The skill system is expended way beyond it's original intention and it basically defines a class. There are skills for equipping stuff, getting bonus to specific rolls, unlocking access to spells, unlocking different actions. Class skill is what makes a class a class.

Multi-classing would allow mix and matching your skills from different class to create your own unique class. You should also be able to make choices in your skill selection, so that no 2 fighters would be the same.

Common skills

This is a list of common skills that can be learned by leveling up a class.

• Equip weapon: allows you to equip certain weapons.
• Weapon proficiency: allows you to improve your proficiency (nb dice rolled) with a weapon.
• Equip armor: allows you to equip certain armors.
• Equip shield: allows you to equip certain shields.
• Learn spells: Allows to learns spells in a specific magic school of a certain level (there are 8 spell levels)
• Magic proficiency: Increase the power of spells cast in the indicated school of magic.
• Action skill: Unlock a new action that can be used either in battle or in other situation (ex: Disarm Traps, Back stab).
• Stat/rolls Bonus: You gain a special bonus or modifier on certain stats for some purpose or situations.

Design Notes

• Class skill is very tricky as each skill group would require unique programming. But it would expand so much the possibilities, and won't be that complicated to understand for the player.
• I am strongly considering having to make a choice of skills at certain levels a bit like XCOM to make sure 2 character of the same class are not the same. For example, a fighter could chose to equip axes or 2 handed weapons, but not another fighter.
• Due to the various weapon types, unless some skills group some weapons to gether, there could be a lot of weapon skill and profiencies which could flood the character skills. One idea is to make unlocking of weapons unique to each weapon, but grouping improved proficiency using a criteria like range, nb hand, magickal, etc. I could reintroduce weapon groups for the purpose.

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OLD RULES

Warning: Work in progress

Note: I might use a more simple system where each character has 1 passive and 1 active skill. The active skill is basically a new action. Going to complex might increase development time for no good reason. So the documentation below remains here in case I change my mind.

Else ignore what is below. Take note that skills are not implemented yet.

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I really liked how the new XCOM game managed skills. Each class had 2 skills for each level you chose one out of 2 skills giving your character various combinations of skills which creates different characters. The only difference is that Xcom has 4 classes, I have 12.

I'll progressively list the possible options I could have with skills. Note that skills are either active actions that the character can do (hide, identify) which increases their choices of actions. Or passive abilities that takes effect automatically. Now About passive abilities, to maintain a different rule space than racial/class stats, the passive skill will always do more than boosting stats. It will normally always break the rules of the game. Which would require me to code each skill manually since they are all exceptions.

This is why it is one of the things that will be done at the end. But I still think it will give each class a unique flavor and will avoid simply stacking stats.

Skill Levels

The first idea is to have 5 levels of skills, where each skill are gained at increments of 4 levels (4-8-12-16-20). So a level 1 class never get any skill. But since players can start level 3 or 5, it's not much of an issue.

Now either I make 5 skills for each class categories (Warrior, Rogue, Magic User) which creates 5x3=15 skills, or either each class has it's own 5 skills: 5x12= 60 skills.

Of course, I could reduce to 2 or 3 skills per class if I really lack of imagination. I could also make certain skills common to all characters of the class group and have some other specific to the class. There are various options possible.

Having Choice

Since I don't want to have prestige class due to the complexity it brings. Having to chose between 2 skills when a new one is learn would lead to various combinations that creates a variety of sub-classes (32 possible combinations). So no 2 samurai would be the same. The problem is that it multiplies the number of skill by 2, so 30 class group skills, or 120 class specific skills.

There is a possibility that for each level, 1 skill taken from the class group and the other one from the specific class. So for example, a ninja will have access to 5 ninja skills and 5 rogue skills. Each level he will need to chose between taking the rogue or the ninja skill. So if he does not like his ninja skill, he can use the rogue generic skill. That would create 60+15=75 skill.

Not bad, seem interesting, but the class group skill must be interesting enough to compete with the class specific skills. It also makes it easier to the player to remember what those skill does.

Another way to divide choice is that 5 skills are actually new actions, while 5 other choices are passive abilities. This could be combined with the above by making let say:

• Class Group: 2 action skill, 3 passive skill
• Specific Class: 3 action skill, 2 passive skill.

So there is a 5-5 division on 2 different level. For example, the "hide" command could be a rogue action that the Thief, Ninja, Ranger and Monk could use. But the "Lock picking" action could be only available for the thief.

So this is the ideas I have so far. I would need to do some research about the D&D class feats for ideas because this is what skills are all about. But I will also include the wizardry class skills inside those feats. I imagine that I could manage to design 75 different skill if I take inspiration and D&D feats.

Else, I would return to my 2 skills per class (1 passive and 1 active) that I originally had.

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