Lancer

You definitely don't need an initiative roll. But if you were going to have an initiative roll my post was meant to point out the one problem with Ender's otherwise good mechanic. I must confess, however, to prefer initiative to be completely determined by your stats and action AP costs rather than through random rolling.. Fallout ,for instance, uses a "sequence" number which is completely determined by your perception stat. If random initiative is not used, the formula would be modified to something like this: Phase character gets to act on = Init roll(w/modifiers) Modifiers(reaction,perception...etc) + AP of action

I second the recommendation on Full Sail. I hear it is one of the very best (if not *the* best)game programming schools in the country.

It is very , very hard to claim a #1 given the number of people on this planet. But there is little doubt that Angelina Jolie is way up there. No contest. Yes

Her rack isn't impressive at all. Nothing like Jolie's.

Jolie is not overrated.. She is honest to goodness hot. Yes, there are other hot models/actresses but most are just a pretty face. Once you look down from the face they might as well be an ironing board. Jolie, OTOH, is not just some skinny girl with a pretty face. That girl's got some serious curves all over..

Exactly...nobody's heard of the system unfortunately so nobody would have ever played the game. :"> The TG16 is the ill-fated "Turbo-Grafx 16." Order of the Griffon came out the same year as Warriors of the Eternal Sun and was made by the same people (SSI). It was actually similar to WotES in gameplay (same turn-based combat, 3D FP dungeons), except vastly improved. It was also more immersive, had very good music, and an interesting horror storyline to boot. I talk about it endlessly... it is my favorite console RPG of all time. If only Order of the Griffon would have come out on a well-known system like the Genesis.. *sigh*

I must interject... The best D&D game ever made on the console was "Order of the Griffon" on the TG16.

No prob.. anytime. Now, I just need to finish Mirage!

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade but there is only one more minor problem with this. Let's say a dagger stab costs 6AP. And because of above average agility, your +2 Agi modifier reduces that to 4AP. You roll Init and get a 5 on a d10 (neglecting reaction/perception modifiers for now).. The way it stands you were supposed to dagger stab on "4" but your init roll doesn't let you act until "5"! And you can't say ok just let him act on "9" (5+4) because in the above example the 7AP sword swinger would act on "7" - which is 2 AP before the character with the 4AP dagger.. Even though both rolled the same Init! One way around it would be: Phase character gets to act on = Init roll(w/modifiers) + AP of action For example, Ignoring modifiers for Init for now: In Ender's example the character who rolled 5 on Init would actually start on 12 (5 for init + 7 for the sword strike) or 1.2 sec into the fight. If he keeps on swinging he'll attack in 7AP increments: 19, 26, 33...etc In the new example, the dagger-stabbing character who also rolled 5 would actually start on 9 (5 for init +4AP for dagger stab) or .9 sec into the fight. If he keeps on using his dagger he would attack in 4AP increments: 13, 17, 21...etc In this way, the dagger-stabber (who rolled the same init as the sword character) acts before the sword swinger which makes sense... The action point (or phase) in which the characters act would change obviously according to the AP value of the new action.

The only other suggestion I had (for now )..In regards to the said combat system, you can have your "perception" stat modify your initiative roll much like it does in the Fallouts. The amazing things you can do with teamwork!

Great example, Ender

Man.. I missed a part of the action ..I feel left out . When did you guys decide to post in a fury all of a sudden?! Yeah, you can assign the action points whatever time interval you desire. But that still leaves the problem of knowing the exact time it would take for an average sword swing, an expert's sword swing, the average person's kick, a 5dan black belt's kick and so on...I suggest just making educated guesses and be done with it. The only other solution is by studying action/martial arts movies very very carefully. I like the roundless phase based system with Ag/Dex modifying action points. And since there are no rounds, these AP are not wasted but brought into the next phase (instead of being used for defense like in FO).. I like it.

Now here's my dream woman :

Maul was evil. Period. I don't think there is much evidence to say otherwise.

His focus was on the much greater immediate threat that intercepted him as soon as the hangar door opened.. The two jedi. Not killing others not worthy of his attention at the time (understandably) does not imply that he is more "good" than other dark lords. The only reason Maul felt closer to a "grey" Jedi than the others is because he was so poorly developed. Had he been given more screentime, we would have seen more of his dark side. I agree with what Battlewookie said that even though we never get to see how evil Maul is, we know he is.

As Alanshu already remarked, I recall that Padme/the pilots had already left (or was leaving) the scene by the time the hangar door opened and Darth Maul appeared. It wasn't like Maul just walked right past Padme and co. while they were right in his face. Had Padme and co. stayed behind, Darth Maul would have attempted to kill them too unless the jedi intercept (likely to happen) very quickly.

In a way KOTOR2's story did revolve (in an albeit indirect way) around the villains more, yes, but KOTOR2 still managed to flesh out the said villains rather poorly (i.e Nihilus). Malak was much more believable than either Nihilus or Sion.

Well, he just didn't get nearly enough screentime for us to really see how evil he was.

Darth Maul wasn't evil? what?

Yeah. I don't see why Ag/Dex wouldn't be able to modify action times just because maneuvers were lumped by action cost.

Yep. That is yet another way of doing it. Either a higher Agility stat would mean lower actions costs for maneuvers or as Ender says here, a higher Agility stat would give you extra action points(more phases in this case) to perform more maneuvers. Something like Wits might add a modifier in order for the PC to "notice" the counterattack opportunity.

That's because you have questionable tastes at times <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Now, now, play fair :darque:

The SNES version had an inferior combat system too. Whereas the Genesis' had an arcade style gameplay that allowed you to run around enemies and shoot at the same time, in the SNES you couldn't move at all once you started pulling the trigger. The game didn't allow your character to move around or dodge enemy bullets while you were shooting. In fact, you had to stop shooting if you wanted to move around at all. That was lame.

Yes I did, although I had stated that in GURPS this is okay since its extensive skill,advantage, and disadvantage system more than makes up for the lack of attributes. SNES Shadowrun, OTOH, has nothing to make up for its lack of attributes. There are more fingers on my hand than there are skills in SNES Shadowrun. I never played Diablo... At least never got into it. If there were worse, I prefer not to remember.

No it didn't, Far from it. At very best, the character development was a watered-down version of the SEGA's. The SEGA had three templates you could choose from whereas in the SNES version you didn't have a choice of character whatsoever.The SNES version also had only like 4 attributes and started you off with 2 skills. The SEGA version had all 8 attributes from the PnP RPG plus a dozen skills which allowed for a much greater degree of customization. Matrix combat in the SNES version was far inferior to the Genesis' and in the SNES version the cyberdeck wasn't customizable. The SEGA's had a very satisfying matrix combat and allowed for much greater customizability of your cyberdeck with a great range of attack/defense programs all of which were upgradeable. Do you call only having a meager 4 attributes and starting with 2 skills and lack of customizability more of a true RPG? The SEGA version was also a very non-linear game allowing you to do whatever you want whenever you want. The SNES' was painfully linear in comparison. And the SNES version's keyword dialogue system was probably the worst I have ever seen.