FlintlockJazz

If the choice of background has an impact throughout the game then I might be open to it, but if it's going to be more like DAO where the choice of origin is pretty much meaningless after Ostagar and just serves to highlight just how railroaded the game is (most games are railroaded to some degree, but there is no need to rub it in my face) and contrived to get you to the same starting place while limiting your choice of background as a result then a definite no from me. The loss of one thing should be done in order to gain something else, if that makes sense: if I lose the choice of character background for my character then I expect it to be done in order to benefit the story or because I'm playing a pregen like Geralt with a full history and fully fleshed out personality with the story crafted to it. It's why, once the novelty had worn off, the Shepards and Hawks are really a bad thing to me, they lose out on the choice of being defined by me while not gaining enough of their own personality from the background forced on me by the developers. In short, they suffer the drawbacks of both extremes while gaining none of the benefits.

On a side note, which portraits did people like better: Baldur's Gate 1 or Baldur's Gate 2 portraits? I always found I liked most of BG1's portraits more than I liked BG2's, for some reason the latter seemed more amateurly (is that a woord? Do I care?) done. Proportions seemed wrong and they overdid it with the "braids for everyone!" motif.

Something like that. I think I tried to change it months ago and then could never get back in. Now I can't even find the site.... Yes, I can be that useless at times! I'm just hoping the guy who was making the heraldry for people doesn't think I'm ignoring him or something, not been able to get in to see if he responded at all. Maybe I entered my email address in wrong... I'm gonna go shoot myself now.

Bloody Poms, watch who you call an Aussie, yes? Technically, she's only a pom if she's British living in Australia...

I came to a shocking realisation when playing the Baldur's Gate games with mods. With the BGTutu and NPC banter mods, I not only enjoyed BG1 degrees more than I used to, but I actually liked it more than 2. With playing BG2 with fresh eyes, I realised something: I did not actually enjoy the main plotline. On the contrary, I actually 'put up with' the main plot line in order to get at the more interesting and (in my humble opinion) better written sidequests. I actually stopped playing at the Asylum dungeons on my last playthrough because it got me so bored, and I never did enjoy the linear railroad that is Throne of Bhaal. I'm not someone who normally prefers exploration and random sidequests, the TES games are not something I would prefer for instance despite being all about exploration and sidequests, and so back before the mods when I used to prefer BG2 to BG1 I thought it must be because of the focus of the main story and whatnot, but really it was both: the sensation of exploring a well-written world. With the NPC banter pack to make the NPCs feel alive BG1 conveys the sense that you are leading a band of adventurers bimbling across the countryside looking for danger and excitement better than BG2. BG2 still wins out on many of its more interesting sidequests, but when you actually think about the main storyline itself, aside from some (overrated in my opinion, please don't shoot me) acting by Irenicus there isn't really that much to it...

Just to let my fellow Orderites know the White Rabbit is still around. Not been able to log into the Order website for some time now (months in fact), my password is fnarkled or something...

Been away for a while but back now baby! Loving the ideas in this thread, particularly the pollaxe love. As to light concealable armour, I would go with brigandine, would link pics but on my phone at the mo, pretty much leather with metal plates riveted to the inside and worn as the height of fashion at court.

wolves are social animals that know their place in the pack, I would say that requires enough self-awareness that you can call them sentient.I don't think you mean with sentience what is meant by sentience. Aye, the belief that sentience is a human-only quality in the real world is a sadly common misconception. To those unaware of it, many different species are demonstrably self aware and that quality is not what separates humans from other animals, it is sapience: the capability for judgement and abstract thought.

Not true actually, a suit of light plate will be lighter and easier to wear than mail or leather while providing a better defense, its why the invention of plate was such a game changer for warfare and everyone wanted a suit of the stuff, including spanish explorers such as the ever famous conquisitadors. A side note: plate mail is factually incorrect term, mail is the name of what people often refer to as chain mail while plate is just called plate. Plate mail doesn't really mean anything.

I'm not a fan of differentiating between the styles with damage and defense, as that usually relegates shield users as just tanks. All styles should be capable to be built as equally offensive as the player wants, should instead base it around different utiity. Isn't that whole argument defeated by the fact that the very game you use to describe what JRPGs are like is... not a JRPG? Additionally while you may not like the aesthetic clearly a great many people do (even amongst IE fans; bastards weren't exactly small and female elves were the definition of super strong 100lb supermodels) so why should Failion be the one to find a different genre and not you? Because there are plenty of games that cater to Failion's tastes already while the rest of us find fewer and fewer games as everyone jumps on the anime bandwagon?

We actually know a good deal about what the plot/goal would have been. Wiki has a summary on it, gathered from various interviews with the devs back in the day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate_III:_The_Black_Hound Thing is, I'm not sure what the point would have been to call it BG3, beyond the obvious marketing/sales benefit of doing so. Because it otherwise isn't even remotely related to the first two games in plot or setting. As Apatia pointed out thats the Black Isle version. They were going to call that one BG3 because they only had the rights to make D&D games if they used the BG name, same reason why Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries wasn't called Mechwarrior 3 as the company only had the rights to Mechwarrior 2 (yeah its all a blag to get around rights).

Good point about the matchlock odor. If you read my incredibly long post on page 2, I go into why an arquebus would have the advantage in accuracy. Long story short, it mainly has to do with the increased projectile drop of the bows and crossbows requiring you to aim significantly above the target, thus breaking your line of sight. Plus, when fire is plunging down it's easier to miss by aiming just a little too high or too low. With the flatter trajectory of a gun you can just aim straight at the person's head and still hit their body over quite a distance. Guns would not be used fot sharpshooting in this time period. While they have flatter trajectories their accuracy was poor due to the fact that the bullet would leave the barrel in an unpredictable direction, meaning that the ball wouldn't head in the direction you were pointing. Thats why they would fire in blocks, since then you don't need to aim. Sharpshooters only came about with the invention of rifling the barrel (where the name rifle comes from) which allowed accurate shots but the early ones had the problem of becoming fouled. They were not common and most people used smoothbores, which could not be used for sharpshooting. You wouldn't use an arquebus for sharpshooting as it was a smoothbore. When did I say that smoothbore guns were used for "sharpshooting"? It's not that these guns were used for sharpshooting, since they weren't super accurate. They were just more accurate than the bow/crossbow. Sharpshooting didn't exist until the rifled barrel. (If you want to be technical, "sharpshooting" didn't exist until the Sharps Rifle was used in the American Civil War, but that's just being pedantic). Crossbows and bows are not more accurate than a smoothbore gun. They have similar deflection-at-origin problems (not traveling in a perfectly straight line from the barrel/stock/bow when fired). In addition to this, the higher angles of fire and slower projectile trajectories make accurate shooting of bows and crossbows more difficult. Sorry it was Diagoras who wrote that, thought I was talking to the same person awkward to keep track on a phone. Bows are more accurate than smoothbore, hence why they were used for hunting and still used alongside guns for so long along with their higher rate of fire. The advantage of guns back then was that they were easier to train people up to use, not requiring the building of specific muscles and could do more damage, penetrating plate at close enough range.

Good point about the matchlock odor. If you read my incredibly long post on page 2, I go into why an arquebus would have the advantage in accuracy. Long story short, it mainly has to do with the increased projectile drop of the bows and crossbows requiring you to aim significantly above the target, thus breaking your line of sight. Plus, when fire is plunging down it's easier to miss by aiming just a little too high or too low. With the flatter trajectory of a gun you can just aim straight at the person's head and still hit their body over quite a distance. Guns would not be used fot sharpshooting in this time period. While they have flatter trajectories their accuracy was poor due to the fact that the bullet would leave the barrel in an unpredictable direction, meaning that the ball wouldn't head in the direction you were pointing. Thats why they would fire in blocks, since then you don't need to aim. Sharpshooters only came about with the invention of rifling the barrel (where the name rifle comes from) which allowed accurate shots but the early ones had the problem of becoming fouled. They were not common and most people used smoothbores, which could not be used for sharpshooting. You wouldn't use an arquebus for sharpshooting as it was a smoothbore. This is set during the wheellock era, by Word of God. Sharpshooter/irregulars did use smoothbore weapons. And rifling was invented in about 1490, while the wheellock (and thus, P:E) was about 1520-1530. High quality firearms, including smoothbores, could pull off accurate shots. The inaccuracy of fire had more to do with the combined inaccuracy of most levies and the poor quality of their weapons. Applying expectations based on arquebus levies to various elite firearm users is like judging all melee combat by the effectiveness of peasant levies. You made the claim that arquebuses would have the advantage in accuracy, which is not true. I clarified the situation that most guns would not, especially not arquebuses. As to the time period, PE does not have the printing press which was invented in the 1400s and guns are viewed as curios so we have no guarantee that rifling has been work out yet.

I'm sorry but no to this completely, especially the create a role just for her bit, its that kind of utter bull**** that I hate in modern games. No offense, but take it and shove it, thats how strongly I hate shoehorning people into games to appease fanboys, and people like Claudia Black ruins games for me now since she has been overexposed and I immediately recognise it (and thats not a good thing...).

Good point about the matchlock odor. If you read my incredibly long post on page 2, I go into why an arquebus would have the advantage in accuracy. Long story short, it mainly has to do with the increased projectile drop of the bows and crossbows requiring you to aim significantly above the target, thus breaking your line of sight. Plus, when fire is plunging down it's easier to miss by aiming just a little too high or too low. With the flatter trajectory of a gun you can just aim straight at the person's head and still hit their body over quite a distance. Guns would not be used fot sharpshooting in this time period. While they have flatter trajectories their accuracy was poor due to the fact that the bullet would leave the barrel in an unpredictable direction, meaning that the ball wouldn't head in the direction you were pointing. Thats why they would fire in blocks, since then you don't need to aim. Sharpshooters only came about with the invention of rifling the barrel (where the name rifle comes from) which allowed accurate shots but the early ones had the problem of becoming fouled. They were not common and most people used smoothbores, which could not be used for sharpshooting. You wouldn't use an arquebus for sharpshooting as it was a smoothbore.

This should be difficulty based. I don't want my party to miss too much or be all critically dangerous to themselves on Easy up to Normal, whilst on Hard and Expert it should be noticeably different. Could the Rogue+Cipher have the ability to critical hit in "darkness"/shadows, whilst the rest of the classes can only deal normal damage in "darkness"/shadows? The Rogue should be accustomed to darkness, regardless if having a nightvision thing~ or not. So if darkness is going to be penalizing somehow, I would like to see the Rogue (and other shadow curious classes, e.g., Cipher) not get as much penalties. I am including the Cipher in the sentence because I see it possibly having an Assassin Kit more so than the Rogue having it (I see the Rogue having a Thief Kit). Put it that way a cipher assassin would indeed be rather awesome. I still think the 'traditional' assassin using daggers and such could work better as a rogue, but I also think a ranger or even a fighter skilled in stealth would work just as well if not better as an assassin too. I could easily see sneak attack being a part of the ranger's favored enemy benefits as well.

Honestly I hope they don't do it like that, it's been done in so many games and they can never get the balance right, usually favoring dualwielding. If they really must have it that "Greatswords give moar damage!" and the like then I hope they mix it up a bit, such as giving two-handers greater reach as well (if formations matter then reach will then be useful), shields should not just be 'the tank' option but be used as a weapon as well as for defence, (and no, it won't be 'unbalanced', sword and shield will give increased damage and defence, greatsword would give increased damage and reach, done right it would be fine) dualwielding I honestly can't think of an advantage that using a shield wouldn't also logically give better (going all-out attack without a shield is suicide but I suppose some people will want it for the 'cool' factor though I personally don't think it's cool so can't be bothered to come up with one for them, insert whatever you want for them here), and single 1-handed weapons should give the benefit of a free hand for things like grappling (which is already confirmed not to be likely to be in the game unfortunately), spellcasting etc. Completely unrelated opinion here, but I just don't see the appeal of dualwielding personally, and seeing a character in a game dualwielding just makes me eyeroll as they are usually the character that thinks he's cool or something and when I see one charging me my first thought is always "Why can't I just smash the guy down with the shield? He doesn't have any means of stopping me and hasn't got the reach to keep out of range! Oh right, because people think shields are only for defense..." but I suppose everyone has their own tastes. Shame the poll doesn't reflect that by giving people the option to say "I don't like them/don't want them" though.

Where's the option for no dualwielding. Seriously, dualwielding just pisses me off these days with how munchkinny and stuff. Plus, if you think shields are for more defensive fighting then rethink: 16lbs of wood being smashed into your face is damn offensive. Shields were used as much as a weapon as any other weapon, and it reduced the need to fight defensively allowing the fighter to be more aggressive. Fencing is two letters away from defencing for a reason, without a shield you focus more on defense than attacking...

Few of us are teenagers still, I bet. He was good the first couple of times. But the constant clamoring for Minsc or Boo can get pretty grating. I don't think I was a teenager the first time I played BG all those years ago... God I feel old now.

While having a bonus for wilderness stealth could work I wouldn't want them to only be able to stealth in natural environments, that just seems arbitrary and senseless to me. I would also actually like the possibility of city-rangers to be a possibility like the stalker kit in BG2, since they would work well as bounty hunters and can easily see a 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' style ranger with his little mongrel dog following after him while he seeks bond-jumpers in city ghettos.

See, that choice is kinda what I'm arguing for. While I don't know how effective that skirmish option was, if they made sneak attack an option rather than there by default it would make for more possible rogues that could fit different playstyles. Want to be the backstabbing assassin? Then you can take the Assassin branch and develop things like sneak attack, but if you want to be a pirate instead you could take the 'YARR' branch instead that gives you other skills like dirty fighting techniques! Yeah, I agree totally, I think the rogue does need some serious reworking because as it stands, for a 'core' class it's rather limited and situational at the moment compared to the other core classes (Fighter, Priest and Mage).

Honestly? Nothing. I am deliberately avoiding thinking too much about it because I know that if I start coming up with preconceptions about how the class may work in the hopes that it will make me more open to whatever they turn out to be. Until I know more of the world itself and how they will fit into it then I am going to keep my brain empty.

A bit of a thread necro I know but I been thinking (gasp the horror!) and I reckons I got what it is that's been a bugging me about these here rogues and the issues I been having with them. First off, the sneak attack thing: if the only thing you can bring to combat is a sneak attack then that's not good enough. If you're only playing one character or if everyone can sneak attack then it's fine, since you can focus completely on it if it's your only character or take advantage of it with whatever character happens to get into the right position, but when it's specific to one character and you're controlling a whole party I have to say I question whether it's worth the effort half the time: it doesn't provide a tactical advantage to the whole team, it's only a bonus to the rogue, and it takes a lot of planning just for that one guy, whose taking up a space that could have been used for another frontline fighter or spellcaster. For me, sneak attack is often just not worth the bother and the rogue being required to have it means that for the sake of balance between the classes he probably doesn't get to have some other ability that I would appreciate more. Plus, sneak attack being a required part of the class in most systems means you are often not able to play them as pirates or Errol Flynn type swashbuckler without essentially ignoring a part of the class' features and gimping yourself (because they just can't compete then with a fighter in a straight up fight). Now you are probably saying that that sounds like more of a dex-based fighter anyway and should play it like that anyway, and you'd be right, but then we come to the second problem: the rogues usually have exclusive domain over lockpicking and trapfinding, if you want to use either of those skills you are forced to bring one of them along. I realised this when trying to create a Storm of Zehir party, if I wanted a trapfinder I needed to take a rogue. Now, that might sound like normal niche protection, but that's not the case: if you don't want a fighter to fulfill the martial side of things you can always resort to a monk or paladin or ranger instead, sure they have different styles of fighting but that's the point you have a bit of variety, while if you want a spellcaster you can always go with the standard mage but you could also go with sorcerer or bard instead. Finding traps? Nope, the rogue is sat on it picking his snotty nose, despite the fact that other classes such as the ranger would have perfectly valid reasons for needing trapfinding skills as guerilla warriors. This usually ends up with either rogues not being taken because the game doesn't want to force you to take a rogue or them being essential and so you are forced to take a rogue whether you like it or not. Why can't a fighter built like a pirate have open locks and trapfinding? You may say that you can, just play a fighter with a level of rogue, but then that involves multiclassing, which can be pain if you're not playing human in D&D (and multiclassing is not confirmed for PE) and still involves, guess who, the rogue! Now this might sound like a rant against rogues, but it's not. The point that I am trying to make is that as it stands the rogue doesn't bring anything to the table for me that helps the party in combat, he's a weak fighter at best, while only allowing the rogue to take trapfinding and open locks only makes me need to take a rogue not want to take a rogue (assuming the game even makes valid use of them). I want to want to take a rogue the same way I might want to take a paladin or cipher, not for the privilege of opening a few chests or so that my party doesn't walk into every trap on the way.

A lot of people I know are both, and I've been looking to get into re-enacting myself.

You mean the film Role Models was actually right in regards to US larp?? I thought they were just exaggerating, bloody hell! And here I was thinking that larp here in the UK was bad compared to the rest of the world... Still, guess they do what they enjoy I suppose, I'd still have expected some more understanding between the types of roleplayers but then I am hopelessly naive. :D It does explain some of the stuff I hear being thrown around here in regards to larp.