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TrashMan

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  1. TrashMan
    Erm..no, not really. Skill selection isn't metagaming...unless you pick skills your character really shouldn't have. But even that is a grey area, sicne you're adventurers and travel a lot, you can always pick up skills along the way. Basicly when I take the "heal" skill, I'm saying that my character spent time (in town or durign resting/traveling) learnign this skill and got better. That's isn't really metagaming. Low in't character having good tactics? Can't recall ever runing into that situation, as leaders are usually not stupid. Even then basic tactics can be instinctive, and while you are the party leader you are not alone. Your companions should be smart enough to know the basic of how to fight without the PC's imput. My experience is different. Maybe you just ain't that good Also, cooldwons DO NOT make more sense. Again, if you have utiltiy spells, then the wizard again is overpowered. Because utiltiy spells you use outside of combat, and sicne you can switch spell list outside ofcombat. Guess what - your wizard always has acess to utiltiy spells. Kill guard, walk to door, change spell list, cast knock, detect traps (or whatever), change list back, wait a few seconds for cooldown to complete, go in and fight. Abusable as hell.
  2. TrashMan
    Jarmo, you lack immagination. In D&D terms, think of characters having 10HP per CON point. Your low-lvl characters are not so squshy anymore. Of course, starting wizards would get more starting spells (and spells would be re-balanced damage-wise too). Now either you can go the route of scaling that magic missile so the damage goes up (so a first lvl mage can still heavily wound a starting opponent with magic missile), or increase spell number. In other words, magic missiele does low damage but you can cast a lot of them, or magic missile does like..50 damage and with two you can fell a typical brigand...assuming they have like 100 HP You wizzard is suddeny not so squishy anymore OR usueless at low levels. Pretty much the starting experience is more similar to mid D&D.
  3. TrashMan
    I still think my proposal is the simplest, while also being realistic enough. You still can't lug around 10 suits of plate armor, as both weight and valume are taken into acount.
  4. TrashMan
    No offense, but you opning post didn't sound (to me) like you were musing on the weapon simulation/balancei n general, but rather like you were offering a specifc weapon system. If you just simluate a weapon properly, it would fall into it's natural role, without having to specificly simulate it's performance against other weapons. I'm all for complexity and simulating real weapon fighting better, but there's always a better and worse way of doing it.
  5. TrashMan
    Agreed. With everything. 10000000000000000000000000000% The DA:O attribute system was stupid and pointless. Points were hadned like cand,y and each point has practicly no impact. Also, the stats were jsut lookign redicolous. You were supposed to be above-average when starting the game (str 16) and end up with 80 str? What? WHAT?
  6. TrashMan
    Well, the power scaling problem of old D&D mages is easily fixed... Jsut normalize the spell slot distribution. Problem solved. Not to mentio nthat later additions give mages more starting spells.
  7. TrashMan
    No, we're not talking about the same thing. you want to add special modifiers to weapons (like +2 vs swords to sa spear). I want the weapon to just be weapons wihout modifiers and their basic stats and character actions determining how good they are. No +2 vs, sword for the spear, but increased threat range. If you fight defensively, that threat range is more pronounced (meaning defensive fighting makes it more difficult for the enemy to close..by either making him slower when entering the threat range or some other mecahnic). No flat bonuses vs. there. You can for example have a combat stance or something ( like how you have commands like "Ready vs.", "charge attack", "Fight Defensively" "deal non-lethal damage", etc..) who's purpose is to keep an enemy at range. And this is the stance you would use with a spear. As long as you roll a good skill check the enemy can't enter your threat range. Since a spear has a bigger threat range, he can't close to attack. Of course, the enemy cound counter by trying to attack the weapon (another possible combat stance), which upon sucesfull roll damages the weapon (eahc weapon ahving it's own durabiltiy..OR you could simply have a results table or something) See? Far more flexible and natural than just the +2vs. bonus. EDIT: Now that I think about it, ToEE does have something similar - "Ready Vs. Approach" command. With it a guy with a spear will ALWAYS strike first and stop the enemy in its' tracks if the enemy has a shorter ranged weapon (and fails his tumble check). So this would basicly hte same thing. The enemy can't enter your threat range bubble untill he passes his check. This basicly simulates exactly what you have been talking about, while at the same time opening many more tactical options - like fighters actually being able to occupy space and prevent movement trought it.
  8. TrashMan
    You should base your dislike on one game. BG is an oldie. And again, balance is key. You shoudl try toehr games. I have played ToEE recently and I can't say I experienced the problem you mentioned. I have yet to suffer a TPK because I didnt' have a specific spell. All the encounters that killed me I could have won with just a change in tactics, rather than spell selection. Except maybe a few of the really big ones, but when you're entering the fire node, going in there without fire protection spells is just STUPID. How is picking skills metagaming?
  9. TrashMan
    Am I the only one who interfeered in that fight? I let it flow without my intervention the first time. The second time I kept healing the wife. All the other times I kept healing the other girl. and now that I think about it, I should have tried polymorph, flesh to stone or charm on them...
  10. TrashMan
    No. Not ever, ever. I'm sick and tired of being "special". I'm sick and tired of ego storking. And to all of you who voted yes - I hate you.
  11. TrashMan
    Also, I'd like to add that mages in D&D were perfect - because they were so flexible. Want a mele mage? Take stoneskin, bulls strngth, tenser transformation, black blade of disaster, fire shield, mage armor.... etc.. You could build a very specific melee mage too, since you had such a big choice. Want a range nuker? Oh boy, did you have a selection! Want support mage? Teleports, blurs, illusions, etc etc.... you coudl keep the enemy busyy adn distracted easily. And knock, leviate and others? You could be a good backup rouge. But the point is that you could do all of those - BUT you had to pay. You had to sacrifice spell slots so you couldn't do it all at once. You could have noth spells for mele and ranged...but not for everything. And that was the beauty of it. You could adapt as necessary. With cooldowns, you have all spells avialable at all time - you just pick which one. With mana, it's the same thing. The only difference is that you have to chug a potion or wait a minute for your mana to re-charge. With Vanican you can't change on-the-fly. And to those that say "with proepr spells the game becomes too eas and wihout them it's impossible" - I have played every IE game. That happens so rarely it's not even worth mentioning. Most of the time your regular spells will be enough. The "specialized" spells will rarely make THAT big of a difference...of course, this depends on the spell balancing and design. If an all-fighter party can clear the game then definately wrong spell selection doesn't doom you.
  12. TrashMan
    That would make the mage OP...if we're talkign abotu a spell selecatio nas big and varried as in D&D. Suddenly the mage is super-capable of doing everything. Having an answer to everything all the time is not interesting. A "solution" to this is to severly reduce the total number and type of spells a mage can have...but that is a horrible idea IMHO, as it entirely kills the draw of a mage. No, no..the only way to have a mage that is as varried as a D&D mage is to place limitations on spells. Serious limiations.
  13. TrashMan
    I have a simpler system in mind... Think of having a inventory like BG2. No tetris because every items takes up one slot (heck, ti can even be an item list) BUT here's the difference Each items has two stats - WEIGHT and VOLUME Just like you have max weight you can carry, so you have max volume. So basicly you just have to keep an eye out for those numbers to keep the inventory in shape. No shuffling. That ring? Weighs 0.5, takes up 1 volume unit That very puffy outfit? wights 6, takes up 20 volume units So basicly you'd have Weight: 50/100 (medium encumbrance) Volume: 80/100
  14. TrashMan
    Backstabing. Rouges are DPS kings...which is soemthing I always found redicolous, when that scrawny thief with a dagger does more damage than my barbarian with an greataxe. Barbarians are tanks and rogues are damage doers... So it's not very surprising. Am I supposed to like that "role" distribution? I don't think rouges should be DPS. They should be support. Decent fighters but they are primarily support. They shouldn't excell in any role in combat, since they shouldn't be a combat-heavy class to begin with. Hiding, traps, various skills and such - that is what they should do.
  15. TrashMan
    So...Dragon Age combat then. Well that's it. I was trying to decide between the $140 and $250 tiers. Now I won't be contributing at all. An old school game with cooldowns. Nice. Unless MCA or Tim Cain can convince Sawyer of the wrongness of them. I'll wait to see if cooldowns are officially ruled out until the end of the kickstarter, but this game is dead to me now. Enjoy your Biowarian twitch-based popamole kiddies. I'll go back to replaying BG2 and anticipating Wasteland 2. I feel for you and I feel the same way. I really think cooldown is the worst possible solution.
  16. TrashMan
    Backstabing. Rouges are DPS kings...which is soemthing I always found redicolous, when that scrawny thief with a dagger does more damage than my barbarian with an greataxe.
  17. TrashMan
    I still think fatigue would probably be the best - but again, it's tied to resting. I like Vanacian, and the "flaws" aare nto really flaws. Especially in later editions, where mages can cast cantrips for free...however, I really don't see how it that really different from using your sling. There is a notion that a mage should do nothing but cast spells...why? Wouln't the concpet of what a mage is and how he fights depend on the setting? What is wrong with a mage fighting in melee occasionaly? What is wrong with him using a sling or crossbow? Who sez he has to suck with it? Seriously.. No, the problem here is that the cost that the resting system has - in-game time - is meaningless to a CRPG player. Time in the gmae doesn't affect anything, so if there are no consequnces for resting every 5 minutes, then the system becomes abusable. You can make resting very dangerous, with a high chance to be attacked by monster - but again, players can get around that by reloading and resting untill the dice roll their way and no monsters come. So the only way to "fix" this is to make monsters a 100% resting event. No way to avoid them if you're in hostile territory. That means the player is either forced to spend 10 minutes of his REAL time backtracking to a safe resting area, or pushing forward. Of course, now some will complain that this is bad design because it doesn't allow them to abuse the rules..but whatever. I honestly think mages should have to rest, as casting mighy spells should be damn tireing.
  18. TrashMan
    The explanation there is is enough. Of cource, oyu can disagree ,but ultimatively it doens't matter. At some point you reach the point of answering with "because it just works that way"...in ANY system. Why do mages have the amount of mana they do in Dragon Age? Because they do. How exactly does drawing that mana work? ETc, etc.. I can keep asking questions till you run out of answers. Heck, I can easiyl do it for the real world. Why does mass afffect gravity? Because it does. Period. There is no explanation beyond that. Why is it to hard to accept that in D&D having spells in the pre-cast states is a drain on the mages mind and he can only keep so many ready at a time? Why does that "not make sense"?
  19. TrashMan
    well the proposition comes from my personal experience of martial arts with and without weapons. so it's anything but fake where realism is concerned. It is fake, because it's not a natural product of hte weaposn stats, but a rahter artifical bonus added to it. Its like having a rocket-launching APC in a strategy game that does 200% more damage to air targets (with the same missile it uses to shoot at ground targets!?). That's just lame. The damage should depend on the missile, not some blanket rule. Same here. If the spear has a better reach then it will naturally enable you to strike first, without any artificial bonuses. If you fight defensively, the enemy will have trouble closing in. more problem wiht the spears longer treat range. All perfectly natural as the product of the weaposn base statistics, wihout any aditional modifiers.
  20. TrashMan
    The problem with a mage having all spells avilable at all times is that that turns him into a uber-class. A mages spell selection in D&D is HUGE. Immagine how D&D would go if mage had acess to all of them and can cast them whenever he wants? Why bring a thief? A mage can cast True Seeing, Knock, Fly, Leviatate, Dimension Door, etc... Why bring an archer? A mager can fireball, lighting blot, cloudkill or nuke na opponent from range in many ways. Why bring a fighter? A mage can cast bulls strength, tensers transformation, mage armor, fire/ice shield, blur, shadow form and butcher in melee (do a sunburst or two). The mage is so attractive becase he is so flexible. But he can't do it all at once. Without a limitation, the mage becomes an uber class that can do everything. And also makes all other clases look boring by comparison...you havea 100 spell selection list while a fighter has 2-3 swings. I really do hope they go with Fatigue system, because it really is the best compromise. A cooldown system is a horrible idea. Utterly horrible.
  21. TrashMan
    Not much difference. What's stopign a palyer form simpyl resting untill all of his magic points are full? Unless oyu prevent them, they will always want to enter battles fully prepared. In the end no read difference. Face it - any sistem with resolves around a regenerating resurce can be "chated" around by resting. Ironicly I don't see it as a big problem. If the player wants to go back to town and rest, that is his decision.
  22. TrashMan
    No, not really. Not in that sense.
  23. TrashMan
    Nope. I'm agaisnt such rock-paper-scissors balance. It feel fake. No such "artificial" bonuses. Only normal weapon stats.
  24. TrashMan
    Yet without urgency being inforced, what's the point? There are no conesquences. Which sucks. You can just as easily argue that having to heal HP is tedious and you should always be at full HP...you know, because it hurts gameplay. Gameplay is rather subjective that way.
  25. TrashMan
    Very interesting. I never played ToEE... wasn't it turn based though. I can easily see how you could implemetn spears like that in a TB game but a real time with pause I thinkg would be much more difficult ToEE gave a lot of options even to 1-st level fighters. Take a look: http://2.bp.blogspot...6277-toee_2.jpg http://www.mobygames...ure-windows.jpg Yes, toEE was turn-based, but it can be done in "real-time". After all, BG was "real-time" (in relaity round-based but everyone as going on at the same time) But honestly I don't like the paper-rock-scissors approach to "balancing". It feels fake an unorganic. I would avoid giving weapons bonuses and penalites against other weapons. Rather gives weapons different stats (and have enough meningfull stats in the first place), and they should natrualy fall into their own roles.
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