Leadership Skill Suggestions (Yes, more)

Alright… So, I’ve got a bit of an idea of something we could do with Leadership to make it both more useful and have more interaction with other players and other classes, as well as less combat-oriented.

How about, instead of all these ideas to give Science special skills to let them teach better, Leadership gets some. IRL, being smart doesn’t necessarily make you a good teacher… You can be as brilliant as you like, but unless you’ve got some kind of charisma or leadership ability, you’ll never be a good instructor. There are lots of awesome instructors in the military, but it’s not cause they crack books day in and day out, it’s because they have a great gift of being good leaders.

But, likewise, you can be really charismatic and be completely clueless and incapable of teaching damn near anything – especially if it’s not a field of knowledge or skill that you’re familiar with.

So my idea for the MUD, would be to have anyone who takes Leadership as their main class, also gets to choose a subclass, and receives a bonus to it. This would help represent the ‘Officers’ for military trades and the ‘Instructors’ or whatnot for civilian careers. They’re good at the chosen field, yes, but they also have a presence that the regular soldiers/workers just don’t really have. Of course, someone who dedicates their life to the chosen field will obviously be technically better at it than someone who focuses primarily on teaching and instruction… So perhaps a cap of 120 or so for a leader’s subclass.

We could incorporate skills such as ‘Example’, short for Leading by Example, one of the primary forms of leadership that the military and even civilian employers like to encourage. There are people who, by setting a good example for the people around them, can help to improve the overall performance. It would be relatively low, as a lot of people can have this sort of impact if they try, allowing people who are in a different ‘main class’ than Leadership to be able to use the skill, but to a lesser effect (I’d also like to see the bonuses that other classes give to Leadership lowered… Just cause you’re a combatant, doesn’t mean you should end up with 100 or so Leadership as a human. This may not still be the case, I haven’t bothered making a combat main with any sort of Leadership bonuses in a while). Basically, causes people in your group to gain more experience from their actions, if it’s in your subclass, depending upon your Leadership level. Also gives you Leadership experience equal to the bonus experience you’re granting to those grouped. No idea how much exactly it should impact, or how much to increase by and all that stuff. Maybe make it level five or something, so you don’t have to run packages for long before being able to train Leadership by doing hands-on things. Like training Smuggling by actually smuggling, same kind of idea here.

Another idea is ‘Instruction’. What it would do, is essentially make your teaching more effective. I’m thinking if Instruction is level fifty, we can have it so it initially raises your teach max to 50% from the normal 49%, and raises it by 2% every five levels… Ending with a 150 Leader being able to teach to 90%. Once again, it would only apply to your subclass’ skills. And you’d still need to have the skill adepted in order to teach it. Proper roleplay of this teaching should be monitored, and limited in it’s usage perhaps… Very open to ideas for ways to limit it. Perhaps have some sort of new system where teaches are turned into a kind of ‘point’ system… Your max being your INT/2, or maybe your Leadership/10, and replenishing slowly… In the area of one per day, maybe. Gives a bit of Leadership experience.

This would be a pretty big change, but I think it’d be good to have. Give us some diversity among the endless waves of soldiers and engineers, and possibly even to divisions dedicated to teaching their clanmates.

Xaleron! Thats exactly what I was trying to go for with my Subclass idea. you clarified it and put the restrictions on it I was trying to figure out AND thought up some awesome skills

Hrm. Looking back, I plagiarized you hardcore <!– s:P –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_razz.gif" alt="" title="Razz" /><!– s:P –>

Honestly, I just kind of started typing with the general idea of a subclass system and I just slowly came up with ways of relating it to RL and ways of making it work similarly on the MUD.

Leadership still needs more skills and whatnot, but I definitely think this could be a good start of a revamped Leadership class. It’s starting to look like the long-lost Industry class.

Alright, another idea, but for a couple Feats to go along with these skills and whatnot.

Dueling. What it would do is offer bonuses to the Leader if they use a one-handed weapon instead of dual-wielding. I’m thinking a bonus to HR, mostly just to compensate for the hitroll loss from not having a second weapon. Could be different Feats, like ‘Basic_Dueling’ giving you +5 ‘Advanced_Dueling’ giving you another +5 and ‘Master_Dueling’ giving you +10, stacking. If you take all of them, you get +20HR while wielding only one BLASTER. Since blades give comparatively low HR bonuses, those and pikes could give much less, perhaps +1, +1, and +2, but also offering a bonus to parrying with them. Lightsabers could be affected too, if you -really- want… I don’t see any need for this though. Two-handed weapons, like rifles, certain blades and pikes (note that pikes would still give the bonus if you can only wield one due to the weight), and bowcasters wouldn’t offer any bonuses.

Kind of a reflection of the more ‘dignified’ characters preferring to use one weapon, and actually being comparatively good with it as compared to a typical soldier. Also, nobility in some cultures in SW frequently use sword-like weapons, and this would offer them a way to actually functionally do it without the very real possibility of getting their asses handed to them against someone dual-wielding. They’d still get less attacks, but the bonus to parry would be nice.

Maybe this would be more suited as Combat, since it’s not really right to restrict certain weapon conditions to certain classes, but… BHers get exclusive blade stuff, so why not. If it’s Leadership, it should only be available to Leaders who choose combat (or BH if you really want to allow Leadership mains to subclass into BH… Which sounds like a bad idea…).

Similarly, I also had an idea for a feat to go along with the more non-combat classes. Something like ‘Groupwork’ or along those lines… Basically lets you increase productivity in your group, be it making weapons or other items, if you’re Engineer subclass, encrypting or remodulating, if you’re Slicer subclass, and hell, even surgeries and other stuff if you’re a Medical subclass. The bonuses would have to vary depending on the subclass, however…

Engineers would either produce multiples of an identical item, or maybe just work faster, cutting down on the time it takes for ‘mass production’, since we currently have no way of doing this aside from some dude sitting in a workshop for hours running triggers. Obviously dependent on how many people you have grouped, and how many of them have the skill you’re making use of. Perhaps make the leader need the skill adepted, the others just must be able to do it. Slicers would increase the chance of success, or maybe just the time it takes to do something, or perhaps both. Same restrictions for skill adeption and the like. Medical could be similar, increasing chance of success and/or decreasing how long it takes to perform the skill, with the same skill adeption restrictions… Smuggling, could be close to this as well, mostly just increasing chance of success and perhaps even the amount of success if you’re using steal. Once again, the Leader must have the skill adepted, the others able to use it to whatever degree.

Along the lines of the ‘Example’ skill, but impacting the results more than the experience your group members gain.

There are a lot of possibilities for this kind of system, as insanely intricate it could become and as hard to work with and understand as it could end up being. Perhaps you should have to spend points to purchase Leadership as a main, if only to prevent true newbies from getting tangled up in it.

There are some AWESOME ideas in this thread, i’d like to see some expanded input.

For starters, how do you guys feel about merging Leadership and Diplomacy?

[quote:1idod21v]So my idea for the MUD, would be to have anyone who takes Leadership as their main class, also gets to choose a subclass, and receives a bonus to it. This would help represent the ‘Officers’ for military trades and the ‘Instructors’ or whatnot for civilian careers. They’re good at the chosen field, yes, but they also have a presence that the regular soldiers/workers just don’t really have. Of course, someone who dedicates their life to the chosen field will obviously be technically better at it than someone who focuses primarily on teaching and instruction… So perhaps a cap of 120 or so for a leader’s subclass.[/quote:1idod21v]

Some high-levelish skill (120? 150?) that would effectively let them select a ‘secondary’ class. You’d have nice pretty names for each class (Platoon Leader, Crimelord, Espionage Agent). Besides getting a bonus to maxlevel for that class, you also get various effects for that class that would apply to anyone you have group’d.. Maybe a slicer’s skills work a little bit faster. Piloting would make your group have better accuracy, so on and so forth. We need to brainstorm A) fancy names for each class Fun bonuses for each class.

Valens posted a similar idea in his own ‘leadership subclass’ skill but that was giving a multitude of class bonuses and negatives. I’d rather we keep this ‘subclass/expertise’ system focused entirely on one class.

[quote:1idod21v]
We could incorporate skills such as ‘Example’, short for Leading by Example, one of the primary forms of leadership that the military and even civilian employers like to encourage. There are people who, by setting a good example for the people around them, can help to improve the overall performance. It would be relatively low, as a lot of people can have this sort of impact if they try, allowing people who are in a different ‘main class’ than Leadership to be able to use the skill, but to a lesser effect (I’d also like to see the bonuses that other classes give to Leadership lowered… Just cause you’re a combatant, doesn’t mean you should end up with 100 or so Leadership as a human. This may not still be the case, I haven’t bothered making a combat main with any sort of Leadership bonuses in a while). [b:1idod21v]Basically, causes people in your group to gain more experience from their actions, if it’s in your subclass[/b:1idod21v], depending upon your Leadership level. Also gives you Leadership experience equal to the bonus experience you’re granting to those grouped.[/quote:1idod21v]

This, too, is awesome.

[quote:1idod21v]Another idea is ‘Instruction’. What it would do, is essentially make your teaching more effective. I’m thinking if Instruction is level fifty, we can have it so it initially raises your teach max to 50% from the normal 49%, and raises it by 2% every five levels… Ending with a 150 Leader being able to teach to 90%. Once again, it would only apply to your subclass’ skills. And you’d still need to have the skill adepted in order to teach it[/quote:1idod21v]

Stick ‘teach’ into the class as a low-level skill, nerf it a bit, and then incorporate ‘instruct’ as a high-end version using something along the lines of these formulas?

OK my skill thoughts.

First, Bonus damage for leader for amount of followers based on level.

next, TEMPower skill. This skill allows a leader of sufficient level, (100+) to grant a temporary skill to any of his followers, IE:Double attack, hitall, disarm, Bash, ect.

Allow once per battle to grant a moral bonus increasing followers’ health by a percent Dependant on leadership level. This skill will grant temporary healthpoints, immeadiately added on. IE. (pops skill) 100/1200–&gt;400/1500 kinda thing.

Returning to LOTJ after 2 years of absence, I was excited about all the new features, including but not limited to the new leadership scheme. Being curious and with a bunch of RP ideas on my head I started to make a chief engineer.

I chose leadership main with engineering subclass. The helpfile (help leadership) states that you even gain a +30 lvls on the subclass. With my stats maximized and the racial modifiers favoring my subclass what would YOU expect the max engineering level would be?
I can tell you it was less than 135 (meaning I didn’t get buildship). Note that the leadership group bonus for engineering is faster ship building for the team.

Genevieve was kind enough to explain the following:
[quote:ps3xw4r7]
(R|P|C) Genevieve says to you ‘Each main has hidden bonuses that are taken into account alongside your racial bonuses.’
(R|P|C) Genevieve says to you ‘Think of it like this. You’re the foreman, supervisor, whatever. You don’t do any of the actual work, however, you can group up with people to improve their work and help them work harder.’
(R|P|C) Genevieve says to you ‘That’s mostly the purpose of the leadership class.'[/quote:ps3xw4r7]

Now this makes sense as an RP &quot;theme&quot;. One could add to this that a leader does not need to even know how to do things himself. He just needs to know how to organize people and to give advice. A General does not have to know how to snipe. He just needs to know where, when and how to deploy his troops.

However, this poses a practical problem particularly for engineers. As far as my chief engineer goes, he will have to pose as an engineering teacher while watching all his students surpass him. To put it in a less RP and more practical scope, all I’ll ever do (assuming I want to take advantage of my class) is help level up the newbies. Think about it! How hard is levelling engineering anyway? If you ask me it’s the easiest class to level!

Moreover, if I decide to take advantage of my subclass’s special bonus, I would have to sit in a shipyard with AT LEAST 2 other botters doing nothing just so they’ll get the bonus. Do note that shipbuilding takes very long (so RPing a leader is out of the question) and people bot it (as per help botting).

My initial expectation was to buildship together with the team and the added bonus. On the other hand, come to think of it, if that was the case everyone would just make leadership mains/engineer sub instead of plain engineer mains. Nothing to lose, 50% bonus to gain!

Here are my four suggestions:
[b:ps3xw4r7]1)[/b:ps3xw4r7] Remove the point in the helpfile that mentions the +30 levels of subclass. It’s deceiving.

[b:ps3xw4r7]2)[/b:ps3xw4r7] Buff or change completely the engineering group bonus. Possibly change it to 50% bonus in ALL engineering tasks and/or increased chance to make better equipment (weapons, armor etc).

[b:ps3xw4r7]3)[/b:ps3xw4r7] The same problem was discussed a couple of years back: Leadership is conflicting with RP. A new char like mine can’t compare in leadership skill with a char that has eg survived 3 eras and multiple wars. Genevieve’s RP &quot;theme&quot; would be much better if it was RPed rather than enforced through a class selection. The suggestion is to remove leadership as a class and incorporate the bonuses in the game differently. For example, have characters lose levels in their avatars and gain the leadership bonuses as they become older.

[b:ps3xw4r7]4)[/b:ps3xw4r7] Teaching got mixed up with science capabilities. Think about it: A leader (such as a General or an Admiral) is not a teacher (necessarily). Put teaching (meaning group xp) bonuses in science main chars! About time we got some pure scientists! Instead of subclasses, the xp bonus can be determined based on the sciences learned and/or teaching experience reflected through a teaching skill % (maybe a different skill per subclass?).

Apologies for the long post. Let me know what you think.

Thats the downside to chooseing a leader you get a NICE bonus but loose out on other classes. As I expained to other people if you want dual 150’s with a leader and its sub you need a raciel mod of +50 minimum and then you likely need a cyber or two. Now the reason the bonus level wise is so small. Your thinking of skills as the bonus thats not it. There are more. A leader can levels someones slicer in minutes reaugardless of sub they can teach any skill at 90% they can teach there subclass at 97% (Thank you imakin for showing me this with your very hot leader science main) now the draw backs. Leaders cant do SHIT solo. That is the point. They are worthless when they arnt leading that was the idea when creating them. Hence why each clan only has 1 or 2 leader mains per division its up to 1 player to make a leader to support the group and everyone else makes normal mains. We all know about my clan would it suprise you to hear we only have 3 active leader mains that use there bonuses. 2 engineers and 1 scientist. They are an awesome class if you use them like they are intended and stop trying to twink out <!– s:) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!– s:) –>

I think whatever happens with leadership, the current teaching abilities need to be worked on (I haven’t actually played in a week or so, so if its changed don’t mind my post). But the idea of being able to teach someone up to 97% sometimes, is just silly. It opens the class up to abuse too easily. You get 1 person leveled up in a leadership subclass and then the rest of the mud doesn’t ever need to work to level that field. I mean seriously, you can go to a leadership main and have a months worth of studying (or combat fighting or engineering or whatever) powered up in less than a few minutes.

I think it defeats the purpose of the new Leadership design when you can’t use it to its’ fullest potential without a +50 bonus. I say make it so you’ll avatar in your subclass, but give a narrower range with other skills. So where a regular smuggler might get capships, a leader/smuggler would barely make midships.

I just would like to say this is a awesome idea.