tohw

I liked how i could summon stuff to run interference in IE games, some zombies or whatnot to hold part of the enemy camp busy while i clean up the other corner and get ready for the rest of the camp. I did not particularly enjoy that it was all based on memorized spells, there was no cost for losing a summon, nor the fact that it became pretty annoying due to the long casting animation when you NEEDED to summon 4+ things to win an encounter. Would love to see it tie more closely to the character itself, and from what little i have heard about the whole magic being connected to the "soul" of the character, it would make for a perfect starting point for a risk/reward based system. Granted, these are just my own personal thoughts and opinions, take it for what it is. Base it off your skill, modified by passive abilities. Make each summon linked to the summoners health somehow, maybe detract X points of CON per summon(could be different depending on the summon strength, passive abilities could modify this number?), and only let you get down to 1, your HP will scale down according to your CON. You would end up being a pretty stout mage if you went summoner, but then your casting stat would be left down a bit... maybe this would be the perfect type of Mage to don some plate armor and carry a gun for backup? Also, to make the summons more important to manage, don't give the reserved CON back if the summon dies. Forcing you to monitor and unsummon them before they die unless you want to lose those points until your next Rest. This would make the whole thing feel more important, and not so throw away. What would be even better would be if you actually summoned a specific creature every time, and that it would gain in strength with your summoning power. No more nameless skeleton nr1, instead you find a grave of some specific person who was, lets say, not nice in his lifetime and seemingly won't rest easy. Summon "Thorleif the Grim", your trusty, if silent, skeleton. I could even see how there could possibly be unique story based summons, with questlines attached. Don't know, never was that into mages/sorcerors, since it was always such a hassle and extreme amount of microing... and very little actually "magical" stuff happening. More of a Monk guy myself, but i have always wanted to like mages, and hoped that some game would come along and make it really interesting to play a mage. I think Morrowind was the closest, thanks to its spellmaker and enchantment system, it really allowed to to go wild and make your mage feel really magical. Anyway, some ideas on the matter anyway, have a good one!

About the Interface, on a personal note, i just have to add that since we have so much more horizontal screen realestate compared to vertical, would you guys consider putting the interface on the left or right side? It's the same issue i have with playing anything splitscreen on a widescreen tv, it just gives long narrow slits if its split horizontally, where if you split vertically you get a much more balanced portion of screen. Just a thought. Have a good one all.

Just a small thing, I really enjoyed reading this, really hungry for more character details, as that in many ways is what i enjoy most out of RPGs. The above skills though, feels somewhat unclear, not necessarily in function, but in believability and visual representation. Seeing a character "hop" away and cause enemies to magically lose them as targets will not be convincing to me. Something more along the lines of "smoke bomb" would have the exact same effect, but would also be very clear to the player WHY exactly the enemy actually lost the rogue as a target. I know it's a small thing, but when things don't make sense it just breaks the immersion a little for me... couldn't help myself. Personally if I was an evil orc fighting a rogue that "hopped"(or rolled, cartwheeled or even turned around and sprinted) away from me due to taking too much damage, I would chase him down and kill him, it makes little sense that simply moving away would cause anyone to lose a target... especially the one you are currently fighting. If there was a cloud of smoke obscuring the rogue as he/she moved away though, that would make perfect sense. As not even an angry orc would want to wade headlong into a cloud and possibly be poisoned or backstabbed by the sneaky rogue. Guess in this case, for me, it's just a matter of what flavor you put on it. With the way your skillsystem seems to work, spells being X uses then rest and so on, this ability could imo also be like that. You buy it, starts with 2 uses per rest, then as you level up you can get more if you specialise, or perhaps through equipment that give more "pockets" to carry bombs in. Just a thought, it would force you to make a conscious choice whether it's worth it or not, maybe the next fight will be way worse? Instead of having it cost a regenerating resource which will make it a far less important choice. Anyaway, just some thoughts that popped out when reading this. Good stuff though, thanks for the details and have a merry christmas and a happy new year!

It would be kind of nice if you attacked someone elses defended position, say a camp of monsters/bandits and realized "****, if I stay here i will die!". Make the choice to run, utilizing various skills and items in doing so. Then after gathering your strength again, you decide to go back and show those bastards what for... only they remember you, and also since you got away, they brought in some reinforcements, since they figured, correctly that you or someone else would be back for more. This would just(probably not as easy as it sounds, i know...) be a flag set on the encampment if you manage to get away, that would spawn in some extra reinforcements, and also give some flavor dialogue when you get back again. Also, if it was for a quest, fleeing the encounter could rob you of part of the reward, perhaps some items that were there before are now used up by the defenders, for example healing potions or some extra arrows/bullets. Since the game seems to lean toward not giving you exp per kill anyway, running away when in danger makes much more sense. As does avoiding fights when possible as you won't feel like you need to kill everyone for the exp, your reward will be based on how successfully you finished the mission and optional objectives within it. One of those might be to not let one of the camp leaders get away, which he might if you flee and come back. Feels like there could be some interesting things that could come out of this mechanic. Perhaps if you run away too much and people see you do it, you will earn a reputation as a coward, or perhaps a survivor depending on the circumstances. That reputation might get you specific quests that would not be found had your reputation been "heroic". Anyway, just wanted to add some thoughts, as i think there are merits to creating functional gameplay that supports tactical retreats from combat. Have a good one!

Definitely Monks first and foremost for my part! Strange to hear someone mention there is worry that the class won't fit... punching and/or kicking people in the face has been the bread and butter of violence since the stone ages, and it's still viable today. Punching/kicking people in the face will never go out of style!

Always go Monk when it is there, just love beating things with my fists!