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.