Let's add more extended subguilds - Master Spies and Master Bounty Hunters

[Heade]

I posted this in another thread, but I think it'd be better as a standalone topic. Currently there are barriers to having certain skill combinations at all. By allowing these ESGs, it would allow someone to hyper-specialize a character by expending both class and subclass to attain these skill combinations. It'd also be useful to plenty of other characters in order to flesh out concepts. Both from a realism standpoint, and from a fun standpoint, there is no reason concepts that include these combinations of skills shouldn't be possible.

I think adding more extended subclasses could help offset the weaknesses in some of the classes that currently have problems being viewed as viable.

I'd like to see Master Spy - City and Master Spy - Wilderness added as extended subguilds. They could be set up like this:

City:
Master Sneak/Master Hide(City), Advanced Listen(City), Jman Pick, The ability to learn languages quickly.

Wilderness:
Master Sneak/Master Hide(Wilderness), Advanced Listen(Wilderness), Jman hunt(wilderness), Can Forage Food in the wilderness

I'd also like to see Master Bounty Hunter added as follows:

Master Scan, Master Subdue, Advanced Hunt(City & Wild, branched from scan), Advanced disarm(branched from subdue), increased capacity for alcohol and pain.

I think adding these ESGs would go a long way towards making classes that are currently undervalued more viable.

[Brytta Léofa]

Currently you can't combine master stealth with master combat. Which is also how Arm has class-balanced historically, excepting the last few years after extended subguilds were introduced and before the last rebalancing.

Are you sure you want to change that? 'Cause as much as I want a Fighter with master stealth, I'm comforted by knowing that nobody else has one.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

The militia enforcer/master spy city with branched backstab sneaks up quietly behind you....

Mantishead.

I think it would be awesome if someone could get there, but it seems like staff don't want master anything on subguildsclasses besides crafting skills now, right?

[ShaLeah]

+1 on the Spy

I've already said how I feel about spying. Annnd, you've called for this before too, Heade, and there have been other discussions about spying itself. The loss of Drovians makes creepier spying null (sadness!) but I would love to have a spy guild.


I would even be happy getting all these passive, non-combat skills as a main guild and being forced to take a quasi-combat sub or the ever popular jeweler/tailor to balance out.


It's hard to spy when you don't have the regional accents so I would start with northern and southern accents with the increased ability to learn languages quickly but not as quick as a linguist itself. If I were to pick spy subguild I would totally go nomad linguist. SUPER AIDE.


I would prefer they soup up the existing Bounty Hunter and charge 2 creation points than add an additional Bounty Hunter sub.

[Dresan]

Poison master (alternatively aide) - 2 karma

A poison master isn't often the person who does the deed rather they are often the merchant who sells the instruments of other's demise to the unscrupulous. They are masters of poisoning as well as brewing poisons and cures. They can forage for ingredients to advanced and prepares herbs they find with floristy. Due to their dealings with criminals and those that prefer to remain obscure a poison master is always alert for potential dangers to themselves and can develop mastery in city listen and scan to an advanced level.

I would drop listen if something like alchemy was ever implemented and give them that instead. I might also give them direction sense, mostly due to their need to go forage for herbs and sometimes move about in the dark of night.

[Vex]

Those subs have almost as many masters, as some main classes.

Tbh, about all we need, is a non-combat outdoor stealth esg. Atm, all we have is Outdoorsman, and that's 2kp, which is pretty overpriced for what you get. Same with most of the 2k esgs, though.

That's the only real deficit, esg wise, imo.

Drifter:
Advanced sneak (outdoor) > Advanced hide (outdoor)
Advanced direction sense > Advanced search
Advanced climb


Sort of a tack-on to any class, you want to make desert-savvy.

Adding it to already stealth-primary classes, has the drawback of a lot of redundancy. More for fighters, soldiers and similar classes.

[Dresan]

Survivalist- 1~2 karma

A survivalist rarely wander far away from their cities or outposts. However when it comes to surviving they have small skills to help them take every advantage. They often know how to skin a corpse when its encountered and can sneak to ambush a small animal, eventually they learn to spot small animals to an advanced level. They can often make it back home if weather turns worse. They know how to  brew cures for poisons they encounter and eventually learn to put those poisons to good use.

Advanced sneak, skin, direction sense, and brew (1 karma) if you add scan and/or poison (2 karma)

[Heade]

Those subs have almost as many masters, as some main classes.

Master hide + master sneak isn't "almost as many masters as some main classes". They have so much synergy that they almost should be 1 skill anyhow. Even the class with the lowest number of master skills gets 5 non-psi skills at master, and that's the jack of all trades, master of none that is the laborer, that gets 31 other skills at advanced.

2 skills at master isn't OP compared to the current ESGs. It just fills a different niche: Stealth.

Currently, only 2 main classes out of 15 can get master stealth, and there is no other way to get it via subguild or extended subguild. This severely limits character concepts in which that is a key element, along with something else that isn't featured in one of the 2 core classes that have it. I think it's in our best interest for future growth of the game to leave such possibilities open.

Master stealth and master combat isn't really that big of a deal unless they also have master backstab, which would only be available with a single class in the game if they were to introduce these ESGs: Enforcer. And that would make enforcer so hyper-specialized that they'd basically be capable of little else. It's a tradeoff of utility for hyper-specialized killing power. I'm perfectly ok with that tradeoff. To be clear, this is exactly what an enforcer would get from taking one of the "spy" ESGs:

+1 level hide, +1 level sneak, advanced listen(city), and the ability to pick up languages. That's not a huge difference from their core class. The only new skill is listen. So that basically leaves them as an Enforcer+, rather than an Enforcer with a subguild that expands their number of useable skills.

[Brokkr]

There is a formula to cap skills out on ESG, that is based on skill category and what the ESG level is vs Class level.

So their stealth wouldn't be any better than rogue, cutpurse or slipknife, which are all the same.

Not looking to deviate from that.

[Vex]

2 skills at master isn't OP compared to the current ESGs. It just fills a different niche: Stealth.

I'm not being down on your ideas, but rather, pointing out so much master skills, would be in the face how the system in place. I don't think there are any subs with master skills, that aren't for custom crafts.

Tbh, advanced stealth is adequate, for most needs. I feel like it gets a bad rap.

[Cind]

Staff has said that they are overhauling the subguilds in order to adapt them to the main guilds.

Let us suggest our hearts out hmm?

What about a Red Storm crafter subguild? Clothworking, leatherworking, armormaking. Maybe a touch of bendune.

[only_plays_tribals]

Scholar subguild for 2 KP

Sirihish, allundean and mirukkim,  + Read/Write 

[Cind]

We absolutely need a read/write extended subguild.

[only_plays_tribals]

What about a wilderness treasure hunter sub.. like

Explorer

While most individuals travel the wastes with the aid of a beast to bear their burdens, explorers prefer traversing the land on their own two feet. Used to walking long distances, explorers tire slower and recover faster while pursuing what hidden treasures might be found in the wilds. They are confident climbers, quick to pick out a potential threat or boon and comfortable making camp to rest during their journey.

advanced search, advanced scan, advanced climb, reduced fatigue when walking, good recovery when resting outside, able to quit outside

[Heade]

their stealth wouldn't be any better than rogue, cutpurse or slipknife, which are all the same.

Not looking to deviate from that.

That is a bit different, since those subs are focused on other things with stealth being supplemental to what they do(lockpicking, stealing, backstabbing). With these, stealth is the entire point/focus. No reason to make them the same. The entire point is to allow master hide/sneak if someone wants to focus their sub on it and spend the karma.

[Brokkr]

Let me maybe be more clear.  Those subclasses used to have different levels of stealth.  They were standardized to have the same level of stealth.

Subclasses at the 0-karma level that got stealth also were standardized to the same level, albeit lower than ESG level.

[Riev]

All you need is Master hide, advanced listen, MAYBE lockpicking, climb is a trick to get you killed, and language learning.

Wilderness version maybe sacrifice lockpicking for something similar... search, or a high scan?

"spying" isn't hard if you have top hide and listen. You may only need sneak/shadow to follow them to the talking place, but I submit that sneak is the worst skill in the game for stealth.

[Dresan]

I do want to see a wilderness subguild with increased stamina regen. You already get tolerance to pain with gladitor, wish we could get that for outlaw or survivalist subguild or as an improvement to outdoorsman

[Dresan]

In the past we had three different city guilds so it was each to take some of defining skills from each set into extended subguilds slipknife (assassin), cut-purse (pickpocket), rogue (burglar).

Outdoorsman was supposed to be that for ranger but as we know its outdated as is perhaps hunter.

As mentioned in another thread, don't think there should be anymore karma 2 mundane sub-guilds, not after Classes got implemented as such these would all be karma 1:

roughrider (raider)- just add direction sense and make it karma 1
Outdoorsman (scout): Start advanced slingshot and then branch archery, remove skinning and the rest of the skills remain the same.
survivalist (stalker): sneak, hide, direction sense, wilderness listen or forage food wilderness, skinning and brewing.

[Kryos]

I'm not a fan of(and more importantly don't think it'll help the game) a lot of the suggestions in this thread save that of a R/W subclass.  It should probably be karma because anyone who needs to r/w can.

I am a big fan of the idea of the ESC and normal subclasses alike getting a 'common sense' pass.  It seems to be that many players would be happy with just 3 - 6 subguilds and then 3 - 6 more could be oriented towards 'fun' ideas rather than 'WTF why can't I do x when I want to.'  ESG naturally extend that concept.  This would help alleviate the 'I don't have karma so I don't want to play' group and in a positive way.

To end on a happy note  I like(or more importantly find it good for the game) what Brokkr did about normalizing skills (including stealth ones) between sc and esc.  I just hope they are tuned to the level that you just don't cap out while still being able to do nothing but fail (which is a problem for some skills).  I don't have enough personal data to know an answer yet.

[Dresan]

I think that with the recent magick subclass buff, plus the class changes that mundane certain subguild some love.

Regardless, every subguild we have adds to the game, especially since how we acquire those additional skills or what we intend to do with them  can potentially define our characters and our game experience even within similar class and race choices.

Thus I believe that any new balanced and well thought out subguild addition only adds more content, rp potential and longevity to the game. 

[AdamBlue]

Sneak ESG:
Gives Advanced Sneak, Hide, Scan, and Listen for both city and wild. You'll never be as sneaky as the devoted boys, but you can sneak anywhere and everywhere.

[ShaLeah]

I'm not a fan of the literacy r/w anything but sirihish because  nobles are the only ones who are literate.  Cavilish isn't supposed to be an elaborate language though we use it as such ig.

Elves and dwarves aren't, nor have ever been tmk, literate so on the absolutely ridiculous chance that one of  them somehow managed to learn how to write and read sirihish from some fucked up noble or some abominable magick methods the allundean and mirrukim (sp?) would have not only been invented by those lesser races but kept clandestinely enough that they could have been developed, discovered and subsequently 'removed from history' by the scholars and kept only to the cities.

It doesn't make ic sense for THAT.

Playing devil's advocate, you could mayyybe have some eccentric noble make up a way to r/w lesser races languages so they can communicate in secret, but .. why? They'd have to teach it to whomever they wanted to communicate with and eventually, cause this is Zalanthas, everyone would find out and then Highlord forbid suddenly you have lesser races reading and writing their own language, human supremacy stops and we step away even MORE from Zalanthas and closer to the real world.

I'm good with a set of scholarly subguilds for NOBLES only.  Anything that has been held in captivity and studied by breeders could feasibly be learned so maybe a master linguist that has the merchant tongue, gith and mantis and a realllllly high ability to learn others.  R/W them? Nope. Don't think it fits.

[Cerelum]

I'm not a fan of the literacy r/w anything but sirihish because  nobles are the only ones who are literate.  Cavilish isn't supposed to be an elaborate language though we use it as such ig.

Elves and dwarves aren't, nor have ever been tmk, literate so on the absolutely ridiculous chance that one of  them somehow managed to learn how to write and read sirihish from some fucked up noble or some abominable magick methods the allundean and mirrukim (sp?) would have not only been invented by those lesser races but kept clandestinely enough that they could have been developed, discovered and subsequently 'removed from history' by the scholars and kept only to the cities.

It doesn't make ic sense for THAT.

Playing devil's advocate, you could mayyybe have some eccentric noble make up a way to r/w lesser races languages so they can communicate in secret, but .. why? They'd have to teach it to whomever they wanted to communicate with and eventually, cause this is Zalanthas, everyone would find out and then Highlord forbid suddenly you have lesser races reading and writing their own language, human supremacy stops and we step away even MORE from Zalanthas and closer to the real world.

I'm good with a set of scholarly subguilds for NOBLES only.  Anything that has been held in captivity and studied by breeders could feasibly be learned so maybe a master linguist that has the merchant tongue, gith and mantis and a realllllly high ability to learn others.  R/W them? Nope. Don't think it fits.

Where did this rant come from? I'm trying to figure out what caused this literacy outburst in this thread and don't see it.

[th3kaiser]

Scroll up a bit. It's there.

[Brokkr]

Sneak ESG:
Gives Advanced Sneak, Hide, Scan, and Listen for both city and wild. You'll never be as sneaky as the devoted boys, but you can sneak anywhere and everywhere.

The subclass you are looking for (or at least, as close as you can get) is Touched Whiran.  Strangely.  Must be magick.

[Jihelu]

Hey!....

I'll have you know Touched Whiran doesn't get advanced hide.

But yeah its basically that

[Hauwke]

Pretty sure the lesser race languages have written forms, so you know.

[John]

Pretty sure the lesser race languages have written forms, so you know.

But I dont know if there are any written samples of the language in the whole world.

[oggotale]

I can't be the only one that finds this way too overpowered?

[AdamBlue]

Gimme a 0 Karma subguild that gives journeyman parry, apprentice knife-making, throwing weapons, and piercing weapons to represent a 'Shivver',  a low-down dirty crook who has practiced his skill with knives to a decent degree enough to take most regular folk in a knife fight, or someone who often fancies himself a knife collector or provacateur.

[Bogre]

Something that might fit in thematically (and callback to our old legacy subguild):

Rebel ESG

The rebel is skilled at avoiding the long reach of the cities' retribution and eluding bounty hunters sent to collect their heads. They are skilled at fomenting anger in those with divided loyalties and in stirring trouble for the established society.

Rebels start play with sneak, hide, watch, scan, and forage. With sufficient experience skulking through the wastes, rebels become familiar with navigation and develop a keen sense of direction. With skill in concealing themselves and their stores, they can learn how to search out even the most cleverly hidden caches. The most resourceful of rebels will eventually learn how to equip themselves from what they can forage in the wastes.

------

Scaled roughly equal to Outdoorsman. Different ways to make it branch, obviously, but I'd probably do:

Start: Sneak/Hide/Watch/Scan/forage -> advanced
Branch:
Sneak->Direction Sense
Hide->Search
Forage-> spear-making, armor repair- journeyman

- Wilds Sneak/Hide
- Forage food in wilds
- Forage artifacts

[Jihelu]

I'm pretty sure everyone can forage for artifacts

[Inks]

Yeah imms specifically dont want master combat with master hide/ sneak. My god I miss assassin though, I totally understand their reasons. I did kill a lot of people with that last assassin, without being in danger ever of being spotted. Not to mention how op dem rangers were. I get why imms did this.

[Heade]

Yeah imms specifically dont want master combat with master hide/ sneak. My god I miss assassin though, I totally understand their reasons. I did kill a lot of people with that last assassin, without being in danger ever of being spotted. Not to mention how op dem rangers were. I get why imms did this.

I can understand it to some degree. However, assassins were a pretty big grind to get them viable. In any case, I don't think there should be a hard ban on having both master backstab and master stealth. They're sort of a complimentary pair and it doesn't make sense not to have them available together at all. My suggestion is to require someone to hyper-specialize in order to have both by making an ESG like Master Spy with master stealth. This would allow the combo to exist without granting very much to the classes that would have said combo, since most skills in the "Master Spy" ESG would overlap with skills that classes that have backstab already get. Essentially, they'd be dumping the versatility of a subguild in exchange for a skillbump to 2 skills.

[kahuna]

Scholar subguild for 2 KP

Sirihish, allundean and mirukkim,  + Read/Write 

Seconding this but only for sirihish. I think since sirihish is the commmon tongue learning to read and write it would be far more likely. Reading and writing in allundean or mirukkim (Im pretty sure dwarves don't have a written language per the docs), should be spec app.

[Heade]

Scholar subguild for 2 KP

Sirihish, allundean and mirukkim,  + Read/Write 

Seconding this but only for sirihish. I think since sirihish is the commmon tongue learning to read and write it would be far more likely. Reading and writing in allundean or mirukkim (Im pretty sure dwarves don't have a written language per the docs), should be spec app.

Personally, since reading/writing is illegal everywhere, I'd suggest that the "scholar" subguild get none of this, and instead get access to a unique command of "study", which allows them to either study a document, or study a person. When studying a document, it allows them the ability to gain skill in read/write, and whatever language the document was written in. When studying a person, it gives them a bonus to learning the language that the person is speaking. This would allow a "scholar" to gain those skills organically through play as they're exposed to them in game.

[kahuna]

Scholar subguild for 2 KP

Sirihish, allundean and mirukkim,  + Read/Write 

Seconding this but only for sirihish. I think since sirihish is the commmon tongue learning to read and write it would be far more likely. Reading and writing in allundean or mirukkim (Im pretty sure dwarves don't have a written language per the docs), should be spec app.

Personally, since reading/writing is illegal everywhere, I'd suggest that the "scholar" subguild get none of this, and instead get access to a unique command of "study", which allows them to either study a document, or study a person. When studying a document, it allows them the ability to gain skill in read/write, and whatever language the document was written in. When studying a person, it gives them a bonus to learning the language that the person is speaking. This would allow a "scholar" to gain those skills organically through play as they're exposed to them in game.

If you're going to add a whole new command then anyone should be able to unlock read/write by 'studying' documents. If they have the requisite wisdom score, let's say exceptional is the minimum then they have a chance to branch it. I don't really support this as I disdain learning skills in this manner. The whole point of guilds/subguilds is to explain what you're PC has done for the past 20-30-40 years of their life, these skills represent decades of practice. I don't like the idea of letting people branch read and write with a command.

[Brokkr]

In order to start the process on learning to read/write, you will need to involve staff.

[kahuna]

In order to start the process on learning to read/write, you will need to involve staff.

So that's a hard no on a read/write subguild? I'm assuming the reasoning is to keep the capability among nobility and templars exclusively?

[Brokkr]

There are a limited number of IC means to pursue this avenue.

It is not something we want people to make up stories to justify, but rather pursue IG with appropriate IC risks.

[kahuna]

There are a limited number of IC means to pursue this avenue.

It is not something we want people to make up stories to justify, but rather pursue IG with appropriate IC risks.

Understandable, I appreciate an official response.

[Heade]

There are a limited number of IC means to pursue this avenue.

It is not something we want people to make up stories to justify, but rather pursue IG with appropriate IC risks.

I agree, which is why I said the subclass shouldn't auto-give read/write, but rather give people the opportunity to learn it if they can find documents IG to study. Glad this can be done now through staff interaction.

[Xeran Van Houten]

I think that, possibly more importantly than adding more ESG, some of the current ones need to be reviewed for the current state of the game and either reworked or reduced in cost.

Specifically I am thinking of Marksman, Protector, Rough Rider, and Outdoorsman. Fairly certain all cost 2 karma, but none provide master skills. Under the guild system they were very powerful (for the most part), but now that every class has some weapon and combat skills they are extremely lackluster. Even the full-crafter classes can come extremely close to some of the values provided by these ESGs. One can get the same results of choosing one of these subguild by simply moving up, or possibly laterally, on the matrix, and then choose a different subguild to make up the difference (and possibly provide a wider arsenal of skills) with little to no impact on character concept.

[Heade]

I think that, possibly more importantly than adding more ESG, some of the current ones need to be reviewed for the current state of the game and either reworked or reduced in cost.

Specifically I am thinking of Marksman, Protector, Rough Rider, and Outdoorsman. Fairly certain all cost 2 karma, but none provide master skills. Under the guild system they were very powerful (for the most part), but now that every class has some weapon and combat skills they are extremely lackluster. Even the full-crafter classes can come extremely close to some of the values provided by these ESGs. One can get the same results of choosing one of these subguild by simply moving up, or possibly laterally, on the matrix, and then choose a different subguild to make up the difference (and possibly provide a wider arsenal of skills) with little to no impact on character concept.

In general, I agree that points costs for ESGs are excessive. The current system was decided that "combat abilities" were more powerful than social and utility abilities, so any ESG with a combat ability was priced at 2 karma. As I've stated in the past, I disagree with this perspective in general.

Personally, I'd like to move us to a 4 karma system, where all new players start with a point of karma, and only lose it if they're found to be abusing something or otherwise incapable of being given even a modicum of trust. Then make all ESGs 1 karma. That would allow new players to get a taste of the ESGs without having the ability to spam them, and would continue to make ESGs "special" from 0 karma subclasses by limiting how often you could make one.

All other karma costs would then increase by 1, so everything else would essentially stay the same. It might require a slight re-working of how often karma regenerates in order for high karma players to keep their current "karma cycles" the same in terms of time, but I think it'd otherwise be an easy, all-around improvement to the game.

Not sure how difficult it would be to give all registered players an automatic +1 karma though. I'd imagine it to be pretty easy, but I'm not certain.

[LindseyBalboa]

It only takes a short while to get a karma point and the way it is now it lets players learn the ins and outs of what's available to them while getting excited about what's next. A new player could special app a karma subguild if they want; I don't think it should be changed, and I am a newer player.

However, the 2 karma mundane ESGs make little sense to me. If they're a hold over from the previous guild system, then I get it. They're not especially great though and if I have 2 karma I'm definitely not wasting them on a subguild than lets me trample. I think they should just drop down to 1 or be reworked to be more worthwhile of a year and a half's play in karma points.

[Alesan]

I would love to see most of the ESGs get bumped down to 1 karma, but we will likely never see it. I understand why staff are firm on combat skills being more expensive.

It's much easier to backstab, poison, dart, arrow and generally beat someone to death than it is to roleplay them to death.

[Heade]

It's much easier to backstab, poison, dart, arrow and generally beat someone to death than it is to roleplay them to death.

I think that this is entirely subjective depending on the person. I know people who absolutely suck at coded combat, but who can literally RP you into an intricate death trap by leveraging utility/social elements of their character to have clout. As a matter of fact, most PCs who can get you killed the easiest, with the fewest repercussions and the least fear of reprisal are characters who are able to do so as a result of utility and social RP/position.

Being able to stab someone to death is useful, sure. But the vast majority of people able to do this aren't ALLOWED to do this, and are thus far more limited in scope of ambition than people who acquire power through other means. The number of truly frightening "stabby guys", in my opinion, is dwarfed by the number and scope of the scary social characters in the game.

An independent stabby guy might be dangerous in a locked apartment, or other rather limited circumstances because they can kill you in secret.
Scary social characters can have you executed in the street with a thousand witnesses.