Merged proposal

[Brian Thomas <thomas@chaupher.gsfc.nasa.gov>]

>Peter Mardahl writes:
>
>Or leave spells as they are and have their use controlled by
>cleric_skill and magic_skill?
>
>How about this as a direction? 
> 
>Initally, 4 basic experience skills.  More can be added later, I guess, 
>as the game evolves.  Hopefully the list will always be very short. 
>These would have a level and a #experience. 
> 
>Some misc. skills which, when used, give exp. to one of the exp. skills. 
> 
>Other misc. skills which are so weird that they don't need to be associated 
>with anything else, and don't need a #experience.

	I rather like this proposal. But if I may, I would like to instead suggest
	a "6-experience" system. Each catagory has a player "stat" associated with it.
	There would be "associated" skills for each catagory.  Practice of "associated"
	skills would add experience in that catagory. "Miscellaneous" skills may also
	exist too. These skills are not associated with any experience catagory, and 
	consequently the practice of these skills results in no experience gained by 
	the player. 

        6 Experience Catagories
	***********************
	Name		Possible alternate name		 
	----		-----------------------		
	Strength 	"fighting" or "pruissiance"
	Dexterity	"thievery" or "acrobatics"
	Intellegence	"knowledge" or "perception" 
	Wisdom		"grace" or "(un)holiness" 
	Charsima	"leadership" "personality" 
	Power		"magic" or "wizardry" 

	Thus we achieve a more natural division of the experience catagories as each of 
	these is no longer a "profession" per se. Player characters are now a blend of
	stat-based experience catagories.  Astute readers will notice the introduction 
	of a new player stat "Power". Also there is no experience catagory for "constitution". 
	Perhaps the "strength" catagory also depends on it. 

        Nontheless, as Peter suggested, "associated skills" are related to each catagory.
        The effect and success of each of these skills would be set by the character's
        experience in that stat-based catagory. Here's a possible breakdown of where I 
	would put the "associated" skills: 

	Associated skills
	-----------------
        Str		Pow	      Dex           Wis         Int	    Cha  
	----		----	      ----	    ----	----	    ----
        Hand Weapons*+  Spellcasting* Stealing      Praying*    Jeweler	    Oratory 
        Missle Weapons* Writing       Hiding        Sense Curse Smithery    Singing 
        Karate          Sense Magic   Lockpicking   Blessing    Alchemy	    Bargaining 
        Throwing*+      Enchantment   Set traps                 Woodsman	 
        Boxing                        Disarm traps+             Find Traps+
        Wrestling                                               Thamaugery 
                                                                Literacy
                                                                Medicine

        (the * denotes a skill which is required to perform an action, + denotes
        that all characters start with this skill). Note I have included skills on this 
	list that currently dont exist in the game (throwing, medicine, enchantment, 
	blessing, etc). I wont attempt to describe them here. 

        Also, there can be skills which give no experience to any catagory, and I'll adopt 
	"miscellaneous" skills to name these.

	Miscellaneous skills (awards no experience for use) 
	--------------------

        Mountaineer  Jumping  Meditation   

	How this might work >>>>> 

	A. implications for character profession and race 
	--------------------------------------------------

        Hand Weapons, Throwing, Find traps (currently called 'searching'), and disarm traps  
	skills are available to all starting characters. This duplicates the current situation 
	in CF closely. Now, at the beginning of the game a player would first pick a race,
	which would set stat modifications and stat limits. Then, a player would pick a 
	"proffession". Choice of profession would give the character a blend of skills (skill
	scrolls in the starting inventory. Also, the player would start with a variable 
	amount of money, and perhaps one or two special hard-to-find items which are 
	indicative of the profession.  

	B. Handling experience and skill levels
	----------------------------------------
	
	Practice of the available skills would then dicate which kind of experience was ultimately 
	gained by the player. In this way, as new skills are gained the player he/she broadens the 
	scope of their character. If the new associated skill is in a stat-based experience catagory 
	outside of previously used ones, that player will start at 1st level. If the new skill
	is in a stat-based experience catagory that the player already has some experience in, the
	skill starts at the level of that catagory. Alternatively, we could set things up so that
	when the player gains an skill associated with a stat-based catagory for which they already
	have experience, they will have to use it a couple of times to bring it "up to speed". An
	asterix (or other symbol) on the skills menu might denote this status for a new skill (which
	might be used at 1/2 level to start, until its "up to speed").


	C. Gaining experience -- stat advantages
	----------------------------------------

	With these catagories we can now assign higher or lower rates of 'learning' based on a 
	player characters stat. For example,

		Stat value  		Experience Adjustment (%)
		(unadjusted)
		----------		-------------------------

		  1 - 3		    35 % of nominal gain
		  4 - 6		    45 % of nominal gain
		  7 - 9		    75 % of nominal gain
		  10 - 14	    nominal exp gain, no adjustment  
		  15 - 17	    110% of nominal gain
		  18 - 22	    120% of nominal gain
		  23 - 30	    130% of nominal gain


	Thus, for example, a while both "mage" and "fighter" characters start with the "hand weapons"
	skill, the figher will most likely have the higher Strength stat and gain experience by 
	fighting with hand-held weapons faster than the mage. 


	Well, that's my "merged" proposal. Comments??	-b.t.