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globalCooldown

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Posts posted by globalCooldown

  1. What are some ways that a tabletop adaptation could preserve the spirit in which the game's systems were designed, without becoming too complex to actually play without the aid of a spreadsheet?

     

    It's tricky, I'll give you that. Especially making every single point you put into an attribute meaningful, and especially when you're working within PoE-the-computer-game's attribute system.

     

    The way I did it in the PoE tabletop homebrew I'm writing up (yeah that's me, plugging myself), benefits from increasing an attribute are staggered out. Like, Resolve influences Deflection and Will, right? So you put one point in, you get a boost to Deflection. You put in another point, this time you get a Will boost. That kind of "staggered".

     

    Still sucks that we're not going to get an official system, though. :(

  2. Version 0.0.4 is here!

    (it, uh, still says. 0.0.3 on the title page, but trust me, new things are there.)

     

    The newest PDF has some more fun PoEd20 things for you all! Here's a brief overview:

    • The much-touted weapons table! Complete with prices based on the game! Yeah, most two-handed and ranged weapons all cost the same in PoE. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    • An incomplete guide to level advancement! Next update will be defining ability gains per class, and filling in some abilities and talents.
    • Several low-level enemies for you to take a crack at. In the playtest last Sunday, I actually tried out about half of these, and they seem to be working well!
    • Made the diagrams in the AoE section better.
    • Optional rules for critical fails, cover, no maiming before death, and craaaaaawling in your skin one square per round when Downed.
  3. permissionGet_zpsls5srtx9.png

     

    Names removed just to be on the safe side, but that's definitely a "go ahead with your silly fan thing" from Obsidian!

     

    In the coming week, expect some more stuff in the Items section, including better formatting, prices, miscellaneous items, and, college permitting, traps and monsters.

    Which brings me to the next point....

     

    We're going to have our first Playtest.

    The playtest will be held online, on roll20.net on Sunday, April 3, at 2:00pm EST (that's 18:00 GMT for those of you across the pond).

    This playtest is going to be a combat-heavy little affair, where I test out low-level monsters on a level 1 party.

    If you'd like to participate, you'll need to make a free account on roll20.net first. Then just get in touch with me:

    Hope to see you there!

  4. My personal opinion is resolve effecting deflection is more like staring down a battlefield and not being intimidated or sweeped up in the chaos. U have so much resolve that ur not freaking out with the battle but focused and in control of urself (also willpower).

    Honestly, this is a pretty good way to look at it. Your Resolve lets you focus more on the battle and on keeping your defenses up, instead of jumping at things. You're able to keep your nerve as well as someone who's seen many more battles than you actually have.

  5. Hey folks! No PDF update this week; I've mostly been focusing on writing the sample adventure for this system. Yeah, I'm making one of those. Let me tell you about it!

     

    Headwater Hold is a dungeon crawl designed for low-level characters. The eponymous Headwater Hold is a ruin of an Aedyran keep that was never finished before the War of Defiance, when Dyrwoodan forces and their Glanfathan allies sacked it. The ruin gets its name from its close proximity to the headwaters of one stream, which winds south and joins a larger river near Cold Morn.

    Further to the northwest is the town of Coppercwm, which sprang up only a few years ago around a rich copper vein at the foot of the nearby mountains. But when the skuldr from Headwater Hold start moving to the copper mines in great numbers, who will help the town? And who's only in it to investigate rumors of a member of the Dozens' Expedition Hall hiding in the Hold with an Engwithan relic?

    Like in the PoE computer game, experience will be given for completing objectives and advancing the story, not killing monsters. But don't worry; there will be plenty of story!

     

    So here's what's probably going to be in the next pdf:

    • Fix the weapons section and its abuse of lists.
    • A section on experience points.
    • Some low-level traps.
    • Some low-level monsters.
    • And maybe, just maybe, more on Deities and Factions.

    Stay tuned!

  6. I've always felt this kind of mechanic in games to be more of a gate limiting 'open world exploration' rather than something fun. That being said I'm a huge Pokemon fan, so maybe there is something to it. 

    In Pokémon, to light an area, you have to take one of your pokes and teach it a useless move that can't easily be forgotten, forever crippling it.

    PoE has no such restriction.

     

    I'm not the developer, though. So maybe you see things others can't.

  7. I, personally, wouldn't mind if a romance has to get axed in favor of some other really cool content the developer wants to do. (Operative word being "cool". PoE has been good about not wasting my time with grindy sidequests compared to other games, but let's not drop the ball now.)

     

    But OP has a point. Between the Bethesda "it happens yaaaay" in Skyrim and Fallout 4, and the Bioware wish fulfillment model of "here is your waifu/husbando, LOVE THEM", romance just isn't done right in video games. We need to be given reasons to love them other than the fact that they're DTF. And we need to see why they'd love our character. Doesn't need to be voiced. Doesn't need to be drawn or animated. Some of the best lines in PoE are just plain prose.

     

    Another thing that stuck with me from OP's post: finding kindred spirits among your travelling companions. Even if it's a wholly platonic "best friends" connection, don't tell me I can't find a kindred spirit. On the playthrough I sunk the most time into, my Watcher had this whole theme of finding a place to call home and people to care about. The rest of this is under a spoiler tag because endings....

     

    That Watcher actually ended the main campaign on a low note, because everyone just up and leaves in the epilogues! Everyone she'd come to care for! The only person who didn't leave her was Edér, and it wasn't because of any particular attachment to her, oh no. He just wanted to move into Dyrford, which just happened to be nearby.

     

    So yeah. Even if it's not romantic in nature, I'd appreciate being able to have a deeper connection with my favorite companions.

     

    TL;DR version:

    • Most romance in video games sucks.
    • Do romance right, or not at all.
    • Bromance is an acceptable compromise.
    • Like 3
  8. I'm not particularly experienced with tabletop gaming, but this is something I'm very interested in and will be keeping a close eye on. It might be an idea to include a blank character sheet, or a spreadsheet version with derived stats included.

     

    But yeah, this looks very interesting and I'll definitely be rolling up a character when I find the time.

     

    For document preparation, formatting, and typesetting, can I suggest LaTeX? There's a slight learning curve (although it's probably nothing too insurmountable for anyone who's enough of a nerd to write their own homebrew RPG rules :teehee:), but the results are truly beautiful.

    Noted, noted, and noted! I'm not sure if I want to draw a blank character sheet, or just cobble one together in Excel. Maybe Excel first, and leave the nicer character sheets for when the system's almost done....

     

    As for LaTeX: I am actually...semi-familiar with it. I used it for a discrete mathematics course once. I'll probably be switching over once I have things actually written out.

  9. Did they ever release the tabletop book?  I thought there were plans for something like that?  Or at least a campaign guide.

    I know there's like a setting guidebook and the Lords of the Eastern Reach board game, but at least as far as I know, there's no tabletop RPG.

    There's actually a whole thread about the possibility of a pen and paper RPG released by Obsidian, over in the pen-and-paper forum, but the general consensus in that thread is "we haven't heard anything".

  10. Hey folks! If any of you have ducked your head into the Pen-and-Paper gaming subforum recently, you may have seen my Pillars of Eternity homebrew tabletop drafts.

     

    Because yeah. I have no life and so I decided to make a PoE tabletop homebrew.

     

    Normally I'd keep it all over on that subforum, but today I want to ask you guys for some help.

    See, I've just finished character creation, and I want to know how it works.

    I could roll up the characters I want to see all day, but, well, I'm writing the system. I want to see what kind of characters YOU want to roll up.

     

    So, check the link above for the thread, or click here for the pdf itself, and if you're so inclined, make a character! Seeing a bunch of different character concepts rolled up by a bunch of different people with a bunch of different ideas will help me better scale and tweak the system, so that it's more fun!

     

    Have fun! (or tell me to gtfo back to the pen and paper subforum, that's fair.) (or obsidian could tell me to stop, that is also fair.)

    Disclaimer: This is a HOMEBREW, as in, not made by Obsidian and not official in any way. It's just for fun.

    • Like 2
  11. Ladies and gentlemen of the internet...

     

    We have...character creation!

     

    That's right, now you too can roll up a level 1 character for a homebrew RPG based on PoE that will hopefully exist at some point! \o/

     

    Click HERE for the 0.0.3 PDF.

     

    A few notes:

    • Yes, the formatting for Weapons is utter garbage. That's the first thing I'm going to update for the next PDF.
    • Attributes now have tables. May reorient them for easier reading for the next version.
    • Brief summaries of paladin orders and priest deities have been added to their class sections.
    • More rules! The Rules section has also been placed in front, instead of the Character section.

    Actually, a note about rolling up characters...I'd like to reach out to you folks here on the forums, and see what you do with character creation! Roll up the character YOU want to play. Seeing a bunch of different character sheets for different classes will help me better scale things like abilities, talents, item effects, enemies, level-up bonuses...basically, the whole system. So make your characters, and show them to me!

  12. I think it would have been better, at least for these early drafts, to put the action resolution mechanics on the forefront.

    You're...probably right. I'm very close to posting my next draft; I'll take a moment to rearrange the content before I do so.

     

    Honestly, this is the first time I've ever written a system of this complexity. A lot of stuff, I've just taken out of the game and then made the numbers smaller so you don't need a calculator at the table. >.>

  13. It does really suck that you can have a souped-up Caed Nua with lots of ridiculously strong defenders (and companions that aren't currently in your party!), but everyone apparently goes out to lunch when it's under attack unless you run back to defend it.

     

    But for Magran's sake, if you want to simulate repair costs, don't demolish entire upgrades. That stuff is expensive!

     

    (As for bandits, I don't really have much of a problem with them draining my income. Then again, I made Security a big priority in my game....)

    • Like 2
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