Quote:
Originally Posted by NKIcan
I think that one thing no video game has ever struck me as successfully doing is making a Character/Unit creation system that is balanced, creates REAL diversity, and fun. Whether it be class or classless, really most character creation systems have maybe 6-10 REAL choices (crappy choices arent really choices people...as no one who has any interest in being competitive would choose them).
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Roguelikes!
Roguelikes are ALL about learning to survive, and the more ways there are to survive, the more people like to play it. I think most roguelikes have pretty free class system. Here are my two favourites:
ADOM: 8 races, several classes. Perhaps 15 or so, varying from barbarian to archer to fighter to monk; from wizard to priest to paladin to elementalist, thief, merchant, farmer, bard etc etc.
It also has a good manual that explains the mechanics. It's worth checking out just for that.
Dungeon Crawl: lots. There are too many to count, but I attached an image.
Crawl is ingenious.
Races are different: different food consumption rates (with unique cases: ghouls eat rotten meat, vampires drink blood), different speeds (spriggans are fast, centaurs run fast, nagas slither slowly), different item slots (human vs minotaur vs naga), some have special abilities (spriggan see invisible, demonspawn mutate, draconians will get more and more powers as they level up) and, most importantly, different skill aptitudes make mountain dwarves and hill dwarves different (melee and casting, or just melee?).
Classes are another
layer of skill aptitudes. At first, this seems like it's too little, but it's actually a major choice. Some classes also pre-define the god you worship and starting equipment matters a lot: wizard's first spellbook, good weapon for warrior-types, blood god for a barbarian, etc.
Then you start the game. Skills
only increase
if you use them and have unused experience. The pool of unused experience increases when you do stuff, mostly kill monsters. To become better at what you do, just keep doing it and it will go up. Learning something new is more difficult. You can learn a low-level spell if you find a book and are lucky and/or high aptitudes, even if you have no skills. Failing to cast a spell will also increase the skill (if you had exp in pool), but can cause magical overload, which makes you glow, which mutates you and isn't good. Similarly, you can go to melee to learn Fighting and to use Axes, but that means you're in melee and you're not good at it.
If you move around in armor, you'll learn Armor skill. If you fight without armor, you'll learn dodging. If you walk around without armor, you'll learn Stealth.
Once you have at least level 1 in a skill, you can turn it "off", so that it will only increase very slowly and as a consequence will leave more experience for your other skills, so your mage won't be good at stealth just because he doesn't wear armor.
In crawl, your
skills define you,
not race/class. Spellcasting gives more mana and and fighting gives more hp, but
you also need spesific skills that concern casting fire spells or fighting with spears. A spell can require more than one magical skill, like Fire and Transmutation for a spell that makes a potion explode, or Necromancy and Transmutation for a spell that turns a corpse into potion of poison.
Transmuters are fun, because they can hurl clouds of steam and poison and confusion everywhere, but hard, because that means their experience is going to be drawn between Spellcasting, Transmutation, Fire and Necromancy they won't have much free experience, and they won't have enough mana to survive without Fighting, Dodging and perhaps some poisoned darts and stealth as well. However, it also means that a transmuter who finds an artifact trident might be able to confuse a group of opponents and then quickly kill several of them before they recover; or a transmuter who finds a Book of Greater Burnination might change gears and focus more on direct damage. Even without such luck, though, the starting Book of Transmutations also lets you change into fast and poisonous Spider form, tougher Ice Beast form, or change your hands into blades that boost your unarmed combat off the scales - but then you'll have to learn Ice or Poison or be good at melee!
Devilish!
P.S.
Of course, ANYONE could find a Book of Transmutations.