aluminiumtrioxid

I think it has some really, really cool things, but the setting is somewhat lacking. I can't point my finger exactly how, but I definitely feel it's not bold and weird enough (compared to some of the recommended literature, e.g. Planetary or The Book of the New Sun - also, how on Earth did the Dark Tower series end up missing from that list?). Still, the underlying system, the ability to create a full-fledged character with personality, backstory and crunch under half an hour, and the few inspirationally weird ideas make it worth playing.

The little we know about "Watchers" sorta-kinda remind me of the Geists of nWoD. Since Geist was kind of a spiritual successor to Wraith, the Planescape of oWoD lines... well. Needless to say, I'm eager to see more.

That sounds very... anime-like. Which I find hilarious, yet strangely compelling. (Also, the Icewind Dale series had some pretty stupid dialogue, too.)

Am I the only one around here who'd more prefer fewer, but more focused and more widely customizable classes?

You probably will not be mandatorily covered in sh**, and won't die by blood poisoning around the third encounter, so... nope

I'm seriously surprised at the relatively brisk pace the overarching plot is going at

Why doesn't this have more likes?

I stand by my opinion that the "add excitement" (wink wink) part was totally shudder-worthy.

*shudder*

Research would be an awesome feature. In fact, it would be so awesome, I'd say we shouldn't narrow it to crafting recipes. Use research to find obscure information about the setting (which could then lead you to hidden sidequests), and to get spells you couldn't otherwise. It could also work quite well as a money sink.

Vikings! It's basically Game of Thrones with all the unnecessary sex scenes cut out and added METAL. Awesome.

A million times this.

That's mechanically too similar to the Monk, I'm afraid.

Let's not forget that it coined the phrase "Michael Baysian Anime Magical Realism"

I'll probably start with a main character of "whichever class has the highest speech skill bonus" (I'm guessing paladin, and if so, I sincerely hope we can be paladins of SCIENCE), and a merry party of "whomever I find most likeable". I'll make it work. Somehow. But I'm seriously thinking about the feasibility of a party in which almost every member can buff - so, a cleric, a druid (heavy on spiritshifting), a chanter (probably ranged) and a paladin; the other two slots are reserved for a fighter and a barbarian. I'd ditch the latter for a cipher or perhaps a wizard, if it doesn't work well enough.

My opinion is that 11 options are already far too much (at least if you want classes to be both balanced and versatile), but I think it could be done similarly to the way D&D 4E handled this - pick up a feat (or, in this case, Talent), and you gain some basic benefits associated with being in said class - usually in the form of a per-encounter minor ability (backstab, healing etc.).

On a second thought, yes, a bit more subtlety would immensely benefit the flavor of the class. But that would limit its tactical versatility, I guess, so... meh.

It was mentioned somewhere that you can't use magic with a damaged soul, so I think it would be pretty useless to include such an option.

No. We have three "full" caster classes that can avoid melee entirely if you choose to do so (wizard, priest, druid). I'm sorry that you don't like the style of the cipher, but I designed the class to be distinctly different from the other casters in terms of managing their power resource. And again: ciphers do not have to enter melee to use Soul Whip. I think that Soul Whip on ranged weapons largely eliminates the "too much melee" problem, but perhaps you should also consider a talent which gives a small, but not insignificant amount of automatic focus generation, kinda like fighter ability with stamina? Another quick question: as I understand, Soul Whip's supposed to be a modal ability, not an always-on, passive sort of thing. Is there an upside to turning it off? Say, alternate modal abilities which offer different bonuses, but are mutually exclusive with SW, or some kind of uber-attack which has huge payoff, but requires a large amount of focus to activate, and stops you from using SW for a period of time?

Yup, definitely a step up from River in the mandatory "strong female character" department. Otherwise, kind of a 'meh' episode, but hey, the first season of Buffy was also pretty crap, so there's that.

I want an Eclipse Phase cRPG right now.

It's more of an all-enveloping depression which stems from facing mind-boggling stupidity, but nevertheless, I shall do so. Alternatively, I could indeed choose to post something more pertaining to the topic at hand - for example, that Valorian's "verisimilitude-based" argument breaks down entirely when someone points out the fact that non-combat skills also increase with leveling up, thus the whole "my character should be better at combat if he fights a lot" thing doesn't make any sense - ok, you've beaten up a lot of critters, now you know to fight better, and also somehow learned a bit about herbology and ancient history... wait what? And yes, of course, separating combat and noncombat abilities is always an option, but... are the Elder Scrolls games better RPGs because of that? Wait a minute, are they even RPGs? Well, that pretty much settles the question of how great an impact does a semi-realistic skill system have on the RPG-yness of a given game. I could also point out how entirely idiotic it is to presume that it is a design flaw to have "playing smart" be at odds with "having lots of combat" - in any kind of nuanced setting with complex moral themes, combat should most often be something with heavier consequences than "getting a bunch of xp and loot". And sometimes, the agressive method should yield optimal results, but generally it shouldn't be an option considered lightly. And it could be mentioned that it's rather hypocritical to ask from the combat-lovers to be better rewarded, because otherwise they wouldn't enjoy combat as much - if you don't enjoy it when it's not rewarded, perhaps it's time to think about whether you really do like it as much as you claim? To which they could of course answer that "having preassigned xp values helps them in getting a feedback about their performance" - but that's a load of steaming bull. First off, including a game mechanics should perhaps be done for better reasons than egostroking; second, if tactics really do matter that much, assigning a number which accurately gauges how hard it is to figure out the correct course of action, and how hard it is to implement it in practice could eat up quite a lot of time. Yes, I could churn out massive walls of texts elaborating on these points, and more... but I see little point in doing so, because our dear friend Valorian had more than enough opportunities to demonstrate his utter imperviousness to reason. (By the way, complaining about name-calling when it was preceded by a paragraphs-long rant about the intellect - or lack thereof - of the original poster is... strange... at least. Which rant, I'll give you that, came in response to some sarcastic comment about the utter insanity of yet another post, but - as anybody with a basic understanding of grammar knows - there is a difference between calling a post, or a poster stupid. [FYI, the second one goes in the box labelled "personal attacks".])

Normally I would, but it's not worth my time and energy to compile pages-long posts about things that really should be obvious to anyone who even tries to talk about RPG design in any meaningful kind of way. Life is unfair, have a cookie.

Excellent point. I like (role)playing a character who's doing things the smart way and avoids combat if it's the optimal thing to do, even though as a player I really enjoy combat. The character needs the incentive (in the form of XP), not the player. Wait what? I mean, this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard in this context. I can feel my IQ drop by just repeating this sentence, nay, by looking at it. First, no, your IQ hasn't dropped even by a single point, because if it had -- you wouldn't be able to turn on your computer anymore. So don't blame your IQ stat on me. I had a slight feeling that someone who had his Intellect attribute score neglected at character creation would eventually turn up and waste no time to let it be known he didn't comprehend the sentence. Now on to the point. The character doesn't know there's an XP bar ticking, no. However, the character does notice, assuming average or above average cognitive skills, that there's a direct link between defeating a foe in combat and gradually becoming better at combat. People often roleplay someone who is to some degree similar to them, so I'm not surprised your character would be oblivious to this connection. You're so wrong on so many levels I just don't have the willpower to even start making a list why your argument doesn't make any sense. I just... look at it... realize that you are an arrogant **** who is so entrenched in his own ignorance he doesn't even see how ridiculously dated his viewpoint is (I mean seriously, have you ever seen an RPG system aside from AD&D, which, I might add, is more than 30 years old?), then think about the walls of texts necessary to even begin starting to explain to you why that horrible mess of rules has simply no place in anywhere but tabletop (and even then, totally unworthy of being treated like the Holy Grail of RPG systems), and this... seemingly endless ocean of ennui just washes over me, seeing the futility of this task, and I feel there is nothing I can do, because you're not only ignorant as ****, but also totally convinced that you're right and everybody else is not only wrong, but so deep beneath you they aren't even worth listening to. I call this "The Valorian Effect". Well, back to the ignore list, m'boy.

Excellent point. I like (role)playing a character who's doing things the smart way and avoids combat if it's the optimal thing to do, even though as a player I really enjoy combat. The character needs the incentive (in the form of XP), not the player. Wait what? I mean, this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard in this context. I can feel my IQ drop by just repeating this sentence, nay, by looking at it.