Professions

[Prime_Evil]

A quick question - I've been thinking about increasing the number of skill points allocated via Professions and reducing the number of Free Skill Points assigned to adventurers. My aim is to make Professions more important to starting characters by treating them more like starter templates whilst still allowing some degree of individualisation and customisation. This would have the additional benefit of speeding up character creation and providing clearer roles for new players. Is this a viable approach? Or would any reduction in the amount of customisation during character creation turn players off?

[Olaus Petrus]

A quick question - I've been thinking about increasing the number of skill points allocated via Professions and reducing the number of Free Skill Points assigned to adventurers. My aim is to make Professions more important to starting characters by treating them more like starter templates whilst still allowing some degree of individualisation and customisation. This would have the additional benefit of speeding up character creation and providing clearer roles for new players. Is this a viable approach? Or would any reduction in the amount of customisation during character creation turn players off?

Making culture and profession more important in character creation is a one approach and it works in many roleplaying games and settings. Biggest downside of this approach is that if your party has, for example, two or more Orlanthi warriors then these characters probably have very similar skills.

I agree that culture and profession should be important (I don't support the idea that players could freely use all of the points and min-max their skills), but there should always be enough points for customization. What's the best balance depends on the preferences of the GM and his party.

[Prime_Evil]

Biggest downside of this approach is that if your party has, for example, two or more Orlanthi warriors then these characters probably have very similar skills.

The rules already suggest a potential solution to this - allow players to choose from several meaningful options WITHIN each profession so that it is less likely that you will end up with adventurers who are cookie-cutter clones of each other. Remember that if you increase the number of skill points allocated to each profession, you can allow a greater number of choices within each profession - while enforcing a consistent theme rather than encouraging experienced players to Min-Max shamelessly

I agree that culture and profession should be important (I don't support the idea that players could freely use all of the points and min-max their skills), but there should always be enough points for customization. What's the best balance depends on the preferences of the GM and his party.

Agreed. My concern is that at the moment the choice of profession seems to be less important than the way the free skill points are allocated. Initially, I will probably experiment with reducing the 250 Free Skill Points to 200 or 150 and increasing the amount assigned to each profession by the same amount. That way players can still customise their adventurers to some extent, but the choice of profession carries more weight and encourages a greater degree of thematic consistency.

[Olaus Petrus]

Biggest downside of this approach is that if your party has, for example, two or more Orlanthi warriors then these characters probably have very similar skills.

The rules already suggest a potential solution to this - allow players to choose from several meaningful options WITHIN each profession so that it is less likely that you will end up with adventurers who are cookie-cutter clones of each other. Remember that if you increase the number of skill points allocated to each profession, you can allow a greater number of choices within each profession - while enforcing a consistent theme rather than encouraging experienced players to Min-Max shamelessly

I agree that culture and profession should be important (I don't support the idea that players could freely use all of the points and min-max their skills), but there should always be enough points for customization. What's the best balance depends on the preferences of the GM and his party.

Agreed. My concern is that at the moment the choice of profession seems to be less important than the way the free skill points are allocated. Initially, I will probably experiment with reducing the 250 Free Skill Points to 200 or 150 and increasing the amount assigned to each profession by the same amount. That way players can still customise their adventurers to some extent, but the choice of profession carries more weight and encourages a greater degree of thematic consistency.

Currently some professions allow plenty of variety while others don't give option to choose from different skills. But you're right that one solution could be adding more alternative skills (as long as those are suitable) to the professions.