Jarmo

Maybe not S.P.E.C.I.A.L., but taken from there I could see this work by picking feats or perks, a couple at first and more later. Moral code, cultural impact, level of education, class status and other stuff like that, I'd prefer to be separate from base class and just roleplayed.

From what I've read it'll be 2D backdrops with 3D characters, effects and additional stuff. Much like in Temple of Elemental Evil.

Yeah, it was cool in FO3, even better in New Vegas with weapon repair kits (which you could make from other junk items). And there it was thematically appropriate, surviving in the wasteland, living off the trash of wealthier times. And, to re-emphasize you only needed to look after your own and a friends stuff. If Eternity was going to be a similar thing, all good items rare or belonging in the past, maybe set on some remote cut off location... Then I guess I'd probably be more open to it. But I don't think that's going to be the case. Might be a cool setting for a sequel. As I said, in theory it's all cool, I'd like to buy an old battered mail shirt and make do with it for awhile, repair when essential, carry a more durable backup mace in case the old axe splits. Float in air with joy when finding a good quality steel sword. But maybe only with one companion? Then reach wealth of quality items halfway the game, valyrian steel.

Easy healing for me thank you. Bandages, kits and whatever that allows non-healers to make it to the next battle without sleeping in some corridor. Healing spells aplenty, regeneration as a feat for combat types, rejuvenating songs for bards. You can put all this on "easy" difficulty. On "normal" or "hard" what them grognards want, on "realistic" a wound should take half a year to heal, deep wounds will never heal completely leaving you a permanently weakened cripple. Hey what? "Realistic", how many guys you know who've taken a couple of swings from an axe and healed just fine?

There is a "Delete My Vote" button below the poll. I change my votes all the time after a bit of rethinking or somebodys clever argument.

Bah, "childkiller" perk was a cop-out. Allow killing "but then everybody will hate you and you die". How the heck does everybody in the world know I did it when I killed everybody in that village, including the children? Yes there should be children, and if "commoner" adults are killable, children should be as well. Yes, there should be children of all races. Furthermore. When you get a mission from the Church of High Purity to wipe out an orc village, that should include women, children and the elderly. If there's an assasins guild or something like that, one of the missions could be kidnapping or murdering some merchants or nobles child "you still have 3 left". Just to make a point that assasins are not nice and cool. And when you find that village burned and looted by the forces of evil, tiny bodies scattered about help to emphasize this here was indeed an evil act.

In principle yeah, but in a party of six it'd just be micromanagement and god awful hassle. So no.

A party member assumedly adventuring on their own and earning XP, yeah, why not. A party member adventuring on their own and dying, no. That's just silly inconvenience pretending to be realistic. It can be assumed the adventurer has a fate that lets him survive on his own, or maybe when you meet him on the shadowy bar on level 5, there should be a chance he didn't make the first 5 levels and is actually dead and not on the bar to be met? How inconvenient. On the other hand, it could be kind of fun to get a messenger delivering a note to the tune of: "Your former collaegue Maester Ferdinard Hugebottoms has perished during an adventure, would you like to finance his resurrection?" Or the ex could find himself in trouble and would be asking for help, or he could have a lead on something. But that'd be a lot of work, for some char you didn't want to play with in the first place.

Light one handed Free offhand to improve balance, fencing. The main advantage is just that it's more convenient to carry only the weapon and not a shield. This is the gentlemanly way to fight, but not (to my knowledge) something any army have used in large scale. Because it's not that effective. Light or medium one handed with off hand armored or equipped with buckler Much the same as with previous and probably better in almost every way. The offhand is used for blocking, the buckler also for attack. Those often had a center spike just for that. Weapon and shield. Shield gives better cover, but is heavier and slower. Usually when fighting a single opponent, you'd prefer a smaller shield or a buckler. Big shield is a more passive weapon, better mostly against ranged weapons and also better if you don't have much blocking skills. Medium weapons. If it's not a very light weapon, you're better off using it with two hands, thus making faster and harder strikes. There's a cut off point somewhere, a rapier or dagger wouldn't benefit from using two handed style (and wouldn't have big enough handle anyway). Swords, axes, spears, warhammers. 2-handed weapons. Are basically just the same as medium weapons, there's probably a longer handle and the weapon is bigger in itself. There's nothing actually demanding the use of two hands, but no matter how strong you are, you'll hit faster and harder with two hands and a medium size weapon is probably better if you use a shield (maybe not if you have gauntlets of ogre power or something). 2 weapons Well there's that sword and dagger style and some samurai types (Musashi) used a long and a short sword. But the whole style is still something that's not been common anywhere, ever. And probably not because anyone didn't think of it, ever. I'd hazard a guess it can be effective if you're skilled, because the other guy is not used to fighting against two weapon fighters. The same goes for many strange weapon styles, if the other guy isn't used to facing what you're fielding, you have an edge.

Also, make spear usable (also) as a 1-handed weapon. Because, spear and shield were the way most armies fought through the ages, only in D&D it's not done.

"So you want me in your party... as a reserve member? So I'll just wait in this cottage in case you someday need me?" Yeah, that'll work. Nah, DA (and other Bioware games) sort of assume everybody is along all the time, despite the game mechanics only allowing a few companions. And that also explains why they gain XP, they're with you.. in spirit. Mostly, I'd think you either have someone with you or you don't. This does conflict a bit with arbitrary limits. "What do you mean the party is full?" Voted for the second option though, because this could work sometimes. Assume you have this house of yours, or have arranged for lodgings from an in (with full upkeep), then why the heck shouldn't some mage scholar just grab the opportunity to take a few weeks of reading time. Maybe learn something while doing the scholarly work as well? Or maybe the warrior could spend the week training? But some paladin on a quest to eradicate all evil? A bit of a holiday? Ummm... NO!

No. Or maybe yes, but no. Not the way it's usually done, what you say to this and that and giving them a box of jellybeans. I'd think the fact that you just took out the Evil Lich of Gran Munchkin to be more important! By far. "Sheet, you crazy man, we could have died out there, we should have died! I'm out!" "Today we have struck a fine blow for the powers of good, by my honor, I will never abandon thee!" But even if you go by what your party does, if that has an impact on their morale, you should be able to smooth out the blow if you have charisma and talking skills. "such a handsome guy will never die, besides, think of the loot" And you should be able to talk about the same things again. No sudden death situations where unless you pick the third choice out of five, it's the end for that story branch.

An extra month of debugging, after beta, before release. Hey, awesome games and all, but...

I'd only like a handful of base classes, but with ability to specialize in some direction. Either by selecting a specialization, or by putting points towards it somehow. So a warrior could (if willing to specialize) become eg heavy, better in armor&blocking, being able to shrug off more damage. agile, hitting fast and accurate, dodging many hits damager, sweeping through multiple opponents with 2-handed or dual weapons Mage could be a summoner, elementalis, shapeshifter or whatever. Nothing new or surprising here, the main point being, few classes but with many options. If there are many classes, there almost have to be fewer available choices on levelup, else the possible combination skyrockets and becomes almost impossible to test and balance up.

40+ Neverwinter Nights. And if think you don't like it, that probably just means you haven't played Elegia Eternum or The Prophet, or many other of the best rpg's of all time.

Besides, while it's not been implicitly said the world will be full of magic, it's been said the gunpowder weapons are basically a mage-killing weapons. So it wont be completely down to earth affair. No. I'm happy with there being a whole bunch of weapons with "sharpness" cast upon them (+1 damage or so). Just not the usual row of incrementally improved everything.

Depends on the world and the amount of magic we're talking about. If most towns have a local mages guild and putting a simple enchantment into a sword is something you do between breakfast and lunch, then hell yeah there should be magic items all around. But that'd be something of the same level as having a damascus steel blade. You'll have one if you're wealthy. Seriously great items should be rare, and they should be significantly better than anything else.

The enemies should always drop all equipment they had. And If a plate armour costs 1000gp, and I kill 10 guys with plate, I should be able to get... maybe 2-5 thousand GP's for the lot, used and damaged as they are. And if armor and weapons degrade and get damaged, I should be able to by used plate for 500. The rewards you get from doing stuff should outshine the value of loot, so much as not to force everybody to become corpse looters.

So.. let's assume Obsidian decides a big ass dungeon that isn't essential to the story, is actually spreading resources too thin. Better to just polish up the main game to a higher degree. (Shockingly, this is actually my opinion.) So if the question came down to: 1. No Mega Dungeon 2. Mega dungeon as a $2 DLC That's not where we're at, not saying that. But if Ob decides no dungeon, what then?

Putting it like that, yeah I do see the slot for heavily armored fighter, and I'd be ok if that's called a knight. I just don't see the need to put social status and education into the package, or there'd be also need for a less well off rough and scruffy warrior class. (which would the probably be barbarian or something like that) The main reason I wouldn't like too many classes, is I'd like maximum effort and resources on each individual class, to make sure it's polished, balanced and well rounded. The fewer classes, the easier that is to accomplish. D&D classes are a developement of decades, blizzard spends zilliards of bucks and man-hours into seeking the class balance. There's virtually zero chance Eternity won't have serious problems with class balance when it ships, but I'd like to see that minimized.

I'll have to say I don't see the need for a specific class for this. Sir Lancel von Radiant Class: Warrior Social Status: Noble Education: High Occupation: Knight in the Order of Chambers ... or that's how I see it. The fewer classes the better.

Maybe, probably, but polls can be very misleadingly tilted as well. The same way as all other discussion in the forum. The people frequenting the forum are... certain kind of people. The vast majority of gamers don't hang out in forums. Or answer polls. That aside, polls do provide some indication of what forum visitors think of things. Like, I thought there'd be a significant amount of gamers who don't want any more undead in their games, so I set up a polll about it and... oops, looks like I'm totally in a minority.

Doesn't really matter either way. Against castle walls and stuff like that, not useful against a party of six, or luggable against monsters.* So for the purposes of the game, it doesn't really matter if it's a cannon, a ballista or a trebuchet. It won't come into play (unless there's a nice cutscene where it does). Throwable bombs and placable explosives on the other hand, yeah! *Although I've long thought an oversized arquebus would have been just the thing against dragons and ogres. (the line of thinking that doesn't have too much real-world use, or even in game use for that matter)

IE style, lots and lots and lots of voice acting, but only for greetings and maybe a bit more in important parts. Voices do add a lot in the way of immersion, and it doesn't even require much of it, just a few words and the character is alive!

So.. you can kill it with a flamethrower but not with a machine gun?