rjshae

Here's the latest NWN2 Plug featuring the Giant Wasp in combat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPXTVJxJVUs

Hmm...

Maybe her arcane knowledge comes from a remembered past life rather than her own rigorous study in this one, and the memories of what she had to go through to obtain it are so traumatic/her past personality is so maddened and grotesque that she turns to alcohol to suppress them. Or maybe she's just burned out from failure after years of diligent work. Then again, mental discipline is probably most closely represented within the game by Resolve, and it's not like it's impossible to make a wizard with an absolutely abysmal Resolve score to begin with. I tend to associate Resolve with stubbornness rather than mental discipline; they seem like different aspects. You can have a scholarly discipline but be indecisive, for example. But perhaps Randora is just a Friday night party animal, and the rest of the time she's sober and serious (...and grumpy)?

A drunken sea wizard? What could possibly go wrong... Wizards supposedly have a high mental discipline. That probably conflicts with being a hapless alcoholic.

Yes, it seems like Randora's background needs to be kicked up a notch. Right now she's just a drunken wizard/captain -- that's an odd combination, but not particularly adventurous. Maybe she'd work better as a chanter/smuggler?

The market gossip lady might spread a few scurrilous rumors about your inadequacies, dropping your faction reputations in certain quarters and causing all the local strumpets to giggle uncontrollably whenever you pass.

I'd like to see a system that works like a wargaming-style zone-of-control (ZoC): leaving a ZoC costs a movement penalty (recovery time?), and if you move directly from one enemy ZoC to another you might get whacked. But that would probably require a turn-based combat system with a hex grid.

At times like these I always think about the first guy to eat poisonous berries. What was he thinking? Maybe it's tasty, it is bright red. She was hungry; near starvation, and at risk of dying that winter. Game had been scarce that year and the tribe was suffering from disease when they finally reached the red berry lands to the south. They were desperate and willing to try anything to survive. The survivors drew straws -- she came up with the short stalk and so she tentatively nibbled one of the berries. The woman turned pale, her gut wretched, and finally, several painful hours later, she passed away. But the rest of the tribe survived because they avoided the red berries thenceforth.

Well, it looks like twice as much is not enough... Perhaps some day the text will be compiled with phoneme data so that a quality speech synthesizer can be used.

One way that animancers could contribute positively is by finding a way to heal "fractured" souls. Perhaps binding a soul into a vessel will prove to be a way to do that. Wealthy patrons discovered to possess fractured souls may decide upon this treatment at their death so that they may be reincarnated whole. Or it could all be snake oil sold by a duplicitous animancer looking to line his or her pockets.

So the invention of guns is no science? Historians are no scientists? In a world with magic, studying magic would count as science too, I guess. Galvinos constructs are not only a work of animancy but a mechanical work. We even encounter a geologist in the game. But I admit: Nothing as cool and potentially useful as reviving the dead. An army of enslaved souls. How cool is that? That is real progress. If only the world could see it rationally. What we need is a cute girl with sexy glasses to help them being rational. Positivist idiots. It did take a while for "science" to develop into Science as we understand it today. For a long time it was called naturalism instead, as untestable supernatural explanations gradually came to be excluded. Likewise, for most of the past, history was not scientific. It took centuries for history to develop rigorous methods, and in some respects it's still as much an art as a science. So no, just "studying" magic is not science. It also needs rigorous hypothesis testing and independent verification before it becomes a proper science.

*Some* animancers, that is. And that's really the problem. Animancy is the game's stand-in for science, and this could be used as much for trapping souls in constructs as it could for helping fractured souls to find their 'twin'. The issue here falls down to individual practices of animancy and not animancy in general, and I do think that is made pretty clear throughout the game's length. Again, though, the alternative presented is really just superstition, and from the present day rationalist perspective, science will trump it every time. I don't recall how the hollowborn crisis was interpreted by the animancers, but it appears that Waiden's Legacy was the price to be paid for the practice of trapping souls. It isn't a superstitious belief when direct evidence of the consequence of animancy becomes available via the player's agency. I would expect that information to spread throughout the culture like a meme, transmitted in part by some of the party members, and eventually shaping everybody's interpretation of animancy.

What this thread needs is a super mellow Dwarven party member named Xanax...

Maneha's voice seemed too suburban soccer mom -- it didn't fit the wilderness barbarian mold at all. Perhaps she'd be fine in a different part, just not that one. I enjoyed all the remainder of the VO work, particularly Hiravias.

Questions for you folks: assuming that Ydwin had a life partner or a close family member, and that the individual met their end, would she attempt to capture its soul? Since she is a cipher, would she be able to connect to the captured soul of her lost companion or family member? Do we know what type of vessel is used for a captured soul so that it can be placed in a body?

Random answer on D100 36. stop the bulltalk. This is a mere stalling solution never solved anything. At least not in my case and many others. Lucky you. I resisted assimilation, so it works for me. Don't have a cow.