On this board, we have tried prestige classes, feats, substitution levels and perhaps one or more other ways of emulating the secret crafts. IMO none of these solutions have been 100% successful.
I've been reading the Complete Champion and it has rules for PC organisations - which are like affiliations from recent books.
Each organisation has prereq's for joining and has a number of ranks within it. Each rank requires a number of affiliation points to join. The beauty of this is that you can 'tweak' the amount of points required. Each rank beyond rank 0 give some benefits.
You gain affiliation points a variety of ways, some of which can be gained only once, others many times.
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For example, one of the organisations in the Complete Champion is the Disciples of Legend. This organisation requires some knowledge of history (History 3 ranks) and conformity to the organisation's teaching.
It has 5 ranks (0-4), to go to rank 1 you need 4 or more affiliation points, for rank 4 you need 30 or more points.
At rank 1 you gain access to the organisation's library which grants a circumstance bonus to Knowledge checks.
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So the idea would be to make each Secret Craft into an organisation. The only tricky part would be determining the affiliation point awards.
The crafts would almost certainly end up being more powerful than the ones in the Complete Champion.
I'm off most of next week, so hopefully I can get some work done on the idea.
Regards
Gary
Speaking of Affiliations, I started mapping out some of the Mystara organizations (notably, the Guilds and Factions of Gaz3) along the lines of the Affiliations. Didn't get very far with it, but I think it could be a good idea if anyone else wants to pick up on it (rather than waiting on my slow behind.)
Are those the same Affiliation rules from the PHB2?
Sort of - they've been modified a bit.
If so, I don't recall offhand that they give powers or abilities (at least not on the scale of the Crafts). Not saying they couldn't work out somehow, but I think you would need to incorporate XP costs in there somehow to balance out the abilities with regular class abilities.
An XP cost might need to incorporated but you also need to acquire 'affiliation points' which you can get a number of ways depending on your deeds.
Speaking of Affiliations, I started mapping out some of the Mystara organizations (notably, the Guilds and Factions of Gaz3) along the lines of the Affiliations. Didn't get very far with it, but I think it could be a good idea if anyone else wants to pick up on it (rather than waiting on my slow behind.)
You might as well post what you've done so far - someone may finish it
Regards
Gary
P.S. I didn't get any time on my days off to look at the Secret Crafts but hopefully sometime soon...