Shattered Kingdoms

I think all characters, regardless of class, should be able to use as many trains as they want on Hp pe me etc. Perhaps the only exception would be art. This would make for more diversity of character builds. Think mc warriors or Druid warriors training me etc. Discuss!

This still doesn't get you to heal anybody.

Art should just be changed to school specialisation, and the restriction on trains should be lifted. I agree. However, Dulrik is still as visionary as Uwe Boll, so I don't see this happening.

I don't understand the heal comment. Inside joke?

When do you ever heal anybody?!

Casting healing spells is the ultimate expression of a Broken Window mechanic.

Sure, it creates something for priests, paladins, shamans, warlocks, and so on to do in a group, but it also necessarily prevents them from using their other abilities to deal damage, increase the capabilities of a group, or create some sort of additional utility during that time.

Brewing and various dubiously-balanced curative items provide a way around this, and that's why they're so splendid, but it would be interesting if there were a mechanics-based alternative to the builder-based solution to the mechanical dilemma.

I believe it would be quite incredible if each character could bring some kind of unique, completely passive ability determined by her class to a group formation in the way that pathfinding does with scouts. For more interesting options, it could be broken down into a pair of abilities: one at something like apprentice rank, applying whenever a group is formed, and something far more powerful at master rank for when that character is the leader of a group. I think bards are a close, but inadequate, implementation of that kind of idea.

Basically, someone seems to have coveted the development of active skills and that has created a situation where items tend to be relied upon to increase the activity any one person can output in a fixed unit of time. With the lack of builder oversight, this can become quite a creeping matter.

It would conceivably not be difficult to do, since the code that manages group membership is probably nicely singular and well-isolated and could have a few sub-routines added to it to apply or remove buffs accordingly.

Only veteran players that know how and where to acquire greater (+4/5) stat mods and have access to someone willing to enchant their gear would benefit from this change. The average player or newbie would gimp their character by training hp/mana/moves to the exclusion of other stats.

There is already equipment that increases hp/mana/moves, if a player really wants to tweak or build their character for a singular purpose like uber tank or voodoo cannon. The only benefit of using stat trains over equipment is the slight increase to regeneration rate. If you want to make non-caster classes able to use cabal spells, I suggest making the mana cost of those spells a percentage of the caster's mana rather than a fixed amount.

It's probably true that only veteran players would benefit much from this, but let's be honest, there aren't a lot of newbies playing these days anyway. I don't think it would be overpowering either way.

What it would do is open up some interesting different options to keep the game fresh for veteran players who want to try some extreme builds.

Also the regeneration boost from trining pe/me/hp is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, training ME might just allow a hammer warrior (who wasn't a gnome!) to hold their ... preventative spell ... long enough to be of use, for example.

I think it's minimal coding required, decent upside, no real downside.

I disagree. With the mentoring system it's possible to get a ton of extra stat points, and I pretty much built my last paladin off of stat trains, maxing out mana and nearly maxing out the hp trains of the character while only using two +5 stat mods. Compare that to what I have to use just to play a hellion, and I still didn't get much points to throw around. I blame the race.

But on second thought there would have to be an adjustment to the way mana and movement trains work, because I'm pretty sure that they give a lot more bang for the buck than hp trains do.

The only upside to this sort of change would be allowing veteran players to min/max their character to the extreme, with the end result being a widening of the power gap between veterans and non-veterans and players that can spend extreme amounts of time enchanting versus those who cannot. The rest is window dressing.

If you want cabal spells to be usable by non-casters, a better fix is to change the mana cost of these spells from a fixed amount to a percentage of mana pool. This would mean casting a cabal spell would cost (fox example) 10% of ME instead of 200 mana. I acknowledge this would slightly nerf casters at the expense of making these spells usable by non-casters, since 10% of a caster's mana pool is far greater than 10% of a non-caster's pool.

I would say no. I like how stat trains fit the class.