Hercules & Xena: Alliance of Heroes, spring 2002.
Version 1.2
The purpose of the reallocation is to correct problems caused by the changes in combat and allow for profession skills to be fully opened for all players.
To achieve these goals it will be necessary to modify the level advancement system, the deity system, the profession system, and the skill training systems. How these changes will impact each area will be covered in detail.
First the role of the gods will be removed from the level advancement of players. The deities will instead be more of a roleplaying tool, and not determine bonuses to skills and physical statistics during advancement.
Next training of skills and physical statistics will be fully up to the player to determine. The character manager will offer help on making this decision and will offer to train a player in one of the traditional roles, but a person could come out of the character manager trained very different from someone else by there own decision.
The system will have a degree of self-correction within it so that someone making a mistake early in their training is not trapped at higher levels with severe problems. The new system will allow players to correct problems at higher levels without complete loss of level and experience.
Finally races will not affect skill advancement, but instead will have an impact on the physical statistics and the amount of training that certain statistics can receive.
Training of physical statistics will now be totally under the player’s control. No longer will you be subject to the whim of your deities’ preferences and unable to change this. No longer will you find that a critical statistic is to low and you are unable to modify this. Now you will be able to train to your own plan.
Each of the stats, Strength, Coordination, Intelligence, Piety, Appearance, and Luck will start at 150. Each of these stats will be visible for you to see exactly what the value of it is. Luck will remain hidden, and will increase a small random value each time you advance a level. Putting training points into luck will have a random but generally good effect.
In the character manager you will receive 150 points to spend on your stats. The maximum that they can initially be raised to at 1st level is displayed in the table below. This cap on stats is one of the things still modified by race.
|
|
Race |
Statistic |
Maximum Starting Statistic |
|
|
Centaur |
|
|
|
|
|
Strength |
220 |
|
|
|
Coordination |
190 |
|
|
|
Intelligence |
200 |
|
|
|
Piety |
200 |
|
|
|
Appearance |
190 |
|
|
|
Luck |
??? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Giant |
Strength |
260 |
|
|
|
Coordination |
180 |
|
|
|
Intelligence |
190 |
|
|
|
Piety |
190 |
|
|
|
Appearance |
180 |
|
|
|
Luck |
??? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Human |
Strength |
200 |
|
|
|
Coordination |
200 |
|
|
|
Intelligence |
200 |
|
|
|
Piety |
200 |
|
|
|
Appearance |
200 |
|
|
|
Luck |
??? |
Each level the cap on all stats will be increased by 5 points. So at second level a human would have each stat will now be capped at 205.
You will receive 18 points to spend on your stats each level. Note you are free to spend any and all of your physical training points up to the current cap in a stat. You can also save them. The cost will always be 1 point spend equals 1 point in that stat. Except for luck where you won’t know exactly what happened.
All skills will be open for training purposes. Every point spent on a skill will give you a point in that skill. No more increasing cost to train a skill. There will be caps on how high a skill can be trained but the cap is under the player’s control.
Each player will receive 39.5 skill points per level. And will be free to spend up to their personal cap on a skill. During creation of a character in the character manager players will give priority to the skills they wish to be good in. This will impact their personal cap on skill training.
Four skills can be set to a cap of 4.0 ranks pre level. Two skills to a cap of 3.0 ranks per level, 4 skills to a cap of 2.5 ranks per level, and the remaining skills will be capped at 1.5 ranks per level.
An example of level 3 for Bob:
Skills for Bob;
Brawling – 4/level – cap is 12
One-handed – 4/level – cap is 12
Athletics – 4/level – cap is 12
Dodging – 4/level – cap is 12
Health – 3/level – cap is 9
Orphic Arcana – 3/level – cap is 9
Adrenal – 2.5/level – cap is 7.5
Art – 2.5/level – cap is 7.5
Acrobatics – 2.5/level – cap is 7.5
Stealth – 2.5/level – cap is 7.5
All others – 1.5/level – cap is 4.5
Bob could have any number in his brawling up to 12.0 ranks. If he had only 6 ranks in it at level 2, when he advanced to level 3 he could still put 6 points in to bring it up to 12 points.
The same is true of any other skill on the list. So long as you have training points left, and your current skill level is less than your current cap you can train the skill.
There will be a quest that can be undertaken for the cost of ½ of 1 level worth of experience to change a chosen skill. If Bob undertook the quest he could switch Adrenal for Muse or brawling if he wanted to. Or switch any two skills on the list as the reward for the quest.
If after changing your skill selection, your skill exceeds the cap you will not be able to increase that skill until the cap exceeds the skill. For example, if I formerly had underwater basket weaving at 40.0 ranks at 10th level, and switch it for a 15.0 rank skill, I will not be able to advance my underwater basket weaving skill until the cap exceeds 40.0. Further the skill will be capped at an effective level of its current cap until the cap exceeds that limit.
The following is the final list of
skills that will exist following reallocation.
Unarmed Combat
Melee Weapons
Ranged Weapons
Battlecraft
Health
Acrobatics
Dodging
Armor
Adrenals
Alchemical catalyst
Alchemical Alteration
Alchemical Conjuration
Spiritual Magic
Mental Magic
Alteration Magic
Orphic Arcana
Music
Stagecraft
Mythic Lore
Scholarship
Gadgeteering
Locksmithing
Trap Use
Arms Maintenance
Wood Lore
Stealth
Climbing
Swimming
Perception
The following is the text of the
HELP command for each skill.
HELP UNARMED : The skill that improves your combat ability with direct physical
hand-to-hand combat.
HELP MELEE : The skill that improves your combat ability with weapons used in
melee combat.
HELP RANGED : The skill that improves your combat ability with ranged weapon
attacks.
HELP BATTLECRAFT : This skill is used for controlling internal focus and
concentration on self-improvements during combat.
HELP HEALTH : Each point of health increases your hit points by 2 hit points per
level of skill, each level you will receive 10 health with no training. You will
start with a base of 100 health.
HELP ACROBATICS : Each point improves your ability to tumble and do special
moves.
HELP DODGING : This skill improves your ability to too evade in combat and avoid
damage.
HELP ARMOR : This skill is used to negate the encumbrance of armor that you wear
into combat. It balances against the dodging skill.
HELP ALCHEMICAL CATALYST : This skill is all about catalyzing change to heal or
destroy, using alchemical means.
HELP ALCHEMICAL ALTERATION : This skill is used to alter and transform objects,
creatures, and people.
HELP ALCHEMICAL CONJURATION : This skill is used in summoning and binding things
to your will.
HELP SPIRITUAL MAGIC : The skill responsible for calling upon the spiritual
realms of divine magic.
HELP MENTAL MAGIC : The skill responsible for calling on the mental realms of
divine magic.
HELP ALTERATION MAGIC : The skill responsible for calling on the alteration
realms of divine magic.
HELP ORPHIC ARCANA : This skill is used to control the mystical aspects of the
storytellers abilities.
HELP MUSIC : This skill is used for musical performances.
HELP STAGECRAFT : This skill is used for artistic performances, such as dramatic
readings, dance, etc.
HELP MYTHIC LORE : Skill used to know about legendary and mythic things.
HELP SCHOLARSHIP : Skill in general world knowledge.
HELP GADGETEERING : This skill is used in the operation of complex devices.
HELP LOCKSMITHING : The study of locks and the traps generally associated with
them.
HELP TRAP USE : The study of traps, their setting and identification, and use.
HELP ARMS MAINTENANCE : This skill is used for taking care of your weapons and
armor.
HELP WOOD LORE : Used for skinning and finding of plants needed for various
formula.
HELP STEALTH : Each point of skill improves your ability to hide, move silently
and make sneak attacks on targets.
HELP CLIMBING : This skill is used to climb, there is never a need to learn more
than 1 rank per level as more than that would be a waste of skill and less can
work just fine.
HELP SWIMMING : This skill is used to swim and do tasks underwater. There is
never a need for more than at most 1 rank per level of this skill if even that
much.
HELP PERCEPTION : Skill used in finding hidden people and objects, also spotting
hidden aspects of things.
.
Some titles will be based on the amount of skill you have allowing you more that you can choose from.
The role of professions will be undergoing a change with reallocation. You will no longer emerge from the character manager with an explicit profession. Instead you may choose to join any profession you want.
There will be titles available based on ranks of skill in one or more skill. Each profession will now function more as a guild giving you access to the guildhall, and the guild titles. The guild will also offer some special abilities on the order of the rogue’s passages. The guild will also offer some small abilities that can be used to enhance the overall guild, but does not provide major in game advantage.
Special abilities are based on skills and correct combinations of skills not on professions.
A new feature of the game is that combinations of skills will open up certain abilities to too you. For example learning spells will now be based on the average number of ranks of magic skills you have. Granting a new spell every 9 ranks of total magic skills (spiritual, mental, alteration).
Here is a sample list of special abilities that will be based on skill levels or the ratio of skill levels you have.
· Ambushing
· Weapon Balancing
· Batching
· Casting spells outside of a temple
· Making song books
· Filling relics faster
· Weapon bonding
· Making of magic items
· Weapon repair
As this is determined the majority of these skill-based abilities will be added to the documentation and help files for the game.
The deities will no longer be responsible for granting you physical statistics or skill training. They will instead grant you the training points you need for the new level you have attained.
Further you can build up credit with them for favors. Given enough credit it might be possible to call on them for a special bonus.
This whole system will be worked on following the reallocation system. So it will not be available at reallocation.
The character manager will allow you to pick a suggested skill template for ease of character creation. You could still choose to be a warrior, rogue, storyteller, priest, or alchemist. This would not add you to the guild, but would instead simply set your preferred skills and train you in them. Thus leaving you the last few skill points to distribute, as you want.
For example choosing a priest template would set things like the three priest magic skills to 4/level, probably set a weapon skill to 4/level, and set the other base abilities. This would allow fast character generation in a basic template. At this point the character manager would ask if you wanted to move any of your preferred skill sets around.
Reallocation will be free for the first time you do it. [Note: after the 1 week of free and full reallocation for testing.] During reallocation you will be able to change profession and race. But once you have left the reallocation manager you will have to find another way back into it.
Finally if you find yourself trapped in what you perceive as being an unviable character, you will be able to go on a special quest that will take 30% of your experience. This quest will permit you to enter the reallocation system at any time for the cost of 30% of your total experience.