Tweet
Takkaria, is it your intention to remove "useless" stuff from the game? If so, perhaps it's time to look at the stats system... Some stats are simply USELESS for certain classes!
Some variants (e.g. UnAngband) handle this by giving each stat multiple effects, and each effect multiple stats feeding into it. (e.g. CON affects spell points, just not as much as the "primary" stats do)... This can work, but it does also make the game more opaque to a new player.
Other games (e.g. Dungeon Crawl) simply have fewer stats - Crawl has only three: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence. (In case you're wondering where hitpoints come from, they have nothing to do with stats and everything to do with a Fighting skill and the player's race!)
Still other games allow multiclassing, so stats that are useless for one class can still find use by switching classes, or by using "secondary" abilities. (E.g. in Dragon Quest IX, you have "spells" and "abilities"; the spells are limited to your current class, but you can always use any ability you've learned, regardless of your current class - they might just be more or less effective depending on the stat bonuses of the various classes! So a thief using Half-Inch to steal an item from an enemy will be more successful than the same character as a paladin, because the thief has a bonus to Deftness, while the paladin has a penalty!)
I know you planned on eliminating Charisma, but any thoughts on the other stats that are only "sometimes" useless? Like, what does a mage need Wisdom for? I suppose it does affect saving throws... but then maybe a better example would be priests with Intelligence! Not to mention warriors who really only care about STR, DEX, and CON!
Oh, one more thing... maybe I'm just being obsessive-compulsive here, but why are there two pseudo-mage classes (Rogue and Ranger), but only one pseudo-priest class (Paladin)? Might it make sense to give Rangers the ability to use both mage and priest spells, but reduce their melee capabilities? Of course, that leaves rangers as jacks of all trades AND the only class specializing in archery... so maybe there could be an Archer class which specializes in archery even more than rangers, but can't use spells at all?
Just some crazy ideas
Some variants (e.g. UnAngband) handle this by giving each stat multiple effects, and each effect multiple stats feeding into it. (e.g. CON affects spell points, just not as much as the "primary" stats do)... This can work, but it does also make the game more opaque to a new player.
Other games (e.g. Dungeon Crawl) simply have fewer stats - Crawl has only three: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence. (In case you're wondering where hitpoints come from, they have nothing to do with stats and everything to do with a Fighting skill and the player's race!)
Still other games allow multiclassing, so stats that are useless for one class can still find use by switching classes, or by using "secondary" abilities. (E.g. in Dragon Quest IX, you have "spells" and "abilities"; the spells are limited to your current class, but you can always use any ability you've learned, regardless of your current class - they might just be more or less effective depending on the stat bonuses of the various classes! So a thief using Half-Inch to steal an item from an enemy will be more successful than the same character as a paladin, because the thief has a bonus to Deftness, while the paladin has a penalty!)
I know you planned on eliminating Charisma, but any thoughts on the other stats that are only "sometimes" useless? Like, what does a mage need Wisdom for? I suppose it does affect saving throws... but then maybe a better example would be priests with Intelligence! Not to mention warriors who really only care about STR, DEX, and CON!
Oh, one more thing... maybe I'm just being obsessive-compulsive here, but why are there two pseudo-mage classes (Rogue and Ranger), but only one pseudo-priest class (Paladin)? Might it make sense to give Rangers the ability to use both mage and priest spells, but reduce their melee capabilities? Of course, that leaves rangers as jacks of all trades AND the only class specializing in archery... so maybe there could be an Archer class which specializes in archery even more than rangers, but can't use spells at all?
Just some crazy ideas
Comment