aluminiumtrioxid

Oh God... what is that... unholy, uncanny-valley-y-looking thing?

This is the coolest thing written about wizards, ever. (Bonus points for Borges reference.)

So, our DM has decided to try her hand at Dark Heresy... Her: "...and where my character is coming from, there is no crime, because everything was monitored by a master computer, a transhuman intelligence, and everybody can access the archives. In the last 2000 years, Veritas IV has not known war..." Me: "So we have complained about the mary sue factor of your previous campaign... and your answer is to go ahead and throw a whole PLANET OF THEM at us?" *Sigh*.

To be fair, there are lots of tabletop games where your gear matters at least as much as your char's skills (Warhammer 40K immediately jumps to mind) but are none worse for it.

Still, things I've heard about E3 is that whipping a game into a presentable shape poses a significant amount of work which is usually not directly useful to the finished product itself. OP's concerns are not totally misplaced (even if his insinuations of paid vacations and stuff are).

The condition of my finger has improved greatly, oh the wonders of healing. Good to hear Still, if something oozes pus, I generally advise people to get it checked out. Seen too many amputations as an unfortunate consequence of "it's probably gonna be fine on its own".

Congratulations! Tell me, just about when is the time to start pestering you with PM's about different symptoms that befalls oneself? :D Thank you very much Well, internet medicine is kind of unreliable at best - I couldn't send you to a lab even if I had the authority, and with no way to conduct a physical examination, I have no way of knowing a lot of really important information. So you are welcome to pester me with PMs at any time, really, 'cause there's about 99% chance that the most solid advice I can give would boil down to "go see your doctor"

Now I'm suddenly overcame with a desire to throw all that goody-two-shoes morality thing to the wind, and get my hands on a godsoul to experiment with. For science! (That should totally be a paladin battle cry.)

...Theeeeeere we go again.

If I were you, I'd get to a doctor *now*. In a not-totally-unrelated topic, I've earned myself a B on the physiology final exam today! (It's kind of a big thing, probably the most important subject in the pre-clinical module and a rather big number of people tend to fail despite their best efforts.)

Right now I have two different kinds of Yunnan Mao Feng (green) and some fairly cheap kenyan black tea, which, while surprisingly good for its price, I mainly drink with heavy additions of cinnamon, clove and freshly-grated ginger, so it's kinda lost on me.

They are most definitely not, and you're supposedly able to build quite effective characters who have nothing to do with their class' classification, but there are certain abilities that wizards get for free which predispose them towards doing damage to grouped enemies, just like fighters get free tanky abilities etc. On the other hand, out of combat utility now springs entirely from skills, so your fighter will be just as effective (ok, a bit less effective because certain classes gain certain small bonuses in certain skills) in picking locks as your rogue, if you wish to specialize him that way.

Now that you mention it, I think it's pretty likely that he's not a canonical companion, but one who was generated in the Adventurer's Hall.

And barbarians? Or do they count as melee crowd control?

I think they'll go with 2 tanks, 2 leaders, 2 single-target damage dealers (probably Sagani + Edér) and 2 crowd controllers (cipher + mage seems likely). Question is, do paladins count as tanks or leaders?

Well, that is a valid point. Main problem is, I feel, is that pre-4e D&D is a ruleset that is fundamentally more suited to combat-as-war as opposed to the CRPG staple combat-as-sport. On lower levels, it is way too easy to die from an inconvenient critical or as a consequence to a series of unlucky rolls, while higher levels come with a proliferation of tactics based on hard counters. I fully agree with you about IWD2 having so much filler combat that it started to become monotonous and repetitive. Prologue was fairly awesome though, with some great bits of reactivity and quite a few quests that could be solved through other ways than combat.

I roll on a random table. By the way, having a name generator that offers you culturally appropriate names based on what race and background you chose would be splendid.

Well, yes, this pretty much explains why I could never really get into the IWD games. I mean, there are really cool squad-based RTT games without the completely unnecessary trappings of role-playing out there, why would I seek the same from an RPG? That said, I've never really felt that the combat in IWD 1/2 was significantly better than in BG2-ToB.

Meh, not playing white saviour to all those poor oppressed women in third world countries while the first world is also far from being problem-free is pretty much the best thing one can do in his situation, methinks.

Suddenly everything becomes clear! Thank you.

Cool interview, now I'm even more interested in the Tides system than I was before. The bit about them being an external quasi-physical force you can influence, not just a more involved alignment system where based on your actions you get categorized as aligned with two of them makes me positively giddy with anticipation. By the way, been meaning to ask since forever: where does "MCA" come from? I mean, the CA part I can understand, but MCA?

Yeah, I get it Still, med school being med school, my pathetic attempts at getting myself in shape have so far always fallen apart the first time any number of serious exams came up on the horizon

That is a valid point re: ethics of Animancy. Also, the idea of skeleton rats running around in a lab is hilarious That is also a valid point re: life expectancy of known animancers

Yeah, it's really insidious. Not only do you have to work your ass of (quite literally), but you also have to continue putting in the same amount of work if you don't want your efforts to be for naught in a few years.

Sweetykitty, your brutal assault against reality is indeed spectacular. ...Touché. There now, I hope this will help to soothe your soul which seems to be in turmoil since the Almighty Forum Consensus has determined that just like your arguments, your trolling is also weaker than mine. *pat pat* (I can find no possible other explanation for your increasingly more desperate tries to provoke me into throwing moar scraps of attention in your general direction.)