Suggested Skills for future Eternity games

[Nonek]

A simple thread to suggest new skills for future games set in the Eternity sphere or elsewhere, to provide alternative routes, non combat solutions and more ways of resolving situations.

 

Sapper/Demolitionist:

 

As the engineer builds and provides mechanical answers to problems, so the demolitionist destroys or works around those answers. A mechanic may pick the lock on a chest, set a trap or fix a malfunctioning ancient device, the demolitionist will simply take a hammer and chisel and pop the hinges from a treasure box, take apart the trap and store the pieces, or render an ancient device incapable of operating for the opposition.

 

The key to this trade lies in the tools, and the Sapper must carry many and be ready to replace them when they become worn or broken. The axe or hammer he uses to break down doors may need a new shaft and sharpening or heat treatment, the vial of acid he pours over delicate mechanical working must be refilled by an alchemist, the chisels he uses must be ground and re-hardened, the files constantly replaced as their knurling becomes too worn. With his tool kit in hand, his mind sharp and his patience undisturbed the cunning Sapper can remove almost any obstacle.

 

Traditionally his greatest tool is the shovel and he will constantly carry this entrenching tool with him, especially when venturing underground. As an expert in demolition he is also invaluable when judging whether a structure is safe or near collapse, and can maybe strengthen or weaken them as appropriate. Strangely enough many Sapper's will carry songbirds underground with them, though they do not reveal why this is done, and it may be just tradition.

[Karkarov]

One thing that has always mystified me is there has never been a game with a "Dungeoneering" skill.  Aka a guy whose specialty is exploring old ruins, caves, and the like.  Can give you the ability to spot secret doors, read strange script in no longer used language, maybe knowledge bonuses for various checks or challenges related to traps or natural phenomenon.

[Kjaamor]

One thing that has always mystified me is there has never been a game with a "Dungeoneering" skill.  Aka a guy whose specialty is exploring old ruins, caves, and the like.  Can give you the ability to spot secret doors, read strange script in no longer used language, maybe knowledge bonuses for various checks or challenges related to traps or natural phenomenon.

 

Fingers crossed you should have six of these in PoE.

[Nonek]

Hopefully so, Dungeons should as a bounded space where one can more easily account for the protagonists movements, be the place where you enthrall the player and throw every trick at them. Whether that be of an exploratory, narrative or combat nature. But too often they're just a progression of nonsensical combat encounters, in an escalating difficulty.

 

I'd far prefer an unwinding and sickening puzzle like Vault 11 from New Vegas rather than say the Crypts near Fort Locke from NWN2, though the art design of the latter was very nice, especially the placed bodies of previous adventurers and such. I'd have loved to have been able to examine their corpses, find letters to loved ones, clue maps or what have you upon them. Bit of wasted potential there.

[Nonek]

Anatomy

 

You have been called many things in your time, grave robber, ghoul and necromancer among them, none of them are true. You simply study the lving and dead bodies of men and women, whether of the Human species or exotic creatures such as the Elves or Dwarves. It has always interested you, the movement of muscle under skin and fat, the various anchoring points for tendons and how limbs move, there is a grace and machine like elegance to it that you're surprised nobody else can see.

 

Of course you try to deal with the living as much as one may, hiring dancers and actors or actresses to perform for you, ideally while disrobed so you may see motion and its effects. But one can only progress so far in such study, it is when one peels back the skin that the physical form becomes interesting, and wonders are revealed. The strange strength of bone, the complexity of the organs, the beautiful stretch and tautening of the tendons as they shift and sway the body. Truly beauty lies in such things for you.

 

You have learned from this: That a few pounds of pressure may part skin and thew like butter when steel is applied, that bones may show enormous tensile strength yet break and shatter when placed in an unsuitable position, that there are places on the body of every man or woman where they are vulnerable and that murder is all too easy. Your reverence for life and death is not shared you long ago realised, and terrible damage can be wreaked by the ignorant and stupid as easily as the finest swordsman or most lethal assassin.

 

The militia have sometimes come to you and asked for your advice, hesitant and treating you like an Animancer, but your craft does not deal with the mind and soul that rests within the body, merely the transient shell. You have also sometimes had to hide from the mob when a murder or atrocity occurs, but generally they avoid you like the plague, for all fear death.

 

The career of a Freebooter has obvious appeal, and the role of Surgeon or Sawbones calls to you, for what better chance of unravelling the mysteries that have always intrigued you is there? Through knowing how the body works you may aid as well as harm, and your keen eyes can work out what caused wounds and deaths, and whether there is more to them than meets the eye.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Heh! Nice thread!

And why kill every kind of enemy each and every time? Imagine a super-skilled Trapmaster! Loads of humanoids and weird animals could be caught in cleverly rigged traps, and then be subdued or released in order to solve quest objectives. The aim is almost a non-kill playthrough. Add to this, and expert Drugist or Apothecary, and you can make sleep darts, the possibilities are endless.

[Ffordesoon]

Hopefully so, Dungeons should as a bounded space where one can more easily account for the protagonists movements, be the place where you enthrall the player and throw every trick at them. Whether that be of an exploratory, narrative or combat nature. But too often they're just a progression of nonsensical combat encounters, in an escalating difficulty.

 

I'd far prefer an unwinding and sickening puzzle like Vault 11 from New Vegas rather than say the Crypts near Fort Locke from NWN2, though the art design of the latter was very nice, especially the placed bodies of previous adventurers and such. I'd have loved to have been able to examine their corpses, find letters to loved ones, clue maps or what have you upon them. Bit of wasted potential there.

Oh, I wish I could like this a hundred times! I hate dungeons where it's like, "Oh, look, more orcs." Augh, why are the orcs there? Literally all you have to do is say to me, "Well, orcs live in caves in this world," and suddenly I'm back in your story. It's amazing how many games - even RPGs, the genre of worldbuilding and deep lore - don't do this, though. OH HAI IMMA ORC is fine in a first-person shooter, but every time I see it in an RPG, I want to punch.

 

Hell, for me, there doesn't even have to be an explanation! I'm playing Bravely Default right now, and a ton of the dungeons have creatures in them that are just kind of weird and could go in any dungeon. But the game gets away with it, just, for two reasons:

 

1) There is always at least one enemy that has a very good reason to be in the dungeon.

 

2) The enemies with no good reason to be in a given dungeon are always unique to that dungeon.

 

Both of these reasons allow for ample rationalization, and together, they project just enough internal consistency that I'm not thrown off when I see a plant-looking monster in an ice dungeon. I've never been to that dungeon; maybe this is some kind of ice plant monster that only grows there? Boom, I'm good. The fact that there are RPGs which don't even bother to do something as simple as this boggles the mind.

 

That was the worst thing about Oblivion's level scaling for me; no enemies or types of weapons were tied to any specific place, even in dungeons. You hear glass weapons are really rare at one point, but if you get to a high enough level, every single standard mook suddenly has a glass weapon. What, did they raid the glass weapon warehouse that apparently exists even though these things are extremely rare and why is this place even here and suddenly you're running around screaming "HAAAAAAATE" and rubbing mashed potatoes into your toenails because why the hell not?

 

And that sucks, because that's how you get ants.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Ffordesoon

[IndiraLightfoot]

Ffordesoon: I hereby award you Post of the Day! I laughed out loud and your great points came through loud and clear.

[Hassat Hunter]

One thing that has always mystified me is there has never been a game with a "Dungeoneering" skill.  Aka a guy whose specialty is exploring old ruins, caves, and the like.  Can give you the ability to spot secret doors, read strange script in no longer used language, maybe knowledge bonuses for various checks or challenges related to traps or natural phenomenon.

Well, an expert in exploring ruins, caves and the like would be called the "Playable Character" and his/her party .

 

I much rather have the spot door and read strange script be 2 skills than 1 (I'm just a skillnut like that).

 

As for suggested skills? Ehhhm...

[Nonek]

Alchemy

 

Physical forces have always fascinated you, whether that be the sparks born from the interactions of flint and steel, the fire that springs forth from those sparks or the smoke that rises from that conflagration. Your mind asked why and a thousand more questions besides, and thus you begun your tinkering and experimentation, it has become a lifelong passion.

 

Energy, form, substance, and radiation, these are the secrets you try to unlock and control. Sometimes you fail and other times succeed and more, and you have grown used to singed and missing eyebrows. Various chemical substances have been born of your experimentation and research, rocks that explode with great heat and light when exposed to the air, acids of fearsome potency that corrode almost anything, a more clean burning version of the black powder that is used in firearms, fireworks to delight and amaze the populace, a glowing light source that needs no fire, these and more have been borne of your skill and dedication.

 

It is expensive work, with materials that could beggar a wealthy man, there are sponsors sometimes and those who come seeking a miracle from you but in general you have not gained from your work, but that was never the aim. The Animancer's might unlock the secrets of the soul, but you seek to unlock all of creation and thereby see the divine pattern behind everything, history and eternal fame shall show the winner of that race.

 

Herbalism

 

The Alchemist in the city might look down upon your craft, but you wager that your grandmothers recipes and folk wisdom have cured more ailments than his smoke and mirrors. You are the recipient of many long ages of craft, and seek to know ever more.

 

Whether it be the Willow bark that numbs pain when chewed, the teas that give energy and warmth, the fats that keep old limbs spry and limber, or the darker side of the art, you seek to know it all. And there is a darker side, poisons and venoms that can stop a heart dead or leave one paralysed from the neck down, leaves that when placed under the tongue grant one strange and terrible visions, powders that relieve all pain but are massively habit forming. The art is a tool and the weilder is the final judge on whether it is used for fair means or foul.

 

Mushrooms, herbs, and all of the growing green of the lands seems to grant some effect to the wise Herbalist, and with travel comes the opportunity to see more of the land and its bounty. If possible you will add to the lore, and ages later a peasant will be cured by a Wise One and thank you unknowingly, and your soul will smile and know contentment. Let the fraud and the charlatan produce their tricks and illusions for the highborn, your craft will endure among the many and the meek and grant them a little relief in their darkest hours.

[Karkarov]

Well, an expert in exploring ruins, caves and the like would be called the "Playable Character" and his/her party .

Except is that actually true?  Your player character is a Paladin!  So.... where did he pick up a specialty in knowing things like how to identify the presence of poison gasses in a cave?  Learn about methods to properly scale a large cave in or collapsed tunnel?  How to tell the difference between a subterranean lichen it is safe to eat and one that gives you Montezuma's Revenge?

 

I am sure your Wizard is really good at killing orcs in massive blasts of fire, but that doesn't mean he knows how to actually read the environment the orcs lived in or figure out that the reason the Orcs never went in that tunnel over there is because that strange smell is actually from giant lizard droppings.

 

Your point about it being better as "one skill" holds some water but at the same time there is nothing wrong with creating general skills that cover multiple fields instead of having 70 different skills.  You are a skills whore though

[JFSOCC]

I love these kinds of threads.

scouting, scouting gives you a bonus to speed and stealth while active, while denying you use of your weapons until a few seconds after turning the skill off.

 

Empathy, which would be a dialogue skill. Empathy would give you helper dialogue that tell the state of mind of those you are talking to. You'd get something like "You sense something is troubling her" or "He seems to be very ashamed" higher levels of empathy (or psychology) offer dialogue options and replaces weaker helper dialogue of lower levels with better options. This should not be an overly powerful always win skill.

 

But mostly I really love to see an implementation of one of the first ideas I had on these forums:

Wilderness survival

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62261-a-wilderness-idea/

[rjshae]

It doesn't sound like there will be a large mix of skills 'cause the developers want each skill to have more frequent opportunities for use.

 

What I wouldn't mind seeing are specialty sub-skills that branch off the existing skills list. These are sub-skills that receive less frequent use, but which you can put a single skill point in to get a +2 bonus. Hence, say you have points in a stealth skill; then you spend 1 skill point to get +2 to the Poisons sub-skill aspect of Alchemy. This may take you above the normal allowed maximum for the skill.

 

To minimize abuse, the number of sub-skills per skill you can boost would need to be limited to half the total for each skill.

[Tuckey]

@Nonek

 

What you are describing reminds me alot of Commando's series of games. I would definitely like to see a wider variety of non-combat skills available as long as they are useful reasonably often. Playing some rpgs you quickly discover that some skills are only really useful a few times throughout the course of a game. This leads players to frustration and seeking out min/max builds rather than playing the game organically. Commandos got around this by only letting you bring certain skill-sets with you on missions to ensure continued challenge.

 

You would have to be particularly careful with map design so that you allow a variety of solutions to present themselves to players. Additionally you would have to ensure that the map continues to look organic and not wonder why there are things like cover obstacles every which way, in ways that make no sense i.e (mass effect games)

 

Looking at your examples perhaps you would need to have mushrooms and other fauna gather able in forests prior to undertaking quests unless you wanted them scattered throughout the quest map. Additionally with alchemy you would probably need to have a portable alchemy set unless you want to go the Skyrim route and have crafting tables everywhere.

 

I really like the idea of a Sapper/Demolitionist in game, blowing past obstacles needs to happen more often in games.