rjshae

A number of them look good, although a few are decidedly more advantageous than others. I like the Beat with an Ugly Stick, Mad Doctor, and Raised in the Pits.

If they use an attribute point buy system where the cost increases as the attribute increases, then they could give you more attribute points by making improvement costs the same as during the initial build. As an example, suppose your Might score is at a level where it would cost 3 points to improve by +1. You, the player, would need to accumulate 3 attribute improvement points to boost your Might by +1. If they give the player a +1 attribute point per two levels, then after six levels of advancement the Might could be increased by +1.

Heh, a potato he says (while I casually hide my slide rule under a stack of paper)... You kids are spoiled rotten!

If negative traits > positive traits, then there is a net imbalance. The positive trait would be there to make it an interesting character. It would be easy to unbalance a character just by having it walk around naked, but not very interesting.

Pre-ordering a game seems like sending off for a mail-order spouse--you may be happy with your choice, or you may be getting a lunatic blood-sucking leech that drives you off the cliff.

Yes, my choice of thread title is not optimal. Most of the complaints were regarding character design and being able to make mistakes while building your PC, as you can fairly readily in other games.

They do need to add some little electromagnetic widgets on the headphones to mess with your inner ear...

That's perhaps not the best example of where I was going. How about a 'Bad Eyesight' background that significantly hinders searches and ranged attacks, but you get a bonus to hearing checks? Or a 'Weak Health' or 'Body Odor' disadvantage?

There's been some discussion of how some players prefer a game where it is possible to make bad character design decisions. Given that the game is being designed to avoid bad builds, would it make sense to add optional background picks that deliberately create an unbalanced character? For example, a background pick that starts with the PC receiving an initially negative reception from some key factions, but the pick is partly rewarded by gaining a specific bonus talent.

I tend to think of rangers as a type of skirmishing/scouting class. They could be adept at breaking away from combat, or striking then rapidly shifting position. In this sense they would be rogue-like, although I don't think they'd get the rogue's spike damage. Their ranged attacks are more adept at firing between obstacles, thereby allowing them to better fire into a mixed melee or strike a foe behind cover. Over long ranges though, the accuracy of a ranger and fighter with a missile weapon are probably somewhat comparable. Thus their talents could include things like a Sprinting Shot (take an accuracy penalty but gain extra movement after each shot), Acrobatic Maneuver (to bypass or disengage an enemy), Ricochet (to hit a concealed target), and Point Blank (for close ranged fire).

The one I have a concern about is the dual-wielding specialist for Ranger. I don't see a plausible reason why a Ranger would choose this path since it relies on having plenty of open space; try flailing a pair of scimitars around in the woods and see how soon it takes you to get entangled. To me a Ranger should be better at maneuvering around obstacles and taking advantage of terrain. They would use thrusting weapons like a spear, or short weapons with smaller arcs. As long as they are using suitable weapons, I'd give them a speed and deflection bonus while fighting in the wilds.

My pick would be: March 21st, 3... 2... 1... boom!

So much anger, so much rage... ah, gotta love college football.

Male dwarves should have bigger heads than female dwarves More seriously though, big head tend to make models look like caricatures – less 'elegant'. Just my 2¢ Yeah well dwarven heads need to be large enough to store all the extra ale they haven't swallowed yet. To compensate, female dwarven hips should have evolved to be equally humongous so that their offspring can make it out in one piece...

Because the people who normally would are instead spending $54 $55 $56 million supporting Star Citizen?

There's not much else of substance to discuss at this point, so the troll threads are getting more traffic than is their due.

He's not from the RPGCodex. I am, so is Infinitron, C2B, Hormalakh, mutonizer, Arkeus, Malekith, PrimeJunta, Tigranes (a moderator) ... Despite what many people believe, the RPGCodex contributes good things to the RPG community and has raised a lot of money for lots of the Kickstarters. There's two reasons why people may not like the place - the list of preferred titles, and the undermoderation. I prefer undermoderation myself. No offense and I agree they do some good work there at the RPGCodex, but personally I like to have the sewage filtered before it flows back into my tap water.

Okay, who's got the oil and torches? A pitchfork; we'll need some of those as well.

Perfect is the enemy of good. If they took at the time they needed, we'd never see it. It just needs to be good enough.

Kickstarter and video games -- 1st half of 2014, by Thomas Bidaux on Gamasutra. It shows some interesting trends for the year, with observations.

Quick, which way to the intelligent discussion thread...

We had multitudes of people posting here asking Obsidian to "take your time", so guess what... Thanks for posting the update.

In terms of graphical quality, the level of immersion is an important factor. If you are engaged with the plot and the characters, then the graphics can look mediocre and (after a little while) you probably won't care. Otherwise, no amount of eye candy is going to provide satisfaction.

What, this hasn't turned into a romance thread yet? What's wrong with you people?

My expectation is that they will at least recoup the original KS funding, and maybe more. Enough for another game at any rate. But I'm a 'glass is too large' kind of guy...