Both Sides of the Same Coin
Welcome back to the Crossblog! Last time (before we lightly touched on how the game continues to adapt and evolve from a design standpoint), we looked into how one advances through the Ability Tree for one's Path and how Elemental Affinities can impact said abilities. This time we will be looking into the dual-class nature of Crossroads.
In the setting of Crossroads, there originally just two Paths: Martial Artists & Priests. During the Exodus of Ogari Sundura, people journeyed out in caravans but it was not easy. There were dangers still out and about. Martial Artists were needed to defend these caravans, and Priests were needed to heal the Martial Artists. These were simpler times. As time persisted and the outward expansion of Ogari Sundura continued, new Paths began to develop. The architects who built the civilizations upon Elementia's backdrops and the Priests who wanted to have a deeper understanding of how magic truly worked collaborated and developed the Mana-Physicist, which was shortened to Manacist.
Through their research, developments, and inventions, they were responsible for the advent of most of the Paths that followed. The Manacists developed a vast array of weapons and armors for the efficiency of the adventurers protecting the caravans. While the Priests readily took up arms to help their protectors, many Martial Artists initially shunned the idea of weapons because they felt to use a weapon showed a lack of faith in the strongest weapon of all, their body & mind.
Some of the newer initiates and the more brash Martial Artists decided to give these weapons a try, seeing it as an opportunity to learn something new. These people were the first to follow the Path of the Fighter. As the Fighter Path started to flourish, they took on the role of aggression holder, defending their team by keeping threats focused on them.
Some of the more extreme Fighters felt the best defense was to overwhelm their opposition with sheer ferocity and intimidation, keeping them behind the power curve. Another facet to these extreme fighters was their penchant for large weapons. These extreme Fighters became the first to follow the Path of the Destroyer.
With these, the Diplomats, the Ninjas, the Devoteés, and the Psions, there was a wealth of philosophies for dealing with the world but fortunately the Adventuring Academies quickly noticed the influx of new philosophies and how complex the world was becoming, there was no one Path that could handle all situations. For this reason, the academies started teaching all adventurer's a hybrid dual-path philosophy. This hybrid philosophy is the Crossroad, or the title, the character is bestowed to forge their way in the world. It gives an insight as to how they handle the world. With 9 different Paths, there are 35 Crossroads or dual-path combinations, giving players a wide variety of flavors to explore.
In Crossroads, there is only one fixed point in any character's progression, or Journey. This is the first 4 Character levels are acquired in the Adventuring Academy. These first 4 levels provide the first 2 levels for both of the Paths in the character's Crossroads. This in turn triggers the first two stat boost for their Crossroad, or title, as well as unlocks one ability from both Path Ability Trees.
After that however, there is no mandate on how the player levels their component Paths. There is no level range that the recessive Path needs to stay within of the dominant Path. There is nothing like that. The cost of not leveling a recessive Path evenly with the dominant is the inability to access the later abilities of the recessive Path. All Paths stop leveling at 25, but if a player wishes to completely level one Path before the second, there's nothing saying that they can't. There will come an event in that character's career that will trigger their desire to diversify their tactics.
The following is the list of Path combinations and the resulting title, or Crossroad:
It has already been established that the totality of the character's advancement of Path Abilities, Skills both normal and weapon related, and Affinities is called one's Journey (or "build" in other games). As with some journeys, the traveler may find they are not really satisfied with where they ended up. All is not lost. The player is able to "Revisit" their education and make different choices about aspects of their Journey.
Once a character has been accepted into the Adventuring Academy, they receive a special journal. In this journal, they will keep all of their notes from all of their classes, seminars, training, and experiences. Once a character has completed their initial training and get sent out on their first assignment, they develop the ability to Revisit.
In order to Revisit, the player can choose to bank any of their unspent TP at the end of the day. Some days will be easier for adventuring to the point the character doesn't feel the need to use their TP that much. Other days will be more severe and the character may feel that they need to burn through all of them. Regardless of however the day went, the character at the end of the day can bank their unspent TP. This is represented in-game, by the character writing their observations/thoughts/experiences in their adventuring journal. Once the player has banked enough TP to equal the character's level, that character goes to sleep that night and and wakes up with a new understanding of the philosophies that they follow. The Revisit spends all of the banked TP, returning the character to 0 TP in their bank. If one doesn't wish to Revisit, they can bank all but 1 TP shy of their current level so that they are always one good night's rest away from a Revisit.
Bear in mind, the Revisit does not allow the character to change decisions about Path Levels. If you as a Lv. 13 Warpriest (Destroyer/Priest) invested 10 levels into Destroyer and 3 levels into Priest, you can't revisit and suddenly be a Lv. 3 Destroyer and Lv. 10 Priest. It allows the redistribution of Path Points for Abilities accessed and their Rank of efficacy, Skill Point distribution, Weapon Skill Point distribution, Elemental Affinities, and Combat Bonus/Focus Bonus/Natural Evasion Bonus distribution.
I hope that you found this enlightening and increases your curiosity about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles. Next time, we will be going into the currently playable races of Crossroads and their Evolution Traits.
If you have made it this far, hopefully it means that you have found something about Crossroads that has piqued your interests. If you would like to continue learning more about the game and the design decisions being made, please feel free to Comment, Subscribe, and Share.
Until next time, this is Darrick, signing off!
Good fortunes be with you!
In the setting of Crossroads, there originally just two Paths: Martial Artists & Priests. During the Exodus of Ogari Sundura, people journeyed out in caravans but it was not easy. There were dangers still out and about. Martial Artists were needed to defend these caravans, and Priests were needed to heal the Martial Artists. These were simpler times. As time persisted and the outward expansion of Ogari Sundura continued, new Paths began to develop. The architects who built the civilizations upon Elementia's backdrops and the Priests who wanted to have a deeper understanding of how magic truly worked collaborated and developed the Mana-Physicist, which was shortened to Manacist.
Through their research, developments, and inventions, they were responsible for the advent of most of the Paths that followed. The Manacists developed a vast array of weapons and armors for the efficiency of the adventurers protecting the caravans. While the Priests readily took up arms to help their protectors, many Martial Artists initially shunned the idea of weapons because they felt to use a weapon showed a lack of faith in the strongest weapon of all, their body & mind.
Some of the newer initiates and the more brash Martial Artists decided to give these weapons a try, seeing it as an opportunity to learn something new. These people were the first to follow the Path of the Fighter. As the Fighter Path started to flourish, they took on the role of aggression holder, defending their team by keeping threats focused on them.
Some of the more extreme Fighters felt the best defense was to overwhelm their opposition with sheer ferocity and intimidation, keeping them behind the power curve. Another facet to these extreme fighters was their penchant for large weapons. These extreme Fighters became the first to follow the Path of the Destroyer.
With these, the Diplomats, the Ninjas, the Devoteés, and the Psions, there was a wealth of philosophies for dealing with the world but fortunately the Adventuring Academies quickly noticed the influx of new philosophies and how complex the world was becoming, there was no one Path that could handle all situations. For this reason, the academies started teaching all adventurer's a hybrid dual-path philosophy. This hybrid philosophy is the Crossroad, or the title, the character is bestowed to forge their way in the world. It gives an insight as to how they handle the world. With 9 different Paths, there are 35 Crossroads or dual-path combinations, giving players a wide variety of flavors to explore.
In Crossroads, there is only one fixed point in any character's progression, or Journey. This is the first 4 Character levels are acquired in the Adventuring Academy. These first 4 levels provide the first 2 levels for both of the Paths in the character's Crossroads. This in turn triggers the first two stat boost for their Crossroad, or title, as well as unlocks one ability from both Path Ability Trees.
After that however, there is no mandate on how the player levels their component Paths. There is no level range that the recessive Path needs to stay within of the dominant Path. There is nothing like that. The cost of not leveling a recessive Path evenly with the dominant is the inability to access the later abilities of the recessive Path. All Paths stop leveling at 25, but if a player wishes to completely level one Path before the second, there's nothing saying that they can't. There will come an event in that character's career that will trigger their desire to diversify their tactics.
The following is the list of Path combinations and the resulting title, or Crossroad:
- Destroyer + Devoteé = Ragemage
- Destroyer + Diplomat = Interrogator
- Destroyer + Fighter =
SoldierBarbarian (See comments for explanation.) - Destroyer + Manacist = Demolitionist
- Destroyer + Martial Artist = Bouncer
- Destroyer + Ninja = Assassin
- Destroyer + Priest = Warpriest
- Destroyer + Psion = Dominator
- Devoteé + Diplomat = Flametongue
- Devoteé + Fighter = Stormlord
- Devoteé + Manacist = Technician
- Devoteé + Marital Artist = Channeler
- Devoteé + Ninja = Scout
- Devoteé + Priest = Wizard
- Devoteé + Psion = Distortionist
- Diplomat + Fighter = Samurai
- Diplomat + Manacist = Opportunist
- Diplomat + Marital Artist = Sage
- Diplomat + Ninja = Courtier
- Diplomat + Priest = Bard
- Diplomat + Psion = Negotiator
- Fighter + Manacist = Warmachine
- Fighter + Martial Artsist = Blackbelt
- Fighter + Ninja = Infuriator
- Fighter + Priest = Cleric
- Fighter + Psion = Aggravator
- Manacist + Martial Artist = Sentai
- Manacist + Ninja = Saboteur
- Manacist + Priest = Engineer
- Manacist + Psion = Psychetech
- Marital Artist + Ninja = Knife-hand
- Martial Artist + Priest = Vanguard
- Martial Artist + Psion = Hurricane
- Ninja + Priest = Medic
- Ninja + Psion = Spy
- Priest + Psion = Soothsayer
It has already been established that the totality of the character's advancement of Path Abilities, Skills both normal and weapon related, and Affinities is called one's Journey (or "build" in other games). As with some journeys, the traveler may find they are not really satisfied with where they ended up. All is not lost. The player is able to "Revisit" their education and make different choices about aspects of their Journey.
Once a character has been accepted into the Adventuring Academy, they receive a special journal. In this journal, they will keep all of their notes from all of their classes, seminars, training, and experiences. Once a character has completed their initial training and get sent out on their first assignment, they develop the ability to Revisit.
In order to Revisit, the player can choose to bank any of their unspent TP at the end of the day. Some days will be easier for adventuring to the point the character doesn't feel the need to use their TP that much. Other days will be more severe and the character may feel that they need to burn through all of them. Regardless of however the day went, the character at the end of the day can bank their unspent TP. This is represented in-game, by the character writing their observations/thoughts/experiences in their adventuring journal. Once the player has banked enough TP to equal the character's level, that character goes to sleep that night and and wakes up with a new understanding of the philosophies that they follow. The Revisit spends all of the banked TP, returning the character to 0 TP in their bank. If one doesn't wish to Revisit, they can bank all but 1 TP shy of their current level so that they are always one good night's rest away from a Revisit.
Bear in mind, the Revisit does not allow the character to change decisions about Path Levels. If you as a Lv. 13 Warpriest (Destroyer/Priest) invested 10 levels into Destroyer and 3 levels into Priest, you can't revisit and suddenly be a Lv. 3 Destroyer and Lv. 10 Priest. It allows the redistribution of Path Points for Abilities accessed and their Rank of efficacy, Skill Point distribution, Weapon Skill Point distribution, Elemental Affinities, and Combat Bonus/Focus Bonus/Natural Evasion Bonus distribution.
I hope that you found this enlightening and increases your curiosity about Crossroads: The Yzyrra Chronicles. Next time, we will be going into the currently playable races of Crossroads and their Evolution Traits.
If you have made it this far, hopefully it means that you have found something about Crossroads that has piqued your interests. If you would like to continue learning more about the game and the design decisions being made, please feel free to Comment, Subscribe, and Share.
Until next time, this is Darrick, signing off!
Good fortunes be with you!
I really like how the class combinations are given their own names, almost like archetypes or prestige classes. It helps cement the concepts. Also, most of these names are really evocative -- particularly the Psychotect, which has totally got me interested.
ReplyDeleteI tend to gravitate toward warpriest type characters. Originally I was thinking Fighter / Priest would be my schtick, but then I saw that Destroyer / Priest was actually dubbed warpriest. That tells me I should at least consider that combination.
Also, Ninja / Priest = Medic. That's a super cool combination I hadn't considered in other games, even those which allow multi-classing. I might be tempted to eschew the typical warpriest route to experiment with something like that.
Basically, I really like these combinations and think it will be fun to explore all the different options.
Thank you! I am glad to hear that the Crossroad names are successfully conveying the philosophy/imagery that character exemplifies. Some of the Crossroad names were a bit harder to come up with such as the Psychetech, Hurricane, and Opportunist (pretty much anything that included the Manacist). An interesting point of note was that the Warpriest up until about a month ago was originally called the "Equalizer" since they are constantly trying to balance their outgoing damage and healing upon the circumstances of the battle. However Warpriest got the philosophy across much clearer.
DeleteI updated that the Crossroad name "Soldier" got replaced by "Barbarian". The reason for this is that there is a Path I'm thinking about for later and "Soldier" is a more logical choice there than in its original position.
ReplyDelete