Bob's RPG Era (now with achievements!)

[Bob_The_Mighty]

I gave the weapon thing a serious think and come up with this: see attachment.

(I didn't know how else to show it!)

Players can no longer increase their number of attacks, instead they spend character points to boost damage. The cost and frequency of the upgrades depends on the weapon type/number of attacks.

It is all based on overall damage.

So, a novice warrior with a 4-3 sword must spend 6 character points to get the next level of swordsmanship, taking them to 6-3. To boost it again to 8-3, the character must be an Experienced warrior.

Whereas a novice warrior with a 3-4 mace spends 4 character points to get a 4-4 attack, and then another 4 to get 5-4 attack. Beyond that, they too need to be an Experienced Warrior.

Since characters start as 'Experienced' in the class they initially choose, all players start doing 24 damage. However, I realised this meant that magicians and vagabonds were much better off since they do the same damage as their warrior/ranger counterparts AND they have magical weapon special/elusivefoot terrain defence. So, magicians and vagabonds now start at one notch lower than warriors and rangers (For instance, a white mage's lightbeam starts off at 6-3 whereas a human ranger's bow starts at 8-3).

EDIT: I changed my mind about this bit.

The other problem this change has brought about is way it affects the current stances. Since 'attack' boosted strikes, and 'aim' boosted damage, they are obviously going to be much more useful for certain weapons. So i guess i will add two more stances so nobody gets left out.

The main difference is that it gives the player more combinations of damage-type/weapon-types. Should make it more interesting.

Note: none of this is uploaded yet. There are other things i need to fix. Also, I wanted to get some feedback on this first

Does this make sense to anyone?

[TruePurple]

I have been unable to test this mod very well because of a lag delay of about 18 seconds at the start of every unit move turn. :no saves does nothing for some reason.

How about positive traits?

You can pick 1 positive trait. Each postive trait has a cost of X negative traits. Most would cost 1 negative trait, the ordinary trait would cost no negative traits but wouldn't do anything either.

Examples of positive traits could be

(allied) Leadership (yes taken off as something learnable too)
Leadership would also be required to gain control of certain units, like those peasants in the fall of trent.

Intelligent: reduced cost of experience for leveling (no wisdom learn)

Dextrous:
5-10% increased chance of getting missed on most terrain except water, (only available to elves?)

Sturdy:
Increased resistance to all physical types. (Only available to dwarves?)

Resistant:
Increase resistance of fire cold and arcane

Lucky:
Randomly it activates so the next hit that would hit you, doesn't

Negative traits could have values too, like psycho could be valued at 2.(for example) So it and a 1 would satisfy a positive trait of a value of 3.

Some negative traits could not be picked in combination with some positive traits. Like you can't pick selfishness if you choose leadership.

[Weeksy]

it's :nosaves, not :no saves

[TruePurple]

Rogue=Vagabond

The value of magical attack for mages is nulified a bit by mages lack of HP. Also its very bad for their theme for their attacks to be weaker then their counterparts. And anyone can buy 50% chance of hitting for their attack anyways.

Also a rogues dodge is nullified a bit by its strange vulnerability to damage as well as its reduced hp. Perhaps its dodge should be reduced but a rogues vulnerability reduced to the normal 0 except arcane resistance of humans? I mean if thats suppose to represent their lack of armor, then shouldn't mages have that same physical vulnerability then?(which is a possibility too, especially if we also increases the mages magic spell damage attack)

I'm not sure its balanced for dwarves to get such resistance despite the fact they are slightly (about 10%) easier to hit then humans on many terrain. Its hard to weight that though.

I do think that things are a bit too generalized and not as unique.


Warning, lots of ideas I came up with. I hope I don't overwhelm you with them. I'm just throwing them out there.
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An idea:
What if you got character points to spend from completing quests objectives instead of leveling from experience from kills? Like what if you got so many points for each peasant you keep alive from fall of trent at different stages of the game? Other objectives would receive different rewards depending on how well you accomplished it and whether you got the side stuff. (like that ogre could give a few bonus points, so would alerting the shamon and keeping him alive)

There could also be villages with special trainers in them. These would be hidden. Or other special hidden events that give points. This would help alot with the roleplaying aspect. Also because points are more limited, it wouldnt be as easy to diverse in classes.

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Purchasable weapons, you cant learn a attack without buying the weapon for it first (with exception of weapons like clubs) Either from a store or just from a menu that costs gold (if no store implemented for map) Better weapons can be bought, found, made.

Difference in classes:
Rangers are treated as archers.

Instead what if ranger stuff was things like net attack for slowing, movement stuff like they have now. Extra bonuse to being missed on certain natural terrain like forests and water. Forest concealment. Maybe dodge and concealment stuff for for mountains? Loner and maverick stuff.

Range could be rolled into warrior class.

When a warrior upgrades, it upgrades its skill in X weapon. A warrior can learn to use almost any weapon (including bows) btw, but race would effect what weapon they could start out skilled in. Certain weapon might be race restricted, like battle axe might be too heavy for a elf.

Some weapons would be quicker to upgrade skill in then others but not be able to be upgraded as far or be weaker then the stronger options. Like dagger would be quick to upgrade but never be really effective. But skills like back stab might only work with a dagger. (I really can't see someone backstabing with a battle axe or even worse, a staff )

Some weapon upgrades might be interesting in other ways, like halberder wouldn't start out being able to be used both ways, but could get it with enough skill. Long sword could eventually allow first strike.

But you upgrade the weapon skill and not the damage. React, deft and marksmanship would all be skills that would apply to specific weapons when they get high enough.

Weapon skill upgrades get increasingly expensive as it goes up and can not exceed your highest level of class that has that weapon skill. Like for example you can't get advanced crossbow unless you have either advanced (or better) warrior or rogue or ranger skills. If you have multiple classes that both have that weapon, the lesser class, every other advancement would count as 1 level for the main type.(so if your character is experienced both in ranger and warrior he could get


Rogues weapons could be,
Daggers (upgrading in dagger upgrades both throwing and hitting with them) [n]Poison[/b] darts, Short sword, Club, Crossbow, sling. Most rogue weapons can get better fast but don't usually have the nice bonuses like deft or marksmanship at master level and don't do as much damage.

Rogues wouldn't naturally have better dodge but could gain it via dodge upgrades.

BTW I love the idea of rogues being able to hide in villages, well done!

So in short:
Rogue Ranger and warrior classes all allow weapons upgrade in those classes:

Chaotic and lawful types can be purchased cheaply. But you can not be lawful type if rogue or chaotic type if vivomancer.
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Any upgrade in any class increases the upgrade of all classes (including the ones you didn't upgrade)

The different races can learn more classes.

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3 physical classes:

Rogues:
Character gets chaotic type cannot get rogue levels if lawful, can't change chaos status with rogue levels:

Many rogue weapons get better much quicker but can't get as good as other classes, even at max level. At higher level of rogue can poison their non blunt weapons. Material is needed for this. Poison does wear off. Material is needed to make poison. When poisoning weapon, chance of character getting poisoned based on level of poisoning skill.(more skill, less material needed and less chance of self poisoning, more weapon types can be poisoned too) Poison dart attack wouldn't do much damage, but could not require poisoning skill or wear off poisoning. Upgrades of the skill would just mean more darts per attack.

Rogue weapons are also cheap or free(like a club would be so common, it would come with the basic attack skill)

Rogues could steal:
A chance when they attack something that they get some object on it depending on what they are attacking. (orc slayers could give vials of poison and grunts could give gold) Higher chance if they did the kill. Stealing skill would be something you'd learn and upgrade.

Something like stealing giving small amounts of character points instead of objects if objects disabled?

Backstab skill could upgrade several times:

skirmish skill:

No negative resistance and no starting bonus to being missed, these can be purchased (but choosing rogue option could start you out with a few of these purchased)

Can learn Town hide:

HP inceases a small amount each class upgrade.

Ranger:
Learnable bonuses on natural terrain: (hiding, dodge, movement)
Rangers have same weapon selection as warriors mostly but a ranger can also get weapon net, which is a range weapon that slows.

herbalism

Bonuses for being by self with appropriate purchase.

Bonus 1 to speed purchasable at master ranger level. (speed without horse not earnable otherwise) Veteran level too?

Moderate HP bonus with each class upgrade.

Warrior:
Can learn shield weapon, which gives gives physical resistance bonuses. Upgrades so it can be used as a blunt weapon when attacked, latter on can even be used to slow a enemy in melee.

Can learn to use other weapons to slow too with master skill in warrior and any weapon of master skill.?

Can make improved versions of weapons for better damage with right material

Can learn to ride horse(horse to purchase) When on horse you get a bonus to speed and vulnerability to pierce depending on horse quality. Dismounting horse is possible, then it becomes a controllable npc that can attack and be killed. Really expensive war mounts can attack with you for extra damage.(dwarves able to learn or not?) but also require more riding skill to use.

Known weapons skills upgrade for free at veteran and master levels and new skill learned start out at higher levels (novice and experienced respectfully)

Gains good HP when gaining in class,

Now the magic classes: these require ALOT more character points to gain in then the warrior classes and start out lower too then those starting warrior. Their effective level for the weapons they can use is half of that of the warrior classes. (except the magical melee attacks) No reduction in HP in being magic but won't gain HP like the physical classes would.

Perhaps their weapons can eventually become magical?

Vivomancer (life mage, vivo=latin for life think priest or "white mage")
Becomes lawful, cannot become unlawful. Can not get any vivomancer levels if chaotic
Can learn
Healing depending on level.
Arcane attack. Can not learn any other attack spells.
Cure.
"blessed" (the self heal)
Illumination
Weapons: staff, mace, sword.(for paladin type cross class)Magical arcane touch melee attack

Necromancer
Forced chaos status (like described earlier with vivomancer and rogue)
Can learn
Ice wave (reasonably powerful)
Staff plague attack
Arcane attack that can eventually get plague type, is not as strong as a vivomancers attack though.
Darkening
Weapons: Staff, knife, sword (for death knight type cross class) Magical freezing aura melee attack

Mage:
Can learn
Fireball:(its best attack, great damage)
Cone of ice
Hail of arrows: Magic range pierce attack
Hail of stones: Magic range blunt attack
Teleport at master level?
Weapons: Staff, magical burning hand melee attack

[Bob_The_Mighty]

Thanks for the huge ideas post.


* I was thinking adding a positive trait, but due to the way characrer creation is set up I don't think I can. Your suggestions sound more like abilities to me, anyway. The luck one is interesting.

* Vagabonds are all elusivefoot. That means they get higher defence but less resistances. Dwarves, vice versa. These are standard features. If it's good enough for default, it's good enough for me.

* Getting character points from completing quests is something that would have to written into the scenario (like getting XP for doing good deed in Brotherhood of Light). The era cannot recognise what a quest is or when it is completed.


As for your other ideas. Some of them are good, and are similiar to things I have already added (like rangers being more outdoorsy, and vagabonds having gold-stealing skills). However, a lot of them would require that I changed much of the structure of what I have already, which I'm not going to do. I get the impression you don't know quite how this stuff works, or how much work it would take to implement features. I appreciate the ideas, though.

Anyway, I have been changing a lot to this era. So maybe wait for the new version.

[TruePurple]

Well they wouldn't be abilities if you can't get them as abilities. Only as positive traits you get from start.

Its difficult to describe and more a emotional thing I suppose but, it sucks that the only way you can make your character special is by disadvantages that you have to pick between. That you can't have advantages to make you unique. Also it means you can't have advantages and disadvantages of varying strengths. Adding positive traits would mean you would have to rewrite the whole trait bit or the whole mod?

Also I don't think mages should have defensive technic. Thats not a mage thing. Thats a warrior thing. Plus I think it also doesn't make sense for mages to have low offense. Low offense and defensive technic also makes it similar to the rest.(same damage over all, same ability to resist damage etc, instead of mages being those vulnerable high damage units)

[jb]

t sucks that the only way you can make your character special is by disadvantages that you have to pick between.

Seriously? The entire era is all about custom character creation. You choose everything from the weapon to the pic to advancement path, how does this not provide for a unique character?

Also I don't think mages should have defensive technic. Thats not a mage thing.

It's called magic. Magic can do anything, that's why it's magic.

[Bob_The_Mighty]

I have just uploaded a new version of the era: 0.4.1

There has been lots of changes:

- All characters now start with a melee and ranged attack.
- Added Dwarf Ranger & Dwarf Magician.
- Added 3 new types of potion & 1 raw material.
- Replaced 'scared' trait with 'cowardly' which gives your melee weapon the swarm weapon special (not sure if this will stay).
- Removed magical, poison and slow from improve character options.
- Added two new stances: blitz and quickfire.
- The in-game help menu is complete and working now.
- The effects of eating stuff is now a little bit random.
- Energy cocktail now works.
- Added hillsmanship, snow-trekking and desert-trekking as ranger perks.
- Herbalism is a little more effective.
- Weaponcraft is now a warrior skill.
- The effects of weaponcraft no longer wear out after a turn, instead they are removed after the unit's next combat.

- Rangers can get a new skill new, animal taming: they get a special attack which tames wild monsters for a short time (thanks to zookeeper for helping me sort this one out).

- Vagabonds can get a new skill, scavanger: each kill they make earns them a small random sum of gold (but only from units that are likely to carry gold, i.e. not undead or monsters, etc).

- Vagabonds can also get the Trapper skill, which allows them to set traps and hope the ai walks on them. They can also make 3 types of traps using raw materials.

- Armour no longer degrades like it used to. Instead, a character with the blacksmith skill can improve armour with ulox rocks. Each rock adds 5% to armour condition/physical resistances (blade/pierce/impact). Only when your armour/resistances has been boosted in this way, over 100%, does it degrade by -1% every attack. It cannot go below 100% (though i am planning to make a weapon special for certain key enemy units that damages your armour).

How weapons work now...

- Character's choose a primary weapon skill and are given a secondary weapon skill automatically. They can henceforth only use weapons of those types.

- All primary weapons start off doing 24 overall damage (either 8-3, 6-4 or 12-2). All secondary weapons start off doing 12 overall damage (either 4-3, 3-4, 6-2, 12-1).

- The stats of your weapons are considered to be the character's skill with an average weapon. So instead of finding a 12-4 sword, for instance, you might find a +2 damage sword, or a magical sword, or an arcane sword.

- You can only have one melee weapon and one ranged weapon at the ready, but you can equip different ones in inventory.


I've also done a little bit of optimization and cleaning up, so hopefully it will all run a little quicker.

As always, let me know about bugs, balancing and stuff...

[Truper]

One very minor balance quibble: the Quickfire stance doesn't appear to be worth much. It increases ranged strikes by one, but reduces ranged damage by 2, and reduces movement by 2. In the case of a human experienced Ranger, for instance, adopting this stance makes ranged damage go from 10-3 to 8-4 - a max damage increase of 2, for the cost of reducing movement from 5 to 3. There aren't very many circumstances where that is a good trade-off.

[TL]

One very minor balance quibble: the Quickfire stance doesn't appear to be worth much. It increases ranged strikes by one, but reduces ranged damage by 2, and reduces movement by 2. In the case of a human experienced Ranger, for instance, adopting this stance makes ranged damage go from 10-3 to 8-4 - a max damage increase of 2, for the cost of reducing movement from 5 to 3. There aren't very many circumstances where that is a good trade-off.

Well, it is a big help for dwarven rangers with their 12-2 ranged attack. If any fighter types with a one-shot ranged attack wanted to diversify it would be absolutely huge (human javelineer type gets a 12-1 ranged attack, which would go to 10-2).

Other than that, though... yeah, it's not especially useful. Juggling damage vs. strikes to maximize CTK isn't a terrible ability, but it's not nearly as useful as Aim (particularly since quickfire nerfs your movement). It pains me to suggest this since I love Aim so much, but perhaps the positions of Aim and Quickfire on the ranger tree should be switched?

[Bob_The_Mighty]

Well, the reason I introduced two new stances was to cater for characters with different dam-strike ratios. Quicklfire and Blitz favour weapons with high damage and low strikes, whilst Attack and Aim favour high strikes and low damage. I guess characters with 3 strikes get the best/worst of both worlds.

I am open to suggestions... maybe quickfire should only reduce 1 movement? Swapping it around with aim in the ranger tree sounds fine. Would it make sense to swap blitz and attack too?

[lightdragonx]

In which maps can you play this era since i want the concoction/herbalism/etc to work i know labyrinth works but what else?

[Bob_The_Mighty]

The Labyrinth of Champions and Fall of Trent are the only scenarios currently set up to work with the inventory stuff, i.e. concoction, herbalism, trapping, etc.

By the way, if anyone wants to make or convert a scenario that uses this era and the inventory elements, let me know - I'll help you set it up.

[Sangel]

I've been playing Fall of Trent with this Era, and I'm most impressed by what you have so far. It's a fairly straightforward system that nevertheless allows a fair amount of customisation. Some suggestions:

*Changing of stances should have its own contextual menu option, rather than being found under "Character Sheet".
*Unlike the other stances, "Run" does not take effect immediately - you only get the +2 movement next turn. Perhaps it should give +2 movement instantly. However, to prevent abuse, you should only be able to shift stance once per turn.

Additionally, I really don't like the "forced flaw". How about changing it to be optional, but giving points depending on the severity of the flaw?

So, a base character receives 20 character points to start with. If they pick a flaw they get more...
Club Foot: 5cp
Psycho: 3cp
Selfish: 6cp (in Inventory scenarios only)
Cowardly: 4cp
Diseased: 8cp

[daniel.santos]

This mod/era is only awesome as hell! Nice work and thanks