Rigid class system

[BenMathiesen]

Personally, one of the attractive points about ADOM for me is that it strikes an excellent balance between fully classless systems (like Oblivion or Omega) and highly restrictive class systems (like Angband).

Classes offer many advantages: they provide unique abilities and challenges, improve the replayability of the game, make it easy to leap right in by relieving some of the management burden, and provide a useful hook for role-playing. (Yes, I role-play even in single-player games. I like to make decisions in ADOM from the point of view of the character, and another shining point of ADOM is that there are several meaningful decisions to be made.)

On the other hand, it adds a lot to the game to know that the classes are not totally restrictive. If my Fighter was born under the Salamander and really wants to learn magic, it is possible--but difficult. It is somewhat easier for a merchant, and even easier for a bard. This is as it should be. In principle, all skills and abilities in the game are open to all characters, with a few rare exceptions (Mindcrafters and Barbarians learning magic, advanced Necromancy).

I think some of the dissatisfaction being expressed in this thread stems from the lack of opportunity in ADOM. Herbalism can be learned from Guth'alak. If characters could learn herbalism just by grinding, they would have no strong motivation to go on the quest. Some skills can't be learned at all in the Drakalor chain except by wishing (and some not even then), but it's a small setting. If teachers exist for every skill in Jade, somewhere in the vast world, wouldn't that address people's concerns?

After years and years of role-playing, I've learned that truly classless games encourage characters to converge on the jack-of-all-trades. Everyone picks up a few spells, the best skills, and so on, just because they can. Already, in ADOM, nearly all characters become thieves because there is little reason not to--joining the guild is easy, and the skills are very useful. If there were social consequences, and certain quests were closed off entirely, the choice would be more interesting.

So all that rambled a bit, but here's my proposal: that Jade should use the ADOM class system. Each class has a certain raw talent for weapon skills and magic: low, moderate, or high. For some classes, individual weapon groups and spells can be tweaked for flavor (this already exists in ADOM). Each class has several key skills that they advance easily, while other skills are more difficult to advance.

It should be possible to acquire new skills, but not without cost. Finding a teacher means attaching yourself to an organization, which has consequences on NPC interactions, available quests, etc.

By no means should you be able to acquire new skills through grinding. If you can get an ability just by investing time, with no consequences, then there is no interesting choice--you must assume for balance reasons that every character will do this. Grinding is boring, and a game where you can become super at everything inevitably turns into a grind. Classes make the scope of a game more manageable.

My most recent character, Cugel the thief, worked long and hard at getting literacy up to 80%+. When I finally started learning spells from the books he'd been collecting (around level 20), it felt great--but I realized that I still was far from being a wizard. My power points regenerated pitifully slowly, and the spells disappeared from memory more quickly. Later on in the game, I was able to wish for concentration, which meant I could use my spells much more frequently.

In Jade, perhaps he would have had to find a willing teacher to learn Concentration, attaching himself briefly to the guild. Then later, since he was a thief, he might have betrayed them by stealing one of their artifacts, making a new enemy.

Cheers,
Ben

[Epythic]

Personally, one of the attractive points about ADOM for me is that it strikes an excellent balance between fully classless systems (like Oblivion or Omega) and highly restrictive class systems (like Angband).

Oblivion was everything but fully classless. Sure, you could do/learn everything. But leveling depended solely one which skills you chose for your class.

Which, by the way, is another thing I absolutely hate about $MOSTGAMES: experience points and levels. This is just stupid. Why try to represent non-linear things on a linear scale?

Classes offer many advantages: they provide unique abilities and challenges, improve the replayability of the game, make it easy to leap right in by relieving some of the management burden, and provide a useful hook for role-playing.

Classes improve the replayability? I don't think so. I usually play wizards. I *want* to be a wizard. I think it would be better if I could start as a wizard, but pick up something else later, experiment with things.

(Yes, I role-play even in single-player games. I like to make decisions in ADOM from the point of view of the character, and another shining point of ADOM is that there are several meaningful decisions to be made.)

Uww, role-playing in ADOM? How many role-relevant decisions do you have to make? Not that many, I think...

On the other hand, it adds a lot to the game to know that the classes are not totally restrictive. If my Fighter was born under the Salamander and really wants to learn magic, it is possible--but difficult. It is somewhat easier for a merchant, and even easier for a bard. This is as it should be. In principle, all skills and abilities in the game are open to all characters, with a few rare exceptions (Mindcrafters and Barbarians learning magic, advanced Necromancy).

Yeah. But why should we have classes at all? Means, why this "easier for a merchant" stuff, for example?
Can't you just start as a $RACE, get trained as a merchant (ie, get some attribute boni, get some skills and skill training, maybe a talent or two and a feat, and some equipment).
Then, learning something new is always a *lot* of work, it's just that exactly one time (at char generation) you get this work done automatically, for free.
And if you are a bard, for example, some of the stuff from you bard training is also relevant to wizardry. Which means that you already know some of the stuff you need to know to become a wizard.
Which makes it easier for bards to become a wizard.

I think some of the dissatisfaction being expressed in this thread stems from the lack of opportunity in ADOM. Herbalism can be learned from Guth'alak. If characters could learn herbalism just by grinding, they would have no strong motivation to go on the quest. Some skills can't be learned at all in the Drakalor chain except by wishing (and some not even then), but it's a small setting. If teachers exist for every skill in Jade, somewhere in the vast world, wouldn't that address people's concerns?

Ok, I see your point.
But still, to learn wizardry you might need some rare materials - for example a book. And then, you shouldn't find books just lying around in dungeons.

After years and years of role-playing, I've learned that truly classless games encourage characters to converge on the jack-of-all-trades. Everyone picks up a few spells, the best skills, and so on, just because they can. Already, in ADOM, nearly all characters become thieves because there is little reason not to--joining the guild is easy, and the skills are very useful. If there were social consequences, and certain quests were closed off entirely, the choice would be more interesting.

Somewhat agree, but that does not mean classless systems are bad.
Also, why should just *knowing* how to pickpocket close off quests? And why should every NPC automatically know that my PC belongs to the thieves guild?

I could understand if NPC's hate my PC if he steals things from them (and they notice it, which should not be the case). But other than that --?

So all that rambled a bit, but here's my proposal: that Jade should use the ADOM class system. Each class has a certain raw talent for weapon skills and magic: low, moderate, or high. For some classes, individual weapon groups and spells can be tweaked for flavor (this already exists in ADOM). Each class has several key skills that they advance easily, while other skills are more difficult to advance.

Short answer: No.
Long answer: <spoiler>Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooo!
.</spoiler>

It should be possible to acquire new skills, but not without cost. Finding a teacher means attaching yourself to an organization, which has consequences on NPC interactions, available quests, etc.

Agree.

By no means should you be able to acquire new skills through grinding. If you can get an ability just by investing time, with no consequences, then there is no interesting choice--you must assume for balance reasons that every character will do this. Grinding is boring, and a game where you can become super at everything inevitably turns into a grind. Classes make the scope of a game more manageable.

Agree.

Later on in the game, I was able to wish for concentration, which meant I could use my spells much more frequently.

Wonderful example: why shouldn't *every* character have concentration? In real life... ... ... Got my point?

[RadicalRat]

By no means should you be able to acquire new skills through grinding.

Agreed. However, I think every character should have pretty much the same list of skills to begin with, some with very low initial values like 0 of course. Take two weapon fighting for an example. Every character who has ever even thought about fighting with a weapon in each hand should have the corresponding skill value of at least zero. With practice, everyone should get a bit better at it, although their true potential might be only unlocked by a teacher. So my suggestion would be: give everyone the skill, but make it max somewhere around 30-70 without a teacher for non-rangers. Same applies to every skill. Even literacy, everyone (except maybe trolls?) with eyesight should be able to learn recognize symbols or characters and therefore learn to tell apart scrolls and books with different spells, even without a teacher.

Even if it was theoretically possible to obtain the highest possible levels of skills and abilities through grinding, it wouldn't be a problem if the game mechanics was designed with that in mind. First of all, grinding should be relatively inefficient, which means the player's time is better spent advancing in the game except for maybe short training periods. In addition, grinding should never be risk-free to prevent players spending huge amounts of time in brainless, slow but safe grinding. I can think of several ways to do this, some of which can already be found in ADOM to some extent:

1. Corruption, aging, some sort of virus or random dangerous events: For corruption, just add a lot of corrupting (like in ADOM?) monsters, traps, items and restrict the number of potions and scrolls (or whatever) that cure corruption. Thus a player might become a chaos creature before he could perfect his knowledge of herbs through self-learning. Aging or a virus could do the same job, although there would be differences. With dangerous, random events, the risks of long-term grinding would simply stack too high.

2. Have the world evolve with time. The easiest way to do this, might be to just make all opponents tougher as the time passes. A better way might be to make the NPC:s active as well. This could mean them collecting items from dungeons or other places before the player does, killing some player-friendly NPC:s or even chasing after the player! Imagine if Frodo would have stayed in the Shire practicing gardening instead of hastening on his quest.

3. Reward advancing quickly through the game in some way, that may be related to 1 and 2. For example, have some items and quests be available only for a limited time.

The skill system has always been the one thing that has bugged me most about ADOM. Long story short: all characters should pretty much have the full list of skills, but different starting values, learning speeds and maximal values, which could perhaps be raised by a teacher.

[Epythic]

Every character who has ever even thought about fighting with a weapon in each hand should have the corresponding skill value of at least zero.

Somehow this made me think of a paragraph out of Terry Pratchett's Discworld book "Reaper Man":

Bill Door [note: for those partially familiar with the Discworld series, Bill Door is actually Death, and always speaks in UPPERCASE LETTERS] found a piece of chalk in the farm's old smithy, located a piece of board among the debris, and wrote very carefully for some time. Then he wedged the board in front of the henhouse and pointed Cyril [I][note: Cyril is a chicken[I] towards it.
THIS YOU WILL READ he said.
Cyril peered myopically at the 'Cock-A-Doodle-Doo' in heavy gothic script. Somewhere in his tiny mad chicken mind a very distinct and chilly understanding formed that he'd better learn to read very, very quickly.

So, if even a chicken can think of learning to read, why shouldn't a troll be able to actually do it?

Side note: I really, really like the discworld books.

[Sradac]

One thing i didnt like about adom was when leveling up you could increase anyskill even if you never use it. as a necro, I dont create slaves until I can make at least ghuls, but the first few levels im pumping up that skill. Kinda silly to be able to say "Hey i've never even done this but im getting better at it!"

Levels and classes work...sort of. It really depends on the system. AD&D class and level system works great, love it. off the top of my head......ugh i cant think of a skill only based game that did it well. I like skill based but no one seems to have gotten it quite right. I wana play with magic dangit. The more I tap into the planes the more attuned i should get to the, opening up new abilities and making old ones more efficient or more powerful. Not "Hey look a book, I know how to cast magic missile!" or "I just killed 1000 orcs now I know how to throw acid balls!"

Sorcerer's in AD&D are cool as heck.

[F50]

I personally really enjoy the ADOM class system. It is simple, not too restrictive, but it still matters once the player has some experience. The class system gives the player a history, and helps to keep players from being able to do *everything* in one game.

I am also fine with a classless system, but that IMO is much harder to do well. A good classless system must *still* keep players from being able to do everything (God mode isn't fun IMO), but also grant players much more freedom what they want to do. If I am a fighter and I want to become a wizard, fine, but I *don't* want this to always be a better option than sticking to being a fighter. I want to have the freedom to specialize effectively. Not having that freedom defeats the purpose of a classless system IMO.

To this end, I really like the idea of the player loosing abilities if they don't use them. It keeps the character from being unlimited. Someone who can do everything mustn't use the same tactic over and over and over again (it could potentially be really fun to play a character like this).

Also, I like the idea of hard limits on stats based on race for the same reason I like class systems, they allow you to play the game again with a different set of strengths and weaknesses.

I don't mind leveling, particularly how it affects skills in ADOM. If you do not use a skill, its max will not increase (or increase very slowly). Without leveling, you have to do the same thing repeatedly in order to gain any proficiency in it. Leveling doesn't allow you to learn skills you wouldn't be able to learn otherwise, the process of learning them is merely made faster to relieve the boredom of scumming...I mean...training.

The more I tap into the planes the more attuned i should get to the, opening up new abilities and making old ones more efficient or more powerful. Not "Hey look a book, I know how to cast magic missile!"

This I agree with. The idea of loosing memory of something you use often is kinda counterintuitive. However, if you just decided that you wouldn't loose castings for using spells in ADOM, it might make wizards ridiculously powerful. I would like to hear exactly how you would have magic done

[Sradac]

My dream magic system is a combination of a timer system and a point system. Mana/spell/power points for your general magical reserve or endurance, and also a timer or cooldown system for spells. A very powerful wizard would easily be able to call down a meteor from the heavens, but the chances of him doing it twice in a row in my eyes is not that high. Weak spells should be on a short timer sure, but something like calling forth meteor would have a long cooldown.

Realm based cooldown as well, evoking a large pillar of ice to encase a group of foes should leave you a bit depleted in the realm of cold/ice/water but after a bit of a breather you can focus your thoughts to be more in-tune with that element. Specialization would be key here, focusing on one power/element would leave you much more familiar with it decreasing realm cool downs but possible increasing timers for other realms. An energist (elementalist type char focusing on electrical magic) focusing solely on his realm abilities would be a lot more familiar with chaining lightning together (No i dont mean the dang chain lightning spell) than say a summoner would.

I also really wana see spell combos =( but i know i would have to create my own roguelike for that. Conjure up a globe of water in your hand and hurl it at your enemy while its in flight throw a gust of wind at it to chill the water creating an ice bolt. Super heat a chunk of rock with fire magic and whip it at an orcs head for a nice lava-bolt.

im getting ahead of myself.

power reserves + timers would be cool IMO.


EDIT---
After reading this over, its kinda similar to the spell system in Wizardry 8 with different realms having their own pools, cept in wiz8 each realm had its own set of spell points. a priests realms might look like Fire : 30/30 - Water: 140/173 - Air: 79/113 - Earth: 67/92 - Mental: 32/46 - Divine: 158/209

its cool and all, wiz8's spell system works and is fun, I just want something a bit different.

[Silfir]

There should only be a limited number of skills you can develop fully, but you should be able to change these as you see fit, and I think it'd be best to simulate this by having skills degrade from lack of practice over time. Obtaining the skills necessary for basic wizardry, or training to become a more than decent fighter, will take time, and require your full attention; necessarily you'll neglect your other skills in the meantime and lose ability in those. And it's not just "hold a sword and everything'll come back to you" - retraining the skills will take a lot less time than training them from scratch, but it will still take time to recover from two years of doing whatsoever related to the skill during your apprenticeship.

Basically it should work out like this: You start the game having completed your fighter training, and you have pretty decent skill scores in fighter-related skills line Find Weakness or Swords or something (it should be based on how the training of the particular procedurally generated guild works - guilds will follow different philosophies. Some will teach you to fight with as many kinds of weapons as possible, some will only teach you how to use one or two weapons, some will place additional attention on teaching you proper shield use, some will teach basic archery skills - the possibilities are endless!). You spend a couple of months ridding dungeons of infestations, accumulating treasure, and honing your fighting skills in the process. Maybe you meet a travelling archery instructor in one town and learn to use the bow properly, maybe you learnt reading in school and studied a bit in some libraries, and so on. Let's say after half a year you suddenly decide that you want to become a wizard - sure you can! But, you have to become an apprentice first. Studying to become a wizard is hard, and finding a master is equally hard. Some will want money, some will want quests completed. Becoming a wizard at this point is like another self-imposed quest, a goal the player sets for himself. And you have to realize that it's a major commitment. You don't become a wizard just by quaffing a scroll of education, you have to basically zone out for three, maybe more years of the game. In that time you barely have any time to hold a sword, let alone train it. Once you're finished you're both a fighter and a wizard - your training as a fighter is still there. Maybe you'll just take some refreshment lessons in a local fighter guild with your old buddies? Hold on - they're all pissed because they don't trust wizards and think fighters who become wizards betray their principles. Oh well, you'll have to learn along the way, or in some other town where they don't know you're a wizard too. But that means that the ogres you effortlessly slew a couple of years ago will be more threatening for a while, since your spells are too weak and your fighting isn't what it once was. You spent three years of training becoming less effective in battle! Woo Hoo!

What does this mean? With these mechanics, you can become everything, but it becomes increasingly hard to combine it all with each other. And it should be - you're one man. Larger than life - a true hero - but still limited. If you start out as a fighter and you want to become a wizard too you can - find a willing master and buy his services, endure three years of apprenticeship, and spend another couple of months rekindling your old figher prowess and learning to do some decent magic, gather some spells, and basically four years of game time later you are a fully grown fighter/wizard. Now imagine how much you could've achieved as ONLY a fighter. Those three years spent reading books and botching cantrips could've been spent gathering more treasure, becoming filthy rich, hiring a travelling mage to do the casting for you while getting absolutely deadly in melee. BUT - you wouldn't be a wizard. You made a decision based on your goals - your character's goals, and while it means you missed out on some nice stuff, it also rewarded you with something you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Characters shouldn't become Grand Masters by using a weapon over and over, at least not in a decent time-frame, and without some sort of basis. If you don't know jack shit about using a sword you won't learn the many techniques there are without losing your head in the process. PROPER training should be much more important in JADE than in ADOM. With all the elements related to the difficulty of learning new stuff JADE could become a proper computer role-playing game at last!

[mr_ocnitsa]

This is interesting...I feel like I can appreciate both sides of the debate....as folks are pointing out JADE is not supposed to be ADOM.

That said, I kinda like the suggestion that people start with various skills higher than others with all (or almost all...remember Necromancy is a very particular skill that is a little harder to come by than just "Swimming")skills available...but in that case the benefits different levels and the ease of raising skill levels should be tweaked...and/or Learning and the ability to increase it and it's ability to offer more skills raised per level need to be tweaked. One ADOM example that illustrates what I'm talking about are certain times I've rolled a bard with low learning but lots of skills to choose from...your choices become very important because you are not going to be at 100 in every skill mid-game (I don't exploit (i.e. understand) as well as some people).

In a scenario like the above classes still matter...as they determine what you're abilities are initially and what you're special class-based abilities/benefits etc. as you level.

I think TB starts with a robust structure that could be tweaked to even more complexity in the next iteration....

[vogonpoet]

...Increasingly frantic post...
and then the world will be mine, all MINE, woarh hah hah hah hah ha ha haaaargh
*lightning*
*roll of thunder*"

FTFY Silfir