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Monte Carlo

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Everything posted by Monte Carlo

  1. Monte Carlo
    Not going with seven right now, but honourable mentions to Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy and Band of Brothers. I am surprised nobody has hat-tipped The X-Files. From a UK POV we, of course, have Blackadder.
  2. Monte Carlo

    Feck!

  3. Monte Carlo
    Too late, gun-haters. We have them, and the dilemma now is what to do with them. LOL. Firearms were medieval. As medieval as chainmail and men wearing tights.
  4. Monte Carlo
    As long as I can display the flayed skins of my foes on the walls, and there is room in the basement for the gimp, then I'm happy. I honestly thought this thread was a troll.
  5. Monte Carlo
    Disbelief is sometimes more easily suspended in a solution of faux-reality. The Forgotten Realms, for example, shamelessly (and occasionally enjoyably) rips off real-world historical tropes and has high-camp fun with them. It uses a medieval backdrop. It has kings and castles and knights. Realistic? No. But the stock from which the soup is made has a tiny sprinkling of recognisable reality to it. The other word that just popped into my head is granularity. When my fighter swings his magical Zweihander of Flaming Awe in the correct manner, and the thing looks credibly like a sword, then it makes the experience just so. Obviously this is a very personal preference, but I thought I'd explain. There is of course room for gonzo fantasy, people fighting with a two-handed sword in one hand and a halberd in the other (and sometimes I enjoy that too) but for this particular game I am looking for a rather superior unguent in which to suspend my disbelief.
  6. Monte Carlo
    Most 'leather armour' in fantasy games is explained as an abstract compromise between a doublet, cuir boilli and, in extremis, the armour made of metal rings sewn to a leather hauberk not uncommon in the early medieval era. Lamellar armour: Of course, 'lamellar' also included metalled variants (I love this suit, which is Eastern European).
  7. Monte Carlo
    What if the highest tiers of armour needn't necessarily be magical, but bespoke? Many CRPGs have the "Come back in two weeks" thing where the armourer agrees to forge a suit of special plate or whatever. I like that a lot and hope to see something similar in this game, it just needn't be magical. Like how the armourers of Milan became famous for the quality and craftsmanship of their armour and a suit of Milanese plate was especially coveted. A re-enactor wears Milanese plate....
  8. Monte Carlo
    Sure, but what about the fact that some plate armour was easier to wear and move in than a mail hauberk? What about magically light armours? Can we not imagine 'mage-plate' whereby military sorcerers would invest heavily in designing optimal armours for their profession? Obviously an element of balancing is required, as opposed to punishment.
  9. Monte Carlo
    What do we think about the actual statistic descriptors? Should they be symbiotic? For example, the relationship between Constitution and Strength. Is it feasible to be 18 STR / 3 CON? Really. If you are going to have point buy should there not be a mechanism to ensure that symbiotic characteristics are realistic? So if you want a high strength fighter he has to be fit enough (i.e. sliding scale of constitution) to support that? And vice versa. So if you want 16 STR you need, say (plucks figure from air) at least 10 CON. While we're at it, how can a character with 3 INT have 18 CHA? If we leave aside the physical perfection of the archetypical dumb blonde, CHA is meant to be about personality and persuasion. How can someone with 3 INT, about as smart as a herd animal, benefit from 18 CHA? It's nuts. So, to make sense of it you have to invest across symbiotic stats to build high-performing characters. Ditto the relationship between WIS and INT (and so on). Lastly, four statistics that are meaningful versus six for the sake of it? STR (brigaded STR and CON) DEX (as is) INT (brigaded INT & WIS) PERS (Personality, brigaded WIS & CHA)
  10. Monte Carlo
    I think there was a discussion on this. I liked the idea of a hybrid of the old (i.e. damage avoidance) and the new (i.e. damage reduction) to allow for a sliding scale of both efficacy and choice. As the poster who referenced WoW said, I don't want to be carrying lots of suits of armour around like golf clubs (the '4' iron please, Jeeves). As for naming conventions, I don't see why you couldn't use a variety of descriptors, without the numeric values (+1 / +2 etc). So a suit of mail might be 'superior' or 'meisterwerk' etc. When it comes to magical / unique sets then other naming conventions could be used (I dunno 'ensorcelled plate' or 'Gladfanthan Wolfhide' or whatever). I agree that +1 / +2 has had it's day and should be left on the tabletop. As long as they item descriptor (not name, but the in-game description) is clear and easy-to-understand then it's all good. Lastly, what about shields? One of the most potentially cool pieces of armour and equipment, traditionally given a minor role in most gaming systems.
  11. Monte Carlo
    It looks more like a Vorpal Panzerschrek, but I'm being picky
  12. Monte Carlo
  13. Monte Carlo
    This to the power of ten. On top of my usual reservations.
  14. Monte Carlo
    Note how this chap is toting a fantasy bazooka. I'd like one too, please.
  15. Monte Carlo
    You know this one makes sense!
  16. Monte Carlo
    We badly need an update.
  17. Monte Carlo
    Bravo. But still only D-
  18. Monte Carlo
    Immersion on this forum has the tendency to mean "Ahhh! You're not playing the game the way I like and you talking about it is making me rock-backwards-and-forwards"
  19. Monte Carlo
    Rolling is stupid. Options about your character's background / culture followed by point buy. THAT is how character creation should work. Here you go again, Sturmbahnfuhrer.
  20. Monte Carlo
    Bwahahahha. Magic crossbows that are repeaters? Check. Uber-fast bows that do humungous damage? Check. Slings of awesomeness? Check. A throwing axe with a neat boomerang feature? Check. So, we've opened Pandora's Box and we have crude firearms... so my question is how magical should / could they be? Could there be an omni-barrelled Holy Avenging musket? Or is this the Road to Hell?
  21. Monte Carlo
    Sorry to go over old-ground, Bruce, but there were several fairly astute arguments from the anti side on this subject (on the writing aspect of NPCs) and some fairly made-up-as-they-went-along type guesstimates of how long it takes to write one a few threads back. "Oh, I've figured out it will take a week" was a favourite of mine. As 'Tep has agreed, resources is a valid argument. Please also see MCA's take on this, quoted fairly unambiguously earlier on. He hates them too.
  22. Monte Carlo
    Who said that the AH would make Obsidian slim down the number of NPCs? Wow did you just pull that out of your Magical Bag of Speculation? 8 NPCs is fairly modest. AH was just a feature. I can use both quite happily (sorry to break your IMMERSHUN), like I have in BG2 to make a thief NPC that wasn't useless. AH, unlike romances, is a pretty straightforward feature. Romances impact on content resources for *all* romance enabled NPCs. AH is a nice nod to IWD and many of us, I'm sure, will use it heavily.
  23. Monte Carlo
    I think Romney is a joke and his religion risible. I think Obama is pretty crap too. Poor old America, a country I love. But if one thing grips my **** more than anything else, it's celebrities weighing into politics. Don't care if it's Clint or Joss (although as an artist Clint wipes the floor with Buffy-Boi).
  24. Monte Carlo
    Something wrong with the link, or mebbe the website. Shame as I'm a big fan of Brian's work.
  25. Monte Carlo
    Care to elaborate? Because I view my 'problem' (not needing bogus emotional and / or sexual validation and / or gratification via a virtual digital relationship) as being a pretty healthy one TBH.
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