In the past, I had wanted to use an Aptitude Point System to allow players to create their own professions on the fly. A fellow from the ICE forums, Vroomfogle, has actually taken this idea and run with it a bit and while he has done an excellent job of making it work, I have found that for some reason it just isn’t as appealing as I had thought.
However, for the upcoming RM Cyradon product, we are experimenting with something a bit different, and I am currently thinking that it might be the way to go.
Professions
In the RM Cyradon product we are going to go with some generic core professions, and then provide what I guess you could call Specialization Packages (SPs). This basically reduces the overall number of core professions required, while still allowing for a wide variety of choices and customization.
We are looking at doing a generic Priest and a generic Mage profession. Each will give base skill costs, but neither will supply spell lists. This is where the Specialization Packages would come in. By selecting a Specialization Package, the generic profession will have some of its base skill costs altered. It will also gain a list of specific spell lists to which it has access and from which it can select its Base Lists.
Example:
Joe decides that he wants to play a magic user. He chooses the generic Mage profession. Then, he looks at the Specialization Packages available. He decides that he like the Storm Mage SP. This changes some of his skill costs for skills related to the specialization. He also gets a group of specific lists that are automatically his bases lists (i.e. 6 specific lists), and depending upon how the actual development progresses, he may also get a secondary group of spell lists from which he is allowed to select his final 4 Base Lists.
Where did this idea come from?
This is an idea that has been slowly forming ever since ICE started working on RMC. In looking over my old RM2 Companions and books, one of the things that I noticed specifically was that just about every single spell user was just a slight variant on another type of spell user. Only a few skill costs changed and a different set of base lists.
This idea can be extended into the Non-spell-using professions by simply giving each profession some sort of specific capability, like something akin to a Talent of sorts.
For example, a Fighter might have Shield Training (pulled this example from HARP — but the variant being trained or untrained in shield use is one that strongly appeals to me), while a Rogue might have some minor outdoors related capability, and a Warrior Monk has Martial Arts Training. The point here being that most all of these specific capabilities are types of Training that they have received, just as the Base Lists for a spell user comes from the training received to learn those lists.
Base Professions
We would basically have only a very few core professions under this system. They would be as follows:
- Warrior – Specializes in combat.
- Scout – Specializes in stealth.
- Adept – Specializes in self control and discipline.
- Priest – Specialized caster of the realm of Channeling
- Mage – Specialized caster of the realm of Essence
- Mystic – Specialized caster of the realm of Mentalism
Specialization Packages
Note: This idea is in its early stages, and still needs a ton of work to get things smoothed out.
Every Specialization Package would have 2 or 3 sets of stats, depending on which Base Profession the Specialization Package was designed for.
- Matching Base - If the Specialization Package is the same as the Base Profession that it was designed for, it would use apply one set of skill cost changes and/or professional abilities (spell lists or special training).
- Opposing Base - This is essentially non-spell user versus spell user. A non-spell user taking a Specialization Package designed for a spell using Base Profession would use the a different set of skill cost changes and/or professional abilities. This is how Semi Spell Users would be created.
- Partial Base – This is essentially a method that allows the Base profession to take 2 Specialization Packages, but each quite a bit less powerful than the Matching Base version. This is essentially how a Hybrid profesion would be created, although it would also allow for another type of semi-spell user to also be created. However, if a chaacter takes a Partial Base from an SP not deisgined for his Base Profession, the other Partial Base SP must be from a SP that does match his Base Profession.
I guess that this is enough rambling for now…
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