Some questions from a new guy

[Ealdred]

Hello everyone.

As the title says, I'm new. I've been looking at the character creation (which is incredible!) and have found the role I want to play; A doctor / healer / physician (make up more synonyms if you feel the need). Before I started experimenting with the character creation I did some research and ended up with some questions:

I want to focus on Blue and Crystal magic, but does Brown and / or Azure magic have any spells useful to this kind of character, too?

I want to make potions (as this fits the role), but I can't really tell the difference between Herbal and Alchemy skills. Would both be useful or can I do with one? What are the differences?

Final question (for now): Is there a fixed maximum for skill levels or will a character with Blue Way 9 be able to reach higher skill levels than a character with Blue Way 2?

~ Ealdred

[LigH]

Welcome to the forums, Ealdred.

Azure magic will have its use as well, for when rather the mind than the body is injured. Use of Brown Way is not really obvious to me...

Herbalism ist limited to plants as ingredients. Alchemy uses also minerals and animal parts for greater effects and different kinds of effects.

Skill maxima are in the hundreds. Starting boni are marginal. Progress in one skill does not yet inhibit another.

[Calmus]

the most important magic way for a healer character is the crystal way.

The choices you make in the character creation (apart from race, appearance, name) are not  really important. They give just a little boost to certain skills or stats. If you want to be proficient in any skill or in magic, you will need quite some time to boost it.

With herbal skills you make mostly teas, and also oils and poultice from different plants. These teas give mostly a small boost to stats or to magic. The products of herbal are fairly easy to make.

With alchemy you make potions. Which give also different boosts. Making potions requires more work than making teas. Much more various ingredients are needed for it (mostly different ores and animal parts). And the books are quite overwhelming. The quest to get started with alchemy requires help from experienced fighters.

[bilbous]

One thing you should note is that alchemy knowledge is an outgrowth of herbalism, you cannot learn it without a certain level of herbalism. In addition to this is that the higher alchemy disciplines depend on the herbal components that go into them. Some potions cannot be made without the more advanced products of herbalism.

[Ealdred]

Thanks for the answers

Is it possible for a player to reach maximum level in all skills (I'm not going to do that, just curious), or is the amount of distributable points limited?

Though the starting skills only make up a tiny amount of the reachable level in that skill, will they be added to one's skill level or just grant a head start?

~ Ealdred

[bilbous]

It can currently done but it would take a great deal of time. You might be able to get it done in a year if you had a robust bot program and you somehow managed to avoid being banned for using a bot program. The years time is a guestimate. There has always been  plan to disallow maxing everything but it is currently only theoretical.

Your starting skill levels are the base from which you grow, any levels bought proceed naturally from where you start.

[LigH]

PlaneShift should have its focus on roleplaying (interaction with other player-controlled characters); therefore skill development was made more or less "realistic" to require much time; but some players appear to misunderstand and still spend all time in skill development, instead of roleplaying at least sometimes...

[bilbous]

Yes indeed the grasshoppers rule the day and the industrious ants are looked upon with pity
The ant and the grasshopper fable at wikipedia

I should mention that an important role that players are encouraged to play is that of bug tester. The bug tracker is at www.hydlaaplaza.com/flyspray
Feel free to create an account there and post any you find.

[Eonwind]

It can currently done but it would take a great deal of time. You might be able to get it done in a year if you had a robust bot program and you somehow managed to avoid being banned for using a bot program. The years time is a guestimate. There has always been  plan to disallow maxing everything but it is currently only theoretical.

That's not totally true. Actually we don't plan to disallow training or maxing out every single skill, we don't have classes and the players has the option to train whatever skill they want and how many they want to. We don't want to change that.
However we would like to encourage in the future a greater differentiation of characters abilities, this could mean, for example, that you can train every single way up to maximum but some special abilities (abilities, not spells) will only be available to the members of a given way circle.

[LigH]

A world full of superheroes and supervillains might not be what PlaneShift wants to be (or Talad wants PS to be).

I already have more than one character who can't find a simple, lovely, adorable wife... there are only expert smiths and expert assassins and wanna-be empresses and such.

[bilbous]

@eonwind Thank you for that clarification as to where the official thinking lies. Those of us who have been around a long time have heard lots of different things and it isn't always easy to tell what the policies actually are, what they used to be, or where they may end up.

@LigH How many simple, lovely, adorable wives do you play, who else do their husbands' players play? I don't know too many people who play games in order to be subservient to someone else. Did I interpret wrongly the description of the type of wife you wanted?

Perhaps it were better I didn't ask; I risk being schooled on my ingrained biases.

[LigH]

I wouldn't mind my characters not to know hidden desires of their wives... But when they are together, they may prefer someone to cuddle with.

[Eonwind]

A world full of superheroes and supervillains might not be what PlaneShift wants to be (or Talad wants PS to be).

As much as that is true, and it's true for me, enforcing skill limitations over characters is not exactly what we want because one of the feature we would otherwise loose is the ability to develop the character in any direction the player wants. However we hope/try to encourage RP by creating a friendly RP environment as much as possible (and as mach we can).

However it's not everything on our hands and if the players are not interested in playing some roles well there's not much we can do... afterall caring old-fashioned wives are not even easy to find in RL

[Rigwyn]

I wouldn't mind my characters not to know hidden desires of their wives... But when they are together, they may prefer someone to cuddle with.

Sorry bro, cuddling and spooning have not been implemented yet. :p

Regarding subserviant characters, for some people, such characters are quite fun to play. Subs have a very different mindset than doms and hence can add a very different perspective to a story or rp.

Not everyone is out to best the next player/character.

[Eonwind]

I wouldn't mind my characters not to know hidden desires of their wives... But when they are together, they may prefer someone to cuddle with.

Sorry bro, cuddling and spooning have not been implemented yet. :p

but cooking is