In Imperian the Idras could 'palm' their sitaras (special cool blade thingies) so that no-one could see they were holding 'em... I seem to be referring to the Idras a lot. Maybe we could just bring them over into Lusternia? They don't seem to be doing too well in Imperian, in any case...

you cna palm the sitara but when you attack with it, its still a sitara attack.

Oh, of course, I understand...

I suppose a more serpentine guild would be cool, but once you make room for all the backstabbing and sneaking around there's not much trading to be done. It makes sense that they be weaker, as relying more on 'bodyguards' was the concept Qaletaqa suggested to begin with (not to mention that they wouldn't be such a fighting guild at all).

Perhaps if one of their skills was more... jack-of-all-trades (Dilettante is the word i'm looking for, I think?), containing a couple of basic attacks - perhaps the weapons mastery one warriors get, to use all weapons - before they specialised, that would deal with their few attacks.

That's because, other then behead, they can pretty much only bleed someone to death (and moss tattoos don't have the balance on every touch like achaea/aetolia). Their most-damaging ability got nerfed into oblivion because someone abused it. They can't use their own toxins (which are pretty nasty) except on 'darts' which miss so often its like watching a white-belt tekura user trying to hit a trans avoidance raja. *cough*

Yeah I was just realizing that you really can't have a secret attack based guild. The only option would be to sneak in the skills themselves, or make them normal skills that if put in the hands of a devious mind, could find some sneaky un documented way to use them for nefarious ends.

That's a wonderful idea, but if Achaea was anything to go by... people are f****** morons and will abuse stuff in any way they can until it gets downgraded to the point where it's a messy smear of paste on the ground. Look at Puppetry and Vodun back there - people were such idiotic jerks with those skills (Proficy being a recent example) to the point where they were simply downgraded.

"Devious mind" = evil metagaming moron who doesn't care if a skill will get downgraded and a guild/class will be screwed over because of it, so long as he can have his fun first.

And in the even less restricted environment of Lusternia, guilds wouldn't even have such control over their members, so skills have to be even more carefully regulated...

I personally think a merchant class could be the key to solving a lot of existing problems. It'd be a bumpy road getting there, but...

Point 1) There are a lot of players out there thrilled with the thought of playing the merchant/artisan, as evidenced by the proliferation of shopkeeping/crafting opportunities on modern MUDs, not to mention the bloody wars we all know can erupt over possession of a shop where a finite number exist.

Point 2) Despite this base of players who want to adventure in the world of commerce, MUDs everywhere build continue to build themselves around combat skills, tacking on trade skills as an afterthought to characters who's main talents always lie in killing things.

Point 3) Because these trades skills are added as an afterthought, they are never so closely controlled as the combat skills, which in IRE games are always carefully limited to specific guilds and classes.

Point 4) Specialization and variety may be the spice of tactical combat, but they're the life blood of commerce. The more freely people have access to trade skills without forcing them to specialize in them, the less those trade skills are actually worth. Which is why forcing players to commit to a single trade skill in Lusternia is hugely important, but...

Point 5) By making trade skills accessible to just any old adventurer instead of a specialization all their own, the best adventurers also tend to become the most skilled artisans and to monopolize the pre-programmed business opportunities (i.e.: city shops).

Point 6) When the people who're already make their real income by other means become merchants/artisans, they treat it as a hobby, not a profession. And all it takes is a few patriotic master hobbyists saying, "Whoo-hoo! At-cost goodies for all my allies!" to totally destroy any real profit to be made from the limited range of goods that can be manufactured.

Point 7) If owning shops and learning trade skills was no longer a universal right (within the limitation of meager resources), but reserved for a specialized merchant archetype, this would force players to choose between playing the flamboyant sword-or-spelling-slinging hero and playing someone whose bread-and butter lay in a less violent way of life, thus removing the hobbyists from the equation, and allowing the economy that truly went beyond killing stuff.

Within this scheme of things, of things, a Merchant's guild skills could then be something like Artisan (specializes into one of the possible trade skills); Trader (refinement and improvement on Influence that allows actual commerce with MOBs, not just begging); and Mercantile (utilitarian, logistics skill, with abilities for getting from place to place; owning & managing shops; etc.).

Funny you should bring up merchants. In our original design documentation, we were going to include another trade skill called 'merchant' which would have been a jack of all trades, knowing a little bit of the other trade skills (jewelry, tailoring, cooking, forging), a member of all public city/commune cartels in his/her city or commune, and the ability to haggle for lower priced comms. We decided to ditch the 'merchant' tradeskill, however, because honestly it looked pretty lame by comparison to the other trade skills.

I don't really like the idea of a merchant "class".

So true...