rjshae

Speak softly and carry a big book! That will certainly be a novel tactic; perhaps turning your character into a serial killer.

It sounds like a nice mechanic; somewhat like the old wargaming "zone of control" mechanism. It will make combat much more tactically interesting. However, a few questions occurred to me: If a defender is engaged, shouldn't they be able to perform a slow fighting withdrawal, at a defensive bonus, simply by gradually pulling back while keeping their weapon and shield at the ready? I think D&D solved this by allowing a single square of movement without incurring an opportunity attack. Suppose an enemy has a reach weapon, such as a swiss pike. Will the radius of engagement be correspondingly enlarged? If the enemy has a reach weapon and more than one engagement slot, will he be able to engage an adjacent opponent and one further away? If you move into the engagement radius of more than one opponent, do they all engage you and thus collectively decrease their available engagement slots? This seems like a way for a party to pin down opponents, allowing others to slip past. Thank you for the update!

Not sure if this creature would fit the setting, but here goes: Obu Spirit In the dream time, before men placed their thoughts upon paper, there lived a sacred clan that dwelt deep within the great forest. The people of this clan engaged in ancestor worship, and saw desecration of the dead as the greatest crime. To ward against this, they suspended the corpses of their deceased relatives in wicker coffin baskets high up in the ancestor tree: a great oak located atop a grassy noll. Despite this defense, grave robbers still came to desecrate their dead. Hence, to protect the tree from intruders, the clan sacrificed the life of a much venerated shaman, cleaned the flesh from his bones, then transmuted the remains into a warding magic known as the obu. The bones of the shaman were marked with sacred runes, heated with branches fallen from the tree, then blessed with the remains of a recently deceased child of their clan chief. Over time, the power of the clan worship about the tree caused the bones to develop into a spirit form resembling a great cat. The clan called these the obu spirits. An obu spirit appears as a shimmering, four-legged form that is barely perceptible in daylight, but glows faintly in the moonlight. It's corporeal body consists solely of the ancestor bone from which it was formed; the remainder of the spirit exists as an incorporeal shell. The obu spirits come down from the sacred tree at night to stalk and haunt the nearby wilds, then return to their tree at dawn. Because of this ancient curse, anybody seeking to loot the ancestral basket coffins that still hang from the tree will receive a mark upon their soul; a mark that the obu spirits can sense, and which they hunt at night with relentless fervor. The primary attack form of the obu spirit is a soul drain; a type of vampirism that leaves the special powers of the victim neutralized and the obu spirit fortified. When the soul of the victim is sufficiently taxed and the obu spirit strengthened, blows from its ghostly form begin to apply actual physical damage, albeit in the manner of a chill strike that passes through armor and withers the flesh. Short of a magical weapon with which to strike the spirit, the only effective defense is to strike the ancestor bone; a small, moving object that is difficult to hit and harder still to damage. Naturally, the present-day locals have developed a strong superstition about the ancestor tree, and mark the lands surrounding the mound as cursed. All who would visit the area are warned about of a fate worse than death. Despite this, there are a foolhardy few who still risk the attempt, believing that it is all superstitious nonsense. As a result of these treasure seekers, precious items taken from the tree are found in abundance in the fields nearby, along with the skeletons of their would-be thieves.

Why can't the setting assume the presence of money lenders? If you go over the limit for the merchant, then there is a percentage overhead cost to pay for the loan required to move the good (plus the additional security required). This additional fee can be listed in the transaction dialogue, so you know what is happening.

Well I'm stumped...

Portare arcanum These crossbow bolts aren't so much magical as they are magically receptive. They have a slender shaft made of an unusual material: typically a certain type of wood or a bone that has been boiled, stretched and straightened. A small crystal is mounted at the tip with a specially prepared resin; this crystal must be as free of defects as possible, but a simple quartz crystal will suffice. You cast a zero-range touch spell upon the crystal, then fire the bolt at a target. If the attack is successful, then the spell is inflicted upon the defender. Should the bolt miss, then the power is expended. The most common bolt of this type will only retain the spell effect for a brief period of time. More potent versions will retain the magic for longer periods like a capacitor, or allow more than one spell to be cast into the bolt.

Isn't restarting a finished game already an advantage? I'd think you'd want to restart with more of a handicap in order to make it more challenging. Providing benefits from a previous play-through is going in the opposite direction. Mmm, perhaps they could provide some type of NG+ but limit it to replays at a higher difficulty mode; say Expert or Ironman.

Crap! I was SO hoping for illogical character departures! . We'll just assume that's what MuseBreaks wants, too, and now you can enjoy double the hatred, 8D! You mean you don't want an NPC that rage-quits the group? Hmm, well an NPC may choose to quit the group for reasons that are not communicated to you. That could still be logical, yet not necessarily understandable by the player.

Who the hell is noone? How does (s)he figure in to this? "noone" is a typo for "no one".

Skill minigames probably make more sense in single-character, first-person perspective games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion where the primary character responses are strongly influenced by the player's physical responses. In a party-based game, the player should be more like a squad leader--giving directions and planning actions. You can't really model varying characteristics through the finger movements of a single player. Hence it's better to use abstractions.

Hmm, I wonder what book is he talking about? Sounds like a cracking good yarn, as long as the good guys win in the end.

Usually when I see game situations like that, it's implemented by means of a clock countdown. That should limit your ability to loot because stopping to look through chests and such will eat into your time allotment. The designers could use the simple mechanic of restricting access to the deeper inventory in certain circumstances. Doing so would present the player with interesting tactical decisions, particularly when there's a lot of loot available.

For me, build-your-own spells and items usually end having a generic, cookie cutter feel. They typically allow a fixed set of effects that you can only apply to a limited set of target types. Perhaps greater uniqueness can be provided by allowing a choice of one or more limitations? For example, a "spirit blast" spell is an explosive burst of spirit energy that only effects undead, and is half as effective against corporeal undead.

"Dicing pickles is not something I relish." "Farmers do it in the dairy air."

A thought about factions: rather than just presenting the player with their standings among different factions, make them go and have a few rounds at a pub. The rumor mill will then present their current standings among the neighboring factions.

I'm 100% sure Sawyer knows. The market for estoc can be pretty volatile. Make sure you put some of your earnings in utilities.

In a civilized setting with observers present, I think that successful stealth should be a prerequisite for lockpicking. Different locales and environments should have different stealth minimum requirements. If you can't pick a lock under the circumstances without having a very small (1%) chance of being observed, then the attempt should just auto-abort. Come back when it is dark or raining, or use a potion of invisibility. Alternatively, lockpicking a door belonging to a particular faction will just run the risk of decreasing your favor with that faction. You need to make a stealth check based on the circumstances to avoid the negative result. (The game probably shouldn't even notify you at the time; you'd get a notice later on.)

As of last July, sales of PC games were up by 230% while sales of console games were down by 28%. It's mostly due to the pending release of the next gen consoles, of course. I'll be curious to see what type of market impact the Steam Box has in 2013.

Finally almost passed that darn kidney stone today. It's been fun... in an "at least I don't have a brain tumor" sort of way. Looking forward to a relaxing weekend. It's funny; this is my 11th. I'm prone to the stone, and I'm almost getting used to them. Most of the time I barely notice them making their way through any more. They must be scraping the cruft off the plumbing as they go. Yes, I have really clean pipes...

I'm afraid I can't really bemore specific, because there isn't anything specific I dislike about it, other than the wonky proportions/anatomy that I already mentioned. It just felt pedestrian and unimaginative, especially compared to some of the P:E concept art that's already out -- I really liked Orlock Holmes and Sagani, to name two. How would I have done it? Dunno, I haven't really given it much thought. Maybe I'd either have gone for way more over the top, or much subtler. Think Elric of Melniboné, or Mazikeen from the Lucifer comics, or something like that. But whatever it is, that ain't it. The thing about computer gaming is that in many ways it's a very personal experience; we're never all going to like the same thing. That's clearly true in this case. Fortunately CRPGs usually allow a wide variety of choices to be made, so we can usually find a set of elements of the game that we enjoy the most.

Logically, if you are pursuing, taking an attack should slow you down briefly--allowing the defender to move out of your range. You would then need to catch up again. So it's difficult to see how you can perform consecutive attacks in that instance.

Barebear...

^^^ Now there's a beastie I'd love to see in Project Eternity!

I concur. I didn't realize that when they said the god-like would be similar to the plane-touched that they might turn out exactly like the plane-touched in all but name. It is still too early to tell, though, so I am hopeful that these are initial drafts towards a more original race. Planetouched-like is pretty much what I had expected when I heard godlike; IP rights and all that. But that still leaves plenty of room for future inventiveness. (Mechanus-touched humanoid, anyone?) Her slightly unusual proportions I wrote off as a legacy of her birthright.

I'm not sure. Some deities may not have an obvious associated feature type. Take Woedica, for example. Plus, we don't know if the deity of a godlike character is necessarily the deity that formed them. A cunning deity may choose to obscure the origins and aspirations of "their" character.