I can’t speak for game balance (I rarely can, trying things out firsthand is really how I need to get a feel for game handling), but these classes and their suggested bonuses are interesting ones! I like that these class traits affect things besides character’s capabilities (like basic stats), but their means of interacting with things in the world. The profession traits for police, medical residents, and a couple others has been really nice so far! I want lots of stuff like that, it makes the classes feel much more personalized than just a list of pre-packaged skills I could pick independently.
[quote=“Wanderer, post:31, topic:7959”]A few profession traits:
Archeologist - I Have A Bad Feeling…
[spoiler]Years dealing with ancient history, artifacts and weird things surrounding them gave you an unexpected advantage in the Cataclysm. The advantage of a VERY good gut feeling regarding the bizarre.
- Starts with museums(when in game), pawn shops and strange temples marked in map.
- Have a sixth sense about Nether creatures(not Fungi or Plant, just Nether as kreks and so on) and artifacts: when getting close of one, not enough to be in sight of them, the message “You have a bad feeling about this…”. Message can differ depending of WHAT is close…
- Gets a bonus in detecting and disarming ancient traps.
- Active ability: Appraise. “Weird artifacts have been around for longer than it seems, and you heard enough about them to know what to expect when in hands of one.” Time-based ability that works through Perception. Success gives you a more detailed description of a chosen artifact. Failure does nothing, Critical Failure gives a WRONG description of it.
[/spoiler]
Bionic Prepper - I Knew The End Was Coming
[spoiler]…you heard the news, connected the dots and saw what others didn’t. Thanks to that, you did everything you could to be ready, and as they know, knowing is half of the battle.
- Starts with a bigger revealed map at start.
- Starts with few special basements in houses marked in the map at start. (Of friends who were preparing as well)
- Active ability: If I Remember It Right… Chance-based ability. Success gives random reveals of stuff in the map. Failure gives nothing. Critical failures give WRONG reveals of stuff in maps.
NEVER reveals stuff that came because of the Cataclysm, or things that are made to be hidden. In this cases, the reveal is wrong always. (so, yeah, that field that you remembered now is a fungal tower. Buggers.)
(He already have a lot at start, so doesn’t need much more than information)
[/spoiler]
Hobo - Living at Well’s Bottom
[spoiler]When everything you have is the clothes you have and what you can beg, one can become really good in knowing how to get more stuff. And in using stuff that people wouldn’t think about.
- Starts with food, water and shelter related places revealed in the map.
- Can ask others survivor for stuff. When that’s already an option for a generic character, have an improved chance of succeeding and even asking for more and getting something.
- Gets more things when salvaging/searching, thanks to years of experience having to use what it had to the fullest.
- Increased resistance against diseases and parasites, and diminished effects when infected/parasited.
[/spoiler][/quote]
And then the question becomes “how many of these are reasonable to code?”.
Map reveals are kinda doable but take a little longer, generally because it’s possible that the radius is enough to need another overmap. (That’s more an issue of where on the starting overmap you start, not just the radius being too large.) Reveals are always gonna be accurate because we don’t keep two maps: what you see is what is/was there (a forest overrun by fungal blossoms doesn’t cease to be “forest” for mapping purposes, but that’d be a neat upgrade).
The Hobo could probably get most of what you’re asking. The Prepper is pretty near OP as is–I remember having to wrangle it down to its current spec–so I’m not inclined to give it anything.
As for the archaeologist, we’ll see.
It was the hobo one I rather liked the looks of, too.