Recording One's Journey
Welcome back to the Crossblog! Last time we went over character resources at their disposal when combat breaks out. Today we will go over some elements of character advancement. Crossroads was intended to be designed in such a way that two max level characters of the same race and Crossroads could play completely different from each other. In the end, a character will have access to all 18 Path abilities granted by both of the Paths that they follow, but what makes them unique is their proficiency of each individual ability. This recipe of Path Ability Ranks is the character's "journey". Other games would call it a character's "build" or "spec".
Whenever a character levels up, they among other things, receive 3 Path Points (PP). These Path Points are the currency used to acquire and improve Path Abilities. These Path Points can be spent or saved as the player chooses.
Each Path has nine abilities arranged in a branching tree. Each tree has three branches. Each branch has three abilities that follow one after the other. Each ability has a varying number of ranks of efficacy. Each Rank costs a certain amount of Path Points to purchase. Crossroads is designed to ultimately give the player enough PP to purchase all of their abilities, but not enough to max out every ability. The player has to make some choices about what is important to their playstyle.
The Path Ability tree is set up so when a character reaches level 2 in a Path, the player has reached the Milestones or prerequisites to buy the first ability of their choice. The player spends the PP to unlock access to the first Rank (Rank 1) of the ability. The next time the player receives PP, if they have enough available, they can choose to buy Rank 2 or save the points. When the player reaches the next Path Level that grants access to a new ability (Lv. 2, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, and 22), the player is presented with a choice. The player can either buy Rank 1 of the ability that follows their unlocked ability (second ability in the branch), OR they can buy Rank 1 of the starting ability in a new branch. Bear in mind whatever ability the player decides to purchase, their character must meet the Milestones for the desired ability and have available PP to purchase it.
1) Purchase Rank 1 of "Ease of Motion" which is the ability after "Steel Skin".
OR
2) Buy Rank 1 of "Taunt" or "Weapon Prodigy", both of which are the starting ability in their respective branches.
The player doesn't need to worry too much about making "wrong decisions" on their Journey, because their investments of Path Points is by no means permanent. There is a way for the player to redo a number of choices, such as Path Abilities and their efficacy, but that will be discussed very soon.
ELEMENTAL AFFINITY
Everybody in the setting of Crossroads has the capacity to influence the elements to some degree. Most don't get the training to tap into it and harness this potential, so when they do exert this influence it is so subtle they don't notice it or they can't control when they do it. This is reflected in the fact that all characters have Ranks of Elemental Affinities. The character gets 2 free ranks in the element of their race's creator, as well as 1 free rank in the element of their choice. A character also earns a rank of affinity in the element of their choice every time they level. These affinities can also be impacted by their equipment.
While this affinity primarily has its impact most easily seen when dealing with magical combat, it also factors into accuracy and evasion of spells based of a given element. This Affinity will allow the character to maximize the benefit of Elemental Bind.
ELEMENTAL BIND
Elemental Bind is when a character affiliates one of their Path Abilities with a particular element. This will allow their connection to a certain element to enhance the power of one of their abilities and may change the descriptive impact of what happens. While all Path Abilities can Elemental Bind, not all Path Abilities will receive a mechanical augmentation from the bind. Some abilities may also thematically have an Elemental Bind built into them. This gives the player the ability to bind their strongest affinities to abilities that they feel suits their desired playstyle.
One thing to consider is that one element, is capable of binding to one ability from both of the character's Paths.
Example: Druzyn is a Feral (Cat-man). As such he gets 2 free ranks of affinity in the element of Fire. He also gets 1 free rank in the element of his choice, and chose Earth. Seeing as Fire is likely his highest affinity when he gets out of the academy, Druzyn likely Elemental Binds Fire to his two current abilities, (DEV) Elemental Feedback and (FIG) Steel Skin. While these abilities are not augmented by Elemental Binds, they can still be coupled until Druzyn acquires an ability that is later. At that point he can "revisit" his decisions.
THE DEDICATION WALL
One of the design principles that I used while working on Crossroads is that I wanted a game that didn't overtly stifle one's advancement. By that I'm referring to things like Skill Caps and other inorganic inhibitors to one's proficiency. Crossroads works on the idea of a player being only limited by their dedication to a particular aspect of their character. To represent this, many of the bonuses in this game are gated by bonuses costing increasing amounts of points to increase them. If a player wants to be "the best" alchemist, they can do so without judgement. The only thing holding them back is their feelings about if they are going to be getting worthwhile mileage out of the progressively increasing amount of points it takes to keep increasing the skill. This represents the fact that after a character gets so good at something, it becomes increasingly harder to get better than the level that they are already performing at.
A prime example of this would be a surgeon with a specialization. They may be phenomenal at what they do and produce amazing results, but it came at a cost of their losing adaptability because they didn't have the spare points to boost other things, like Diplomacy. "Paging Dr. House..." Again, a lot of these bonuses are able to be adjusted by revisiting one's past experiences.
While this post is a little shorter than the previous, this is hopefully still informative of how one progresses along on their journey. Next time, we will be discussing the nature of Crossroads' Dual-Class system.
If you have made it this far, hopefully you have found something that has piqued your interest or curiosity. If so, please feel free to Comment your questions, Subscribe to be notified and keep up to date on these posts, and Share with anyone that you think might have an interest in learning more about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles!
Until next time, this is Darrick, signing off! Good fortunes be with you!
ELEMENTAL BIND
Elemental Bind is when a character affiliates one of their Path Abilities with a particular element. This will allow their connection to a certain element to enhance the power of one of their abilities and may change the descriptive impact of what happens. While all Path Abilities can Elemental Bind, not all Path Abilities will receive a mechanical augmentation from the bind. Some abilities may also thematically have an Elemental Bind built into them. This gives the player the ability to bind their strongest affinities to abilities that they feel suits their desired playstyle.
One thing to consider is that one element, is capable of binding to one ability from both of the character's Paths.
Example: Druzyn is a Feral (Cat-man). As such he gets 2 free ranks of affinity in the element of Fire. He also gets 1 free rank in the element of his choice, and chose Earth. Seeing as Fire is likely his highest affinity when he gets out of the academy, Druzyn likely Elemental Binds Fire to his two current abilities, (DEV) Elemental Feedback and (FIG) Steel Skin. While these abilities are not augmented by Elemental Binds, they can still be coupled until Druzyn acquires an ability that is later. At that point he can "revisit" his decisions.
THE DEDICATION WALL
One of the design principles that I used while working on Crossroads is that I wanted a game that didn't overtly stifle one's advancement. By that I'm referring to things like Skill Caps and other inorganic inhibitors to one's proficiency. Crossroads works on the idea of a player being only limited by their dedication to a particular aspect of their character. To represent this, many of the bonuses in this game are gated by bonuses costing increasing amounts of points to increase them. If a player wants to be "the best" alchemist, they can do so without judgement. The only thing holding them back is their feelings about if they are going to be getting worthwhile mileage out of the progressively increasing amount of points it takes to keep increasing the skill. This represents the fact that after a character gets so good at something, it becomes increasingly harder to get better than the level that they are already performing at.
A prime example of this would be a surgeon with a specialization. They may be phenomenal at what they do and produce amazing results, but it came at a cost of their losing adaptability because they didn't have the spare points to boost other things, like Diplomacy. "Paging Dr. House..." Again, a lot of these bonuses are able to be adjusted by revisiting one's past experiences.
While this post is a little shorter than the previous, this is hopefully still informative of how one progresses along on their journey. Next time, we will be discussing the nature of Crossroads' Dual-Class system.
If you have made it this far, hopefully you have found something that has piqued your interest or curiosity. If so, please feel free to Comment your questions, Subscribe to be notified and keep up to date on these posts, and Share with anyone that you think might have an interest in learning more about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles!
Until next time, this is Darrick, signing off! Good fortunes be with you!
Comments
Post a Comment