rjshae

^^^^ Yeah, journal annotations would be nice. Not sure how implementable that is though, given the way that journal entries change up as you finish tasks.

Speaking of floating castles, check out Mokah's NWN2 screenies in this Bioware thread.

Since they are mental-power focused, concentration should probably be a significant factor for maintaining effects. The more effects they maintain, the less attention they can pay to their surroundings. That would provide a vulnerability that necessitates teaming up with others. Otherwise I could just picture them taking control of everything behind the scenes.

Well everybody has different experiences; Shandra was the one character in the NWN2 OC that I actually grew to like almost right away. Perhaps it was because she's an unpretentious farmer-turned-warrior character, and a genuinely decent person. Her fate was... moving... and something of a let down.

Tiger claw style!

I think this goes back to the "mortification of the flesh" aspect of the monks. While I'm not sure how "true" this aspect is to all monks, I do know that some monks IRL actually do this. Shaolin monks as well as Christian monks train their bodies/self-flagellate to reach a higher spiritual level. I had the same experience with regards to the term "Wounds". It doesn't really imply a transformation or impulse transfer effect. Shrug. Not that it matters.

In short, I find that people, virtually regardless of their philosophy, can find ways to justify almost any act. It's both a source of great endurance and a fatal flaw in our character. But at least it makes for interesting drama.

There could easily be feats that allow them flexibility in damage types, or class abilities -- at least some of the archetypes of the Pathfinder monk did -- so that's probably a non-issue. Well it's an issue if you have to spend feats for the Monk to be effective in combat. But I'm sure it'll get worked out.

This is a ridiculously good idea. One question though - what happens if you have enough wounds to kill you in the next few seconds/round but you manage to finish off your opponents and combat right before wound damage would be applied and you'd die. Does the wound system automatically reset itself at the end of combat with or without you taking the damage from it? For me it does have the virtue of making the Monk class at least worth trying. But it may also depend on how well the unarmed Monk performs on the attack. Fighters will benefit from the versatility of choosing different tools for different enemies. How will the Monks fare in this regard? Perhaps they will only be optimal for unarmed (bludgeoning) combat against certain foes?

The most useful aspect of the character portraits is the stuff that's not actually in the portrait: physical and magical effects, health/stamina status, mana remaining; that sort of thing. I wonder if a profile would work better?

GPG? Star Wars meets Dungeon Siege 2?

I think I "get" why developers don't bother with the area updates once it's been cleared or the issues resoled: it's a lot of work for very little reward. Basically the developers almost need to develop the equivalent of an entire new area for no useful purpose.

^ Yeah, kinda difficult to rationalize it.

Okay. While I get the monk Wounds mechanic now, I'm still trying to wrap my head around a "physical" explanation. Apparently the absorbed energy is briefly converted into a different form: mechanical energy is turned into Wound energy (chi, I guess), but with a timeout. Is this a soul-based magic ability, with the soul temporarily resonating with the absorbed energy like a struck bell converting a hammer blow into sound? Or is it a purely physical phenomenon powered by adrenaline and some sort of physiological wound closure?

Nope, I haven't seen one. They've got a few months left yet...

Fawkes was alright as a character (except for the fact that he set a section of Bethesda fans insisting on calling Super Mutants "meta-humans,") but in such an easy late game, bringing such an OP character (it was an infinite ammo gatling laser, not a minigun,) just took what little fun was left out of the main storyline. Add to that an invincible super-robot who does all the fighting for the "climactic final battle," and you've got what amounts to an endgame that's an interactive cutscene. The super-robot scene was only a brief segment of the game, and I felt sufficiently engaged during that sequence because I stayed pretty aggressive. (I normally played sneaky sniper-style, so it was a nice change of pace.) Not a Kreia fan. She just acted moody and spouted philosophical toxicity. Yeah, location or situation-specific commentary is a nice touch, albeit costly. I definitely don't like characters that won't work with you tactically. Morte did nothing for me, alas. I never understood the appeal.

A thought occurs: walking into a medieval bar and saying that. It'd be good for at least a few blank stares. The ale-wife would probably thing you'd had one too many.

Forgot about Fawkes from FO3. Best endless-ammo, mini-gun toting super mutant companion ever. But then he does tend to make the game a little too easy...

I guess almost a chi-like concept then that functions somewhat like ablative armor. Interesting. Thank you for the clarification.

Mmm... yes, I'm familiar with the Christian philosophy, and I usually prefer to live and let live; to turn the other cheek, if you will. My main issue is when religious beliefs lead to ignorant prejudices that harm others. But we're probably getting a bit off the subject of PE now...

Any sufficiently advanced magic... is going to require a payment plan.

Which makes me wonder, will the game feature magic-using trolls?

You're not reading it correctly. Here's an example: Bad Guy hits Cool Monk with a sword for 21 damage. Cool Monk has 5 DT, so 16 damage gets through. Of that, let's say (arbitrarily, this is not based on any formula we've devised) 5 points are converted to Wounds. Cool Monk takes 11 points of Stamina damage and 2.75 points of Health damage. The 5 points converted to Wounds have no influence on Cool Monk's current Stamina or Health. Thank you. I wasn't aware that you were going to have a separate wounds system. But then I turn around and become concerned about the increased medical resources needed to patch the wounds on the Monk. Ah well. A wounds system is cool though; it's good to hear that could be implemented.

Monks convert a portion of Stamina damage, pre-subtraction from their own Stamina total, into Wounds (their resource). Their actual Stamina and Health are not higher than normal, but this class ability effectively makes them more durable -- until they have maxed out the number of Wounds they are able to absorb. If I read this correctly, then having a monk companion will require more returns to camp than normal (for health recovery). That's exactly the reason I don't like playing monk characters: they always seem to require proportionately more party healing resources. Guess you can call that gaming the system, but that's been my experience.

SoI think that sometimes developers simply don't take oddball things into account while designing the game. The players may come up with solutions that the developers hadn't thought of. It's not necessarily intentional on their part.