Currently I'm working on a class based fantasy rpg cause I'm really a class based RPG fanboy :) Well, lot of people dislike class based systems and prefer the skill based character development like in oblivion (it gives me the creep to think about a platearmor wearing, healing, fire wizard....). At the moment I have a skill graph where each skill depends on level,class,race, and other skills. My question is: How to enable a classless character while keeping the (optional) class based approach ? My requirements are: 1. No omnipotent combination of skills are allowed. How to restrict them in a convenient way ? 2. If someone choose the class way, I want to reward him. 3. My major goal is still a class based approach. Insight of the skill system: In my skill system a skill is not just one action, it is a collection of (skill-level dependent) actions or spells. Most magic skills are spell lists, other skills are a list of i.e. combat actions. Skills are bought with skill points which are gained through character levels. Some solutions which come to mind are: - Mutal exclusive skills: Plate armor and magic skills are a no go. - Skillpoint bonus for class based characters, i.e. each level you gain 3 more skillpoints. - Class based skill-level bonus, i.e. your class skills starts at skill level 3. - Exclusive skills for each class, this skills will not be available to classless characters. - Skill-level cap, classless characters can't become true masters of the skill which results in not available actions or spells. - Skill level costs increase more rapid if you choose a classless character, for a master skill level you have to spend more skillpoints. Which is the way to go ? Which solutions do you like/dislike ? Any experiences with similar games ? Other solutions ? -- Ashaman

Quote:

Original post by Ashaman73 Currently I'm working on a class based fantasy rpg cause I'm really a class based RPG fanboy :) Well, lot of people dislike class based systems and prefer the skill based character development like in oblivion (it gives me the creep to think about a platearmor wearing, healing, fire wizard....).

Well I think classes are used best in places where a group is involved (where classes then function as roles in a group), or if you're looking to extend the replay of a game (so you replay the game as another class). I usually don't prefer to use classes in a single-player free-form RPG (unless you have NPC group members), because playing in a single-player free-form RPG usually implies the accumulation of as much experience (for the player and the avatar) as possible on a single character or perspective throughout his/her journey - but that is just my personal preference.

Quote:

Original post by Ashaman73 1. No omnipotent combination of skills are allowed. How to restrict them in a convenient way ?

You can base your skills on attributes that use an attributes points pool. If you're doing something like Dungeons & Dragons, since you only have a limited amount of points to spend on upping your attributes, you either get the jack-of-all-trades master-of-none type of character, or one that is really lopsided (excelling in one, weak at another attribute).

For your armor example, you could say wearing heavier armors require more of the strength attribute. Since mages focus on the intelligence attribute (so as the general perception of them goes), they then wouldn't have enough points or have the general desire to invest in other attributes unrelated to magick and magery. You can still be an armor-wearing mage by this system, but you'd be a much weaker spellcaster, much more significantly so than one who has invested all his/her points into intelligence. So this allows players to choose what they want, trading off something else, or go with a more generalized approach.

Quote:

Original post by Ashaman73 2. If someone choose the class way, I want to reward him.

So, if you're going to do this attributes points pool idea, then the more points you invest in a particular attribute, the stronger your skills will be that are based off of that attribute, but the weaker you will be in other areas.

Hi, how about a system where all characters are strongly classed, with the exception that a character could train toward any skill of other classes, but can only equip a limited number of skills from other classes at a time.

For example:

Your character is from Warrior class. He main arsenal of skills are melee attacks and defences etc. This Warrior can choose up to two skills from other classes. Suppose this Warrior wants to complement his style using the skills:

[Fire Magic] Fire Imbue (Make weapon able to deal fire damage)
[Dark Magic] Pain Reflect (Reflect a potion of melee damage to enemy)

This Warrior must train toward using these magic. As you might imagine, some higher level magic are impossible to cast without wearing equipment with stats, because the character might not have enough int or mana to cast even once.

Another combo:

[Fire Magic] Fire Storm V (High level fire area effect massive damage)
[Dark Magic] Consume (Allows the caster with non-zero mana to cast a spell using health, once this is used, mana of the caster will not regen until the caster returns to full health)

Once the character leaves town, he cannot change those two skills.

The number of other-class slots could be fixed for life. It could be expanded by subquests, maybe it could be expanded to 3 at the most. To balance this effectively, you need to make it such that each class must use at least 4 skill in each fight to fight effectively, so that a character from class 1 cannot replace a character from class 2 just using the sub-skills.

Why do you want to include the option of playing a classless character if you are going to punish players who choose that route?

I don't have a preference between class-ful (?) and classless RPGs, as long as it is well done. But it would piss me off if I had the choice and found out later that my character was nerfed because I picked the wrong one.

If you really want the game to focus on characters having a class, go all out. Sure you might lose some players that only play skill-based RPGs, but if you give them the option to struggle through your game with a weaker skill-based classless character the aren't going to be too happy anyway.

To actually answer you:
If you really want both options you have to be fair about it. You could give characters with a class some bonuses (i.e. class skills are somewhat cheaper or have higher maximums, exclusive skills, etc) but you must balance it by giving classless characters some advantages also. Maybe a fire wizard can't heal or wear plate mail, but a character with no class (ha ha) can. It'd be weaker fire and heals, and maybe not the Über Plate Mail that only a (classed) Knight can wear.. but they need something to make up for the fact that they get no bonuses. You'd also have to balance the game to allow someone with a jack-of-all-trades classless character to stand a chance (you can't have bosses that slaughter anyone who isn't a pure maxed-out single class character).

But really, if you find a plate armor wearing, healing, fire wizard that distasteful why bother putting the option in your game? Better to go with strict classes and do it well.

In D&D, there is a set of skills. Then you choose a class: every class defines a set of skills that are favorized, becoming class skills, which means it costs two times less to upgrade them. As a bonus, some classes also give bonus feats (non-leveled abilities), whenever you reach a certain level in that class.

@Tangireon:
The game starts out as a single player game. In a later version a multiplayer option will be added to let players play together (coop not pvp). Many singleplayer parts will already include multiplayer aspects (dying, no load/save), but atleast all classes should be solo playable.

Attribut dependent skills are already there. Additional I could make high-level skills more dependent on according low-level skills, i.e. fire-magic needs a lesser-magic skilllevel of 15 or platearmor need a skill of 10 in chainmail.

@Wai
I dont think that I like a strict class system with the option to learn skills of an other class. The player should choose if he goes down the class way or wants to play a jack-of-all-trade like character.

@krez/loufoque
You got a point. Using a classbase system and doing it right will be my fallback solution. But first I just want to think about both way. If it is a reward or a punishment is just a matter of the point of view.

Using cheaper skills and/or additional traits/features seems to be the best solution so far.


Well, sofar a player can choose between a class based or a jack-of-all-trade character. Choosing jack-of-all-trade will give him access to all skills (no additional restrictions), choosing a class based character will give him less skill leveling costs for all class related skills, skills of other classes will not be available.

Sound fair sofar, doesn't it ?

--
Ashaman

Quote:

Original post by Ashaman73 Well, sofar a player can choose between a class based or a jack-of-all-trade character. Choosing jack-of-all-trade will give him access to all skills (no additional restrictions), choosing a class based character will give him less skill leveling costs for all class related skills, skills of other classes will not be available. Sound fair sofar, doesn't it ?

So no more mutually exclusive skills so you could have a plate wearing, fireball shooting, self-healing classless character that has fully mastered each of those skills?

Quote:

Original post by Josh Heitzman Quote: Original post by Ashaman73 Well, sofar a player can choose between a class based or a jack-of-all-trade character. Choosing jack-of-all-trade will give him access to all skills (no additional restrictions), choosing a class based character will give him less skill leveling costs for all class related skills, skills of other classes will not be available. Sound fair sofar, doesn't it ? So no more mutually exclusive skills so you could have a plate wearing, fireball shooting, self-healing classless character that has fully mastered each of those skills?

What I read from it is that it means you can have a plate wearing, fireball shooting, self-healing classless character who is a lot weaker in each of those skills, compared to a character who specializes in one of those classes. So then what is the point to having a character that specializes in nothing but dabbles in a wide variety of skills? Well for one thing, he has access to those wide varieties of skills.

I could see a problem with this however, and that is at the higher-tier levels, the classed/specialist character will most likely pwn the classless character who doesn't have any bonuses to his/her skill leveling. Having access to a bunch of lower-tiered skills isn't going to do much against high-leveled spells or skills that do a ton of damage, unless you've tweaked each of of your skills really well (they still have use at lower levels). If you're not going to give some sort of leverage to classless characters (besides having access to a bunch of low-level skills), might as well cut them off from your design, like krez suggested.

Though I still would've done it a bit differently (no bonuses or restrictions, just make it all attributes-based - everything should come naturally from there - but then again, this wouldn't be very class-based at all, would it?).

[Edited by - Tangireon on March 4, 2009 4:13:04 PM]

I'd say you are on the right track with class based skill level bonuses. But that implementation is a little bland.

I would convert that into skill based class bonuses.

Reward players that focus on skills related to a single class by introducing mechanics in which the skills enhance the attributed of the class. A spell caster, for example, who focuses his skill selection on magic related skills could cast a bit faster or more effectively than one who does not.

This of course requires some sort of cap on either the total number of skill points or the number of skills a player may employ.

If you make a classless character system, you need to make the players free to pick whatever build they want. Your job is to make that balanced. Obviously, this can be very challenging, as, depending on your character development system, there could be literally thousands of combinations. Personally, I prefer classless character systems, but as long as there is going to be some customization in the class based one, I won't really mind.

Whatever you choose, you should pick either a class-based or classless character system, not both. That would be yet another layer of content that you would have to balance. Also, if I know I'm going to focus on a melee build, why would I choose the classless path when I could roll a warrior and have the advantages of having a class. You could make a compromise and do like Diablo 2, where you have classes, but where these classes are so customizable that two characters of a same class can be totally different. Just don't implement both systems. It's a very bad idea in my opinion.

Quote:

1. No omnipotent combination of skills are allowed. How to restrict them in a convenient way ?

Shouldn't equipment be doing that? A character in melee gear probably doesn't have too much magic power and mana regeneration. (Give stat requirement to pieces of gear if you don't want to make gear swapping too trivial.) Unless you want to permanently exclude a character that chose a path from performing in another area of expertise of the game, in which case you're probably better using classes.