21.11.2008, 13:04, written by Mario Donick

Skill Confusion

In rec.games.roguelike.misc, rayres and corremn pointed out a major problem of LambdaRogue's way of handling melee-battle-skills.There is a skill "Fight" and there are skills for "Sword", "Axe" and "Lance" (the 3 weapon types which exist in LambdaRogue). The total attack efficiency is Fight-skill + WeaponType-skill + WeaponAttackValue (WP), for example "8 Fight" + "8 Sword" + "3 WP" = "19 total efficiency".Regarding the distribution of skill-points on the different skills they told me the following:Damn, they're right, this also leads to "19 total efficiency". My non-existing sense for mathematical relations has hidden this fact for me, until today.Okay, some epistemic writing: Which aspects of offensive melee battle (defense and long-range battle are something different) do I want to respect in my skill-system, and how do I want to achieve this?

• The character's general talent in fighting, regardless of a specific weapon. For me this includes the ability to anticipate the enemy's moves and the knowledge about vulnerabilities of the enemy. For me, both aspects are included in the "Fight"-skill.
• The character's ability to use a specific weapon efficiently: A sword feels different than an axe or a lance, therefore there exist the skill "Sword", "Axe" and "Lance".
• The efficiency of a specific weapon. A kitchen knife is weaker than a longsword, therefore the knife may get 2 WP while a good sword may get 12 WP (these numbers are not taken from the actual game).

The values for their own are okay. The question is: Is the addition of the three values really sufficient? And now I think it is not sufficient, and I need to find another connection.What does a weapon skill really say?A weapon skill determines how efficient I can use a weapon of the specific type.What does this mean?The more points I have, for example, in "Sword", the more efficient I should fight with sword-type weapons.With "3 Sword" and a "12 WP" sword, I perform worse than with a "8 Sword" and the same "12 WP" sword.Therefore the weapon-specifics are covered by the current addition system (8+12 is more than 3+12, leading to better total attack efficiency), but covered in a way not meaningful enough.Instead, it should be as follows:

• a low "Sword"-skill only allows the application of easier sword-type weapons, e.g. with "3 Sword", only sword-type-weapons with max. 3 WP are possible.
• and the same, of course, for the other weapon types. With "4 Axe" you can use a 4 WP hatchet, but not a 14 WP waraxe (again, these numbers are not from the actual game).

I think this way it would make more sense. The total attack efficiency would then be only calculated by adding "Fight" to "WP".

Earlier / Later / Permanent Link

 

Comments

Stu, 21.11.2008, 13:40

Your problem is you rolled your own system rather than use a well known system like fuzion, fudge, d20 etc.

Stat + Skill + 1D20 vs TargetNumber is the king of rules (Its the basis for most systems, Fuzion, Open Core, D20, TriStat etc)

Mario Donick, 21.11.2008, 16:12
Perhaps ...

... you are right. I do not know even one of the systems you mention, but perhaps LambdaRogue 2.x will contain a different system, based on another one. LambdaRogue 1.x will basically stay the same.

However, I implemented the changes I mentioned here, and it feels better. The different weapons seem to be more useful now.

But there's still one open thing: Allowing to wield only weapons which relate to a skill (e.g. 4 WP swords only with at sword skill >= 4) represents the character's ability to handle better weapons.

But it does not represent the character's ability to fight better even with weaker weapons. There has to be a bonus or something, and at the moment I think about this:

• Use an 8 WP sword with sword-skill of 8 -> get 8 WP for total attack (i.e. 8 + Fight-skill)


• Use an 8 WP sword with sword-skill of 9 -> get 8+1 WP total for total attack (i.e. 9 + Fight-skill)


• Use an 8 WP sword with sword-skill of 11 -> get 8+3 WP (i.e. 11 + Fight-skill)


• ... and so on

Mario Donick, 21.11.2008, 16:15

... but this would make stronger weapons unnecessary, as every skill point distributed to the weapon skill improves fighting. No, this is not good.

radio_babylon, 21.11.2008, 18:48

there are a lot of ways to implement this, but i think the weapon-specific skills need to be tied stronger to the weapon in use. i wouldnt exclude weapons based on the weapon skill (ie, say you cant use a wp14 axe without a certain level axe skill) because thats just silly. if you know how to swing an axe, you can swing any damn axe for the most part... but probably not swing it well. instead, do something like say the max useful ws for a weapon is the value of the weapon skill... ie, if my axe skill is 5, and i have a 8wp axe, i can still USE it, but i wont get the full benefit of it, so id only be able to utilize 5wp.

i might also go further and add other bonuses tied to weapon skill... maybe increase critical chance with the type of weapon, or a chance to disregard armor, or something. sorry, havent played your game, so i dont know the specifics of what kind of system you have in place, but i think you get the idea of what im trying to say...

Mario Donick, 21.11.2008, 19:54

"if my axe skill is 5, and i have a 8wp axe, i can still USE it, but i wont get the full benefit of it, so id only be able to utilize 5wp."

Ah, that sounds logical and is the thing I was trying to reach, I could just not catch it. Thanks.

radio_babylon, 21.11.2008, 21:21

cool, glad i could help

 

Write a comment

Your name:


Headline:


Spam protection: Enter the result of »eleven minus six« as word:


Text of your comment:


Click »Send« to save your comment.

powered by d.elog blogging software v0.6 / 17.04.2009
© Mario Donick 2005–2009.
d.elog contains Xinha, a free WYSIWYG textarea editor.