Factional Redesign of The Gift

[Davin]

I think that healing needs to be an important facet of the game, and fairly easily available in moderation for most clans.  But I'm not convinced that it should be particularly powerful or widespread (such as all religions able to do thorough magical healing).  My current vision (subject to discussion, etc.) is that all men should heal naturally at a relatively slow rate, but that easily found "professional" assistance can speed that up noticeably.  One faction (I'm thinking) may particularly train their members in this sort of assistance which they can then provide to others when it suits their purposes (including for pay - the most common reason).  In addition, prepared medicinals (usually able to last a long time and taken on the road) may be sold on the market that anyone can buy and use themselves for an intermediate improvement in healing speed.

I think that the faction's temples in cities might be the best place to buy "treatment services" and perhaps an apothecary could be a civic building (possibly staffed by factional members) where such medicinals are prepared and sold to the public (including both the market and the city population).  (I'm thinking these could be somewhat like our Chinese herbalist shops.)

Does that follow along with anyone else's thoughts?

[Davin]

Let me point out a few facts...

BTW, you frequently state "facts" very flagrantly in your arguments, usually based on what I've said I'm NOT going to do.  But please keep in mind that (a) my initial intentions are not necessarily how things are going to work out, and (b) most of my comments are about the starting situation and say little about what we might be able to grow into with a little size and complexity. So I'd appreciate it if you could be a little less vehement about your pronouncements.

[Davin]

I prefer for the religions (and all factions) to have a logical explanation for their Factional perks that make sense ...

That's kinda what I was trying to do, is have things that make sense (to those that understand where it's coming from).

For instance, let's say that a given faction can "instill fear in all that see them."  Well, that's the popular perception anyway. But what's going on is that they like to "be evil" and treat people "evilly" (e.g. perhaps they torture people when they want cooperation, or just at random, for instance).  That gives them a popular reputation that they should be avoided at all costs and thus the notion of "instilling fear" is widely promoted (within and without of their faction) as their "power".  The fear is quite real, and has a good reason for existence, but that doesn't mean it needs to be magically caused, does it?

Or let's say that a faction is blessed with the ability to become "invisible".  Well, what about the popular notion of ninjas in our own history?  They reputedly had the ability to become effectively invisible by carefully blending in with their surroundings.  Could that sort of training and behavior not be worked up into something that's about as effective as true invisibility without having to resort to it being "magical"?

Special training could give one faction the ability for their infantry to fight better than others, or know how to build and use siege engines, or be experts in mounted warfare, or know what effect many kinds of plants have, or be able to blend in with their surroundings, or intentionally frighten people into submission?

Does this not sound like a reasonable way to approach things?

[DreamWeaver]

OK I will yield the point then...abandon the magical healing...

I would ask strongly to return the Healing ability to the Gift and if it is to be through real study and research then ok. Hera is what skills I think we have so far for the Gift skills:

PRE - Preach
REC - Recruitment
ENG - Engineering
HRB - Herbalism
APH - Apothecary

Should there also be a 6th skill or SRG - Surgery These (3) skills would work together : HRB, APH, SRG

I could see a startup clan skill set as:

LDR: PRE-2, REC-1, ENG-1, HRB-1, APH-1, SRG-1
F1: ENG-1
F2: ENG-1
F3: ENG-1
What do you say on this? With each character having ENG-1, they can each run/manage a construction project. This then explains why a Gift clan can run (4) Construction projects without needing Engineers as well. This then leaves the LDR to be able to do both Priest ability, Healer, and Engineer. For roleplaying that does do a pretty good job what are your thoughts Davin?

[Davin]

I think that healing assistance (as opposed to instant magical healing) is a good idea and we can work something out.

Back when we were discussing what each faction would have or be able to do, we never got into combining some of the old abilities into fewer factions.  I think I'd recommend going back to those threads and trying to update everyone's opinion of what they ought to be.  I'm not trying to get rid of any specific special ability that used to be associated with one of the alternate factions, I'm just talking about condensing the important things into base factions so they can do more than one thing.  But we need a current summary of each faction and their features so that the players can discuss them specifically.

[DreamWeaver]

I believe my Gift clan will be so defined like the following as well as roleplay the following :

Clan Name: Illuminati
        Leader: Father Kalib (m)
Follower F1: Brother Joshua (m)
Follower F2: Brother Hermes (m)
Follower F3: Brother Aaron (m)

I might have my clan Leader Father Kalib pursue research in a new city building type called a Bath House. The Gift being Healers as well as Builders, are concerned with health and cleanliness. So through a network of pipes under the building they will bring in clean water into the building and remove waste. The Bath House will be a place where people can go  to socialize and do business as well as get clean. There will be many different services offered at the structure complex, and it will be for the better of  health and culture of the city. It will add to making the city a happier place to live.

[Davin]

That sounds quite reasonable. Does the Gift have any other purposes/abilities that should also be included, or is this sufficient to make it fun enough to play even when many other factional choices become available?

Does anyone have anything else to add or change, or a completely different vision to suggest?

[DreamWeaver]

Lets circle back to the skills for a second here...

The Gift most well known ability is "Construction" and this gives them the ability to be more effective in Construction Mancycles to be able to build things within the game. That is ok but I want to point out that hat the skill of ENG - Engineering is set up as a total catch all of no less than (4) skills to be able to do this.

Now I can say this because I firstly I grew up around my father's Construction Agency where he restored historic buildings.  I grew up around him and his men helping and watching them build buildings. After my military service, I went to college for a 5 year Professional BA in Architecture with (2) minors in Construction Engineering and the other minor in Computer Science. Funny how I in life followed my minor in Computer Science but still I have the background to speak on this matter.

So to build any building you have (3) specialities and they would be:

Architecture - Design of the structure of layout and cosmetics
Construction Engineering - Design of the actual support systems and structure so building can stand and be supported
Building - Actually the system to build the building together and actually physically build it

The combination of these three skills gives you ENG - Engineering which is the catch-all skill to give the Gift their Construction ability.

The 2nd  Focus for the Gift is Healing ability. The GM has said that to get Healing you have (3) Skills of : HRB - Herbalism, APH - Apothecary, and SRG - Surgery. To keep the skills in line that with the ENG- Engineering side, that the (3) skills of HRB - Herbalism, APH - Apothecary, and SRG - Surgery should be represented by the HEA - Healing skill. So the Gift skills would then be:

PRE- Preach
REC - Recruitment
ENG - Engineering
HEA - Healing

This would then allow the chance to also add some other skills to round out the Gift clans skills. I would add such skills as :

ADM - Administration
RES - Research
ENT - Entertainment

This would then give the Gift the following skill set:

PRE- Preach
REC - Recruitment
ENG - Engineering
HEA - Healing
ADM - Administration
RES - Research
ENT - Entertainment

So the skills setup for the clan might look like this:

 LDR: PRE-1, REC-1 ENG-1, HEA-1 ADM-1, RES-1, ENT-1
   F1: ENG-1
   F2: ENG-1
   F3: ENG-1

So for roleplaying aspects, all (4) characters can each support a Construction project of their own. Now the Leader being you main clan character can do all the rest. Now remember each character can have up to (10) skills each, but this skill setup would make a very effective and playable clan to play.

ENG, ADM, ENT are based in part off of mathematics in a way. The Gift to use RES skill for both ENG and HEA skills to develop things, even to work on ENT things like Gregorian Chants music and etc. The Gift become a very well rounded faction with this skills set.

[FutureSojourner]

I think that construction bonuses and architectural engineering would be pretty significant advantages just by themselves, especially together.

I like the idea of ALL Religion clans being able to learn healing; however, the Gift have always been about building and I would hate to see that replaced with a healing benefit.  I see the three main religions, who all worship the same God, focusing on different aspects of that God (The One True God).  

The Gift -- focus on Creation, the establishment of the material work.  Finding a connection with the OTG through the created world and making the majesty of the OTG manifest through building and construction -- seeing the OTG as "the Great Architect of Midgard."

The Ring -- focus on repentance through asceticism, prayer, contemplation and preserving the established order.  

The Banner - focus on evangelism and spreading the word of the OTG often by the sword.

All the religions should be somewhat adept at healing.  But the GIFT should excel at construction.  If that were taken away from the Gift I don't think I would ever want to play one!  

Oliver

[DreamWeaver]

The purpose of my last post was to point out that the ENG skill covers (3) skill areas and covered by one skill. Now the Healing skill I am saying should do the same. Just like ENG does, have HEA - Healing or MED - Medical could do the same.