Dec 6, 2014 12:20 am
From the get-go I’ve wanted to make something strangely new but still well within the parameters of fun and not crazily complicated. The corresponding list are some of the major features of the game, with some explanations as to what the aims of them are as well.
No Class: Anyone who’s ever played a tabletop RPG has probably had the dilemma of choosing his or her class, and then figuring out who in the party will take what roll. We’d like to do away with that lock-in mechanic of your RPGs, give everyone a chance to play to their own style and desires. To this effect the game is classless, no character classes or titles, no constraints to what you can be or do with your character. From the start you will have freedom to choose what skills, abilities, spells and so forth your character knows with only certain limitations and restrictions. If you want to be a caster wearing heavy armor, by all means go for it!
Skills: Being classless is an interesting concept, there would be no rigid gridlock in what you can do with your character. There is however a need for some sort of structure, after all, you don’t want your players to have a super powerful spell at a low level, that would be ludicrously unbalanced. At creation and as you level you will be awarded with two three things: Ability points, Combat Skill points, and Non-Combat Skill points. It was decided that combat and non-combat skills should have separate pools of points to govern their respective skill sets. With combat skills alone going to about 40 so far, putting all your skills in one pool would make people have to choose between combat effectiveness or non-combat effectiveness, we’d like players to have the ability to be effective in more than one way.
Stats: As with skills, you’ll be gaining Ability Points each level and at creation. Ability Points are what will be going into your primary stats (strength, agility, intellect, willpower, charisma) and will interact with skills to determine what your character can do in game. If you’ve ever played Diablo II, this will function almost exactly like when you put points into your scores directly to increase them. A point buy system where you put point for point into your scores with no restriction on which stats you dump them into.
Prerequisites- spells and abilities: Now that I’ve mentioned s bit about skills and stats and how they work, it’s time to mention a bit of what they’ll be doing. Aside from generally assessing your prowess with a certain skill or stat, both your abilities and skill training will be what sets your character along the path of what they will be able to do. Spells and Combat abilities will come with a set of prerequisites that you have to meet to use them. A certain attack might require you have a Strength score of 15 and skill in two-handed weapons to be able to use, or a spell might require intellect 25 and 3 ranks in fire spells. How you place your scores will determine what you can do and use, which means you’ll be building your character to be able to do what you’d like.
Hit Points and Resources: You’ve run into combat with a huge mythical beast only to find yourself realizing that you’ve only got three level 3 spells left to cast.. we’ve probably all been in a situation like this, magic is usually very powerful, but when it runs out, the character becomes pretty useless in a snag. One of the mechanics (still being worked on a bit) is going to be a resource system, in addition to having your life sustaining all important Hit Points, you will have Mana and Stamina. Mana will be your magical resource, and stamina a physical one. When you use a spell or ability it will incur a drain on one of your resources (sometimes both), and each resource will have ways in which you can replenish them even while still in combat, to make sure nobody suddenly becomes useless in a situation.
Customization: A very key concept from the beginning has been one of customization in the game system. You can build your characters any way you want, in any direction and feel, but if you both have the same spell, it’s still the same, right? Wrong! Most RPGs give you abilities and spells and they all function about the same as anyone else. We’d like to offer a higher degree of specialization however, no two people write exactly the same, nor should they sling a spell or swing a sword exactly the same. Without going into too much detail about it, we want to give they player the ability to modify how their spells and abilities function, not meer power attacks or meta-magic, full modification of the abilities functionality. From changing the type of damage, effects, duration or even what it does, we’d like to let the player make that spell their own.
These are a few of the major key features of Experience Ltd. and personally I think some of the best reasons to make a new game system as well. Leave comments or questions if you’d like to let me know what you think, I’m always eager to know how other gamers and devs think of things.
No Class: Anyone who’s ever played a tabletop RPG has probably had the dilemma of choosing his or her class, and then figuring out who in the party will take what roll. We’d like to do away with that lock-in mechanic of your RPGs, give everyone a chance to play to their own style and desires. To this effect the game is classless, no character classes or titles, no constraints to what you can be or do with your character. From the start you will have freedom to choose what skills, abilities, spells and so forth your character knows with only certain limitations and restrictions. If you want to be a caster wearing heavy armor, by all means go for it!
Skills: Being classless is an interesting concept, there would be no rigid gridlock in what you can do with your character. There is however a need for some sort of structure, after all, you don’t want your players to have a super powerful spell at a low level, that would be ludicrously unbalanced. At creation and as you level you will be awarded with two three things: Ability points, Combat Skill points, and Non-Combat Skill points. It was decided that combat and non-combat skills should have separate pools of points to govern their respective skill sets. With combat skills alone going to about 40 so far, putting all your skills in one pool would make people have to choose between combat effectiveness or non-combat effectiveness, we’d like players to have the ability to be effective in more than one way.
Stats: As with skills, you’ll be gaining Ability Points each level and at creation. Ability Points are what will be going into your primary stats (strength, agility, intellect, willpower, charisma) and will interact with skills to determine what your character can do in game. If you’ve ever played Diablo II, this will function almost exactly like when you put points into your scores directly to increase them. A point buy system where you put point for point into your scores with no restriction on which stats you dump them into.
Prerequisites- spells and abilities: Now that I’ve mentioned s bit about skills and stats and how they work, it’s time to mention a bit of what they’ll be doing. Aside from generally assessing your prowess with a certain skill or stat, both your abilities and skill training will be what sets your character along the path of what they will be able to do. Spells and Combat abilities will come with a set of prerequisites that you have to meet to use them. A certain attack might require you have a Strength score of 15 and skill in two-handed weapons to be able to use, or a spell might require intellect 25 and 3 ranks in fire spells. How you place your scores will determine what you can do and use, which means you’ll be building your character to be able to do what you’d like.
Hit Points and Resources: You’ve run into combat with a huge mythical beast only to find yourself realizing that you’ve only got three level 3 spells left to cast.. we’ve probably all been in a situation like this, magic is usually very powerful, but when it runs out, the character becomes pretty useless in a snag. One of the mechanics (still being worked on a bit) is going to be a resource system, in addition to having your life sustaining all important Hit Points, you will have Mana and Stamina. Mana will be your magical resource, and stamina a physical one. When you use a spell or ability it will incur a drain on one of your resources (sometimes both), and each resource will have ways in which you can replenish them even while still in combat, to make sure nobody suddenly becomes useless in a situation.
Customization: A very key concept from the beginning has been one of customization in the game system. You can build your characters any way you want, in any direction and feel, but if you both have the same spell, it’s still the same, right? Wrong! Most RPGs give you abilities and spells and they all function about the same as anyone else. We’d like to offer a higher degree of specialization however, no two people write exactly the same, nor should they sling a spell or swing a sword exactly the same. Without going into too much detail about it, we want to give they player the ability to modify how their spells and abilities function, not meer power attacks or meta-magic, full modification of the abilities functionality. From changing the type of damage, effects, duration or even what it does, we’d like to let the player make that spell their own.
These are a few of the major key features of Experience Ltd. and personally I think some of the best reasons to make a new game system as well. Leave comments or questions if you’d like to let me know what you think, I’m always eager to know how other gamers and devs think of things.