Heroic: skills

[Groovy]

This topic was spawned from here.

I know that this is not the best time to be starting a discussion not related to H6, especially one of this size, but I hope that you can find a slot in your busy H6-playing schedule to spare a thought or two for this topic.

When I first decided to incorporate combat duration into the adventure map exploration time, I didn’t fully appreciate its potential implications for the hero skill trees. It was only after Pitsu’s comments that it occurred to me that a skill-up-as-you-use philosophy was now viable, and perhaps should be seriously explored.

To this end, I have put together a preliminary skill design based on this philosophy. It features no limit on the number of skills a hero may have; he simply learns and improves all the skills whose prerequisites he meets based on his behaviour in the game.

Actually, several complementary skill sets are used:

• General: skill-up-as-you-use skills that are open to all heroes to learn
  • Hierarchical: a subset of general skills that are structured in a hierarchy so that parent skills boost all the skills beneath them. For example, whenever a hero uses a Catapult, this will help improve both his Catapult skill (making him more proficient with Catapults) and his War Machines skill (making him more proficient with all war machines)
  • Cross-cutting: a subset of general skills that boost different parts of the above hierarchy. For example, whenever a hero uses a Catapult, this will also help improve his Engineering skill, making him more proficient with different kinds of transportation vessels
• Racial: skill-up-as-you-use skills that are unique to a particular race or a small number of races. Demons’ Gating, for example
• Heroic: skills that are tied to hero levelling. They either make it easier for the hero to enhance his army (by making his skills applicable to a wider range of creatures), or they grant bonuses that don’t transfer to the army (such as making the hero difficult to kill).

General Hierarchical Skills

Here is the hierarchical subset of general skills (the structure is [skill]: [how it improves]. [what effect it has]):

• Logistics: improves for each grid block that the hero moves on the adventure map. Reduces the hero's movement point consumption when travelling on either the adventure map or the combat arena
  • Pathfinding X: improves for each terrain X grid block that the hero moves on the adventure map without using a transportation vessel. Reduces the hero's movement point consumption when travelling on terrain X on either the adventure map (without using a transportation vessel) or the combat arena
  • Transportation: improves for each grid block that the hero moves on the adventure map using a transportation vessel. Reduces the hero's movement point consumption when travelling on the adventure map using a transportation vessel
    • Vessel X: improves for each grid block that the hero moves on the adventure map using vessel X. Reduces the hero's movement point consumption when travelling on the adventure map using vessel X
  • Scouting: improves for each grid block of shroud that the hero uncovers. Increases the hero's adventure map sight range
  • Opportunism: improves for each adventure map item or structure that the hero interacts with. Enables the hero to snatch items and enter structures without expending movement points
    • Resourcefulness: improves for each resource pile that the hero collects. Increases the size of resource piles that the hero collects
    • Archaeology: improves for each artefact that the hero collects. Increases the likelihood that the hero will collect better artefacts in the same class
    • Mining: improves for each resource structure that the hero captures. Increases the structure's resource production
    • Tomb Raiding: improves for each treasure trove that the hero clears. Reduces the treasure trove’s defence; increases the treasure trove’s resource contribution
    • Civilisation: improves for each non-allied dwelling that the hero visits. Increases the likelihood that the dwelling will join the hero; increases the number of creatures from the dwelling that join
  • Providence: improves each time the hero starts a battle. Enables the hero to cast combat spells prior to combat
  • Anthropology: improves for each encounter with non-player creatures. Enables the hero to negotiate with creatures for specific benefits (shards, skills, spells)
    • Domestication: improves for each encounter with animals. Increases the number of animals that join the hero
    • Charming: improves for each encounter with mythical creatures. Increases the likelihood that mythical creatures will join the hero; increases the number of mythical creatures that join; decreases the cost of joining
      • Mercy: improves each time the hero chooses not to attack mythical creatures. Increases the likelihood that loyalty-aligned creatures will join the hero; decreases the likelihood that fear-aligned creatures will join the hero
      • Hunting: improves each time the hero chooses to attack mythical creatures. Increases the likelihood that fear-aligned creatures will join the hero; decreases the likelihood that loyalty-aligned creatures will join the hero
      • Beast Mastery: improves for each encounter with juggernauts. Increases the likelihood that juggernauts will join the hero; increases the power of the juggernauts that join
  • Ceremony: improves each time that the hero uses a megalith. Increases the duration of the megalith effect; increases the power of the megalith effect
  • Ritual: improves each time that the hero uses an altar. Enables the hero to use more mana to increase the range of the altar; enables the hero to use more mana to increase the area of effect of the altar; enables the hero to use more mana to increase the duration of effect of the altar; enables the hero to use more mana to combine the altar artefact, monument and shard effects
    • Destruction: improves each time that the hero uses an artefact to activate the altar. Enables the hero to use more mana to increase the altar artefact effect
    • Ruin: improves each time that the hero uses a monument to activate the altar. Enables the hero to use more mana to increase the altar monument effect
    • Sacrifice: improves each time that the hero uses a shard to activate the altar. Enables the hero to use more mana to increase the altar shard effect
• Companionship: improves each day that the hero spends in the company of creatures. Increases the size of the army that can accompany the hero; increases morale
  • Tourism: improves each day that the hero spends in the company of creatures from other races. Enables the hero to lead creatures of differing (not opposed) alignments; reduces their morale penalty when doing so
  • Scholarship: improves each day that the hero spends in the company of other heroes. Enables the hero to teach other heroes the spells that he has mastered
  • Stature: improves with each stack of creatures that accompanies the hero. Increases the number of stacks that can accompany the hero; increases the max unit level that can accompany the hero; calls up militia reinforcements from the country when fighting outside the town within the kingdom's borders
  • Mind Meld: improves each time a unit stack from the hero's army casts a spell. Enables the hero to share the mana pool with the spell casters in his army
• Tactics: improves for each combat turn that the hero spends on the battlefield. Increases the portion of the battlefield in which the hero can position his troops at the beginning of combat
  • Siege: improves for each combat turn that the hero spends on the battlefield undertaking a siege. Increases the effectiveness of siege equipment in the hero's army
  • Fortification: improves with each combat turn that the hero spends on the battlefield defending against a siege. Increases the effectiveness of fortifications in the hero's town
  • Attack: improves with each attack that the hero performs. Increases the hero's attack at the expense of his defence
    • Bashing: improves with each melee weapon attack that the hero performs. Improves the hero's attack when wielding a melee weapon
    • Shooting: improves with each ranged weapon attack that the hero performs. Improves the hero's attack when wielding a raged weapon
    • Zapping: improves with each magic weapon attack that the hero performs. Improves the hero's attack when wielding a magic weapon
  • Defence: improves with each attack that the hero sustains. Increases the hero's defence at the expense of his attack
    • Shielding: improves with each attack that the hero sustains while wielding a shield. Improves the hero's defence when wielding a shield
    • Armouring: improves with each attack that the hero sustains while wearing armour. Improves the hero's defence when wearing armour
    • Magic Resistance: improves with each hostile spell that the hero sustains. Improves the hero's resistance to magic
      • Magic Resistance X: improves with each hostile spell that the hero sustains on terrain X. Improves the hero's resistance to magic on terrain X
  • Loyalty: improves with each defeat that the hero suffers. Enables the hero to remain in combat in aid of allied heroes after his army has been killed
  • War Machines: improves each time a war machine in the hero's army is used. Makes war machines in the hero's army more powerful
    • War Machine X: improves each time war machine X in the hero's army is used. Makes war machine X in the hero's army more powerful
• Spellcasting: improves with each spell that the hero casts. Enables the hero to learn higher-level spells; reduces the hero's mana consumption when casting spells; enables the hero to use more spell points to cast spells with greater power
  • Magic School X: improves with each spell that the hero casts from magic school X. Increases the hero's proficiency with magic school X
    • Spell X: improves each time that the hero casts spell X. Increases the hero's proficiency with spell X; enables the hero to choose the proficiency at which to cast spell X
    • Sorcery: improves with each spell that the hero casts from multiple schools of magic. Improves the hero's ability to combine effects from different schools of magic; enables the hero to choose which school(s) of magic to use when casting a spell
  • Enchantment: improves with each turn that the hero’s enchantment spell remains active. Reduces the hero’s mana consumption when paying upkeep for enchantments
  • Creativity: improves each day that passes without the hero learning a new spell. Enables the hero to spontaneously discover new spells
  • Spirit of the Land X: improves with each spell that the hero casts on terrain X. Reduces the spellcasting penalty for terrain X
  • Intelligence: improves with each day that the hero spends with full mana. Increases the maximum number of spell points that the hero can have
  • Dark Renewal: improves with each failed spell that the hero casts. Enables the hero to reclaim the mana that was spent on the casting of the spell
  • Mysticism: improves with each spell point that the hero regenerates on his own. Increases the rate at which the hero regenerates mana, especially while resting; increases the amount of mana that the hero receives from Magic Wells
  • Eagle Eye: improves with each spell that is cast by someone other than the hero during the battle. Enables the hero to acquire the spell following the battle
• Enhancement: improves with each artefact that the hero wears. Increases the number of artefacts that the hero is able to wear; enables the hero to wear forged artefacts; enables the hero to wear composite artefacts
  • Forging: improves with each artefact that the hero forges. Increases the number of artefacts that the hero is able to forge together

If you can think of any other hero behaviour, active or passive, that can be meaningfully kept track of for the purpose of skilling up, please let me know.

General Cross-cutting Skills

Here is the cross-cutting subset of general skills:

• Combat: represents the hero’s fighting ability. It is associated with Providence and Tactics skills
• Craftsmanship: represents the hero’s proficiency with artefacts. It is associated with Archaeology and Enhancement skills
• Engineering: represents the hero’s proficiency with structures and machines. It is associated with Transportation, Siege, Fortification and War Machines skills
• Leadership: represents the hero’s ability to influence creatures. It is associated with Civilisation and Companionship skills
• Magic: represents the hero’s proficiency with magic. It is associated with Providence, Ceremony, Ritual, Scholarship, Mind Meld and Spellcasting skills

Racial Skills

Because heroes are modelled along racial lines, they have the same racial abilities as ordinary creatures. For example:

• Demon heroes are able to gate
• Vampire heroes are able to drain life
• Medusa heroes can stone gaze
• Etc

These are improved the same way as general skills – through use.

Heroes from different races can be differentiated by a combination of racial skills, and talents in the area of general skills. For example, not only are Demon heroes singularly able to use the Gating ability, they are also uniquely gifted with Fire Magic, enabling them to gain experience in this area faster than heroes from other races. On the other hand, they struggle to master spells like Bless and Heal, and learn from their usage slower than other heroes.

Heroic Skills

Heroic skills essentially don’t fit the skill-up-as-you-use approach. They are assigned in the traditional way – when the hero gains a level.

These are the kinds of heroic skills that I’ve come up with so far:

• The ability to enhance the creatures in the hero’s army. This can start off small, perhaps only allowing the hero to boost creatures of the same race and with compatible skills (a Human shooter hero can only boost Human shooter units, for example), and gradually expand to encompass other units of the same race, other units of the same alignment, and other units with compatible skills. It will never encompass units with both different skills and alignments (so an Ogre melee warrior hero will never be able to enhance Human Monks). The extent to which heroes enhance units can grow with increasing compatibility between them, and diminish with distance – the further away on the battlefield the unit is from the hero, the less it benefits from the hero’s influence.
• Because heroes directly take part in combat, they will have skills that make them more resistant to damage, as well as able to be revived after being killed (using a Temple structure or Resurrection spell, or self-revived at the end of combat or after a certain number of combat turns)
• The ability to draw power from the kingdom (proportional to the kingdom’s power) to improve the hero's attributes, culminating in his ability to summon an Archon

I’m not sure at this stage how well this approach to skilling up is likely to work. Chances are that there is still plenty of room for abuse. If you can think of any, I’d really appreciate you pointing it out.

These are the likely avenues of abuse that I’ve been able to identify (the structure is [skill]: [how it can be abused]. [how to counter the abuse]):

• Logistics: running secondary heroes around in circles when they have nothing pressing to do. It can be remedied by making skill improvement dependent on the size of the army that accompanies the hero
• Opportunism: repeatedly visiting the same structure. It can be remedied by making skill improvement applicable only to structures that the player has not visited before, or that he has subsequently lost control of
• Companionship: assigning a single creature to accompany secondary heroes. It can be remedied by making skill improvement dependent on the size of the army that accompanies the hero
• Stature: assigning single-creature stacks to secondary heroes. It can be remedied by making skill improvement dependent on the size of the army that accompanies the hero
• Mind Meld, Creativity, Intelligence: using might heroes. It can be remedied by making skill improvement highly dependent on mastery of the Spellcasting skill

What I find handy about this skill structure is that it alleviates the need for balancing. Only skills that directly compete with each other (Bashing vs. Shooting vs. Zapping, for example) need to be balanced. Skills from unrelated categories need not be balanced because the player doesn’t have to choose between them. He doesn’t have to take skill points away from Leadership to improve Scouting, for example; they can improve simultaneously. This allows weak skills to coexist with strong ones without the former falling into disuse.

[Kristo]

Well, I'm not playing H6, so I'll jump in. Wow that's a lot of skills. I really like the idea of use-based improvements. Nothing breaks the suspension of disbelief more than being offered Navigation on a map with no water. However, I'm not sure improving them continuously is a good idea. If I understand you correctly, every hero would quickly amass a laundry list of skills with a couple of points in everything. Your heroes would start to look less like powerful, unique individuals and more likes spreadsheets. Would it be better if instead your usage statistics increased the chances that a given skill would be offered at the next level? (Of course that assumes a pre-H6 leveling mechanic - not sure what your thoughts were on that)

The other criticism I had was that none of these skills felt particularly special. They all make you better at what you already do. IMHO, the best skills (from a game enjoyment perspective) from the earlier games were the ones that let you do something new (e.g., Necromancy, Diplomacy, Estates, etc.).

Your attempt to fix the skill balance problem by designing it away is a great idea. It's been a sore spot for me that there are only a few "right" ways to build a high level hero. I would love to play a Heroes game where you could make real tradeoffs between skill choices, where you could take something like Eagle Eye instead of Logistics and still have an effective hero.

[Panda Tar]

Well, Kristo, perhaps this problem of becoming a spreadsheet might not occur in the way you said, given that skill usage will determine the level of them, not that you'll use all of them. I think the problem may come when many heroes will become alike because the map will show certain features that your heroes will end up using only certain skills.

To make them unique, heroes must have a good racial/class/faction/specialty set of skills, imho. These added to the current Groovy's design - balanced here and there, of course.

[klaymen]

And what if the skills scaled with hero's level, until some cap?

For example offense: +1% per hero level, up to, say, 25%?
Also might heroes may have lower increase and cap in magic skills (=warrior will never be a good mage) and vice versa. Skills will be divided in might, magic and miscellaneous categories, miscellaneous skill increasing will not be dependable on hero typte.
They may be purchasable from trainers or selectable upon hiring, not gainable on level up to prevent much randomizing. Balancing the skills should be a matter of course.

Skillup on usage reminds me of World of Warcraft = dull grind. "Let's have another boring fight with these neutral monsters, so I can skill up this or that skill" is not my idea of fun.

[Panda Tar]

Skillup on usage reminds me of World of Warcraft = dull grind. "Let's have another boring fight with these neutral monsters, so I can skill up this or that skill" is not my idea of fun.

This is very situational. In Heroes, spending time to level up anything might prove risky, because you'll be losing precious turns you could be doing something else. Given that WW is not turn based, yes, that might be dull. Again, there can be balancing issues on that.

If you take the example of Navigation, the usability of this skill can be based on Exploring new map (uncovering the shroudness) and moving on known waters (give less experience on navigation).

But all in all, you sort of HAVE to level up your hero to accomplish certain tasks depending on the map designs. Skill management and situations are much more rich and detailed than WW, imho, don't you think?

[klaymen]

This is very situational. In Heroes, spending time to level up anything might prove risky, because you'll be losing precious turns you could be doing something else. Given that WW is not turn based, yes, that might be dull. Again, there can be balancing issues on that.

On one hand, yes, spending time to level up skills might be wasted time. On the ther hand, better skills mean higher chance of success. For example, compare, say, Heroes III's bless, curse, slow or haste spells difference between no skill (or basic) to expert skill level in their respective magic schools. The difference is large and sometimes that alone might give you the edge. Of course, it is situational, but many things are.

But all in all, you sort of HAVE to level up your hero to accomplish certain tasks depending on the map designs. Skill management and situations are much more rich and detailed than WW, imho, don't you think?

More rich and detailed? Sure
Are they neccessary better? No.
Heroes II had it pretty simple and it worked. Next games have expanded it, which gave more opportunities and possibilities. Was it really neccessary? No, because it also worked before.

Mind you, I am not talking about dumbing down. I merely want to say, that more detailed does not equal better. Mainly if you want to make it more detailed just for the sake of it.

[Panda Tar]

Yes, I see your point. In this subject, it's somewhat a personal feel, I daresay. Anything we detail more or less can make it better (or not) in some certain levels, harder to program, easier to program, harder to play, more interesting, easier to cope with. Or all the way round.

It's more like the level of awareness we devote to any particular matter, I think. I prefer a complex layout, more detailed. How it'll sound better by any means, I know not. What "better", why "better", it's pretty subjective. Better for my taste on the gaming, I know by heart. Dunno how better for what I don't know or what I don't care about.

I recall the H6 producer saying that they simplified matters here and there and gave a deeper approach on other things. My understanding didn't put it in a better layout, because what I thought better was taken off. THe other things they said were improved, I simply cannot comply with it. Do you remember seeing that video with his interview (or was it a post...)? Better is hard to tell for the purposes of this thread, I think. It all depends on one level of interest on making micromanagent of a Hero a chain of actions and results throughout all playing experience, which is what I think MMH6 lacks sadly, and which I think it's bad.

[Groovy]

If I understand you correctly, every hero would quickly amass a laundry list of skills with a couple of points in everything. Your heroes would start to look less like powerful, unique individuals and more likes spreadsheets. Would it be better if instead your usage statistics increased the chances that a given skill would be offered at the next level? (Of course that assumes a pre-H6 leveling mechanic - not sure what your thoughts were on that)

I didn’t have a clear picture of how frequent and widespread levelling would be when I started the topic. After reading the comments, I have to say that I definitely don’t want heroes to amass a laundry list of skills with a couple of points in everything. It has now dawned on me that what is perhaps the most stimulating is to have several complementary ways of skilling up a hero. Not several paths through the skill tree, not several skill trees, but several distinct ways for skill trees to work that come together to create a skilled hero.

With that in mind, the levelling threshold for general skills could be set fairly high. Instead of levelling in all the general skills early on, heroes would level in only the few where they stood out. The resultant shortage of skills would be made up for from the remaining skill sets (racial and heroic in the above design).

Offering skills based on usage statistics is an interesting compromise. It would definitely provide for tighter management of skills, but would also require the usual careful balancing. Perhaps it’s a useful backup option should skilling up through use prove too difficult to get right?

The other criticism I had was that none of these skills felt particularly special. They all make you better at what you already do. IMHO, the best skills (from a game enjoyment perspective) from the earlier games were the ones that let you do something new (e.g., Necromancy, Diplomacy, Estates, etc.).

The Diplomacy skill is there, under the guise of Anthropology.
I had a Diplomacy skill that was built around encounters with heroes from other kingdoms, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I’ve left it out for now.

To answer your question, those skills don’t feel special because they are general skills, intended for every hero to use. There are also racial skills. I mentioned Gating, Life Drain and Stone Gaze as examples. I think that Necromancy and Estates would fit nicely into this category.

I haven’t really delved into racial skills because I’d have to fix creature design first, and I can’t really do that because this is one area of the game that is strongly influenced by external factors (such as target market demographics), which I have no desire to grapple with at this stage.

[Groovy]

And what if the skills scaled with hero's level, until some cap?

For example offense: +1% per hero level, up to, say, 25%?

I didn’t think this was needed, seeing that the skills were already structured into a hierarchy. For example, the Shooting skill improves whenever the hero gains a level in the Attack skill, and both skills improve whenever the hero gains a level in the Tactics skill. We can add hero levelling as the third layer of improvement, but this strikes me as quite unnecessary.

Also might heroes may have lower increase and cap in magic skills (=warrior will never be a good mage) and vice versa.

I was thinking of following a different approach. Instead of starting with classes and ensuring that skill improvements respect their differences, I was going to start with races, ensure that skill improvements respect their differences, and then derive classes from the result.

For example, an Ogre hero would have certain talents as far as different skills are concerned, making him naturally better suited to might skills than magic ones. The player could nevertheless choose to turn him into a mage by having him cast spells and equipping him with magical artefacts. He simply won’t be a very good mage, not as good as he could have been a warrior.

The reason that I’m drawn to this approach is that it enables me to give races and creatures more personality. Instead of thinking in terms of broad class aggregates (warriors vs. mages), the player gets to think in terms of narrower racial aggregates (orcs vs. demons vs. elves vs. vampires vs...). I’m hoping that this will encourage him to acquire a feel for each race, get to know it, start relating to it, and form an emotional bond with it.

Skillup on usage reminds me of World of Warcraft = dull grind. "Let's have another boring fight with these neutral monsters, so I can skill up this or that skill" is not my idea of fun.

It brings some unpleasant memories for me too.
As Panda Tar has pointed out, Heroes is a more multifaceted game than a straight RPG, which makes the advantages of this approach to playing less clear. If the game is well balanced, the player will have to trade off hero improvement with army, town and general kingdom improvement as he will need all of those to win. Whenever one of these elements is able to dominate the others (as is the case with basic spells on expert level in H3), the balance is broken and needs to be restored. I think this was definitely the case in this example as it largely negated the advantage that magic heroes were supposed to have in spellcasting, thereby allowing might heroes to dominate the battlefield. It was a problem even for H3’s skill design.

[mr.hackcrag]

There are a LOT of generic skills listed, which was kind of surprising since you usually go with a "less is more" approach in your other threads.

Regarding heroes, I liked mixing heroes from one faction with the town of another faction, but racial skills do not promote that. So maybe having the racial skills designed to be helpful in any faction instead of just one would be nice?

The skill build between might and magic heroes ought to be dramatic I think. "Neutral" heroes could be introduced to be a blend of might & magic.

[Groovy]

There are a LOT of generic skills listed, which was kind of surprising since you usually go with a "less is more" approach in your other threads.

I had a different goal this time. I wanted to see how many of the existing skills I could convert into the skill-up-as-you-use model. I wasn’t overly concerned about their number either as they don’t require the player’s direct involvement.

In retrospect, I agree that the general skill set should be culled to perhaps half the size, and streamlined to make it better able to complement racial and heroic skill sets, as well as to make it easier for the player to work with.

Regarding heroes, I liked mixing heroes from one faction with the town of another faction, but racial skills do not promote that. So maybe having the racial skills designed to be helpful in any faction instead of just one would be nice?

I find this difficult to answer as my idea of what constitutes a faction is somewhat fluid. If you don’t mind, perhaps this is something better explored in my forthcoming thread on factions?

The skill build between might and magic heroes ought to be dramatic I think. "Neutral" heroes could be introduced to be a blend of might & magic.

Could you please elaborate? I think I agree, but it could just be wishful thinking on my part.

[mr.hackcrag]

Sure Groovy. Something I've been thinking a lot about in my own secret design for heroes is having just one type of hero for each faction: Might, Magic, or Balance (blend of both). Each faction hero would be a specific class like "Warlock" or "Beast Tamer" and would have a skill build that is exclusive for their class, yet still usuable with any faction.

So you would start with a hero of the faction you chose (let's just say Might hero), and in your first week, you would get two other heroes in your tavern that do no share your starting type. After first week, tavern would be random as usual.

[MattII]

I don't know, I mean, I like the idea of increase with use abilities, but I also feel that it would be really difficult to implement because I don't want heroes gaining abilities for just walking around.

[Groovy]

Sure Groovy. Something I've been thinking a lot about in my own secret design for heroes is having just one type of hero for each faction: Might, Magic, or Balance (blend of both). Each faction hero would be a specific class like "Warlock" or "Beast Tamer" and would have a skill build that is exclusive for their class, yet still usuable with any faction.

So you would start with a hero of the faction you chose (let's just say Might hero), and in your first week, you would get two other heroes in your tavern that do no share your starting type. After first week, tavern would be random as usual.

The two heroes that appear in your tavern in the first week, are they from your faction or from other factions?

[Groovy]

I don't know, I mean, I like the idea of increase with use abilities, but I also feel that it would be really difficult to implement because I don't want heroes gaining abilities for just walking around.

Do you mean that it’s okay to improve skills through use, but not to acquire them in the first place through use?

[mr.hackcrag]

The two heroes that appear in your tavern in the first week, are they from your faction or from other factions?

Well, if there is only one type of hero for a faction, it would have to be another faction.

[MattII]

Do you mean that it’s okay to improve skills through use, but not to acquire them in the first place through use?

No, I mean I like the idea of increase-through-use skills, but I think fitting them into the current structure of hero-development is going to be difficult, because you don't want to give heroes bonuses for just sitting/walking around. I had thought about a system whereby you could convert your movement points to experience points, with a full day's sacrifice giving you about 500 experience before bonuses were added, but again that's basically just giving a hero experience for sitting around.

[Groovy]

Well, if there is only one type of hero for a faction, it would have to be another faction.

Just making sure.

This is somewhat similar to my design. Mine features one type of hero per race rather than per faction. It’s a bit hard to explain without getting into a discussion of factions, so I’ll leave it for the forthcoming topic.

[Groovy]

I had thought about a system whereby you could convert your movement points to experience points, with a full day's sacrifice giving you about 500 experience before bonuses were added, but again that's basically just giving a hero experience for sitting around.

Oh, I see. This is not what I’m suggesting at all.

[Groovy]

Would it be better if instead your usage statistics increased the chances that a given skill would be offered at the next level?

I’ve given this some more thought. I’m tempted to move some of the general skills into the heroic skill set, where a variation of this approach could come in handy. Basically, the idea is to move some of the more exotic general skills (like Providence) out of the general skill set and make them available when the hero gains a level, but only when he has accumulated sufficient skill-up-as-you-use experience points.

So, when the hero gains a level, the player would be given the following skills to choose from:
• A skill that enables the hero to draw power from the kingdom to improve his attributes (unless he has already learned all of these that he can at his current level)
• A skill that enables the hero to share his power with his army (unless he has already learned all of these that he can at his current level)
• A skill that increases the hero’s longevity (unless he has already learned all of these that he can at his current level)
• An exotic skill-up-as-you-use skill that he has amassed sufficient experience points for

Thoughts?