Change Log 2012-05-03
The class-system is now complete. Each class has two specialities tied to it. As a general rule, which I will try to break as little as possible and only when you really, really have a concept that needs it, you cannot deviate from this class when choosing a speciality. The list are that follows;
Academic
– Mage
– Tyniker
Adventurer
– Druid
– Tekkan
Noble
– Hannje
– Healer
Peasant
– Kremis
– Warrior
Each class has gained Four skills each to favoured. The skills are that follows.
Academic
Alchemy
First Aid
Mechanics
Meditate
Adventurer
Athletics
Orientate
Survival
Track
Noble
Acting
Kinesics
Rate
Rhetoric
Peasant
Falling
Floor Combat
Intuition
Observation
With this system each speciality now has a pool of six to 8 favoured skills to choose from. Some have less, because of the fact that their speciality skills are part of their class-skills. Four Specialities have been affected by this or the secondary rule. I will only list the suffering specialities. As for the Favoured skills for each Speciality, you’ll have to see that later.
Hannje has one fewer favoured skills due to their speciality skill Acting. This is what I consider an acceptable loss and it will be reflected in the speciality cost if not by much.
Healer has one fewer favoured skills due to their speciality skill First Aid. It is possible though, if the Healer haven’t been to Sancho that Medicine will turn into a favoured instead.
Mage has two favoured skills; Channelling and Sense Magic. The reason for this is that they have ALL the magic schools marked as a speciality. So if they choose one school, the two other schools become favoured skills instead. If one were to play the super rare case of an Trimage, Channelling would become a favoured instead.
Tyniker has two fewer favoured skills due to their speciality skills Alchemy and Mechanics. When it comes to the Tyniker I think this is more than acceptable since they have three-speciality skills. It’s also possible they haven’t implemented all the implants, and thus the speciality skills will be favoured skills again.
I have now placed and updated all the costs on skills. I’ve also placed the WIT-requirement on all skills. Most requirements are 2 (the lowest possible VL) but the rest ranges from 5-14, with Focus being the hardest skill possible.
There are now 10 Crafts, possible to learn. If more crafts is founded they will be added over time. The crafts you can learn right now are the following;
Arrowcraft
Colourcraft
Leatherworks
Metalworks
Needleworks
Poetry
Pottery
Stoneworks
Woodworks
Writing
There are now 29 Abilities divided over 8 Races and 12 nations. Each having the choice of two abilities each. So far Bokeland, Exile, Katia, Magicka, Meno and Sancho is lacking one or two abilities. But other than that most other abilities have gained their updated costs and effects.
Eight other abilities though are in the making. They will all be usable when you’ll create characters. Most likely I will make Eleven abilities in total but I will not force the issue.
Fast Strikers now has SC as an STG-boost. They will however not gain any greater recovery. The SC will be 1 per STG.
Changed name on Racial Abilities to Racial Lineage so the difference in abilities and Racial Abilities would be clearer.
I also reconstructed the Maximum Table and the rules around it. This is kind of important since it is the biggest reason to why I don’t want to remove Aptitude as a property.
The Maximum Table
If any value rises over it’s maximum value when creating a character or when spontaneous development occurs, then the property in italic’s maximum value will be lowered with the exact same amount as the other property was raised. It will cause a chain-reaction which in the end will be stopped by Aptitude. If there are no points in aptitude, lower aptitude or stop the development and consider saving against a PM instead. When all properties are maxed out, there are only one choice which is to save to a PM or let the AP fall on Aptitude.
The characters maximum values are determined by three things; Current Age Class (Child, Youth, Adult, Old), Benefits and in-game potency. The In-game potency is the limit between Mortal, Hero, Immortal and Celestial.
Here you can see how the Maximum Table’s Chain Reaction works.
PRO – PRO –
AGI FOR APT APT
COG PCN CHA WIT
FOR REF MCH SPI
PHY APT SPI APT
PCN PHY WIL MCH
REF COG WIT WIL
And as a final note, now it’s only proficiencies, character modifiers and some costs on base options and the character creation system is complete. I will then try a little and adjust the cost to my liking and then have you start creating your character.
I plan to start the 12th of May, coincidently the same day that Foppa has his 25th birthday.
Well, well…
Well its nice to see that things are in motion and so on.
What is colourcraft? Is it the craft to be able to dye clothes and such and other fabrics or is it paintings and those kind of things?
Other than that im mostly curious about the maximum table, I didnt really get it and it feels like there is some typos in there? But I guess it got most of it.. basically when you go beyond your max VL of a PRO, or raise the max another max is lowered? And the APT part.. hmm you talking about if I have AP in APT i can stop the value from lowering or :S..
Looking forward to be able to start creating the characters
Interesting, I would have assumed healers to belong to the academic class, well, well.
Spontaneously the academic group looks like the most attractive class to me, due simply to meditate being available. Quite the benefit to be able to move that skill from secondary to favored I’d say. Merely a reflection though, looks good to me.
Hmm, I’m not sure I understand the workings of the “Maximum table” correctly. If I were to raise FOR one step over it’s maximum value REF would be lowered by one, right? That’s not chain reaction though, so does it also raise COGs maximum value? And then… Lower PCN in turn, raising PHY which goes to APT.
Good to see progress, I am also looking forward to getting started.
Start making characters or start playing? 😉
So in the future you’ll only play Mage or Tyniker then? Hehe
As for the maximum table, see my answer below.
Depends, but I was thinking playing.
Awesome, hope we make it in time.
It’s actually both. It’s the craft to paint, to coulour things, to imagine new colours and to visualize things. Just a more fantasy name for everything considering colours and paint.
No, no AP, APT is what is lowered. I can give you an example.
You have the following values (Kid Values on the Physical Side);
PRO
AGI 7 7
COG 5 7
FOR 6 7
PHY 7 7
PCN 7 7
REF 7 7
The italic numbers are your max value in that property.
Then you rise AGI to 9, you get trained. Then suddenly the chain reaction starts.
1. AGI 7+2=9 7+2=9
Your agility is raised, thus your MAX is raised as well.
2. FOR 6 7-2=5+1
Agility is tied to force, hence the 2 raised maximum on agility will be reduced on force’s maximum.
But force value is 6, so the reduction becomes only 1.
3. REF 7 7-1=6+1
Force is tied to reflex, so hence the maximum of reflex is reduced by one.
But once again reflex is 7, so the reductions becomes 0 and the point wanders of to the next property.
4. COG 5 7-1=6
Reflex is tied to cognition, so hence the maximum of cognition is reduced by one.
Here, cognition’s value is under 6, therefore the chain reaction stops.
BUT, if the chain reaction hadn’t stopped. Say you got 2 more points in Cognition this time;
5. COG 5+2=7 6+1=7
This rises the max of cognition with one, so the chain reaction continues.
6. PCN 7 7-1=6+1=7
We can’t take the maximum point here so we go on to the next property.
7. PHY 7 7-1=6+1=7
And not here either, now, it goes to Aptitude, the last property in both property chains. Mental as well as Physical.
PRO VL
APT 12 18
8. APT 12 18-1=17
Here it stops. APT’s maximum is lowered and the chain reaction is broken.
BUT
If it were like this instead;
8b. APT 18 18-1=17
Then this would happen;
PRO VL
APT 17
You understand?
Yes, I understand now. That explanation was clear and easy to follow.
Great.
And yes, I forgot to mention one thing.
It is possible to stop the chain reaction by allowing the property in question to get lowered instead.
This system is exactly what I’ve been using since I created the Potency-system which this actually was but with a secondary hidden modifier which could vary.
The reason I needed to remake this table was because we removed 4 properties.
Yeah I guess I understand, so how do a character advance? break their potentials and stuff? if everytime you train and go beyond your max VL you either lose max VL on other stats or max VL on APT?
So basically you should not go beyond your max VL too soon and you should rather strive to increase other PRO as well to their max VL?
Because when every PRO is maxxed the only thing that can decrease is the max APT VL or?
A character advances by age, gaining benefits or becoming a hero, immortal or celestial immortal. But absolutely mostly it will be advanced by age.
And yes, to the rest of your statement. You got it right.
Yes.
Yes and no. As I said to Daniel, you can stop the chain reaction with reducing another property in the chain. But if you don’t want it, Aptitude is the property always taking all the blame.
I don’t like the Maximum Table system at all.
First, let’s rewrite it so that it is easier to see the chains:
AGI FOR REF COG PCN PHY APT
CHA WIT WIL MCH SPI APT
I can draw the following conclusions. Yes, in some sense it urges players not to spike their characters. When some level has been reached it may be better to raise something else. But I can see too many loopholes and other downsides with this system.
My first objection is that it is too complex. Too arbitrary for something that you seldom encounter. It is a part of the rule system that could just be excluded by a group and it wouldn’t have that much impact on ordinary play.
As you stated, APT is an integral part of the Maximum Table system. Without it, if the chains would instead be looping (one separate loop for physical and one for mental), there would be no difference to just giving a maximum total for physical properties and maximum total for mental properties. Why is this relevant? It is highly relevant if APT is removed, sure it could be replaced by something with a similar role in the maximum table system. But let’s just leave it at that.
In some sense this system will in the end lower your APT if you train too much. You stagnate. But there is a huge difference between going over your max in AGI and doing it in PHY.
This system does in no way hinder you from spiking the first property in each chain. You can increase AGI all the way up to your potency without any ill effects on any other specific property. The only effect is that the sum of the VL of all property increases. And there is a limit on how big this sum is allowed to be. When it comes to AGI, there could instead just be a maximum total VL for all physical properties.
On the other hand, if you increase past the max on PHY you will immediately lower the max on APT. There is no way of taking max values from the properties higher up in the chain. So this system sure does stop you from spiking PHY.
Then there is a scale from AGI to PHY in the chain, going from the easiest to spike to the hardest.
There is some use for this on the mental side, where you have placed MCH and SPI at the end of the chain. This makes them harder to spike and as we all know, these properties are special.
But I still think this is just too arbitrary. I see no point in making this destinction in general.
It is already more expensive to increase properties that are already high. If the point of this system is to reduce spiking, maybe the costs should be made even higher at the later stages of development? That would remove the use for this Maximum Table system.
Another use for the system I can see is to lower APT when you have come far in your development. This makes atleast a little bit sense. But I counter with that APT can be removed, as discussed earlier. Removing the Maximum Table system would remove the biggest reason why you wish to keep APT in the first place.
So, if APT is the reason why you wish to have the maximum table system. I say remove both the maximum table system and aptitude. Since the biggest reason for the maximum table system would be APT and the biggest reason for APT is, as you stated, the maximum table system. They only justify eachother in a loop with few other reasons for their existance and I think they are both wrong to have in Nianze.
I understand your points, and one of them I hadn’t thought of. But no, Maximum Table will be left.
The only loophole of concern to me that you pointed out is that the property lowest on the chain would immediately remove APT. This is wrong and unintentional. I have a few thoughts how to mend this, but more to that later.
What you really are saying is that you think this is to keep you all from spiking your characters. On the contrary, it’s meant to limit the characters and force PMs to be developed instead of VL.
You can always have +10 in PM, so on whichever value you are “stuck” on, you can always rise it higher. It won’t be as effective in all areas but it will be worth something and in some cases something more valuable.
It’s also meant for high lever characters. They might have AGI 18 at one point but then they train their FOR instead. Instead of letting APT lower they chose to lower AGI or REF, one of the linked properties to FOR. So, a high level character actually just “respeck” their properties by training rather than gaining more points.
This is so no character should ever have 240 in PRO sum. No character will ever have over 210 in maximum properties, not even Herid Fel or The Emperor or Gerenan.
As for the loophole you saw I remembered how I dealt with it before. I had two directions the flow could go and it was in essence two wheels. One with all the physical and one with all the mental, and at the intersections of both wheels were APT.
So, to mend the loophole I say that it’s a perfect loop. Saying that PHY draws from AGI. But when it’s jumped from AGI and is moving back to AGI, it instead moves to APT. So it must always move one full circle through the chain.
Same goes for the mental side.
And even if APT is removed, this will still be used. Even though I will have no scapegoat property to control development and strength of the character. I’ll imagine that I’ll instead make a loop looking like an eight or two separate circles.
Well, well…
I can see your point. I can also see that as a valid use for the system. Though I still think it is overly complex. But this can be fixed.
Well, I might have missed something, but what you are proposing as a fix almost has the same effect as what I wrote about. So I have a proposal where we both get pretty much what we want.
You want to close the loops so that you need to traverse a full loop, before you fall back to APT. This is almost the same as the closed loops I talked about. But I wanted to remove APT all together.
In your system, when you increase past a max value, you can effectively freely choose which of the other maximum values of the properties in the same loop that should be lowered. (In practice you don’t necessarily choose, but since you have the option of not lowering anything it makes no difference which max value you lower, so long as you don’t decrease a VL. You can just as easily increase past the max later on and lower the max on something else. You can do this until all properties are maxed out, at which point you need to take max from APT or lower some property in the loop.)
This can be simplified a lot. You don’t need a maximum for each property. You only need a maximum for each loop (and a separate for APT.) The value for this would be the sum of all of the previous property-specific maximum values in that loop. If you increase past this new maximum, the max for APT is lowered (or you choose a property in the loop to lower instead.) So we would have a physical max, a mental max and an APT max.
This change is done only by reformulating the rules, this has no impact on the effects of the rule system. It only makes things easier to keep track of and we get rid of a lookup-table. We get 3 max values instead of 12.
We have now removed all of the parts of the Maximum Table system that I oppose and if you incorporate this, you have my blessing. The old name doesn’t really fit any more though, it’s not much of a table. But it has been boiled down to something so simple that it might not even need that much of a name.
Now, back to APT. My arguments regarding APT is still valid, with a few modifications. This system would still work fine after removing APT and replacing it with some new property that is placed within the mental loop. The only difference is that you cannot draw max-values from APT. You are locked to the max of the loop. If you are at max and increase something, you need to lower something else. You cannot increase past the max. There is nothing to draw from.
This frees us up to remove APT as a property, since it is not really required by the new Maximum Table system.
Another point is that if the two loops are combined into one loop. You actually only need one maximum value, the sum of all previous maximum values. A sum of all property-VL that cannot be passed. The system I described still works.
What do you think? Anything I need to clearify?
To clearify; I meant that you have the option of not lowering any VL.
Bleh. Any VL except if you are forced to since you have reached the maximum for the loop and for APT.
I understand but still a problem occurs in my mind. You are never forced to rise your property to PM and you can always just shuffle all your properties until they all are maxed out and then rise.
That I dont like. Too little consequenses and all skills would be set too high without any limits. I can agree that your way is smoother (with two separate loops) when all skills are already maxed out. Otherwise my chainreaction wouldnt have any effect at all.
So well… do you understand my problem? I could do tvis if you all wish for it. But I dont like it. Even with the last group i used a manual max system, which worked exactly as i wished it too. But if I understand you correctly that system would work no more.
*all properties would…
First off. Can we agree that your fix and my simplification of it would work exactly the same? (That is, it has the same implications on the game.)
This was not clear from your response.
One way is to use what I expect is the same thing as your manual max system. That each property has a max for the character that you cannot exceed, or is really hard to exceed. Things don’t shuffle around at all. Instead you gain PMs.
If we stick to the 1, 2 or 3 maximum values I can think of another way of maybe achieving what you want. Yet again increase the cost. Make it harder to gain higher VL in properties. Maybe also decrease the AP required for the first levels of PM. At some point it might be cheaper to get PM than another VL.
This might defeat the purpose, since PMs are sometimes more powerful than the same addition to VL. So you want to keep them more powerful, but still encourage people to save for them instead of increasing VL.
The best solution I can see so far is the manual max values.
I think it’s better you and I continue this discussion on our own. The rest have gotten the gist of our opinions and how it works.