Nonek

The concept of the Animats and the Engwithan's soul manipulations sound very interesting in Poe, and hopefully they are presented like the Skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts, an unstoppable almost mechanical foe who are extremely hard to put down permanently. That said I agree that most Undead are not the creatures of dread and despair that they should be, merely fodder for a different type of weapon, either crushing or slashing. It's worth noting however that maybe the Undead are not all to be feared, maybe certain souls have simply been able to go on, while their bodies rot and fail. One can imagine an Animat factory, the walls lined with the forms of undying warriors. All lifeless and still, but power yet crackling between them and idling, ready to unleash an army upon the world. Imagine creeping through such a place, shadows leaping and witchlights flickering, watching every which way for any hint of movement or semblance of life. That might be quite interesting and atmospheric if presented correctly, perhaps with the ocassional twitching limb and swivelling head, before inevitably the first Animat steps down from its plinth and a thousand heads turn to behold the players. Personally I wouldn't be against incorporeal Undead whom cannot be killed, merely warded away with fire, spells or perhaps dispersed with cold iron. One can imagine an Alien like situation, all claustrophobic corridors and echoing darkness, where the creature is hunting the party, and they must simply endure and struggle until reaching its resting place. Like the Lich in Upper Dorn's Deep but with more taunting and horror, perhaps a final defence around its tomb while an exorcism is performed.

One has been ruminating on this most troubling matter while masticating various seasonal delights, and I have come to the conclusion that though I do like Aluminiumtrioxid's system i'm also fine with Mr Sawyer's original system, however as a piece of theorycrafting I would like to air my view of a perfect systrem. Might = Strength and Intellect. Reflex = Dexterity and Perception. Fortitude = Constitution and Resolve. Strength as the physical brute side of Power I would have affect melee damage and encumberance, how hard one hits and what they may heft on their back or in their hand. Intellect as the artistic side of the Power spectrum I would have affect critical damage, durations and AOE size, putting ones training and knowledge to good use in a smart manner. Thus the clever duellist and brute have natural favoured attributes. Dexterity I would have affect melee accuracy, this is only logical bearing in mind the terms well known origins. Perception as the interaction of eye and mind speed I would have affect ranged weapon and spell accuracy, as well as base ranged weapon damage. Constitution I would have affect Health and number of inventory slots, the bodys physical limits and what it may comfortably carry. Resolve as sheer grit, ferocity and stubbornness I would have affect base spell damage, healing and stamina. The inner fire if one likes that drives one on when they should fall, and fuels their passions. I'm fine with whatever system is implemented however, and am merely citing these changes as my own personal desires.

Pudding.

Not that fond of the Barbarian as i'd prefer my Brute to be able to go toe to toe with bosses and high value targets rather than killing fodder, however i'm of a similar opinion that this build will probably not be supported. A pity as it seems a fairly common archetype. The Wizard sounds spot on, though i've never fancied wands as they remind me of that bespectacled lad weilding his twig while mouthing pig latin, Harold Trotter?

This should be doable, though I think part of the reason for hitting like sledgehammer will be due to his critical damage bonus rather than raw damage bonus. Hmm, maybe a Cipher in PoE? I don't aim on making the Brute perceptive, in fact somewhat the opposite, perception and intellect will be his dump stats so i'm assuming that he will be a consistent hard hitter because of his massive strength while almost never critting. I don't think the Cipher class would suit my Raistlin type character, he will be extremely weak, most likely not know anything of weapons and disdain their use. The Spellblade description of the Cipher sounds counter intuitive to his central premise, of staying out of trouble and using his fireworks. Thank you for the feedback however.

To me it shall be called Poe forevermore. I think I have stated this opinion before.

Possible archetypes I will most probably design a character around are as follows: 1. A hulking brute of great thews and little culture or intelligence, hits like a sledgehammer due to his high strength and has a natural viciousness and a seemingly innate grasp of combat, perhaps born of a warrior culture or maybe even a simple farmers lad. Is stubborn and hard headed but easily manipulated, usually relies on his strength and toughness to pull him out of any situation. Is an extremely straightforward talker, says what he means and damns the consequences, whether talking to a beggar or a king. 2. A Raistlin like character, whose health is shattered and body wasted away but whose intellect and willpower is as iron. A manipulator and showman, whose cold perceptive eyes are like mirrors, they only show what the beholder wishes to see and nothing of himself. Immaculate manners and a cool calm disposition hide the fires that rage within him.

It means you make strange noises when you sit down or stand up, your knees crackle like an old LP and you either get hair in strange new places or lose what little you had left.

No Mr Dundee, this is a knife!

Fairly much, though the players decided on their own roles as sceptics, initially I was just interested in a setting where a proven deity existed, and how that would impact the world.

"I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own. I resign." When I retire I shall quote Number Six's monologue to my superiors, there is a certain naive brilliance to it.

Well to make the example balanced I would ask what strengths and weaknesses the two gentlemen would have under Mr Sawyer's system? Obviously our dumb brute has to be spending his points somewhere, so I would suggest that he is focusing on strength and constitution, that he is middling with perception and resolve, and as allready established poor with dexterity and intellect. Our other friend is as established dextrous and intelligent, middling in strength and I would suggest perception to complement his dexterity, and therefore by extension poor at constitution and resolve. Putting aside any training and making both gentlemen first level with the exact same basic training, i'm not so sure that the fast and intelligent man would win. He has far less Stamina, he has less health and cannot take as much punishment, and thanks to poor resolve has less bottom and backbone than our brute. Obviously he will be getting hit far less often and dealing out a lot more little hits to the brute, but the brute can take that punishment thanks to far superior health and stamina, and it only takes a blow or two to render the fragile thinker either comatose or routing due to his lack of grit. I would say that that melee would be all down to the luck of the dice. As for Batman, i've never thought of him as being particularly intelligent or seen any indication in media that he is. After all why bother fighting these criminals toe to toe when a Barret .50 would do the job in a far more permanent fashion from half a mile away? Edit: A good point Orogun as usual, but might not the brutes superior resolve make him also a promising student, after all genius is one part inspiration and ninety nine parts perspiration?

I once had a game where a comet appearing in the Solar System heralded an awakening of phsychic power in the inhabitants of Earth. The comet was due to crash into the Earth and all manner of weirdness and doomsday cults were born of this event, including an extremely popular movement claiming that the comet was merely a vessel holding their God, and we were to be blessed with his manifestation. Turned out they were right, but it wasn't divine more diabolic, and when the comet exploded in Earths atmosphere thus releasing it the world changed. Cue magic, high tech, a real and proven God for the masses to worship, and the heroes who were investigating why this being was frozen inside a prison hurled from the other side of the Milky Way. It was pretty nice, somewhat like X-Com crossed with the Spanish Inquisition

Honestly I would say that Ferocity or a similar term would be better to describe a function covering all of those options, perhaps totally ditch Strength of any description as a stat and allow stature to be decided by a trait like in Fallout? Edit: On the subject of a well trained warrior beating a dumb one, isn't training with ones accoutrements a matter of level and experience rather than intellect?

Theoretical spitballing here: I can see why Mr Sawyer chose intelligence for healing and damage, as two sides of the same coin. Where one needs a thorough knowledge of the human body and how it works to heal it, so one can also more effectively destroy it (Living Anatomy Fallout?) However personally I would say that this more equates with critical damage than perception, a stat I would personally use as the damage modifier for ranged weapons. Your dexterity lets you hit them, perception makes sure that it is in the right place. Health I would not tie to strength, i've seen many strong men who are extremely unhealthy but retain their thews. Rather I would disassociate health from stats entirely, with perhaps the exception of resolve in times of stress, and base it upon ones class or even race. However I realise that that is a very big step away from the norm. I would use strength for physical damage in hand to hand combat, but not for inventory as i've always held that it is constitution that allows one to carry great weights over a distance. Strength is more the indicator of whether one may lift that weight to begin with than the endurance of it. Just my tuppence ha'penny on the subject, and mostly aimed at refining my own in house rules for when I re-start a pen and paper campaign. I will say however that I don't envy anyone designing such a system, the fluidity and malleability of English allows many words to carry many meanings to many people and finding one that satisfies the majority will always be a chore one suspects.

Damn, i'm bald and not even fond of pots and pans.

Ah, thank you for the clarification.

I'm reminded of the dentistry scene from the Marathon Man, supposedly a young Dustin Hoffman was telling Laurence Olivier how he has not slept for three days to simulate the mental and physical exhaustion his character was going through. Mr Olivier's response was rather hilarious, "My dear boy, why not try acting!"

I'd prefer magic and mundane physical attacks with weapons to be treated differently. Strength: weapon damage // offsets a % of the action speed penalty when wearing armor for spellcasting Constitution: stamina // health Dexterity: melee & ranged accuracy // accuracy for AoE spells like fireball Perception: affects critical hit damage with weapons // accuracy for non-AoE spells Intellect: affects spell damage and healing // increased DT penetration with weapons Resolve: duration and AoE size The differentiation is achieved and each stat is useful for every class. It would be slightly harder to balance, but that's something that goes together with complexity. In an ideal world I do think this would be a nice way to make a sensible system that straddles the line between the two extremes, I believe that Mr Sawyer is trying to simplify the systems for convenience however. In which case I suppose intelligence is as good a damage mitigater as any other attribute, though I suppose one could argue for almost any of the others as well. Pity that I won't be able to make a big dumb brute character however as I quite liked the Half Ogre playthroughs in Arcanum, but every system has its downsides.

Long ago an English seer beheld the evil dancing that would emanate from the Emerald Isle, thus began the crusade to prevent and contain Riverdance. We failed, that is punishment enough, for the entire world.

True.

Upper right: Cross arms under breasts. Middle right: Pull braid. Lower right: Abduct Rand (again.) Lower left: Start acting like a black veiled Aiel! Middle left: Cough and kill Baalzamon accidentally. Upper left: Realise Lan is Conan (with a Katana.) I'll pass thank you.

I like this, the only problem I would have with it is strength not affecting damage, as that seems to be basic physics. In my homebrew campaign I made strength mandate the damage you did, and weapons simply add bonuses to that (along with some special abilities,) however I can see the sense in training in weapons being the governing factor in being able to best use the weapon. I wonder if the developers have thought of strength only being of use against armour? One suspects a fair amount of heft may be needed for battering through some monstrous scale or battle armour. However I did find the Ivan Drago versus Albert Einstein comment very humorous.

My family still has a grudge against Mr Cromwell for burning down our castle, hooligan. Still I don't think blowing up innocents now would change anything particularly.

Fluffle the Marshmallow was a jolly old fellow. Across hill and dale he wandered, happy and mellow. A kindly soul not wont to bellow. Who when vexed, would play the Cello. Or for the more fearsome disposition: Fluffle the Marshmallow his name he would bellow. As he flew into battle, a vicious pink fellow. Many wars he had known, he was never mellow. There was only one truth, he went well with Jello.