Re: CF: skill categories and sub-skills

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

> Date: Wed, 17 May 2000 19:59:03 -0700
> From: Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>
> 
>  Further refinement of skills and tying experience to the specific skill and not
> the skill category probably makes more sense.  I won't got into the list of
> skill categories & skills provided, but my personal thought is that gets too
> refined.

What part of it is too refined?  Having seperate categories for swords
and knives?  That list was just a rough approximation of the general
idea I'm suggesting, and admittedly was influenced by weapon skill
categories from AD&D2.  We definitely need something in between what
we have now, one skill for any and all melee weapons, and having a
seperate skill for each weapon archetype, some of which are merely
different pictures of "a sword".

We can hard-code the weapons categories and end up with a more
datailed version of Object Type: weapon / Object Type: bow, or we can
make skill categories archetypes of their own, or we can just expand
the current list of skills to be more specific.  Personally, I'd go
for the second option.


>  I would note that lots of changes would be needed - objects would have to note
> what skill uses them - for example, right now you have nothing more in the
> object type other than weapons, so there is no easy way to know if that is a
> sword, knife, dagger, etc other than name, and that breaks down for artifacts.

Correct.  Each object that is "used" with a skill would need to know
what skill that is.  Right now that's a function of object Type, and
there's only one Type for melee weapons.  

Note also that some objects can be used with multiple skills, the most
obvious example being a dagger.  As a melee weapon, one would use a
dagger much the same way as a knife or a short sword, which is quite
different from using a long sword or a spear, so it should have a
pointer to Physique/Melee/blade/short or something to that effect.  It
should also have a pointer to Physique/Throw/knife (as opposed to
spear, axe, or rock)

Are there other cases besides swinging vs. throwing a weapon where an
object might be used with different skills?  Should one be able to use
a dagger to try to pick a lock or a bow and arrow to light a fire?


>  The idea of going to guilds to learn skills makes a lot of sense instead of the
> skill scrolls.  Guilds also provide a known place to learn a skill - many
> players get to a point pretty early on knowing they want to learn some skills
> and have the money for the scrolls, but have to end up spending time hunting the
> shops for them.  That doesn't make a lot of sense.  I don't like the idea that
> all skills are inherently known at exp 0 - I think having to learn skills would
> add another possible dimention to quests in the game.

That's exactly the problem.  I didn't say all unlearned skills should
count as "exp 0", which is level 1 in Crossfire (and most other RPGs I
know of).  I said they should be "level 0", which doesn't exist yet.
Currently, unlearned skills cannot even be attempted and cannot be
learned short of application of a rather rare and expensive magic
item.

Perhaps some skills should be this hard to learn, like breathing fire.
You have to be born with it or have a real good (magical) reason.
Others, like mountain climbing, some races might be naturally better
at, and some learning might be helpful for, but actually doing it is
the best way to learn.  Somewhere in between, spellcasting supposedly
takes many years or study to learn the basics of, and karate takes a
good couple of weeks, but there's really no reason any player
character might not be able to do both without resorting to rare and
expensive magic.

And then there's the lockpicks.  If you can get your hands, paws,
talons, or psychokinesis on a set of lockpicks, you automatically
start with level 1 skill at using them.  Disregarding the fact that
you no longer have lockpicking skill when you're not holding those
picks, and regain it as soon as you equip them again, this seems to
work out okay.  The use of a holy symbol to pray without having any
"praying" skill of your own makes perhaps a bit less sense.

I think an important question here is exactly what skill level 1
means, and whether there should be a skill level 0 at all.  It seems
to me that level 1 means you know how to do it, but you don't actually
have any experience.  That would mean that level 0 might represent
having no idea where to start.  Is there anything in between?  A level
1 character is generally assumed to start with level 1 (exp 0) in all
the necessary skills for his class.

Currently this means that everyone starts with level 1 in all melee
weapons, which I'm not sure makes much sense.  Sure, even a wizard
knows which end of a sword to hold and which end to hit someone with,
but shouldn't a warrior start out with a little more than that?  After
all, a level 1 wizard has supposedly spent years studying magic
already, so what has the warrior been doing, chopping wood?


The difference between level 1 (beginner) and level 0 (unlearned) is a
qualitative difference, not quantitative, and as such depends on the
skill.  The division between skills that can be learned by trying and
skills that must be taught is pretty close to the division between
skills that involve successfully Applying some item and those that are
invoked by name.  I would suggest that any character should be able to
pick up any weapon or tool and try to use it.  If they don't know how,
they won't do very well, but if it's just a matter of practice, they
can learn.

For all the other skills, which are not invoked by applying an item,
not having the skill means you don't know where to begin trying and
you can't learn by yourself anyway.  For many of these, you should be
able to find a teacher, whether they're sitting around in a guild,
telling war stories, hiding on a mountaintop, meditating, or lurking
in some dungeon waiting for a student to "prove their worth" by
surviving the quest to find them.

There are exceptions to this general rule, of course.  Books can be
read by either Using literacy or Applying the book, but literacy isn't
something that can be learned by trial and error.  It definitely
belongs in the category of skills that must be either taught or
magically granted.  Of course, learning literacy is rather bizarre as
currently implemented anyway.  How exactly does one read a scroll of
literacy?

Identification skills might also be an exception.  After picking the
first few thousand Perfectly Normal Arrows off of dead orcs, even a
barbarian might tend to notice which ones are not like the others.  He
wouldn't necessarily be any closer to knowing how to make them, as
skill names like Weaponsmith, Armorer, Bowyer, and Fletching might
tend to imply, but that's okay.  Those skills don't allow any of that
anyway.  (A topic for another discussion.)


The best solution I can think of at the moment would be to incorporate
into each skill's archetype all the pertinent details about how it can
be learned (innate / teacher / by use), what category it is a
sub-skill of, and how difficult it is to derive it from that more
general category.


Examples: (not a suggested solution, just for clarification)

Skill   	Category 	Learned 	Difficulty
------------	------------	------------	------------
Literacy	Mental		teacher		2
Human		Literacy	teacher		3
Dwarven		Literacy	teacher		4
Elvish		Literacy	teacher		5

Melee		Physique	by use		1
Swords		Melee		by use		3
Long Sword	Swords		by use		2
Axes		Melee		by use		3

Unarmed		Physique	innate		1
Punching	Unarmed		by use		3
Karate		Unarmed		teacher		5
Claw		Unarmed		innate		2

Oratory		Social		by use		2
Bargaining	Social		by use		3
Singing		Social		by use		4

Spellcasting	Mental		teacher		5
Alchemy		Mental		teacher		3
Thaumaturgy	Mental		by use		3
Bowyer		Mental		by use		3

Find Traps	Mental		by use		3
Disarm Traps	Agility		by use		2
Disarm Pits	Disarm Traps	by use		2
Disarm Needles	Disarm Traps	by use		3
Disarm Glyphs	Disarm Traps	by use		4

Lockpicking	Agility		by use		2
Hiding		Agility		by use		3
Pickpocket	Agility		by use		4
Assassinate	Agility		teacher		4

Praying		Wisdom		by use		1
Sense Curse	Wisdom		teacher		3


Note: Difficulty here is defined as the divisor used to derive the
default level of this skill from the total level of the more general
category it belongs to.

Difficulty 1 means that any and all experience gained in the more
general category counts toward this specialization.  This skill will
always be used at default level, because you simply aren't allowed to
have more skill in this specialization than the total of all skills in
its category.

Difficulty 3 means that if you know this skill at all, you have at
least as much skill as 1/3 of the general category.  If you stop using
it, but continue using other skills in the category, you can use it
again at any time with 1/3 the total skill of the category.  If you
start using it regularly again, you'll continue to do so at the
default level until the total actual experience with this specific
skill exceeds that default level.

Difficulty 5 means that experience in the general category only counts
for 20% toward the default level - most likely it won't count at all
since if this specialization is used at all, it's well past 20% of the
total, so the default level isn't being used.

Note: unless a skill is learned by use, no matter what the difficulty,
you still have to know the skill before you get that default level.
On the other hand, skills that are learned by use already have that
default level the first time you try.

-- 
            -Dave  "Unnecessarily Verbose"  Noelle
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org

Disclaimer:Don't ask me; I just live here.

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