Mundane Grandmastery Subguilds

[MeTekillot]

Subguilds exclusive to the proposed Role Based Guilds, or alternatively, to the current guilds based on their position within the Utility/Stealth/Combat axis.

These mastery subguilds would only take effect when you reach a certain level of skill within the guild (master). Possibly, they would also cause you to learn skills in those guilds even faster than the current guild boosts to skill learning rates, such as Fighters becoming more effective at combat sooner.


Combat Grandmastery
Applies to most skills beneath the combat marquee. Specifically, these skills would receive these effects.

• BACKSTAB


• If your target survives a backstab, their walking speed is halved for one in-game hour. They are unable to run, except to escape combat. Upon entering a new room, they are automatically slowed to walking speed. They cannot 'flee self'.
• Successfully fleeing causes your opponent to lose five hp.
• They cannot be bandaged until their penalty to their movement speed elapses.
• When using the 'threaten' command, you may specify backstab as your maneuver of choice. This requires you to successfully complete the skillcheck to backstab them.
• Your backstabs will respect your mercy settings. If you would have killed them, you instead leave them with 10 hp.

• SAP


• An opponent who is successfully sapped loses six points of wisdom and four points of agility for one in-game day.
• An opponent who is successfully sapped cannot use the Way or cast magick for one in-game hour. If they are knocked unconscious, this extends to one in-game day.
• As backstab, when using the 'threaten' command.
• As backstab, as pertains to mercy settings. If you would have knocked them unconscious, you leave them with 10 stun and they cannot recover stun unless they sleep. If they would have been knocked unconscious, they receive the one day restriction on Waying and magick use.

• PARRY


• If you would fail to reverse a combat skill used against you (kick, bash, subdue, disarm), you instead now have a chance to parry it like any attack. Anyone having their combat maneuvers parried would suffer a small amount of damage. NOTE: You cannot parry charge attempts while dismounted, and you cannot parry bash attempts from opponents you cannot subdue.
• Your penalties to defense in group combat scenarios only begin at 5-6 adversaries, instead of the current three.
• You may attempt to parry attempts to backstab/sap you. You will still suffer damage, although reduced, if you succeed. NOTE: This does not counter grandmastery in these skills.

• BASH


• You no longer lose your footing if you miss a bash attempt.
• You may now 'bash' opponents into other rooms, in a similar manner to current carru charges. If you miss this advanced maneuver, you lose your footing.

• KICK


• Your kicks have a chance to stun opponents.
• Your kicks do more damage.
• You will target all current opponents when kicking with no arguments.

• DUAL WIELD


• You have a small chance to make three attacks per combat round when using this style.
• You can attempt to draw a weapon with no delay, upon a successful skill check contested by your opponent's offense. If you are not in combat, this skill check always succeeds. You may only do so using a single-handed grip. Drawing a weapon with a two-handed grip would not benefit from this.

• TWO HANDED


• If you reverse an attempt to disarm you, you have a small chance of also knocking your opponent down.
• Attempts to disarm you that are successful have a chance to simply deposit the weapon in your inventory instead.

• GUARDING


• You may specify a combat maneuver to perform whenever you succeed in guarding someone or something.
• If you have the 'rescue' skill, you will automatically attempt it once without incurring a delay if you fail your initial guard attempt.

• CROSSBOW USE


• Crossbows within your strength range are loaded instantly.
• Your strength range is increased by four points, for the purposes of loading crossbows, otherwise. This bonus is increased to seven points for dwarves.

• THROW


• You have a chance to disarm an opponent.
• Your delay after a throw attempt is halved.

• RIPOSTE


• You no longer receive a penalty to riposte a nonhuman adversary.
• You can now riposte against any attacker that you parry, instead of only your primary opponent.

• DISARM


• You can specify 'me' as a third argument when disarming, to have the weapon deposited in your inventory instead of the room or an adjacent room.

• HACK


• For non-shield success, your damage to their armor is doubled.
• For shield success, you have an attempt to disarm them of their shield.

• SHIELD USE


• When someone you are guarding is attacked, you have a small chance to block the attack, even if you did not successfully guard them.
• If you are in combat with the same target as a clanmate, you have a small chance to block their attacks if they attack your clanmate.
• The same features for parry, as pertains to skills used against you that you do not successfully reverse. NOTE: You may successfully block charge attempts while dismounted, and bash attempts from opponents you cannot subdue. However, you will suffer damage and instead simply not lose your footing or incur delays.

• CHARGE


• You do not lose your balance if you miss a charge attempt.
• You may specify a target in an adjacent room for your charge attack. You will move to that room and instantly attack them with the maneuver. This advanced maneuver has a chance to cause you to lose your balance.

ADDENDUM
Grandmasters cancel each other out. For a skill that does not receive additional grandmaster features, your opponents cannot benefit from grandmastery against you.
EX:
Parry/dual wield/two handed grandmasters cannot be disarmed by a throw grandmaster.
You cannot use parry grandmastery to parry a kick from a kick grandmaster.
A shield use grandmaster cannot lose their shield against a hack grandmaster.
A guard grandmaster does not get their first free rescue attempt when they fail to stop an attack from another guard grandmaster.
A shield use grandmaster cannot successfully bolster an allies' defense against a grandmaster of a given weapon type or style.

Utility Grandmastery
Applies to manipulation skills and stealth skills. This would be metered by only achieving (master) level dependent on their guild skill spread.

• HIDE


• You may attempt to 'hide' to escape combat.
• For every hour you remain hidden in an area, you receive a bonus to your current hide score, up to three times.

• SNEAK


• You do not leave tracks when sneaking in your element.
• Followers who are not chasing or shadowing you benefit from 75% of your sneak skill, if their current knowledge is lesser than that and their size is within two categories of yours.

• HUNT


• CITY: You may 'hunt -v'. On success, you will be told the race of anyone you detect, the approximate value of their equipment as an adjective, and whether they were armed.
• CITY: Notifies you if someone in the area was recently crimflagged. If for casting magick, you are also notified of this. This also applies for rooms in the Labyrinth.
• WILDERNESS: You may 'hunt -v'. On success, you will be told the approximate encumbrance of anyone you detect.
• WILDERNESS: You may 'obscure' tracks in an area. This does not remove them, but does increase tracking difficulty in the area. As well, anyone successful is only told that tracks in the area have been obscured.
• WILDERNESS: When moving with followers, you will automatically make skill checks for your followers to not leave tracks. The difficulty of this check is determined by your followers' size categories' distance from your own. You automatically fail this check for followers that have differing number of legs from you. This does not apply to followers shadowing or chasing you. You may disable this with nosave.

• CLIMB


• You may 'sit' in a climb room without falling. You will still fall if you 'rest'.
• Anyone following you benefits from 75% of your climb skill. Followers farther than two size categories from you benefit from 25% of your climb skill.

• BANDAGE


• You will no longer fail bandage attempts on anyone who is not mortally wounded.
• For anyone besides yourself, your bandages have +2 efficacy.
• You may 'stabilize' mortally wounded people to prevent them from losing hp for one hour. For unconscious people, they lose half of their remaining timer for unconsciousness, or five minutes; whichever is higher.

• PICK


• While wielding a stabbing or slashing weapon with a weight of one stone or less, you may 'jam' a lock open or closed. This echoes to the room on both sides of the door. You will be crim-flagged for this. The lock's status cannot be changed for one in-game hour after being jammed.

• SCAN


• Counters backstab/sap grandmastery.
• +1 range for distance sight in obscured conditions (night time or storms).
• CITY: Quadruples your chance for rooms with witnesses to not crimflag you for a given criminal act, on account of you using situational awareness to pick the right moment.
• WILDERNESS: Notifies you when entering a room that has had items buried from being left on the ground.
• WILDERNESS: Notifies you when entering a room that has had combat recently. 'The local wildlife is especially skittish at the moment.'
• WILDERNESS: Notifies you when entering a room that has had Elementalist casting. 'You notice the air is more humid than is normal./You notice faint scorch marks in a small circle./The scent of ozone hangs in the air./The shadows in this area are slightly too wide./The earth in this area is clumped in staccato patterns./The wind blows in fitful, aberrant patterns.' For Void Elementalist casting, you receive the recent combat message instead.

• WATCH


• When you 'assess -v' someone, you are told if they are currently under a combat logout timer. 'They appear wary and slightly agitated.'
• When you 'assess -v' someone, you are told if they are currently scanning or listening. 'Their eyes dart about alertly./Their head ticks slightly towards nearby noises/conversations.'
• When you 'assess -v' someone, you are told if they are currently under the influence of spice.

• STEAL


• You may attempt to steal while in combat and while sitting.
• You may 'jostle' someone to give them a message about someone failing to steal from them.

• POISONING


• You have a chance to only use 'half' a poison item. This chance does not roll on 'half' poison items.
• You no longer have a chance to poison yourself.

• RIDE


• You may hitch +1 mount.
• If you are knocked unconscious while riding, you will not be dismounted. Instead, your mount will path to the nearest civilization. Alternatively, your mount automatically flees and you are left with 1 hp or stun.
• If your mount runs out of stamina, you may continue riding, with your mount losing hp instead of stamina. Your mount will attempt to throw you for every room past 'poor' condition.

• FORAGE


• You have a 50% chance to find two items on a successful forage attempt. If so, you have a further 10% chance to find three.
• If you can't already, you can forage food in any environment.

• DIRECTION SENSE


• You are able to see in rooms that would otherwise be obscured by storms. You cannot see into adjacent rooms under these conditions.
• If paired with master listen, you are able to detect living beings in dark rooms as 'faint shapes'.

• SLEIGHT OF HAND


• Anyone lacking peek grandmastery cannot see into your inventory unless you are unconscious.
• For purposes of being searched, your inventory is empty.
• This can be disabled with nosave.

Mercantile Grandmastery
Perhaps less impressive than the other two, but still serving to outclass anyone who is not so dedicated to their craft.

• CRAFTING


• Unless you fail the crafting roll, your outputs for most crafts are doubled.
• If you do fail a crafting roll, you have a 50% chance to not destroy your materials.
• Your crafting timers are halved.
• Though you cannot craft them, you are still able to 'analyze' clan-restricted craftables.

• VALUE


• You may 'value' another person to receive a value of everything they are wearing. As well, you are notified of any items they are wearing that are not tailored to their exact size.
• If you value a weapon or armor that you have mastery in the relevant crafting skill for, you are told of its efficacy and whether it would serve to benefit other relevant skills (parry, bash, etc).
• When inside a bank, you have a chance to receive an approximate range of the size of bank accounts for anyone making deposits or withdrawals, in relation to your own account. 'Judging by the clerk's congeniality, you surmise the tall, muscular man's bank account is twice/thrice/half/a quarter the size of yours.' This is not skewed by racial or clan membership, owing to your character's presumed mercantile expertise.

• HAGGLE


• You are able to haggle prices for 25% further. As well, you receive twice as many attempts before the merchant shuts down negotiations in a huff.
• You may 'offer' coins to soldiers to get them to 'follow' you for 50 coins per room. You may attempt the same with Templars, but with an arbitrary number of coins per room, and an offer below their minimum will cause you to be crimflagged. Offering less than the threshold per room will round down the numbers of rooms (99 coins will have the soldier take all the coins and only follow you for one room, for example)

[Ammut]

Just a quick glance over this and there are a lot of cool ideas!

I imagine that some would need to be play tested to ensure feasibility.