Languages
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Tychina
I have done what Nearraba suggested as well, it started out as my role playing teaching them before using the teach command, but then when we did get aorund to the command, it did not work, so I just continued on with the "repeat after me" bit. That is, untill my character couldn't stomach hearing the language mutilated anymore and had to take a break
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Dalvyn
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That might actually be a good start to see whether or not the limit to the number of languages you can learn should be (a) kept, (b) removed, (c) kept with the addition of feats that could increase it, (d) kept and extended to a maximum number of skills you can learn.
I, for one, think that it does not make much sense to be able to learn to cook, to dig, to put fire on much of anything, to recognize spells, to concentrate while fighting, to sneak, to hide, as well as dozens of other activities including manipulating dozens of weapon types, all that with no limit at all while, on the other hand, you cannot learn more then 6-8 languages. Opinions (If there are many answers, I'll move this thread to the skill forum)?
I, for one, think that it does not make much sense to be able to learn to cook, to dig, to put fire on much of anything, to recognize spells, to concentrate while fighting, to sneak, to hide, as well as dozens of other activities including manipulating dozens of weapon types, all that with no limit at all while, on the other hand, you cannot learn more then 6-8 languages. Opinions (If there are many answers, I'll move this thread to the skill forum)?
If there is going to be a skill limit, it ought to be class based...for instance, rangers are supposed to be able to live off the land, so they ought to be able to get cook, slice, ignite, etc. without 'penalty'. If they wanted to learn something like, say, spellcraft, then they would have to expend a 'skill point' (or whatever it is) towards the max number of things they could feasibly learn within x amount of time. Perhaps there could be an x amount of time for hours played?
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Argentia
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Have you ever tried learning more than three languages? It's TOUGH. =P I myself speak English fluently, and also know Latin, German, French, and Japanese.
When learning many languages, it's very difficult to keep them seperate in your mind. This is because there are two seperate parts of the brain that control known language. One stores your native language(s), which are learned at a very young age, and the other stores your secondary languages, which are learned after that age. Secondary languages are not retained or learned nearly as easily as native languages, this simply has to do with language aquisition in developing brains.
The fact that a person in the Mud can grandmaster upwards of 12 languages would be simply astonishing IRL. It is one thing, learning a few basic words of conversation to be able to buy/sell/rent a room ect in a few languages. It is another to be able to speak many languages "fluently."
Anyway, these are just the words of a linguist. =) Take them how you will.
When learning many languages, it's very difficult to keep them seperate in your mind. This is because there are two seperate parts of the brain that control known language. One stores your native language(s), which are learned at a very young age, and the other stores your secondary languages, which are learned after that age. Secondary languages are not retained or learned nearly as easily as native languages, this simply has to do with language aquisition in developing brains.
The fact that a person in the Mud can grandmaster upwards of 12 languages would be simply astonishing IRL. It is one thing, learning a few basic words of conversation to be able to buy/sell/rent a room ect in a few languages. It is another to be able to speak many languages "fluently."
Anyway, these are just the words of a linguist. =) Take them how you will.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and go well with ketchup.
Limiting learnable skills/languages
Based on Int is the way that makes the mose sense to me. The higher your int, the more languages you can learn. I have no problem with someone knowing 8 languages or more; especially is it's a race that lives for 100's of years.
Using a feat to learn past your max could be a neat option.
Using a feat to learn past your max could be a neat option.
Last edited by Exer on Mon Mar 28, 2005 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Dalvyn
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I think it's currently supposed to vary with your Intelligence (only, not Wisdom).Lea wrote:My fighter and Druid can both learn twelve languages at the moment. I also have cleric that has 6 or 8 I can not remember at the moment. My question is this does the amount of languages increase with training of wisdom and intelligence?
While I absolutely, possitutely think that skills, like languages, should be "capped" I dont think it should be placed on the INT stat. Too much "power" would be in the INT stat, and we'd have people min/maxing thier characters with pure intelligence. So lets think about this a little...
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...okay, I got it.
What if skills were, as mentioned, class based...IE: Barbarians would have MORE fighter type skill-points to spend than fighters or rangers, but rangers had more ranger type, and fighter was the middleground. I know I'm not being entirely clear, but an example: tracking for a ranger would be "free" meaning that you only needed the exp and gold neccessary to train the skill. A fighter -could- learn tracking (for appropriate RP purposes) but it would cost him 4 skillpoints to do so. A barbarian could learn tracking, but it would cost 6. Fifth attack would cost a barbarian only gold and exp, while a fighter would pay 2, and a ranger, 5. With proper balancing (IMO it should be more toward realism then game-balancing) that sort of system could VERY MUCH help to seperate one "meatshield" from the next. This can be used in every class and subclass except probably priests, but in my opinion dogma enough should be a HUGE seperation of church to church. Any ideas to develope or destroy my idea? (Great start, btw, Dalvyn. I use a system similar to this in my home-made alternity.)
~Elenthis.
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...okay, I got it.
What if skills were, as mentioned, class based...IE: Barbarians would have MORE fighter type skill-points to spend than fighters or rangers, but rangers had more ranger type, and fighter was the middleground. I know I'm not being entirely clear, but an example: tracking for a ranger would be "free" meaning that you only needed the exp and gold neccessary to train the skill. A fighter -could- learn tracking (for appropriate RP purposes) but it would cost him 4 skillpoints to do so. A barbarian could learn tracking, but it would cost 6. Fifth attack would cost a barbarian only gold and exp, while a fighter would pay 2, and a ranger, 5. With proper balancing (IMO it should be more toward realism then game-balancing) that sort of system could VERY MUCH help to seperate one "meatshield" from the next. This can be used in every class and subclass except probably priests, but in my opinion dogma enough should be a HUGE seperation of church to church. Any ideas to develope or destroy my idea? (Great start, btw, Dalvyn. I use a system similar to this in my home-made alternity.)
~Elenthis.
Far away and across the field, the tolling of the iron bell calls the faithful to their knees to hear the softly spoken magic spell.
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Argentia
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Elenthis, I love this idea! It sticks more to the 3rd ed system of putting skillpoints into, well, skills. There are certain "class skills" which cost little to raise, other allowable skills which cost more, and also skills which cannot be learned. With each level you receive x skill points.(depending on your INT. But I never liked how it depended on INT.=P) I think this would make characters SO unique and customizable!
Problems I foresee:
1) Of course this idea, if implimented, would take lots of coding and lots of time... There might be more important things, IE bringing new areas/classes/races into the game, ect. But this is a matter of opinion regarding priorities...
2) The number of skill points needed may conflict with the current system of skill levels. For example, suppose it takes 2 skill points for a fighter to learn second, third, fourth, and fifth attack. That is quite a few skill points needed to GM those skills! Granted, I am not saying the point of this Mud is to GM skills, not at all. But, the fighter may end up with many half-practiced skills which would account to a shoddy fighter. And that's no fun to play.=(
3) If leveling was the marker when a character recieved his/her skillpoints, then advancing stops at level 50. Also not fun. I know when I first hit L50, it felt like a new beginning!
4) Would this apply to spells? If so, that would severely hamper the spellcasting classes. They would then have to put their skill points into skills *and* spells. They would lose out on this.
Well, I still love the idea for what it's worth.
Problems I foresee:
1) Of course this idea, if implimented, would take lots of coding and lots of time... There might be more important things, IE bringing new areas/classes/races into the game, ect. But this is a matter of opinion regarding priorities...
2) The number of skill points needed may conflict with the current system of skill levels. For example, suppose it takes 2 skill points for a fighter to learn second, third, fourth, and fifth attack. That is quite a few skill points needed to GM those skills! Granted, I am not saying the point of this Mud is to GM skills, not at all. But, the fighter may end up with many half-practiced skills which would account to a shoddy fighter. And that's no fun to play.=(
3) If leveling was the marker when a character recieved his/her skillpoints, then advancing stops at level 50. Also not fun. I know when I first hit L50, it felt like a new beginning!
4) Would this apply to spells? If so, that would severely hamper the spellcasting classes. They would then have to put their skill points into skills *and* spells. They would lose out on this.
Well, I still love the idea for what it's worth.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and go well with ketchup.
Ok, I gave it a little more thought based on your questions, argentia, and here are some possible answers.
1. Its always a matter of opinions reguarding priorities. Do we have object renames, dwellings and personal RP's or Major all-inclusive RP's, new areas, and new quests. Always a sacrafice because we cant have it all (At least not all at once.)
2. The skill-points would only be an initial cost. Once the skill it "learned" it can be trained at the expence of exp and coin (as per the current system)
3. I would like to see kismet play a slightly greater role in characters. Perhapse a system similar to glory where kismet can be spent on extra skill-points could be place into affect? That might help the post-level-50 syndrome too.
4. It would apply to spells if you are a wizard. This is not a remort system (where level 50's can start a second class) its a system to spread CLASS skills through the SUBCLASSES. So rogues would have access to bard, assassin, and thief skills. Warriors would have access to ranger, paladin(limited), barbarian and fighter skills, and wizards would have access to all schools of magic. Which is far more realistic. But consider that for a wizard to learn from the opposite school is impossible, and learning from other schools is more costly, you'll find that it ISNT as overpowering as it seems. As for skills AND spells, they would simply have all of thier skills trainable without cost. Spells would cost. (Note the wizard skill list has maybe 3-4 original skills tops.)
What else have we got? Have I answered the questions well, or should I come up with a differant solution? keep it coming
~Emistal.
1. Its always a matter of opinions reguarding priorities. Do we have object renames, dwellings and personal RP's or Major all-inclusive RP's, new areas, and new quests. Always a sacrafice because we cant have it all (At least not all at once.)
2. The skill-points would only be an initial cost. Once the skill it "learned" it can be trained at the expence of exp and coin (as per the current system)
3. I would like to see kismet play a slightly greater role in characters. Perhapse a system similar to glory where kismet can be spent on extra skill-points could be place into affect? That might help the post-level-50 syndrome too.
4. It would apply to spells if you are a wizard. This is not a remort system (where level 50's can start a second class) its a system to spread CLASS skills through the SUBCLASSES. So rogues would have access to bard, assassin, and thief skills. Warriors would have access to ranger, paladin(limited), barbarian and fighter skills, and wizards would have access to all schools of magic. Which is far more realistic. But consider that for a wizard to learn from the opposite school is impossible, and learning from other schools is more costly, you'll find that it ISNT as overpowering as it seems. As for skills AND spells, they would simply have all of thier skills trainable without cost. Spells would cost. (Note the wizard skill list has maybe 3-4 original skills tops.)
What else have we got? Have I answered the questions well, or should I come up with a differant solution? keep it coming
~Emistal.
Far away and across the field, the tolling of the iron bell calls the faithful to their knees to hear the softly spoken magic spell.
IMO I think this looks more towards multiclassing in the mud, rangers with 5th attack, fighters with slice, tracking etc. The imms put in a lot of work and try their hardest to put balance into the game and I think this would be somewhat breaking that balance.
Now before you start throwing stones, above is just how I see it as, and that balance could be made with the skill levels.
I also think this idea might draw away from those that may gear there characters towards RP skills, if you RP a character that lives in the wilderness yet is not a ranger, you'd have to make a decision, either that mostly RP skill having nothing to do with combat or...that ultimate extra attack.
Summed up in my opinion this veers towards multiclassing.
Now before you start throwing stones, above is just how I see it as, and that balance could be made with the skill levels.
I also think this idea might draw away from those that may gear there characters towards RP skills, if you RP a character that lives in the wilderness yet is not a ranger, you'd have to make a decision, either that mostly RP skill having nothing to do with combat or...that ultimate extra attack.
Summed up in my opinion this veers towards multiclassing.
I disagree with most of your post on the following grounds:
1. Role-play comes first. To me, the mud would work fine with NO CODE save for one empty room, characters themselvs, and smote/say. With the help of an able immortal, thats enough for me. Anything above and beyond that is simply a tool. Changing the WAY you learn the skills doesnt mean you cannot stay as things are. If you feel that your fighter is terrible with animals, I suggest you dont train animal handling. Thats just poor choice. Take a look at elenthi's skillset sometime. There are 2 spells and a few skills I never learned. And good reason behind it which I choose not to share OOcly.
2. Game-balance -is- a hard thing to control, and the immortals have done an excellent job thus far. But that doesnt mean that change is bad. I never agreed with the "If it aint blowing smoke, dont add oil" theory. There is room in everything for improvement. An finally, as far as multi-classing goes. It isnt multi-classing. Its allowing subclasses access to RP tools outside of thier norm, while not overbalancing the characters coded abilities. Why shouldnt a warrior know how to properly tan an animal? If you can give me a reason why NO member of the fighter's guild should EVER know how to hunt and properly clean a beast, tan its hide, I'll eat my hat IC in the market square in front of everyone. (barring immortal permission).
~Elenthis.
1. Role-play comes first. To me, the mud would work fine with NO CODE save for one empty room, characters themselvs, and smote/say. With the help of an able immortal, thats enough for me. Anything above and beyond that is simply a tool. Changing the WAY you learn the skills doesnt mean you cannot stay as things are. If you feel that your fighter is terrible with animals, I suggest you dont train animal handling. Thats just poor choice. Take a look at elenthi's skillset sometime. There are 2 spells and a few skills I never learned. And good reason behind it which I choose not to share OOcly.
2. Game-balance -is- a hard thing to control, and the immortals have done an excellent job thus far. But that doesnt mean that change is bad. I never agreed with the "If it aint blowing smoke, dont add oil" theory. There is room in everything for improvement. An finally, as far as multi-classing goes. It isnt multi-classing. Its allowing subclasses access to RP tools outside of thier norm, while not overbalancing the characters coded abilities. Why shouldnt a warrior know how to properly tan an animal? If you can give me a reason why NO member of the fighter's guild should EVER know how to hunt and properly clean a beast, tan its hide, I'll eat my hat IC in the market square in front of everyone. (barring immortal permission).
~Elenthis.
Far away and across the field, the tolling of the iron bell calls the faithful to their knees to hear the softly spoken magic spell.
How about the poor humans who only live 100 years, tops, barring magical elongation of life? Would they get penalized? How about other races that are 'dumb' (orcs, goblins, most dwarves, other smelly critters)especially is it's a race that lives for 100's of years.
On the skill points idea, I have no idea how they work in the tabletop game, this being my first FR brush, but basing them on x number/level with an option to trade kismet or something like that for more seems neat. Would they apply to feats, too? For instance, take weapon proficiency. Feat point for that, then, would a wizard learning great blades have to spend a massive amount of skill points for such a stereotypically fighter skill?
Also, while this does seem neat, it would require coding x number of skill points for every skill/spell/feat/trade(if it applies to trades) in the game...and not just one value, one for each class, possibly one for each class/race combo...
3 kinds of warriors
2 kinds of rogues
8ish kinds of wizards
a LOT of kinds of priests
Assuming priests are not differentiated between due to faith in terms of skill point allotment, for the reason mentioned above, That is about 15 different classes.
Multiply that by the, oh, twenty/thirty skills/spells/weapons everyone gets, adding in extras (such as about fifty spells for each wizard class) and you get thousands of things to set the skill points for.
Even if there is a given list from the tabletop game, that seems like it would be a LOT of coding, and would therefore probably not be very high priority.
Therefore, while skill points look nice on the outside, their inside is rotten with the stench of lots of work.
Disclaimer: Apologies if this would be insanely easy to code, or if it is actually a lot more important than I thought to balance skill allotment
I think this thead is going off topic. The question was should we keep the languages set as is, and determined by your INT, or, removing the cap.
I personally would vote for: Keep as is, with the option of using a feat point to learn an extra language.
I think having it based on INT makes the most sense as a warrior, would be too busy training his sword play, instead of learning a new language.
A mage on the other hand, with a higher INT would most likely need to learn many languages to master and research all the different spells.
My 2 cents.
I personally would vote for: Keep as is, with the option of using a feat point to learn an extra language.
I think having it based on INT makes the most sense as a warrior, would be too busy training his sword play, instead of learning a new language.
A mage on the other hand, with a higher INT would most likely need to learn many languages to master and research all the different spells.
My 2 cents.
Well, before the language limit system was put into place (dates me a bit, huh?), I was rping Nysan's walk across the realms. I tried to get him to learn as many languages as I could for various reasons...examples: easier to communicate with whatever being he came across in his travels, carry on conversations in a rare or little known language so folks passing by wouldn't understand it, ect. When the language limit was put in he was past his limit already, which pretty much killed the language learning part of his travels (still know several hard to find languages though, very proud). I understand the idea behind the language limitation but I do agree it seems a bit unfair and maybe a bit unbalanced that we can learn every skill, spell, and weapon on our list but have to choose only a handful of the languages avaliable. If limitations were enforced on all lists, then I would be more for such a thing. But limiting only one area while the rest are open for the taking just seems wrong to me. That and it limits some rp areas. How many people would care to learn a rare or little known language if they can only learn 5 languages anways? Why waste the short at hand 'language points' that one might need to do a quest or talk to a trainer/merchant on simple rp? This is one of the questions I hear from time to time. My thoughts...
N.R.
N.R.
-Gilain- -Trilev- -Siros-
You do not need to change the world, merely leave it a little better than how you found it.
You do not need to change the world, merely leave it a little better than how you found it.
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Tyr
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You cannot learn an unlimited number of skills. You are limited by your class. That is the entire idea behind a class system.
If you were able to learn every skill out there, then what is the point of having classes?
Languages are limited by intelligence. There is already a feat called linguist that allows you to learn more than your intelligence would normally allow.
Tyr
If you were able to learn every skill out there, then what is the point of having classes?
Languages are limited by intelligence. There is already a feat called linguist that allows you to learn more than your intelligence would normally allow.
Tyr
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Dalvyn
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That is not the entire idea behind class sytems though. You can restrict available skills according to the chosen class, then have the player select skills amongst that list. That's basically the system used by D&D 3E: skills are either class skills (learnable at a relatively low cost in "skill points"), or cross-class skills (learnable, but at a higher cost), or skills that you cannot, ever, learn.Tyr wrote:You cannot learn an unlimited number of skills. You are limited by your class. That is the entire idea behind a class system.
3E removed the last category, using only skills and cross-class skills (there are no longer skills that cannot be accessed).
I'll take a typical example of a class based on skills in D&D: rogues/thieves. They are given access to a large number of skills, that range from pickpocketing/steal, hide in shadows, listen, spot, search, use magic device, find traps, disable traps, pick locks, move silently (typical thieving skills) to persuasion, bluff, intimidate, read any language (typical roguish skills), in addition to "basic" skills like riding, handle animal, swim, and so on. Most of them are class-skills (low-cost) in D&D but a typical thief does not have enough skill points to learn them all.
Determining relative costs to skills though. But that's a bit beyond the initial topic, which basically was "Why limit the number of languages one can learn when there is no limit set on the number of skills that a character can learn?". And that question was being posed at two different levels: ICly, how can you explain a limit on languages but not on skills; and OOCly, what is the point of this limit, does it add to the roleplay value?Tyr wrote:If you were able to learn every skill out there, then what is the point of having classes?
