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

[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.