wahmann1

Exactly! Cake is better than pie. It takes some effort to say tastes are subjective, yada yada, when you know one side is obviously right, even if taste is subjective. Hmph. Pie.

All of this is well argued, but it also makes me realize how convoluted our suggestions and Josh's suggestions are getting. They are rarely simple, elegant and/or straight-forward enough. I'd rather have that choose one more Empower use-idea or something that clear and tangible. Good point. The solution should be no more complicated than empower is now. I'm going to make a couple of assumptions: 1) RNG empower isn't really good for players because monsters get them, too (with the exception of alpha attack-from-stealth) 2) Empower is not used to balance classes (it is said empower is better for casters right now, but I am going to assume it doesn't matter if that changes) First, simplify Empower so it only is used when you assign it to a power (not to a character to recover spent slots). Second, assume it is more like a generalized power source (like discipline) that can do a couple of other things. Third, when you click on a character portrait, the empower value should be the empower points for that character, starting at 0 and working up to 10 (or some other value) at a rate that depends upon RES. Fourth, make empower replenish power source as follows: Click on empower then power points (e.g., discipline) to convert an empower point to a power point. (Allowing you to replenish, e.g., discipline.) Alternatively or in addition, just click on empower and then on the power that cannot be used due to insufficient power points and use empower points instead. If a power is available because you have sufficient power points, and you have at least 5 empower, click on empower then the power to use at +5 power levels and reduce empower by 5 (or whatever value empower was going to be nerfed to from 10 anyway). Optional (slightly more complex): Click on a power that is currently on cooldown to reduce cooldown (maybe on a second/empower point basis). This will not increase complexity because you always just click empower and then the power (and any that are greyed out or on cooldown can be un-greyed out when you click the empower icon if you have sufficient empower to use them). A little OT, but you could also add an alpha-strike capability selectable by rogues that gives an empower-like effect without empower, such as +5 power level to an attack made from stealth. That way those who are saddened by the nerfing of the alpha strike could compensate.

I think you have made a good point, so I cited you in one of the resolve threads, arguing it would be nice to build up to empower over time with a speed that depends upon RES. That would simultaneously address the alpha strike "problem" and the RES weakness "problem." (In quotes because reasonable folks could probably say they are not, in fact, problems.)

You must be the kind of guy who, when asked for directions to the mall, says: ... and then doesn't give directions to the mall. Stay classy!

That's what I figured I would have to do, but I don't really want to go outside the game. I have an aversion to Windows mode when I play. I was really just echoing what a couple of beta testers indicated on their YouTube streams.

I like the thinking, though reasonable minds could deviate on the actual bonuses for each attribute. Focusing specifically on RES as everything stands (and assuming the return of MIG), I'd like to address a couple memes. 1) Gromnir's point about alpha strikers. Is it really that bad if you can't alpha strike with empower? I don't think so. 2) Josh's point about Empower being too strong and maybe deserving of a nerf. 3) Empower being the sole remnant of a per rest system. I like per rest all right, but not for only empower. May as well kill it off. With all of that in mind, I recommend as time passes, empower power level grows for each character at a rate dependent upon their respective RES, to a maximum of RES power levels. When a character is at max empower, the icon can flash or something to let the player know there is a character at max. The character can empower a power with only half of the total power levels at a time (because 20 RES getting +20 Power Levels seems OP). You cannot use empower to recover power points as now, but if you empower an ability you cannot trigger due to lack of discipline (or whatever), you can increase the power level cost of the empowerment by 1 per point. So if you have Empower 1, you could empower an ability that normally requires one discipline at its base power level when you are out of discipline. I don't like random empowerment in general, at least not with RES, but if you start a combat with ? empower, that might be fun. The ? could be replaced with an actual number when combat starts, but when you are doing the alpha strike, you don't really know how empowered it is going to be. (It could even be zero.)

I would like to see RES impact accuracy and/or damage on disengage (maybe even engagement radius). No other attribute impacts these things and it has the feel of tenaciousness, like RES probably should have. I'd like it to impact affliction magnitude and/or duration. I know there are some suggestions about concentration, and it makes perfect sense for that to be part of RES if it works with the formulae that are now in use. I think it would be cool if a negative RES had a randomizing effect because it feels like low RES should reduce reliability, but if we are going with a randomizing empower effect as Josh suggested, I think making empower unreliable is the way to go. For example, empower only works 50% of the time +5% per RES, RES determines cooldown for a next use of empower, and RES determines how many times you can try to empower a character in a single encounter. Base the metric on giving a party twice as many empowers, but spread out over a long fight, and they only work half (more with high RES) of the time. Oh, and bring back MIG.

I'm not sure. Looks like the game is going to be be designed around 100% damage going through. Upping PEN as well as Armor values do not make much sense so i don't think Armor is changing. I don't think I'd go as far as "stupid," but I think the chance to make the modal vary the damage type was a mistake. Warhammer should have been a crushing weapon with an Armor Piercing modal.

I don't like the idea of random empower because I think high RES should increase stability and predictability, but random odds for a "Losing your Cool" affliction whenever you get damaged or afflicted (as long as your RES is negative) seems fine. Maybe even an increase to "Freaking Out" major affliction if you are already Losing your Cool and lose it again. Another thought would be to start with one empower per character in the empower pool, recharge the empower pool based on aggregate RES of the party, have a (probably long) cool-down to use empower for each character that is sped up with high RES, and maybe even set the maximum number of times you can empower per rest to 0 + 1 per 4 RES over 2 for each character if OBS doesn't do away with this artifact of the per-rest system entirely at some point (in which case you could make it some maximum number of times per encounter).

Actually, I would like that, too. Just let the player pick 3 "background" skills. Class skills seem OK, though, with the exception of the few I mentioned above. I take back what I just said. There are 16 skills and 16 backgrounds, so one skill per background, a limited choice based on background, and any other skill you want. I know this is no longer in the realm of a change prior to release, but here goes: Aristocrat: Diplomacy + [bluff or Intimidate] + any other Artist: Sleight of Hand + [History or Insight] + any other Colonist: Alchemy + [Athletics or Survival] + any other Dissident: Explosives + [stealth or Intimidate] + any other Drifter: Streetwise + [sleight of Hand or Bluff] + any other Explorer: History + [Diplomacy or Survival] + any other Hunter: Survival + [Alchemy or Stealth] + any other Laborer: Athletics + [Mechanics or Streetwise] + any other Mercenary: Intimidate + [Athletics or Explosives] + any other Merchant: Bluff + [Diplomacy or Streetwise] + any other Mystic: Metaphysics + [Arcana or Religion] + any other Philosopher: Insight + [Metaphysics or Religion] + any other Priest (Minister): Religion + [Arcana or Insight] + any other Scholar: Arcana + [History or Metaphysics] + any other Scientist: Mechanics + [Alchemy or Explosives] + any other Slave: Stealth + [Mechanics or Sleight of Hand] + any other I think it would also be cool to change "any other" for the middle choice you didn't take and something tied to your background. For example a Drifter from the Living Lands who took Sleight of Hand as a second choice might have a choice of [bluff(the option not taken as a second choice) or Survival (the option for a Drifter from the Living Lands)].

I don't mind randomness in general, but randomized empower does not feel like resolve to me. It feels like luck. Resolve is more of a grind. An appropriate (IMHO) random chance would be the equivalent of a death save: Maybe 20% +/- 2% per Resolve over 10 to jump back up with an injury after being "killed" every 10 seconds until the fight is over or until you've made as many checks as your Resolve. Maybe throw in some additional penalty based on the ratio of damage over what it took to "kill" you compared to your total hp. Even after the party is dead and you get that "Your Party was Killed" screen, you can add a "... or were they" option that allows anyone who can make the death save to crawl back to the world map and regroup. That's a pretty nice option if you are playing on Iron Man! When somebody screams "Why don't you stay dead?!?" you know you've got resolve.

Regeneration, which represents determination to keep going (maybe 10% of total hp +/- 1% per resolve over 10 over the course of a relatively long period, like 20 seconds) and stacks with Fighter recovery. After being knocked to 0 hp, keep recovering phantom hp through regeneration and stand back up when you reach some minimum number (maybe 10% of total hp), but you keep your injuries each time and if everyone is down at the same time, party is dead. Increased chance of being maimed instead of killed when killing is called for. I'm not a PotD player and I almost always restart if I lose a companion I like, so I would like the odds to be good that you keep getting more and more maimed instead of killed if you have decent resolve. (Maybe 40% +/- 4% per resolve over 10.) If you don't know whether the party member will rise at the end of the encounter, it might stop me from rage-quitting when they die, too, and I could come to accept a companion death if the encounter is hard-fought. I like reducing duration of afflictions (and intensity if it is not too complicated mathematically). Maybe reduce affliction penalty by +/-1 per Resolve over 10. You might want to add a mental affliction for negative Resolve whenever an affliction is applied called "Losing your Cool" that gives -1 penalty per Resolve under 10, rather than try to increase affliction penalties for poor Resolve. This is assuming Might is reinstated with the damage and healing bonus currently given to Resolve.

I like where you are going with this. I would start at graze, though: 20% damage from graze in heavy armor 30% damage from graze in medium armor 40% damage from graze in light armor 50% damage from graze in no armor +50% for penetration (70-100% for full PEN) 100% for over-penetration (armor is like butter)

I think it would be kind of cool if there was a slider that allowed you to adjust your "meathead" score. If you adjust the slider up, you increase damage with melee weapons and bows, but decrease damage with spells. Fencing weapons, crossbows, and firearms could be left unaffected by the slider. I'm not suggesting the change because it is too late, would require some balancing, and (most importantly IMO) would potentially require modifying encounter text, but it could be used to modify text based upon whether you were a meathead (Might + meathead passes the test, but Might alone does not). You would probably not want to allow the slider to go above maximum Might (so an Elf's Might + Meathead would still be capped at 18). You don't really need a Might - meathead test because if the encounter doesn't rely on being muscle-bound, how much of a non-meathead you are doesn't matter as much, so I would only make the meathead slider go one way. If you really wanted to punish the meatheads, you could call it "musclebound" and throw in a reflex penalty or action speed penalty for being too muscly.

I promise I looked everywhere I could think of for the answer before posting here... Is there a tool that enables you to snapshot the head and shoulders of the 3D model for your character and just use that as the portrait? I suppose I could screen shot the model in windows mode and put it into an editor, but I was hoping there might be something better.

I love the suggestions. With respect to the confusion regarding commands, I think adding a parenthetical string that varies depending upon the situation might be nice. Like this: Half Sail! (Kite with Loaded (or Unloaded) Port (or Starboard) Cannon Broadside/Move Toward/Move Away) Hold Position! (Prepare to Fire Port (or Starboard) Cannon/Skip Turn) Turn to Port! (Expose Broadside with Loaded (or Unloaded) Port (or Starboard) Cannon/Prepare to Close/Prepare to Flee) Turn to Starboard! (Expose Broadside with Loaded (or Unloaded) Starboard (or Port) Cannon/Prepare to Close/Prepare to Flee) Prepare to Jibe! (Expose Broadside with Loaded (or Unloaded) Cannon/Prepare to Close/Prepare to Flee) Report to... (Reassign Crew/Repair Sails/Repair Hull/Get Wounded to Surgeon/Crew Unmanned Station/...))--you can say what needs to be done, if anything

Actually, I would like that, too. Just let the player pick 3 "background" skills. Class skills seem OK, though, with the exception of the few I mentioned above.

I can't help but think the Cipher should have Stealth instead of Mechanics. There is nothing particularly mechanical about Ciphers, but they do feel like they could be sneaky. It also seems kind of lame that they can work a crowd (Sleight of Hand) and deal with traps, but aren't stealthy. They're just cooler if they can sneak and sleight. Mostly because that would leave only the Rogue with Mechanics, I would give that to the Wizard instead of explosives. The only explosive angle for Wizards in my mind is the fireworks of Gandalf, but there is no reason for Wizards to be that. The traps always look a little bit magical anyway, so it wouldn't take me out of the game at all for Wizards to be masters of runes and clockwork gadgets. The Barbarian passive skill (History) just seems way off. I'd swap that for Streetwise. I realize Barbarians are supposed to be wilderness warriors, but I'm perfectly alright with a more civilized berserker angle, and it seems like learning the streets would be easier for a brute than hitting the books to get a degree in History. I'd change the Priest background to something that is not also a class, like minister or cleric or something. I'd balance the background skills (as in the skills are evenly represented across the backgrounds), like this (and keep the ones not listed the same): Artist Mechanics; History, Insight à Sleight of Hand; History, Insight Dissident Stealth; History, Intimidate à Explosives, Stealth; Intimidate Drifter Bluff, Insight, Streetwise à Sleight of Hand; Bluff, Streetwise Hunter Alchemy, Mechanics; Survival à Alchemy, Stealth; Survival Laborer Athletics 2 à Athletics, Mechanics; Streetwise Mercenary Athletics; Intimidate, Streetwise à Athletics, Explosives; Intimidate Philosopher Insight 2 à Insight, Metaphysics, Religion Priest (Minister) Religion 2 à Arcana; Insight, Religion Scientist Arcana, Explosives; Metaphysics à Alchemy, Explosives, Mechanics Slave Athletics; Streetwise, Survival à Mechanics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth I think Slave is the weirdest, but streetwise and survival don't really make sense for a person who is kept in chains, and to the extent a slave does hard labor, we already have a laborer background, so I wanted to go with something more like a slave that needs to procure what he/she can to survive (sleight of hand/stealth) and also works on escaping (mechanics/stealth). Finally, I would add a skill proficiency that allows you to increase each of the background skills by 1 for each of three proficiency slots.

If you mean like a long nine in the forecastle, I am so for that. I want to fire at a ship when it is running away or when the broadside is out of range. Or put one in the aftcastle to discourage pursuit when you try to flee.

I am really looking forward to crew management. I have a feeling I will spend a great deal of time trying to improve my crew and ship and hope the tools are there for me to do it, which I expect they will be. My one big wish would be to allow a proficiency slot be spent to make companions into crew, but that seems unlikely at this point.

I doubt you can switch it off, but Josh said that the party was enough to crew the starter ship and I don't think they have a moral/supplies cost. Saying that, not crewing the ship probably means ignoring all the ship related features outside moving around on the map too. Do you have a link of Josh saying the party can crew the ship?

I think the problem with the question is the powers are going to change. I'll take a stab at it, though, based on what I've read: Aloth: Battlemage Eder: Fighter (Devoted) Maia Rua: Ranger (Stalker) Pallegina: Paladin (Bleak Walker) Seraphen: Barbarian (Berserker) Tekehu: Theurge Xoti: Contemplative Fassina: Loremaster Konstanten: Barbarian (Berserker) Rekke: Brute Ydwin: Mindstalker

If I'm looking for pirate/ship RTS game I will purchase game with this content. If I'm looking for game like BG, IWD, POE, I hate deal with RTS. I think make these minigames optional is good way for everyone. Or not? Surely a better way is to make the game content better rather than make it skippable. What about people who don't like the combat? Better make that skippable. What about people who don't care to read? Better make all the dialogue skippable (and I don't mean just skipping ahead, I mean literally no dialogue options/consequences - there are plenty of people who are put off by having to read dialogue in games, let's appeal to them too). What about people who don't like creating a character? Better make it so that there are pre-built characters that level themselves. I agree that it should not be skippable, but I think "close and board" should be an option that skips through an entire round and gets you as close as possible to the other ship, with the assumption you prioritize, primarily, speed and, secondarily, defenses would be a reasonable option. Also, "flee" to escape as quickly as possible. Also, reputation hopefully results in different options, such as the ability to close peacefully to chat, whether in a diplomatic or deceptive fashion. Other impact could include sailing someone else's ship (if the enemy captain is smart enough to know of the previous owner), hoisting certain colors (to announce yourself or to go for deception, and at some distance the enemy captain can figure out who you are; the better you are at reputation/diplomacy/deception, the closer you get before combat breaks out, if it breaks out at all. I seriously hope they allow cannons to be loaded with different ammo, as opposed to using different cannons to fire different ammo. I think the option to load round shot, canister shot, or grapeshot would be cool. Plus the option of using lagrange ("junk shot") if you ran out of cash. I think the chance of round shot hitting crew should be dramatically reduced (round shot almost never hit crew irl) and the damage to rigging should be small; canister shot should do no damage to hull and relatively little to rigging, but lots to personnel (it was used to clear the deck before boarding); grapeshot should do decent damage to rigging and personnel, but little to hull. Cannoneers should automatically target the appropriate part of the ship if they have the skill (round to the hull, canister to the crew, grape to the rigging). With a cannon proficiency, maybe your companions could act as crew and fire chain shot as a modal with reduced range, but which does high damage to both the hull and rigging. I expect none of this will happen, though, because of the clutter different types of ammo will cause. I'd also like to see a "long nine" that can be used to fire at range and without doing a broadside.

Hi everyone. This is my first comment ever! I rather like that the proficiencies are situational, as JS indicated was the intention. I think some of them are perfect, like the large shield and pollaxe; some of them are great, but don't really fit the weapon, like saber's increased penetration; and I think some leave something to be desired, like the dagger (because it is not situational enough--you are reasonably likely to just click the modal for the defense bonus and forget about it). I noticed some folks complaining about the increased PEN of the saber, but that is one of the few modals that I will routinely use when it is appropriate, such as when I'm getting "No PEN" when attacking with it. If I could change them, I would make them more intuitive, rather than more varied. For example, the piercing modal can be more PEN, slashing inflicts bleed, and bludgeoning interrupts (as a baseline). I wouldn't mind the defensive bonus for the staff if it was more situational. For example, non-modal could be half-staff, which has good reach and modal could be quarter-staff, which does not have reach, but provides better defense. I would also make some modals cycle through three or more options. For example, I would make the Hunters Bow have a bleed effect without a modal (due to the use of a hunting arrow as the standard) and flight arrow (for increased range without bleed) as the modal and War Bow have increased PEN without a modal (due to the use of an armor piercing arrow as the standard) and flight arrow as the modal, but if you take both proficiencies, you can cycle through flight, bladed, and AP arrows when using either bow. For weapons with two damage types (e.g., pierce and slash), I would make the non-modal the more natural of the two damage types. The damage type would determine the effect, such as increased PEN when using a warhammer to pierce (modal) and improved interrupt when using the warhammer to bludgeon (non-modal). I would like to be able to use a proficiency to gain an extra skill point. It is not situational, but it is probably not too powerful either. You could limit to passive skill points or characterize it as a "jack of all trades, but master of none" skill choice that requires you only spend the skill point on a skill that is not maxed out. Especially if it has a jack-of-all-trades limitation, you could let a character take it multiple times. I would like to be able to use a proficiency to gain a ship crew ability. This could be restricted to companions, if the main character needs to be the captain, but it probably isn't necessary. Once you can be ship crew, you can gain stars like any other crew member. If you get hit with a cannon ball, that should result in a wound that you have to heal, but you don't need to be paid wages, so it is still a beneficial choice. I don't know how I would handle morale in this case, but if you put your companion in the crew and don't feed er, er opinion of you could quite reasonably drop; if you don't want to take that risk, don't make er act as crew. I would like (hopefully low) skill levels to open up additional modal choices. For example, where the bow proficiencies can get you flight, bladed, or AP arrows, if you have alchemy 2, you can spend a proficiency to get flaming arrows (increased damage, lower fire rate) and if you have explosives 2, you can spend a proficiency to get explosive arrows (extend the range of your explosives at a lower fire rate). This is probably asking too much: If you have a staff proficiency and arcana 2, you can spend a proficiency to get improved concentration when casting a spell, but take longer to cast spells, as an additional staff modal. Arcana 2 could also open up spellcasting modals that generally reduce defenses in exchange for improved spell power (maybe increase spell damage for rods, reduce time to cast spells for wands, and reduce recovery time after casting spells for scepters?).