Incline Skill systems (you really liked)

[luj1]

For me Guild Wars 1 - deckbuilding skill system with 1000s of skills
Tales of Maj Eyal - really distinct classes, long-term building with lots of utility skills and variation
Underrail - deep and just well made

(obviously not gonna mention superbly ported 3ED in KotC, was thinking more original stuff made from the scratch)

 

[kangaxx]

System Shock 2 on impossible mode.

 

[luj1]

I think it's obviously good to have classes of skills. Just look at how many different skill types does GW1 have,

Skill types​

• Skill (untyped)
  • Attack skill
    • Pet attack
    • Melee attack
      • Axe attack
      • Dagger attack
        • Lead attack
        • Off-hand attack
        • Dual attack
      • Hammer attack
      • Scythe attack
      • Sword attack
    • Ranged attack
      • Bow attack
      • Spear attack
  • Blessing
  • Chant
  • Condition
  • Disguise
  • Echo
  • Elite skill
  • Environment effect
  • Form
  • Glyph
  • Party Bonus
  • Preparation
  • Ritual
    • Binding ritual
    • Nature ritual
    • Ebon vanguard ritual
  • Shout
  • Signet
  • Spell
    • Enchantment spell
      • Flash enchantment spell
    • Hex spell
    • Item spell
    • Ward spell
    • Weapon spell
    • Well spell
  • Stance
  • Title
  • Touch skill
  • Trap

From: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Skill_type

 

[NecroLord]

Fallout 1 and 2.
I like the inclusion of Speech as a skill and its synergy with the Charisma and Intelligence attributes.

 

[Galdred]

It is not an RPG, but I like how Blood Bowl pushes to have unique team composition, without ever forcing you to gimp your own characters.

 

[Anthedon]

Gothic I and II where a higher weapon skill doesn't just add damage but also changes the actual weapon animations. In the beginning it looks quite amateurish but with higher skill values melee combat looks pretty smooth.

 

[Hagashager]

I quite like Gothic's in-universe competence schtick. It's neat seeing your skill level be represented in better animations.

I also do think Two World's skill system is pretty good. The game may be flawed but hiring trainers like in Gothic, then having the ability to train yourself is pretty neat.

I am also partial to RPGs where class skills are clearly defined. I don't think it's wrong for a thief to be the only one that knows lockpicking.

 

[HappyDaddyWow!]

I've always liked how simple, yet deceptively complex the first Final Fantasy is in this regard. Unfortunately, most players probably won't even realize this because I would assume most people do a pretty vanilla party comp on their first run (something like Warrior-Thief-White Mage-Black Mage).

There's nothing stopping you from running a super unorthodox party, and there's even benefits for doing so. A party of four red mages will have a much easier early game, but slowly get worse as the game goes on. Monks are weak early game, but require basically no gear and quickly outpace other melee classes later on in the game - so having 2-3 Monks in your party instead of the classic warrior-thief combo can help in the late game.

This is more of a class system than a skill one but I think the point still stands.

 

[Butter]

Wizardry 7 still has my favourite skill system of any game. It combines learn-by-doing, spending skill points at level-up, hidden skills that have to be unlocked through progression/exploration/rare item usage, class-specific skills + class changing. It's more fun by itself than entire other RPGs, and it manages to be deep without being overwhelming.

 

[Lt Broccoli]

Games that have useful non-combat skills in addition to combat skills are welcome to me as they are more in line with tabletop experiences and add some added realism. That and I love playing thief characters with the full gamut of possibilities:
Age of Decadence
Colony Ship
Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics
Alpha Protocol
Deus Ex

 

[Feyd Rautha]

It's cool in Arcanum that you can "upgrade" your skills by going to a trainer and go from apprentice -> expert -> master.

 

[Baron Tahn]

Darklands.

 

[rubinstein]

System Shock 2 on impossible mode.

why specifically impossible mode? i have only finished the game on normal and hard, yet i would still agree if you said just "system shock 2".

I think it's obviously good to have classes of skills. Just look at how many different skill types does GW1 have

we did not deserve gw1

 

[__scribbles__]

why specifically impossible mode? i have only finished the game on normal and hard, yet i would still agree if you said just "system shock 2".

Upgrade costs are higher(slightly less than doubled compared to easy/normal/hard IIRC). It makes the game more engaging and harder, I remember going down to hard after a playthrough on impossible and thinking that I was getting too powerful too quickly.

 

[Kabas]

Warlords Battlecry 2. You got your 4 attributes(str,dex,int,cha), skills that are derived from your attributes (Combat skill = str+str, Health = str+dex, etc.) and perks from your race and class/specialization. Depending on your race/class you can also have access to a bunch of different schools of magic.

Amongst the recent games i quite enjoyed how diablo 1-like Tower of Kalemonvo did things. You got your spells that require Int to learn and Mind(determines mana) to cast.
You also got weapon arts that also cost mana but require phys stats to use. Throwing two-handed weapon like boomerang requires pumping Str while deflecting projectiles with a shield requires Agi if i am not misremembering things, bow skills require Dex.
This system kinda encourages you to mix things up bit, like pumping Int a bit so that your barbarian can learn rage spell.

Systems that are simple but not dull are my most favourite ones.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

Fallout 76.

I am not going to convince you that the game is "good". I am going to explain in the system of the game, in vacuum.

If you are not familiar with the system, basically: if you have 10 Perception, you can put perks "card" worth of 10 points. The way they handled the perks cards are also quite interesting. You can go min max like maximizing perks card to full 3rd tier, which mean you can have 10 distinct perks (of level 1 perks), or 3 powerful perks + 1 level 1 perk, or 5 level 2 perks if you want to go in between.

So, interestingly, functionally it doesn't actually much different than the classic SPECIAL system, you have 10 Strength? well, apart from inventory weight increase and melee base damage, if you aren't getting Melee perks (like increasing melee scores in classic) you are not doing shit.

Disco Elysium.

Mostly because of it's simplicity, but it would be tricky to implement to "standard cRPG". It's easy to understand and give your character distinct.. well, character. And I like 2d6 + modifier. It's just simple. At least I like it better than a single d20 dice.

Wasteland 3.

CLASSIC arguably functionally better than SPECIAL, it being less esoteric and easier to understand. At least in WL3. Also the skill system functionally enable player to make a class, where none actually defined.


3 games, all of them relatively new and one of them 76, surely my fellow Codexian would agree with this.

 

[CryptRat]

When it comes to roguelikes I'm specially fond of the system of Caverns of Xaskazien II. There are many things to like about it including how complex it is at this point, and I've not even played for a while so there's probably a lot I've not seen, but the thing which really makes it stand out to me is how it's how it's totally made to use the strengths of a game with permadeath, with tons of stat and skill checks during a run : warriors may create random pieces of equipment when entering a new level, gambling to double your money or lose it all is cool here, there are perks which give you a chance to get an entrance to a type of extra level your character want to enter based on his race or class, even retrying to open a container with no risk is an interesting choice due to the time pressure. The way some rogue-type (or mage-type) characters will be able to gain plenty of XP via alternative ways to combat like mining or history checks while warrior-type characters might have a problem dealing with traps and a big warrior run may end in instant death that a rogue would have managed to avoid is really cool. These things are not as fun with a save system, I don't feel like I just want to play the same game except with a party, a save system and handcrafted content when I play this one which can happen with some other roguelikes.

Regarding normal party-based games any system with some simple weapon/magic type specialisation as well as a reasonable set of utility skills to cover (acrobatics, bartering, lock-picking ...) is fine to me. Typical favourites when it comes to the skill roster would be Wasteland 1-2/Fallout 1-2/Dragon Wars, as well Darklands, Buck Rogers, Helherron/Natuk/Disciples of Steel/Aethra Chronicles (don't get me wrong, some of these use an XP gain system where you gain XP for doing anything which is absolutely terrible so overall the system is terrible but the skill roster is good to me) and plenty of other similar systems.

I generally like putting my points when levelling-up but you can probably achieve the same with a good class system and without any allocation although I can't think of an example I like just as much right now. I don't mind perks but I certainly don't need perks.

The ones I actually dislike are the ones where either you directly upgrade combat specific actions and/or different classes correspond to different combat actions. I mean anything with a skill bar on the bottom of the screen is generally repusilve to me as it generally represents this kind of thing I dislike. I don't like when MPs are called stamina and warriors are then spell casters, what I actually want with warriors in such games where you pick one thing at level up is picking a perk for them and still mostly bumping onto enemies (the way KOTC introduces the martial skills from the books I actually like though). Many typical hack&slashes, MMOs and roguelikes use this kind of system I loathe. The other kinds I don't play much but roguelikes are particularly relevant because I get to filter the roguelikes I am going to play a bit based on this and most of my favourite ones are ones which completely differ (Caverns of Xaskazien II, Infra Arcana, Brogue), I still play some such ones once in a while too but even in these cases I would say they're a bit different, the system of Demon is special with the recruitment and all the skill management (copy ...), in Rift Wizard you play as a mage so it's a bit different too. Typically although I don't particularly like the system in Diablo 1 I really hate the system in Diablo 2.

 

[kangaxx]

why specifically impossible mode? i have only finished the game on normal and hard, yet i would still agree if you said just "system shock 2".

Upgrade costs are higher(slightly less than doubled compared to easy/normal/hard IIRC). It makes the game more engaging and harder, I remember going down to hard after a playthrough on impossible and thinking that I was getting too powerful too quickly.

This is it basically, it ramps up the sense of progression a lot. Not to say Normal and Hard are bad at all.. the game is great either way.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Buck Rogers

You stole mine!

Buck Rogers had a fairly crazy character system with a Hell of a lot of Depth. Skills were divided in to categories, and each class got bonuses to certain skills.

DEXTERITY
Acrobatics, Climb, Drive Groundcar, Drive Jetcar, Hide in Shadows, Maneuver in 0G, Move Silently, Pick Pocket, Pilot Fixed Wing, Pilot Rocket, Pilot Rotor Wing, and Use Jet Pack

TECH
Bypass Security, Commo Operations, Demolitions, First Aid, Jury Rig, Open Lock, Repair Electrical, Repair Life Support, Repair Mechanical, Repair Nuclear Engineer, Repair Rocket Hull, Repair Weapon, and Sensor Operation

MEDIC
Diagnose, Life Suspension Tech, Treat Critical Wounds, Treat Disease, Treat Light Wounds, Treat Poisoning, Treat Serious Wounds, and Treat Stun/Paralysis

INTELLIGENCE
Astrogation, Astronomy, Battle Tactics, Disguise, Library Search, Mathematics, Mimic, Navigation, Planetology, and Programming

CHARISMA
Act, Befriend Animal, Distract, Etiquette, Fast Talk/Convince, Intimidate, Leadership, and Sing

WISDOM
Notice, Planetary Survival, Shadowing, and Tracking

Not all these skills were used in the game, because SSI liked to add every part of the character system to their games since characters going from one game to the next were a staple of their Gold Box games. However, you can see that the Buck Rogers tabletop(which was made by TSR) system influenced later Dungeons & Dragons skills. You'll also notice that since there isn't a magic system, some spells and other class abilities from AD&D worked their way in to the skills system. It is kind of amazing how many of these skills were used in the game. I believe one that isn't useful is Drive Groundcar because the first game didn't have any cars.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Arcanum, Might & Magic, Gothic. I like systems where skills are upgraded or learned via trainers. If done well it can add more layers of depth to the world building, individual characters and exploration. It'll make character building feel more personal than simply dropping points on your sheet.

 

[kangaxx]

Arcanum, Might & Magic, Gothic. I like systems where skills are upgraded or learned via trainers. If done well it can add more layers of depth to the world building, individual characters and exploration. It'll make character building feel more personal than simply dropping points on your sheet.

You had that in the Krynn games too, at least the first two. You couldn't level up your party mid-dungeon.

 

[luj1]

I like systems where skills are upgraded or learned via trainers

Wizards and Warriors had a pretty cool twist on that

 

[Losus4]

Skyrim easily, I really feel like I'm becoming super powerful

 

[luj1]

Skyrim easily, I really feel like I'm becoming super powerful

Word, Skyrim is the best RPG

 

[Dorateen]

I liked the secondary skills of Might & Magic II, which aided exploration. Cartographer allowed access to the automap. Pathfinder allowed travel through heavily forested areas, and Mountaineering likewise for mountainous regions. Navigator prevented getting lost in wide open areas. In some cases, it was required to have two characters in the party with the skill in order to benefit. Each character could only have two skill slots, so there some planning went into who you would give each skill.