I've mentioned before that Radiant Fantasia is built from the OGL; 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons. I've made substantial changes to it, but one mechanic hasn't changed that much: the skills.
In Radiant Fantasia the OGL skills are referred to as "General Skills", because they are skills all characters have access to. However, there are some differences than how they work in 3rd:
- The concept of "class skills" is scrapped. All skills cost 1 skill point to level up, regardless of what Job you are. Instead, some Jobs and Specializations get bonus ranks in skills (ex. +3 to Treat Injury checks) from their talents.
-Many skills have been combined together. For example, all the STR related skills (Jump, Climb, and Swim) are combined into one 'Athletics' skill, and several of the DEX skills have been consolidated (Balance, Escape, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble) as 'Acrobatics'.
- The numbers for difficulty checks has been adjusted to accommodate the use of 2d6 instead of d20.
Having made these changes early on in the design of Radiant Fantasia, I haven't done much to General Skills since. However, I've always felt the system may still be too cumbersome for novice players, and I get tempted to simplify it so that players don't spend skill points into General Skills, and their ranks are tied to the Job level and talent bonuses.
The reason I haven't done that is because I personally like being able to customize the General Skills by spending skill points into what you want to learn.
The compromise I'm thinking of making is to have "skill packages" where, for example, there is "Gym Training" and if you spend 1 skill point into it, you get +1 to Athletics and Acrobatics. So rather than spending 1 skill point into Athletics and 1 point into Acrobatics, you just put one point into "Gym Training".
With some clever thinking, that type of design would allow me to consolidate the existing 11 General Skills into about 5 "Training" options during the level up process.
I'm still musing on if this is better or not.
I think the skill packages concept might be ideal, especially since its a good way of connecting narrative.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I'm reminded of the training minigames in Kengo, specifically how you'd increase your stats through various activities during downtime.
While you have no interest in class skills, I might recommend having one or two skill packages that are somehow tied to the classes. (though having some skills increase just by leveling up is a good sign of the "what can this class do better" point I made before).
"While you have no interest in class skills, I might recommend having one or two skill packages that are somehow tied to the classes. (though having some skills increase just by leveling up is a good sign of the "what can this class do better" point I made before). "
ReplyDeleteI have some talents which, along with providing a unique ability, add a bonus to a skill or several skills. I don't think having skill levels upgrade with class level is wise, as I'm trying to make a system where it is possible to go beyond level 20.