Proficiency
Proficiency is the degree of skill or expertise in any activity that is used to define a character’s training. Proficiency is used on MassiveCraft to fairly distribute points on a character in a way that limits overpowered character design, but still allows creative mix-matching of various skills to create unique characters. Proficiency is a mandatory part of the character applications, and may look a bit daunting and confusing at first, but it is actually a simple concept. This page will, as such, go into great detail to explain the Proficiency System, and how to optimally use it to enhance your own and other roleplayer's experience on the server.
Contents
Proficiency Levels
A character's Proficiency Level is a number that every character has, that starts accumulating at age 0 (regardless of race) and caps at age 60 (regardless of race), which can be spent on skills and schools. All skills are capped at 40 points max, meaning no more than 40 points may be spent on a single Proficiency School. This means that Harry who is a 17 year old Ailor has 17 proficiency points, while Zzil the 56 year old Allar has 56 proficiency points to spend. The limitations exist to deny Elven and other long-living race from gaining huge amounts of proficiency points just for being the oldest, and to balance gameplay. In the old School system, a character could max out two Expert Schools regardless of age. In the Proficiency System, we calculated backwards that we would want to see a two Expert Proficiency at age 40, and a three Expert Proficiency at age 60 max.
Summary:
- Proficiency Points are gained from age 0
- Proficiency Points stop being gained at 60
- Up to 40 points may be spent per Skill/Proficiency
- Proficiency points do not have to be spent. You can intentionally spend less to make an underpowered character.
Proficiency Boost
Some factors exist that grant additional proficiency points based on race or culture, which can be found on the individual Proficiency pages. For example, Orcs have a +10 proficiency boost in Warhammer combat, and Url have a +20 proficiency boost in Tracking. These are so called Proficiency Boosts. Proficiency Boosts aren’t always mandatory to have, and some of them require a specific set of rules to have applied. For example, Anglian Ailor gain +10 proficiency in the Anglian Longbow, but only if they are male and if they were born and raised in the geographical location of Anglia. Another example is the Avanthar, who gain +10 on the Avanthar Axe and +10 on Horse Riding as long as they were born and raised among the Avanthar tribes, where-as the aforementioned Url tracking and Orc Boxing bonuses were purely racial and did not require prerequisites. Proficiency Boosts can be found on the individual Proficiency Category pages, where the prerequisites and requirements for each of them are explained in detail. Below is a listing of all the Racial Boosts that do not require prerequisites.
Ailor Cultures
- Highland Ceardian: +5 Unarmed Wrestling
- Anglian(male): +5 Anglian Longbow
- Anglian(female): +5 Husbandry
- Claith: +5 Pre-Cataclysm History
- Velheim: +5 Carving
- Colonial: +5 Unionist Seminary
- Ithanian: +5 Bodycare
- New-Regalian: +5 General Command
- Leutz-Vixe: +5 Tailoring
- Dressolini: +5 Instrumental Music
- Imperial: +5 Sculpting
- Heartland Ceardian: +5 Short Sword
- Daendroque: +5 Ship Sailing
- Etosian: +5 Etosian Seminary
- Vladno: +5 Commanding Speech
Eastern Races
- Common Dynasty Sihai (current Ch'ien-ji): +10 Aether/Naether Knowledge (not implemented yet)
- War Dynasty Sihai (not yet playable): +10 Eastern Blades
- Guo Dynasty Sihai (not yet playable): +10 Brewing
- Lova Dynasty Sihai (not yet playable): +10 Astronomy
General Races
- Qadir: +10 Clockwork Engineering, +10 Quick Fingers
- Songaskia: +10 Drixon Spear, +10 Trapping
- Altalar: +10 Atraves Stave, +10 Nelfin History
- Cielothar: +20 Husbandry
- Drowdar: +10 Khoptar, +10 Aberration Knowledge
- Avanthar: +10 Horse Riding, +10 Avanthar Axe
- Isldar: +10 Howling Javelin, +10 Vocal Music
- Kathar: +10 Dagger, +10 Void/Exist Knowledge
- Yanar: +20 Horticulture
- Maraya: +10 Mastigo Whip, +10 Acrobatics
- Al-Allar: +10 Alchemy, +10 Medicine
- Mu-Allar: +10 Acrobatics, +10 Short Swords
- Zu-Allar: +10 Pre-Cataclysm History, +10 Architecture
- Sa-Allar: +10 Husbandry, +10 Unarmed Fighting
- Es-Allar: +10 Literature, +10 Void/Exist Knowledge
- Cro-Allar: +20 Unarmed Fighting, +10 Battle Command
Boosted Races
- Dwarf: +20 Smithing, +10 Dwarven Axe
- Varran: +10 Acrobatics, +10 Sneaking, +10 Unarmed Fighting
- Orc: +10 Improvised Weapons, +10 Smithing, +10 Black Powder
- Url: +20 Tracking, +10 Unarmed Fighting
- Slizzar: +20 Diplomacy, +10 Espionage
Half Races
- Half Human inherits the Proficiency Boost from the culture they were raised in. Half Human also covers Half-Sihai (Ch'ien-ji) and Half Qadir/Songaskians, unless with preference to one of the below mentioned half breeds.
- Half Elf: +5 Elven Recurve Bow
- Half Orc: +5 Smithing, +5 Improvised Weapons, +5 Black Powder
- Half Varran (not yet implemented): +5 Unarmed Fighting, +5 Acrobatics, +5 Sneaking
Summary:
- Race can boost Proficiencies by default
- Imperial Cultured Ailor are granted two Proficiencies as it as adopted culture, meaning that vestiges of the character's original culture live on giving two bonuses of +5
Proficiency Categories
- Blades
- Blunt
- Axes
- Polearms
- Ranged
- Other Combat
- Cultural
- Knowledge
- Religious Arcane
- Leadership
- Science
- Subterfuge
- Travel
School Proficiency
All characters can attend a single Skill School. Schools can only be attended after the age of 10, some schools like the School of Viridian require a student to enter at age 10, but most schools don't have a required age to enter. As a general rule of thumb, Military Order Schools require a student to enter at the age of 10 and no later, any other School is fair game in terms of year entry. Skill Schools are official academies, places of learning or other institutes which grant a higher form of education in specific Proficiencies. Not all Schools are openly accessible, for example the School of Viridian is only accessible to male Ailor, and the School of Esa-Ajo is only accessible to Drowdar of both genders (or anyone specifically living on Drowda). Generally speaking however, these are outliers, and most Schools are open to all races and all genders (where physically permitting, it would make little sense for a Kleinfolk to go to a Naval Academy), while the only remaining limitation is that Schools are in specific places meaning a character must spend 10 years in that specific place. Schools take 10 years to graduate from, meaning they require a 10 Proficiency Point investment. When graduation comes, these 10 invested proficiency points are tripled and divided over different Proficiencies provided by the school. For example, a person who went to the School of Turall gains +10 Proficiency in Dagger, Shortsword and Acrobatics. This as opposed to the same person who did not go to the School of Turall gaining only +10 points invested in Daggers.
Below is a School overview with all the Proficiencies they boost. On a closing note, there may be some rare outlying cases in which a character may not be suitable to a School because of their inherent design. This means such a character would on average be 20 proficiency points weaker than other characters who did go to a School. This is intentional to emulate the superiority of formal education, but also because Schools enforce a certain archetype to a point where archetypes are rewarded for holding themselves to additional rules in exchange for proficiency points. For example, the School of Battlemed allows a doctor to do harm by creating a combat medic, but the healing boosts are not as high as the School of Medicine. The School of Medicine in turn forces the healing oath on its members where they gain an additional Boost to Medicine, as long as they were not caught and tried for causing harm to patients or others.
Summary:
- A character can attend one School maximum, and only once.
- However, some exceptions may exist, like the School of Tyrian.
- Schools cost 10 Proficiency points, but grant 30 Proficiency levels at graduation
- Schools have specific rules. Consult the individual School page for information.
- Schools increase point caps by 10 for the proficiencies that they train.
Character Applications
It is necessary to have all the numbers ready before your Character Application gets reviewed. The Character Application standard has the Proficiency included in the Skill section, where the player should present the Proficiencies in numbers, including the total available to said character. This is relatively straightforward as the math is really simple, but quite crucial, as incorrect numbers may result in the app being rejected. This section will show a number of examples and then provide further ideas on how to present this information to the Staff through the Character Applications.
The first example is Bob the 30 year old Ailor. Bob has not gone to any school, so he just has 30 Proficiency Points to spend. He chooses to spend 15 in Horse Riding and 15 in Shortbow. On his Character application, it would thus require him to state:
- +15 Proficiency in Horse Riding (+15 from proficiency points)
- +15 Proficiency in Shortbow (+15 from proficiency points)
The second example is Uria the 40 year old Velheimer Ailor. Uria would have 40 points to spend if she did not go to a school, but she in fact went to the School of Skagger, granting her +10 in Skagger Axe, +10 in Tracking and, +10 in Battle Command. Now she has 30 points left to spend which she splits among Tracking and Battle Command. On her Character application, it would thus require her to state:
- +10 Skagger Axe (+10 from School of Skagger)
- +25 Tracking (+10 from School of Skagger, +15 from proficiency points)
- +25 Battle Command (+10 from School of Skagger, +15 from proficiency points)
The third example is Ell the Ailor who is 53, but turned into an Url at the age of 30. Changing races (where possible) does not alter the proficiency gain, meaning that Ell still has 53 points to spend. When Ell was younger, he attended the School of Drixon. He then became an Url, and spent the rest of his points in Unarmed Fighting, Tracking and remaining points in Spear that could not break the 40 point cap. On his Character application, it would thus require him to state:
- +23 Tracking (+20 from Url Proficiency Boost, +3 from points)
- +10 Horse Riding (+10 from School of Drixon)
- +10 Cavalry Sabre (+10 from School of Drixon)
- +20 Spear (+10 from School of Drixon, +10 from proficiency points)
- +40 Unarmed Fighting (+10 from Url Proficiency Boost, +30 from proficiency points)
Note in the example above that Ell could have spent 53 points plus the 10 race boost to get up to 63 in Unarmed Fighting. This is however not allowed as unschooled Proficiencies are capped at 40 proficiency points, while schooled Proficiencies gain a +10 boost to their limit. This will be showcased in the very last example.
The last example is Alarich the Alt-Regalian Ailor who is 65 years old. This means without a school, he has 60 points to spend (which is the cap). Alarich spends his first 10 years in the School of Leadership, after which he decides to put all of his points into General Command. His character application would thus say:
- +10 Military Knowledge (+10 from School of Leadership, +5 from proficiency points)
- +20 Commanding Speech (+10 from School of Leadership, +10 from proficiency points)
- +45 General Leadership (+10 from School of Leadership, +35 from proficiency points)
In this last example, Alarich was able to breach the 40 point limit because he had gone to the School of Leadership. Going to a school increases the cap of Proficiencies that are related to their school. He could have for example put those 40 points in Commanding Speech too (and remaining 5 in Military Knowledge), which would have put it to 50 also, but he could not have put 50 points in Short Sword without a school for it, because that would have kept the cap at 40.
Summary:
- It is important to have all the math done for Proficiencies.
- Make sure to explain where your Proficiencies come from (School or Informal).
- In the simplest math form if you go to a school it is (Age = Points -10 = Free Points).
- If you do not go to a school it is (Age = Free Points).
Culture Points
Culture points are the same as Proficiency Points (and are gained at the same rate, alongside Proficiency Points), but can only be spent in so called Cultural Proficiencies. Cultural Proficiencies like Drawing, Sculpting, Painting, Singing, Cooking are skills that don’t often get used in roleplay, or take a very background role in character arcs. They provide a bit of extra depth to a character that would otherwise just be an Expert Skagger or Expert Turall, by giving them a recreational activity outside of their combat or intellect based skills. As such, they can also be seen as recreational proficiencies. These proficiencies can be mixed in with other proficiencies in their relevant Categories, but to gain a better understanding of what Cultural Proficiencies are available, a list is presented below. Remember that culture points can only be spent on culture proficiencies, and regular proficiency points on everything else. Even though Ship Sailing as a cultural proficiency is under the same category as Horse Riding, which is a regular Proficiency, points cannot be spent on both from either point pool.
- Painting
- Drawing
- Sculpting
- Carving
- Poetry
- Weaving
- Tailoring
- Pottery
- Architecture
- Dancing
- Stage Performance
- Instrumental Music
- Vocal Music
- Cuisine Cooking
- Pastry Cooking
- Husbandry
- Horticulture
- Ship Sailing
- Airship Control
- Desert Sailing
- Smithing
- Literature
- Bodycare
- Brewing
- Clockwork Engineering
Below is an example of a character which has Cultural Proficiencies assigned. It concerns Henry the 30 year old Leutz-Vixe. Henry attended the School of Viridian and put another 20 proficiency points in Longswords. This means his 30 regular Proficiency Points have been spent, but he still has his 30 Cultural Proficiency Points left. Since Henry is Leutz-Vixe, they gain a +10 boost in Tailoring. He spends another 10 in Tailoring, but also 20 in Vocal Music. His Character Application would thus state:
- +20 Vocal Music (+20 from culture points)
- +20 Tailoring (+10 from Leutz-Vixe Proficiency Boost, +10 from culture points)
- +30 Longsword (+10 from School of Viridian, +20 from proficiency points)
- +10 Horse Riding (+10 from School of Viridian)
- +10 Large Shield (+10 from School of Viridian)
As one might be able to see, the cultural or recreational proficiencies add extra depth to a character beyond what is a combat or intellect school. These recreational skills don’t necessarily create a situation where one character is opposed to another and trying to outcompete them, but add additional flavor to have more things to talk about between characters, or more reason to create connections based on shared recreational interests. As opposed to the above character being just a knight, he is now also pretty decent at singing, and tailors his own clothing with a very high skill degree.
Summary:
- Culture Proficiencies take different points than proficiency points, but run on the same system.
- Culture Proficiencies may also be part of Schools and Boosts, consult the individual pages.
- Culture Points do not have to be spent. It is fine to spend 10 out of 30 points.
Magic and Proficiency
Magic and Proficiency don’t go well together exactly, that’s to say, a character who is a Mage (at any level, no matter whether it is 1 or 10 spells) has altered Proficiency rules. In fact, at each level of gaining a new spell, the Proficiency cap is retroactively decreased (though points are still accumulated as long as this cap is not yet reached). This means that, for example, if Henry is a 50 year old Ailor and had 50 Proficiency points to spend, he would have to start deducting these points for every spell he learns beyond that point. The cap deduction is relatively low at early levels (meaning the cap doesn’t really kick in until later), but the higher the number of spells the Mage has, the less Proficiency points they will have to spend. Additionally, like in the illustrated example, if the new cap is lower than the points already assigned on the character, these points need to be deducted to meet the new cap. This is all intended to allow a little bit of leeway for Mages to become Battle Mages or Intellect Mages, but to limit the viability of it to ensure that Mages don’t become too overpowered.
Mage Characters already have their own internal customization ruleset within Magic with freeform of choosing spells, which is why their Proficiency capacity is extremely limited. The cap reductions are as followed in example below. Culture Points are not affected by Magic at all. Culture points are accumulated normally and can be spent without inhibitions. Note, Mages are permitted to make use of a School of any kind, as long as they go no higher than 5 spells. Once a character learns 6 spells, they are no longer allowed to have learned a School. Remember, these caps are applied after the addition of schools, meaning that if the final proficiency numbers exceed the cap, even if the spent points did not, the total proficiencies will have to be reduced in equal measure to meet the cap that is declared by the number of magical spells.
- 0 Magic Spells = cap 60
- 1 Magic Spells = cap 55
- 2 Magic Spells = cap 50
- 3 Magic Spells = cap 45
- 4 Magic Spells = cap 40
- 5 Magic Spells = cap 30
- 6 Magic Spells = cap 20
- 7 Magic spells = cap 10
- 8 Magic spells = cap 0
- 9 Magic spells = cap 0
- 10 Magic spells = cap 0
Summary:
- Magic Spells lower the Total Cap. The total cap differs from the actual Proficiency cap in that the cap is applied after all points are added, including School points.
- Race or culture Proficiency Boosts are not affected by this cap at all.
Further Information
Skill Levels
The old Schools system used Skill levels from Trainee to Expert to define different levels of skill between Characters. This system has been done away with, but we provide a transitional system that allows players who are familiar with the old system to understand what comparative numbers mean in the current system. They should be made aware that Expert or Champion is no longer the highest point however. While these still represent a high degree of proficiency, they are no longer the norm and are only for character who specialize very strongly onto one Proficiency. The skill levels are as followed:
- Trainee = 1 points spent
- Novice = 2 points spent
- Student = 3 points spent
- Fighter/Learned = 5 points spent
- Warrior/Scholar = 10 points spent
- Champion/Expert = 20 points spent
- Grandmaster = 40 points spent
Notice how there is no definition for the breach of the cap (40) which is only possible for Schools. This is largely to prevent power creeping, this cap is just an extra which can define a character as “just that much faster at remembering” or “just that much more skilled”.
Proficiency Rules
Proficiencies are not hard enforced. That’s to say, just because one player has proficiency 50 in Longsword and another has 45, the former will not auto-win. As a base rule, proficiencies are guidelines which players can use to free-form their own roleplay outcomes. We provide a basic system to fine tune how experienced characters are in the usage of a weapon or field of knowledge, and then allow the players to determine themselves how those proficiencies translate to who comes out on top during a competing roleplay scenario. Many proficiencies (particularly when it comes to combat) also have a weakness and a strength. For example, a Greatsword wielder is strong against a Halberd wielder, meaning that even if the proficiency of the Halberd is higher than the Greatsword proficiency of the enemy, the impact is lessened because it is considered a counter. At the end of the day, proficiencies are used by Lore Staff to moderate situations where players themselves cannot find a solution. In the case of higher proficiency differences, Lore staff will simply rule preferential to the highest skilled character. Furthermore, characters whose proficiencies are recorded in Approved Character Applications always take precedence over characters without Approved Character Applications. If a conflict arises between one who has an App, versus one who does not, then the one with the app’s proficiencies will be taken as “fact” while the one without an app will simply be assigned an average number for the sake of the situation where the Lore staff member has to mediate.
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