Yeah, i´m also tending towards that with acquiring a new skill there should also be included one first starting skill point that goes automatically to it as well.
Otherwise it looks just to much like a missed opportunity for
instant reward to the gamer (important for his motiviation, a thing that usually is valued very high by the
Larians).
This and other issues raised here is why i actually prefer skill systems that operate on a kind of "XP per skill" basis (or to phrase it by a more familiar term:
"learning by doing"!).
That would also prevent the "i have skill points to invest but don´t know yet on what to specialize"-problem.
You just get to raise
"clubs" at first because that´s what you start out fighting with. Whenever you change your weapon, the other respective skill gets improved as long as you use it.
Of course this needs as a prerequisite that the player will have enough playing time to develop a skill as much as he aims for, i.e. the talent, resp. the opportunity to use it shouldn´t come to late in the game.
This method comes with an inherent logic that avoids to spoil immersion too much or to make char improvement too annoying for the player.
[As an enhancement you could still add a system of teachers and books for more control to the player on his char´s development, however lesser opportunities of those, in order to not loose the balancing out of sight.]
But as <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> has chosen a different path now, the best thing to do would indeed be to accompany obtaining a skill by an initial skill point as well.
Otherwise it will be harder for the player t buy the inner logic:
"Why on earth, when i learn s.th., shouldn´t i be able to apply my newly gained knowledge right away, if only on a beginner level? To get better than that, ok, i will have to practise then, no problem!"
On the issue of potentially high discrepancy between actually closely related skills (e.g. variations of one-handed fighting):
The
"Gothic"-series chose the interesting approach to have
Two-handed and
One-handed fight (there weren´t much more fighting talents than those!) linked together in a way that let the margin never grow too big. I.e. when developing the one, the other got raised automatically as well when a certain distance in points was reached.
So e.g. at 60%
One-handed you would be proficient at 30%
Two-handed as well.
An object to arguments was, however, that it also cost double
learning points, when two skills were raised that way. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />
In favor of the <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> on this particular aspect, you could yet argue the following way:
What the fighting styles have in common is defined and grown already by the primary attributes, that also improve the
chance to hit,
evasion,
damage,
initiative for the whole spectrum of fighting.
The skill points are rather to be considered the pure specialization part of your abilities in that area.
And then, pure
One-handed fight and taking a shield in addition is perhaps more different than one might think.
It comes with quite a different set of movements and coordination!
Ragon, the Mage
