Codex Preview Restricted Area Skills part 1 - Background & Attributes

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Jan Beuck; Master Creating; Restricted Area

This is a look at the general background information on the skills and attributes system used in Restricted Area, as written by Jan Beuck of master-creating.

Each character has 15 unique skills, fitting to his background and his potential. Unique really means unique - it was very important to us that there are no similar skills at all (for example, if one character has a skill that increases his attack speed, he has no other skill that effects the attack speed at all and no other character has a skill like this as well). I think this is very important as nobody needs 10 skills of each kind that do basically the same thing, maybe with a slightly different graphical effect, but somehow that's very common. It was also very important to us that there are no skills which become worthless once you may learn a better one! All skills stay useful forever and no development point can ever be spend "wrong", except maybe for your personal opinion.​

I like unique, it's good for skill sets to be unique. Easier to implement, too!

 

[Azaka]

Kinda Shadowrun-ish set of stats there, not to mention Ballistic/Impact armour. Which, of course, is just fine by me since I love Shadowrun!

I'd like to know the reason for picking Reaction as the third "mental" stat, though. Reaction in SR is based on int+dex which makes it a derived stat, but here it's a primary stat? Is it really different enough from Dexterity to warrant putting it in there?

And I hope nobody gets sued over that plasma rifle... :wink:

Looking forward to this game! :!:

 

[Jan]

RE

Yes, Shadowrun was one of our main inspirations for the attribute system. The reason we added Reaction as a mental attribute was a blancing decision: Dexterity would be too important otherwise - Dexterity handles your chance to hit (and other stuff), Reaction your chance to evade attacks. Both in one attribute would be critical as this would be the most important combat attribute for all characters.

BTW: Plasma rifle? Isn´t there one in any sci-fi game??

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I love the character sheet: Strenght.

I'm not sure I'm sold on the Dexterity vs Reaction thing.

 

[Jan]

RE

The "Strength" has been already corrected. The game is developed in German and we had to translate it quickly for this shot (otherwise it would be "Stärke"). The reason we develop the game in German is that it´s the language with the longest words and sentences to say something - if a word fits in German, there´s surely an English word that will fit into the border as well.

About the Dexterity / Reaction thing: Balancing is the most important reason, but there are others. For example, Reaction hasn´t to do anything with Dexterity. You can be very handy and skillful but that doesn´t mean you are fast. I don´t think we need to stick with the ideas of AD&D forever...

 

[Azael]

Reaction/Quickness makes sense to me. A sprinter would need both, for example, Reaction to get away right after the start pistol shot, and Quickness to run past his opponents.

 

[Azaka]

Re: RE

BTW: Plasma rifle? Isn´t there one in any sci-fi game??

I was thinking about the visual design. It looks just like an old classic:

http://home.pressroom.com/philips/pulser/prifle.htm

 

[Sandelfron]

This game is incredibly bad, and you should feel bad. Nuff said.