Factional Redesign of The Gift

[Dark Shadows]

Change the three skills that are covered for Healing ability, and convert it back to either Healing or Medical

[TheDarkSide]

I think making the skills cover a wide range of abilities, helps to limit the number of skills that there are in the game.

[Davin]

IMO, each faction should have a factional ability (such as construction bonuses for the Gift) and those should be directly coded into the program and should not rely on skills.  That isn't to say that the skills shouldn't also exist (for other clans to take), but that they (construction, for instance) won't benefit a Gift (for instance) clan in any substantial way, at least not at low levels.

[Davin]

IMO, I think that healing abilities should not be given free to any faction, and anyone should be able to take healing-type skills.  However, I expect some religion(s) to typically ask their members (including those from the general population) to take these and help provide personnel and (civic?) buildings that can offer services to the general public and clans.

I would further recommend that the different skills we've discussed be kept separate so that any person can specialize in just one of them at a time.  For instance, a clan may include a Surgeon whose job is to know everything they can learn about surgery, without having to learn how to run an apothecary, for instance.  If he's spending the time to get the most training he can, it should be in his specialty so he's the best he can be.

In a city there may be a building (or temple?) where people help with healing services, in which one or more specialize in surgery to help with physical emergencies and others who are specialist herbalists to help with ongoing care and recovery, in a building that provides good places for these activities to take place.  Other buildings may be apothecaries (run by those that know nothing about surgery), to help keep the city population healthy.

But all this doesn't keep just anyone from learning to be a healer (from novice to expert).

Doesn't that sound reasonable?

[Davin]

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.

Why is it necessary to combine these together?  I wouldn't expect a stonemason or a carpenter to know very much about architecture, and vice versa.  Why not have specialists in each field independently?  Then the training could be divided up among multiple people and effectiveness could be increased in parallel in a shorter time.

[Davin]

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.

I don't much like putting too many eggs in one basket.  Nobody should be able to provide many different skills at once without a great deal of time and effort.  I don't think we've got any Leonardo da Vinci's running around Midgard.

[Davin]

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.

I don't see any problems with viewpoints like this.

[Davin]

I think making the skills cover a wide range of abilities, helps to limit the number of skills that there are in the game.

Why should we need to limit the number of skills in the game?  Typical peasants of our Middle Ages generally never got good at more than one thing in their lives, and it was usually of a very narrow scope (passed down through families or by apprenticeship).

Make a skill really mean something, and then only important ones will be available and most training (outside of clans) will be in a single skill.  (For instance, I don't expect astronomy to have an impact on daily life and nobody will know about it [except perhaps for some few priests trying to predict eclipses].  Some few may believe in astrology, but it may still not have much of a daily effect either.)

I don't expect many skills to have a game effect and we probably won't even bother with them.  For instance, some peasant women are taught to weave, and each probably has their own family patterns passed down.  But I can't see clans and cities bothering with that sort of thing.

[DreamWeaver]

Davin can you state for the record will the Gift have Construction and Healing ability or not? Please answer that clearly!

The Gift Skill list, will it be the following?

PRE - Preach
REC - Recruitment
ENG - Engineering
HRB - Herbalism
APT - Apothocary
SRG - Surgery
RES - Research

Please clarify for us, public opinion has already spoken. What is your judgement of this so we can stop talking this to death and move on?

[Davin]

I think everyone agrees that they should have built-in construction abilities, regardless of expected skills.

I think that Healing should not be the exclusive province of a single faction.  They may prefer to provide such services, training, etc., but it shouldn't restrict it there.

(I haven't defined the list of skills yet, so I can't pick exactly from that list, and it wouldn't be enforceable anyway.)

Is that clear enough?