Stun

Really? and what, pray tell, is the difference in application (or implementation) between Death Spells in table top AD&D and Death Spells in computer games like BG2? I'm all ears. A total surprise to the player? Anything can be a total surprise to a player if he doesn't bother to read the manual, learn the rules, read spell descriptions. What the hell kind of moronic caveat is that? Should we eliminate every game feature/effect (even one we're OK with) if it could conceivably come as a surprise to someone who fires up a new game he's never played before and mindlessly dives right in with his blinders on?? That's not true. I've called you one before.

First, I *never* make generalized arguments about anything in the IE games. Second, I see, and have pointed out repeatedly, several problems with death spells, but unlike you non veterans(?), I don't advocate that the solution to those problems is to toss the baby out with the bathwater and just get rid of death spells outright. Third, "not knowing" how to counter something is not a design flaw of a game, it's ignorance on the part of the player. (And this is the reason why developers have to dumb down their games btw - because you DUMB casual gamers don't read manuals, don't read spell descriptions, don't study the abilities of the class/race of the characters you're using and don't actually try to *learn* about the game you're playing. You also tend to be the loudest whiners and so, to appease you, developers have to make everything easy and in-your-face Obvious in games. Consequently, the rest of us have to suffer a DUMBED DOWN game with soft, comfortable, non-threatening combat.) Lastly, I can see how someone like you wouldn't think that save-or-die spells bring a whole lot else to a game. After all, this is the same narrow mindset we get from Bioware fanboys who look at Dragon Age 2, with its 2-weapon-types-per-class system, and say: "hey! My warrior can wield 1-handed and 2-handed melee weapons. And that's more than enough.... the addition of Bows adds little else, therefore, we don't need for warriors to be able to wield Bows." <gag>

This thread is All about YOU, Tajerio. JUST YOU. Do us Proud! And give us more! Of YOU! LOL

Give me a second to sift through all the whining and pick out something worth responding to... In the IE games there wasn't, no. As those games were designed well (contrary to your incessant bashing). And how about a little perspective, now. Extreme is a relative term. It does exist in some RPGs. I'll give you two real examples. Temple of Elemental Evil: ToEE has a weapon called Fragarach. Fragarach does double damage, gives you free attacks of opportunity against anyone who hits you, and it never misses. Skyrim: In Skyrim, at fairly low levels (level 1, in fact), you can craft weapons that do 4000+ damage. You can then use those weapons, at will, to one-shot every enemy in the game with absolute 0 chance of missing. (no to hit rolls in Skyrim) ^That's extreme. In both cases there are no checks and balances in place. Thus they break their respective games' combat system. The same cannot be said for Death Spells in the IE games.

It's not surprising that we see Lephys salivating over Jarrakul's every word, here. They employ virtually identical argument tactics. It's uncanny: 1) Burn a straw man as the first line of defense. 2) Then cite ridiculous examples from way out in left field (the Evil Hipsters are discussing how overly simplistic RPGs with dumbed down mechanics have severely damaged the genre, so of course lets "prove" them wrong by citing GO! and then lets whine like little babies when our examples are Ignored and dismissed as the shameless subject changes they are) 3) And later, to drive all our points home: Lets exaggerate. Incessantly. Lets do it in the hopes that people will see our flimsy arguments as powerful and obvious. <gag> They are a 2 or 3 member hive mind. There is no real need to distinguish one of them the other.

Any thorough research into the subject here will only confirm what I'm saying. The problem with character screens is that these negative numbers for THAC0s and ACs you're seeing are the result of Items and other external factors or strength/dexterity modifiers. If one were to look at the actual THAC0 TABLES, they'd see the truth of the matter. And the truth is that at their core, Saves & THAC0s are remarkably identical depending on character class and race. There IS one rule, though, that is in effect by default in the BG games, which DOES support your argument. Rolling a 1 is an automatic miss, no matter what, when it comes to melee attacks, but it isn't when comes to saves. In other words, in the BG games if you manage to drop your saving throws to 1, you will never miss a standard saving throw. But I don't see how that suddenly makes you right and me wrong, especially when it comes to death spells. Finger of death, for example, is exceptionally powerful, and targets suffer a -2 penalty to save against it (so getting your saves down to 1 will not automatically help you. you can still die). And, of course, you can't ignore the external factors. No intelligent gamer will deign to go through an RPG without Improving his chances to hit, improving his saves, and doing the complete opposite to his enemies. And who's to say what a gamer chooses to focus on most? That's intentional. And it's my point in fact. In a good system, magic is not one dimensional. You cannot measure every spell's power and calculate "balance" on a simple damage scale. And you definitely cannot pit a death spell against a fireball and conclude that the death spell is more powerful simply because it can do 100% of its target's health pool in damage while the Fireball may not. It doesn't work that way. A Spell's usefulness and power depends on many, many factors. This is why most players don't even see death spells as particularly powerful. They tend to be a little too situational, and nothing hurts more than when you're 14th level, and you only have one 7th level spell, and you choose Finger of Death, and you use it, and it FAILS for whatever reason (enemy made his save; enemy is immune; enemy is the wrong type etc.) I don't recall ever claiming that Death spells are great because of their power, or that they were more useful than their peers. I DO remember arguing, over and over again that: 1) they have their place in a dynamic, complex, robust combat system and their removal constitutes limiting that system 2) They add Variety to a spell system 3) They add a welcome element of fear to combat (this wizard can kill me instantly if I'm not careful) Suddenly, Luck is the Devil. I knew we'd get here. More on that later. PS: you ARE arguing for mindless Simplicity. You came here to this thread and your very first argument was to compare Save or Die spells with effects that just cause damage... as if such a moronic, one-dimensional comparison of two wholly different effects can ever be made. Well? it CAN be made.... in a stupidly simple system where power is measured only by how much damage you can do and durability is measured by just how big someone's health pool is. <gag> But back to Luck. Oddly enough, the devs - excuse me - JUST Josh, is against Luck/chance, obviously, but NOT for the reasons you've stated. He's against them simply because he thinks they promote save scumming/reloading (ie. degenerate game play) Which is something you did not bring up a single time in any of your posts here. So don't pretend that your arguments have any developer weight to them. They do NOT. You're right. I can't... or more specifically, I WON'T. I won't be goaded into any of your red herrings. If I wanted to discuss the mechanics of a board game, and whether my claim that "Complexity > simplicity" applies to every game ever, I'd do it on that board game's forums. But we were discussing cRPGs, remember? Straw Man. Anyone with 2 working brain cells knows full well that the simplicity argument I was making, and we were discussing, was strictly in regards to cRPGs, not "all games in general". But I apologize if I offended any "GO" players out here. lol True. There may, however, be "roll to see what opponents you face". And of course, unless your wizard's spell selection is based on metagaming, all of the above may as well be random, since the wizard would not know ahead of time how effective his fireball is going to be, and he's virtually pissing in the wind when he casts it. No, that's not a flaw with randomness, that's a flaw with encounter design. If Devs meant for Dragons to be awesomely tough opponents and goblins to be weak trash mobs, then the smart thing for them to do would be to give that Dragon adequate counters to save or die spells and give Goblins no such tools. Why would I argue that? No. Again, I'll put blame where it belongs. Fiirkraag was poorly designed. In more ways than one. Forget about Vorpal Blades and Death spells. Firkraag can be insta-killed with Thief Traps, and 2 shotted by a cleric with Harm working with an archer. Why? because he doesn't turn hostile until he's directly attacked. That's Silly encounter design. if *I* was designing a dragon fight, I'd make sure that this dragon was *aware*. Aware of that thief who's laying 6 traps around him. Aware of the incantations that the cleric right in front of his face is uttering.... aware that a party of adventurers armed to the teeth have entered his lair and are buffing themselves, and positioning themselves. And most importantly, I'd have that dragon pre-buff himself. Oh wait, did I just say pre-buff? Sorry Josh! <slaps self> I'm such a shameless degenerate!

The numbers are the same. Period. What changes as you reach the mid to high levels is... well, a couple of things 1) You and your enemies become able to attack multiple times in a round (a 13th level fighter with grandmastery in a weapon type will be able to get off 3+ hits per round.) The same cannot be said for Magic. No wizard, regardless of level, can fire off more than 1 spell per round. The end result is you'll get hit physically far more often than being forced to make a saving throw. 2) Melee and ranged enemies are more common than spell casters. If less people are throwing spells at you, then obviously it's going to seem like successfully getting hit with a DEATH SPELL is a rare thing, while successfully getting nailed with a sword is happening all the time. But then again, all of this is the inherent balance you claim does not exist in the IE games, so... It's not? Fine then, we will dismiss any further discussion about physical attacks as Irrelevant/off topic. Have it your way. You mean similar spells and spell effects that do damage. Yep. They are. More on this below. Nope. About 6 other balancing factors can be employed instead of just skewing the probabilities. 1) A Save or Die spell can be limited to 1 target, while another spell of the same level can effect multiple targets 2) A Save or Die spell can require a longer casting time than another spell of the same level 3) A Save or Die spell can simply be more situational in nature than another spell of the same level (example: Delayed blast fireball will be far more useful against more types of enemies than finger of death will) 4) A save or Die spell can have less general utility use than another spell of the same level (example: Protection from magic weapons was *literally* more useful in combat in BG2 than Flesh to Stone.) 5) A Save or Die spell can have negative effects on its caster while another spell of the same level does not (example: Disintegrate destroys an enemy's equipment, chain lightning does not.) 6) A save or Die spell can have a hit dice/level effected limit while another spell of the same level does not ( Example: power word kill vs. Meteor Swarm) ^There it is again.... the balance you claim does not exist in the IE games. Damn straight. Thinking is an essential life skill. A good RPG developer shouldn't have to dumb down an RPG in order to cater to those who refuse to engage in an essential life skill. But if it makes you feel any better, I will amend my original argument to be more fair: When it comes to combat in an RPG, complexity > mindless simplicity. Better? A what Player? Fireball gets there, actually. When you've got a game with some semblance of complexity, you're going to have mages that do significantly more damage with their fireballs than other mages, due to either meta-magic feats, or items or levels. On top of this you will have targets who will take less damage or more damage from a fireball due to innate resistances, or items, or potions. You'll have enemies that take double damage from fireballs. You'll have Rogue-types who take NO damage at all from fireballs if they make their Evasion checks. And this is on top of the standard saves that everyone gets. So you actually ARE, looking at an "extreme" fireball that can do anywhere from 0 to.... whatever double the max is. A question before we get too carried away. Tell me again what's wrong with "extreme"? I've already answered this question about 47 times on this thread alone. Nothing is stopping you from reading it.

Or a charming 15 level mega dungeon.

In what system is this ever the case? Certainly Not in the IE games. In the IE games the odds are fairly equal to start with. In order to do damage with a melee weapon you must first score a hit (defeat the enemy's Armor class via your THAC0). With the majority of death spells, you do not have to score a hit, but you do have to overcome their saving throws. Both use a d20. Those are the unmitigated basics. But of course, the IE games were all about combat complexities. Thus, Both melee and death spells had huge lists of things that increase or decrease the chances of their success. You will do no damage in melee if your opponent is stoneskinned. Your chances of doing damage in melee are greatly reduced if your opponent is mirror imaged, or invisible. You will do zero damage to a clay golem with your sword. You have a higher chance to miss a heavily armored and shielded opponent etc. And Death spells.... Non-living things are immune to death spells. Your death spell will fail against a Death warded enemy. You cannot target invisible creatures etc. Not necessarily. Balance is already achieved within the rules inherent to the system. Death spells are... Spells. And spells 1)can be interrupted. 2) Death spells, specifically, are higher level magic and thus, 3) less spell casters will have them 4) the ones that do have them will have less of them. 5) All spells run out, unlike sword swings, which don't run out. ^There's your balance. Elegantly done without messing with the dice-roll probabilities. Correct. Complainers of this phenomenon are certainly free to go play facebook or IPhone games or whatever stimulates their simple minds. Oh you're right. Lets make things easy on those poor, overworked Developers and just ask them to give us a simple (but perfectly balanced!) turd. Therefore, Fireball is extreme (unless you want to argue that a fireball can't, on its own, instantly kill several targets) Hell, even a spell that does NO damage can be extreme under your definition. Take Hold Person, for example. It's a seemingly harmless 2nd level spell. However, Sucessfully Hold anything in BG1 or BG2 and you have essentially defeated them, since a held target is automatically hit Which means the elimination of all probability as your entire party gets free damage, for several rounds.... ie. long enough to kill anything in either game. Josh was referring to Power differences between an attacker and his target. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62090-instant-death/page-5 PCs can be downed in a small number of hits (possibly one if the enemy is powerful enough), but that has less to do with luck and more to do with the raw power difference between the attacker and the defender. ^he's arguing against the chance factor inherent in Save or Die spells, while completely ignoring the fact that Save or die spells happen to be High level magic that can define power differences in the first place.

Have you forgotten that even standard, physical damage, be it d20 or 1-6+7, from any weapon cannot even occur in the first place until the very same 'probabilistic system' is applied to it? More to the point: You will do zero damage if you MISS. So You're saying nothing here. The only difference is the effect itself. Straight Damage from a sword has a larger (but still finite) range of effects than a Finger of Death. So what? That's not really a good argument for the exclusion of death spells, is it. The Ideal system should never be limited to just one of the two, when it can have both at play, simultaneously. This is Nonsense. We're not dealing with a simplistic, shallow system where the only definition of "high durability" is: "It's got a bunch of health!" lol. We're dealing with a FAR more complex RPG.... like BG2, where high durability is measured by Health, Good saves, Magic resistance, Buffs, immunities, and about a dozen other defining factors. Aaah, I see someone has taken the Lephys straw man and decided to run with it. Death spells are not an extreme.... of anything. It may be convenient to try and define them as High damage spells that do 100% of the enemy's health pool in damage and thus conclude, via comparison with a sword swing, that they are "the extreme!", but that's neither accurate nor honest. First off, They're *magic*. They operate within the magic system and should be compared to other spells, not anything else. If you compare any magic to weapon damage, then most spells, by definition, will appear to be extreme. For example: Fireball. a well placed fireball never misses and can nail 10+ enemies for massive damage ALL AT ONCE. A sword swing cannot. It can miss, and even if it doesn't, it can only hit 1 enemy. Conclusion: fireball is extreme. And it's only a 3rd level spell... imagine that. Second, Josh Sawyer already stated that it will be completely possible, in PoE's system, to one-shot-kill something, so the argument being put forth is that a SPELL that one-shot kills = extreme, while anything else that one-shot kills isn't. That is LITERALLY the argument being made. As ridiculous as it is. No, your best bet is to dispense with this thinly veiled attempt at "objectivity" and just use the lazy end-all: Death spells suck because of Luck/Randomness. Which is bad. (BTW, for some bizzare reason I haven't figured out, Luck used to be wonderful thing that fueled all the combat drama in the IE games, but is now seen as horrible flaw that should never be.)

Did the Romances in Neverwinter Nights 2 bring charm to that game, or did they instead, bring awkwardness... like something was out of place?

What an odd question. Of all the things in this game that take time and resources to do, why do you pit the Mega Dungeon against romances? That's like my most anticipated feature. Leave it alone. Try asking a better question, like: 1) Why a boring second City instead of Romances? 2) Why boring Cyphers and Paladins instead of Romances? 3) Why boring Crafting instead of Romances? 4) Why a boring Stronghold instead of Romances? 5) Why boring Godlike Races instead of Romances? of course, all of these questions have the same, perfect, completely reasonable answer: Because 1-5 are almost always more fun and about 10x better done than Obsidian-written Romances.

You do know that romance is not sex, right? His statement does not suggest otherwise. If Romance was just sex then it would be next to impossible for them to not do it right, as all it would take is 2 words of text (Wanna F*ck?) LOL It's only when Devs decide to make romance into something more than just sex that they tend to start piling on the cheesy, cringy stuff and then everything fails.

I *get* his points... or rather, his 1 or 2 points that he's managed to word in 10,000 different ways. Oh, and This isn't the first time that I, personally, have engaged him in the "save or die" discussion. It's about the 7th time in 12 months. None of his arguments have changed either. In fact, when you whittle down every post he's ever made on the topic you get this: 1) Magic that lets you "shortcut" your way to victory is bad, M'kay? 2) Binary and luck make combat "untactical". Both of these have been thoroughly addressed, debated and disputed... over and over and over again. Not sure what more you want. Agreement? No. He won't get it. Because he's wrong. Some of us have played BG2 and Icewind Dale 2. Both of those games, with their brilliant, unmatched tactical combat are, by themselves, physical proof that he's WRONG.

You're right. There's no difference at all between a magic missile that does 2-5 damage to a target, and a Disintegrate spell that turns that target to dust. You got me there. LOL Indeed, it's never good to have multiple choices. I mean, a warhammer does blunt physical damage. And so does a mace. Why does any game need both when it can get by with just one? Again you got me! What's wrong? Most of what you're saying is about as wrong as wrong can be. Can you be a little more specific? Then your argument is a straw man. I never claimed that Death Spells are unique. So why are you trying to counter me by arguing that they're not? Bullsh*t. You cannot give Wildly exaggerated examples of something in order to make your argument look "better" or "obvious" and then cry foul when your opponent shoots those examples down as the bunk that they are. <gag> I doubt that. You will, of course, continue to incessantly respond to every single poster (including me) who dares dispute your ridiculous illogical arguments. Here and elsewhere.

Thank you for shepherding us into your narrow, black and white world! You do realize, I hope, that these 2 (at least in BG2) are NOT the only outcomes possible and that is why the addition of Save or Die fits so well, tactically in the system. Lets accurately list what is REALLY brought to the table. 1) You've got hits that do damage but don't kill 2) You've got hits that don't do any damage. 3) You've got hits that physically kill 4) You've got "hits" that magically kill (death spells) 5) You've got hits that produce more than one effect. Like Damage + something else (stun, sleep, poison, hold, , fear, confusion, dispel, silence, slow, and oh yeah...Death. 6) You've got Death spells that actually require a successful melee hit and also require a successful save 7) You've got hits that do damage to both the target and the attacker 8.) You've got death spells that "hit" and end up still doing nothing, because of the target's immunities, either magical or innate. 9) You've got reflected hits. In light of all these, the "death spells are over powered" argument is nonsensical. An argument can be made that the majority of the above is over-powered. But ultimately all such arguments are completely pointless, since in this system every tool available to the player is also available to the enemy. I'm not sure why you think that's the "ultimate" argument that my side has (you've attempted to counter it a bajillion times on this thread). It isn't. I'd argue that even if these spells always succeeded against everything, they'd still fit perfectly in a tactically deep RPG. Lephys, these spells are not common place. They're difficult to acquire, and even when acquired, their frequency of use is a lot more limited than you're making it out to be. They compete in their respective levels with far more useful, less situational spells, and...again... If you can use them, then so can the enemy. You mean its variety? No, it doesn't. a spell that can do 40 damage is different than a spell that can insta-kill. See, this is where I think the source of the disagreement stems from. The IE games are not Modern MMOs where bosses are bosses because they have 1000s of hit points. In the IE games, nothing has a 4 digit health pool. NOTHING. If Dragons had 3000 hitpoints, then I'm pretty sure the devs would never let us have death spells, Or, they'd just adopt a sweeping universal rule that states that all enemies with more than 1000 health are immune to death spells. Because when an enemy's Health pool is his most powerful defense, then everything changes. The entire dynamic is changed.

No. That's not what's going on. First off, your damage % analogy is off the mark. The Debuffing involved here operates on a different wavelength. In the case of death spells, you'd debuff their success chance. Specifically The debuff would attack their saving throws. So the choice would be: 1) A debuff that makes the target take +20% more damage or 2) a Debuff that reduces their fortitude saves by 20% Well? If you're about to toss a Finger of Death at them, you'd probably want to use the second debuff. Alternatively though, you could decide to toss the first debfuff at them, because that would at least insure that if they DO make their save, they will take more damage than they'd normally take from a successful save against Finger of Death. That's a big So What? Hey, Lephys. Have you ever heard the saying: "Variety is the spice of life"? It also applies to a cRPG's combat system. More to the point: The addition of a few spells that buck the practice of: "whittle their health down gradually" only add to a system's dynamics. They do not: a) replace that system; 2) break that system; 3) ruin all tactical combat 4) Kill all innocent puppies in a 30000 mile radius; 5) Make life not worth living. Really. Trust me. BG2 did not go down in the history books as a failure. It went down as one of the greatest RPGs ever created. And BG2 had more Save or Die spells, weapon effects, item powers, traps, and enemy abilities than your head can comprehend.

^this one I completely approve of, as in the older editions of D&D there was indeed a monetary/material/time cost attached to learning new spells and scribing scrolls into your spellbook. It was one of the prices you paid for power. Back in the day, magic used to be a Big Deal. Spells were a significant game changer on the battlefield. But hey, just be thankful Obsidian is only implementing a "copy cost". They could easily have done much much more. In the old editions of D&D every time you cast a spell there's a monetary cost, as most spells have material components, most of those components are rare and many of them are quite expensive, and all of them are consumed when the spell is being cast.

I don't favor it. It's what has me worried.

Eventually. But keep in mind that any spell or item used by your Simulacrums and Project Images is a free usage. It doesn't count towards your per day limits. But this flexibility comparison with WoW is totally Moot. You can Multi-class and Dual class in BG2. WoW fans will never be able to overcome this. It's an impregnable trump card to the entire discussion.

Cast Iron Skin and you can tank indefinitely. Or... Cast Mirror Image then Stone Skin then Simulacrum then have your Simulacrum cast a Project image. Then have your Project image cast Improved haste, and Shapechange: Mind Flayer then go to work on the front lines while your Simulacrum buffs your party with more improved Hastes, Mass invisibility, and spirit armor. In the meantime, you can spam the battle field with Horrid Wiltings, chain lightnings, Disintigrates, Emotion: Hopelessness and fireballs. You will then (literally) be able to say that your mage is Tanking, DPSing and Crowd Controlling Simultaneously. Throw in a couple of Vampiric touches by your simulacrum, and you can say that you're Tanking, DPSing, Crowd Controlling, and healing simultaneously. Or you can forget all that multi-dimensional noise and just.... Dual Class. Or multi-class. <----there's your REAL, and LITERAL flexibility right there. Your mage could play a fighters role because he IS a fighter.

Need . . .To . . . Know . . . More.

From this link: Intriguing. Can we get more info about this structure-thing?

It's not a bad thing unless developers design the encounter system around it. Because then it becomes nothing but an imposed limitation on the player. A few of them in fact. 1) Party makeup limitation - Some people pick their party lineup based on things that have nothing to do with combat roles. In BG2, the player could decide that he wants a specific party of females. So he rolls up a female Sorceress. Then he takes Jahiera, Viconia, Nalia and Imoen. In WoW's system, they'd be in for a world of pain, here. There's no tank in this party. There's no dedicated DPS'er in this party. In BG2 though, this party is super overpowered. You've got 5 spell casters, 3 of them are mages. By chapter 7, you will have a screen full of Simulacrums that spam Project images that proceed to unleash copies of the mage's deadliest AOEs, Spell sequencers and contingencies, while the mages themselves sit around twiddling their thumbs, watching the destruction in invisible safety while the priests buff the PIs and the Simulacrums so that they become even more deadly 2) Classes don't need predefined combat ROLES anyway- I would hope that if I roll up a Mage, that the game would leave it up to me to decide what role he's going to play in the party or whether he's even going to be part of a party at all. In games like WoW, this is an incomprehensible notion. But In BG2, this is what made the game so mind-blowingly replayable. In BG2, you could turn your vanilla mage into a tank. And not just any tank, the BEST tank. A solo tank! or You could turn your Berserker into a Crowd controller nuisance on the battle field while your mage Tanks the front lines and your vanilla Thief spams summons and Horrid wiltings from scrolls he's been hoarding. Sawyer has assured us that classes will have adequate flexibility in PoE so maybe some of this BG2ish freedom-goodness will be doable in the game. I sure hope so. I'm counting on it.

I never claimed it was. I just said that I found it odd that the Devs would specifically assign these combat role titles to the classes in PoE. Bioware devs never did any such thing before the release of the BG games. Nor did Black Isle do it before releasing the Icewind dales. Moreover, even the rule sets they used (AD&D 2nd, and D&D 3rd) never assigned those roles to the classes either. The fact that Obsidian is doing it here suggests that the game will be balanced around a party specifically made to fill those roles. I just hope it isn't. The IE games weren't.