger/druid classes). Disguise would be a good rogue ability, one that maybe they could use on others as well as themselves, with lesser effect in that case. They'd then be able to encompass spies and assassins as well as thieves. Either just as rogues with different "builds" or as sub-classes... either would work for me.

Quote from: Bill;537647I think it is important that a 'Thief' be less capable than a fighter in an open field melee. I like backstab in its 1E version; I dislike 'near constant flank attack uber damage bonus' of later editions.
.

That's because in later editions, especially 4e, almost all of your time was spent in combat.  So in order to make the thief relevant, they had to boost up combat damage.

Really bad design, IMO, any time you ignore a huge chuck of what D&D is (exploration).

Quote from: Sigmund;537652Get over yourself.

Yeah, because expressing your disdain for a player who shows up with a MU who memorizes all their spells to replace the thief another player is currently playing is highly unusual...


Whatever.  Good thing you're here to keep everything "realz" and keep everyone in line...