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Id like some feedback on this. Being as my MUD is still coming together, I was thinking about doing something with the race class table.

Everyone would feault as a human. Instead of races, there would be an 'affinity' option, which will affect a character's personality (in RP) and have technicaly affects as well, such as someone who has a shadow affinity might be resistant to darkness but vulnerable to light.

As for the class table, I may replace it with a constellation table (like in morrowind) or possibly runes. This would be like an auspicious prophecy regarding your birth and depicts what abilities, spells and skills you have.

What do you all think?

(Comment added by slackjaw on Wed Aug 6 14:43:51 2008)

edit: allow me to apologize for my typos. I missed a couple.

I like this idea a lot.

You also could experiment with the idea of multi-affinities, or making some constellations/runes unknown to the player until some time after character creation (at the completion of a key quest or event perhaps).

There was a lot of code in DIKU/MERC/ROM that never lived up to it's promise. Undeveloped or poorly aimed.... alignment was one of these. Great idea, but not quite there.

Now, with several affinities, you could have players pulled from one to another without the white/black line of alignment, and you could make it deeply (broadly?) affect their characters. A mixture of affinities could provide a well balanced population of individuals, as opposed to every third character you meet is an Elven Mage. Ho hum.

slackjaw:
Id like some feedback on this. Being as my MUD is still coming together, I was thinking about doing something with the race class table.

Everyone would feault as a human. Instead of races, there would be an 'affinity' option, which will affect a character's personality (in RP) and have technicaly affects as well, such as someone who has a shadow affinity might be resistant to darkness but vulnerable to light.

As for the class table, I may replace it with a constellation table (like in morrowind) or possibly runes. This would be like an auspicious prophecy regarding your birth and depicts what abilities, spells and skills you have.

What do you all think?

I'll just say what I always say when there's a discussion of "races" and "classes", which is that, if you're going to have two or three separate choices at character creation, it will be nice if they are genuinely independent choices as opposed to one choice split into two or three parts (or, worse still, one choice that you have to type three times).

What I mean by this is that in far too many race/class systems only certain combinations of race and class make sense. For example, in many D&D-derived games, if your choice of race is "halfling" then you are more or less required to be a thief - trying to playing as a halfling warrior is simply not a viable combination. The reverse may also be true: if you want to play a thief, then the best race to choose is halfling, and any attempt to play (say) a dwarven thief is not viable.

In some systems there may not be a one-to-one correlation between race and class, but there are still only a strictly limited set of viable combinations. This means that the choice of a race/class combination is, to all intents and purposes, a single choice of class, it's just that you specify your choice of class in two stages.

For example, in Morrowind the best races for a warrior-type class are probably Nord, Orc or Redguard. The best choices for stealth-type classes would be Khajit, Wood Elf or Argonian. The best choice for a spell-caster is High Elf or Breton. Thus, what you effectively have is a single choice of class: I want to be a breton-mage as opposed to a high-elf-mage, I want to be a khajit-thief as opposed to a wood-elf-assassin. The choice of both race and class are essentially determining the same thing: it's all about matching attributes to skills. So, if you decide you want to play the game as a warrior, that determines the choice of both class and race.

Indeed, in Morrowind, even the third choice of star-sign suffers from the same problem to a considerable degree: if you want to play a spell-caster then realistically you have to choose the Mage, the Apprentice or the Atronach as your sign, and it's obvious to me that they're gently trying to steer you towards either a High Elf/Atronach or a Breton/Apprentice (because the relative strengths and weaknesses cancel each other out to some degree).

If you're going to do this, then why not simply make it a single choice - do you want to be a Nord-Warrior, a Redguard-Warrior, or a Khajit-Thief? Why bother splitting it into two separate decisions? (To be fair to Morrowind, its character-generation system suffers from this problem to a comparatively mild degree - many MUDs are far more locked-in, in terms of only certain race/class combinations being useable).

So, whatever powers your "affinity" system confers, I think it would be nice if they are powers that are essentially independent of the choice of class. To put it another way: the system should work in such a way that the choice of class should not significantly influence the choice of affinity (or vice versa).

I understand and mostly agree that some classes
and races seem to necessarily go hand in hand. On
the other hand, I don't think it necessarily follows
that making these links a default lock is better.

For example, in the codebase I develop, if you want
to be a fighter then elf, halfling, or human are
relatively poor choices. You can do it, but it's
basically playing the game at a higher difficulty.
This in itself is a feature that, though it may
be unpopular, tends to justify keeping the choices
separate (for me). Maybe some people enjoy the challenge
of being a halfling warrior.

Beyond that, you can have multiple races that
suit a given occupational specialty. Dwarves make
*excellent* fighters...but then, so do orcs. And
you'd be surprised at how often people select orc
as their player race. Some folks like to roleplay
even while hackenslashing.

And then there's making the "multiple strong race
selection" more meaningful. For example, if someone
selects orc as their class because they want to
be a big scary fighter, they will have a lot of trouble
trying to use some of the resources of an area I'm
working on, because they are deeply hostile to orcs,
and have lots of experienced guards with platemail.
No complimentary heals from the friendly cleric for them.

On the other hand, an orc player can just walk past
orc sentries for a quest that other players find
extremely difficult to fight through.

That's the "multiple qualifying races" approach.

The "multiple qualified classes" approach is something
like different kinds of spellcasters, such that a
player with a high-intelligence/low-strength race can
choose to be a cleric, mage, or psion, with different
advantages and different roleplaying options available
to each.

It sounds to me like you're describing experiences
with race/class combinations that are uninspired. That
is too bad, but I don't find your suggestion of
taking the choices away to be a satisfying solution.
The choices let you select difficulty and vary roleplay.

There's also always the chance that there are special
rewards or bonuses for a player that chooses the
tough road of being an orc psion. Perhaps unusually high
luck bonuses, or better chances that their god will
favor their prayers. I'm getting geeked up just thinking
about it, actually ;)

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net


(Comment added by cratylus on Thu Aug 7 12:56:24 2008)

"orc as their class"

Heh, obviously I meant orc as a race, though it
brings me back to the days when "elf" was a *class*
in D&D.

Cratylus:
It sounds to me like you're describing experiences
with race/class combinations that are uninspired. That
is too bad, but I don't find your suggestion of
taking the choices away to be a satisfying solution.
The choices let you select difficulty and vary roleplay.

Possibly I'm not explaining this very well. :-(

What annoys me is if the choice of race and the choice of class are effectively both aspects of the same underlying decision.

For example, you might ask yourself: "Is the overall approach my character has to the game world based on combat, stealth, or magic?" Too often your choice of both race and class are both functions of that one underlying decision: am I combat-based or am I stealth-based? (Or whatever).

To my mind, the decision "am I combat-based or stealth-based?" is a decision that you should only have to take once; if you are going to go to the lengths of having what purport to be two independent decisions, they should actually be independent - not merely two different facets of the same choice.

Another way of looking at it: it may well be the case that a dwarven warrior is significantly different in nature from an orcish warrior. But suppose you were to redefine "dwarf" and "orc" as subclasses of "warrior" (in the same sort of way as an assassin is a subclass of thief) - how much flexibility would you actually lose by doing that? If the answer is "not much" then that's what I have a problem with. Having subclasses is often great, but if "dwarf" and "orc" are to all intents and purposes subclasses of "warrior" then this is something which should be made explicit: both decisions (class and subclass) should be labeled as a decision about class rather than trying to make out that it's actually two different choices.

Ideally I think the decision about race should be a different kind of decision from the decision about class - otherwise why model the two separately? For instance, if being an orc is basically about being aggressive and slaughtering while being an elf is more about being aloof and in harmony with nature, that's an aspect to the game-play which is interestingly different from "am I a fighter or a spell-caster?" And if being an orc is essentially about being evil and aggressive, there's no reason why you shouldn't have aggressive and evil orcish mages as well as aggressive and evil orcish warriors - which would make being an orc that much more various and interesting. I can't see any good reason to effectively make "being aggressive and evil" and "being a spell-caster" mutually exclusive.

(Comment added by shasarak on Fri Aug 8 8:35:27 2008)

To put it yet another way: I'm not suggesting taking away choices. I'm suggesting that the MUD should not be allowed to take away choices by making the majority of race/class combinations practically useless.

What I mean by this is that in far too many race/class systems only certain combinations of race and class make sense. For example, in many D&D-derived games, if your choice of race is "halfling" then you are more or less required to be a thief - trying to playing as a halfling warrior is simply not a viable combination.

For what definitions of "make sense" and "viable"? For D&D and similar games, halfling warriors are certainly viable as player characters, because those games were designed for cooperative team role-play. Viability is heavily dependent on character stats in those games more so than race or class. Of course many people disliked non-human races in D&D because they were level-limited which precluded using them without other significant support in high level adventures. Still methinks you're expounding from a min-maxer POV about games where PvP is one of the objectives (if not a primary objective). But even in those games, many players' choices are often more about identification than comparing character race/class power levels, or potentials.

Heh, obviously I meant orc as a race, though it
brings me back to the days when "elf" was a *class*
in D&D.

But those days never were.

"But those days never were."

I suppose I could be misremembering, or perhaps
the character creation documents I followed were
non-canon. But I do recall elf being a class
in D&D. Or maybe you mean that the Basic D&D
set isn't "really" D&D, I dunno.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

You are correct Crat! I believe it was the original Dungeons and Dragons manual with the red cover..before AD&D. I can't find any proof to back it up on the internet but I know for a fact that I have seen elf listed as a class. It threw me for a loop.

I got someone to scan it for me...

Under Fair Use doctrine, here it is:

http://lpmuds.net/dnd_index.jpg

-Crat

PS Thx Duuk!

You're welcome.

Tyche, you're not referring to "Dungeons and Dragons" at all. You're referring to "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons". Two different sets of rules (before the bastardization by Wizards of the Coast).

D&D featured elf, halfling, and dwarf as classes rather than 'race options' and featured fighter, cleric, thief, and magic user as basic human classes.

Humans could achieve level 36, while non-humans were limited to level 15 (IIRC) but could achieve something similar to levels after 15. I just remember my elf having a level like 15-J or somesuch.

Interesting. I stand corrected. That's the 3rd version of the D&D rules (or the 2nd "Basic Rules" Set) which I'd never played. The first two versions of D&D allowed the races to play other classes, not as classes themselves.

From the 1974 D&D Men and Magic book edition...

CHARACTERS:
There are three (3) main classes of characters:
   Fighting-Men
   Magic-Users
   Clerics
Fighting Men includes the characters of elves and dwarves and even hobbits.
Magic-Users includes only men and elves. Clerics are limited to men only. All
non-human players are restricted in some aspects and gifted in others. This will
be dealt with in the paragraphs pertaining to each non-human type.

Greyhawk added thief class (for any race) and paladins (only human), Blackmoor added monks (only human) and assasins (any race). Eldritch Wizardry added druids (only human).

The 1977 rewrite, the Basic D&D rules (aka the blue book) went back to four classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric and thief). Humans, dwarves, halflings could be either thief or fighters. Only humans could be clerics or magic-users. Elves were multi-classed as fighter/magic-users and advanced half as fast as they had to split their experience points between both classes.

Fighting Men -- any human character can be a
fighting man and all halflings and dwarves are
members of the fighter class, unless they opt to be
thieves. Elves are a combination of fighting man and
magic-user, as described later.

I played my first game of 4th edition the other day and while the group that I have joined is full of wonderful people I'm not the slightest bit impressed with the game mechanics.

I've been hearing bad things about D&D4 as well.

I'm happy with 3.5, don't see any reason to bother with the new system.

Shasarak wrote:
"Possibly I'm not explaining this very well. :-("


I've been giving this some thought...since there
seems to be a grok shortage in progress.

Please understand that the following statements
are made in good faith. If I am straw manning you, it
is not on purpose. I'm truly trying to understand
your point.

Perhaps it is inadvertent, but you appear to be
making a point about race stat modifiers.

I say this because it seems to me that to satisfy
your one-choice directive I'd need to do one or
more of the following:

* Make race selection not affect stats like str and int.
* Present players a bafflingly large array of race/class
combos to make it just a single choice.
* ????
* Profit!

(Ok, the last two were just to pad out the list.)

The second option strikes me as ludicrous, forgive
me if you actually subscribe to it. It would mean that
your problem is just with having to answer a question
you feel you've already adequately addressed...like when
the eye test lady puts you in the owl-machine and
keeps asking "Is it better like this? Or like this?
Better 1 or better 2? 1? Or 2?"

(Btw, always wondered if they're like that in bed, too.)

Since narrowing down choices is one of those things
that is inconvenient but unavoidable and just-part-of-life,
I'm going to go ahead and hope you're not suggesting that
a narrowing-down system of choose race, choose class is
actually broken.

Indeed, I'm going to guess that your point is about
whether it's really necessary for orcs to be stronger
than halflings by default, and dumber to boot.

Is this correct?

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Cratylus:
Since narrowing down choices is one of those things
that is inconvenient but unavoidable and just-part-of-life,
I'm going to go ahead and hope you're not suggesting that
a narrowing-down system of choose race, choose class is
actually broken.

Indeed, I'm going to guess that your point is about
whether it's really necessary for orcs to be stronger
than halflings by default, and dumber to boot.

Is this correct?

I think we've established what I'm objecting to (strong coupling between race and class) so I guess what is still unclear is why I'm objecting to it.

The answer to that is two-fold.

1) I don't like a system which misrepresents what it is actually doing.

2) While it is very reasonable to ask a player to make choices, I think one should be wary about coupling too many mutually exclusive choices together into a single decision.

The first of those, I think, is fairly unambiguous: I don't necessarily have a problem with a system where race is essentially a function of class (or vice versa) so long as this is made explicit. If it's the case that the only reasonable choices of class for a warrior are dwarf or ogre, then the game should explicitly present the choice of race as being a choice of class. In other words you should be explicitly asked: "Do you wish to play an elf mage, an ogre warrior, a halfling thief, or a dwarf warrior?"

What bothers me is that MUDs present the choice of race and class as if they were interesting independent choices when actually they aren't. Explicitly coupling the two together (as in Godwars 2, where you really do have a single race/class decision) is fine. So is a system where race and class are more orthogonal. But, either way, the system shouldn't try to pretend to be something that it isn't. If playing a dwarf mage is actually not a viable choice, the game shouldn't pretend that it is.

So, if the decisions on race and class are genuinely independent, great; if they're not, they shouldn't be presented as if they are.

The second point, about coupling choices together, is a bit more subtle. It might for example, be quite reasonable for the game to ask you "do you want to be a mage or a warrior?" It might also be reasonable for the game to ask "do you want to live in harmony with nature or do you want to slash and burn every tree you encounter?" But if (effectively) all mages are elves and all warriors are orcs, and if all elves love trees and all orcs hate them, you then have a situation where all mages have to be tree-huggers and all warriors have to be tree-burners.

Those two choices (warrior/mage, tree-hugger/tree-burner) don't strike me as being things that should be determined by the same decision. That really should be two separate decisions, and players will find lumping the two things together to be unnaturally and annoyingly restrictive. It just doesn't make sense to me to insist that all warriors should hate trees.

That's a very specific example; but, more generally, the sort of decision a player is taking when he chooses to be a member of a particular culture strikes me as being fundamentally different from a decision about his character's occupation and approach to adventuring (although there will obviously be some overlap). The two should therefore not be bundled together into a single decision.

(Comment added by shasarak on Mon Aug 11 9:03:11 2008)

I said above:

> If it's the case that the only reasonable choices of
> class for a warrior are dwarf or ogre, then the game
> should explicitly present the choice of race as being a
> choice of class. In other words you should be explicitly
> asked: "Do you wish to play an elf mage, an ogre
> warrior, a halfling thief, or a dwarf warrior?"

I didn't, of course, mean that you necessarily have to condense the actual user-interface down to a single step. What I mean is simply that if race is actually an extension of class, it shouldn't be presented as if it were something more than that.

(Comment added by shasarak on Mon Aug 11 9:43:21 2008)

> If it's the case that the only reasonable choices of
> class for a warrior are dwarf or ogre, then the game
> should explicitly present the choice of race as being a
> choice of class.

I of course meant "If it's the case that the only reasonable choices of race for a warrior are dwarf or ogre".

Thank you for the response. I apologize if I
seem like I'm being intentionally obtuse. I
will think on what you've said.

-Crat

Cratylus:
Perhaps it is inadvertent, but you appear to be
making a point about race stat modifiers.

I say this because it seems to me that to satisfy
your one-choice directive I'd need to do one or
more of the following:

* Make race selection not affect stats like str and int.
* Present players a bafflingly large array of race/class
combos to make it just a single choice.

I think making the choice of race not affect stats would be an interestingly innovative idea. But the aim is not so much to avoid stat modification altogether as to avoid strongly predisposing one race to one class.

So, for example, if high elves have boosted strength and intelligence, while sea elves have boosted dexterity and wisdom, that (while not ideal) is definitely an improvement: at least you'll get both sea-elf thieves and sea-elf clerics.

Another approach might be to tweak the game in such a way that fighters are actually equally dependent on strength and dexterity, but that no one race boosts both of those attributes. Strength-boosting races and dexterity-boosting races would then both make good warriors, with rather subtle differences in game-play likely to result from both.

And there are certainly all sorts of abilities which could be racial differences that are largely independent of stats. (In fact, one of my other objections to many race systems is precisely that they do almost nothing except modify stats). For example, maybe some races can see in the dark. Maybe some races have naturally armoured skin and claws, but are unable to use aritficial armour and weapons (thus gaining a significant advantage in cities where weapons and armour are banned). Maybe some races can breathe underwater. Maybe some have tails which they can use to hold a torch while keeping both hands free. Maybe some are less likely to get lost while wandering through subterranean tunnels. Maybe some are able to feed on the bodies of their enemies. Maybe some are strongly resistant to poison, or resistant to fire bu vulnerable to frost. (And so on). None of these abilities strongly predispose the owner to just one specific class, but they add interesting variety and interesting differences between characters above and beyond the differences that are the result of class.

I think a game where a Dwarf Mage isn't viable is a sloppy and poorly designed game.

I see nothing wrong with an Elf being predisposed toward being an archer, an Orc toward being a Fighter, etc. I don't see anything wrong with one race geared more toward being magical in nature.

But I don't think that only certain combinations should be viable, nor do I think that most games actually have it setup that way.

I also think its sloppy design to have a class largely dependent on only one stat, or to have a race largely biased toward a single stat.

I don't know so much your problem is with race and class both determining similar aspects of a character as it is with sloppy design making for inherit incompatible choices.

Sure, there are a lot of min-maxing players that will pick more obvious choices to squeeze every stat point or seeming advantage out of a combination, but that's unavoidable.

Another way to look at things, however, is playing a combination that isn't viable may, to some people, be the most viable option for the challenge and the perhaps interesting aspect for roleplay. Some people play to "beat the system" while others just want to have a unique character identity.

"And there are certainly all sorts of abilities which could be racial differences that are largely independent of stats. "

Heh, yeah, in the default config of the codebase
I work on, orcs and dwarves are unable to swim...
a fact usually discovered by such players at some cost.
I think I made dwarves able to see in zero light...
I'll have to check on that. There's other fun stuff,
like elves not sleeping, and much fun one can have
with gameplay-affecting race attributes that don't
necessarily affect stats. I agree that race selection
can be meaningful to gameplay without having to have a
dramatic impact on stats.

I am still, though, unsatisfied with the idea of
taking away the impact of race selection on the
average (combat-affecting) stats of a player. I am
having difficulty decoupling orcs from physical
strength, and physical strength from combat suitability.

And yet...I do see that there is weakness in a
system that makes an Orc Mage basically play the
game at "Nightmare!" difficulty.

Having discussed the issue with folks on intermud
I'm warming up to a hybrid system. I'm not inclined
to ditch "orcs == stronger, strong fighters > weak fighters",
but I think it should be feasible to be a Halfling
warrior with a reasonable chance of advancement in
single play.

The way it works now in my lib is that stats not only
have levels (str: 15, int: 30, etc), but also a "class".
A stat class is how important that stat is to your
race...in other words how often that stat is increased
when you level.

For an orc, str is class 1. That means that every level
promotion comes with a +1 boost to the str stat. On
the other hand, the poor unfortunates have a luck class
of 4, meaning they get a +1 boost only every fourth
level promotion. The upshot is that the strong get
stronger, and the lucky get luckier, as they advance.

I am beginning to incline toward a system that allows
you to improve a stat's class at a cost of XP. I'm still
spitballing precise numbers, but I like the idea of
being able to improve your int class by an increasing
XP tariff per class point.

The result would be that an orc would have to spend
more time grinding in order to get the same XP that
another orc would get without the stat class deviance
penalty, but that orc would still be *able* to grind
and be mage, rather than be playing at maximum
difficulty as a low level player.

This hybrid system allows me to keep what I think is
logical and reasonable (strong orcs, wise elves),
while allowing for nonstandard class combinations for
players willing to put in the extra effort that their
weirdness calls for.

Naturally this probably bumps up against your "games
are not work" electric fence, but I think it is a
reasonable and good idea. Advantages and preferences
in a game, in my opinion, should be balanced by cost,
and I think XP cost for nonstandard stat advancement
is fair.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

Cratylus:
I am still, though, unsatisfied with the idea of
taking away the impact of race selection on the
average (combat-affecting) stats of a player. I am
having difficulty decoupling orcs from physical
strength, and physical strength from combat suitability.

And yet...I do see that there is weakness in a
system that makes an Orc Mage basically play the
game at "Nightmare!" difficulty.

I don't necessarily have an issue with there being some interdependence between race and class; I have a problem with it when it gets to the point where the two effectively become the same thing. So if it's the case that "the majority of orcs on the MUD are warriors" that's probably okay. If it's the case that "all the orcs on the MUD are warriors" or (worse still) "all the warriors on the MUD are orcs" then that is at least a hint that things are out of balance (IMO).

As far as linking strength to combat is concerned, while it is true that physical strength is a very important attribute in real-life combat, it's not the be-all and end-all. If you look at Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee in their prime, they were most certainly not physically weak, but, equally well, they didn't bulk up like weightlifters either. In real life, there's a point where adding more strength leads to a loss of dexterity and speed, to the point where additional strength may be actively disadvantageous. Enormous muscle bulk doesn't make for good endurance, either: someone who is competing in a "Strongest Man In The World" competition may be amazingly fit by some measures, but he wouldn't stand a chance against a professional distance runner in a 5000m race - he'd be exhausted in the first couple of minutes.

While it's true that in D&D strength was the primary requisite for combat, increasing both your chances of hitting and the damage you caused, I think that was probably tied in with the notion of "armour class": armour worked by making it less likely that you'd be hit, and so strength improved your chances of hitting by making it more likely that you could break through armour. But many RPG combat systems don't work like that: they make the chances of hitting dependent on dexterity while strength merely increases damage (and armour reduces damage rather than reducing the chance of being hit). If you had a system like that then giving (say) trolls more strength but not giving them more dexterity would set up a weak linkage between being a troll and being a warrior, but not a strong one, because more dexterous races could also make good warriors.

Cratylus:
Naturally this probably bumps up against your "games
are not work" electric fence

Only if the process of advancement is boring. :-) From a "MUDs Are Not Work(tm)" perspective you can make advancement as slow or as fast as you wish, so long as a reasonable proportion of the individual minutes spent on the process are actually enjoyable. The MANW principle simply means you shouldn't have a system where the only satisfaction you get is when you actually advance: the process of getting there should be at least as much fun as arriving.

Have you ever played Daggerfall? The character-creation process in that (which I quite liked) has a strong element of adjusting the rate at which you gain levels. If you give yourself additional abilities (like athleticism, or rapid healing) then you advance more slowly; if you give yourself penalties (like taking damage from sunlight, or being unable to regenerate mana in the dark, or being unable to use certain materials as armour or weapons) then your rate of advancement increases.

(Comment added by shasarak on Tue Aug 12 7:56:50 2008)

> From a "MUDs Are Not Work(tm)" perspective you can
> make advancement as slow or as fast as you wish, so long
> as a reasonable proportion of the individual minutes
> spent on the process are actually enjoyable.

Actually that isn't quite true. "MUDs Are Not Work" is another way of saying "MUDs Are Supposed To Be Fun To Play". If the rate of advancement is too rapid, that most likely means that the game isn't enough of a challenge to be Fun. But there isn't really a lower limit on the rate of advancement so long as doing it remains enjoyable.

On the issue of strength being the primary combat stat...

In line more with the Final Fantasy theme, we have 4 core stats:

Power - basically strength
Willpower - basically a combination of int/wis
Agility - basically dexterity
Vitality - basically constitution

Now, one of the focuses we have made is trying to have every stat have a significant impact on various aspects of combat.

It's important to note that we have effectively eliminated stat caps. The stats do cap at 255, but it's unlikely that even focusing entirely on one stat, a character could reach 150 in a single stat. This also makes it entirely possible to completely wipe out the starting stat advantage each race gets. So I might be a Dwarf with a high VIT, but by end game, I could be as well built of a Mage, stat wise, as any other class. Its also important to note that we have eliminated "armor class" in favor of defense, which carries with it a direct damage reduction rather than dodge chance, and that we have a separate evade calculation that handles much of the accuracy/dodging of stats. The 5 skills each race gets over the course of 100 levels would probably have the biggest impact overall on what a class would be suited for, and while some are certainly geared toward melee or magic, we've tried to make them be useful to almost any type of character. In regards to the stat issue... This is how we do it:

Power of course determines much of your strength of each of your hits, so bulking up on power undoubtedly will mean you hit harder. Focusing on power at the cost of the other stats though will mean you attack less often, attack with less accuracy, dodge less, and are unable to take as much of a hit from others.

Willpower determines, within combat and aside from magic, mostly your accuracy (or hitroll). In addition to that, a character focused heavily on willpower may find themselves able to have a higher total stat count and skill count as a result of the additional AP (trains/pracs) they get at level up. Many other combat skills will actually check Willpower when determining the accuracy of an attack.

Agility determines, mostly, the speed at which you attack. We don't have standard combat rounds, but rather each character has their own personal combat rounds. Basically, your agility will determine how fast your combat rounds come up in which you automatically attack. If I have 100 agi and you have 4, I might get twice as many combat rounds in a given time as you do. Agility also factors heavily into dodging. Focusing a lot of Agility carries with it the advantages of attacking a lot more often than others, and a high AGI vs. a high PWR character will likely find themselves dealing out a comparable amount of damage overall.

Vitality determines mostly your Defense and HP gain when you level. We've tried to incorporate various stat comparisons throughout our manual combat skills that have an impact on both the chance of a skill being successful, but also the damage dealt when the skill hits. So clearly having a high VIT is good for a character who might want to be able to endure a lot of hits.


So really, we've tried to make every class have need of at least 1 other stat aside from their primary, although I think you can see the merit in having a good number in everyone.

We do have some issue at times with players focusing too heavily on one stat, but that does open up to them various weaknesses. But we believe very heavy in customization and letting characters really be their own, really be unique.


But anyway, I thought that the approach we've taken is one way to have races affect stats, but not have it be too determining of a factor, and to encourage people to focus on more than one stat.

I really think games that basically make race/class extensions of the same thing just haven't put much thought or effort into the design of their systems.

I like the idea. I really liked Morrowind. I see a lot of potential for individuality. On the other hand, it may be difficult to balance.

I see shasarak's problem as a matter of balance. It's not so much that halflings sound so damn thiefy, it's that if it's too hard to play a halfling warrior, the option of being a warrior but weaker than every other warrior is not something most people enjoy. The halfling stats should make them a different kind of warrior. Sure they're not the strongest, but their litheness can make up for it.

Lensmoor has optional specializations that boost certain stats/skills. It's tough to balance so many things. Some combos are more 'optimal' than others, both for RP and mechanically speaking, but all race/specialization options are viable.

Ok, I definitely necro'd that one. I guess I haven't looked in this forum this year o.O sorry :P