Lord Tingeling

One of the most funny adventure games ever is IMHO Discworld, with Eric Idle (?) as Rincewind. It can be downloaded from Underdogs.

*A nondescript black van pulls up outside of Ender's house*

I *hate* mimics. They really always seem to show up at the worst time possible.

I hate bukkake. The very fact that it's mentioned in this thread (if only in passing) should cue Fionavar into doing what's Right. Oh, and by the way, I bought AI Love You 3 today. I didn't know that you could program a dragon inside a computer and then use a devious "subroutine" to make it come out of the screen and breathe fire at everything. You learn something new every day, I guess. Sigh. Ken Akamatsu. I even used to like him and his works. <_<

Things I remember from those countless bouts of TTT on my PS2 way back when: * Ridiculously long combos. * Eddie was the king of buttonmashing. * Xiaoyu was hot. Seriously. I played this game for quite a long time, enjoyed it, and then switched over to DoA. Never looked back. Tekken is fun, but those mind-numbing 10 hit combos and the even worse grappling combos courtesy of Nina and King were just hell. That, and that I find the pacing of DoA to be far superior to the pacing of Tekken. Still a good game, and Tekken Ball (which sadly wasn't included in TTT) owned all. Good game that's given me quite a lot of good fun through the years. But then again, I had a rather good sparring partner in my friend- it would've gotten dull fast without him.

I'll sooner buy World of Warcraft d20 than that crap.

No, not really. They really have difficulties within hotel hell and against some bosses, for example. Against most enemies, however, their damage potential is, as you say, huge, easily on par with Brujah (though Brujah have more useful defensive disciplines making them better for combat, still). Yeah, most combat levels apart from the sewers and King's Road have cattle or hobos strewn about, or simply enemies you can drain the blood of. However, seeing as obfusecate is next to worthless in, for example, the hotel level, I said that clans with it were underpowered in said levels. Nossies with potency require melee range to actually use it, something that is quite difficult to attain without taking massive damage inside said level. They have animalism for those instant kills, sure, but they only work against the peons, IIRC, the vampires only take damage. Same goes with Malkavians. Using dementation/animalism for damagedealing is not very economical when it comes to blood usage/damage ratio, either. That's why I said those clans were underpowered. While they excel in levels where they can use their disciplines to their fullest, there are levels where they are almost left without any usable disciplines at all. Out of said levels, however, they are extremely powerful, as you duly noted. Tremere can simply blast away inside said levels without having to worry about their blood level overmuch, however. Notice that I did say Toreador, as well. If we are to measure "power" as simply raw hitting power, then I made a mistake and can see nothing wrong with your standpoint. My use of said word is usually interchangeable with "difficult" in this context. He's not very difficult, seeing as his attack pattern is extremely predictable, and thus, very easy to evade compared to less "powerful" enemies such as hunters equipped with STEYR AUGs (provided you're a non-stealth clan, at which evading and killing them becomes very easy). I'm somewhat hard pressed for time right now, so I'll adress the other points when I get home.

Remember "haksthumbsup", anyone?

When you say 'enough', enough for what purpose...?

Predators were extremely cheesy in AvP2. Those duels me and my mates had were... madness. Especially seeing as a said plasma shot is *homing* on top of everything. Nobody that used that weapon for long became very liked, that's for sure. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The plasma shot was homing? I thought just the boomerang was. Been a while since I played the game. Alien tag was the best (with no preds) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The shoulder mounted canon was indeed homing, provided you used the correct visor when targeting, IIRC.

Predators were extremely cheesy in AvP2. Those duels me and my mates had were... madness. Especially seeing as a said plasma shot is *homing* on top of everything. Nobody that used that weapon for long became very liked, that's for sure.

Yes, obviously. And Morrowind is so different because... uh... you can cast said generic spell and then proceed to cast another similarly generic spell AT THE SAME TIME. Who would have thunk it?

Eh? Apart from the dodge/soak bonuses that potence confers, if you're looking for damage, potence isn't really economical due to the higher costs disciplines have unless you for some reason want to go above the normal cap for melee up til 15 with potence. And that would entail giving up *a lot* of xp for quite small gains, all things considered. Clans with celerity or fortitude will fare better than those without, seeing as Celerity will simply let you dodge bullets and fortitude protects from both the shotguns of the Sabbath and the claws of the warform vampires within. What's the saying? Assuming will make an ass out of you and me? Regardless, please show me where in this thread I've commented on the usefulness of, say, dominate or fortitude? Seeing as I "apparently" consider them to be crap, I'm rather curious as to what you base this upon. Oh, sorry, my bad. I forgot you were "uber". Just couldn't resist, sorry. Blood shield simply makes for a much better melee fighter than one equipped with potence, seeing as the benefits of potence apart from the soak/dodge do not come into play until you max both melee and strength. I find the above reasoning interesting, really, but you're right. I can see the error of my ways now. Please excuse me while open NWN and BGII just to delete all the defensive spells from my spellbook, seeing as "the idea is to not get hit at all". Against enemies such as the gargoyle with a predictable attack pattern, not getting hit is easy, fair enough. Against multiple katana-wielding hobos, it's rather impossible without using save/reload very frivolously. And that money can easily be spent on ammo for a ranged fighter, instead. Why use consumables when you can simply drain somebody elses' blood? And elder vitae, last I checked, is quite expensive and not in unlimited supply until Ming Must Die. Oh, they're underpowered compared to Brujah or Toreador, seeing as said classes can simply gun down anything without fear of getting hit themselves. And Malks are hardly the only ones with instant kills. A certain other clan with Blood Boil comes to mind, with the only difference that said clan has a means to use said skills almost constantly without having to rely on blood packs. I always fall back on that clan when I'm bored with the others. Obfusucate is, as you say, very powerful. But only in certain situations. Against the Chang brothers, neither dementation nor Obfusecate is of much use, for example. Yes, of course. And on the same note, so does clan Gangrel and clan Nosferatu. Now, I believe, we're somewhat even. No. But those telltale sparks coming from the barrels before he ignites them is usually enough to make me move a few feet to avoid getting burned to crisp. I don't know, perhaps I somehow share a dislike for agonizing, fiery deaths with my bloodsucking alter ego on the screen, enough to actually make me try to avoid said attack? What was it you said, now again? Ah yes, the idea is to not get hit at all. If that constitutes being "leet", I wonder what managing to, say, jump when the Sheriff does his sideways swipe constitues? Being UBER HAXXOR OMGOOMG LOLOLOL? I'm not all that familiar with your use of l33t lingo, so please, enlighten me. What "reasoning", may I ask? I said nothing except for that the Tremere in question was easy. If you equate this to saying that no enemy in the game is hard, then I guess I could take your "reasoning" to its extreme by saying that thinking a zombie to be easy would equate to, by definition, saying that no enemy in the game is powerful.

Somehow, considering that these guys did PPM, that doesn't exactly suprise me.

Malkavians have the same discipline, with the added bonus of Dementation and that they can actually talk their way through all quests. Obfusecate is worthless in the combat situations that count. Especially seeing as some vampires, werewolves and most supernatural creatures can see through obfusecate, by the way. So it won't be useful in Hotel hell or whatever that level was named- which is coincidentially one of the most combat-heavy levels in the game. It's useful for avoiding combat- but it isn't useful *in* combat. And when fighting (some) vampires, it doesn't do jack squat. No, they're not. Blood shield *will* and *does* absord quite a lot of damage in HtH combat. Blood Boil is somewhat useful, and the blood drain ability is quite useful in a pinch. The underpowered clans are Gangrel (where animalism is the only viable discipline, really) and, to some extent, Malkavians and Nosferatu. Even so, I still prefer Malkavians simply due to the fact that they own. Wheter a clan is underpowered or not depends SOLELY on disciplines. And Blood Magic is MILES ahead of Protean, for example. He's not powerful. He dies like a little ninny, and you really have to be either blind or incapacitated to not manage to avoid those trash-can fires he arranges. Just shoot his lackeys, sneak up the stairs, and then lay a hit or two on him and he's gone.

Bloodshield is very useful, especially at earlier levels. Blood boil is also useful, and some other skill I can't remember the name of also restores blood to the caster. If you want an underpowered, clan, Nosferatu or Gangrel is the way to go. And my tremeres are usually casters AND talkers AND melee/ranged specialists. Any clan should have put five points into either firearms/pe or melee and so on.

Streaker, your end is in sight! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You deserve to have your entrails removed for that lame, lame pun.

Underpowered? Nah. Blood Magic is a very good tree, and while Tremere generally aren't as powerful as the clans with Celerity, they're still very good. The real gimps in combat are the Nosferatu and Gangrel, I'd say. Protean sux in Bloodlines. :/

To answer the first assessment, no, I do not. You're simply "reading between the lines", and doing so in a rather inacurrate manner to boot. Regarding your second assessment, you're dead wrong. Completed both expansions with numerous characters, and spent a few too many weekends with that game than what I would have wanted to, in hindsight. Yes, they do. And D&D has those effects, and more. Many more. Especially if you expand your horizons beyond the PHB. Here's some spells from BG2 with unique effects not mentioned above, for example: Timestop. Simulacrum. Spell trigger. Spell Sequencer. Stoneskin. Skull Trap. Polymorph Other/Self. Any continous AoE spell. Mirror Image. Improved Alacricity. Imprisonment. Disintegrate/Finger of Death/Power Word: Die and similar spells. And finally... Goodberries, the best spell in the saga. This assessment is faulty, regardless of wheter you choose to count summoning spells in a single category (Gate and Summon creature IX being the same thing) or not.

Thief > all.

Unique spell effects, you say? The spells themselves are unique. Sure, there are ones that trap, ones that damage, etc, but I wouldn't put the damagedealing effects in a single category, nor would I do so with web/entangle/hold person, for example. That said, if I were to combine several effects into one effect and name it "damage" and so on, MW's effect selection would be more meager than it already is if it was submitted to the same treatment. Truly unique? Not the choice of words I'd use. To say that lightning/fire/ice/damage health are unique apart from the sound/animation they produce would really stretch the definition of the word well past what's normal. Yes, you can modify the paramaters of said effects, and you can combine them into one. Now, where is the vast arrays of *unique effects*, then? Changing parameters doesn't really make a compelling argument for the effects themselves being varied. Likewise, I wouldn't say that my fireball is another fireball if I level up and choose spell focus: evocation, even though the added DC and damage dice makes it somewhat different. The parameters have changed, but the spell itself has not. And you know, there are such things as spell triggers and spell sequencers in AD&D. Thus, if I combine timestop and gate, it's not really timestop + gate anymore, it's a whole new spell! Or maybe not.

Do I? You see, I wasn't referring to combinations of effects, I was referring to the effects themselves. Such as levitate, open, lock, etc. While there's admittedly thousands of things I can do with the magic system, the variation is still not present, I'd say. Sure, I can make a spell that silences something for five seconds (using the standard green glob animation), or I can make a frostbolt that deals area damage (using the frost crystal animation). But the fun doesn't stop there! I can, if I were so inclined, make a spell that silences and freezes, using the standard (and only) illusion animation coupled with the standard frost animation! Madness! I can make fireballs, I can make frost balls, I make make fire AND frost balls... but in the end, said spell isn't really another spell. It's just the same spell with marginally different properties. I actually prefer a system with lots of varied and unique spells such as Timestop, entangle to the (unbalanced) crap that is MW's magic system.

The magic system in morrowind was the most boring evar. But then again, what's there to except when you have a dozen or so spell effects total?