Learning.

[Imzogelmo]

I was just making some pseudocode there; I meant #1 for SpellBook, and #2 for MasterSpellBook, though.
But when I say "open-ended lists of ability sets", I'm referring to the possibility of having more than one list. Think of young Rydia in FF4; she had a white, a black, and a summon list. If characters only have one list, that wouldn't be possible; if they all have 3, that's just too much. Clearly, it has to be open-ended, i.e. dynamic. And the question is how to design it to be dyanamic (so that it can handle 0, 1, 3, etc. separate lists of abilities).

And that was before I thought of the possibility of an ability that belongs to more than one list--but I think it would be best to have them always belong to exactly one list (and you can make a duplicate in another list if you just had to).

[Gleeok]

Oh that's an easy one.

list<Spellbook> spellbooks;
where spellbook contains a list of spells (and by list I mean vector). It's also possible the first one might be a map... depends on how they are accessed. Haven't gone into any detail with those yet.

[edit] actually how it is written since you could have spellbooks that are empty and thus require no memory for.

[Imzogelmo]

So, the idea of each character having their own "spell book(s)" is a good one that seems easy enough to work out.
The skill sets--would they be inherited from the class, or specific to the character?

[Gleeok]

So, the idea of each character having their own "spell book(s)" is a good one that seems easy enough to work out.
The skill sets--would they be inherited from the class, or specific to the character?

Err... not sure. I am officially in the 'grey area' with most of the stuff that isn't used in FF1, or otherwise obvious in some way, so that stuff is put on the backburner for the time being. I would think that a character has the final say as to what they learn regardless of class (eg; they can learn a skill before the class can learn it) but I haven't thought about it much. I think characters also need a 'Learning' for classes too though. You're welcome to suggest something though.

[Imzogelmo]

For the most part they would be one and the same, but I think it has to be more of a virtual inheritance if anything. That is, it has to be up to the character to implement, because:
1. There may be 2 characters of the same class. They shouldn't share a skillset (usually).
2. The character may change classes. While you may have it belong to a certain class, they should still be accessible if you change back.

Ah, that gives me an idea. Skillsets that follow the character; accessibility that follows the class (and again, they are the same in games with characters that have one unchanging class and no 2 characters with the same class... which would be by definition, of course).