As the title reads, I want to do a small rant about evolution vs skill tree before I start writing. I am sure that most of you (hopefully 18+ YO) readers already know to some degree about these two archetypes, but I will give examples of them anyway, just to be clear.
Evolution:
A goblin hit lvl 10/10 and fulfills his basic condition to evolve into a hobgoblin, a stronger variant of goblins. After a long rest somewhere safe, his lvl is reset to lvl 1/25, but his strength is stronger than that of the lvl 10 goblin, and his thinking became more articulate.
A human apprentice mage hit lvl 10/99 and has reached the required lvl to upgrade his class. The generic upgrade route is the "mage" class that will give him increased proficiency in spells, but because he practiced close-quarter combat as well, he also received the chance to pick the class "combat mage", which will sacrifice some of his magic potential for close-combat potential. Whichever class he picks, will lock the other class away.
Skill-tree:
A slime caught a rabbit in its gelatinous body. The rabbit frantically struggled for a few minutes, before floating silently inside the liquid and semi-transparent body. As the slime was about to take its time to slowly dissolve its prey, a notification sounded in its almost nonexistent mind. "Congratulations on reaching lvl 2! Rewarded 2SP. Please use them on your skill tree as soon as possible. The system has detected that the user has insufficient cognition, so the system will distribute them according to the user's need. Detected the user has ambushed a living creature, adding a point to the skill "pounce". Detected that the user is trying to dissolve a living being, adding a point to "Acidic body"." After the prompts ended, the slime suddenly felt that it could jump better and that the food inside it was dissolving thrice as fast! It wiggled its body in excitement, not understanding why this happened, but happy all the same.
An 18-year-old young man reached the church to receive his "class" baptism from his patron god. A ray of light shone upon his praying form from the heavens, as he received the class most suitable for him "Congratulations! You have received the main class "builder" and have unlocked the builder skill tree. You have 3SP to spend, please use them on the skill tree.". After a moment of daze, the builder checked his skill tree and started deliberating on what to choose. After a few minutes, he picked "pack mule (1/3)", "Basic Building proficiency (1/5)", and "Basic hammer mastery (1/10)".
Naturally, there are limitations on both of these paths:
In the evolution path, one can't deviate from the evolution tree. Also, some monsters and creatures might have an innate "limit" that will prevent them from improving further. (Naturally, that is a poor excuse of the author since he just realized that he fucked up his ecological system).
In the skill tree path, one receives "skill points" based on his race and/or class(es). In this case, the user has a wider range of selection and freedom, but he is also locked out of other skill trees. Also, some selections on the same tree can lock you out of other selections. Such as "specialization". It wouldn't make sense that someone specializes in more than two things, right? If that was the case, that wouldn't be a specialization anymore.
Also, on the skill tree path, some skills will need a prerequisite for acquiring them. Example: Hellfire lvl 1 - requires: fire affinity lvl (15/50), fire magic lvl (10/25).
However, there are also ways an author make someone stronger than their peers:
In the evolution path, they make the mc and his companions achieve some epic feats, like slaying someone far stronger than them, having higher stats, having a unique skill, having a higher inborn talent, or having a higher intelligence than monsters of the same race, achieving unique classes and evolutions in a nonsensical way. Authors who put a bit more (or lack of) thought will blame it on a god or some supernatural event, or just plain hard training.
In the skill tree path, a shitty or uncaring, or satirical author will implement a (Usually generic) cheat that enables the protagonist to acquire more skill points than others or even effectively unlimited skill points or obtain multiple skill trees. Or gives them a unique skill tree, like the hero skill tree. A smarter author will make it so that one can acquire more SP through achieving feats, but the protag isn't exclusive to it. He might also make it so that the mc made a unique spec for his skill tree, unlocking something unique.
Even better authors will allow the people of the world they built to train their class/racial skills by themselves with increased efficiency, thus saving those few precious skill points for things that are harder to train by yourself. You can also train skills outside your skill tree, but their training efficiency is regular, and they are not reinforced in your memory. (Naturally, the training methods are sometimes secrets of strong families.)
Some also mix the two paths:
One archetype is creating more "linear" skill trees with some branching. For example, a commoner might pick the warrior branch, but by doing so, he blocks all the other branches. Another example is a monster who picks a certain evolution, and by doing so blocks the other branches.
Some just create an "evolution requirement". Meaning, that a creature will need to acquire all the requirements to evolve. Enlightened races also need some requirements to evolve their classes too. Like, to evolve from the "builder" class to "Intermediate builder", one needs to have "Basic hammer mastery (5/10)", and "Basic Building proficiency (5/5)", with the rest being optional. If one wasted all his SP on random things, he might need to train by himself until he reaches the requirement, or he will be stuck at a lvl cap.
Anyways, I mentioned all this because I plan on taking one of the hybrid paths:(Because pure skill tree or evolution doesn't sound logical)
Hybrid - Linear: A gradual and linear evolution path with little branching. Might have a few special requirements for a variant branch.
Hybrid - Requirements: Freedom over requirements, letting people unknowingly fuck themselves over. And to give an icing to the cake, knowledge of evolution requirements is a secret belonging to powerful organizations.
About levels and how to gain SP:
No levels! You can only gain SP!
How will it work? By doing what your class or race dictates! The more in-line your actions are with your race, the more sp that you will receive, and the stronger that you can become!
Example: A mage reads books about fire magic for an hour (+0.1 SP). A goblin whacks a rabbit on the head kills it and eats it. (+0.5 SP). A pacifist killed the dragon! (+0 SP, because he contradicted the nature of his class. If he convinced the dragon to peacefully leave, however, he would receive something like +10,000 SP).
Downside: Either an exponential rise in skill prices as you acquire and upgrade things or lesser gains from trivial actions. (I lean on a combination of the two)
Oh, right, and about STATS:
The natural stats of people are determined by several factors: Birth, Race, Gender, and Training.
Birth: let's face it, even people of the same race are born with different stats. Like that strong jock in your class, the good-looking school belle who everyone drools over, the likable and funny kid who is popular with just about everyone, or the smart nerd who later becomes that famous rich guy who got the belle of another school as his wife(Who cheats on him), the likable kid as his spokesman(Who fucks his daughter), and employs even stronger jocks as bodyguards(Who take turns with his wife).
Or, you might just be born without any special talent, like most of us, and you will spend the rest of your miserable life as a wage slave.
Race: Gobo vs Ogre... Yeah, I don't need to elaborate on that one.
Gender: A male is usually stronger and more fit on average than a female, and usually has higher willpower and concentration. Similarly, a female is usually more agile, intelligent, has higher multitasking ability, and is socially more apt than a guy.
Training: One goblin trained on how to swing a stick well and has relatively toned and strong muscles, another was originally strong, but later only spent his time on fucking women and became anemic and bony. Guess who wins in a fistfight?
What will stats look like?:
I plan on making stats invisible and unquantifiable. You cant see the stats at all. However, I plan on making it so the skill trees grant stats. Like a "minor strength up (0/10)". And it also costs sp, making people think twice before picking it.
In comparison, however, someone with "minor strength up (0/10)" might be physically stronger than someone with "minor strength up (10/10)" if he was either born crazy strong or trained his body crazy hard. (Though someone like Stephan Hawking will likely not benefit much from training... or the skill for that matter). Naturally, you can only improve by so much, depending on your innate potential and race.
In doing so, I am limiting the potential of stats, making it so that someone might not be able to reach an impossible strength figure, like 1,000,000 str as a goblin, while 10-11 is that of an average and fit Human adult. Both people and monsters are contained and limited, but also properly framed in a way that doesn't defy logic or reason. (Or at least in an unreasonable way.)
Now then, I won't do a poll this time, since I am afraid that it will go 50/50 like in the incubus/special monster poll. Instead, I will listen to your arguments. Give me a reasonable argument that I like, and upvote that argument to show your support of it, and I just might go with your idea on improvement.
I will start writing after I finish my uni assignment, should take me 2 days tops. Go.
I think hybrid is the right way to go with things like this but it leans one way or another depending on if it is an intelligent race.
So lets use a human and a wolf as an example. What is one of the main differences between the two? The ability to use tools. The wolf levels so his skill options would be in line with what he does. Sharper teeth or claws, better eyes, silent steps, stronger fur for defense or darker fur for stealth, etc etc. The early skills should go in line with what the wolf has available to it. Now perhaps if in the future the wolf gains higher intelligence then more options would appear.
On the other hand a human would have a much vaster array of skills to choose from. The only question you really need to answer is if prior experience or "talent" is needed. The first means that a human who grew up a merchant and never wielded, would he have access to a warrior class? Or must he first learn the basic of the sword in order to unlock the option for that class?
Talent is mainly for magic. Magic is usually the hardest class to come by because it usually involves natural talent in mana. However, in some fantasy stories once you hit a certain level you get the option of going down a warrior, rogue, or mage starting path. That gives everyone the ability to learn magic.
So to sum this above up evolution for monsters(opens up at certain intelligence) and hybrid for humans/mortals.
For linear or Requirements I am not sure to be honest. . . I think linear would be easier to write. Requirements would probably be funner to read with all the different options. Linear would probably make more sense if "gods" or a "system" had control/oversaw all the classes.
Also limits work to keep the world in check. Without limits you could potentially have entire armies of level 200 golins who just got there by killing rabbits. So set limits for races but also make ways for those limits to break. Either special items, break throws that are extremely rare, god blessings/divinity, etc.
Will end with a note/idea about Racial Classes. Humans can't really evolve(unless you have high humans) but in some stories race classes exist. Usually give passives that go with the race. So an orc racial classes would be about strength or an elf's about magic/nature. Trick is how to level up these classes. Do you have to do something orc like or is only experience required?
Yeah, I get what you mean about the lvl 200 goblin, but your worries are unwarranted. I specially added a reduction in SP gain the stronger you are(Since the things you do are increasingly easier and trivial). Also, even if you are a lvl 200 goblin, you still have a stats cap in place, meaning that even if you master the entire skill tree somehow, you will still be weaker than a lvl 10 Ogre(physically). That is why a goblin would instinctively seek to evolve and improve his foundation, rather than stay as an unevolved goblin.
As for the monster skill tree, I can probably pull-off a mixture of linear and free picking. Some evolutions might cause variation in the size of the creature, meaning that if a creature picks (Robust build), it wont be able to pick (Lean build). Some evolutions will require to grow wings, while others will grow horns and tails. Things like that. Some evolutions might unlock "magic affinity", though some will lock it out, forever.
However, some skills might have no relation to anything. "Minor Strength up" for example, is a passive that anyone can pick, but while it is a requirement to evolve into certain branches, it doesn't block anything else. However, if you pick a magic variant, for instance, like some sort of magic goblin, then you wont have the chance.
By doing this, I can justify the reason why some monsters have a hard time evolving, while others evolve more easily. It is because their instincts automatically pick what they need most at that moment, not taking into account future evolutions.
repare que eu não sei inglês estou digitando no google tradutor então se sair ruim não é minha culpa. uma ideia minha seria uma classificação de talento para as estatísticas dessa raça e indivíduo e esse talento seria a facilidade que alguém poderia aumentar uma estatística com treinamento ou a proporção de uma habilidade de aumento de estatísticas
No worries, I understand your idea.
You mean to say that, some races will have an easier time raising certain "stats", while others will have a harder time.
An ogre might have a str rating of 4 full stars, while a slime will have a half a star. Something along those lines.
Not a bad way of thinking, but it is kinda fluff.