Guild_Commoner

[da mitey warrior]

I've been thinking about the discussion about guilds and skills.  One idea I've had for a while is customizable non-karma guild.

Let's call it Guild_Commoner

Here's how I think it would work:

You get only the basic skills, contact, barrier, shield_use etc
Plus all 4 basic weapon skills, at modest burglar-like levels.
And you get to choose 3 subguilds instead of the normal 1.

This mean, for example, if you want to be, say, the ultimate linguist you can choose linguist/caravan guide/bard and get 4 maxed languages + the bards fastlearning ability.  

Or if you want to an ubercrafter you can choose 3 different crafting subguilds.  Think about armorcrafter/weaponcrafter/archer, or jeweler/tailor/tinker

A physician/house servant/con artist would make an excellent noble aide.

Want to live in the rinth and make rat-skin clothing?  hunter/armorcrafter/tailor

Advantages:

-No one can guess your guild.
-Very customizable to your character's needs
-12,144 unique combinations

Disadvantages

-Won't master anything as much as the other guilds but that's ok.
-Won't branch later in life.  Oh well.
-Some of the super crafter combos might make for some very rich characters, but that happens already.

[Modest Mouth]

Nothing trips off the alarms when I first look at this.

The main balancing feature would be that you are picking up a lot of skills in exchange for being crap at all of them.

In game terms, you should be 33% as good as someone who spent an equal amount of time training but focused on just that one skill set.

The only thing I worry about is that there could be a problem with some truly sick combinations and it would leave a chance to be abused by power-gamers.

Wanna make a uber-loner who never needs another soul because he can do the work of three other PCs? Go Guild_commoner.

That is a pretty big negative going for this guild, but I think that if we banged around the idea for a bit, we could think up of something acceptable to present to the Imms that wouldn't be in risk of being accused of power-gaming.

Maybe a set skill list. Like "No two skills can come from the same skill family". That would keep you from making the uber-crafter or the uber-loner, giving you more of a jack of all trades type of feel.

[EvilRoeSlade]

The only thing I worry about is that there could be a problem with some truly sick combinations and it would leave a chance to be abused by power-gamers.

Can you think of any combination off the top of your head?  I personally cannot.  Of course, I dislike subguilds and rarely make good use of them.  I wouldn't be likely to use this guild if it were implimented for that reason, butit seems like a decent idea.  Considering that most subguild skills suck considerably, I don't think there's any problem with it.

[Modest Mouth]

My worry, possibly unwarranted, is that a character can be made with access to the skills across a broad range, thereby possible eliminating the need for certain types of interactions with other PCs.

Maybe I'm just being an old woman, but that's the kind of thing I think about.

[Pantoufle]

Wanna make a uber-loner who never needs another soul because he can do the work of three other PCs? Go Guild_commoner.

No, that's called guild_ranger  :lol:.

[Larrath]

I don't know if I'd like to see a dozen scavengers/jewelers/stonecarvers popping out of places, thugs/guards/mercenaries.

Yes, they all start out strong and generally stay at the same level, but still.  I think two subguilds could be doable, though, but the guild itself should have merchant-level fighting abilities.

After all, merchants are precisely people with no combat experience.  Contrary to what others may believe, they don't go through special training that is meant to make them unable to hold a dagger correctly.


Maybe the commoner guild can be made to have potential to become very good at one or two skills.  If you want to be a dwarven tailor who focus is to become the world's greatest cook, for example, you would be able to advance these skills to very good levels.  They'd just start out at absolute crap.

Assuming they were given this, though, I don't know if they would even need two subguilds.  In fact, having pure base skills and two optional skills to add (these will be approved with the character and not added later) could be a nice idea for all those Joe Averages out there.

Three subguilds, to me, are going a little too far.  After all, these -are- commoners.

[jhunter]

I kind of like this idea, I think it has some potential to be very good. I like the idea of a guild that can do a bit of many things, but will never be really good at any of them.


*Thumbs up*

[Miee]

I like the basic principle.  This solves the "I'm a poor shmuck in the streets of <x>" problem of the main guilds having skills that wouldn't really make sense.  Joe Blow working his way through life shoveling dung or cutting up kanks isn't likely going to have mad weapon skills (warrior), desert knowldege (ranger), thieving ability (pickpocket), backstab (assassin), lock-picking (burglar), or mad money skills (merchant).

[Avril]

It would be a small step in the right direction, and like all such steps, it would create a feeling of achievement without much achievement at all. I'd appreciate it, but about as much as the current cleaning code in all its purple glory.

While the fears that "uber crafters" (or "uber generalists") might come out of this are nonsense (there's already a whole class that can uber-craft), I can find no advanage to the idea, either. Anyone choosing the commoner guild would still be hopeless against a direct attack from a warrior or ranger, and everyone could tell that in-game just by finding out that the guy has more than one subclass. Could you use subclasses to "mimic" the abilities of traditional classes? Sure, but while you're taking hunter and physician to pretend you're a ranger, you still suck at bandaging, suck at hunting and at fighting, but your skills are still passable in those areas. What you're left with is a shoddy pseudo-class and your third remaining subclass - exactly what a ranger would have, minus his high skill caps.

One of the things people have been complaining about a lot is that your class can be too easily identified - being a merchant, you suck at fighting, though you might find work as a crafter. Nobody's going to hire you as a guard when they see you crafting your own weapons, armor and sandcloth gear, because after all, the only class who can do that (or, if the commoner were introduced, the only two classes)  sucks at fighting. Being a thief, you both suck at fighting and have a lot of unpopular (and rare) skills at your disposal. Using any of these rare skills in public, and showing you did it, will get you flagged as a thief and consequently avoided. When you play a commoner... You suck at everything code-wise, and everyone's going to know it. Sure, you might find work as a guard with just your good looks and a guard subclass, but that's only because most clans are so desperate for recruit, they'd take in anyone with even passable skills. You'd make a good merchant, but the merchant class would offer you incredible flexibility - if you pick two trade-related subclasses, you're already nothing more than an underdeveloped merchant with minor weapons skills. I'm not sure if these skills would make a difference. That leaves you with the choice of one or no crafting subclasses, and a few others whose skills uninanimously belong to a single class' repertoire... Only a handful of these combinations seem like something an ordinary class/subclass combo can't do.

Still, I wonder if a set of subclasses might be more interesting to role-play than an actual class. I'll probably post a few myself tomorrow morning.

[X-D]

I like the idea, and burgler level weapon skills, or pickpocket is not over powering in the least and 2-3 subs sounds fine too.

[Larrath]

I wasn't referring to the fighting abilities as overpowering, but I don't think a merchant should be much weaker than your everyday commoner.

Like I said before, merchants fight like commoners who were not generally exposed to battle, but they don't take special training in order to suck so much.

If a commoner wants to have some fighting ability, they can take an appropriate subguild.

[Twilight]

You can always submit ideas for new subclasses, if you feel the current ones are too limiting.  A thread a few years ago got 5 or 6 put in at once.  I think this is valid both in the context of this discussion, and in general if you think the current ones are repetitive and/or limiting.

I've always thought that location based subclasses would be sort of cool.  Currently only the nomad subclass really fits this description.  I'm just not sure what I would put in the subclasses.  Maybe I'll start a new thread on this.

[Lazloth]

Reminds me of the archaeologist touristy dude in nethack.  There's something here, just not excited over your proposal.

[Ammit]

Joe Blow working his way through life shoveling dung or cutting up kanks isn't likely going to have mad weapon skills (warrior), desert knowldege (ranger), thieving ability (pickpocket), backstab (assassin), lock-picking (burglar), or mad money skills (merchant).

I believe the staff can set your skills to have a max different to the default one, so while we're unlikely to increase the max, I can't see us complaining about decreasing it There might be bugs with that though with branching so you might want to mail the mud and check out any possible problems.

As for the idea in the thread, it would cause some people to suck at skills for the advantage of having a unique combination (and you won't get back-stabbing warriors with this idea), but I like it. ALso, not all roles need you to have omfg uber skillz. I've had a few characters who never used a coded skill (besides listen) and I'd periodically type "skills" just to remind myself what skills I had.

[Avril]

I wrote a page-long post in between playing Armageddon, and when I tried copying it, I accidentally hit paste instead. I have only a few things left to say...

-Shit.

-Omfg uber skills, while certainly not needed for playing out some roles, do help establish many others, and besides. If I had to choose between picking a skillless character and one that had all "mundane" skills, but never used them, I would pick the latter simply because he might learn a thing or two later in his life.

-The commoner class would be more interesting if it allowed players to decide which skills, rather than which subclasses, they want... I don't see what the problem is with just letting people pick eight or so skills among those that are normally given to subclasses.

-Most subclasses could be considered part of a single class, as their skills are practically drawn from it. Subclasses can be divided in four types (fighter, ranger, merchant, theif) along with the "unique" type (for the skills that offer bonus languages), leading to a total of 16 feasible combinations of three subguild "types". Nobody's going to pick two warrior subclasses and a thief one, for instance, because then, he could just as well pick the warrior class itself. Still, I did recognize a few potentially great combinations in this list.

[Miee]

Sometimes undo will fix that, Avril.  Unless you tried that.  In which case, I'm going back to "posting so I stay concious at work."

[Maybe42or54]

Guild Commoner
Subdguilds- Tailor, Rebel, Thug

Get rich easily after a while, able to knock shit out, as well as hide.

I am personally not in favor of such a 3 subclasses.

[mansa]

Guild Commoner
Subdguilds- Tailor, Rebel, Thug

Get rich easily after a while, able to knock shit out, as well as hide....

I'm pretty sure that rebel does not get 'hide'.  It seems to me, from the helpfile subclass that they get 'sneak'.  Hide is one of those skills that is not given out in a subclass, much like backstab, disarm, scan and fireball.

[Maybe42or54]

Right. I still stand by my original post.

[Sir Diealot]

Except that now, your original post is wrong.  They can make clothing and knock things out.  Just like a thief/tailor... Oh wait..

[Callisto]

I like the idea.

I'd like it better if you could pick the commoner guild and select skills even more, though.

[Ghost]

I liked the idea very much indeed.

[Gaare]

I believe commoner class is a bit weak to other guilds (Lack of really powerful skills which avaliable only to classes parry, disarm, peek, pick,... ) but so what... I really like the idea.

On the other hand I believe commoner class (if it's name would be this) can be used mostly by merchants, nobles and slave PCs.