neo6874

Sorry, but you simply seem to have miscalculated your tables. I said x(n) is the xp you need to achieve level n. You substituted this with BASE_XP*LEVEL, fine. But then your fighter has CLS_MOD of 0, so his leveling scheme is exactly xp(LEVEL)= BASE_XP*LEVEL, which should produce the sequence 1000,2000,3000,4000. But in your table it is 0, 1000, 3000, 6000 ??? Could it be that you used a spreadsheet and forgot to adapt the function used ? I read the formula x(n) is applied to the "NEXT_LVL_XP" column (i.e. x(n) = XP_BASE * CUR_LVL) -- so the fighter progresses exactly as in D&D 3e rules ... whereas the rogue needs an additional 333 XP/ level, and the wizard needs an additional 666 XP/level. The first column is a given level (e.g. 1). The second column is the XP required to progress to the next level (e.g. "1,000" for L1 -> L2) -- the progression for the fighter is 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k ... The third column is the minimum XP required to hit that level (and is just the summation of all previous levels) ... so the "Required XP" for a L4 fighter is 6,000 total XP; because 1k + 2k + 3k = 6k [Edit --- Or put another way, it's the total XP that has been earned thus far by the fighter] I suppose that you could be saying that a fighter needs 1,000 XP to level at any level, be it L1 (1,000 XP*) -> L2 (2,000 XP) or L19 (19,000 XP) -> L20 (20,000 XP) ... but that means things that "should" become easy (e.g. picking a lock) give "the same" XP as when you were L1 --> picking 10 locks and getting an extra 100 XP at L1 is essentially 1.5 encounters worth of XP .... picking 10 locks and getting 100 XP at L18 (when you need 18k to progress) is pretty much nothing. Unless, of course you're also throwing in some other weird maths that start reducing XP payouts for doing little things like that... which pretty much ends up at "complexity for complexity's sake" *I put L1 at 1,000 XP to keep the progression "proper" assuming you literally mean a character's total XP at any one level will be "CUR_LVL * (1000 + (modifier)) " Edit 2 -- actually, can you throw in a table with your proposed level progression up to L20 (just for a fighter is fine) so that I can actually see what you're proposing rather than just guessing at it?

I think the better solution is to keep the XP static for everyone (1,000 * CUR_LVL = XP_REQ), but then do a few things: NPCs start at +10-33% of the XP needed for the next level. So assuming you find a L5 NPC anything, they'll have between 10,500 and 11,650 Total XP (since L5 - L6 requires 5,000 XP and you have 10,000 Total XP at L5) XP rewards vary based on what you do. So a quest requires some finesse and avoiding traps ... you lead with the rogue, and the fighter is your rear guard ... rogue gets say +10% XP over the base, Fighter gets -10% because he's big and loud and caused you to fight at one point. Assuming we're talking about the "standard" average progression of 13 same level encounters, this means that the rogue is getting the following breakdown: +7 XP at L1 (1,000/13 = ~76) +76 XP at L10 (10,000/13 = ~769) +153 XP at L20 (20,000/13 = ~1538) Now, it's been stated that PE is gonna have "quest XP" (or whatever) rather than "encounter XP", so all the game needs to keep track of at that point is simple things, that you as a player won't know are happening ... e.g. Your wizard casts sleep on the guard, so you can waltz on in -> wizard XP trigger You sneak through the shadows, and slip a dagger between his ribs (and hides the body) -> rogue XP trigger You bash his face in with a warhammer -> FTR XP trigger You set fire to the storehouse -> bonuses for whichever party member did that You fake being a band of travelers set upon by mercenaries, and convince the guard you're trustworthy -> bonus XP for the charismatic one etc Throw in 5 or 6 encounters like this in one "quest", so you have the chance to rotate through your party --- BUT throw in some options that will end up penalizing someone else ... for example, you need to get into town, and you know the watch captains are being paid off by BBEG (but the regular joes at the gate are just honest guys trying to make a buck ... they don't even know their superior is on BBEG's payroll)... sneaking up to them and killing them outright might penalize a cleric or paladin since "No part of your evil ways" ... but a less violent solution -- "hey guys, a three-headed-monkey! (sleep spell)" might get the wizard a bonus, but won't directly penalize your cleric/paladin.

I like where you're going with the "one offs" ... or at least making things that are otherwise prohibitively expensive/rare. I've been playing through IWD and it's like 4-500 GP for five +1 arrows (normal stacks are 20 arrows for 1 GP). So, I'm pretty much staying gimped with my ranger and other "archer" characters because even in chapter 5 you're not exactly at a point where "Oh, that 4k GP I just spent on arrows was pocket change". Admittedly, I've probably screwed up somewhere and they shouldn't be this expensive. I would love to see a real depth to the system, and wouldn't be opposed to it being tied to "levels" -- but they should be outside the realm of the skill-point system --> it only ever made sense in NWN2 to play a wizard if you wanted to be a crafter because you could waste several points in whichever crafting school (Armorsmith/Weaponsmith/whatver) and still have loads of SP left over because base SP/level, plus an INT of 18+ (sure, you could cheat by wearing a headband of intellect for leveling up, but that became tedious). I would really love to see it become something that has diminishing returns as well (BUT ONLY IN A MULTIPLAYER / PW SETTING) -- for example, let's say there are ten (10) levels in any one crafting school ... um ... let's use sword-making as an example: L1 -> you start here (might have to pay a trainer), and can make basic things (e.g. bronze short sword) L2 -> nothing major, maybe unlocks Iron? L3 -> Steel (basic) and +1 for Iron/Bronze L4 -> ??? L5 -> +2 ATK L9 -> +5 Iron/Bronze; +4 Steel L10 -> meteorite iron (+0) This is really rough (and terrible), but really the "best place" to get to is probably L9. L10 is pretty much 100% useless for the "common sword-smith" because of the rarity of meteorite iron, and you're making a terrible* sword with it. *"Terrible" in the sense that it's +0 to ATK ... but say that meteorite iron has other properties that allow it 100% more "enchant slots" (so IDK, 6 instead of 3?)

OK, but you were still limited to two (2) bonuses to the lightsaber (and no temporary/semi-permanent "magic" buffs), whereas with a D&D-style RPG, you can potentially have a lot more, if you're not careful with limits: masterwork (+ATK roll) Keen (+Damage roll) Chained (+disarm DC) Balanced (-offhand penalty) Enchanted to throw electric damage Enchanted to (something) Wizard/cleric buffs anything else I'm forgetting

Personally, I'd rather see that the "crafting skill tree" is completely outside of the "OK you leveled up" progression, but with ties back to it -- for example, "smithing" being STR and DEX (weapons, armor, etc). KOTOR (II) had a decent system, but it was built from the ground up without the concept of magic being able to be applied to a weapon in the same sense that a "typical" RPG would take. There was no way to add "+10 electric damage" to a lightsaber from a crystal, and then also add "+10 electric damage" from another source (well, maybe a second crystal, can't remember if you could do that, or if it was "one of Type A and one of Type B")

Wasn't DA2 released after Bioware became "An EA Company"? EA is the devil, and they ruin many many good franchises/development companies ...

It still falls apart after approximately ten levels (assuming I'm following your math properly) Math FLOOR((BASE_XP*LEVEL) + (CLS_MOD * ((1/TOTAL_CLASSES) * ((BASE_XP*(LEVEL+1) - (BASE_XP*LEVEL))))),1) Where: BASE_XP = Base XP for the leveling system (e.g. 1,000) LEVEL = Current Level (e.g. 1) CLS_MOD = Class number (0,1,2,...) TOTAL_CLASSES = Total number of classes I'm using the following numbers to fill in the variables: BASE_XP = 1000 LEVEL = {1,41} CLS_MODFTR = 0 RGE = 1 WIZ = 2 TOTAL_CLASSES = 3XP Tables: Fighter: Rogue: Wizard Edit, and if you're gonna come back and say it's only "this bad" because the numbers are small ... here's the 20th class in a 20-class game. Fake 20th class Another Edit: Unless what you're trying to do is work it out backwards ... such as FTR = 10K XP overall at level 5 ... so x(n) = 10,000 x(n+1) = 15,000 3 classes Wiz = Class 2 then Wiz needs ... 10,000 + (2 * (1/3) * (15,000 - 10,000) 10,000 + ((2/3) * 5,000) = 13,333 XP to attain L5

The only problem I see with your system is that you're putting certain things on items (e.g. +Reflex or +Defense) that shouldn't be there as part of the inherent crafting -- you're stepping on the toes of enchanting. No biggie, just jumped out at me. Raw crafting I would see only covering they physical properties of an item that a "dumb brute" (aka fighter) would be able to do, given sufficient training: Keen Edge (+ damage) (hardened face for blunt things) Lighter, but just as strong (+ to hit, aka "Masterwork") Perfectly Balanced (1 or 2 reduction to offhand penalty when used as offhand weapon) Other random things like "chained" (so you can strap to your gauntlet for +5 to your disarm DC) Same types of things for armor. For the "you can't craft [item] til you put points in [item_Type] Crafting", some of it makes sense (bowyers have a totally different skillset than shield-makers), but certain things would overlap greatly (such as dagger -> longsword).

Once again - one of the major improvements over AD&D is to prevent such differences. Look at the following table build around jethro's idea: (Table removed for brevity) As You can see, Wizard, who levels the slowest, reached 2nd level way earlier than the fastest leveling Warrior got his 3rd. Assuming it is impossible to obtain more than 10% of current XP at once (no quest/encounter offers so high reward), different classes will never level up at the same time. You can also notice that differences in required XP among classes are negligible compared to the total amount necessary to level up. I was wrong in calling it "AD&D rules" -- I suppose "AD&D-esque" is a better comparison. Your table is nice, but it doesn't go far enough. The way that the math works is that after only a few more levels, the Wizard will start falling severely behind in the levels -- by FTR level 16 (120,000 XP) the wizard will be down two full levels, and it gets worse from there. Various assumed XP Caps (chapter, game overall, etc) Assuming 60,000 FTR -> L11 (55K XP) - next level @66k RGE -> L10 - next level @60,500 WIZ -> L10 - next level @66k Assuming 120,000 FTR -> L16 (Total XP 120K) - next level @ 136k RGE -> L15 (Total XP 15,500) - next level @132K WIZ -> L14 (Total XP 109,200) - next level @126k assuming 200k FTR -> L20 (total XP 190k) - next level @210k RGE -> L19 (total XP 188,100) - next level @209k WIZ -> L18 (total XP 183,600) - next level @205,200 assuming 300k FTR -> L25 (total XP 300K) - next level @325k RGE -> L23 (total XP 278,300) - next level @303,600 WIZ -> L21 (total XP 277,200) - next level @303,600 *NOTE -- all maths are likely not perfect. Math used XP_TO_NEXT_LVL = (CLS_XP) * (CUR_LVL) where: CLS_XP = the XP points you gave (1000; 1100; 1200) CUR_LVL = current character level (1,2,3,...) TOTAL_XP_THIS_LEVEL = (PRV_LVL_XP_REQ) + (PRV_LVL_TOTAL_XP)where:PRV_LVL_XP_REQ = XP needed to progress from the previous level to this level (e.g. 3,000 for L3 -> L4; 4,000 for L4->L5; etc) PRV_LVL_TOTAL_XP = result of this formula from the previous level (e.g. 3,000 at L3; 6,000 at L4; etc) edit -> ze table, up to L39 (because, why not) FIGHTER (Warrior, whatever) ROUGE (Thief, whatever) WIZARD (Sorcerer, whatever)

Do I acknowledge your command to ignore you, thereby doing the OPPOSITE of ignoring you? Or do I pay attention to you, thereby obviously not ignoring you? AHHHH!!! *rips out hair* [Mr. Burns] excellent [/Mr. Burns] Last games I bothered to get Beta access to were: NWN 2 (although, it was only +30d to use the editor; but since programming bits for a PW...) DUST 514 (because I play EvE and it was like 4 seconds and ~free~ to get the access). Beta access for this will be fun (95% sure I have it), though not "mandatory" by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just hoping I can afford the "artbook" tier once the backer portal comes around, since I couldn't when the kickstarter was running.

I couldn't scrounge the money back when it was on kickstarter ... hopefully can get in on the book tier via the backer site...

uh, wasn't the whole point with the Kickstarter campaign so that they *could* make a IE game, and damn the publishers? Also, 3.9m of 1.1m goal is pretty much "do want!" from people. Not to mention what's not tracked on Kickstarter (slacker backers + paypal ...)

nope, just the badge for now (and game when it comes out). However, Obsidian has hinted that you can add more funds later after the backer portal goes up (around Thanksgiving / Nov 28th - or at least it's been hinted at for then).

I ... I don't even know where to begin with responding to that ...

Yes. The plan is to change something flat like edition 3.5 into something with different level requirements (just as a thought experiment). Lets say we leave the fighter as before, so he levels at 1k exp. The mage we change to achieve the new level at 1.1k instead, the bard at 1.2k and so on. See, now the previously flat system would have different level requirements for the classes. And since the xp difference is the same as you would get from a single combat encounter it would mean that if you had a fighter and a mage in your group, the fighter would level first and one combat encounter later the mage (not every time, but probably quite often) So you're going back to AD&D (AKA 2nd edition) rules then, where all the classes had different XP requirements to level up. It got pretty drastic in BG -- something like a rogue could be L15 and a druid was L9 because of the different XP requirements; though this was probably more due to the XP differential growing pretty rapidly (500XP at L1 might be 5,000 XP by L5*) I said "order the from fastest to slowest" because if you want to have different level requirements, you would use that to fine-tune the classes a bit. You would select the class that seems weakest in play-tests to level first to make up somewhat for the weakness. The next-weakest class would come next. Yeah, it just wasn't clear that you were trying to go back to "AD&D style" XP requirements. No, not at all. You were replying to me and asked what the hell I was talking about. I might not be good at explaining, but I will try. No worries -- was just the way you responded with "if X irritates you" ...

@Jethro -- Flat progression or no, I still don't follow what you were trying to get at with what I quoted a post or two up. 13.3 encounters to level just means that (on average) 13.3 encounters will get you 1k EXP at L0, or 18K EXP at L17 (assuming fighting L0/1 or L17/18 equiv monsters - in a D&D 3E setting). Since everyone levels at 1/3/6/10/15/21k XP no matter their class, I'm not sure where you're getting the "order them from fastest to slowest" part, since there is no "speed difference" for any classes (since 1K XP = 1K XP). Most of the time (in either a cRPG or P&P) the leveling differences were because A party member was dead at the end of a fight (no XP that fight) A party member did something hilariously daft that worked out (bonus XP outside the encounters) A party member kept up with their journal (bonus XP outside encounters) A party member miraculously rolled nat 20 on a [diplomacy|intimidation|whatever] check to change the course of a conversation (e.g. made the evil cleric piss his pants ... so bonus XP) A party member made a Ring of Fireball, and burned 5K XP Although, I think you might be confusing me with Lephys, who you seem to have been going back and forth with for a few posts. @ Kaczor - Crossing all kinds of rulesets in my mind, it's been far too long since I've played Your explanation makes more sense than what Jethro said -- I was having a hard time with where he was talking about 3E and AD&D

I built one for NWN(2?) where it followed (more or less) the actual 3.0 or 3.5 ed. rules, with some license taken with the DR (generally on things not covered, such as cooking or smelting, etc). As I recall it, if you wanted to make something: DMG says "If they wanna make a Dagger, Short Sword, etc; use Table a.b 'Short Swords' to get the DR" Player rolls d20+modifier against DR If they hit the DR, then they progress 1d worth of making the thing (unless <1d left, then it's done) if they get DR+X on the roll, then "Masterwork". (Don't remember what it was for things that took more than a day, you might've needed to declare trying to make it MW at the start, and getting the +X to the DR always). It's been ages, so I don't entirely recall the entire process but it was something like this. Newbie to the server is L0 across the board in all crafting "schools" (smelting, mining, smithing, enchanting, whatever) Could attempt anything, using just base stat bonuses (STR/WIS/etc), but could generally only do the low-end things (mine copper/tin, smelt either ... making bronze was difficult, but doable ... small shield/sword ... light armor) could also pay a trainer to get (up to) +3 in any field, was about 75% of the cost of just failing a lot ... since with the way the math worked out (and STR/DEX/WIS/etc bonuses), +3 was enough to pretty much make all the "normal" things with 100% success. Masterwork was random (DR+10 or something), though you could choose to make things MW just by choosing that option. The "blueprints" were pretty simplistic - just a scrap of paper that you (the player) read to know the things you needed, e.g. 5 metal bars to make a longsword ... though rather than carry around 100 scraps of paper, I did something that allowed you to add them to a book (scrollcase, probably) ... so you (the player) read it, knew what you needed and went from there. OK, I need 5 Iron to make a sword (obtain it) 5 Iron + "Recipe Book" (or single recipe sheet, if you didn't have the book yet) into the forge (close forge) Menu giving choices likeArmor, light Armor, heavy Swords, short Armor, light, Masterwork +1 Swords, long, Masterwork + The list was dependent on what recipes you obtained already/put in the forge, so a newbie would see nothing ... someone with a "Short Sword" recipe would see "Swords, Short" and "Swords, Short, Masterwork +n" (and so on). Options for the masterwork were pretty much there to just destroy the input materials (since fail = lost things) rather than making 3 regular swords for every +1 masterwork one (on average). After choosing a category (e.g. Sword, Short) you'd see each weapon falling into that category you had a thing for (and the materials for, IIRC ... so you wouldn't see "Iron Dagger" if you put Bronze into the thing) ... and each one would say the GP cost for consumables (e.g. "Bronze Dagger - 4GP"). I don't think "Masterwork" cost anything extra, because it was chance-based. Enchanting worked similarly, but you didn't need to put the "recipe book" in with the thing to be enchanted ... recipe was more like "Take one masterfully crafted [armor|weapon] and cast to create +n Firey weapon (or +n armor of flame resistance)." So, take thing, put in "enchanting table", cast fireball. Menu "You cast fireball (L9 Caster). This will create a +6d6 weapon or +25% Fire DR, and cost 50k GP (numbers made up for discussion here). You can also choose to cast it as a L5-L8 caster ... L5 = +1d6 weapon, 5% DR, 15k GP L6 = whatever, 17,500 etc ... Granted the NWN "menus" were pretty bad (just chat dialogs really) so it was nowhere near as pretty as something that could be done by the game creators themselves (although ... bioware did pretty horribly with the NWN "crafting" in the expansions).

Your whole argument construction seems to depend on level thresholds that are so monumentally different that it isn't even on a regular basis anymore. D&D's leveling differences were quite high (if I remember correctly), much more than what would be necessary to stagger level ups in actual play. Did you notice that adversly while playing? I didn't. Here is a sensible example: In D&D 3.5 it seems a level-up should happen after 13.3 equal level encounters. If you order the classes from fastest-leveling to slowest-leveling and make each class of this list to level 1 equal level encounter later than the previous one, level-ups would usually be separated by at least one encounter. You could fit 14 classes into this scheme without any class ever being 2 levels above any other. (And just to state the obvious, if this level-up difference is too much, halve it, there are no hard requirements) In absolute numbers it would mean something like this: Class A gets level 2 at 1000xp, level 3 at 2000xp and level 4 at 4000xp. Class B would get level 2 at 1100 xp, level 3 at 2200xp (to keep numbers round), Class C at 1200xp and 2400xp. No class would get level 2 at 2000 xp or more. I don't follow this part here -- I mean, from what I recall, D&D 2 (IWD/BG/?) had different leveling requirements (1k for a fighter, 1500 for a mage ... whatever [edit - totally made up numbers]), but in 3/3.5 it's all flat regardless of class (XP needed = curXP + (newLevel x 1000XP) , so L0 -> L1 was 1,000; L1->L2 was +2,000 (3,000 total); L17 -> L18 was +18k; etc)... IDK what they did with 4E ... seems more a dumbing-down of P&P mechanics to make it fit with MMORPG mechanics than an actual improvement over anything...

I'm always gonna be getting '42' then

Definitely like the "progression" of injury like you pointed out. Also liked (with NWN, I think I'm just bad at the Icewind Dale* controls to figure it out) where you could check the "properties" of a creature, and get some info... e.g. "Orc - Challenging" "flavor text about orcs" *GOG is an evil site... have spent more money on the classics in the last year that I've spent on "new titles"

(actually ... ignore me)

Well, the picture that got linked was pretty "simplistic" insofar as depth. List of what you can make: Gladius Shield (more stuff) Technique 1 (dropdown) - "Masterwork +d4 DMG" Technique 2 (dropdown) - "Hardened Edge vsDR +3" Material (pictograph list at the bottom) Item Description [item] is typically used by infantry ... blah blah more flavor text.

OK I guess I'm just not making the connection then... "Expert" = "Permanent Death" = no resurrect? "Ironman" = That, plus "one save, don't mess it up"? I guess I started with the "wrong" games then -- as "permanent death" in NWN was (as I recall it) "you just aren't waking up after you get KO'd ... so have some rez spells with you" (although, if the PC ever got KO'd it was "Game Over" anyway)

sweet! although I thought perma-death was the "Ironman" mode? Not that I'm ever gonna play it ... I have a hard enough time on "normal" or "hard" (or whichever is right below "D&D Hardcore") ... I guess I'm just that bad

So pretty much, you want "Expert" mode to essentially be the (IIRC) "D&D Hardcore Mode" that other titles have used (I think this was NWN). I could get behind this ... but only if there were the other ways around "needing to make 100 bad rolls to get that stupid lock open" -- such as "locked chest -> thief rolls 16 + modifiers -> fail ... hmm ... how about I just take 20? ... you open the chest". Keeps gameplay going, but still lets you "easily" open things that you absolutely need a 20 on. Alternatively, take 20 fails -> potion of [whatever] that improves "lockpicking" and take 20 again, and hooray you got it open!