XauripMaster

I think scaling is a bandaid to a different problem: why is there so much power in levels? Why do we start at 50-ish base health and end up with 200-300+? This raw health growth introduces the need to scale all damage upwards, be it via quality, or power level, or what have you.

Lord Darrin's poleaxe gives + 3 Storm PL. It works on the druid spells because they have both Storm and Electricity tags. The chanter stuff do not. They will however benefit from the Deltro's Cage breastplate.

Ranger/Cipher is fun. Accurate Wounding Shot makes focus generation a lot more reliable and Marked Prey helps land those disables. The Cipher side enhances your rifle shots with Soul Whip and Hammering Thoughts.

The current system has a few major problems that look to clash with the game's design philosophy. The first is flexibility. Why can't I trade my attack for extra movement? Why can't I attack first and then move? Why can't I trade my movement for something else? In real time, drinking a potion has no recovery. In turn based, it takes my single action for the turn. Why is flexibility important? Because strategy is based upon decisions, and more flexibility equals more decisions. The second is flavor. In real time I can fire a gun and then pause reloading to cast a spell. If I use a bow or a wand, I have to wait for recovery. This made me prefer reloading weapons for my casters, but that means forgoing a shield. Or let's talk about fast weapons. Sure, using a stiletto means I can act sooner.... but that won't help me take out targets faster. On the contrary, while I attack "faster", I will do less damage with my one single attack for the turn. This leads me to a third point: Initiative does a nice job of showing how some characters act faster than others, but that is only half of what action speed does in real time. What about doing more stuff because you do it faster? A fourth point would be that action balance feels off. A wizard can cast half a spellbook worth of buffs as free actions. Meanwhile drinking a potion takes your sole action for the turn (while it had no recovery in real time); granted, I understand being able to chug health potions or toss bombs as a free action would be a bit broken. You could add a "Swift action" per turn to solve the latter, but a better system exists: Action points! We can even apply the whole recovery mechanic to boot! Six action points per turn, each corresponding to roughly one second real time. Recovery can "eat" into the ap you get next turn. Basically you take real time and make each actor involved in combat act separately instead of all at once.

You get an extra ability point every power level. Multiclasses only get 7 power levels compared to the 9 a pure class gets. So single classed characters actually have one more ability over multis.

Some observations based on personal experience last night: The system makes a lot of sense if you think of initiative as time units. Each round seems to be considered 6 seconds (Arcane Cleansing went from 999s to 167 rounds). Each point of initiative seems to be one second, roughly (Chill Fog has a cast of 4.5 in turn based and 4.5s cast time in real time afaik). Fractional initiative seems to count for determining acting order, but is otherwise rounded up. A round ends when all actors have taken their action. You can delay your actions as long as you haven't done anything, and it will put your character at the very end of the round (first in, first out). Delaying basically sets your initiative to LAST_ACTOR_INITIATIVE + 1 How casting works: the spell will take effect at CASTER_INITIATIVE + CAST_TIME. Rounds are not delayed by casting. Example: Watcher with initiative of 6 casts Chill Fog (Cast time of 4.5) with no action speed bonuses. Spell should go off at initiative value 11 (6 + 4.5 = 10.5, rounded up). If someone would act at an initiative value higher than that, it means the spell will fire the same round. Otherwise it gets pushed to the next round. If the last actor acted at an initiative value of, say, 10, the Watcher's Chill Fog will go off at initiative value 1 in the next round. Base initiative is 6, modified by armor initiative penalty, dex and action speed. Stealth provides -85% initiative. Starting a fight from stealth pretty much assures you to act first in the first round of the fight. Subsequent initiative depends on what actions you take. Using a weapon/spell will put you at whatever initiative that weapon/spell has. Not taking any action puts you at initiative 0. I still haven't figured how to dash (trade action for extra movement). Effect duration: they seem to have taken real time ability duration and divided by 6. For instance, a Monk's Swift Strikes will last 2 rounds once you get about +20% duration from Int and PL (from 10s real time duration to 12). This seems to round down.

Devil of Caroc breastplate or Modwyr. You can also use a Smart inspiration to cancel the confusion.

You don't have to move. You can just force that character to stop and then cast the spell again, even while paused.

I think people are not giving Beguiler enough credit. It shifts a part of your focus generation from attacks to Deception spells. Being able to Mental Binding > Secret Horrors > Eyestrike before having to attack with your weapon a single time is very strong. Even an Ascendant using the Red Hand (front loaded dmg + not having to wait for recovery before casting your first spell) needs a second to complete those actions, during which the enemies can bumrush your party. Not to mention the awkward moments when you want to Mental Binding a priority target later in a fight and discover you have no focus because the ascension state just ended.