"General" class set.

I’ve been thinking this one over for awhile. There are some skills that just don’t really seem to fit in other areas, and should have their own class called general, or something ambiguous like that.

Such skills being:
scan
climb
throw ( although everybody gets throw now that it’s at level 1 )
search
research ( this skill is just kind of thrown into diplomacy as it is. You can’t level diplomacy with it. It just doesn’t fit anywhere else. )
mount

All general-class skills would be able to be accessed once you reach a certain level period, like how it is for talk, beep, tell, etc.

The thing that made me think about all this in the first place was that some hunters don’t have hide, a necessary command for ambush( a friggin’ level 150 skill, to boot ). And then one thing lead to another, and now there’s this.

I don’t see why the skills above shouldn’t be available to -all- players, especially considering how rudimentary some of them are. Really, anybody can squint their eyes and look in a certain direction, or hoist themselves up to… wherever.

You know?

I agree. Utterly annoying that I cant use scan on my new character because they raised the level. I mean come on, I nead to be a combatant to look into the next room?

I concur.

Sounds good.

What is this thread, a forums circle jerk?

I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate here, only because I love you guys.

The very idea of a "general" class is stupid. Either they’re class skills (like I’d argue most of those things are) or they’re level-based commands. Adding an entire class, just for half-a-dozen commands, is plain wasteful.

The reason a lot of these "basic" abilities are class skills (besides to spice up questing and such) is that, while you COULD do them untrained, in theory, you wouldn’t be nearly as good at it. I’ll go down the list:

Scan – I would bet you $100 a Sniper School-trained marksman can–without his fancy gear, mind you–pick out the guy crawling across the other side of the field way more quickly and easily than you can.

Climb – IRL, people can climb two ways. Technically, or just brute force it. The "technical" climbing should stay in smuggling, because they’re the class that would use it the most (and it’s super low level). The only problem with that is that some bounty hunters don’t get it… so maybe add in a second version of climb that’s a command that requires a certain amount of strength (something bounty hunters typically have in abundance) and overall level? 25 STR + avatar?

Throw – See "scan" example. I’d trust a soldier to throw a hand grenade a lot more than I’d trust a school teacher or an engineer.

Search – Thieves quickly learn to "toss" a house to find its valuables.

Research – Given that because Star Wars has a version of the Internet (that should, in theory, allow you to research anywhere you have a datapad and a connection), I had always thought that research was as much about flirting/buddying up to the librarian and having him/her help you–why else would you actually need the library, if all its information could be had elsewhere? And even without that argument, historically, intelligence services–you know, people who have lots of information for research–have come from two sources: the military and the diplomatic corps. And I’m sure as Hell not behind making research a combat skill!

Mount – Combatants ride mounts into combat, and no one else does… and I’d bet (having only been around horses a couple times in my life) that it’s quite a bit harder to control them when you’re trying to con them into RIDING AT THE GUY WITH A WEAPON.

</Devil’s Advocate>

Now, I agree with asshole-me on several points, but I can see where I think you’re coming from: a level-based command isn’t quite the same, because it doesn’t have skill percentages.

That’s well and good, but this would take a decent amount of coding, and for what? Who really doesn’t have access to one of those skills and needs it? Bounty hunters may not get climb, and I already made a suggestion for that.

The only changes I would be behind are putting research into the science class (assuming diplomacy becomes less useless than it is now and/or merges with leadership)
and making search into an espionage skill (which doesn’t have much at the low levels, and I’d think spies would be better at covertly searching for things than thieves would).

The fact of the matter is,..

scan- is it doesn’t take a well-trained combatant to squint their eyes in any certain direction. I may be half blind, but I can pick out my friends when I see them from a hundred yards away.

throw- I’m no soldier, but I can throw a football rather good. Baseball players can throw whatever it is they want to throw at me. Angry girlfriends are quite capable of tossing their cheating boyfriend’s prized possessions out the window at any given moment. On a more LotJ-related note throw is used in lieu of not being able to scrap, shred, or otherwise throw stuff in the trash. The people who might use this most are espionage-types, who need to get rid of some incriminating evidence on their datapad, orrr something like that. I dunno about you, but my last espionage main got something like 1 combat.

Search- I think most people generally know how to go through a room to find something that wasn’t initially visible. That doesn’t necessarily have to be tossing it to do so.

Mount- Okay, in real life, combatants ride mounts into combat. Do people ever actually do that on LotJ? No. The only times I’ve ever seen mount used have been in mostly RP situations ( with a droid, or a mountable animal mob or something ) and when people got on those little portable speeders.

/arguingagainstdevil’sadvocate

There are a number of people who don’t get the skills mentioned, or get to use them to their full potential because the race/main combo they picked does not have more than one level in combat, diplomacy, or what-have-you. Even if people -do- get to use research, they aren’t able to look stuff up to a high level because… why? Because they aren’t good diplomats? What does being a diplomat have to do with reading a book? <!– s:| –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_neutral.gif" alt="" title="Neutral" /><!– s:| –> I think merging diplomacy with leadership’s a good idea, but that’s for another thread entirely. &gt;_&gt;

These things shouldn’t get their own skill set, they should however, be lowered so that damn near everyone has them. Scan should be a level 1 combat skill. You shouldn’t be able to learn to use a blaster or vibroblade before learning how to glance in a direction.

A General/Universal Skill section would be nice.

It has always irritated me that I had to find a Cathar to &quot;show me the basics&quot; on how to fucking climb. Same with searching. I can be sneaky when I want, but it doesn’t help me search my room when I’ve misplaced my car keys.

Yeah, I just looked out my window and scanned the entire northern side of my town, and I can throw pretty well, but I’ll be damned if I have been trained to shoot a gun yet. Obviously Drel plays a combatant.

Can we just remove mount? It’s pointless. And a lot more civilians have learned to mount (and I don’t mean on a daily basis <!– s;-) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;-) –> ) then military personnel.

I like LS’s idea. Instead of the name general or whatnot, call the category [b:c0v5qsx1]survival[/b:c0v5qsx1]. Doesn’t make sense to let people pick it for their main the same way we don’t let people pick force for their main. Would also be neat RP to add a scavenge skill similar to search, but will wind up with some really crappy items or half-rotten food for those people that want to RP someone that’s homeless or down on their luck.