Classless point based advancement

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DP
1st Level
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Classless point based advancement

Post by DP »

I've been trying to think of a good way to create a balanced classless advancement system. The basic ideas behind the system were to allow considerable flexibility in character and party configuration while still having different character archetypes be generally balanced against each other. This system only integrates combat abilities, non combat abilities would be dealt with a seperate system.

Abilities are assigned to different slots that corespond to different types of abilities like artilary effects (lightning, fireball etc) melee attacks (rapid strike, frost strike, vampiric strike), movement effects (speed increase, flight, swim, combat teleport) etc. Their could be maybe 10 different slots that the abilities could fall under and maybe 5-7 different abilities per type. Every level a character gets abilities to distribute to different slots. The number of points in a slot governs the power of all abilities associated with said slot. Only one abilty can be active at a time per slot. A character could have fire shield active, and use lightning strike, but a character could not have fire shield and lightning shield active at once.

Code: Select all

[br]Advancement would work like so.[br]Level	1	Ability Points 	1 	Powers 	1	Max per-slot	1[br]	2			1		1			2[br]	3			2		2			3[br]	4			2		2			4[br]	5			3		3			5[br]	6			3		3			6[br]	7			4		4			7[br]	8			4		4			8[br]	9			5		5			9[br]	10			5		5			10[br]	11			6		6			11[br]

I expect this to be a bit confusing so I'll use a few example characters. A wizard chose frost nova at first level and assigns one point to it, at second level he assigns another point to it and the ability becomes more powerful, at third level he can chose another artillary power (ball lightning) and be able to have the choice of using either power at the same level of effectivness (and bank one point for later) or he could chose a shield power and assign one point to that and one to the artillary power and have shield 1 artillary 3.

A fighter could pick a combat buff, then at 3rd a defense buff, and assign 2 points to each of them.

This is just the kernal of an idea, but I'd like to know any fundemental problems involved before I delope it further.
DP
1st Level
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Classless point based advancement

Post by DP »

Sorry about the table it was better formated in the window, I'm new here so I have some things to figure out.
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fbmf
The Great Fence Builder
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Re: Classless point based advancement

Post by fbmf »

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
Greetings, DP! I tried to make the table more like you wanted it. PM me if I need to change it around, or you are of course welcome to edit it yourself.
[/The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
MrWaeseL
Duke
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Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Classless point based advancement

Post by MrWaeseL »

So you get the listed amount of ability points extra each level or the difference (as the wizard spell list)?
DP
1st Level
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Classless point based advancement

Post by DP »

You get the listed ammount of abiliity points each level. So at level 11 a character would have a total of 36 ability points.
Username17
Serious Badass
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Re: Classless point based advancement

Post by Username17 »

OK, I finally got around to really reading this. The entire concept is not going to work. This is essentially the Diablo II system of advancement, and we all know that that system really sucks. In Diablo II there are actually a very small number of optimal setups, and therefore literally millions of potential setups that aren't any good.

In the abstract case, it is entirely possible to imagine a system in which characters can be either better at a more limited number of tasks or worse at a more expansive number of tasks and have that be balanced - but such a set-up has never been satisfactorily put into the hands of players in an RPG context because of two things:

Random Number Generators and Scaling Tactical Complexity.

If the choice between variety and numeric bonuses can be made more than once, eventually everyone loses. Some players will choose numeric bonuses over and over again, and eventually the opposition numbers they must compete against will be so high that everyone else is powerless. Meanwhile, other characters will continue to choose variety again and again, and eventually the list of immunities and special attacks available to any opposition meant to meaningfully castigate them will push everyone out of competition. But the problem here is that everyone is out of the running, which means that the game has become un-fun and indeed all the players lose.

The fact is that the choice between variation and specialization cannot be allowed to iterate itself. In a level based system you have to force people to get better at whatever it is that they do. You have to force people to gain additional meaningful abilities. You can't allow "Stabmaster" who is just really good at making a damaging attack with his spear. You can't allow JoaT as a PC either.

Level-based character advancement comes with some inherent limitations. And one of those limitations is that people pretty much have to lock themselves onto rails as to how fight/magic or variety/specialization focused they are at the beggining of the game and stick to it.

-Username17
DP
1st Level
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: Classless point based advancement

Post by DP »

I've been playing with this some since I've posted it and have improved it somewhat but I'll defend it as is.

The system does allow for the ability to make bad characters I admit that, but I don't thinks its as bad as all that. The reason for this is that unlike Diablo your not allocating points to specific attacks but to attack types. A fighter is expected to max out the melee strike ability if he wants to be a fighter the points invested in melee strike apply to let's say stunning blow, whirlwind strike, fire sword and ice punch. Now a fighter probably wouldn't pick four different melee strikes, it might pick 2 which at 11th level will be a third of his abilities. He could then pick a 2 shield abilities, an anti magic ability and a sorcery ability.

A sample 11th level fighter type
Melee 11
*Stunning Strike
*Whirlwind Strike
Sheild 11
*Fire Shield
*Shadow Cloak
Antimagic 9
* Warior's Spirit
Sorcery 5
* Taunt

Under this system it's still possible to make bad characters like

11th level dofus

Sorcery 6
*Dominate
Blast 6
*Firebal
Shield 6
*Stone Skin
Antimagic 6
*Spell turn
Melee 6
*Lightning Strike
Summon 6
*Bat swarm

This is pretty much the maximum difference in quality of characters between the system (at this level), one is worse than the other but I think the margin of difference is acceptable. I realize that if I scale the power level high enough the power disparity can become too much and I'm considering different ways to mitigate this.

I think that while the system is flawed it's superior to Diablo II and probably even most systems that allow multi classing.

RandomCasualty
Prince
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Re: Classless point based advancement

Post by RandomCasualty »

What Frank is saying is pretty much right on. Any system based on bonus accumulation won't work.

You shouldn't have a system where the max/min level grows as you gain levels. That is you shouldn't start out with a choice of only melee 0 or 1 and eventually be able to have melee 0 through 10. That just doesn't work.

Basically your system has to be based more or less around not changing as opposed to changing. That is your melee should go between 0 and 5 (or whatever numeric "gap" you want) and shouldn't change. You should then add your level to it (which does change).

That's the only way you'll get away from bonus accumulation, otherwise your system will look like Diablo 2 and have lots of ways for characters to waste points. Like Diablo, the incentive is always to max stuff out.
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