PrimeJunta

What about... Grimoire?

Yah, I've noticed the atmosphere becomes noticeably more cheerful every time Josh shows up and actually explains his thinking and goals. So more info would be nice. A blog post addressing these topics maybe?

Concerning gish builds. The way I see this would work is (1) wizard self-buffs into short-duration melee monster, (2) wizard charges into melee, makes mayhem, (3) buffs run out and wizard self-extracts back to the second row. Now, the wizard has a rather nice selection of self-buffs which could be used for this purpose. There are various spells which increase defenses and even deal damage to attackers, there are spells for fast movement or even (at L4) short-range teleport which could be used to get out when the buffs run out. However, there appears to be one piece missing from this puzzle though. Accuracy. There is a level 1 spell which dramatically increases accuracy, but it is so short-duration that it is effectively a single-attack spell only, or almost; even the Arcane Veil stays up a good deal longer. It is not really useful for this tactic, so the upshot is that the wizard rushes into combat, whiffs madly for a while, then rushes back. It would be nice to have a selection of longer-duration accuracy self-buffs to make this type of tactic more viable. I don't think it would be unbalacing as it would require step-by-step hands-on attention and the damage would be a burst rather than sustained.

They slow down your attacks. Heavy armor doubles the attack time, and heavy weapons are much slower than light ones. So if you've got a fast guy fighting a slow guy, and the fast guy hits at half-second intervals while the slow guy hits at two-second intervals, the fast guy will get four opportunities to interrupt the slow guy for every opportunity the slow guy has to interrupt the fast guy. If even one of those interrupts goes through, the slow guy has to start his attack again. If the fast guy has high PER and the slow guy low RES, he's effectively stunlocked. The converse is not true. If both have the same Concentration, but the slow guy's Interrupt is twice as good as the fast guy's, the fast guy still has the advantage: twice as many of his Interrupts will fail, but he's still interrupting twice as often because he attacks four times faster. This is why interrupts are most effective against casters--a cast is effectively an attack that takes six seconds to make. Lots of opportunities to interrupt that.

Haha cool! Developers are gamers too! Lots of familiar comments there... and at least the pro-combat-XP camp now has a champion worthy of carrying the banner. There's only one part where my experience is drastically different: the AoE spells. I've found them vastly powerful. I've used the cone, ball, line, and wall-shaped ones extensively, and they make winning battles easy. Also controlling the battlefield to the extent that you can place them effectively isn't as hard as he says, even with the sorry state the combat is currently in.

I'm still reserving judgment on this one. It does make a difference even in melee, mostly if you're at the receiving end (slow weapons, heavy armor), but also if you're doing the interrupting (fast weapons, light armor). It is not a very efficient way of hampering melee opponents though, AFAICT, and will only really make a difference when dealing with casters (slow action, big impact). As it is IMO RES is much more useful than PER, because even low-PER characters can interrupt strategically with special abilities (Thrust of the Tattered Veils... that sounds pretty Freudian by the way. Haven't used it though, so don't know if the casting time is fast enough). Put another way, a frontline caster needs high RES or he won't be able to cast, ergo, Interrupt matters. IMO the main problem with the mechanic right now is the virtually nonexistent feedback. If there was an associated bark and e.g. the portrait/selection circle flashed yellow when you got interrupted or interrupted someone, it'd be much easier to get a sense of what it really means. It might be better to remove Interrupt from regular combat and make it affect spellcasting only, and then add special abilities/spells you can use tactically (low-damage, high-Interrupt per-encounter attacks). It'd be even more important to put something genuinely valuable on PER then though. However I'd prefer they added good feedback first, to get a better idea of what it really means. Not sure if increasing the interrupt time would be a good idea; doubling it to a second would make melee more like wrestling where everybody's stunlocked a lot of the time. I think.

I think we're dealing with a psychological effect here at least partly. It just feels "wrong" that dumped stats still give bonuses, even if they're small. I have a feeling that if you set the zero point to 10 and applied the adjustments as negatives below and positives above, a lot of people would be happier even if it ended up in the same place. (I do think the abilities ought to have more impact in absolute terms as well; I don't really feel I'm missing much from my dump stats or gaining much by pumping them. I would like it to sting if I dumped something to 3 so I'd have to adjust my tactics accordingly.)

In P:E backstabbing is based on status effects. I haven't gone through all or even most of them, but the basic example is Hobbled. I.e. rogues always backstab if an enemy is hobbled. I think other statuses that trigger backstab include Prone and Flanked, possibly depending on level and the perks you've taken. I.e., to backstab, (1) inflict a suitable status effect, and (2) stab. Rogues can inflict some of these themselves of course, but you can also get another character to do it. The level 1 burning-hands-only-with-cold spell inflicts Hobbled as a side-effect, for example.

I'm actually curious to try a wizard-based gish now. Just have to work up some courage to face the bugs again...

Haaa, that explains it. Excellent, I feel much better -- I did see something about Petrified zap past in the combat log. It was probably intentional then -- it could easily happen if I've got my fighter in the front line cheerfully soaking up damage, who gets petrified, and then the damage goes straight into Health. In that case, amend the report: Petrified status needs better visual and auditory feedback. Maybe turn the model gray and freeze it. Such a frightening and deadly status effect ought to have the visuals to match--at the very least I ought to notice when it happens.

(You could suppress it to oblivion if playing a goody-goody. Try embracing the curse for spits and giggles. It is awesome and psychopathic, easily the best 'evil' arc I've seen in any game. I still feel awful about those poor nice migrants I sent to be eaten by cannibal monsters...)

There's been a quite a lot of angst here about the state of the beta, which frankly isn't all that great, what with the disappearing items, disappearing quests, characters freezing in place, and general combat clusterhug thing. I'm a software developer (full-time for 14 years this year, 29 years counting from my first paid project... no, really, I am), and there's a couple of things I think that are worth pointing out. It's clear that the BB was released when it was released due to Gamescom. And as some general put it, you go to Gamescom with the build you have, not the build you want. We can argue all night whether it would've been better for Obsidian to delay the BB until the most critical bugs are sorted or not (and boy would there have been howls had they done that!), but this is the build the showed us. Thing is, unless you're actually working on the project, there is no way to tell anything much about the project trajectory from one data point. You need at a bare minimum two. That means that we'll be a lot wiser when the next build is released. If we get it in a week or so and most of the critical and some of the less critical bugs are fixed and there's not a lot of regression (=new bugs, or re-emerged old bugs), then things are looking positive: the project is on a good trajectory, and any delays or budget overruns that may happen will be minor. If, on the other hand, most of the critical bugs are still there, or they're gone but new equally critical bugs have appeared, then there's cause to worry, because it means they're struggling with the product. I'm not actually a game developer so I can't say anything specific about those bugs, but the general smell I get is that they oughtn't be hard to address. They're in isolated systems, most are easily reproducible, and if the code is at all sane it ought to be pretty straightforward. The pathfinding issues are likely to be the trickiest, I would guess, but the save/load issues and disappearing-item issues ought to be pretty routine. If they're not, it's indicative of architectural or process/practices problems, and those are the real bastards. As an aside, there's also cause for optimism: at least on my fairly standard, middle-of-the-road system, the beta barely ever crashes, freezes, has major display or audio glitches, or similar issues indicative of fundamental problems. I know this is not the case for everybody, but that's almost certainly due to hardware or driver quirks that they haven't had time to test for yet; at this point having some percentage of the systems not be able to run the game at all is to be expected. What I'm sayin' is, chill. For now anyway. Postpone the angst until the next build. It ain't gonna be perfect, but only then we'll have an idea about where the project is headed. If that build is as bug-ridden as this one, or if there just plain won't be one "in a few weeks," I'll join in the hand-wringing. Hey, I've even got a friendly wager running on this, so I've got something extra to hand-wring about.

To encourage strategic use of your per-rest abilities. If you have unlimited resting, then effectively every ability is per-encounter since you can just rest between every fight. Same reason (probably) they came up with the Spirit Eater mechanic in MotB. (FWIW I loved that mechanic. Probably in the minority, but I loved it.)

@Caerdon That's a bug that's been reported. Workaround is to drag the coins to Mr/Ms Hero; they'll be cashed in there.

@Josh Awesome. Very relieved to hear that keeping unique discovered items unique is a design goal. I got a bit worried earlier when somebody in this thread thought otherwise.

I almost 'liked' that post by Malekith. 'Cuz FO3 was a turd. Except that I don't think the problem with FO3 is the game engine or the mechanics (any more than in the original Fallouts anyway). It's the utterly dull content which completely fails to grasp what Fallout is all about. NV got that, and consequently was a pretty damn good game, puffy faces and all. In pure gameplay terms, I liked it more than either of the originals. Certainly way more variety to the combat than pumping Small Guns and later Energy Weapons and always shooting for the eyes, and no godmode armor.

As an aside, there's a pretty badass level 1 wizard spell which gives you a MASSIVE accuracy boost for a short time. You ought to be able make a pretty cool spellsword with intelligent use of that + Arcane Veil. Pump INT for the duration boost, use light armor so you act fast, cast spell, put Arcane Veil up, charge into melee, proceed to slice 'n dice. When it runs out, use one of those short-distance teleport spells to get to safety. Serious burst damage, with flair. Gotta try that, maybe with the next build.

One head-related easter egg is enough, methinks. Good idea for the sequel though.

Josh, if you're still reading this thread -- is it possible to recreate any magic item already in the game by crafting? Asking because IMO that would greatly devalue the unique found items. While my holy keen flaming scythe was boss in NWN2, Carsomyr was even cooler. If that is the case, at least make it like in Mask of the Betrayer -- i.e., crafting the really crazily powerful items required unique items you could only acquire over the course of your adventures. (I never could bring myself to do everything it would've taken to get the most powerful loot, even on my psychopath run. Some of you guys are truly, truly disturbed.) Please? (Edit: examples for illustration only, adjust power levels down as applicable. It's all relative anyway.)

Have you even looked at the grimoire? It's a picture book, fer cryin' out loud!

Tell me, Giubba, do you actually believe that there is such a thing as magic, and you can learn to use it by reading lots of books? 'Cuz what you're saying only makes sense if you do. I don't. I believe that magic is make-believe in make-believe worlds, with make-believe rules, and the rules can be whatever whoever makes the make-believe wants them to be. P:E's rules are different from DnD's.

They did. My beef with the BG2/NWN/NWN2 style of character options is what I stated in my OP -- that it's not me who's building a character according to my concept; instead, I'm picking from a menu of character concepts designed by other people. It's not wrong as such, just different, and I prefer if it's me doing it. Or, alternatively, go all the way and give me a fully fleshed-out complete character, like The Nameless One of Torment, or Geralt of The Witchers. There's a different payoff for that. But between picking from a menu and building my own thing, I'd rather build, however rich the menu. "This is my character. There are others like it, but this one's mine."

It's magic, Giubba. They made up the magic system. They get to make up the rules through which it works. If in their system bulging muscles help channel magical energy in a way that makes spells do more damage, then that is perfectly logical and okay. As others have pointed out, it would even be nicely aligned with a whole bunch of mythologies from Conan the Barbarian to Persian folktales which associate magical ability with exceptional physical capability. Also my muscle wizard is named Bulbous, and he definitely casts with muscles. Deal with it.

It's not DnD with pre-buffs removed. It's a system designed from the ground up with no pre-buffs. The priest area-effect buffs are extremely powerful (too powerful ATM IMO), because many of them buff multiple defenses at once. I.e., they're already layered, as it were, but short-duration. The character self-buffs are usually relatively short-duration and activated extremely quickly. You won't layer them on either; you'll just use them as needed. Examples: Barbarian's Rage, Wild Sprint, and Savage Defiance, Wizard's Arcane Veil. The rogue's Escape ability is arguably similar. In practice, I've found that a typical combat goes something like this: (1) Spot enemy. (2) Move fighter forward in center, rogue forward a bit to the side. (3) Move fighter forward until he pulls in the enemy. (4) Priest casts buff. (5) Wizard casts offensive spell. (6) Hero does what a hero's got to do. (7) Roughly simultaneously, the priest buff takes effect, the wizard spell hits, and the fighter engages the enemy frontline. [8] Cast spells and use abilities as appropriate (hobble with rogue, knockdown with fighter, moar magic with wizard; I usually have the priest shoot things with guns at this point unless it's a really tough fight in which case I have her slap on an area debuff). (9) If your frontline is taking a beating, healing abilities kick in. The priest is obviously awesomest here, but if only one is in trouble and he happens to be a fighter, barb, paladin, or other with self-healing per-encounter abilities, use those. (10) If it really drags on, priest renews buff and/or debuff. (But it probably doesn't.) (11) Win. Okay, this is somewhat idealized given the currently clusterhugged state of the combat, but IME this is roughly the "standard" flow when fighting a mob. Obviously there's more to it like picking which targets to take down first, dealing with special abilities or attacks and so on and so forth, but, yeah. IMO the combat flow is actually not that different from IE/NWN combat flow. I'd usually open with a short-duration buff or debuff + area-effect damaging spell there too. The only difference is that in IE/NWN I'd go into the fight pre-buffed; here I don't, and the encounters are designed with this difference in mind. Finally: there is time to throw on the buff at the beginning of combat. If you know what the enemy can do, you can screen yourself with the appropriate defense before it nukes your party. And finally finally: IMO the combat is fundamentally sound. It's just currently terribly hard to find under the really poor feedback and critical pathfinding, AI, and general complete character freeze bugs.

I agree. I even posted a message to that effect in the General Classes thread. It would be easy to remedy this. IMO there's nothing particularly DnD-rangery about Aragorn. He doesn't dual-wield, doesn't use bows, and doesn't have an animal companion. He does have high charisma, rocks some healing skills, and kicks wraith ass, and he's obviously Lawful Good which would make him a paladin. Ciphers aren't psionicists. IMO they're pretty close to the archetypical gish class, with a pretty damn cool mechanic for charging up the magic too. Don't sympathize much with your complaint here. The wiki doesn't give you a good idea of how the classes play. Some of them are ATM (too) tightly role-restricted (e.g. fighter is always front-line tank) but others have a good deal more variety--you can make, for example, a front-line wizard or a glass-cannon wizard, and the gameplay experience will be quite different but both are eminently workable. The classes do need some work, but IMO the principle is sound. Add suitable talents and tweak a few numbers, and it'll be cool.