I\'ve had this skill system idea for quite some time now and it works like this:
Their are 4 sources to gaining experience in a skill:
* self-studie: reading books, tutorials, guides
Maybe we could advance skills a little if players read a book in a library or somewhere else that deals about a certain skill, a book might contain an old and forgotten proces to preform a skill better This reward should offcourse be one-time a book)
* training/teaching: a master can teach a pupil
Let\'s say somebody(player\'s and NPC\'s) has achieved a mastery in a skill he/she could chose to teach/train a player in this skill.
* observing: learn from seeing a skill being preformed
If you see someone preform a skill, you might learn from this and thus if you have this skill, again a small advance in this skill is granted.
* preforming: preforming a skill
Offcourse the best way to learn something is by doing it! This should be the best way to get experience in a skill.
Not each way is as effective, you can not learn a skill from only reading books, you\'ll need to see it and preform it as well! Thus you could do something like this, example: \"A player could learn fireball to 20% from reading books, to 50% from observing, to 75% from training with a master and the other 25% can soly be learned by actually preforming it.\" So if his skills is at 60% he could still learn from 2 sources: training and preforming. Books and observing wont teach him anything in this skill anymore.
Ok next point, ALL players start with the same standard skills as every other player and they don\'t pick any classes or anything in advance! So only pick stats, race and appearance at char generation. They\'ll only get a few standard skills like: bare-hand fighting, listening, spotting, reading, training, observing and maybe depending on their race a different skill to earn some money with.
Split up skills in different trees, examples: \"Water Magic, Earth Magic, Fire Magic, Wind Magic, Healing, Herbal Lore, Martial Arts, Slashing Weapons, Piercing Weapons, Black Magic, Thieving, Lore, Shielding, Proficiencys, ...and what more or else you think off.\" Skills in a tree follow up and sometimes branches split off, specializing in some other field in the same tree or even sometimes combining 2 or more skills from different trees! Let me try to show you by example: Player A learns in the Fire Magic Tree, 1st flaming ray, he gets this spell to 75% and can start to learn the next step in this tree, the next spell is a little stronger flaming rings maybe, again he gets this spell to 75% and then he gets 2 new spells he can learn, the tree splits. One side has maybe fireball the other firewall, he learns fireball this time. In the mean time he has picked up to learn slashing attack in another tree. Now becuz he can use a sword and has learned fireball he can learn a special attack flaming sword, this skills is a combination of 2 different trees; fire magic and slashing attacks. You could have people that combine for instance slashing and healing attacks that results in a draining attack or peircing and herbal lore could give a dagger with a poisened blade.
Some trees should be only possible to start learning once you have finished another tree. For instance a player learns the bare-handed fighting tree, he learns punch, kick, bash, etc. Only then can he start learning martial arts tree.
Depending on wat tree a player is best at, his title is given. This would replace a classic class system. For instance player A has achieved 25% of the fire magic tree and 35% from the healing tree he is titled the healer. If he would then learn 40% in thieving tree he would have thief or something as tittle.
Offcourse learning skills should be a slow proces, some trees should be really hard to complete taking lots of time to lean. Especially the magic trees.
Players that have mastered a tree should be able to train other players in this tree, maybe they could found a guild in their clan where they can train strangers for a fee and clannies for free or at a discount.
Well I hope everything is clear, the name trees is a bad and it needs to be replaced but it represents the structure of the system pretty well, different trees that in the top touch eachother and mix up.
Hope you like it (;
