Levels for learnt commands

[Fantom]

Another thought:

How about, instead of ranks for a command, we have aspects of the command that can be improved, independently.

So for stab you might have (remember these are examples!):
- how heavy a weapon you can use
- how well you can use an edged weapon instead of a pointed
- how fast you are at preparing to stab
- how well you can fight whilst preparing to stab

And for summonbeast:
- the range of animals you can summon
- the strength of the animals you can summon
- the need for a staff
- the need for a herb

Each aspect would start at rank 1 and be raisable to rank 4.
You'd probably have a max number of raises for any command, say 10. The difficulty of raising an aspect being dependent probably just on the rank of that aspect, not how many of your 10 you have used up, but maybe that as well.

This would allow for a wide variety of choice for players and result in players being different from each other, rather than everyone just having all things maxed.

Compared to the discussion above:
It makes more sense in that as a player you can concentrate of the bits that you want most rather than having to work through 10 ranks for the whole command when all you really care about is getting the stuff that rank 6 gives you.

[Lucid]

I think another way to break down on people being the same is to have a max # of ranks you can train for everything, and boosting something to 10 means you could only get 3 more things to 10 and the rest stay rank 1 or the rest to 6. Something like that.

People could then emulate themselves into a subguild kind of player where one druid = excellent healer, another avg at everything, another is like a beastmaster.

Each guild having their own max ranks (to distribute over time) that could possibly be changed/ earned higher through guild quests or some other things in the future. And learning ranks from other guilds would have a penalty to the max ranks. Say -5 or -10. Perhaps you can go guild quests for other guilds, too.

[Strizap]

I like the idea. Maybe you could even have upgraded versions of the command at mega high levels such as double stab or Shank (stabbing of the heart)

[Gabriel]

I love the idea. Would give just another dynamic to the game that would keep us all interested, keep us all moving forward. And I like anything that makes the gap between weak and strong players larger, because I feel right now that the gap is too small. For example, I'm quite far ahead of Katie in guild skills. We had a naked icestorm fight, and even with roughly 200 more attack than her, she still won. This sounds like it would give more consistency to a command, and that I like.

[Fantom]

Any particular preference between the single rank for the whole command vs separate ranks for aspects of the command?

[Gabriel]

Any particular preference between the single rank for the whole command vs separate ranks for aspects of the command?

I would very much prefer separate ranks for aspects of the commands

[Lucid]

Well, we could start with single until the new abilities are coded and fuctioning. Although several things could probably be done on multiple. Perhaps the amount of skills used to do a command determines the rank tally.

[Fantom]

Well there isn't really any "new" stuff that need be coded straight away.

We'd start out with existing aspects of the current commands being advanceable, like the speed of stab and the weight of the weapon, and the types of animals you can summon.

Not sure what you mean by Perhaps the amount of skills used to do a command determines the rank tally. ?

[Lucid]

To answer the previous: Well look at the dependancies on each gcommand. For example stab relies on co.me.po, st.at, st.po, dex bonus, weapon weight. The first part = 3 skills. (I'm not sure if it uses anything else than those.) Whereas something like backstab uses co.me.po, st.sn.in/.ou, st.hi.se.in/.ou, st.po (and maybe attack?) Therefore 4 skills, not including the stat/weapon dependancies. --edit. Not to mention light checks, and ot.pe checks for countering in pk(/mobs too?)

Then there's something which takes a lot more discipline: summon beast. You need a herb which often requires you to know cr.al.re.he and cr.po just to be able to forage, but the command itself requires a staff and a plant, and you use the skills fa.it.st, fa.mi.ta?, fa.pr.ch, fa.po, and I think it checks other things, but I can't remember. 4 skills + knowledge of reagent because you cannot summon a bear with orange fungus when the fungus is listed as a strange plant to you. So the command is a process. Not to mention that it's the most expensive gp-wise command in the game, so summoning a lot of protection is bloody hard to accomplish. A rank for druids could be a reduced gp cost for summoning, a boost to charming bonus (it's not a guild primary,) and the ability to summon with a plant and no staff. Stuff like that. It was already tuned to not be able to summon indoors. I think the command should go 1 step further down the road where you can tame other mobtype animals already in the game. So these indoor mobs become controlled by you with high checks to skills, ranks, aspects, int, and cha.

[Fantom]

Check out http://tharsisgate.dyndns.org/twiki/bin ... mmandsDion

Is this what people are thinking of?