AlKim

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! [...] I don't know if I will break any rules with a direct copy/paste, so I'll just summarize. Skirmish gives you bonus damage and bonus AC in any round where you move at least 10 feet. The bonus damage follows the Sneak Attack rules in terms of immunities (i.e. can't be crit immune) and who it can affect except that the flat-footed restriction is replaced by the previously mentioned movement restriction. Damage only goes up every 4 levels instead of 2 and only applies on damage on the user's turn. The bonus AC takes effect as soon as the 10 feet is moved and lasts until you start your turn again. There's also a light armor only restriction. It's a lot easier to get Skirmish off but you do more damage with Sneak Attack. Yeah, Skirmish is ridiculously easy to use (especially with a bow), but the low damage bonus often made me wonder if it's actually worth it because moving more than five feet makes you lose Full Attack. With a decent weapon and maybe a feat or two (I'm looking at you, Rapid Shot), you would actually benefit more from standing still, unless you had to relocate to fire around a corner or something.

Before I kick off, I'd like to point out that I've played a Rogue in D&D 3.5e and observed a few others in the same system. Keep this in mind when considering the relevance of the following post. I also haven't bothered to trawl though the entire topic, My thoughts regarding the stereotypical pure Rogue or roughly similar builds (Rogue/Assassin and what have you) with emphasis on high DEX and plenty of Skill Ranks: 1) Off-combat, the Rogue is pretty good, if only for the wide variety of class skills. However, there are other skill beasts as well (Scout, Bard, Ranger, Factotum etc.) so removing Sneak Attack would leave little motivation to select a Rogue over the others. 2) The Rogue has a rather limited selection of weapons. All of the weapons are unremarkable in terms of damage; if there was no Sneak Attack, I probably wouldn't bother investing in them at all. 3) Even with Sneak Attack, the Rogue cannot compete with the Fighter or the Barbarian in dishing out damage or taking it. Sneak Attack is potentially devastating, but the Fighter and Barbarian are devastating all the time because they hit more often and have a more consistent damage figure (say, 1d10+10 versus the Rogue's 5d6+2). Fair enough. I'm just not sure how removing Sneak Attack from Rogues or giving it to everyone would make any sense, whether you'd regard it as more realistic or not. CRPG's in general haven't aspired to great realism since they allowed magic. 4) Sneak Attack only works on enemies that can be struck with a critical hit, which creates many situations where the Rogue cannot realistically hope to do any damage at all whereas the Fighter and Barbarian remain effective (undead hordes and golems spring to mind). 5) Basically, if you were to remove Sneak Attack and replace it with nothing, the Rogue would sit on the sideline during every combat, minding his own business while everyone else did the fighting for them. I know because we once had a streak of sessions filled with nothing but the undead. Being there just because the party wants someone to open a few locks for them feels pointless. It's like being an HM slave.

I think it's more about balance of game mechanics than anything else. There are craploads of weapons in D&D (3.5e, which is the one I'm most familiar with); giving similar qualities to several different ones would be quite odd. Do remember that 2d6 is still a fairly simple example. For instance, a character with eleven levels of Rogue and nine of Assassin would score 11d6 samage on a Sneak Attack if you count out their equipment and Strength. 22d6 if they've got Telling Blow and they land a critical hit on a Sneak Attack. Sure, you could mark it as "11 - 66 damage" but that doesn't mean you've got an equal chance to deal 66 damage as 30. Personally, I don't mind the die system, but then again I play tabletop games all the time.

I quite liked Moridor's Box in Planescape: Torment. In fact I'm going to implement something similar in my D&D campaign, giving the party a simple delivery job early in the campaign. They then discover that the recipient of the delivery is scared witless of whatever the hell is inside. I still haven't decided what's inside or how the party is supposed to rid themselves of the evil, similar to how it was in Torment.

I tend to give my characters a normal-ish first name and a surname along the lines "of place X" or "the X". This saves me the trouble of coming up with two original names (yeah, I haven't got much imagination, thank you), but it does feel stupid when an NPC goes "Yes, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much, Garreth of the First!" when just "Garreth" would suffice. Separate boxes it is, then, possibly with the option to choose what NPCs should call you.

I dislike the idea of playing a character's childhood because it inevitably leaves me feeling I'm missing out on a lot of important stuff between then and now. Another problem with childhood friends you haven't seen in twenty years is that they probably won't be your friends anymore - hell, I can't even remember the names of all my classmates from five years ago and there weren't even too many of them. Of course everyone thought we'd remain friends forever after, but then we went home and never saw each other again. Maybe it's just me, I don't know. However, I reckon you could have a pair of companions who have known each other for ages (kind of like Jaheira+Khalid or Hammond+May+Clarkson). They become more relaxed when the other is present and so behave differently, throwing in-jokes, telling stories and laughing at past near-death experiences and so on. Kind of a bromance thing, I suppose.

Just wanted to say I'm in favour as well. I don't mind Steam in particular but dislike client-based services in general, so I feel a DRM-free option would be great. Please?