neo6874

something like that, I think

TBH, I think we enjoy nitpicking each other I see where you're coming from with it ... and after reading the rules a million times now -- it seems they wrote the resting as if the assumption was that you cast your last spell right before hunkering down for the night (e.g. "Rope Trick" or any of the other "safe resting place" spells), rather than having a "well, figure out how many hours ago you cast you last spell, and subtract from 8 to see the minimum you need to rest". I'm just pulling this from the caveat about "If you use a spell, then you must wait 8 hours before you can use that slot again".

I think, "originally" the mega-dungeon was setup as a 3-4 level "typical" RPG dungeon crawl (insert typical "weird stuff has begun happening in the ruins again" hook here) -- it was always gonna be in there, but the door/transition behind the quest completion BBEG would just be disabled (e.g. we'd have gotten "Narration A", but "Narration B" would unlock the depths). I just hope that they add a narrator cut-scene right about there .. kinda like when you kill the guy in the Nashkel Mines. No mega-dungeon: "You find the documents indicating someone named Tyros hired the Necromancer Makabar to destabilize the region. This information will go far to settle the tensions that have been brewing between the peoples of Twin Elms, and the surrounding villages." Becomes Mega-Dungeon: "You find the documents indicating someone named Tyros hired the Necromancer Makabar to destabilize the region. As you finish searching the room, you hit a switch that opens a secret door in the back wall of Makabar's chambers ... peering briefly down the newly opened pathway, it seems to lead deeper into the caverns ... it is unknown how deep this path will take you."

On one hand, I like the UI staying out of the way ... But on the other, I actually like the (general) "dominating" UI design of the IE games ... it kinda reminds me of actually playing a PnP game -- game "board" in the center, with 3+ players, and one ****-dm* with their character sheets, folders, dice, spell lists, more dice, etc. surrounding them. *curse you profanity filter!

Given that both GoG and Steam are license resellers, it's of no import that this wasn't stipulated. I imagine the Download option will eventually include the necessary selection criteria, (reclaimable license or direct download). tl;dr: It's too early for that. ^this. My bet is (for right now) the "Download" link will send you to a page with any or all of the following (when available): Beta DL link to gog/steam (Freebie Key* kept in your Obsidian account somewhere) Game DL link to gog/steam (Freebie Key* kept in your Obsidian account somewhere) Concept Art Wallpapers Videos? Whatever else Obsidian feels should be "Downloadable" *Free Key being the key that either: Is the key you get because of your pledge Is the "bonus" key (or keys) that you get along with your box, because of your pledge, that you can give away to people

well, I suppose I'll side-track your side-tracking then ...

I don't think we can really compare BG/IWD though, since they're AD&D and I'm quoting 3/3.5E rulebooks. I get where you're coming from though. As for the roasting a marshmallow thing, that works, but I think it's more like this: To roast a marshmallow: 0. Spend 8 hours cutting down trees and splitting logs (i.e. "rest" requirement) 1. start fire 2. wait ~15 minutes for the fire to burn down a bit 3. roast marshmallow for ~1 minute To roast an entire bag: 0. Spend 8 hours cutting down trees and splitting logs (i.e. "rest" requirement) 1. start fire 2. wait ~15 minutes for the fire to burn down a bit 3. roast ~45 marshmallows in bag over the course of the next 45 min Both instances take "at least" 15 minutes for the first one (because campfire), but after that you're only spending 30-60s per marshmallow. As for the 7 course meal bit, um ... 0. Spend 8 hours preparing all the dishes (glazes, sauces, whatever) 1. start oven(s) 2. wait ~15 minutes for them to preheat 3. put things in, and cook for ~1 hour (or less, depending on the thing) Granted with cooking/baking, there are things that take longer than "1 hour" to cook. However, my point wasn't so much that studying your spellbook was like the cooking process itself, but rather reading the recipe and getting the ingredients together before you start -- e.g. it's taken me about 40 minutes of reading Grandma's recipe for soup and triple-checking that I have everything right ... and if she were making it, it'd take her 10, and she probably wouldn't bother measuring either...

With a cursory glance thru the PHB, the only "one round" spells are ones that negatively impact someone (e.g. "Daze" makes you lose your next action), and short term buffs will last 1 minute or until the other condition is met (e.g. "guidance" is +1 to your next roll for a skill check/saving throw/attack roll.) and as for crafting -- I have no idea where we are anymore with it, hehehe

@ Lephys, For the first part, a wizard is only out her "two big" spells if they're the only two slots available, she can still prepare them if there are more slots of that level available. For example, a L6 wizard only has 2x L3 spell slots (so 2x Fireball). If she uses both fireballs, well she needs to wait 8 hours before those slots "open up" again. However, a L11 wizard has 4x L3 spell slots, so if she uses 2x fireball in the middle of the night, maybe she'll choose to drop 'Flame Arrow' and 'Invisibility Sphere' so she can fill them with 2x fireball again. For the second part, I think it's just easier to have written out the rules that "100% of spells = 1 hour" than messing around with "it takes longer because [reason]". Although, after having read the rules like 20 times now, it seems that "studying" your spellbook is more akin to cooking than "actual studying"* -- e.g. For a fireball: Take (ingredients), and start chanting these words [chant here] as you're chanting, roll ingredients into a ball about the size of a large marble continue rolling ball until [here]. Spell is prepared and ready to use, to use, utter the incantation "Incertus, Pulcher, Imperio", and then throw the ball at the target. Warning: Upon hitting the target, or other hard surface, ball will explode into a 20 foot diameter fireball. Stand clear. Addendum: "Fireballs" are known to the state of California to cause cancer. *"Actual studying" in the sense that a kid at uni will bust ass for 4 hours to pass a final, or a licensing exam, or something else of that nature.

Nope, I'd probably assume "Fighter" or "Paladin" Yes, because: Need to blow 20+ levels on feats:Armor Proficiency Light, Medium, Heavy (15 levels, 10 if you take "light" at L1) Martial Weapon Proficiency (+5 levels, or taken as L1 feat, or Elf which I think gets racial proficiency with longswords) Shield Proficiency (+5 levels, or taken as L1 feat) Note that you can get this down to a total of 15 levels if you're a human, and blow both L1 feats on any two of the above (Light Armor, Martial Weapon Proficiency, Shield Proficiency) Arcane Spell Failure of 40%-90%, as follows:35% for Full Plate Armor 40% for Half Plate Armor 5% for Small Shields or Bucklers 15% for Large shields 50% for Tower Shields (note, this is D&D 3E/3.5E rules, and has no actual bearing on P:E - just having some fun with ya)

It was more at the beginning (Ostagar, and the big fight there; then whatever the first real place I chose after that) that I stumbled with the different classes themselves, because "fighter" didn't necessarily mean "goes toe to toe with the other guy". And what I mean is that you don't need a ton of activables/toglables/passives-to-chose-from to render that. Didn't intend to have it come off as "you do need all that management stuff" -- and really the bit of quote you pulled was an expansion of what I meant by saying the DAO classes always felt a bit off. I was trying to get at what Tamerlane said above -- where with DA:O, it felt like I couldn't let my (FIGHTER) companion go on autopilot while I would keep tabs on the mage and theif (my main) who are typically "softer" classes ...

Yeah, I was just checking that what I "knew" (no box, unless you paid into tiers A,B,C, or D) was still accurate

Sorry, I don't follow. Why having a different way for various class to access soul magic (like Monks mortification of the flesh, Ciphers meditation, Priests devotion/ritual, or Mages mastery of occult) make this like a non party base multiplayer game mechanic? I think he's trying to get at "each class is so different that you're gonna end up in a position where it would be better off being played by 6 humans, than 1 human playing 6 characters". With IWG/BG it wasn't "that bad" since they pull from AD&D, so "Fighter is the tank, mage is the weakling in slot 5 or 6" (with very little variation) and it was pretty easy to pause, see what was going on, figure something out, and unpause. Maybe it was because I had the console version, but DAO was a lot more of a pain to sort out who was doing what where ... not to mention that "everything" you were given with the characters was always a bit off, because of only three classes*. Not to mention that nearly every single fight became a "micromanage all the mooks" thing because I couldn't trust that the fighter would go carve his way through baddies while I sat on the mage long enough so he didn't waste a lower mana spell so I could get another fireball (or whatever high-mana spell) off and actually INJURE the baddie... *What I mean is, in AD&D, you can pretty much always expect a fighter to be a decent tank, or a paladin to fall somewhere between a cleric and fighter, or a cleric to be a healing battery but mediocre melee combatant, or a Druid/Ranger to be about as good as a paladin, or a rogue to be indispensable in a dungeon, or a sorcerer/wizard to be about as strong as wet paper (but massive offensive/defensive capabilities if allowed to use them).

^ nice. I wasn't even thinking that ... but rather more along the lines of Obsidian going, "OK people, so here's everything in your stronghold crammed into 1/9 the space" -- I mean didn't they say in one of the updates that "essentially" each area is a 3x3 grid of "stuff" (terrain, what have you) ...

It's kinda hard to put in perspective because "hey this is what we're working on! (pic)" has to kinda show everything instead of just giving us 1/9th the stronghold (note -> I'm assuming that it will fill a large portion of the area -> more like Candlekeep in BG1 than the Friendly Arms Inn), because people would get upset over Obsidian giving a picture of the keep/gatehouse and just saying "and over to the left are the stables and maze, to the right is the curio shop, theatre, and 'custom building' (Mage tower or something else depending on choices) so perhaps when we walk up to the stronghold, the layout might be "the same" -- but a lot more spread out, and less cramped looking.

The key point here is, that Obsidian distributes the games via more than just one channel. They don't enforce any DRM on anyone, but if anyone wants to go with the Steam version instead of the GoG or boxed version, there's not much Obsidian can do. There's not a single game on Steam that works without Steam, so, yeah. If that's a problem, don't buy the Steam version. Point of interest to me --> Wasn't the "box version" only available if you were a backer at certain tiers? General public "DRM Free" option is GOG, or Steam (barring, ofc the DRM inherent in the Steam client -- but then, it's not Obsidian who's putting out the game with DRM ... but rather the consumer who chose the DRM-laden distribution channel).

I am sure they'll be more then eager to supplement any game, so it would use their trade marked system ($$$) I'd be cautious about any developer using non modified/tailored ruleset form a tabletop game for a video game. In our case, it is my understanding that compared to BG games, we will have less restriction in your character development, and combat will be more tactical i.e. if before only magic wielding char's had to make any meaningful choice, while fighters just hacked it the right direction, now each class will have "magical"(soul) abilities. I have been told that in D&D terms it is more inline with 4th edition then 3rd. (which is IMO great for a video game, unless they mess up the AI) IMO, D&D 4E is "Play WoW with Pen and Paper!" ... yeah, AD&D and 3/3.5E had their share of problems... but I think 4E went very far the "wrong way" for a tabletop game. That said, it's a nice rulebook for if they ever made another FRCS cRPG, since they presumably wouldn't be so hamstrung by trying to make AD&D/3.5E rules fit into a computer game (which is limited by design choices that "have" to be made for a computer -> take out features to hit "3 year old PC capabilities", tweak spells/abilities since the computer can't know when you use [spell] you mean to target the thing that BBEG is holding, and not the ground under him [ or vice versa], etc).

Agh, I misread that. That's my bad. I thought AD&D did it, but now I'm not so sure. Anywho, that being the case, I feel it's awfully arbitrary. It seems like a forced way of balancing the spells, so that Mages couldn't re-use their spells more than once every 9 hours, tops, instead of designing the system with any number of other methods of balance. It's actually worse than that, because if you're interrupted (say a fight for 1 minute/10 rounds), you get an hour added to the "rest time" ... AND you also cannot re-fill any spell slot(s) that you burned within the last 8 hours. So if that fight was 6h into your rest .. you have to +1 hour of rest (so, 9h "resting" overall), AND lose out on however many spells you used during the fight, because it's only been ~3 hours since you expended the spell(s). I think it's a bit of glossing things over to keep things straight that would work across all classes and attributes. I mean, the rules are complex enough without "and you can take 1/2 hour off for every modifier point for the primary attribute of your spellcasting" It's 8 hours of rest to "get ready" to study your spells. The actual act of studying your book takes a minimum of 15 minutes, and a maximum of 1 hour regardless of how many slots you're actually "filling" for the day. edit -- the other part of this is to keep things moving ... I mean if it's "1 hour" for 4 cantrips and a L1 spell, and goes up by [time] for every spell (and higher level spells take longer), you're gonna eventually get to a point where "OK, we rested all night, and the Wizard took all morning to replenish his spells ... so we can travel for 4 hours today; at this pace, we'll make it to Suzail in *checks map* ... 6 weeks..."

Well, for D&D the thing is that "Armor" doesn't actually impart any "protection" other than making you harder to hit, and magical armor (Mage Armor, Shield, etc.) just follows that grouping of rules more or less (certain things are overruled though, like spell failure, and other "special" things, like being able to hide behind a tower shield for full cover) Spells that do soak up damage -- e.g. "Stoneskin" (DR 10/Adamantine) have both a time limit (10 minutes / level) and a HP limit (10 HP / level; max 150). For Woundrous Items that we create ... well, there's a lot of glossing over the actual process (because IDK why ... probably something having to do with ). However, I just finished reading a book that was recommended here [i think, or maybe just in amazon reviews] where someone created a Finder's Stone by encasing a piece of para-elemental ice in the center of the rock so as to allow it to run spells indefinitely ('Tongues' was the one the character used). Anyway, I think they use time-based (in pen and paper) because it's easier for everyone. Wizard -> I'm casting Stoneskin on (party member/self) DM -> OK, you're L7 right? Wiz -> no, L8 now; levelled end of last session DM -> OK, so you're good for 80 minutes, or 80 HP ... you're not in combat, no one's near enough to get an Atk of Opportunity ... it goes off without a hitch ... (jots down 'game time' and 'hp soaked' on his notepads) (Time) DM -> and with Grugg's mighty blow (sidebar -> WTF you lucky bastard getting nat 20 on a crit check), the High Priest of Bane is no more. His demise also releases magic keeping the few remaining skeletons animated, and drops the wards that had Taklyn and Maribel frozen in place. To Wiz I have 50 rounds counted since you cast the spell - 10 from that first fight at the gatehouse, 15 from the courtyard reinforcements ... and 25 as you guys slogged through the undead in the mansion ... in addition, you guys spent 5 minutes to study the tapestries looking for the secret passage to the basements, and 20 minutes to open the locks on the cells. You've still got 40 minutes remaining on the stoneskin spell ... Wiz -> OK ... (rest of party) -> well, we've looted the stuff and thrown it into our packs ... and the Holy Symbol for the Mayor ... and lets GTFO before anyone else shows up DM -> sounds like a plan guys. You make it outside no problem, even with the Mayor's daughter cowering in fear and slowing you all down. It's just about nightfall, you've got enough light that you should be able to make it to town about a mile away, or at least the inn up the road (half mile in the wrong direction)... (OOG -- aaand it's getting late, do you guys want to try getting back to town tonight, or do you wanna pick up here next week?)

My point with that was more aimed at NWN(2) and some of the others -- sure you could grab a companion; but they were all AI all the time ... BG was a step up, in that even though you could roll a 4HP wizard, you got Imoen and the cannon fodder evil guys reqlly quick, and could then just hang back and fry the baddie at the FA inn (instead of it needing to be your 4HP AC12 wizard starting the conversation with the assassin guy... IWD was the best, in that anyone in the party could die, and it didn't matter to the game -- you wouldn't have to reload unless the entire party got dead. Downside to BG and IWD are that you "have" to play as the whole party in the campaign (unless you play multiplayer ... but few people I know play these classic cRPGs -- they like the PnP better, or WoW)

No, that L1 Fighter will drop in one or two hits, because after taking 20 damage, he will be at 0HP. yeah, I got it screwed up somewhere and applied it as "no HP damage til you lose all your stamina" rather than "every 4 points of stamina is 1 point of HP"

Even with that in mind, it's not the same thing. Imagining the act of adultery with someone is seen as just as bad as the actual act itself, in what you're describing. But, how can the act of being a fictional Wizard with telekinesis be just as bad as non-existent actual telekinetic wizardry? The magic being talked about in Biblical text is generally the "I'm affiliated with Satan and/or at the very least being blasphemous by claiming to have powers beyond a mortal, and therefore challenging the one true God, himself." You know that, I know that ... those guys over there think the Earth was literally created in 6 days, and is literally 6,000 years old (or thereabouts) ... and whatever else the book says that's obviously just a narrative device used to explain things that couldn't be explained any other way at the time. Don't get me wrong -- the teachings and the message are important ... but you still have to recognize that a lot of things are explained as best as they could with what was known at the time... It's like the bit where the townsfolk dressed up the girl as a witch in Quest for the Holy Grail --> "if she weighs as much as a duck ... then she's made of wood ... and she'll float on water ... so SHE'S A WITCH!"

I only have the 3.0 and 3.5 DMGs here ... (so can't check AD&D to see what it's comparison was for BG/IWD) but they explicitly state that a wizard _must_ rest for eight ( 8 ) hours before they can start studying their spellbook(s). However, you then only needed 1 hour to study "everything", or a proportionally shorter time (though at least 15 minutes) to prepare only those spells you used up yesterday. For example, a L1 wizard has 3 L0 spell slots and 1 L1 spell slot, plus one bonus L1 slot if they have INT of 12-19 for a total of 5 slots. Each spell will take 12 minutes to prepare, although only preparing 1 spell always takes 15 minutes. at L10 a wizard has up to 24 spells (assuming INT of 19), so each individual spell takes 2.5 minutes to prepare, though 6 spells or fewer will always take 15 mins. at L20 (int 19), a wizard has 44 spells, each individual spell takes 1.3 minutes to prepare, though 11 spells or fewer will always take 15 minutes.

I'd like it to be kind of a mix, and after poking around it kinda seems they're going that way. Fighters (apparently) have a high "in combat" passive stamina regen -- maybe the only class that actually has one, whereas the rest of the party has to kinda hide behind the fighters, and kill off the mooks, while burning some part of their stamina for the "2 minutes" that are actually played out over the 20 rounds that happened. 2 minutes of "strenuous exercise" for otherwise really fit people is taxing -- they'll be a little winded for a minute or so, but not overly tired. Take a few hits during the fight, and you'll be more tired (but still "uninjured"). Thinking about it, it's pretty well thought out, and slips into "real world" thinking a little better than the D&D-style "you have 50 HP". What I mean is: PE - a L1 fighter might have 5 HP, and 100 stamina. You'll burn stamina just by fighting, and the losses from getting hit are more representative of the cuts, scrapes, and bruises you get as the other guy's attacks connect ... but you don't actually lose "1HP" til you're outta stamina and the bad guy can get a square hit on your jaw ... or stab you in the leg with his dagger, etc... D&D - a L1 fighter has 12 HP, and really as long as you're >0, you don't lose anything (you might be a little more careful at 2-3 than you were at 10-12 ... but PCs are "generally" better fit than equivalent mooks at low levels ... well, unless the DM throws you into a pit with a vampire or something ...

Freeze them, and then hit 'em with the rock fist was one of my favourite lowbie shenanigans. Though, TBH, I hate playing mage classes in cRPGs a lot of times because it's a lot of "me ... and some follower(s)". BG/IWD are good with this because I play the whole party (IWD is better IMO, since I can build the whole party at the start, and it doesn't matter if the first or last character died ... it's gonna cost me a couple hundred gold either way ... ) DA:O was annoying to me with the switching because I had to learn "all" of the classes I was with, since like every other "feat" was activated ... not to mention there was a lot of "switch, hit butan.. AI takes over for [whoever] -- FUUUU NO DON'T USE THE EXPENSIVE SPELL ON THE MOOK WITH 1 HP"