The Age of Decadence May Update

The usual monthly update is out for Iron Tower Studio’s The Age of Decadence, bringing us news on quite a few system changes, and a bunch of new screenshots. Here’a snippet:

We switched to 1-10 skill system in R4. Why? The 1-100 system contributed greatly to meta-gaming and general confusion, because you had no clue what skills values really meant and how they benefited your character. Do you increase your key skills by 3-4 point? Does it matter? Do you get your best skill to the nearest ten?

We tried to make each investment useful by going with checks like 34, 37, 39, etc, but somehow it created even more uncertainty. In comparison, 1-10 is a lot more straightforward. Everything else stays the same: you get the same SP for quests and use them to buy skill ranks (similar to Bloodlines). We’ve already had different ‘SP to skill values’ conversation rates for higher skills, so the change is mostly cosmetic (so don’t freak out) and is about how we present you the information necessary to make decisions.

All skills start at 1 and then each next level costs more skill points: 5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45, which brings the total costs to 5-15-30-50-75-105-140-180-225.

Also, your character’s ‘power level’ wasn’t clear. What did 50 points in Swords make you? A good swordsman? Average? So, each skill level would have a corresponding label:

1 – Unskilled
2 – Novice
3 – Apprentice
4 – Skilled
5 – Proficient
6 – Journeyman
7 – Adept
8 – Expert
9 – Master
10 – Grand Master