Spell Skill Revision Suggestion

[Harroghty]

I find the idea of skill rewards for quests to be very appealing, particularly higher skill levels. I mean that we have guild specific skills available when you join a guild. A fighter, for example, can find things like dodge and parry more often than not. These trainers generally follow the rule of thumb for trainers though and train to apprentice or so.

What I recommend is that we encourage builders to also add a later quest that would give some skill increases regardless of the individual's skill level. Perhaps a quest that added five skill points in one skill or another. Or, you could even add a choice: "Would you like this helm or maybe I could teach you about parry?"

Sure, there quests are hard to find for some particular alignments or role-plays, but that should only be an encouragement to builders, I think. Particularly in this case since it would be starting from scratch.

Of course, immortal characters could also improve skill when they see it well used. This will, of course, invite comments about favoritism and so on, but I think it is something that, used responsibly, could be a nice thing for players.

[Raona]

Without derailing the discussion of skill levels for spells, I want to say this:

I have no problem with folks practicing combat skills (by fighting endless mobs), provided they do so honourably. (Practicing aid by aiding and stunning the same mob over and over would be an example in the dishonourable category.)

However, I think spells are (or at least should be) different: Calling upon your deity endlessly when there is no real need to do so save to practice and perfect the incantation of the prayer is, to me, spitting on them. You should soon come to be seen as the little boy/girl who cried wolf and treated accordingly, your subsequent prayers ignored. Whether the same holds true for a wizard constantly drawing upon the power of the Weave when they don't actually have to, merely to practice, is less clear to me. (I should ask a Mystran!) But grinding spells, and prayers, in particular, far in excess of what's called for by the situation at hand is, to me, problematic.

Possible solutions have been brought up time and again, in addition to the fine one above: Changes in the way skill levels rise (I have my own favorites), changes in the way spell power is decided (tie in to favour for prayers, tapping it when casting and the strength also determined by the current level), and so on.

So I'll just conclude that I agree that spell skill levels could do with tweaking, and that there are many ideas out there for how it should be done. Here we've raised three, so far:

• Eliminate skill levels entirely, have it based only on caster level
• Grouping bonus
• Give guild-based boons that make gaining skills in some specific areas easier

If asked, I can outline some of the other, past proposals.

Also, as a historical note: Spell power used to be based purely on skill level. Now it is a hybrid of caster level and skill level. We've already taken steps in this direction.

[Elke]

Whether the same holds true for a wizard constantly drawing upon the power of the Weave when they don't actually have to, merely to practice, is less clear to me. (I should ask a Mystran!)

Elke still remains in fear of excessive casting due to stern talking-to's by Mystrans The Weave can be damaged, broken, misused and should never be used lightly.

Also, there was at some point a time in which grinding spells - casting excessively and repetitively without respect for the Weave - resulted in a loss of the ability to use the Weave being withdrawn from all for a time (not something I know much about, something Elke was told by Gesine and Takket ICly I think.)

I think that in my mind spell skill increases would make most sense with books or study. With respect to Skeas' comments earlier, training physical combat is repeating battles so that various moves and counters become automatic, and so that one learns to strike harder and more swiftly with better aim. So I agree that grinding there might make sense.

With wizardry, learning to be able to make five magic missiles instead of four with one's spell should require study, more than practice, and knowledge and teaching. There are a lot of skills where no amount of untrained practice without at least an initial primer and some basic knowledge will suffice.

I'm not entirely sure how improving casting would work because there's no Weave irl to draw a parallel with, but - learning to manipulate the Weave faster and more dextrously? Improved pronunciation of runes? Finer gestures? Change of attuned mental state? To me though, these would be things that would be best improved by practice -out- of combat, and preferably with the guidance of a teacher or trainer.

Personally, I'd prefer to be able to put my money on the apprentice who has spent extensive time in the library learning to understand the inner workings of the Weave and the theory behind the magic, than the apprentice who learned rote the words and gestures for 'magic missile' and has thrown the spell repeatedly at a hundred targets. Just seems to work more in my head that the studious wizard ought to become more skilled at wizardry.

[Kallias]

Personally, I'd prefer to be able to put my money on the apprentice who has spent extensive time in the library learning to understand the inner workings of the Weave and the theory behind the magic, than the apprentice who learned rote the words and gestures for 'magic missile' and has thrown the spell repeatedly at a hundred targets. Just seems to work more in my head that the studious wizard ought to become more skilled at wizardry.

Ideally it's a combination of both. IC, you can't roleplay the incredible dedication to reading crap in game...that stuff is off screen. If someone asks what you've been up to when you've logged on for the day, saying that you've been perusing the tomes in Candlekeep or going over notes with a former NPC teacher of your guild are reasonable declarations and shouldn't be questioned.

But it can't just be reading. You become a great sage through study. You become a great mage through repetition and correcting mistakes. With Kallias I spam cast a ton...hundreds of hours (literally over 300), and he's only GM'd 3 or 4 spells. It's the only way to get better at it. There isn't an argument against that.

Elke still remains in fear of excessive casting due to stern talking-to's by Mystrans The Weave can be damaged, broken, misused and should never be used lightly.

I see that a lot as well. And while it's true, you shouldn't use it frivolously...practicing to hone your art, isn't frivolous. Using a 9th level power spell to walk your dog, is. This mindset was rampant back when you could GM a spell lickity split. I promise you that isn't the case now. Practice to your hearts content, it will still take 2,000 hours (and I mean nonstop) to master your spell list.

You can only work within the parameters that are set before you. Right now the parameters demand that you practice a ton to get worth a darn. As long as you're always willing to adapt to meet the needs of the system, you'll be fine...and you shouldn't be looked down on for doing so.

To quote Ice T, "Don't hate the playa, hate the game"

[Dalvyn]

I've already ranted and ranted and ranted about this MANY times and explored half a dozen systems to come up with something sensible (and now and then, I used to bring this topic back up, to the great dismay of some imms who got bored my many rants) but, since you bring up this topic again ... *whistles* I'll just address a few points.

"Yes, but practice makes perfect!" and "You shouldn't get better at casting fireballs by just sitting and chatting on the square!" seem to be the two main arguments of those who would rather we stick with the current system. Both are, in my opinion, slightly skewed.

Four comments here:

• Yes, but only the right practice makes perfect. Currently, there is a complete dissociation between the practice and the gain. As someone wrote above, you could cast 'cure light' on yourself 1000 times (even though you are not harmed) and the system would make you get better at it. You could also cast 1000 fireballs in an empty room, or on groups of goblins and get suddenly better at toasting hill giants with fireballs (which does not make much sense either). Or you could craft 1000 daggers and suddently become better at constructing flails. The point to remember here is that you can't base a game on real life when it agrees with your argument then suddenly ignore real life when it doesn't suit it anymore. If we were to conform to real life "practice makes perfect", we would have to divide all the skills into tiny specialized skills (like fireballing goblins in tunnels, fireballing goblins on the surface, fireballing hill giants, curing leg wounds, curing arm wounds, crafting copper daggers, crafting silver daggers, and so on) and, in the end, nobody would ever get good at much anything especially very specialized tiny skills.
• Practice is not the only way to become better at something. Consider attacking goblins as a whole topic (i.e. not divided into casting fireballs, hitting with longswords, dodging blows, and so on but as a whole experience). If you discuss your feats with friends at the tavern after the deed, you could bring up new ideas and techniques to improve your modus operandi, so that, next time you attack goblins, you do it more efficiently. What made you better is the reflection, the sharing of ideas and the re-examination of the deed more than the deed itself. Similarly, I remember teaching a lesson about a relatively obscure mathematical topic several years ago (duality in lambda-modules for those who are curious) and only getting to understand it fully while teaching it. And thus ...
• Practice is not the one and only true way to get better. Actually, the only thing that makes practice stand apart from the rest (and that's an important consideration) is that practice is easily codeable. It's easy to understand and easy to code: each time you hit someone with a longsword, add +1 to the practice counter and you're done. It's much harder to determine when people are efficiently discussing their last foray into goblin territory or when they are roleplaying a lesson. And I guess that's why alternative methods to increase skill levels are not already in the game.
• Finally, we shouldn't forget that characters (and players hopefully) have a life outside the game. When is the last time your character peed? It might be ... never. Does this mean that your character does never pee? Of course not, but (s)he does it "behind the scene". Similarly, a character who spends all his/her online time on the Square chatting with other people might practice and improve "behind the scene". That's actually the starting point for a possible system where people would accumulate some "skill points" while they are offline (naturally, this idea needs be refined, that's just the starting point). But it means that even if your character does not spend hours practicing things when (s)he is online, (s)he could be doing it while offline. It goes hand in hand with giving the player a choice: what do you want to do with your free/online time? Practice your skills, or interact with PCs, or something in-between? Shouldn't all those options be equally supported?

Anyway, keep coming up with good ideas and reflections!

[Solaghar]

One thing I think would be an instant amazing replacement for the crafting system is that when you initially craft an item, no matter what your skill is with it, you create the item you want of the worst possible quality. Then you continually work on that single piece, sure you can spam the statements for it just as much, but what you end up doing in essence continually working to perfect one piece of armor you really like. You can have catastrophic failures which might ruin the piece beyond all use and you'd be forced to melt it down and start over, but for the most part you're just continually working to improve a few certain pieces rather than making as many pieces as you can as fast as you can. Might even be some hidden abilities to the skill (could be handled with the SQL server) which keeps track of what sort of armortype and weapontype you make. Hence if you work on chainmail you become quite good at chainmail, able to manufacture it and work on it quickly enough to make an average piece of chainmail in an hour or so, and an above-average or even high quality piece in a few hours of concerted work, but it has no bearing on your ability to make platemail, nor does making swords make you any good at making morning stars.

In essence crafting becomes something you put time, effort and interest in to try to perfect a few pieces over a long period of time and practice, so you'll want to work with the best materials, the best tools, etc... to have the best outcome in the end, because what you finally have will be the end result of a great deal of time and effort. No more people selling a million crafts and breaking economies over it, and perhaps then we could get back to stores not maintaining their inventory, which should be the subject of another post I guess.

[Skeas]

I'd suggest that maybe every time you memorize a spell, you have a -chance- to advance your 'practice counter' as Dalvyn put it, with a rule to ensure that people don't "mem spell;forget spell" for an hour to GM it.

Since you "study and memorize a spell" it seems plausible.

[Zorinar]

I find the attitude of limiting spell-casters and priests grinding fascinating. I almost sense this overwhelming fear of wizards and priests grand mastering spells. In game, many are looked down upon for grandmastering a spell, yet fighters are praised for grandmastering a weapon.

In the D&D game, which this mud is kind of based on, you are automatically a grand master when you learn the spell. Therefore, there isn't a need to get better at it by casting over and over. Its assumed you had been doing that until you figured it out. Priests don't need to really practice prayers because its their god that grants them, not the player's ability to be granted the miracles.

The Mud, however, requires constant use to get better at a spell, or any skill. This creates some individuality as well for the players. Some wizards put a lot of time into this spell or that spell and they eventually get really good with it. It will take so long to grandmaster every spell that its really not worth it anyways. You can pick and choose what spells your character likes. But to not be allowed to train them up to grandmaster due to IC conventions...I don't buy it. That is incredibly unfair as Fighters have no such restrictions on their weapon training.

What would be the point of being a specialist wizard? The point is that you are able to grandmaster some spells, at the price of not being able to cast from your opposing schools, and the non specialist spells you can cast are not as trainable to you as a generalist mage. But the point is that you CAN grandmaster a spell, so why is it frowned upon to train them? It shouldn't be. Someone might say, it's pointless to cast 1000 fireballs in an empty room but is it really? Is it pointless for the pianist to spend hours upon hours practicing one song in a quiet room, or the marital artist practicing one technique 1000 times by themselves, or the cook to make new creations even though no one else will eat it? Going further, I think it is utterly bizarre to see level 50 characters that have not grand-mastered skills and spells. Level 50 is the epitome of their development, they are by rights, masters of their profession. I don't think they should have everything grand-mastered, but more power to you if you do. And I kind of wonder if the apprehension of seeing other people grandmaster spells and skills is somewhat based on the fact that a lot of people just don't want to do that grind, and they feel left behind. For some people, sitting in MS is utterly boring and almost like torture. They might like to grind, or adventure or whatnot. Everyone has a different goal, and different pleasure. I don't see how restricting anyone's role play is going to make the game better.

The component cost alone is enough of a check and balance system. Grandmastering even a lower spell costs a LOT of plat. Like 1000 plat or more for some spells.

[Urival]

When i first started here i didnt like skill levels at all. But i suppose its because i came from a 2nd edition dnd mud ruleset. Where it was very hard to lvl, but once you lvled and learned the skill/spell it was a done deal. That being said i see both systems as working properly for there various purposes now. I like the skill levels the way they are now, and i REALLY like the slot system. I think the balance of casters is alot better then it was at one time. INSTA-gming spells would just make the mage class flat out the best, and would basically remove the need for any sort of specialty wizards, wich i dont like.....

As far as crafting, id agree, it would take someone a long time, .....but there really sould be a check based on the weapon type you are making. We ran into this problem on another mud where you could "weaponsmith" staffs with trees you chopped down (making the components free), then once you mastered it, start cranking out master crafted longswords .

[Solaghar]

The idea that you can either be grinding or sitting in the Market Square is not a good dichotomy. Zarafae has never 'sat' in the Market Square once and I would say that 90% of the time she spends online is RPing, running around the world trying to cause mischief, and the other 10% of the time adventuring. RP is not sitting in the Market Square chatting about who is sleeping with who. RP is whatever one makes it. If sitting in the Market Square is all one can think to do then that's not anyone else's fault.

[Gwain]

What about standing in the market square?

Seriously though, I liked the system they had in Baldur's Gate 2 where when you leveled you could ad a point of proficiency to one weapon and increase in one feat or skill. Spells were spells, no one had a higher level understanding of them, stats and item affects determined the power and success.

[Solaghar]

What about standing in the market square?

Seriously though, I liked the system they had in Baldur's Gate 2 where when you leveled you could ad a point of proficiency to one weapon and increase in one feat or skill. Spells were spells, no one had a higher level understanding of them, stats and item affects determined the power and success.

Yeah, that is the standard D&D system and that was what I advocated we switch to for numerous reasons in the first post

[Elke]

I'd suggest that maybe every time you memorize a spell, you have a -chance- to advance your 'practice counter' as Dalvyn put it, with a rule to ensure that people don't "mem spell;forget spell" for an hour to GM it.

I really, really like this idea. That way it's studying rather than actually flinging spells around that does it. Maybe you could have it so that there's only so many increases you can get from memorising, and only so many increases you can get from casting? That way you have to have both theory and practical to improve?

It shouldn't be. Someone might say, it's pointless to cast 1000 fireballs in an empty room but is it really?

It really should be. Bear in mind that with target-based spells like Fireball and Magic Missile it's not so bad to think that a thousand Fireballs could be cast (although I hope those walls are reinforced ). But something like, say, Dispel Magic? I personally feel that Dispelling on a mob that hasn't got any magic on it wouldn't make IC sense or fairly represent 'practice' of the spell. (Of course you could cast spells onto something and then Dispel off, but this also seems somehow like cheating unless it was practicing with a friend, rather than on a mob). How about Charm Person? A thousand casts of that just - wouldn't make any sort of sense. Especially not on dummies. Feeblemind? I could go on.

[Zorinar]

Magic Missile is target based and you can't cast it unless you are casting at a target. However, fireball is not target based it is area based. So I can't see the issue with multi casting it. Again, how do wizards get to actually play their class if they cannot cast spells at the level they are designed to be cast at? Creating IC restrictions that seem real life like are in direct conflict with the way the mud was designed concerning this issue. When you learn lightning bolt to say apprentice, it is weaker than a grandmastered magic missile. A grandmastered magic missile is probably at the power level of the actual spell magic missile in the paper game. Fireball too, is weaker than magic missile at the weak skill levels. So, a wizard or priest is being penalized by IC conventions and they are not reaching their potential. Only fighters are able to reach this potential without IC convention conflict. Also, Dispel magic cannot be spammed on a mob. It doesn't work on mobs that don't have magic on them. Charm person... well the wizard needs to get practice somehow else the spell is useless. So, they have no choice.

[Harroghty]

Cue the devil's advocate (and this is not particular to spell casters, but pertinent to the skill system discussion that is nestled inside of that other discussion)...

The life span of a FK PC could be substantially longer than the hours required to complete Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate: Tales from the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn, and Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal. It probably also has a longer duration than most people's pen and paper characters. Therefore the issue of sustaining interest is worth mentioning.

Those in favor of a level-based skill/weapon proficiency improvement: What happens once you reach level 50? Are you done learning?

I feel like I would feel a little frustrated if my character could not continue to improve past level 50, be it something so mundane as taking up cooking or perhaps your life-long axe wielder fancies competing in an archery competition.

[Solaghar]

Fighters are among the people who have the simplest time GMing things, many of them manage to get all of their combat skills GMed, along with every weapon. They don't quit the game just because there is nothing else to train. There are always new adventures, but if your goal is to have the most powerful character the code will allow by training every possible skill/trade/etc to GM, those are the people who I would look to get bored and quit playing the moment that becomes dull. It's the people who already don't focus too much on it because they are busier RPing/Adventuring that are going to stick around long-term anyway.

[Elke]

I think the trouble is that the speed at which one improves in spell level doesn't really run alongside the level one attains unless you -are- grinding with it. At least, that's been my experience of it. Hence the scenario of being able to cast ninth level spells but not actually having even Mastered one.

[Aveline]

Gesine may not have gotten as high as she can with any spell, but I chalk that down to her being a mage. She cannot just sit and focus on one spell for a very long time. There are too many for her to learn and play with. But that being said though, I'd be willing to bet that her overall skill level with her spells is higher than most any other wizard, because she tends to go out on a lot of adventures with other people and gets a lot of opportunities to use her spells. So, she may not have that one spell uber focused, but overall you can see her experience as a wizard with her overall level of spells. And she is only going to continue to improve in the long run.

A grandmastered magic missile is probably at the power level of the actual spell magic missile in the paper game.

Stating the obvious...but this is not the pen and paper game. I know many many of you come from the pen and paper games and other similar things. And that is great, otherwise we wouldn't have a lot of the base that we have for this game. I know I'm in the minority for a lot of issues here because I do not come from that background, so I tend to see things from a different viewpoint than many of you. And here, is one place where I do not see the need to stick so slavishly to that system. So, if I am understanding this correctly, when you get a spell in the pen and paper version, you are automatically GM in it? They expect that you have already spent the time studying and researching it? I -personally- like it better this way. I like having to work toward something and getting better at it over time. I don't go out and grind spells to get better at them, I like to see it happen through rp, gradually. I know I'm outnumbered on that..but I like it. I don't want something just given to me automatically with no work involved in it. I think that makes for cookie cutter characters where every wizard is the same, with the same spells.. I like where specialists might have to pick and choose which spells to get better at. I think it makes us more varied. It also means that Gesine will get her little wizard behind kicked in almost any wizard duel with a wizard of her same level. And I'm fine with that. She could have chosen to focus on a few spells and gotten really good at those, but she didn't. I'll go with maybe finding other ways to help improve spell levels easier...but I really don't want to see them removed. (I'll also admit that part of my feelings on this might have to do with the fact that I have a lot more time available to me to spend on the game than a lot of you do. So time issues regarding gaining levels do not seem so bad to me).

[Gwain]

I've found that a lot of the meta-magic feats available actually make gming spells unnecessary

[Kallias]

So, if I am understanding this correctly, when you get a spell in the pen and paper version, you are automatically GM in it? They expect that you have already spent the time studying and researching it?

Not really. You immediately cast the spell as well as you possibly can given your level (sans feats/changes in attributes). So you never really "GM" a spell, because there is no level cap.

Pen and paper is highly dependent on level. FK is highly dependent on time using the spell. With the time system you do have the opportunity to truly master a spell.

I don't believe one is better than the other. The best point, imo, is Drew's point on how long a PC may be played in FK as opposed to how many hours someone plays a dnd character. I've played Kallias 2800 hours/or 350 work days...I'm still very interested in the character and his development, much of it to do with he still has a ton to improve in.

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DnD just isn't DnD if your character has reached a point where he can no longer improve mechanically...but that doesn't mean I believe spells should be so difficult to get to journeyman/adept.