Augmented Skill learning - what to block and thoughts on order to learn things

[Thalia]

Reposted from the Release notes....

Starting at level 203 and every 3 levels there after, characters
  will be able to choose a new skill or spell.  As long as they have the necessary
  precursors, characters will be able to choose skills & spells from any class and
  any level.  Over time, additional skills & spells may also be made available.

 Important caveats:  

  - The max level that you can PRACTICE or learn (from using) a spell or skill
    is based on how related that skill/spell's primary class (mage, priest, scout,
    rogue, fighter) is to your own profession's class.  

    For skills/spells used by multiple classes, the primary class is determined
    by comparing (1) how many tier 4 professions have that skill/spell, (2) what
    the lowest level is when the class receives the spell, and (3) how close a
    class is to a character's class.
  
    Class relationship is:

                Mage -- Priest -- Scout -- Rogue -- Fighter
  
    A fighter will have a harder time learning a mage's spell than a priest will.
    A priest will have the same difficulty learning skills from Mages or Scouts.
  
    The max learning level can be modified by use of a Prodigy runestone for that
    skill/spells primary class.  If  the runestone is removed, the additional bonus
    learning is also removed.

  - Skills & spells from a class (mage, priest, scout, rogue, fighter) can only
    be PRACTICEd at a specific trainer.
  
    Cost to learn a skill is in kingdom tokens & will raised or lowered based
    on your faction within that trainer's kingdom;

  - The spell PERFECTION will NOT allow augmented skills/spells to be used at
    GM levels.  The spells/skills will be just shy of grandmastery.
  
    (Yes, a fighter may gain GATE, but they will not be able to use it at GM level.)

  - Some Skills and Spells may be blocked from use by those outside the skill's
    or spell's normal profession.

[Thalia]

Example of DATA command for a fighter character

> DATA GATE


         Name Type   Mana info     Precursor     Your difficulty  Max Skill  Main Prof
         gate spell  80 grey       teleport      5x normal         80        mage
     teleport spell  35 grey       spellcasting  5x normal         80        mage
 spellcasting skill                              5x normal         80        mage


> SPELL

* Religion Spells *
  infirmity            50  colorless   :-: <*         >
  gossip               50  colorless   :-: <*         >
  aura shield          50  colorless   :-: <*         >
  auroryle shield      40  colorless   :-: <*         >


* Profession Spells *
  Level 122: gather             Mastery:   NOVICE           20 colorless   
  Level 141: openslash          Mastery:   BEGINNER         50 colorless   
  Level 157: openpierce         Mastery:   BEGINNER         50 colorless   

* Personal Spells *
  Level 203: nightvision        Mastery:   BEGINNER         50 fire       
  Level 206: magic knives       Mastery:   NOVICE           50 colorless   

You have gained 2 post-200 skills and used 2 of them.

[Thalia]

So, two questions...

(1) What skills should absolutely be limited to the original profession (& why)?  What skills are so specific or defining for a profession that it would be ... disappointing .. unfair ... "just not right" ... to allow another profession to learn them?

(2) Any thoughts on the order a specific set of skills or spells should be learned?  Obviously things like eighth attack should only be learned after seventh attack.  And the chained attack for fighters should be learned in the appropriate order.  We'll probably require spellcasting as a precursor to all or most mage spells.

[Zelos]

I think gate is one of those spells that makes the mage class unique.

[Daklore]

I'm of the opinion that there aren't really -many- skills or spells that shouldn't be learnable by others. Face it, they're all going to have drawbacks, and we're never going to see the GM benefits of them anyway. Gate may be class defining, but with this system, classes at level 200 will gain new definition. Non-GM gate isn't that big of a deal, convenient to the solo questor, yes, but we already have the wraith and Tanari vanish.

If we were going to have class defining, we wouldn't be allowing anyone to learn any of the priest healing spells, because, face it. That's the ONLY thing that's defining about the Priest class.

But then we look at the priest spells, my personal best healing spell is powerheal. With a cost of 500 spiritmana, 12 seconds of lag, it heals 6000 health. But wait! That's because I have a Divinity rune that doubles my benefits of healing!! So a mage would only get... oh, I'd say 1500-2000 from a non-gm powerheal?

Acid arrows -- Great! But let's remind people that 4th tier Mages have a x4 spellcasting modifier (Priests do as well on fourth tier, Scouts x2 ... unless this was removed), so a fighter or rogue is never going to cast on the level of a vaulted Archwizard. Let's not forget to factor in the mage runes that boost this spell! (Acid arrow is an example).

However there are some skills/spells that should be mutually exclusive to balance them out.

Earthshield and manabarrier should be mutually exclusive, you can have one or the other, not both.

Speedcast and delay should be mutually exclusive, you can have one or the other, not both.

Sing and Chant should either be mutually exclusive, or completely banned from learning. At the very least, they should be mutually exclusive.

[Daklore]

And I forgot to ask, since no one will answer me: Every 3 levels do we get one skill OR one spell, or one skill AND one spell?

[Thalia]

A spell OR a Skill, not both.

So, by level 275, you end up with 25 new skills, spells, or combination thereof.

[sye]

I think the prerequisit for spellcasting should only be used for attack spells, or mage /priest specific spells.  Shouldn't be a requirement for all.  After all, using open and brands, some classes get the ability to use magic without having to get spellcasting. 

Some of the overpowerd skills and abilities, people need, for an edge, to get around fully customed out people etc.  I think we should look into certain combos being overpowered,  Like sing, and song, or whatever, chant  /song.  You should only be able to get one, not both.  But keep in mind

EVERYTHING is nuked, noone can GM anything unless its in their tier.  That is completely fair in balancing this stuff out.  TBH.

Maybe final tier stuff, like Chain attacks, 'I mean I guess unless someone wants to learn them all'
Atleast make it harder, so all the fighters can't learn Finishing blow, or cripple, etc.

I think the system is pretty fair, and we should put it in! lol
-Sye


The only things that should be limited would be the combo of things that utilize the same abilities.  So you can't stack them too much.
I mean what good is circle going to do anyone honestly?  Unless you have that midnightstrke rune, you're doing squat for damage, and its not even gmed.  But other same-tier classes can use that rune, so they should be able to use it, and have it be able to gm. 

I think the way they are doing it is more than fair.

[sye]

The heal spells should go in order, and have each one prerequisite, infront of it. (this should go for power heal/ mass healing  etc)  Up to you guys though.

the harm spells should go in order, and have each one a prerequisite, infront of it.

Same with Chain attacks.
slash shoulder gladiation cripple - gladiator  (as an exmaple all fighter tier classes have them, dont know if you want to make them untrainable via augment though)

Any attack spell, like Nova etc, should just make sorcery a prerequisite, cause someone might be stupid and try skipping it, and they are only hurting themselves.
Making it a prerequisite should be a givin.

Teleport then gate (if you guys decide)

Restoriation from healer class definatly shouldn't be trainable via augmentation.
Possibly Phoenix ashes, and Rebirth (or atleast have some form of prerequisite)

Backstab - dual backstab  (possibly not let surprise be trainable, maybe)
disarm - advanced disarm (so people can't skip disarm) 

need dual wield before ambidextrious (just as it shows in every class that gets it, its not until they have dual wield)
expertise weapondry, after you get the first ability.
Maybe criticle strike only after you have atleast three attacks or something, like 'third attack' as a prerequisite
Just trying to give you guys some idea on how they are tired, although if someone wants to waste their one attack then get criticle strike.. lol their call I guess.


I think you should ban scrolls and wands and staves and such unless people learn sorcery or something.   (It would make hardly any sense for a warrior to just pick up a wand and master it and know nothing of sorcery, or magic or something)

Buff spells sure, dont make anyone have to have sorcery or whatever, thats normal, even in the fighter tiers there are many spell buffs, without having sorcery.

I have been thinking on this, and I dont know how you guys want to go about it,  But the shieldflags you can put on stuff.  Have people just be able to get the perma one, or have to get the temp one then the perma one?  That is something to think about.

I dont know about help identify runestone, doesnt show much on that.  (that may be only available to runemasters, might want to look into it)  I think you have to GM it before its usefull anyways so in order to avoid people crying about wasteing time picking it, maybe just best to make it not available.

Also with Runicify, this kind of stuff should not stack with DELAY etc.


I can understand people learning stuff from other classes, but the idea is not to let them just pick up "EVERY" high level ability and use it like its nothing.  The not being able to GM stuff, and being hindered further from further cross class skills / spells is a really good balance.

But There is only a few combinations that need to be looked at closely.
(delay and channeling)  Would be kinda OP.. atleast make a lot of prerequisists for channeling or delay or something, that would be really op in pvp.

I would love to see it not too limited and this is why.  You have to think the more options open, the more custimization people have, and that's really awesome for roleplay and characters.
One of the classes have a lot of buff to melee attacks, hand to hand esp.  A skeleton race/class combo could pick all those up  (that would help them not suck so bad you know)

I Dont know really what much to offer, ive spent a ton of time delving into the matter, reading skills etc.  This is the best I could throw at you guys to consider.

I would love to see them in sooner than later
-Sye

[Daklore]

I'll agree with most points in Sye's above post. But of course, most of this stuff was probably planned, all spells/skills would be needing at least -one- pre-req. Powerheal should definately only follow heal, which follows cure critical.... I say give them cure serious/light for free. Even with a divinity rune, they are crap spells anyway.

On the point of wands/scrolls/staves .... sorcery or spellcasting would be an okay requirement. The problem is, wands and staves in their current incarnation are fairly useless combat wise because you can't use a weapon/shield with them (unless you're an Ahtach). Perhaps something could be done about this holding issue? (allow holding of staves/wands, or give a unique eq slot for them... or -anything-)

I've honestly got no problem with stacking runicify with delay, as delay practically doubles, or there-abouts, the lag of any spell cast. You sacrifice speed for more casting... however, a cap on how much you can actually reduce the casting by would be more advisable (since you can already stack delay with economy as is).

I would like to suggest that if speedcast and delay are indeed made mutually exclusive, that the spell NOVA be made with a pre-req of delay, to prevent all other mage tiers from speedcast -> nova.

I've honestly no idea what restoration actually does, but if any healing spell heals health by a SET amount that isn't modified by mastery and/or the divinity rune, leave it to priest tiers only. All other healing spells I'm happy to share with non-priests because they'll only be able to cast it, at best, for 1/3rd of the health an actual priest with a divinity rune can.

Chain attacks as is already should require the actual chain attack preceeding it.... ie: You can't use the first (what, six?) chains from Gladiator, then fire off a finishing blow from the Warmonger class. Going by the helpfile you can only do 'finishing blow' after performing 'broadswing' where 'cripple' can only come off of 'gladiation'. So I think that worry is negated, Sye.

Make elitism follow at least knee->palmstrike -- they're both crappy attacks, sure, but Elitism -is- Elitist after all! >P (I'm not saying block it off, but.... it's just disarm with the Elitist name)

[thaxn]

I like the idea to have every spell and skill be trainable.
I also firmly agree with both Sye and Daklore about prerequisites, they only make sense.
And with 25 possible spells and skills, you have room for those prerequisites if you feel that the spell or skill is strong enough.

Make it so.