J.E. Sawyer

That's sort of correct. The difference is actually between getting an explicit quest objective+journal text or just getting the journal text without the explicit objective. E.g. Kill Sammy the Idiot - 7:41, Nov. 11th 2013 Frank was really mad about one of his guys, Sammy the Idiot. Sounds like a real pain, this guy. Frank wants him "taken care of", and quickly. vs. 7:41, Nov. 11th 2013 Frank was really mad about one of his guys, Sammy the Idiot. Sounds like a real pain, this guy. Frank wants him "taken care of", and quickly.

I'm not sure what he means by that comment. The only thing "casual"-oriented about dialogue stuff is that the default display options show things like what stats are being checked, what reputations are being affected, etc. You can turn all of those off and they're all off in Expert mode.

Wenn du mehre Fragen hast, kannst du mich auf meiner tumblr zu fragen. Hier: http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/ Mein Deutsch ist schlecht, aber werde ich versuchen.

We absolutely allow people to try it and we will probably not put much effort into balancing it. We do not design anything with the assumption you will have additional party members.

I'll be able to put the .pdf on my website in a few weeks. I'm actually surprised more photos weren't taken at the event. There was a lot of new artwork in the presentation (e.g. two companion portraits).

My grandfather really enjoys fantasy CRPGs. The early Wizardrys and Might & Magics; the Gold Box games; the IE games, etc. He's not a stupid man, but the details of game rules systems are not a strongpoint. I still have nightmares about looking over his party when he told me how impossible he was finding some of the late stages of Icewind Dale. Several characters using weapons they weren't proficient with; a cleric with a WIS that limited him to 4th-level spells; carrying the wrong ammunition for his ranged weapons, etc. I would very much like to give him a copy of Eternity, and I hope that the game would be a little less easy to screw up, mechanics-wise. This is really the sort of thing I mean. I've seen many intelligent, enthusiastic people attempt to play AD&D games and become mired for reasons very, very similar to those experienced by your grandfather. People who came into the IE games with an extensive knowledge of AD&D were at a big advantage because the IE games often don't give prominent feedback on a lot of these issues.

The continuing trend in games has been an assumption by publishers and developers that players do not want to read. As a rule, lines have become short to the point of being terse and often lack flavor and nuance because of it. The slide that goes hand-in-hand with "Eternity is written for readers." is "Our choices are your choices... so who benefits?" We assume that our players want to read, but we don't assume they want to read anything we put in front of them, so we need to think about the players' enjoyment of any given node or branch of dialogue. Interactive stories aren't inherently fun. Just putting a dialogue option in a conversation doesn't make the conversation inherently better. When we give the player choices, we need to evaluate it through their eyes and ask, "How will players find enjoyment/satisfaction by selecting this option?"

Sorry I missed this. Thanks!

Whether as a Talent or a core Ability, they will likely have something Smite-ish. Smite-like. Smitey.

Armor doesn't affect Deflection, it contributes to Damage Threshold. Shields, however, do affect Deflection. 5 points of Accuracy or defense (of any kind) in PE is roughly equivalent to +1 in D&D.

IMO, that type of paladin hasn't really been supported in the core class rules of any edition of A/D&D. Smite is about the burliest divine attack that paladins get in 3.X and even that is limited-use, Charisma-dependent, and alignment-dependent. The closest you could get to what you're describing using standard rules was getting to 4th level spells (at 14th/15th level), which granted access to Holy Sword and Dispel Evil in 3.X and a variety of things in 2nd Ed. Those spells are also things that 2nd Ed./3.X paladins get relatively late in their career. And while it's cool that paladins can do those things and PE's paladins will likely be able to do similar things, I still believe that narrowly-focused, limited-use abilities like Smite or various holy-oriented spells are very different from something like Sneak Attacks (whether in 3.X or 4E).

For you as your player character? Clearly paladins have never been a character class you've liked, so I'm not that concerned if you don't like their concept. I'm more concerned with Gfted1 feeling like the class will satisfy him because he actually likes the class' style in previous games.

Always keep in mind that Talents exist specifically to adjust the flavor of any given character/class. If you would like to play a more active-use/aggressive paladin (or fighter), a more defensive rogue, or a lower-maintenance wizard, Talents will give you those options.

How long can the party go without resting? For comparison: In IWD my party had to rest like 3 times per dungeon to regain spells and health (yep, that entailed annoying backtracking). In IWD2 it was imo the perfect balance - regular resting was required to succeed, but I did not have to backtrack out of dungeons. In BG2, or at least in the later parts of the game, one could go without resting for a looooog time - and I usually waited until multiple NPCs complained about being fatigued - which kind of took the "edge" out of the resting mechanic. What resting balance are you targeting for PE? Personally, I found that resting was more frequent in IWD2 than IWD1. We are not going for high-frequency resting. Of course, part of this will also depend on the difficulty level the player is on, whether they are overleveled or underleveled when approaching encounters, and how efficient they are with their resources.

They will.

Any other melee character. If I had moved my paladin over 5' instead of putting her and the fighter on the same target, she would have Engaged the guy making a beeline for the wizard. Practically speaking, you need one melee combatant to Engage every enemy that's trying to move past you (assuming they are trying to move past you). The advantage of a fighter (in this case) is that the Defender mode allows them to Engage multiple enemies at once.

From his description, fighters are pretty much mandatory as they are only class that can tank. And unless you catch all the mooks in a bottleneck you will probably need more than one. They aren't mandatory. But just as I miss the fighter's abilities when I drop him from the party, I miss the paladin's abilities when I drop her from the party. Reviving Exhortation and Shake It Off are both extremely valuable single-target commands. The effects of their auras are less visible moment-to-moment but also make a big difference.

Paladins have flagged behind other melee classes in raw damage output in every edition of A/D&D. In 1st and 2nd Ed., the only core damage-based bonus they had was from using a Holy Sword. In the BG/IWD games, they could specialize, but they couldn't gain mastery+. Even their BG2 kits only have conditional attack/damage bonuses. The rest of their class abilities are mostly passive defensive bonuses or support effects (Lay on Hands, Cure Disease, etc.). You seem to be equating "not top-tier damage dealer" with hitting like a limp noodle. This isn't the case at all, just as is wasn't in the BG/IWD games.

I am a believer in transparent numerical feedback. As a designer, I don't like creating internal systems that translate and obfuscate mechanics. E.g. I would rather not create an armor system that puts an otherwise unintelligible integer into a relative level-based formula to determine its actual protective value. I want players to engage with mechanics, not disengage from them. If only -- to use an already overused and misappropriated word -- "theorycrafters" can really understand how a system works, I would rather not use it. I'm also not interested in perpetuating or catering to common misconceptions about probability. I would rather show mechanics in their "naked" form, preferably with an option for extremely verbose feedback, and have players come to terms with the reality of probability.

Yes, they last until the next time you rest.

That's one of the biggest changes for rogues/thieves between 2nd Ed. and 3.X. Because backstab in 1st Ed./2nd Ed. was a multiplier, you could perform a backstab and easily roll a 1 for your base damage, resulting in a pathetically low total. In 3.X, this became additional d6s of damage. It was a good change because it normalized that damage output, but it also caused a lot of consternation while we were developing IWD2 and NWN2. Some testers simply couldn't believe that when they were doing +15d6 damage that they wouldn't get close to 90 points of bonus damage at least some of the time -- even though "some of the time" is extremely rare when you're rolling 15d6. On IWD2, I eventually had to go over to QA with 15 actual six-sided dice and roll them in front of them 20 times, charting the results on a sheet of paper. On NWN2, Andy Woo, who has a master's degree from MIT in combinatorics, had to explain the same thing, in detail, before testers would accept that the RNG wasn't flawed.

Fighters are not a high damage output class. Rogues are. Fighters are the most durable and reliable combatants in the class lineup. Barbarians are cool mob-oriented characters, but they cannot hold a line and they cannot endure long-term punishment like a fighter can. Rogues will absolutely annihilate a single target faster than a fighter (or barbarian), but have limited durability and are bad at dealing with groups. Paladins grant great bonuses to their teammates and are fantastic when paired with other nearby characters, but they are not as durable as a fighter and they don't have many potent offensive abilities. Whenever I change my party lineup for testing, I miss the abilities of whatever character I dropped... until the next time I change the party lineup, and I miss the abilities of the "new" characters I drop. When I drop my fighter, I absolutely miss his Defender mode and Knockdown ability because it's more likely that the melee landscape will turn into a free-for-all. You're not playing a single character in PE; you're playing a party. Differentiating the different members of that party in ways that make them unique and valuable is one of our goals. While we do we want people to enjoy every class that we create, we accept that not everyone will like the flavor of every class. If you don't like linebacker-style characters, that is unfortunate but okay. Similarly, if you don't like support-style characters, that is also unfortunate but okay. If you want to make a party comprised only of Vince Lombardi-friendly mid- to high-maintenance offense characters, you can do that. You can have a party with a rogue, ranger, wizard, druid, barbarian, and monk raining down death at every turn. You're going to be managing those characters a lot and your party drop rate will be relatively high, but fights will probably end pretty quickly. That party would play very differently from one with a fighter, paladin, chanter, priest, cipher, and wizard.

The only one I can think of currently is the barbarians' Thick-Skinned Ability that makes it more like 1:6.

Ships more than firearms. Our ranged combatants so far are still dominantly archers. I can only think of a few characters who are using guns.

We will be increasing the variety of trees over time as we develop more areas. Toward Eir Glanfath, the trees tend to get taller, with some approaching sequoia height.