TrashMan

5cm hits you like an emotional freight train. Definately one of the best animes I've seen. I really reccomend it.

Great update. I too want to know if we can tailor our paladin to be more self-sufficient and less of a walking boost-bot. In other words, different builds. Form a defensive paladin who specilized in protecting allies, to one who specializes into boosting allies on the offense, to the Holy Avenger type that lives only to slay "evil" and doesn't give a damn about boosting allies. Also, any bonuses/skills/feats agaisnt undead?

The Sword of Awe A work of art in itself, masterfully crafted from the finest steel and heavily adorned, this sword posses a supernatural abiltiy to catch everyones eye and stand out no matter the enviroment. It's spotless surface is decorated by many runes, some of unknown meaning or origin and it radiates an immense magical aura, easily felt even by those with no magical inclination whatsoever. With each swing it produces an unearthly humm that pieces trough any noise across great distances - even tough such a soft tone shouldn't be so keenly heard no travel that far. On top of it all it can burn into flames so great that they engulf the wielder compeltely, but leave him unharmed... and everyone else for that matter. For the Sword of Awe was created to make an apperance and demoralize the enemy with it's mere presence - and nothing else. Almost everything about it is illusory. While a fine blade it's not nearly as powerfull as it's apperance would suggest, but that hasn't stopped it for ending entire wars or routing armies when unsheated.

Nope. A mage can use non-magical items. Poison flasks. Acid. Caltrops. Swords. Armor. But now you say that warrior shouldn't be able to use magical stuff. Because it doesn't feel "right" to you. Weapons and armor are NOT external to a warrior class. You seem to take umbarge at "magical" equipment, but are fine with non-magical one because? By your un-logic, a warrior with a bronze sword should be equal in every way to a warrior with a damascus steel sword then. Also, a warrior with a nonmagicl sword doesn't necessariyl suck. Why doesn't it make sense? Bollocks. For one, what the "essence" is is subjective. Secondly, wether or nota nromal-well crafted weapon is worthless is part of balancing - and for the record I'm against it. A good steel sword is a good steel sword. Deadly. And here you are assumign that warrior wihout a magical items is DOOOOMED. I'm curious as to where you draw the line. How many magical items can a warrior posses before you call him broken? 1? 2? None? Seems to me you are just seeing what you want to see (or what you fear). The fighter is realiant on equipment. It doesn't have to be magical. How far you can get without a magic weapon? Depending on balance - quite far. Case in point: BG1. I finished the game and I wasn't decked out with all magical items. Potions don't have to be magical. They can be herbal. I earlier expressed that I don't want magical healing potions, but rather medical potions that increase regeration, clese wounds or purge the body of poison. Not instant-fixes. Scrolls? You don't technicly need them. But what is s difference between a scroll of fireball and a firebomb? Alchemy isn't magic. Yet the overall effect is the same. Fighters are OK with a flask or explosive liquid, but NOT with a scroll? You basicly want artificial limiations. You want the world and it's actors to act illogicly (shun the use of magic) to got some aesthetic you like.

Why simple when we can complicate heh living s*** out of things...right?

Define the personality? You have a point. But wouldn't there almsot always be SOME armor? You are right that the difference would be smaller with a stabing weapon - but I still see the Rock driving the dagger hilt deep, while the boy might not go all the ways in. Of course, for simplificationjs sake, we can assume no difference. STR mattters more if there is armor to overcome and with blunt, slashing weapons. Hmm....maybe STR giving a bonus to armor piercing? EDIT: Ninjad by Eiphel....

Well, there doesn't have to a be a FIXED once per 24 hours limit. I see it more as a function that checkes how often you sleep and applies penalties for "overresting". I'd also propose that RESTING (not sleeping/camping) at a campsite is better than resting anywhere. ..if we are to duscuss the system I proposed, then differentiating between resting and camping/sleeping is critical to having a fruitfull discussion.

Fun fact: Any human being can pronounce any syllable or word used by any other human. Even those aboridgini sounds. It takes some vocal gymnastics abnd lots of practice to get your troat and tounge to learn it.

That's what I like about my languge. No fuss with pronaunciation. I don't have to think about it because it's written exactly like it's pronounced. If you can write it you can read it, if you can read it you can write it. More fictional languages could go that route.

For realsies?

Wathing Attack on Titan now. Not bad. Has one or two things that bother me (magical titans and main character design .. and the super-ace trope)

Non-linear level? I give you "harbor" level from Crysis. I must have found a dozen ways to infiltrate the harbor and finish that level.

HP aren't dumb - they are often over-inflated and their implementation can make them look dumb. For a sinngle-character game more realism in endurance would be OK. For example, Operation Flashpoint - you can get crippled or killed by a single bullet, and I loved it. But this is a party-based game. You have several people to watch out for in real time. You NEED some buffer. I liek the directio nyoure going - as I want combat to be more wisceral and dangerous - but maybe you're going just a bit too far.

Well, to be fair, in terms of pure damage, STR is going to be the dominant factor in most cases. It's pretty logical that hitting harder = more damage done. What I see DEX/AGY is a mobiltiy aspect, and as such does not influence the direct amount of force, but the application. I see it could increae the parry/block with a weapon, maybe provide a bonus to chance to hit or something - but regardless if a sword, axe, or dagger, STR will determine "base" damage. Just removing AC from armor already puts a huge difference between a DEX based warrior and STR based one, and soemthing like this pushes it even further. I made a BG2 mod once where I changed the way armor works - it was pretty much how PE will do it. Damage reduction/migation. DEX suddenly became more important for fighters. The entire balance flet different (but the game was still perfecly playable)

Except resting doesn't have to give yo back all of your resurces...or at least not qihout cost. Thus you have a balance. You get something, you loose something. To do resting justice, one needs to look at what makes resting a unviable course of action in real life. 1) You CAN'T physicly sleep whenever you want to. In fact, too much sleep can be bad for you. 2) For sleep to be truly beneficial, you need 8 hours of it. It removes mental and body fatigue. 3) Sleep doesn't "really" heal you - time does. And proper medical care. Atlough sleep has a positive effect on healing. 4) Sleeping/resting costs time and that is a "resource" too. Also, food and medical supplies and other odds and ends are finite too. 5) Some locations are just too unwise to rest in. You party members *WOULD* object if they had any brains. So, where does this put us? Simple. Woulds often cause bleeding. Bleeding can be stopped by bandaging, but HP lost in battle is NOT easily regained. There is no instant HP restoration inside of battle. HP are restored naturally over time, but slowly. There are two kinds of resting: a short break to mend wounds and cath your breath (let's call ti rest rest), and making camp and sleeping (let's call it sleep or better yet, camp). The first one can be taken anywhere at any time. It takes away an hour or less of your time. During that times wounds are mended and basic healing applied, and small amoutns of medical resources are expended (possibly food too, mostly water). A small amount of HP and stamina is restored, but a full restoration requires proper care and rest. Spamming rest won't work to fully restore your stamina or HP, as traveling, fighting and wounds reduce your MAXIUMUM stamina/mana/HP/whatever, and only camping restores it. Camping can only be done on secure locations and after a certain time period (once per day) and it takes more medical and food resources, but it also ramps up the rate of healing. Resting in inns/cities ramps it up even more. So while resting can keep your party going for a while, the overall effectiveness drops with each battle. Think of something similar to the JA2 system. A wounded NPC will heal over time. With minimal resting/campaing it might take a heavily wounded NPC days to fully recover. With more resting that time might be cut in half. Resting in a town may cut that down even futher (while not using any of your resources..other than gold)

This being an Obsidian game though, one of those old souls will have to be railing against its confinement, crying out for release and asking the protagonist to break the blade asunder. I served righteously throughout life, now let me have my promised rest etcetera. Edit: Indeed what if in other religions the blade is a weapon of evil, standing between souls and their rebirth on the wheel. Be a nice little perplexing situation. You COULD do that, but I used the words "small part" and "shadow" for a reason. A tiny part that was left WILLINGLY. An imprint if you will. The "soul" is not really trapped in the sword. You can think of it as the sword being a link to the souls of past paladins - a telephone hotline to heaven if you will.

A weapon carried for generatiosn by paladins, passed form one to another. Each infused it with a small part of it's essence/soul, and it only accpets those of equal dedication. In other words, the shadows of the paladins past judge you.

People who complain about limitatiosn are crappy rolepalyers (IMHO). You should be able to rest everyhwere? Technicly, yes. Jsut like you should be abel to kill everyone and place their corpses in hillarious sexual positions..like players often do in Skyrim. Or just like you could strip a NPC of his clothes and send him packing in his birthday suit to attack a dragon alone. Neither of those actions make sense. Seems to me that players forget that from a perspective of a living, breathing person in the setting, the PC is a grade A lunatic. So let the player dowhatever he wants - BUT. Give him realistic consequences. Have your party hate you or try to murder you in your sleep if you are constantly, needlesly brining them into danger or do stupid stuff. PC: "lost 10 HP. Let's Sleep here." Party NPC: "Here? You got to be kidding! It's not safe. We haven't cleared any of the tunnels, there could be goblins and all kinds of nasties everywhere." Party NPC2: "yeah. And we've been only exploring for an hour. Nobody is tired yet. We could stop for a few minutes tough." PC: "No, we sleep. Now." Party NPC: "I can't sleep on command.... Look, if you're that sleepy we can go back to that secluded romm a while back. We can barricade ourselves there and I think there were beds there." PC: "No, we sleep here!" Party: ...... *PC is murdered in his sleep*

J-POP.

Ceraa Sumat's description was so badass, that I would have used it even if it was just a +1 sword. THAT is how you give a sword character.

Retconning is a change of an established FACT - usualyl somethnig important or intrinsic to a plot. If something was never a fact to begin with, then it's not technicly a retcon.

A lot of assumptions there. yo uare assumign resting mechanic serves no real purpso and it's there as an afterthought. You said it yoursef - you start with an experience. What if the DEV's WANT the experience of a true adventure - and that includes camps and carefull resource allocation? Now you can say that having to find a safe spot or backtracking is just boring, but I can say the same for any mechanic I don't like, from any game on the planet.

Look at it from a realism point of view - you can't sleep on a whim. And the human body also REQUIRED 8 hours of sleep. People that sleep less suffer from related problems even if they don't appear to at first. So I'd make a difference between REST and SLEEP. Rest is a short stop. Battles - especially in mele and with armor - and exhausting. Taking 15-30 minutes to rest a bit, mend wounds and clean equipment is something you should be able to do after every battle ...ideally. But just a short rest doesn't do much for you. It might stop the bleeding, but it won't heal it. It will help you recover some of hte stamina, but you will still have to sleep later. Sleeping is something you should be only able to do once a day. It actually restores some HP and sleepign is something done in a camp or inn. You get far better care for your wounds, you eat and you rest. Making a difference between the two might be prudent.

It's a standard formula for a reason. It makes sense. Well, that and AGY. I think you're answering your own question. COMBAT-ORIENTED. It only makes sense to go for attributes that will be the most usefull. For a warrior that would be the big 3 - STR, AGY/DEX and CON. .. you could add willpower for magic defense. Things like Charisma really logicly serve little purpose in combat..other than to help lead. INT is also of limited use, because you're not going to be inventing warm water there. You have swordsmanship schools that already have effective moves and experience makes those moves reflexive. That said, attribute X might also effect Y is a valid approach, but only if it makes sense. If the effect has to be redicolously overblown to have a meaningfull impact, then it's "gamey" and fake. I'd personally go for more chance to make use of those secondary/tertiary attributes rather then trying ot beef their impact and trying to shove them where they don't belong. In other words, give the player a gameplay/roleplaying reason why he might want to invest a point or two into other stats - it doesn't have to be combat-oriented. Of course, the problem is two fold: a) it's a very combat-oriented game, which means the Pc will fight a lot more than "normal" and combat is also more important b) You have a party that can cover up your weakneses. Altough I kinda hesitate to call this a "problem", because that's kinda the point of the party. Complementing skills. Some time ago I wrote down a system which tries to balance attribute usage. I'll have to see if I still have it, but it basicly did exactly what you said above with the mana pool an regen. Altough mana worked a bit differently than you'd think, as there was a non-replenishable mana pool (aka overall fatigue) and a smaller regenerating one (stamina/breath). Also, different weapons used different attributes in different ratios to calculate chances to hit (like 2*DEX+STR, or vice versa)

Hell...fukken...YEAH. I still rememebr the first time I played BG2 (with a paladin) and got this sword.