Shattered Kingdoms

I'd like to say the poll options suck.

I second that!

I didn't vote on the poll. All I can say is every class is supposed to be an RP class. This game is an RP and PK mud. You get penalized for poor roleplay here and rewarded for good roleplay. The motto of the game is; "where roleplay and tactics collide".

I think you have a poor understanding of what Shattered Kingdoms is supposed to be like if you just make characters to Plvl pk delete delete. Or if you just sit around stirring the pot in inn's and doing nothing but chit chatting.

Some of us have fun sitting around in the inn just chit chatting thank you very much! :x

I see a great many of you missed the point, so I'll try again in simpler terms...

Paragons = good idea.
# of paragons = the suk

Yes, there are always paragons online - but WHY should our BEST RPers be forced to do the same thing as everyone else? They should be given the option of playing something more exciting and challenging than the average joe-schmo gets to pick.

Take Grai for example - wert RP'd an amazing bard before they were officially added amazingly, and once they were official, I'm sure he made one and played that one amazingly as well, and most likely hit paragon quite easily (or would have if he didn't given his experience with Grai).

Now, granted, wert is/was an imm. But what about the players who are online (seemingly) 24/7 and have paragon status? Why not offer them a bonus? Let's face it...being a paragon is fun for the first week for the extra RP, but quickly turns into work as you try to keep track of everyone you've enlightened etc. That leads to burnout, and that leads to losing the best RPers from boredom.

Hence, people who achieve paragon should be granted the chance to RP something 'un-boring', like a chaosmage or drunken master. Granted those aren't the best ideas, which is why I asked for input. You could make a drunken master VERY easily, but keeping him would be a royal pain in the back side - they're called unarmed Fist mercs with drinking problems. Interesting RP, but not the caliber I'm thinking. I'm sure someone out there can think up an exciting idea they'd like to play, even if it's just a currently dis-allowed race/class combo, like dwarven paladins, or giant hellions.

Or, there's always the griffon necromancer (griffon as Imperial slave is definately possible - the last one was me and I got into a lot of fun RP because of it - so how much of a stretch would it really be to 'fool' an enslaved griffon into thinking his necromantic magic was standard 'sorcery' or even 'divine' magic?).

No, you missed the point.
You can RP anything you want already.
You don't need and will never get a level-free, arpee-only class. Move on, kthx.

25 replies, 9 votes. I refer you to my previous statement concerning this.

If you're only worried about exceptional role-players, they can pick whatever they like for themselves. It probably won't be the same thing twice. And that makes coding a class for them incredibly inefficient. Nor do they need such classes - as you noted, some have done interesting things despite lack of special coding.

I also have a hard time believing people quit under the pressure of paragonhood. However, I don't have any trouble believing some people won't play a MUD with restricted classes. That's certainly one of my policies. No matter how much you call it a reward for RP, it looks like active discrimination against newbies.

And no, we definitely don't need giant hellions or griffon necromancers. Both would be destructively OOC in our gameworld.

I never said it would be level-free, merely that it would be more RP-intensive. As much as I hate to put it this way, I'll just come out and say it the way I should have at the start -

I was thinking more along the lines of prestige classes in DnD - a class that adds on to what you're already playing, moreso than a completely new class at level one. IE, you level your sorceror to GM, then get the prestige add-on of Chaosmage, or alchemist, or whatever mage-specialty you want for, say, five-ten levels. During those five-ten levels you would acquire extra skills/spells to flesh out your RP without horribly unbalancing game mechanics or tactics.

And as it's an 'add-on' it wouldn't be prejudiced against newbies, but an incentive to keep a character and level to GM while RPing.

And as for the poll options, well, screw the poll at this point.

I'm also incredibly curious as to how giant hellions and griffon necromancers, if rare enough, would be 'destructively OOC'?

Ah, now that I can understand some desire for. However, Dulrik hasn't been much interested in allowing classes to choose their skills in the past.

And he has a point. Not only do you have problems with balancing the potential skills for each class, but you're effectively making two or more classes that are the same for 50 levels. If you've a really good idea for a class - something that justifies the coding time - why not make it unique?

As a side note, 50 levels are quite enough. Further, I like that the last abilities come at level 41, so characters are at least semi-complete. Not everyone wants to GM, or at least not enough to do all that levelling.



Because these classes have concepts you can't just throw away in the name of making something different.

Hellions are not only devoted to their gods and fighting, they're obedient to a complex philosophy of power and honor. That's not consistent with a "Me bash now" giant. Hellions are also knights, and like paladins, the class isn't open to races that don't ride well. (Picture a giant with four horselegs sticking out from under him.)

Necromancy isn't just evil, as the help files and in-game books make clear. It's a soul-destroying practice originally taught by powerful evil gods, some of whom seem to feed off it. Griffons are intrinsically good, even altruistic. They don't have the potential for this much evil, even if they were confused enough to want to learn it. It's the same argument that would apply to a deep-elf wannabe paladin.

Allowing exceptions dilutes the nature of the class. Much of SK's roleplaying strength comes from having clear, commonly-accepted concepts of what's in-character. If a giant could be 6 inches tall, the "giant" race would lose its identity. The same applies to classes.

I am not opposed to their being some sort of way of 'proving' you can handle some of the more bizarre race / class combinations through play time. I've wanted to play a dwarven paladin forever, now.