Earlier today, I was playing ADOM (www.adom.de - cool game). I played with the usual Ranger\Monk\Fighter classes, and then I decided to try out the Bard class. Boy, that wasn't much fun. The problem I had was leveling up. Personally I wanted to reach a level where I could boost my musical skills until I could charm monsters, etc. However, the game works on a murder based experience system. To get anywhere, you need to kill stuff. And as far as I know, bards aren't fighters. I tried fighting a low level monster, and I got killed. My solution to this kind of problem? An all around experience system. I propose that our characters get better in certain skills simply by applying them. They only use the kill based EXP system if they want to be better fighters. At least this way, I can boost my music skills by playing my harp a lot. -- Any thoughts? - DarkMage139 (Neokatana Software) GDT Underground Info Release Date: "When hell freezes over" (a.k.a. A very long time from now) Genre: Action/Adventure Platform: Windows 98, OpenGL and DirectX Status: [working on the engine] l337ness: TOTALLY l337 Edited by - DarkMage139 on March 17, 2001 10:56:58 PM

well, if you''re going to do it that way a full-blown skill system would make more sense, wouldn''t it? Just make all skills increase w/ use.


Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.
What a plight we who try to make a story-based game have...writers of conventional media have words, we have but binary numbers

Err.. good point.

- DarkMage139 (Neokatana Software)
GDT Underground Info
Release Date: "When hell freezes over" (a.k.a. A very long time from now)
Genre: Action/Adventure
Platform: Windows 98, OpenGL and DirectX
Status: [working on the engine]
l337ness: TOTALLY l337

...or the daggerfall approach of course...

increase skills with use which leads to leveling if they''re major skills.


Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.
What a plight we who try to make a story-based game have...writers of conventional media have words, we have but binary numbers

Look at Dungeon Crawl (another Roguelike). Skills are gained by your method of play (use a sword, your swordsmanship skill goes up). You can select which skills you want to devote more energy to, so they go up faster than others. Another example is if you don''t use armour, your stealth skill is easier to improve on.

Isn''t this what i''ve been advocating the whole time? Skill Web ring any bells?

that''s what I was going to do in my game before the project stalled and then well died

If Skills are so wonderful, and Skills have been in Roguelikes for years and years and years ... why can''t you simply use the tried-and-true Roguelike methods for Skill Development? The source is freely available for most RLs, so you don''t have to do too much work.

The best experience system is the d20 SRD system. Learn it, live it, love it!