Glyphs and ability points
Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2020 8:27 pm
I don't really like glyphs set up as individual abilities that you have to learn. I'd much rather have them be just glyphs, and have some sort of system that determines who can learn which and how many. The obvious idea is to tie it to Arcana skill, but glyphs are meant to have a wide variety of effects and powers, and I wouldn't feel right having them all available just via Arcana skill while other people are spending ability points on, say, being able to tackle or tumble. (Or get a medical license.)
So I'm asking for help in coming up with a way to use up ability points on general glyph usage, but not having it as it is now with a simple ability point to learn a specific glyph. I also want to maintain the idea that certain glyphs are only available to certain classes. One idea is to have abilities that unlock more slots, more complicated diagram options (separators with more glyph space per diagram, larger circles for group effects), and some other abilities for things like making these slots more "hot swappable" so, for instance, Arcanists can switch up their current memorized glyphs with ease while lesser arcane practitioners might have a harder/more time-consuming time of it.
The overall idea being that you learn abilities to increase your general ability at using diagrams and glyphs, but you learn specific glyphs through a different means (study, most likely) and you can choose to forget glyphs in order to learn different ones within your limited glyph memorization capacity.
I like the above ideas and am already mentally plotting out how to set up all the abilities, but I thought I'd open things up for suggestions if anyone has any. As well as just general feedback on the concept of separating specific glyph knowledge from ability points. I don't know that I want it to complicate things more than they already are with the occult diagram system, so try to keep ideas relatively simple. What kind of abilities would you want to be able to learn to help you become a master with arcane diagrams and glyphs, without worrying so much about the powers of the individual glyphs themselves? What would separate the dabblers from the experts?
So I'm asking for help in coming up with a way to use up ability points on general glyph usage, but not having it as it is now with a simple ability point to learn a specific glyph. I also want to maintain the idea that certain glyphs are only available to certain classes. One idea is to have abilities that unlock more slots, more complicated diagram options (separators with more glyph space per diagram, larger circles for group effects), and some other abilities for things like making these slots more "hot swappable" so, for instance, Arcanists can switch up their current memorized glyphs with ease while lesser arcane practitioners might have a harder/more time-consuming time of it.
The overall idea being that you learn abilities to increase your general ability at using diagrams and glyphs, but you learn specific glyphs through a different means (study, most likely) and you can choose to forget glyphs in order to learn different ones within your limited glyph memorization capacity.
I like the above ideas and am already mentally plotting out how to set up all the abilities, but I thought I'd open things up for suggestions if anyone has any. As well as just general feedback on the concept of separating specific glyph knowledge from ability points. I don't know that I want it to complicate things more than they already are with the occult diagram system, so try to keep ideas relatively simple. What kind of abilities would you want to be able to learn to help you become a master with arcane diagrams and glyphs, without worrying so much about the powers of the individual glyphs themselves? What would separate the dabblers from the experts?