Merin

Yup. A paladin is basically a warrior or knight that can cast a few divine spells and also has auras, etc. They are quite different. A Paladin is a very good fighter too. Clerics/priests are not. Hey! A yo momma D&D class / combat powa comparison. A 3E Fighter / Cleric trumps a paladin of an equivalent level every time. Gah. Multi-classing, especially 3E multi-classing, shouldn't be used as reasoning for not including a class.

I'm going to be a broken record here. When the question is asked, I always push for new. Bards and Paladins aren't new. The classes we already have announced aren't new either, but that's a lost battle for me. I've only played one computer fantasy roleplaying game that had psionics in it, so as far as I'm concerned that's pretty exciting. I'm not against using classics, don't get me wrong. But if we only have two possible classes left, I want to see something I haven't seen as much before. I'll still be excited and hopeful for the game if all the classes and races are things I've seen before. So until that's set in stone, I'm going to push for new things. Because if I can carve out just a tiny little hole where there's a four-armed insectoid race or playable blob and a class where the theme is throwing furniture or long-distance spitting, I'll be ecstatic. Not to say that I should derail this thread with nay-saying. But you asked why not. Let me clarify something, too, that wouldn't be knowable at all in this discussion - I'd rather PE be as far from D&D as possible. Magic system, how "gods" fit in the world, as well as races and classes. We don't have that, however. We have a very D&D-esque, homage-to-Tolkien game being designed. At least in the fantasy tropes. I'd rather it hadn't been this way. But it IS this way. So, since we have a pseudo-vancian system (spell books or queues or however it ends up working, that have to swapped out to have access to different packages of spells), and we have elves and dwarves, and we see the "druid, monk, psion, barbarian and ranger" tropey-trope classes... ...since we are already here... ... I'll advocate for the tropey-trope classes that are missing that I feel are core and I like. Paladin has been a class for D&D more consistently and longer than barbarian, monk or psion. It's no more "a subset of cleric/fighter" than druid is a subset of "ranger/cleric." So I'm with you on wanting original and unique. But we aren't getting it. We're getting elves, dwarves, clerics, druids, etc., etc.

And that's fine. As it is fine if they had made barbarians a sub-class of fighter, ciphers a sub-class of mages, rangers a subclass of rogues and druids a sub-class of clerics. It can be done. But there are stretch goals for all the sub-classes - why not one more for bards and paladins? I don't understand the resistance, except for those who "hate bards and paladins." I don't get it. If bards and paladins don't fit Obsidian's vision, that's one thing. That hasn't been said by Obsidian, though. If they would have stuck to 4 core and just had "builds" under them, that'd be great. But Obsidian has very blatantly opened the the door to more specialized classes - druids, monks, ciphers, barbarians, rangers... ... the door is open to specialized sub-classes. There's no real sense to wanting to close it now.

I disagree. Vehemently. Thanks for you extensive contribution to the conversation. He's asking me to be more verbose. I do not believe he understands what a favor it was for me to be quite terse and to the point.

I disagree. Vehemently.

So many meh stretch goals to get past to the one I want. I want the 2.6!

If we don't need paladins, then we don't need ciphers or druids or barbarians or rangers. And the truth is, with the "core four", you don't need those others. But we want them. For role-playing and specialization rules. It's not "we want to swing a sword and worship a god" nonsense.

Wizardry had a lot of Sci-Fi. Which did you play? Wizardry and Ultima had a lot of sci-fi. Mixing fantasy and sci-fi WAS old school cRPG. You know, what was old school before Baldur's Gate was even conceived of.

That's bull****. Why? Seriously why? Do you need some kind of war with them. What do you care if they reuse the Obsidian design ESPECIALLY WHEN OBSIDIAN ITSELF SUPPORTS THE PROJECT. What is wrong with you people? I don't get it, either. When PE came out there were plenty of "they need to give more information" geniuses and "this was poorly started" intellectuals. As if there's some guidebook on how to do it, how much information must be shared, what constitutes... you know what... people just want to whine and complain. People want something to mock. People like to attack something to feel better about what they like or themselves. It's silly and pointless. I just hope brainiacs like these people don't actually affect the rest of us who like the project and want to see it succeed.

Where did you see that? Not that I mind, mind you. Just didn't see that mentioned anywhere on the pledge tiers. I wouldn't be in that group... but I'd still be for it.

If they fit the world that Obsidian is creating (and with clerics, druids, ciphers and rogues... I can't see why not) then I'd really like to see bards and especially paladins as well. If they can squeeze out one more stretch goal, and they have the place in their story for it, I'd like to see these classes added.

I chuckled when I saw this. I'm a Catholic, but I like to play sober fast talking mages. lol When I was in junior high and high school, one of my friends' parents (a hard charging holy roller) told me I'd go to hell if I played DnD. I don't think that attitude is prevalent today, but it sure as hell was a lot more common back in the day. I come from a Catholic family and my mom wasn't QUITE there (I played at friends houses who had parents or grandparents who DID and would preach at us!), but she did say she worried I'd get in with a bad crowd. I kept pointing to the knight with the holy symbol killing the demons and said "but mom I'm playing a saint!" to try and ease her mind. In a fantasy setting I think clerics, paladins and gods are fascinating. I love Greek myths... I don't let my personal real-world view, for example, make me unable to enjoy Dragonlance and find Fizban a fun character.

Yeah, I'm an atheist but my favorite class to play is paladin, go figure. I'd like to see a paladin stretch goal!

Yeah, I'm an atheist, but if the fictional world has established gods and the characters of that world have regular examples of their gods existing, being an atheist is pretty silly. Now being someone who chooses to not worship the gods despite knowing they exist, that's absolutely doable and should probably be as often an option as being able to play evil.

And, yeah, it came across as elitist. What you call cherry-picking, which means selectively choosing stuff, usually out of context, and ignoring other evidence... ... I actually would call trying to quote all the relevant stuff and give it context. For example - cherry-picking would underlining the point you did to imply that I want non-pledgers to be shut out or ignored. Instead of, you know, seeing where I specifically said that they should still have the public forums and have the developers engaging with them. And I stand firmly by the statement that if you aren't backing the game, have no intention of backing the game, that you should not be causing trouble for those of us who are considering backing or already did. Would it be my right to go on a Call of Duty forum and state my dislike of FPS games and modern day military settings? Sure. Should I go over there and @#%@ in their cornflakes for no good reason other than to stir up trouble? No, I should be rightly warned and, if I ignore the warnings, banned. But that's fine... you can view my statements in whatever light you wish. And not respond to me. But don't expect me to leave unanswered an attempt to misconstrue my intents.

I've not read the full update yet, just watched the video... but I just about fainted when they "confirmed" the Adventurer's Hall. We MUST reach that stretch goal! I have to sell some crap to raise some money to send Obsidian more.

Ha! If nothing else, watching these forums the last couple weeks should let you know there are some very staunch supporters of Vancian. Talk of D&D Next also showed me how much D&D fans love Vancian. It certainly has it's supporters. Don't despair!

I said - Which is to say that they keep what they have, but when they start asking "do you want X or Y" (if they ever go that route), then it should only be for backers. If someone didn't back it, they don't get to be part of that conversation. I'm sorry if that comes across as elitist on some level, but I really think that's the best way to dial down a bunch of the static. If you pledged to the game, you want it to succeed and are somewhat invested and have shown that you care. It takes nothing to make an account on a forum and try and just troll. I should make a correction, though - the "pledgers only" forums tends to be a post-KS-campaign thing, and that's what I meant. Even if I wish people who weren't ever planning on pledging would just, you know, not post in the forum of the game they don't want anything to do with. And then ban people for "trolling" Yeah, if there's anything the BSN does right, its much better at dealing with trolls.

It's not just that I don't know them (although that's a big part of it), but also that something doesn't quite feel right about that Kickstarter. It most definitely is inspired more by Project Eternity than by Wasteland 2 or Double Fine -- they copied much of the page structure. Also, rather than presenting something and waiting to see if people will give them $1M, they've planned out the stretch goals past $2M. It's sort of the opposite problem that Obsidian had (the latter hit their goal almost immediately and had to scramble to come up with stretch goals). Oh, for the love of... do you know how many Kickstarter campaigns there are? How many video game ones, even? How many successful ones have already come and gone? They are "copying" PE as much as PE copied other KS campaigns. ... People are all over the place everywhere, all acting like "experts" on how Kickstarter campaigns should be run. "Project Eternity started off bad. Project Eternity didn't give enough information. They still aren't. Their stretch goals are wrong. Why are they offering X, it won't work." "Project Eternity started a new trend! Everyone is copying it for how good it is." Seriously. PE is doing fine, but didn't break the mold. "An Old School RPG" looks as much like PE's as it looks like Jane Jensen's or Diesel Sweetie's or the Ouya or the Pebble. There will be structural similarities. And when dealing with similar subject matter, there will be similar things referenced. All the Kickstarter arm-chair quarterbacks out there....

Really. I think one of my pet peeves right now in these forums are the people who say they haven't pledged, and then some combination of words like "won't rule out cool downs" happen and they make a bigger huff about definitely not pledging now. Another pet peeve would be the ones who say "I already knew long ago I wasn't going to back this project" and then they still start threads and make numerous posts trying to shoot down what they don't like and promote what they do. As pledgers we don't have a say... but Obsidian is listening anyway, by their choice, and will shave some edges off here and there based on what they feel the community wants. In the end, they will make their game, but when it comes to things they aren't sure which way they should go to please their audience, they'll look to the forums. Like other Kickstarter campaigns I wish there was a "pledgers only" forum so they could take the temperature of people who put their money where they mouth is. Of course keep the public forums open and engage with the general public.... ... but for that temperature taking? Pledgers only, please.

Uhm... If anyone deserves credit, it's the one-two punch of Order of the Stick followed by Double Fine Adventure. Maybe the knock-out blow was Wasteland 2. Project Eternity is actually coming in a bit late to the game. "An Old School RPG" looks good to me. I'm at the min pledge right now (more due to lack of money than anything) but as more is released I may up when I can. Page looks fine to me, especially for a first day. If anything, I think they put up too many stretch goals too early and have their "limited" tiers too big in number. Too much information up front.

2nd option for me. Since we are having pre-made companions for a party based game, I want them to generally follow the same rules as I can for making my character... but there should be a special "something" for my character that the NPCs can't have, and each companion can have something special as well. I wouldn't be unhappy with option 1, but 2 is what I'm used to and like.

Yeah, I almost think I see what the poll was getting at, but there's no accurate way to answer it. OP should fix the poll.

Sure, it added to the atmosphere of the game. I'm cool with this.

These were the things I disliked the most in IE games. I like the games themselves, but I did not like the D&D game system or it's magic rules. These were things I tolerated. I simply can't understand your kind. What made the IE games for me were the spell system and selection. The huge amount of spells, the different ways to use them, the mage battles in BG 2, the sheer utility and power of it all. Finding a new high level spell scroll was a real joy, as was reading all the different spell descriptions and planning out casting orders and techniques. Who hasn't spammed Chromatic Orb on Firkraag after lowering his SR and saves to instant kill him? Or set up clever spell sequencer combinations? There were so many options. Spellcasting made the IE games; the melee and ranged combat was very dull. And I can't understand the full-throated adoration for Vancian magic. Uhm, and for the last part - I haven't. Magic (and magic items) have always been an after thought for me in D&D. I tend to play melee characters myself, and even when I make the whole party (a la IWD), I'm first deciding on an interesting party dynamic of personalities, then I'm deciding on what will best support my lead character (who was inevitably a paladin or a bard for the high charisma.) My focus on magic items and magic spells was never "what will win this battle," it was "what would these character choose to memorize" and maybe, for the more tactically inclined leaders, "what would the party leader suggest they have to ensure party survivability." Magic and spells were part of the background for me. I was used to D&D rules and understood them, so I didn't have a problem with them, per se, except, you know, the stuff my role-playing group would house rule. Like, well, Vancian magic. Table-top I think I played one magic-user in D&D, one session, before 4E came out... and then I played a Bard for quite some time and a Sorcerer as well for quite some time. The pre-4E mage? He was a traveling merchant, a trader, and what spells he carried on him were mostly to aid in his travels and to support his occupation. Most of my time was spent trying to sell stuff to the rest of the party or protecting my mule, Kevan, so it wouldn't get killing in the one combat we had before I retired the character. The RP'ing was fun... the tracking the spells, not so much.