Wintersong

Hmmmmm. Stealth and approach. Fighters/Paladin in front, priest right behind, wizard and hired priest behind first priest, rogue depends on if stilettos or bow (I tend to switch, despite rogue focus on melee). If possible, shoot with a gun or if not possible then a bow or spell. This triggers combat. Fighters buff defenses, paladin fire strike thingy, main priest raises defenses, secondary priest raises damage threshold, ranged shoot, if rogue is melee then he waits for fighters/paladin to engage enemies. Fighters knock down as needed and the rest is autoattack (still better than AD&D Fighter), priests buff (or aggresive spells) as needed when not then attack (main as melee, secondary as ranged), wizard spells/wand and rogue... whatever. Risk disengagement attacks on people that shouldn't be involved in melee and are being beaten seriously. Emergency healing. Repeat previous two steps until victory or defeat. That said, autoattack certain enemies on Normal is more than enough as long as you don't mind losing extra Health. Like lions.

Considering the hurt butts, maybe they weren't clear enough. Also, Perception cannot be Charisma equivalent. Paying attention to detail is usually tied to Intelligence?

The background system doesn't seem to make much sense with our limited vision right now. I'd tie background to areas and classes. An Aristocrat Ranger, as described by the Aristocrat background, sounds weird. Unless aristocrat elves also work as rangers? But unless the game states it otherwise, we could assume that between the time of the background and the beginning of the game, some time could have passed if you decide that for your character.

I think that the rule in AD&D was to give exp after each session? Or at least before starting the next one. I think we used to do that. Quite sure that I granted exp for defeating the encounters, even if that meant not killing the monsters but finding other ways to win. Enhanced later in newer editions. In any case, the DM determines how to award xps in his campaign. He determines everything. The D&D experience of one player may be totally different from another player's. Core books are guidelines. As with campaign settings, use what works for you (/your players) and change what doesn't. If a system, once finished, works then it doesn't matter if it doesn't look like others. And PoE doesn't use D&D. Or L5R. Or AFMBE. Or WoD. Or...

In something I read recently (which I can't seem to find again now), Josh suggested that the talents system is going to be quite open to fill in the gaps between the classes (which I find exciting), allowing a mage to choose - not only from their talent pool but - from the 'warrior' and 'rogue' pools also. So a mage can be an 'arcane warrior', not just because his might has been tweaked but, because he will be able to choose 'warrior' talents. That's how build diversity will be achieved in PoE, (if I understood correctly what Josh was saying). At the risk of bringing up attributes again (and this may have already been said so, if so, just ignore it), I'd like to see race/culture and background give more substantial bonuses. It's reasonable to suppose that if you're background is 'merchant', for example, that you'll have better perception and perhaps intellect too. Like Fighter being able to cherry pick Ranger's bow based talents, for example? That does sound quite interesting.

I must apoligize then. Melee attack: Step 1: Accuracy - Defense = X Step 2: Random number + X = Critical/Hit/Graze/Miss The Step 2 is a simulation of huge number of variables resumed in "Let's roll a dice and let's call it a day", with thresholds that detemine the outcome. In Step 1, there is no rolling about if you are accurate or not. Either you are accurate or you are not. Same for defense: you have it or you haven't. Those can be modified by external bonuss/penalties (magic items, spells...) but you don't need to roll for them. You take their current values and do the math. Spells and skills should be like that, imho. Magic spells having failure chance when casting exist outside Wild Magic. Old D&D surely had those arcane penalty failures for wizards* but that it's a external "penalty" to the spell's casting. But while some may have fun at having an innate chance of failure when trying to use spells/skills, I don't think that's actually fun. It can lead to lots of frustration (and TPK) too**. If he knows how to cast magic missile or how to swing a sword, he knows. Period. If the situation is special, consider bonuses/penalties. Forcing to max certain attributes to negate RNG? Tsk tsk tsk tsk. * "balance", they said... ** YMMV and that's ok

Non linear is quite more expensive if you also pretend to keep the length of the game. And the branching can get quite nuts. I'm ok with somehow linear as long as there are meaningful choices with consequences. Time and money are limited for most developers. Must compromise.

You use a roll to simulate a possible result when the result itself is not obvious or guaranteed. In a purely storytelling enviroment, the storyteller would determine if you hit or miss a target. Systems like D&D use rolls to simulate that. But your abilities/spell do work fine by themselves. If the target has some kind of defense (AC, saving throws,...), then it'd be a check. If your accuracy is better than the defense, you will problaby get a better hit. If it's worse, you are more likely to just graze. But in any case, you don't need to "roll" to see if you can actually use your accuracy (or maybe get none at all or maybe you get a boost). But Wild Magic is being lucky that you actually can use your ability as is (or maybe a benefitial wild surge) and then check if the target has some kind of defense to it.

Unless you are writting stuff like Harry Potter, who don't target action-reaction magic laws brainiacs. If a magic system doesn't physically exhaust its mage users when they cast spells, they can ignore their physical fitness. A magic system that would stress the body of the magic users, would lead to fit mages. But we use systems in which learning to travel between planes require the same amount of experience that learning to mater dual wielding combat. Or where when parties rest is only because runnning out of spells/HitPoints and not because they are exhausted for beating the cap out of several groups of enemies.

Wild Magic sucks. A Fighter with higher intelect has his knowdown ability to last longer. But in any case, he shouldn't have to worry about not having spent enough points on intelect. Having your verteran fighter knock himself down from time to time because he didn't max intelect? WTFBBQ? If characters are not mightly/dexterily fit, should they incur in similar penalties too with mundane/regular attacks? About character levels, it depends on the system. From the backgropund point of view, you have not been generated by spontaneous generation but have been doing stuff in the world (mercenary, slave,...).

We should get rid of magic. Everybody mundane, baby! Or just restrict magic to evil NPCs.

How does balance have nothing to do with xp when xp must be balanced to the type and strengths of its monster? If kobolds start giving the xp of a Tarrasque, someone made a mistake in the xp section. I don't think that kill xp is bad per se. But there are other ways. Games like Dungeon Hack and Eye of the Beholder sagas (sticking to AD&D examples) do benefit more of kill xp. Combat focus? Totally! Dungeon Hack is pure combat and Eye of the Beholder has some story flavor all over it but still hack hack hack in a very delimited place. But in games like PoE you do quite more than advacing from one room of the dungeon to the next (or forest sqaure tile). You visit cities, talk to people, go shopping, do quests, exterminate innocent kobolds,... You need a more complex system. That it may contain or not kill xp is another story. I like Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall. And I don't see how PoE's system is worse when, from what I understand, it seems to try to do similar. In SRR I get karma for each mission, sometimes getting some extra during them (extra tasks/objectives, usually). In PoE, in its glorious bugginess, when you start the pig quest and reach the caves, you get xp. You haven't finished the quest yet but you get some from completing a step from it. Start a new game, talk to bridge guys, run to tavern, hire level 1 NPC, talk to noble about daughter, level up the NPC, TALK to Orlan gal, go to bridge guys, start combat, level up NPC before continuing combat (being able to do this is supposed to be a bug but whatever). There seems that xp in PoE is not only rewarded at quest completion. The system is not that bad, just buggy and still can benefit from giving rewards for more stuff (exploring new areas or something). And I don't see how SRR's system is so vastly superior to the still in beta PoE system. PoE should me more open about its maps (SRR just city, rest are missions so no exploration or random enemies) so it need something more solid than SRR to cover all its bases, but I think that they both try to do something similar.

This is the second time today that I've liked something Stun wrote (well, this part of it)... Something weird is definitely going on. But yeah, this is something I absolutely agree with, and it's something I've been saying for some time. The problem is that attributes give bonuses/penalties in a very linear manner when the penalty for lowering a stat from the average range should be increasingly more severe the lower you go. There's nothing really wrong with min-maxing and it should remain possible, but it should carry a price. Dumping a stat should mean that you're handicapping your character in some aspect (beyond just "oh dear, my accuracy is slightly below average") and you need to make significant adjustments in your playstyle to compensate. This system reminds me of Vampire The Masquerade, despite not having played in a loooong time. It has 9 attributes (3 physical, 3 social and 3 mental) that for humans range from 1 (broadly weak) to 3 (broadly strong). If you have one dot in Strength, you roll 1d10 for Stregnth tests. Two dots? 2d10. The only penalty is having less dice to roll to attempt stuff if you dump the attribute. The system is quite different than PoE's, of course. But is a good example of another system that doesn't substract but adds. Altough I must say that the attribute numeric base in PoE is in 0 instead of 1, which seems a bit weird. On topic, there will be always be bad builds. By pure comparison and metagaming, some builds will just be worse than others. As I understand it (as ignorant as I am), the idea should be to prevent hopeless builds. Like bringing a bicycle to a Nascar race. Then in the race some cars will be worse than others but at least all of them are cars. So PoE system should prevent the players from "accidentally" building a bicycle when they are supposed to build a car. Easier said than done?

If playing a character without any of the 57 points is as easy (or difficult) to play as one with the 57 points, I can agree about it being flawed. Being viable wouldn't be a bad thing though (it'd be a challenge). That it could make no difference compared to spending points, that would be a problem. Not going to try that experiment with the current build though.

I usually hire a level 1 Priest NPC as soon as possible, with some medium-high Might&Dex (but not maximized). And as soon as I can, I give her a gun. She kicks ass and takes names with it. Considering that a Fighter can specialize in guns/bows, I'd guess that a Fighter would be even better than my Priest (with 10 too in ranged). A Cipher leands more towards ranged combat so it is a good alternative to Ranger if you don't want a pet and don't mind the spells. A Ranger would still be better than a fighter and it'd suck to have a Figher a la AD&D (autoattack, autoattack...). I personally would prefer that each class would at least offer a couple of paths. Be it in the form of selecting one and getting general class common skills plus skills associated to that path (let's say Guardian Path vs Archer Path). Or be it offering some generic common class skills to each class and then let the player pick from some optional ones related to their class to fit their needs (i.e. for my fighter let's ignore tanky stuff and focus on something else). I don't dare to speculate about the possbiel costs of implementing such thing and if it'd really improve the game, but that's what I'd prefer. I'm going to play a dual wielding fighter in the game (maybe my main?) much like I try to do in every game (most fond memories being in NwN2). At least I have an easier time than the archer fighter fans. Having tons of classes is fun. Having some wiggle room in each of them? Feels even better. Having tons of classes and all of them with wiggle room? Awesome.

Not as attractive if your focus is on how the character performs in combat, perhaps. Perfectly attractive if you're interested in opening up more conversation options. Regarding the OP, I generally (and tentatively) agree, but if there is going to be a change to make attribute scores more significant, I'd rather they be left alone and we got more points as we levelled, instead. Resolve increases Will defense. I don't see why you would want to dump that. Unless it's not first playthrough and you know your way through the game and such. It also increases Concentration, which I don' see how it can be a good diea to dump it. You are opening yourself to be interrupted more often. Perception would be the less useful. Detect hidding stuff and increasing your chances of interrupting enemies don't see popular in some groups. If you just focus on hit/damage/areas/survival, then yeah, those two seem useless.

I don't really get this. If magical damage cannot use Might, neither magical healing. Nothing agaisnt proposing variations to the system that may improve them/the_game. But that point doesn't make much sense, that's all. My proposal to end all the proposals: Midichlorian Count Physical Resistance Scope Radar IQ Determination

In tabletop? No, he is not. He can be an archer. He can be a mobile DD/Support that brings a different set of abilities than a rogue. I have played several of those mobile ones. They are fighters all the way. Tactically you just play them not like a tank, not like a rogue. Not necessarily like a Swashbuckler either altough this class is more/better customized for a similar role. You pick your skills, feats and gear accordingly, and you are gold. In PoE? Fighters in PoE are more limited though. You can take a fighter and use any gear you want. But if you make an anrcher out of it, he has lower accuracy than in melee and loses the real use of some abilities. It sucks from the point of view that if you want an archer without pet, Ranger doesn't cut it. If you play out of "cutter", you actually lose tactical flexibility. Being able to cope with that is a different story. So I'd have to agree with the idea of picking a class and build it through skills/talents/abilities. Could mean more difficult balance but it sounds more interesting. Oh, a high dexterity fighter in PoE isn't a rogue. He is a fighter with very good accuracy.

Might is not muscles for wizards. People love to assume that (we need heated topics to talk about!). People seem to hate the idea of not getting two attributes, one of which will be useless for each class, and that instead we got an abstract one that mechanically speaking works the same for both, eliminating trash attributes. You can roleplay your wizard as a Conan in robes if you want (much like the Human Wizard 3D model in Neverwinter Nights 2, even if the Strenght score was 3), or you can imagine that your wizard is anorexic. Or something in between. It's a streamlining of what could be a more simulationist system. But being a video game, I can agree to a point. Having meaningful choices for everybody, no dump attributes (hello there, low Charisma for everybody except Faceman!) and stuff like that, doesn't seem bad to me.

Unless you are talking Atlantica Online kind of MMORPG, I'd say that D&D 4 was more for Final Fantasy Tactics wannabe. But people prefered to compare that edition to WoW, which is as turn based as... er... nothing? Neverwinter MMORPG isn't D&D 4... despite being done during D&D 4 era. I don't know if rounds would help improving combat. Right now my main issues are visual clarity and that if I need to switch actions (my Priest needs to stop auto attacking to cast a spell), the action bar resets. And considering that sometimes I feel that my clicks aren't always registered (Hey, haven't I clicked that Spell a bar ago?) from what I can see... There being many skills feels nice for me. Auto attacking is sometimes a valid option (run out of abilities or just saving them) but it's nice that I can micro my way to victory.

And yet, we got the system. Which means that we need one for PoE. Maybe for Mystical Reasons™. So before we start deprecating stuff, maybe we should try to fix it as much as needed. The fact that the system has reached Beta, must mean something. It's not like the devs implemented it without thinking and then sit down waiting for beta and the players telling them what to do. Right?

Northeast of the spiders, over the cliff. Must navigate through wurms to reach them. Yes, it doesn't make much sense to put encounters just to populate an area if XP rewards are limited by design. Unless you are hiding secrets/treasures in that area. That could make sense. Or special encounters.

D&D attributes have been around for decades. Long time to polish them (like Charisma reflecting appearence at some point ). Other RPG systems work without D&D attributes. And work fine. Sawyer's system is still not final and even if it was worse than D&D as a fact, that wouldn't make it automatically bad. It could still be good and someone still find it worse than D&D. Or Mekton Z. Or Anno Domini: Adventus Averni ad Terram. It must make sense in PoE. It must work well for PoE. It must be balanced for PoE. That it may be relatively worse than other systems is irrelevant.

^QFT. I believe our fine Mr. Sawyer has succumbed to the notion that all choices should produce relatively equal outcomes. This is, of course, patent nonsense, but he's from a very different school of thought than those of us who favor a higher verisimilitude quotient in our gaming. Creating a dex-based frontline fighter in leather armor and equipping him with dual daggers should lead to a great many more headaches for the player than a strength-based fighter wearing a chain hauberk and equipped with a broadsword and shield. The latter is appropriate for the role and the former simply isn't. True that the fighter with daggers and light armor is worse tank that the sword&board one. True also that he is worse DPS than a rogue (of any kind?). But I guess that for PoE, the idea is that any gameplay choice you make, should be good enough. Not inherently the best or worst, but good enough to not hit an end road. So a high dex, light armor, dual wielding daggers Fighter, should be doable. As long as you can cope with the natural disadvantages of going against some design decisions (you are not going to be a tank with that setup). Having played in D&D3+ many high dex, medium/light, dual wielding pure fighters (with acrobatics), I can say that they are awesome. Only daggers would seem a very strange selection for weapon though. Long swords, short swords, scimitars, rapiers... but daggers? Next: high dex, no armor, fighting with punches fighter!!! Ok, maybe some options cannot be salvaged at all...