I'm going to have to agree here. Farmer-Sovereign vs Adventurer-Sovereign vs Bard-Sovereign seems pretty cheesy to me too. Is this even consistent with the back story of the game? Wouldn't these be better served as "retorts" ala Master of Magic?

Speaking of personality tests, the Tarot card choices at the beginning of Ogre Battle were cryptic and entertaining. It decided starting troop makeup, special abilities, and some other things.

Quartermaster - increased army support, 1 turn less for supply gathering (so 5 wood is needed for a bowman platoon at 1 wood/turn.  You get it all in 4 turns instead of 5).  Small bonus, not game breaking.

Senechal (house lord) - Capital city production increased by 5%.  Lessened unrest (is graft or corruption somehow in the game?) since you know what the royal household is trying to do behind you back.

Astrologer - Foresees random events 2 turns in advance

Augury - Farming reduced by 2% to keep up with your love of being elbow deep in animal guts.  Once every 5 turns, you can see the results of the next random event - makeup of the loot the next dungeon has, what hero is available at the tavern, etc.

Hey Frogboy? I like the concept but I think the implementation doesn't make much sense.

Let me explain. So say your channeler was a blacksmith in his former life. Not a weapon or armoursmith, just a blacksmith. Basically, 80% of your time was spent making stuff like nails and horseshoes. Now, when you become this massively powerful immortal ruler of an entire nation of people. How exactly does this lead to an increased production of horseshoes in your empire?

You see... The King is obviously not going to go bang out a dozen horseshoes in the smithy whenever the farrier puts in a another order. He has better things to do like ruling an empire and raining fireballs onto the asshole who lives next door. So he wouldn't be contributing directly (unless your empire is composed of a single hamlet at first, which would be neat!). But that does not mean he couldn't practice every now and then. Either to maintain his proficiency for old times sake, OR refine his talent into an art.

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So remember how we said traits and weaknesses should be gamechanging? Well I don't see any reason why your channelers background should be any less so. Your background as a person should affect your game from the beginning to the end.

Lets say your channeler is a weaponsmith. This could have the following effects:

• Increased small scale production: At the very beginning of a game your entire empire might be a single town of 30 people. Discovering magic is a good excuse for your channeler to give up his day job. But that doesn't mean he can't help out whenever he is waiting for his mana to regen or whatever.
• Great physical strength: Smithing is a hard job. At least one of your arms is going to be really beefy from swinging a hammer all day.
• Intrinsic understanding of weapons and armour: A smith who doesn't understand how to use a longsword has no business making a longsword. Not only does this make you familiar with all sorts of weapons, but you have a special sense that non-crafters lack. This can help you indentify weak points in an opponents armour, or let your know how hard you can hit something with your sword and not break it.
• Large bonus to research: Its a lot easier to get funding for projects and stuff if your channeler doesn't respond to questions with answers like "what the hell is tempering?". Plus your channeler essentially becomes an extra uber researcher who works for free.
• Personal Crafting: Can't find the The One Ring? Make your own! A swordsmith with great knowledge of magic should be able to make some cool stuff.

And so on. Just think of the possibilities. What if instead of a weaponsmith he was say.... a fletcher?

Gardener - Your sovereign becomes as fat and annoying as Samwise Gamgee.

Amazing how people find impossible to accept that a Channeler could have a normal profession/live before getting into the Channeler business.

Back in time: Titans rule the world after setting the crystal syphons and banning humans the access to any kind of magic, which was the only weapon that they had been able to use to fight the Titans back. Some time later human channelers start appearing. Instead of being wizards, which are not possible now due to all the magic being in the crystals, these channelers can channel that magic that resides in the crystals.

These first channelers? They didn't pop out of thin air, they were born in the world as any other human. Where they uber channelers of doom and awe as soon as they were born or did those powers manifest slowly over time? Tip for free for the readers: You don't know. THere are a few possibilities about those first channelers:

• He is born with uber powers that already mark him as the second coming of Elvis. Everybody knows he is uber and treat him as he deserves, not allowing him to take part of mundane tasks. Once the cataclysm hits, he is too busy taking a nap for like a hundred years before he decides to use his uberpower to bring the land to life. And he forget his spells during the nap so he has to re-learn them again.
• He is born more or less aparently normal. There might be something unusual about him and/or during his early life but certainly nothing that would prevent him from having a life like any other. When the shit hits the fan, he is not more ready than any other common folk. But he discovers his potential and during a hundred years he slowly adapts and develops it. When he is ready, he starts Sovereign Inc. as his familiar business.
• Unlike other channelers, this one was born shortly before (or slighty after) the Big Badaboom. He might haven been born firging lasers from his eyes but the society, especially after the Badaboom, wouldn't be ready to "use him" properly and he would be forced to a road of selfdiscovery while attending to more mundane tasks. Once he is ready, he starts Grim Peace and tries to make of the world a better place (for himself).
• He is born with some obvious power and people recognizes it. He cannot raise mountains or anything but he obviously has an aura around him and he is encouraged to develop his potential (becoming a researcheer or whatever). After the "Oh, sh...!" he becomes busy helping his people survive because he hadn't the power to create a Vault before the "Oh, sh...!" event and he must help as much as he can in those initial moments of chaos, confusion...
• He is born totally normal. So he was minding his own business as usual, moving goods from the pockets of some people to the pockets of... well, his own pockets. And one day while in a zoo he is bitten by a maddened channeler just before the "Holy crap!" events. As a consequence, and after moving as many goods as possible to a safer place (under his control), he find himself with awesome powers of awe.

And I could keep writing (silly if I decide so) examples of why a channeler could have (or not) a common profession instead of starting as "I'was a fraking GodKing and start the game as a single moron, with 10 followers once I build the first city, because I'm that awesome.". And that's just trying to keep it in line with Lore!

"Channelers shouldn't give bonuses to the faction because he couldn't be everywhere and/or do all the work himself..." Riiiight. Because he cannot know about woodcutting and therefore make sure that his people are more efficient at it than the other communities that have to improvise into the woodcutting art after the "*facepalm*" events. Surely if he is an expert on something, that expertise cannot in any way influence his society and/or reflect a tendency to sorround himself with people of similar minds and that will end with such bonuses. It's a bonus, it doesn't mean that the Sovereign himself is leaking it all over his faction, just that by some means he can make his people more efficient in the area specified by the bonus.

Just saying. ^^

Some very good suggestions here and there, but I just wanted to point out one issue that strikes me as odd.

The professions should not grant any bonus - at least in my opinion - that can also be acquired by selecting a trait for the sovereign. That way it is prevented that traits can stack or that it is very simple to gain some major bonus very very soon. So professions should be handled in a way that differs from traits. So if there is a trait that gives a bonus to diplomacy, there should be no profession that accomplishes the same thing. That sounds reasonable and logical in my opinion.

Also traits where you get a bonus and a negative enrolled in one can be done, but opne should be very careful before implementing those. If you chose these, there is a big danger of those professions synergising nicely with some traits and not with others, so that the constellation of benefits pushes the character build in one direction. This defeats the purpose of customization.

It would therefore be better imo to have traits give some minor bonus and no downsides. The downsides should be a second list of traits that you can pick for yourself so that there is greater customization that the proposed 'advantage X goes always hand in hand with downside Y'. Greater creativity will emerge with greater customization.

I really want these choices to be game changing and epic, mutch like in MoM or MoO, perhaps profession is the wrong name for them, perhaps "specialization" or "origin" is better.

If up to me, i would lay these rules down

1. think Epic

2. one main bonus + one sideeffect bonus + unlock/random guarantee (see my herbalist profession above as example)

3. playtest with replayability in mind

4. Unbalance is more fun, i win button is not.

Just my thoughts .. i think too many games are balanced to boredom

as said by Tamren, this must srsly affect channeler abilities.

For statistic player can use perks(but here must be few realy interesting ones,those who give new ablities, like sneaky) and stats. This system must allow us to make unique playstyle. What is for me more important - customization of an unique factions, it must have alot interestings options too , and not only statistics.

Frogboy complains that people still uses IE (and he uses Crhome) but how I'm supposed to switch to Crhome if I canot quote with it?

Becoming a Courtier means a training plus the experience gained of living of that job. Anyone can be a Courtier, talented or not. Talented people will be better than no talented people but both can be Courtiers anyway. If a hamlet with 100 humans needs to send one of them to train as Courtier in the capital at the King's request and none of them is talented for diplomacy, should they tell the King that they won't send anyone because none are talented*?

I should be a writer or someting because people said that I had talent for that** (when I used to write stories or write my own rpg adventures). But right now, Stephen King would be better just for the fact of being himself a writer while I'm not, no matter how talented I'm. He is also talented so any of those "writers" that are published but lack real talent, cannot compare to him.

* And who says diplomacy, could say any other skill... "Sir, I cannot join the army because... I'm not talented with any weapon!!! Can I go back to the pub, sir?"

** They said the same for drawing. I wonder what do I do being a code monkey.

Cool story, bro. (I find this reference disturbingly funny for some reason)

But yes you might be good at something (Im not, I checked) which could influence where you go but what do do decide in the end you will be better at.

So a profession is going to give you skills, connections and understanding. And probably a bias. A bias that would mean people connected with that sphere taking a likeing to you - giving you bounses etc.

Lets face it, hot females don't get born like that. It takes years of conditioning and sexualising by TV and esspecialy computer games through out the history of human kind to do that.

(That was a topical joke).

Both sets of skills would synergistically work together to make your Sovereign EVEN BETTER at diplomacy.

Is he a Warlike Librarian? -> trait bonus for war, and profession bonus for research

Is he a Scholoarly Warrior? -> trait bonus for research, profession bonus for war

Is he a Warlike Warrior? -> large war bonus

Is he a Schalorly Librarian? -> large science bonus

Adventurer (More Quest Chances)

Peerage - Peasant awarded Nobility (Increased morale, attracts more citizens)