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1varangian
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Posts posted by 1varangian
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I never liked the food buffs or rest bonuses either. They were just completely unnecessary nonsense that didn't add anything worthwhile to the game. Except the nagging feeling that your party isn't performing at their best because you didn't eat fish or apples or whatnot before battle.
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DnD 5e has str requirement of 13 to wear chain mail and str 15 to wear splint or plate mail. Something along those lines works great.
I like those, but feel they should be softer. Well, and they may very well be in 5e. But, the whole "Oh, your Strength is 12? You can't wear this. Oh, it's 13? Slap it on! You're golden! 8D!" idea is a bit silly. There should be a more gradual effect of increased fatigue/hindrance whilst wearing it, versus simply being unable to feasibly wear it. If it requires 13 Strength and you have 6, then sure. No wearies. Strength of 11? Wearies, but you're gonna be less effective.
Along those lines...
I think ability requirements for equipment is one place where I can easily suspend my disbelief in favor of a better and clearer system. If you start introducing gradual penalties for not meeting the requirement it becomes unnecessarily difficult to understand how effective something really is.
Is Splint Mail with 2 points too few in Str/Con actually better or as good as Chain without penalty? What's the point of pre-reqs in the first place if you can wear heavier armor with penalty that is just as good as lighter armor without penalty?
If the penalties are meaningful enough to warrant their own existence you're automatically better off using gear that you meet the requirements for anyway. And then it's the penalties that become meaningless in the system. It also creates a sense of achievement for the character when they can use something that others can't.
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Come to think of it, Dragon Age: Origins had Strength requirements on armor. The result was very poor for tank warriors - they needed strength to wear the heaviest sets, which meant they couldn't get the constitution and dexterity they needed to survive.
DAO is a great game but the attribute and equipment systems were definitely NOT good. Attributes and equipment scaled way too much, like in an action RPG.
All armors had 7 (or more) tiers with pretty linear strength requirements. Basically those were level requirements to wear better gear. I don't want to see that in an RPG again, ever.
DnD 5e has str requirement of 13 to wear chain mail and str 15 to wear splint or plate mail. Something along those lines works great.
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In DnD, with the progressive point buy system, you are making meaningful choices with attributes.
A Wizard can raise Int from 16 to 18, or use the same amount points to get 6 points distributed between Str / Dex / Con up to 14. You can trade that last bit of spellcasting power with better survivability and the ability to smack goblins with a staff or sword or whatever.
Without the progression, it would be a no brainer to always pump Int to max. So perhaps PoE needs progressive costs as well. And with that comes making the stats have much more impact.
In NWN, when you are distributing attributes you are making important choices. The attributes create a clear image of the character in your mind. In PoE it's mostly just annoying trying to figure out the spread you want because your character will play the same whatever you do and it just feels like some really vague micromanagement.
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Not trying to be argumentative, sorry if it sounds that way, just curious. What would you do to make physical and mental strength valuable to every class? Or do you not think they need to be?
It's a great question.
Spellcasters with increased Strength = able to wear better armor and wield better weapons, thus being able to fight in melee instead of having to flee or always start casting defensive spells when engaged
Fighters with increased mental attribute = qualifying for talents and special moves e.g. "Focused Precision" or "Keen Defender" that increase their accuracy or deflection for a duration, and/or getting more uses of special moves. A mentally more capable warrior would be more flexible and "peak" more at the time of your choosing. A super strong but mentally lacking warrior would be more of a workhorse damage dealer with less choice for special moves or self buffs.
I'm fairly sure the first one has never worked, since if a wizard doesn't want to wade into melee, they won't. So it's a dump stat. The second one seems functionally identical to intelligence. Unless you're proposing separate attributes for auto-attack damage and ability damage, in which case, which one does an archer/gunner use? Or magical implements? Or knives and rapiers?
Strength as RPGs traditionally define is just shouldn't be a thing. It's too narrow and only really useful for a narrow subset of characters. It has to be either folded together with constitution or something else, like Pillars does it.
You completely underestimate the usefulness of Strength in a system where armor and weapons have a Strength requirement to use.
Also in a good combat system, staying out of melee completely isn't up to the Wizard.
DnD is a great example where having 14 Strength suddenly gives your Wizard the ability to fight in melee. Compared to 10 Str you hit a lot more and can one hit goblins with a staff. So it has been done even without the pre-reqs I mentioned above.
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Not trying to be argumentative, sorry if it sounds that way, just curious. What would you do to make physical and mental strength valuable to every class? Or do you not think they need to be?
It's a great question.
Spellcasters with increased Strength = able to wear better armor and wield better weapons, thus being able to fight in melee instead of having to flee or always start casting defensive spells when engaged
Fighters with increased mental attribute = qualifying for talents and special moves e.g. "Focused Precision" or "Keen Defender" that increase their accuracy or deflection for a duration, and/or getting more uses of special moves. A mentally more capable warrior would be more flexible and "peak" more at the time of your choosing. A super strong but mentally lacking warrior would be more of a workhorse damage dealer with less choice for special moves or self buffs.
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For comparison, I present the spell school list from Baldur's Gate:
Abjuration - Alteration
Conjuration - Divination
Enchantment - Invocation
Illusion - Necromancy
Alteration is basically transmutation, and abjuration is basically the generic control of magical energy -- mostly buffs and removing buffs. To abjure means to formally reject or renounce, so perhaps the idea behind the name is magical barriers.
Does this list make any more sense than POE2's?
The AD&D "opposing schools" system was rubbish which is why it's weird they would want to replicate it in PoE2.
At least in BG you only lose one school out of 8, so the current PoE system of axing 2/5 is actully much worse.
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They also make attributes an illusion of choice, like they have been in D&D for a while now... for ever, really. Attributes in modern D&D are mostly vestigial, and I've seen very elegant solution for excising them altogether from 5E. Pillars' system is an attempt to make them a choice beyond "18 here, 16 here... the rest doesn't really matter". In the end, attributes are just one source of numbers among several. They're really not as big a deal as people make them out to be.
The others still matter though. Just not as much as the main ones for that class. That's not the attributes' faults. That's the fault of the specific way in which the classes are set up. In DnD, they've typically affected a great deal of things. Just overbearingly is that
PoE was an attempt to get away from that, yes, but I feel that the pendulum swung a bit far to the opposite end of the spectrum, where it feels like the effects of attributes are struggling to justify the existence of the attributes. As it stands, you just have a couple of attributes that are globally uber useful then the rest "don't matter" (as much). Instead of per-class now, it's just across the board, but the problem remains.
Exactly right.
PoE attribute system could be great with some fine tuning.
- separate Might into physical and mental strength
- make the abilities matter more across the board
- instead of a linear cost and progression, introduce a point buy system where raising attributes costs progressively more. It hinders min/maxing and makes an evenly spread "jack of all trades" build viable
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For real, what's the problem in Warriors always needing Str and Wizards always needing Int?
Of course a melee fighter needs to be strong and fast. Or high Dex and finesse.
Of course a Wizard needs to be highly intelligent if magic works like science.
There's nothing wrong with "obvious" stats. They make perfect sense.
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The opposed schools aren't completely random. I suspected this was the case and drew up a chart to confirm:
If anyone wants to have a robust discussion on what should be moved where, now we can do so more easily.
You could easily flip the schools on that diagram to whatever arrangement and it would make just as much sense. That's what I meant by random. None of these schools oppose eachother thematically which would make losing access completely understandable.
If Illusion and Enchantment are your favourite schools, you're simply out of luck because someone decided that should you specialize in one, you lose the other. The only way to get both Illusion and Enchantment is to pick Evoker subclass or not subclass at all. The system is just rigid and arbitrary.
Getting a penalty to all spells outside your chosen school makes sense because of focus. But being completely unable to cast two entire schools of spells "just because" doesn't.
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1varangian:
While I get what you're saying, I think you might be knee-jerking a bit. It's not "free." You still have a limit to spell-casting. In a way, it's MORE restrictive. Before, if you could cast 5 Tier 3 spells, for example, then you could just cast all 5 in one encounter if you so chose. Then rest and do it again in another, etc. Now, you are simply limited at the encounter level. It doesn't mean you get to cast all the exact same quantities of various-level spells, just per-encounter instead of per-rest. It's just a different way of limiting it. Basically, you'll be more limited in what you can do per-encounter, but your spells will replenish more often now (after every encounter). Like any tool, if it's used properly and the encounters are generally balanced around this limitation, it can be pretty awesome.
If I know all my spells replenish after every battle, of course I will open up with the most powerful ones. Every time. And then work my way down gradually to lower level spells. To maximise efficiency and minimize the risk of injury. That can get predictable and boring very fast. Unless the encounter designs are always smart and unpredictable and give you something else to consider.
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No attribute system in a video game has ever managed to actually do any of that. Which is part of why I find it hard to give a good gorram about this controversy. Incremental number increases will never properly represent your character, and that's all attributes are ever going to be. It's just that people vastly overstate how important they are.
NWN / D&D 3.5e manage this because stats have more weight in combat and skill points. A Str 18 character hits twice as hard with a Longsword than a Str 10 character. The difference is even bigger with a two hander. High Str characters in NWN hit clearly harder, can carry more weight and feel strong like they should. In PoE Mig 18 vs. Mig 10 equals 24 dmg vs. 20 dmg, hardly enough to make the distinction between weak and strong. (And you don't even know if its physical strength or some spiritual magicsoulpower that apparently manifests as telekinetic augmentation of physical strength.)
D&D Dex 18 gives you a massive AC and Accuracy bonus while in PoE Resolve isn't really worth putting points into.
Copy paste for every other stat.
I'm not saying D&D is perfect but the attributes DO work much better than the PoE system in making your character feel a certain way.
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So there will only be per encounter spells??
That sounds like casters are going to spam their most powerful spells in every single fight since its free. Which gets repetitive. Which makes casting spells less awesome and more of a chore rather than an intelligent tactical choice.
And spells will have be less powerful and less impressive because you cast much more.
Please prove me wrong.
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If they really are going forward with randomly axing 40% of the potential spell list, I feel like the subclasses need to be much deeper with more unique powers/spells and bigger focus on the chosen school.
I still probably wouldn't play any subclass that loses Evocation in a game like Pillars. The lost schools define the subclass more than the chosen school does, which is completely backwards.
And there's no way they can ever explain why precisely Conjuration and Evocation are mutually exclusive. Base Wizard can cast everything, so they are not mutually exclusive.
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Pre-buffing in Infinity engine games was pretty dumb but it was mostly because there were so many buffing spells you could just stack on top of another.
I would prefer a system where instead of a passive "Shield" that lasts for 10 minutes after casting, Wizards would have an active "Shield" that requires concentration to maintain and hinders you from casting other spells requiring concentration. Or you would use a "Telekinetic Push" to knock attackers back rather than have Stoneskin on 24/7 - active defenses / buffs instead of passive ones.
Yeah, although it was not executed as well as it could have been, the general idea behind Dragon Age: Origins buffs fits with this. Even Fighters had their stances or what-have-you. For example, you could activate "Indomitable," which would make you immune to knockdown. It didn't cost any one-off resource consumption. Instead, it reduced your Stamina pool by like 10% (or 15%? *shrug*). Anywho... all the buffs worked like that. So, a Mage's buff might affect your whole group, but it was a sustained thing that you toggled and it cost your Mage like 20% of his mana pool. So, you could, if you so chose, have 3 or 4 of these active all at once, but you'd basically have like 5% of your max mana to cast with, rendering you unable to cast any other spells in combat (most spells cost about 10% or more of your mana at any given point).
Again, not perfect execution. I think with 4 party members, there were too many things allowed to be active at once. BUT, the tradeoff actually worked pretty nicely, and you could tactically toggle things on and off as-needed or to shift roles in combat.
I know Pillars had/has modals, so they've already got the setup for some similar cost-system. I guess every class would need something akin to an ability "casting" pool, though, for that to work globally.
Yeah DAO mages had a modal Arcane Shield that was quite cool. The penalty in addition to standard mana cost was increased Fatigue that meant your other spells cost 5% more. Elegant.
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I would prefer a system where instead of a passive "Shield" that lasts for 10 minutes after casting, Wizards would have an active "Shield" that requires concentration to maintain and hinders you from casting other spells requiring concentration. Or you would use a "Telekinetic Push" to knock attackers back rather than have Stoneskin on 24/7 - active defenses / buffs instead of passive ones.
Dragon Age: Origins had something like this. Buffs reduced your maximum mana and made casting spells more difficult. It was a flexible system that let you choose between firepower or passively enhanced stats. I don't know how such a mechanic would work in a more traditional cast per rest/encounter system, though.
So it wouldn't change much for Wizards or Druids from Pillars of Eternity where the best move was to buff and/or drop a big AoE spell and then get down and dirty with a summoned weapon or animal form in melee range.
Buffing spells in PoE are really annoying to use because of their ridiculously short durations.
Lets say the party is fighting monsters with a confusion mind attack. You need to constantly spam pause to examine status effects and cast resistance / suppression which really kills the flow of combat.
A much more elegant solution would be for the spellcaster to choose an active "mind protection mode" for that fight, that would require concentration. Choose one buff kind of deal. Or if you have crazy concentration skills or some Abjurer subclass, could maybe concentrate on two simultaneous protections. There could be an added downside that offensive spells could have slower casting times or be generally weaker.
A long lasting circle of protection that would give immunity to mind effects would also be a much more interesting way to handle defensive buffs. Tactics would be suddenly limited to standing inside the circle and you could even get knocked out of it.
Short durations are really annoying, hope they fix that.
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Pre-buffing in Infinity engine games was pretty dumb but it was mostly because there were so many buffing spells you could just stack on top of another.
I would prefer a system where instead of a passive "Shield" that lasts for 10 minutes after casting, Wizards would have an active "Shield" that requires concentration to maintain and hinders you from casting other spells requiring concentration. Or you would use a "Telekinetic Push" to knock attackers back rather than have Stoneskin on 24/7 - active defenses / buffs instead of passive ones.
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If i remember correctly, it's a per rest ability allowing you reinforce the power of an ability when you use it, or to reuse some already used ones.
I would be pretty much ok with this system. But i feel the disavatanges are too much. I liked the idea of BG, where specialized casters had 1 more spell/level in their book. Though seems the new magic system does not allow this, which is a shame. One more slot per level in the grimoire in PoE1 would have been valuable.
But anyway, 2 opposite schools when there are five total, isn't that too much? Unless the designers think of this as a "really" very specialized subclass, in which case the conjurer would have really powerfull conjurer spells and useful familiar, but would hardly find any interest in casting spells from any other school anyway. I don't dislike this kind of gameplay. But i guess it needs to be tested to determine how interesting/fun it actually is.
2 schools out of 5 is way too much but I mostly hate how arbitrary the schools you lose are. None of the schools thematically oppose one another and losing all access to an entire school or two just because you study something else more doesn't make any sense. It's supposed to be a choice of what you focus on rather than what you can't do at all.
The schools will probably be unbalanced in a combat focused CRPG as well. Half of all the spells will be Evocation and 5% will be Transmutation. :-X
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The symbol for Might is a flexed bicep...I hate seeing that. I already can't shake the impression that the PoE1 Wizard is the beefiest character in the party.
I don't know why they're insisting on keeping a system that so many players find vague and annoying. It doesn't have to be.
An RPG attribute system is a tool to convey an impression of the characters and their abilities. Then you have the PoE system where you don't even know how physically strong a character actually is because you're just putting points in "damage and healing" instead of an actual attribute.
PoE attribute system has been designed with mathematical precision but it does a poor job of reflecting your characters. It's not just Might. With Dexterity it's impossible to gauge what it actually achieves. Intellect doesn't make your characters seem any smarter or more skilled, just their stun attack maybe lasts 2 seconds longer which will go completely unnoticed in the heat of battle. Resolve has an impact so tiny you can't tell any difference. Same with Perception.
It feels like the attribute system is too clever and perfect for its own good. Sometimes simple, noticeable things like +3 AC and dump stats achieve something mathematical perfection can't.
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What's the empower system?
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I like the idea of specialist Wizards getting access to more powerful spells faster. As in lowering the level of spells from the chosen school by one. Tradeoff could be getting a small power penalty to spells from all other schools.
Or having all spells from the chosen school be automatically and always memorized, but getting less slots for other spells. I.e. more spells but less flexible.
Both of the above would feel more "specialized" than just getting a % bonus to damage / duration / aoe.
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The Wizard subclass system from the latest video has me worried.
E.g. Conjurer gets:
- buff to Conjuration spell power
- Conjure Familiar special ability
- loses access Evocation and Illusion spells
- 20% recovery penalty for non-Conjuration spells
Firstly, the subclasses are really cool as a concept. They give flavor to the Wizard beyond the base class. I can already imagine the rivalries and stories between the five schools. I couldn't imagine a reason for not picking a cool subclass with unique powers for my Wizard...until I read the downsides. Arbitrarily losing almost half of your potential spell selection quickly takes the fun out of a Wizard and makes the bland generalist a more attractive option.
The "opposing school" mechanic feels like the legacy of AD&D and it's miraculous it is being recreated here. It fails as a concept because you're not really choosing what you want but what you are willing to give up. The long list of spells you lose weighs the most in that decision. You should at least have some control over what you lose i.e. what your Wizard isn't interested in. But choosing those schools doesn't redeem the system either, especially when there are only 5 schools.
It doesn't help that the "opposing schools" don't make any sense thematically, like e.g. Creation vs. Destruction would, or some other actual opposites. In PoE2, Conjurers and Transmuters can't cast Fireballs but Illusionists and Enchanters can. What??
Suggestion to fix the system:
1. No randomly banned schools for subclassed wizards, please. Use a blanket penalty for all spells outside the chosen school instead. Make subclassing a choice of what we want instead of what we don't want to lose.
2. Turn the "generalist" concept into a subclass of its own with its own perks. Call it the Arcanist and let the five schools of magic frown at the Arcanists' folly of trying to master everything equally.
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In a furious attempt to get away from the "staff and robes" type of Wizard, they turned it into "stick and a book" type of Wizard. A bit underwhelming I think.
Why not give complete freedom from cliches then?
1. Separate the magical basic attack from equipment so you can use whatever weapon you want.
2. Create different kinds of arcane implements that buff spellcasting ability. Rods, orbs, books, staves, amulets, rings, whatever or craft your own style.
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I would like the animal companion as an option or a specialization instead of being forced to have one as a Ranger.
I like the Ranger as a concept but don't want to have a personal pet running around.
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Fixed damage weapons
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
An attack of exact same power can cause different amounts of damage based on where it hits.
Randomness of damage also reflects where and how it hits.