Re: Skills & stuff.

[Brian Thomas <thomas@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov>]

> From crossfire-request@ifi.uio.no Wed Mar 15 06:33:25 1995
> From: Mark Wedel <master@rahul.net>
> Date: Wed, 15 Mar 1995 01:35:17 -0800
> To: crossfire@ifi.uio.no
> 
>  Some quick thoughts.
> 
>  Skills are a nice idea.  However, unless the idea of what classes/races are
> right now is completely rethought, tying them to certain classes/races is
> a little pointless.

	Yes, this is an excellent point. As I stated eariler - I have no
	real justification for the viking,warrior,barbarian having 'jumping'
	skill. More thought should be put into inital skills distribution.

> 
>  That viking can know just as many spells as a mage.  And depending on how
> the viking and mage distributed their stats at startup, they could have
> the exact same stats (would be stupid to do so, but that is not the point.)

	Another good point. But this is precisely the reason that I put
	in the possibility for gaining skills (via scrolls) later in the
	game.

> If skills are going to be added, then all the classes will need to get certain
> skills, to keep balance (the special classes could be an exception - the
> immunities they have oculd be considered skills of a different nature.)
> 

	I thought about this too, at one point I was going to give the 
	magician characters (mage/wizard) a 'detect magic' skill (works only
	on stuff you pick up and handle --*not* like the spell) and a
	'preaching' or 'rhetoric' skill to the cleric classes (priest/cleric)
	which could pacify hostile creatures once. Basically, I didnt 
	want to implement this yet because I was afraid of a firestorm of 
	dissent this might cause -- "skills for non-fighers??!!?, now 
	magicians are twice as powerfull!!!" and etc.. Again, these skills
	could later be picked up by anyone later in the game.
	   I do have a 'beta-beta' version of this going now, but its way
	too early to release it yet. If there is interest I will make it
	available next week, maybe. But really, perhaps more development
	is needed. My plans (for skills) code are:
	
	   1) I want to eventually give each class of character a 
	unique set of starting skills to distinquish them.

	   2) Check out the Play balance -- scroll costs and the balance
	between the starting skills is very important. Since Magicans
	start with some spells, their starting skills should be less
	usefull than non-magicians. (BTW, I see nothing really wrong with
	not starting out a magician with skills -- spells should balance)

	   3) Investigate implementation of 'casting time' for skills.
	Not all skills are going to take time to utilize, but some 
	of them should'nt be instantaneous. Interuption of the character
	while they are 'casting' their skill should ruin it.

	Once the above things are done, I would say that a beginning 
	skills code will really exist. If the community really likes it,
	I hope it will become a regular feature of the game, but right
	now perhaps more development is needed. :)


					-b.t (thomas@nomad.astro.psu.edu)