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globalCooldown

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Posts posted by globalCooldown

    Pillars of Eternity Homebrew WIP

    in Pen-and-Paper Gaming

    Posted

    I'm interested, I'd look to try this out if I ever get time to DM for my current group. Are you making the combat / AP / etc systems with any kind of playtesting or just mockign it up for now?

    Once I get enough of it written out, I certainly am looking to run some playtests!

    In fact, since I'm graduating from college in May, and most of my real-life friends have already moved on, I'll probably be holding most of my playtesting online. I'm thinking...roll20?

    Obsidian, let Sawyer do his historical rpg

    in Obsidian General

    Posted

    Christ, I didn't mean to derail the topic THIS MUCH.

    I wasn't complaining about romances or a lack thereof AT ALL. I was lamenting that in a historical setting, queer characters would be ostracized, killed, or worse JUST FOR EXISTING. Didn't matter if they were actively romancing anyone or not.

     

    So that's why I'm ambivalent: I'd like to be able to play a queer character without getting stoned by villagers, even if there are very few other queer characters in the game.

    But on the other hand, history is cool, and if Sawyer has some really good ideas it could be done well.

    That's all.

    Ondra, Abydon, and the Eastern Sea

    in Pillars of Eternity: Stories (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

    Well, we don't technically know whether or not Abydon questions it. He could've asked how it happened and all the other gods shrugged in unison. Or, he could not question it because Ondra made him forget to ask. Who knows?

     

    I love the theory that the sea monsters in the Eastern Sea are keeping something hidden from the rest of the world. Maybe a place. Maybe some super-powerful artifact. Maybe they're just trying to keep people from confirming that the world is round.

    Pillars of Eternity Homebrew WIP

    in Pen-and-Paper Gaming

    Posted · Edited by globalCooldown

    Okay, it's not letting me edit my original post, but I just want to let people know I have a PDF of the Characters section ready to go!

     

    Feel free to drop me questions; explaining things will probably help me write out the formal rules explanations. >.>

     

    Here's the PDF for your reading pleasure.

     

    EDIT: I...just realized I forgot the charts for attributes. I'll insert those in the next WIP post.

    Pillars of Eternity Homebrew WIP

    in Pen-and-Paper Gaming

    Posted

    Hey folks! I'm out of the metaphorical frying pan of college for the weekend, and back to working on the system writeup.

     

    Click HERE to read the Google Doc.

     

    I've got a super-short Introduction and a draft of the Races. You'll probably notice the racial perks for Godlike look...different. Basically: the numbers you have to crunch are smaller than the numbers the PoE computer game crunches, there's an Action Point system since you can't exactly run tabletop rpgs in realtime easily, and they've all been rebalanced to be simpler while still maintaining the general flavor and feel of those abilities.

     

    Comments and critique are encouraged!

    The supplies mechanic is bad

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

     

    Considering the option to change supply limits is already in the game, I think there is no downside to making this it's own setting rather than tied to difficulty. Customizable difficulty is always good, so you could select to play with the more and stronger mobs from hard/PoTD without also lowering your supply limit. Stash access and knockout injuries are already their own toogle so I don't see how this would be different, would you folks preffer these get tied to the main difficulty setting as well?

    As I said earlier, there are achievement for finishing the game on PotD. LImited supply is part of that difficulty. Someone finishing PotD with access to 10 supply will have way easier time than someone doing it with 2 supply.

     

    Ditto. Difficulty levels exist to be challenging, not to be zoomed through like a checklist. I fully admit most of my runs are done on bog-standard Normal difficulty, because a lot of the time I just want to chill out and not stress out over my decisions. If I want a challenge, that's when I crank up the difficulty level.

     

    At the same time though, customizable difficulty is never a bad thing. Hell, I'd probably just play on Normal and restrict my supply limit to 2 (taking it the exact other direction of the guy on PotD with 10 supplies).

     

    Just...be aware of *why* you want difficulty tweaks. Do you want a challenge? Do you want to customize your challenge? Or do you just want to be able to say you Did A Thing, so you can check it off your list and feel proud of yourself? There's no shame in sticking to a lower difficulty you're comfortable with.

    How much do you lose with hirelings in the party?

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

    Many would agree that the start of pillars is the hardest part of the game regardless.

    Well, for the early game, money can be tight, so most players are going to spend Act 1 with a good mix of banter-tastic official companions and minmaxxed tavern hirelings. Good way to survive until you get to Woodend Plains, at which point you have 5 official companions plus whatever hirelings you bought, and you have to decide which way you're going to lean.

     

    I get what you're saying, though. Late-game, there's not really a noticeable difference, but mid-game without optimized companions can be rough if you don't have MAD PRO TACTICAL SKILLS and/or aren't playing on a lower difficulty.

    That's when the players who care more about the story or characters will ditch hirelings in favor of official companions, and either turn down the difficulty or learn to pick their fights more effectively.

    And the players who prefer to be minmaxxed meat grinding kill-parties will get rid of the official companions.

    Neither playstyle is wrong. It's just down to personal preference.

    The supplies mechanic is bad

    in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)

    Posted

    Just throwing something out there:

    We've all already established that camping supplies exist to try and incentivize not rest-spamming. Camping supplies, combined with the Endurance/Health system, is basically Obsidian's attempt at getting rid of the "15-minute adventurer workday" that exists in many games and game systems.

    But some people just rest spam anyway, use up all their supplies and walk back and forth to town.

     

    So maybe, there needs to be an incentive to not leave the dungeon. To ration and think strategically, as opposed to heading back to town every fifteen minutes. But it can't be a *hard* restriction (i.e. not leaving the dungeon at all after entry, limited camping supplies in the world, etc), or else you run the risk of the game becoming unbeatable for many players. And an unbeatable game state is worse than a Game Over.

     

    One solution I've seen some tabletop systems use: there's a story incentive to not leave the dungeon, even though the option to do so is technically there. For some in-universe reason, a quest is on a timer, and you'll only have time to squeeze in a limited number of rests before Something Bad happens. An optional objective could fail, or you get a substantially smaller reward, or the villain actually does Just Shoot Him and there goes your character's childhood friend. You can technically still rest spam, but there are consequences beyond boring walks back and forth between a dungeon and town.

     

     

     

    Oh, and as for Maerwald and the Spider Queen: in my No Rest for the Pro run, I picked the lock, fought Maerwald, and then turned around and went back up the stairs. Decided my health was more valuable than a unique stiletto. If you try a No Rest for the Pro run yourself, and you don't care about unique stilettos, I actually recommend this strategy; when you're heading back up through the dungeons, Aloth and Iselmyr talk to each other a little bit!

    Pillars of Eternity Homebrew WIP

    in Pen-and-Paper Gaming

    Posted

     

     

    So, is it a 4E clone?

    Nah. "Bloat" and "MMO" aren't the objectives here. :p

     

     

    13th Age is a perfectly serviceable 4E clone without feeling bloated or MMO-esque.

     

    And frankly, I'd rather prefer 4E's "soulless", uniform approach over the convoluted, unbalanced mess that was 3.x.

     

    Noted. Don't worry, I'm trying to balance it, too.

    I expect the system will go through some revisions as people find things that are overpowered, underpowered, or otherwise broken.

    Basically, I'm aiming for fun, accessibility, and feeling like PoE. And things aren't fun if they're unbalanced.

     

    I'll post sections on GoogleDocs or something as they're completed, so folks can critique.

    Pillars of Eternity Homebrew WIP

    in Pen-and-Paper Gaming

    Posted

    So for whatever reason, some kind of madness has overtaken me, and I started writing a d20 system for Pillars of Eternity.

    I've already downscaled the numbers to be easier to work with in a pen and paper tabletop, made an Action Point economy to replace the realtime action speed adjustments in the computer game, worked out weapons and armor, and modified the benefits from attributes....so suffice to say, I'm on a roll.

     

    This system is intended not to be a 100% faithful translation of PoE to tabletop, but rather a simplification that can be played relatively easily at a low-tech pen and paper tabletop game, while still capturing the general feel of PoE.

     

    I've literally been working on this all night, and am very tired right now, so I apologize if this isn't wholly coherent. But college is requiring me to put this down for a day or two, and I want to see if there's any interest in the meantime.

     

    Other features of the final system document will include rules for noncombat exploration, rules for creating unique weapons, a bunch of setting reference stuff, and, uh, homebrewed Godlike varieties.

     

    Enjoy a preview of the Table of Contents, which I've cleverly hidden in this spoiler tag....

     

    tumblr_o33qbv2ub81rxxgfbo1_1280.png

     

    • Like 4

    Let's talk stronghold items!

    in Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)

    Posted

     

    That's a really nice one if you put it on a monk who has Enervating Blows by the way. Sickened + Weakened is a really sick :w00t: combo.

    Add in Binding Rope to make them Stuck on top of that and you get a passive disabler Monk that enemies get punished for hitting ... Except they must, if they want to kill him. And in so doing they get afflictions and he gets Wounds ;)

     

    Great. Now I'm imagining Zahua with that silly flower crown.

    I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it.

    • Like 3
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