rjshae

"Pillars of Eternity" has a solid, epic feel to it. I find the name reminiscent of ancient Greek legends, and it speaks of a grand scheme to the Universe. Most importantly it's a name that takes itself seriously.

It's probably the better style for a squad-based game. But it also worked pretty well for the Torchlight series, which did quite nicely in the market place.

As non-typical as it seems, try to think of the fact that certain enemies are going to have "super high Deflection" as their thing; their difficulty. So, even amongst higher-than-average Accuracy folk, that range is going to shift towards a lot of missing and grazing. Hell, imagine, even a 50/50 between those. (Well, 50/45/5, because of the "you can always Hit" thing). If you can increase the 45% chance to Graze to, say 75%, that pushes the miss chance down to 25% from 50. You're missing HALF as often as you were. So, as strange as it is (again) for Grazing to be your almost-best-case-scenario, it kind of is, there. Hits would sort of become your crits. Basically, think of those enemies as being "immune to crits," just like others are immune to certain damage types or elements, etc. Then it makes a little more sense, I think. It's still very much not what we're used to seeing in existing games, though. 8P Oh I get the scenario. It's just that (1) the actual situation may be uncommon at higher levels, (2) you're missing less often with your least damaging result. The net effect is you may slowly grind down the occasional enemy a little less slowly than you did before.

Thanks for the update, guys! The finished stronghold section looks fantastic. But somehow I was expecting the ruined stronghold to look a little more, well... ruined. But we're not seeing the entire scene so maybe the walls are more disintegrated elsewhere. Anyway, keep up the good work!

It doesn't seem like this would be all that beneficial: if I understand correctly then it's mostly useful against enemies that have a much higher Deflection rating compared to your Accuracy rating, and even then it only gives up to half damage in the infrequent cases where you would normally miss completely. I guess I'd have to try it to convince myself.

Note that it's graze, not gaze. As in a glancing blow. You're not wearing out your foe with a dirty look.

It does require a certain willingness to delay satisfaction...

As with all art styles, there's variations in quality level. Some anime can be quite outstanding; others, not so much. The same is true of American animation.

I completely disagree. Lephis is correct. I don't just want to play out their personalities in my head or write it somewhere that I can click on occasionally. I would like it if I can completly design a companion, including a personality which actually manifests itself in the game. There's no reason they couldn't do both: allow a limited set of basic, pre-configured personalities, plus a tabula rasa option. They would then need to insert various trigger points to cause a custom companion to blurt out one of a fixed set of responses. E.g. "Tis' something most unnatural here, and I want no part of it" or "I've got a bad feeling about this". A tabula rasa character would simply say nothing at that point, leaving it to your imagination.

The Adventurer's Hall could start out in a similar fashion to a Veteran's Hall--a place for war veterans to hang out and trade stories. It naturally acquired a bar and a lounge, then gravitated toward gambling and sparring--often combining the two activities. In time then, the Hall attracted those with a penchant adventure, brawling, and recklessness. The original purpose of the Hall may have faded, but it still possesses many of the old war trophies contributed by the veterans. Some of those old soldiers still linger, providing tips and advice about how to stay alive during battle.

It would be good if the Adventurer Hall personalities could be given some personality, either through the Wizardry 8 approach above or by selecting back stories. However, I don't know that there will be sufficient resources available to develop it. I suspect that most of the writing effort is probably going to be spent on the recruitable characters.

Is it possible you're seeing the specific aesthetics of those rocks as "this is just what random stone jutting from the ground is supposed to look like," when it's really that those particular rocks are supposed to look exactly like that (with the little layers/ripples in them and such)? They're pillars of adra and aren't supposed to look like ordinary rock. Roger that Mr. Sawyer, but why does it look so low poly and has such weird texture mapping? The trees are looking gorgeous btw. I know, I'm weird like that. It looks a lot better when you zoom in on the original picture. The complex surface texture combined with a rippled surface and possible a high diffuse reflection somewhat masks the shape and the shadowing. Basically there's just a lot going on.

Also available in pill form across the pharmaceutical counter...

Thank you, Adam. I'm curious how the custom elements from the high-end contributors are coming along. Have you received a lot of interesting ideas?

and that is what i say too. every player will influence the system differently, so all aspects of the system should be equaly viable for all possible choices. They don't need to be equally viable... just viable. With steadfast persistence and/or clever tactics, you should be able to find at least one path to the end game even if you can't necessarily succeed at all the side quests because of your particular build.

New this week: The Strange, a Tabletop RPG by Bruce Cordell and Monte Cook "Explore mysterious worlds hidden just outside our reality in this new RPG using the story-based Cypher System of Numenera." "The Strange is a cosmos-sized artifact built in the afterglow of the Big Bang. The original alien builders lost control of it eons ago, but their dark energy network remains 'beneath' our universe. For those on Earth who've discovered it, everything is different. These select few know that the Strange hosts recursions: unique but limited worlds with their own laws of science and even magic, seeded into the network by the creative resonance of pure imagination, but still nonetheless very real." It is currently succeeding quite nicely at the sum of $177,865 with 28 days to go.

Here's a Wired article published yesterday (10/23): Over Budget, Behind Schedule: What's Up With Gaming's Biggest Kickstarters? To see them all, click on the 'Next' link or the picture icons. There are summaries for Broken Age, Wasteland 2, The Banner Saga, Shadowrun Returns, Planetary Annihilation, Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse, Homestuck Adventure Game, Project Eternity, Star Citizen, and Godus.

Technically it's not a medieval European fantasy. The wheellock weapon was introduced at the start of the sixteenth century; coincidentally at the end of the medieval period. The European colonial period also began at that time. For me it's the story that matters; the characters, the interactions, the goals and the motivations. The setting just serves as a backdrop. But it does happen that a renaissance setting provides a good circumstance to play a larger than life hero. Most of the population are still caught up in the need to survive, to feed their family, and to bow to the local nobility. Only a handful of people actually make a difference, and as an adventurer you get to try being one of those people. In a more advanced society, you'd just be one amongst a myriad and so your goals are consequently less influential.

I know it's a matter of opinion, buuuuuuuuut thankfully elves are here to stay You already have a bunch of new races: godlike, orlan and aumanabananarama. Just give it a go. There's no reason why the P:E designers couldn't give elves a reboot and move them further away from the overused archetypes used in D&D. Why not give them a different type of soul--a nature spirit--that is not subject to rebirth as humans? They could dump the idea of elves being wizards and instead introduce them as the original druids. Maybe they can live for ages, but a good part of that time could be spent as raw elements of nature. Their life as a humanoid form is actually an aberration meant to fulfill a life-long quest for inner meaning. They can shift back into their nature spirit forms, but doing so entails risk of entering the wilding state and losing their purpose.

Appearing on the local news this morning: castAR: the most versatile AR & VR system Not exactly a catchy name, but their AR/VR product looks pretty interesting. Plus there's a clip-on model. I could just picture using this in PnP RPG sessions...

I enjoy anime that spend time on stylistic elements, character development, and a sense of drama; those can be sadly lacking in western animation. What I can do without is some of the goofy humor, particularly as expressed in absurd emotive states. Serious anime films such as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Princess Mononoke are as enjoyable for an adult as any well-done live-action drama film. Unfortunately, Western cultures have been conditioned to view animation as children's fare, so adult anime has only done well with specialized audiences.

Looking forward to the third patch release when the game will finally be stable enough to play...

Some people are just hard-wired for it.