The concept of rogue/fighter/mage/cleric type guilds and associating skill caps and skill weight in relevance to caid never really convinced me when applied to Genesis. Especially, for rogue and (for a long time) cleric guilds. The reason for that is that Genesis has never really incorporated skills, that are historically associated with such "classes", into the world itself or gameplay.
If we were to be honest the combat aid of all rogue-like skills combined is, realistically, converging to 0. In harsh imagined reality of the doughnut they only give you some minor ease-of-life perks or are purely rpish.Taking a look at other games, even as far back as D&D, Baldur's Gate or a bit closer down the timeline; say Skyrimg and Dragon Age... they offer different classes significant role and power in their own right at all times.
Examples could be:
- Rogues:
set traps which give significant maluses upon triggering (dmg taken, dmg done, ticking dmg, burst dmg, attack speed, being more susceptible for n-next attacks and you name it)
sneak upon group of enemies incapacitating one or many of them,
throw phial with poisonous fumes
stun, slow, immobilize, disarm
- Clerics:
distribute portion of the dmg among all party members,
leach some of the health of the opponents or sacrifice your own / party health
apply curses on targets or invoke some area of effect so that all enemies take take aoe dmg or have their attacks hindered
have portion of the dmg reflected/ leached as healing
funnel their own health to increase party-member dmg by x%
Such designs make these classes strong and let you play successfully as a thief, bard, ranger, druid or anything else really.
On Genesis however, if you offer players 10% to dodge, parry, and special dmg, or combined 100 sneak, hide, remove traps, location sense, alchemy and maybe even awareness... which one will they pick? Simply these skills don't offer much on their own or can easily be boosted by items and have their product (like herbs), just purchased for gold.
Therefore, I'd be inclined to say 2 things:
- Weight on non-combat might be set too high to make rogue-like guilds viable.
- Rogue-like and Cleric guilds seem to be a perfect opportunity to add tons of utility skills or effects to their attacks.
You can easily imagine having a kender distracting and annoying the opponent, making him more susceptible to dmg, either by
- increasing all dmg taken by say 20% or lowering its defenses.
- if you have 2 kenders and opponent is distracted, 2nd one can tangle it with a rope or net, making the target receive 50% extra dmg for the duration or n-next attacks
Will that adhere to a rule, that if met tete a tete fighter will smash kender's face into a pulp with oddly mischievous grin arranged from its entrails? Yes. Will that make support classes a welcome addition to a party? Hopefully. Perhaps there also should be a rule, that a team of 2fighters and a support class will always be more successful than a team of 3fighters?