I was thinking about hero types considering 4 stats for them: affects their damage affects mana affects hit points affect attack speed and movement speed And here are the classes: 1.Assasin - main stat: agility 2.Barbarian-main stat: combat (Q: is the barbarian developing mostly his damage or his hp?) 3.Wizzard - main stat: magic 4.Druid - main stat: strength 5.Knight - main stat: a combination of combat and strength Q: I ask you to give me ideas for other types of this kind of heroes. Have a nice day! "I design for eternity."

here goes. but be warned, my tastes run toward the bizarre...and you didn''t mention what kind of setting this was.

Merchant. - stats/skills related to bartering, being able to judge the value of things, rare knowledge, smooth-talkng.

Hunter/Fisherman - Fairly strong, little magic or education, but knows his way around in the wilderness and never has to worry about where his next meal will come from.

Slave - bred to be big and strong, but to have few skills related to anything other than physical labor.

Noble - Weak physically, educated but not particularly bright, but he knows people who know people, and has lots of resources available.

Monster - born hideously deformed, this character type has trouble getting by in everyday society and has been forced to be something of a loner. All this time to himself gave him lots of opportunity to develop other skills though.

Athlete - Great physical ability, but not trained for combat. Might be very famous.

Nomad - owns only what he can carry with him. But may have learned many secrets in his travels.

Tree Hugger - Well educated and pretty well-developed physically, but often distracted by things to protest.

Pirate - Makes his living by assaulting and robbing ships/trading caravans. Honed combat skills, and very strong, not too bright. Superstition may be one major shortcoming.

Gentle Giant - Very strong and very tough, but a pacifist and wont use his enormous phyical strength to influence or hurt others.

Dead guy - A walking corpse. A pretty mellow guy, since nothing can really bother you much once you''re already dead. Can''t really be killed, but he could be torn apart making him completely ineffective. A lot of the strength has left his body through his decaying muscles. But the experience of dying has made him much more prone to spend time thinking about things and so might get some kind of intelligence bonus.

pampered - stats relatively high, but this character has been sheltered his/her whole life and so is hopelessly naive

*sigh*

Your stats are very standard, and your heroes have been done to death. Not that this is necessarily bad - going with what works is a strategy guaranteed to succeed, or at worst fail in a predictable way - but if you want to capture the attention of jaded gamers such as me, you''re going to have to bring something much more innovative to the table. As it is, your hero descriptions look pretty much like this to me.

Sociopath. Primary Stat: ability to commit mass murder through horribly destructive magic and/or combat techniques, "experience bar" measuring degree of slaughter. Good for: wandering through various places killing everything you meet because it''s there, stealing stuff that other people have put in locked chests so you can''t have it.

If you want to remake Diablo II, or Icewind Dale, or any one of the thousands of fantasy/combat games already glutting the market, go right ahead. Provided you include spiffy graphics and plenty of gratuitous violence and titillation, you''re likely to have an audience. If you actually manage to improve on the formula in some way, you might even be able to compete briefly with Blizzard''s current domination of the genre (good luck!).

Let me put it this way. If your game concept bears a suspicious resemblance to Progress Quest, it may be time to rethink it a little.

Man, that was funny. It made a good day even better

quote:
Sociopath. Primary Stat: ability to commit mass murder through horribly destructive magic and/or combat techniques, "experience bar" measuring degree of slaughter. Good for: wandering through various places killing everything you meet because it''s there, stealing stuff that other people have put in locked chests so you can''t have it.

SpittingTrashcan: thanks for the link to ProgessQuest! i played it all day at work...

Oh...I put the stats between "<" and ">" so that is why they are not displayed. So...here they come again:

* Combat - affects damage
* Magic - affects mana and magic powers
* Strength - hit points
* Agility - attack rate and movement speed

I''m going to create (hopefully finish) a new rts sub genre (I see 3 types now- BroodWar and Warcraft style, Age of Empires and Age of Mythology style and the old Red Alert style). And the market line is the use of hero units...they will have the stats of the race (a magic-oriented culture will have Wizard, Priest and so on heroes).

Anyway...I found out some very interesting ideas in your posts and I thank you. I will try to integrate them or I will keep for later.

About too standard stats...I now that...and this is how I intended to be. I dont want to change to many things at once, it will become too unfamiliar. But I will take them into consideration later, at a new stage of development. There is always place to improve.

Keep up with everything you have in your mind...I could eventualy find something that will help me (I take ideas from the most uncommon places...even when just reading a paper or listening to a song lyrics).

Have a nice day today!

"I design for eternity."

Don''t use the barbarian or the knight, or even the assassin, or the wizard..ahh heck they''ve all been used WAY too much...that turn people off from the game

Progress Quest rules. My Talking Pony Runeloremaster made it to level 60 today. I can finally afford that +34 Invisible Dancing Brandiclef I was dreaming of.

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how about a classless system? By having a skills based system, you blur the lines between classes and create near infinite possibilities.

Along with skills, you can also chose social backgrounds, perhaps limiting the skills that can be acquired. And a characters stats will influence how well, or how far a character can advance his skills.

You can do this by having "life paths", where the character follows a certain profession for a time, picking up trade skills and talents. I personally find this more interesting than stereotyping through classes, although you can still implement a class system that allows for a lot of leeway with stats or skills.

My favorite heroes are those that never meant to be anything special -- the "ordinary guy" type, who just happens to be in a situation that demonstrates his above-average strength or values.


Brian Lacy
Smoking Monkey Studios

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brian@smoking-monkey.org

"I create. Therefore I am."