What most RPGs do wrong...

[sigma1932]

As long as the synergy effect acts as small but significant boost, not an outright wholesale replacement for building the other skill-- both in the number for the skill itself, and as it pertains to the mechanical formulas of the game itself-- then it sounds ok to me.

This post also caught my eye:

Which is made worse by the fact that more Intelligence = more skillpoints, which means that the nerd scientist will be punching holes through people faster than the brickwall with huge arms.

This could easily be dealt with by making primary attributes (or a derivative formula including multiple primary attributes) determine the MAXIMUM values of their associated secondary skills rather than being a tacked-on augmentation or determining the starting level of the skill.

Getting back to the nerd example, Given that a melee weapon skill is tied directly to STR, the nerd can study weapon techniques from instructional books or possibly train with a mentor and such to gain an understanding of the general theories involved, but ultimately he just can't put them into practice due to the fact that he can barely lift the weapon to begin with (given he doesn't raise his STR also), let alone properly wield it.

For another more technical example, for simplicity's sake, consider New Vegas's SPECIAL system and how it affects secondary skills... you know how a lot of people make CHA a dump-stat? What if, instead of adding +2 to Speech/Barter per point of CHA, we make it so that the highest your Speech/Barter skill could be is 10*CHA? Go ahead, dump CHA so you can pump your INT up for more skillpoints... but forget about passing any speech checks because you can only put 10 total points in your speech skill due to the fact that your character has the raw social aptitude of a barnacle.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I like how Codex Martialis has separate fighting style elements and weapon proficiencies.

 

[DalekFlay]

Realism is not the core of a good RPG system, great playability and balance is. They're fucking video games after all.

 

[DraQ]

...and what Grimrock did exactly right.

If you become more proficient with a warhammer, why wouldn't you also be more proficient with an axe or a flail? It's totally counter-intuitive to think that a man who wields enough force to regularly kill people with a warhammer suddenly can't swing his weapon properly if he switches to an axe.

Yet, that is how most RPGs do it - you allot skill points or proficiency points to a particular weapon and become stronger with that weapon only, and lose out on becoming stronger with weapons where you did not allot those proficiency points.

Grimrock's basic idea of having skill points affect attributes like Strength made sense in this regard. You increase your Axe skill. Your Strength goes up. Now you also do more damage with a Sword. Improving one skill leads to improvement in related skills - as it should.

Of course, point-buy is still silly in its own way. Like in Fallout, where you become a genius with Energy Weapons without ever having seen one. So I still prefer the use-based system of Betrayal at Krondor or Wizardry (partially use-based) or TES. I think the perfect system would be one that combines use-based systems with Grimrock's skills-affect-attributes system. Think about it - increased usage of persuasion leads to increased diplomacy skill, which leads to increased charisma. It makes more sense - how else did you become more charismatic other than by trying to develop it?

DraQ, I am tagging you, because you are the only one who reads this sort of stuff.

A good idea is to make trees ad have skill increases trickle down from heavily specialized leaves, to generic roots.

Ideally, different levels should affect different aspects of weapon use, for example leaves might only affect very specific techniques you can perform only with specific kind of weapon.

Extending this to attributes requires extra care, though. Strength, for example is not just limited by how much do you pump iron, but also your natural predispositions. A system should reflect that, and then use some additional limiting mechanics to enforce that and make attribute development stretch more or less evenly throughout the game, without going arbitrarily high. Not an easy task.

Still, trees don't solve all problems. For example, you have a classic multiple inheritance problem. Take TES, for example. Neither focusing on general weapon type nor the number of hands needed to wield it is a good idea. A claymore is both a sword and 2h weapon. It isn't one more than it is the other. A solution might be to make some activities regulated by more than one tree. Ideally also separating concerns (for example, 2h would concentrate on swinging and manoeuvring relatively large and heavy weapon, while sword would regulate using sword specific techniques with it.

Realism is not the core of a good RPG system, great playability and balance is. They're fucking video games after all.

Realism lets the real life do a good part of the fucking job for you in addition to making the game more engaging.

 

[dibens]

They're fucking video games after all.

What are these "video" games you are talking about? We are discussing computer games here

 

[dibens]

I like the idea of skills being tied to special attacks/abilities rather than to weapons themselves. The game should ask players "what type of character you want", not "what type of weapon you want". For example, if I'm a on hit effect proccer, I should be able to do good with any fast one handed weapon. If I'm a disruptive duellist, I should do great with any weapons that stun, slow etc. This is why I love unarmed combat in most games- the efficiency is more tied to innate abilities and thus my build can be planned out accordingly. When the player is forced to choose one weapon at the beginning of the game, he has no idea what options will be available to him through the journey. And worse yet- the best in slot item turns out to be some ugly looking weeaboo scimitar with glossy polish.

Sure, this uncertainty adds to the adventurous spirit, but, fuck, I already can't play any rpg without restarting it fifteen times.