If we had a 'Commoner' guild...

[My 2 sids]

Okay,  building from another thread... what do we do with a "Jack-of-all trades"?
The game simply isn't set up for characters that never practice enough to specialize in certain skills.  My question is how would we implement such a guild?  We're not talking about a few freak characters but a actual percentage of characters.



Here's my answer (separate from my actual question which is what I hope this thread will be discussing)

Have more 'part-time' work.  This would allow characters to be employed in a wide variety of jobs (cook, aide, etc) without taking so much time the player becomes bored.

[wizturbo]

Personally, I think it'd be AWESOME.  FREAKING AWESOME.  If we had the option of chosing only a subguild at character creation, and then choosing our main guild later in the character's life.

That way, you can really have your character begin to grow based on what happens in their lives.  Every time I start a new character for the most part, I wish we had this option.

[X-D]

I disagree with the conclusion that the game does not support somebody who does not specialize in skills.

I've known many pc's who never used more coded skills then cooking and such who were long lived and reasonably successful. The jack of all trades (commoner) Would be the perfect city based indy class IMO.

Hey joe, how you make a living.

Oh, little of this, little of that, what ya need?

It would also do in a pinch for those roles that simply don't have any set class that fits.

And what noble would not want an aide that can basicly do anything?
True, maybe can't guard him as well as uber warrior guardsman over there. But there are many other things he cannot do. I know if I was to have a noble hire an Aide, I'd much prefer somebody with many facets and skills, even if...hell, specialy if they are not perfect. Even a noble eventually might have reason to fear his aide who is also an assassin.

Then, if you want to talk long term employment, with the range of mediocre skills, least they would never be bored, always something to fail at.

(edit)
Also, I would make sure they get or branch many support skills, lumberjacking and such.

Also, I think I would disable being able to pick a subclass on this class because if I set them up, the range of starting and branched skills would cover, to some extent most the subs as well.

[jmordetsky]

I've always felt we needed a no app "commoner" guild to get new players hooked.

For example, you create an account and you either app a normal guild, or you choose to add a character without approval and get a randomly generated desc and background and get assigned "commoner". This essentially means you can RP, play a spy, mine, farm whatever, but generally have 0 dangerous skills.

[X-D]

That would work too.

Also, slightly off topic, but only slightly since we talk of making it more attractive to new players.

I'd love to see two human sub races.

One north, one south. These would be only very slightly different from the norm.

Northern would have slightly higher wis from all the artsy stuff, slightly lower agi, hey, lets face it, trees down't run far. Slightly higher strength from all the logs and stones always carrying around. And normal end.

Southern would have slightly lower str then normal, Lets face it, wearing next to nothing because its so damm hot is not doing much for exercise. Higher agi from templar dodging and such, and a generaly lighter style of combat. Higher End reflecting living in the middle of a desert where it is normaly storming and still hot. Normal Wis.

They would only have the option to start in the city they belong and northern would start with the tats, be unable to leave the hall of kings without.

And hey, We already have this with desert elves.

Plus, it would allow some of these people who want stat ordering and such to be at least a little happier.

[My 2 sids]

I've known many pc's who never used more coded skills then cooking and such who were long lived and reasonably successful.

True, it there is plenty to do without using skills.  But, that's also part of the problem... they wouldn't be using any skills.  Why create a new guild if no one uses the skills?

[Rindan]

I don't see why commoners need to have low skill caps.  I think a guild with ranger like fighting abilities (but no branching), a smattering of 'commoner' craft skills, and maybe some basic social skills would be awesome.  Such a person could go down the crafter rout and find themselves only slightly less adapt then a merchant.  Such a person could also go down the more warriorish rout without much trouble and find themselves just a little less worthwhile then a ranger do to a lack of support skills (archery, throw, exc).

As to what a person could do?  They could do almost any job.  True, they will get their ass kicked in by a warrior, never be able to craft fancy jewelry like a merchant, and not be able to hunt and use a bow like a ranger.  With moderate combat skills, moderate crafting abilities, and moderate social skills they could pick any role they wanted.  They could join the Byn, join the Kadians and craft, act as a noble aid, or go slumming in the 'rinth.

I personally dislike the idea of a character with a lot of skills but low skill caps.  If you have low skill caps, you are crippled.  It is better to have no sneak then a shitty sneak.  Better to have no pick pocket then a crappy pick pocket.  Just make a class that can do just about anything, but never has all the support skills to excel (in a coded sense).  They would make excellent "wherever the wind blows" characters.

[bloodfromstone]

Rindan's suggestion wins.

[Rindan]

If I were to suggest a commoner class, I would suggest the following:

Weapons Skills
Piercing (ranger capped)
Slashing (ranger capped)
Shield use (ranger capped)
Parry (branched like a ranger, low cap then a ranger)
Guard (branched, ranger capped)
Duel wielding (ranger capped)

Crafting Skills*
Basket Weaving (merchant capped)
Cooking (merchant capped)
Dyeing (merchant cap)
Tanning (merchant cap)
Rope making (merchant cap)
Skin (warrior cap)
Tool making (merchant cap)
Weaving (I didn't even know this skill existed to be honest, uh, merchant cap)
Bandage making (merchant cap)
Lumberjacking (merchant cap)  - missed this the first time through
Woodworking (less then merchant cap)
Cloth Working (less then merchant cap)


Social
Haggle (pick pocket capped)
Value (pick pocket capped)
Listen (pick pocket cap)

Misc
Climb (low cap)
Forage (merchant cap)

*You probably can't start with all of those crafting skills, some of them should probably be branched.

Basically, what you have is a guild that can easily go down the fighting rout and hold their own.  They won't really kick ass, but in a stand up fight could hold their own against anyone except a warrior.  A ranger still rocks them in combat do to their support skills.  You have a guild that can go down the crafting rout, but isn't going to get into the big money making skills like armor, weapons, and high end clothing.  You have a guild that can easily become an aid/advisor who has some social skills, a few useful crafting skills (like cooking), and still knows which end of the dagger is the pointed end.  

This guild isn't going to out money make a merchant, it isn't going to out fight a warrior or a ranger, and it certainly isn't going to compete with any of the thieves.  What it will do is allow for a good well rounded guild that any n00b could pick and feel pretty safe that they could get a job somewhere doing just about anything.  This guild would fit in with the Byn as easily as it would fit in with a noble or merchant house agent or merchant.  For us older folks it fills the "I am a crafter, yet I still know which end of the dagger is the sharp one" niche.  It also lets us older folks live out some diverse character lives.  You might very well start in the Byn and use the money you make to fulfill your life long dream or opening up your own basket store or whatever.

Clearly, people will argue that this class is not needed and that you can approximate it with what is out there or special app it.  I completely agree.  This isn't needed at all and you could simply special app it.  That said, it sure as hell wouldn't hurt and I can think of more then one character concept that this class would work perfectly with.  As a bonus, it would be real easy to tell a n00b to try the commoner class if they are having a hard time deciding which class to pick as they can do just about anything.

[Angela Christine]

Woodworking (less then merchant cap)

Woodworking, but not lumberjacking?  

Skill Lumberjacking  (Skill)  


This is the art of turning raw wood into planks or other items from which things can be crafted.

[snip]

Example:

>craft log into several long planks

Many woodworking recipies require products of the lumberjacking skill.



Hmm, this is odd:  

Skill Wood Working  (Skill)  

This is the art of turning pieces of wood into finished items.

Syntax:

craft (item1) (item2) into (desired result)

Example:

> craft plank into wooden box
> craft plank panel into bahamet-carved wooden chest
> craft log into set of long poles

I thought lumberjacking was the skill that made those much-coveted poles.  Oh well.



Angela Christine

[X-D]

It looks alright to me, though, I'd make it lumberjacking instead of woodworking. Besides, always a demand for planks and poles and stuff.

Also, I'd NEVER give them dual wield at ranger cap...maybe assassin cap.

And many of the others I think should be just barely above subguild caps...many of which are not that bad.

But merchant caps on crafting, no, simply too high then. And I really have a hard time seeing parry, even branched low on a commoner class, a skill that is pretty hard for rangers and assassins to get.

[Larrath]

Rindan's post made me realize something about that guild that gives only super basic skills but lets you pick three subguilds idea: it simply overpowered.

Think about it.  Instead of making a merchant, you simply pick that guild and get your minimal fighting skills.  For subguilds you pick Tailor, Jeweler and Stonecrafter.  Not only are you able to forage for stones and be able to use 95% of all the objects you pick up, ever, you can also turn those profits into raw linen (not to mention silk later) and, combined with the Haggle skill you get, become pretty damn rich before hitting 10 days playtime.
You have all the gemstone buttons you'll ever need, and with three highly developed crafting subguilds you'll always have something to sell to the shops.
A character like this would simply become a monetary powerhouse, a 40 day Merchant at 5 days played.


Back closer to our topic - the guild Rindan suggested with its skill also seems unbalanced to me on the strong side, mostly because of the crafting abilities.  I really think we should aim for the simplest jack-of-all-trades commoner here, so they would get this:

Combat: overall fighting skill starts comparable to Burglar and generally hits its cap at the 10-day warrior level, so a regular commoner would almost never be able to take out a raptor but could still work in a group and help.

Slashing Weapons
Bludgeoning Weapons
Piercing Weapons
Subdue (subguild-level cap)
Guard (Guard-subguild cap)
Branch - Parry

Manipulation:
Riding
Bandaging (very low cap)
Branch - Piloting

Perception:
Listen
Branch - Scan (low cap)

Languages:
Sirihish
Allundean (starts out very low - regular piss-poor commoners would be more exposed to elves)

Crafting:
Cooking
Bandagemaking (low cap)


My other idea about the Commoner guild is to give them good combat skills but start them off VERY low, so at first they'd be indistinguishable from merchants and, more importantly, magickers.  Throw a wrench at those people that wonder how come that lousy fighter can't speak Cavilish.

[Sir Diealot]

I like Larrath's suggestion.

Also.. what about a magicker subguild?

Very low, very basic spells, with maybe a cap -just- above branch, and one or two second tier spells, but almost nothing else.

Maybe limit it to not-warriors., as a warrior/krathisub would be.. insane.

Limit it, as well, to karma-equivalent, ie.. krathis can choose krathisub.. etc. etc. etc.

[Larrath]

Also.. what about a magicker subguild?
...
Limit it, as well, to karma-equivalent, ie.. krathis can choose krathisub.. etc. etc. etc.

I don't think that a magicker subguild would make sense if the True Explanation and Reason for elementalists was consulted.  Beyond that, it's also been stated by a staffer that the biggest reason why magickers have such crappy combat skills is because of game balance, and I pretty much tend to agree.

Even if the subguild only gave access to the spelltree's six starting spells, it would simply be too much.  Krathi is an incredibly good example for why this would be unbalanced, and Rukkian is another good one.  If you give a ranger or an assassin the first six spells from the Krathi or the Rukkian tree, you'd get hideously powerful characters almost from the get-go.  Hell, take a regular Merchant and add a few Whiran spells in there?  I haven't even touched Vivaduan yet and I don't even wanna know what a Burglar/Drovian or Ranger/Nilazi could pull off.

And those are just first tier spells - if you give a ranger access to 2nd level Krathi spells then each one of them would become an unstoppable force in under a month.

So, in summary, no to magick subguilds.  It's simply too much and might not make sense anyway.

[Bebop]

I personally like the idea of no guilds.  Then you would have to  choose specfically what it is your character is going to do in life.  I think the guilds we have now should be more like subguilds.

You have a basic character that has the potential to do anything.  You work on combat enough you get warrior fighting skills, disarm, bash kick.  Or you can pick warrior as your subguild and start off with those things.

You pick ranger subguild and you start off with scan and perfect ride.  Otherwise you start off with regular ride same way as anyone else and you branch scan from hunt and then you branch your other ranger attributes from there.  Things like that.

To each subguild you picked you would get bonuses to what you learn easier.  A warrior subguild would start out being able to fight well, crafter crafting well and certain bonuses to certain strengths like wisdom.  Basically how it is now in a lot of ways just not to say you character can't potentially learn anything they want.

It would take a lot of reforming but it would be more realisitic in the sense that maybe I want to have a warrior and I play that warrior in a House for ten game years then some unforceen disaster occures, I have to desert and suddenly I'm helpless in the woods.  You would have to learn to hunt, scan, forage things like that but you would just be at a disadvantage to learning.

Maybe a hunter class gets promoted or transferred to be a merchant, and their superiors want them to help in the crafting hall (I have seen this a few times).  Now that person can.  It certainly would be less easy to weed out magickers.

As for magickers, they would pick that subguild, and develop all of their spells as they normally would, they would get a huge decrease to learning other abilities in the game and combat and a bonus to wisdom (for obvious reasons since they are so powerful without any added quirks).  But in Armageddon who is to say that a magicker can't go pick up a sword and start learning to swing it?  Even if he's naturally more physically weak, who's to say they can't learn to defend themselves.  All the more reason for magickers to be truly, feared.

Also I still think that you should be able to choose a skill you get a bonus to (that will not give any of your other skills a negative) or have the ability to reroll one skill that way if you have a great character you don't have to hate them for something like they are below average strength and you would just need average to pull a bow.

I know these ideas are a big difference, but we got rid of the level code and now we're based on percentage.  So it's really not that extreme.  My ideas will probably never and maybe shouldn't happen but there they are.  I just think that just like in real life, people should have the potential to learn anything.  People could pay more to be trained in different ways, people could have their specalities and do trade more efficiently on a personal level.  Especially crafters.

[X-D]

I don't like no guilds.

Reason being is that currently the way balance is achieved currently on game is that each guild is simply the best at what they do..period.

I like this. I would be happy if it was to an even greater degree and is one of the reasons I think the two rogue guilds should be combined into one.

I like that warriors are simply the BEST no holds barred in your face combat people. That rangers are given all the skills needed to be the best in wilderness living, that assasins can be the best sneaky death chars ETC ETC.

It helps for many things, employabilty and such and specialy means that no char ever gets to the point where they need not fear other PC's.

[Marauder Moe]

It's been shown time and time again that classless (skill-based) systems tend  to produce less character diversity than class-based.

[jhunter]

Yeah, and I personally can't stand the class-less systems I've tried.

[Rindan]

Back closer to our topic - the guild Rindan suggested with its skill also seems unbalanced to me on the strong side, mostly because of the crafting abilities.  I really think we should aim for the simplest jack-of-all-trades commoner here, so they would get this:

Stuff

Larrath, I don't see a point to the commoner skills you are suggesting.  Rangers can have every single one of those skills.  Warriors can have all of those skills except scan and listen.  Why not just pick a warrior or ranger and do all of those things better?

The point of the guild I suggested was to person that can really do anything, but not excel at anything.  Sure they have a lot of crafting skills, but is rope making, basket weaving, and tool making really big money makers?  The only two "money makers" are wood working and cloth working, both of which would have a lower cap then a merchant.

[Lazloth]

It's been shown time and time again that classless (skill-based) systems tend  to produce less character diversity than class-based.

Where?

[Marauder Moe]

I read a lot of game design articles and interviews with game designers.  Games that have gone from classed to classless or vice versa during beta tests usually show that the class system has more character diversity.  The most recent example I've read of this was in an interview with Jack Emmert, the lead designer of City of Heroes.

Class systems force you to inherit some weaknesses in your character.  In classless systems, players tend to end up with skill groups that tend to minimize weaknesses.

If Armageddon, for instance, warriors tend to be at a disadvantage living in the wilderness due to sandstorms and lack of foraging.  If we had a skill-based setup, just about every single person who wants to make a warrior would drop two or three of their weapon skills in exchange for storm navigation and foraging.  Rangers would probably drop other peripheral skills for better combat abilities.  Where previously there were both warriors and rangers, now there's just one type of desert-wandering, tuber-eating, single-weapon-type-wielding monstrosities with a few subtle variations.

Now, by now you've probably come up with an argument that Arm players aren't H&S powergamers.  We're more responsible than that.  While I agree that's true, I still think a skill-based system would hurt the game.  I don't think being an excellent roleplayer and being a devious powergamer are mutually exclusive.  People do like their characters to win conflicts they get in to.  Having a 50-day Byn sergeant is more fun than a 1-day runner who dies on his first mission regardless of how well you roleplay.

Can you people who argue for a skill-based system all honestly tell me that the characters you would build wouldn't be more powerful than existing classes?  Same goes for you who wish a jack of all trades class, commoner class, or a merged burglar and pickpocket.  You want more overall ability in coded skills, yet no balancing coded or roleplayed weaknesses.

[LoD]

I would be interested in seeing a "commoner" class allowed the character to formally switch to a different non-karma class at any time.

For example:

>change class warrior (doable only once from commoner guild)

One of the problems I'll face from time to time is that my background and initial concept don't fit with how the game begins to shape my character.  I may begin a character with the intention of playing him one way, but after some interaction and encounters I realize that I'll be going a completely new direction, one that may not even use or favor my skillset.

An option like the "commoner" class would be appealing to me because I could enter the game with a limited skillset and be allowed to move any direction I wanted, see where my character fit into the grand scheme of things and then formally change once I had a better idea of what I wanted to do with him/her.

If I were to design the class, it would incorporate the first tier skills of a few different classes that could be carried over while the rest were forgotten/lost when you decided to make a career move.

Perhaps something like that what Rindan had suggested:

Weapon skills: Piercing, Chopping (north)
                     Piercing, Slashing (south)
                     Dual Wield (higher south), Shield Use (higher north)

Possible Branch(es): Parry, Guarding, Throw

Crafting skills: Basket Weaving, Lumberjacking (north)
                     Stoneworking, Rope Making (south)

North Branch(es): Woodworking, Instrument making
South Branch(es): Clothworking, Jewelry making

Both: Skinning, Tanning, Cooking, Forage

Social skills: Haggle, Listen

Branch(es): Value

Other skills: Listen, Climb, Sirihish

The class would allow someone to play a variety of roles as a "commoner" but most importantly allow a character the chance to flesh themselves out a bit within the game itself before committing to a lifestyle.  Like many have said, I don't think we need something like this to function, but there have been times when I would've liked the chance to just play for awhile before making my ultimate non-karma class decision.

-LoD

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I definately like LoD's idea. Of course it's not a needed feature, but I definately think it would help us in our goal to further customization and adaptability.

[Sir Diealot]

I quite agree with LoD.

And, to bring back my magicker subguild idea..

Why do you -have- to dedicate your ENTIRE life to magick, if you happen to be touched?

Why is it that a magicker can -never- learn to use a shield, or a club, or make something other than fiery death?

Magickers are PEOPLE first, and Magickers second, even if the element shapes them..  which none of the documentation suggests, unless you read into it a bit too much.. A hot-headed ranger, sub-krathi is still completely IC.

As for balance issues.. Maybe remove some spells?  Give the Krathis one or two spells, with the ability to branch only one more..  Same with all the others, it'd make more rounded characters, with KARMA requiredness, to tone down on twinkage, and such.  Maybe even make the sub-guilds a couple karma higher than the acutal guild.. subVivs at 2 karma, etc..

I just -hate- that my Vivaduan, living in Tuluk, who hates and rarely uses his powers, -cannot- -ever- learn to use a sword any better than a base-skill Ranger, and will be ferreted out, and destroyed because of an entirely OOC concept.

[X-D]

Don't think there should be magicker subguilds.

But, there is no reason why magickers can't learn these things through hard practice, work and study...right now.