PrimeJunta

There's frustrating and frustrating though. In the IE game character-building, some of the weapon choices are trap choices in some of the games, and IMO this is a major and unnecessary flaw. Ability score distributions are not so much trap choices as non-choices, since each class only needs about three of the stats; with that system they might as well not have had stats at all. Then there's PS:T of course, where distributing your stats for a fighter or thief build robs you of, like, half the game, which is just nuts. I can't hate it for it though, since it makes up for it in so many other ways. I don't think it would've suffered much if it had had no ability score distribution in CC at all though, and had only the tats and other items affect them. But that's because it's PS:T. As to the rest, IWD isn't frustrating at all (since it's linear), BG1 is frustrating because of the early-level instant lethality, and BG2 is frustrating because of the wildly varying difficulty in the Chapter 2 quests. (I've chronicled my travails with it here; only now that I know what the Chapter 2 quests are and where the kewl lewt is am I genuinely, really enjoying the ride -- and I'm enjoying it much more than I expected.)

Churnovog is another mangled Slavic god btw. Should be Chernobog (prounounced chyornabog in Russian). Means Dark God. Could be the b becomes a v in some Slavic languages, it's a common phoneme shift.

@Gromnir Make up your mind. First you're saying that PnP is not irrelevant (presumably to the discussion on respec), then in the very next sentence you're saying that respeccing in PnP is irrelevant because, unlike in a cRPG, you have a GM around to "tailor encounters and create house rules." Which is it? Relevant or irrelevant? Or are you saying that PnP is relevant, only not to respeccing? If so, what is it relevant to, and what does that relevance have to do with a discussion on respec? Is this how you argue your cases too?

You're the one who brought PnP into this, Grom. I'm glad you admit that it's irrelevant, though, since presumably we can now drop it, unless you have something further to say about it? Yes, I was wrong. I do make mistakes... from time to time. No, you did not. Let's see if you're doing it now, or just reiterating the assertions, red herrings, and strawmen you set up before: What is there to establish? Choices and consequences as absolutely central to my enjoyment of a role-playing game. That is a personal preference. If you feel that choices and consequences are unimportant, that is also a preference. Entirely legitimate, but a different preference. I am. Having. Respec. Available. Robs. Me. Of. The. Consequences. Of. My. Character. Building. Choices. First: if a game has "trap choices" (example: specializing in quarterstaves in IWD), I consider that to be a significant flaw. Designers should take care not to offer such "trap choices." Not everything has to be equally powerful, mind, but they should make sure that there is a "top-tier" weapon available in every category the player can choose. Adding a Carsomyr or Crom Faeyr on top of that is icing on the cake. BG2, for example, does this well: AFAICT there are +3 or better weapons in every category, which is sufficient to make you a competent combatant. The couple of +5's are super-cool because not everyone can use them even if they can find, build, or win them. However, sticking "respec" on top of that is just fixing a flaw by adding a bigger flaw. That's not a good approach to system design. Ah, there's that strawman again. Once more: I do not care at all how you or anyone else plays the game. I do care about my enjoyment of it. Yeah, the beta was bugged. Shocking, I know. Will there? So, people who don't understand how the system works and consequently make poor choices and experience the consequences of said poor choices, are being "robbed of the meaning of their choices." Riiiiight. You know what else would solve this problem? I nice red "Win!" button at top right. Press it, and all the enemies in the encounter keel over dead. Wouldn't that be great fun? It would greatly detract from my enjoyment of the game, because it would make me feel that my choices in character creation and level-up were robbed of their consequences. Yes, this is, rather.

Gotta say that being on the same side as Stun about something is much more fun.

It's also a real name, although badly transliterated from Cyrillic.

I would've felt bad about DA:I's endless respec amulets if the character building choices hadn't been so utterly trivial to start with. As it is it ranked pretty low among my list of things wrong with the mechanics of that game. (Rather to my own surprise, I had a good deal of fun with it anyway, until I got bored I believe somewhere mid-game, after looking under lots of rocks, killing a couple of dragons, getting a waifu, and having deep conversations about the sexual politics of fantasy Musl^H^H^H^H Qunari.)

Sure, let's get back on topic. This has gotten a bit off-track. Here's a quick summary of your arguments -- please correct me if I misunderstood them; your English idiom is so eccentric I find it hard to understand sometimes: (1) POE's character creation rules are obscure and broken. Therefore, players will end up with unviable (this is what you mean by 'broken,' right?) characters. They need respec to keep on playing. Also, it's a single-player game, so why should anyone care about someone else using the option to respec even if you won't. -> I disagree with you on multiple points here. First, I don't find the CC rules particularly obscure or broken. They are somewhat complex and will certainly take some time and effort to learn to play with effectively. As far as I'm concerned this is a good thing. Second, I do not believe that you're likely at all to end up with an unviable character, unless you intentionally gimp yourself e.g. by not spending all your points on level-up. As Sensuki has demonstrated, there is a big difference between a mediocre character and a power build, but if the game provides a difficulty level that lets you play enjoyable even with a mediocre character -- and I, unlike you apparently, believe it does -- I don't see this as a problem. Third, the "what do you care how other people play" line. That's a strawman. AFAICT nobody here has been saying they're bothered by other people respeccing. We don't like the availability of respec because of the way it affects our enjoyment of the game. It trivializes the choices made when creating and leveling up the character, just like the KOTOR end-game light-side/dark-side meter reset trivialized those choices in that game. It doesn't matter if it's worked into the plot or carries the cost or that you won't actually use it: its presence in the game cheapens the experience. (This argument, by the way, I haven't seen you address at all, which is rather curious as it's the main one against respec.) (2) Then you went on a tangent about PnP and how you deal with this situation as a GM: tailor the encounters and the campaign, possibly bend the rules a bit, and offer the option to roll up a new character who then joins up. (Which, incidentally, is pretty much how I deal with it too.) However, you then argued that rolling a new character who then seamlessly joins the campaign is no different than respeccing. -> Here, I strongly disagree with your assertion that rolling a new character and joining in seamlessly is no different from respeccing. In the campaigns I've been running, all of my players have made some effort at, y'know, role-playing. Their characters have had personalities that are distinct from their RL ones, and when they've rolled a new one, they've rolled a different character. Someone who fits the party better mechanically maybe, but also usually a different class, with a different background, agenda, and personality. But then my games feature a quite a bit of narrative and "lore," they're not just wargames-lite. As to my "appeal from authority," I was simply stating my experience: I've been running games for a long time, and I've never had a player ask to respec. Not saying it can't happen, it might happen in the next session I run, just like I was wrong with my prediction on P:E's release schedule. Summa summarum, Gromnir my droog, I don't think there's much there, there. You're spectacularly failing to address our argument -- that the very presence of respeccing robs our character-building choices of their consequence -- and instead calling P:E "obscure" and "broken," then going off on a tangent about PnP, then going ad-hom on us. You're a lawyer, right? If so, I hope you treat your paying customers better, 'cuz this strikes me as... not your brightest courtroom moment. Edit: For the record, I have nothing against leaving the data files open so people so inclined can "respec" them 'til the cows come home. Just not in the game itself thanks.

@Gromnir IME when people stoop to attacking their interlocutors on unrelated topics, that means they're out of arguments. So I'm going to take that post as you gracefully conceding the point. Thank you. :salute:

Oh, Drizzt is a very tame and normal name by D&D standards. Have you ever read the Book of Vile Darkness? Here's a few names they've given to the various Demon Princes 1) Obox-ob 2) Churnovog 3) Dwiergus 4) Fraz-Urb'luu (although, stupid name or not, this guy has an amazing story that the world of Greyhawk fleshed out) 5) Graz'zt (name looks just like Drizzt, although Gygax came up with it 2 decades before Ed Greenwood invented Drizzt) 6) Haagenti 7) Juiblex 8.) J'zzalshrak 9) Kostchtchie (no, that's not a misspelling, there really IS 7 consonants in a row here) 10) Lazbral'thull 11) Sch'theraqpasstt (try saying that one 3 times out loud) 12) Zzyczesiya I suspect writers came up with many of these names the same way one determines anything in D&D: with a dice roll. They used a d26....rolled for every letter. Nah that's fine, everybody knows demons are from Poland. Except Juiblex which will get your bathroom sparkly clean with just a few squirts.

I agree. In that scenario we'll give Bob the option to retire his character and play a different one. We won't, for example, suddenly break the campaign by having the Gods/genie-in-a-bottle/Ring of 10 wishes, drop down from the sky and morph his badly built character into something new and improved, because that would be stupid. In PnP this isn't a problem at all IMO. As the GM I can always adjust the game to fit the party. In my 30 years or so of GM-ing, I don't think any of my players have ever been in a situation where they'd want a respec. It has happened that they're unhappy with their characters for any of a number of reasons and ended up rolling a new one, but none of those reasons would have been solved with a respec. I have, however, been known to relax the rules sometimes e.g. with regards to things like feat progression or prestige class requirements. We call these "house rules." I'm generally not a rules Nazi type GM.

P:E isn't like this at all. P:E's humans have a bunch of ethnicities with different physical characteristics and cultural associations. Most Vailians are Ocean Folk who look like people of African origin, most Ixamitl are Meadow Folk who look like Latins, Boreal Dwarves are inspired by the Inuit, Island Aumaua by Polynesians, Wood Elves are found in at least two entirely different cultures (Aedyr and Glanfathan) and so on. (Which is a good thing because the list you listed is just... stupid. Clichéd, overdone, lazy, and dumb.)

@Sharp_one, in that case, I apologize. I honestly don't remember your stating any opinion on the BB based on your own experience, but it's entirely likely that I simply missed or forgot it.

Methinks you're a bit quick with the accusations. Not that it surprises me. If what I said was incorrect, it was an honest mistake. Have you played the BB? You don't have a badge and I haven't seen you post anything that would indicate that you do, nor did you do so in this thread. If you were referring to the "doesn't know anything you don't" part, and you do in fact possess some secret inside info, how could I possibly even know about that?

In KOTOR it's not a respec, it's resetting your dark side/light side meter. I brought it up because it turned me off the game for the same reason respec turns me off other games, and I thought it was more relatable. Putting a cost on the respec won't change it for me, unless the cost is so big that respec might as well not be there at all. If flipping your DS/LS alignment had, say, cost you a level, it would have been exactly as off-putting. It still trivializes my choices through the game.

:shrug: If you don't see it, I guess you don't see it. I don't know how I can put it any more clearly than that. In any case, every cRPG I've played which does have respec has been, for me, cheapened by having it, and the reason for that is that I feel it trivializes the often agonizing choices I've made when leveling up my character. So much so that when faced with the option to respec, the magic dies for me and I end up quitting the game. It just ruins the fun. Edit: to answer your question, the first time I played KOTOR and hit that conversation, I quit. Didn't even bother finishing the endgame. Only did that much later.

It trivializes your choices. It's the same problem as with, say, the endgame in KOTOR. You've spent the entire game being Bastard of the Universe/Paragon of Pure Jeditude, then one choice you make in one conversation just before the endgame can completely nullify that. And no, "don't do it if you don't like it" is not a valid counter-argument: the mere fact that you can changes the experience of making your level-up choices. I'll allow that there might be a creative way to approach it that would be fun and would not trivialize your choices, but I'll be damned if I can think of one. PS:T did something like this with the way TNO was able to change class on the fly. It was outrageously overpowered and made a complete mess of the AD&D multi/dual-classing rules, but it was hella fun. I loved building up to mid-levels in fighter and thief while keeping mage my primary class, so I could morph into whatever was needed for each situation. With the nutty geometric XP progression and mountains of XP to be had from conversations there was no downside. And, yes, I would have thought that idea simply won't fly, yet fly it did, on wings of aether. So if that was possible, then maybe respec that's fun would be possible too. But again, if it is, I haven't seen it and can't imagine how it would be.

Well, BG2 is still receiving updates so it might be a while...

That'd just make light and medium armor even less relevant.

"The pantheon of Eora is separated from their mortal kin by the boundary of the Shroud. [...] The gods take an active interest in affairs that impact broader issues, like piety or the state of an empire. [...] History has demonstrated that the gods are capable of visiting the mortal realm in the form of chosen spectral aspects or corporeal avatars. The former embodiment is used for ease of communication with a cleric or prophet, while the latter is reserved for taking a hand in high-stakes conflicts. "This degree of proximity allows that the character and disposition of the gods are abundantly knowable." (Campaign Almanac, page 17, The Gods and the Wheel)

I think one of Josh's goals for the character mechanics was to make respeccing unnecessary, by eliminating "trap choices" in character building as far as possible. Also not a fan of respec. I remember the very first time I played NWN2, and heard about Khelgar's quest to become a monk, so when leveling him up I did all I could to make that viable. Then he got monk and woo, complete respec. I felt gypped.

Because Saint Josh of Sawyer doth so proclaim. Gods are real and active. The nature of the gods is up for debate though.

Yeah, bad idea. Agree with most people pointing out why so won't repeat it here. As to how to fix it? Now that's a tough one. I can't think of many cRPG's where anything between "none" and "heaviest possible" was attractive, unless they used brute-force solutions like (A)D&D, simply making it impossible or as-good-as for some classes to wear some types of armor. The black dragon scale armor in BG2 is only interesting if you have a character who can only wear leather armor in your party, in which case it's rather nice really. And no, I can't think of an easy way to solve it using the P:E mechanics. If I was designing a system with specifically this as a design goal, I'd probably include a fairly strong fatigue mechanic, and have armor affect that. Doing anything in combat carries a fatigue cost. Standing still lowers fatigue. Armor raises the fatigue cost of all actions. As fatigue goes up, it gives you penalties to your actions. If the meter hits the cap, you keel over in a quivering heap. There would be a stat representing your stamina, so characters with lots of it would have more staying power in combat and could get away with wearing heavier armor. In this system, the optimal choice of armor would be largely determined by your stamina and your combat role: if you have high stamina or expect to take mostly low-stamina-cost actions in combat, wear heavy armor; if you have low stamina or expect to take high-stamina-cost actions in combat, pick lighter armor. By tuning the costs e.g. for movement, you could get a system where it would make sense to be a "heavy" who mostly stays put deflecting blows and jabbing at people attacking him, or a "striker" who moves around a lot dealing damage and wears medium/light armor to be able to keep doing it, or a low-stamina "glass cannon." (FWIW this isn't particularly original: this is more or less how it works in Total War. You do not want an army consisting exclusively of heavies as you won't be able to maneuver with them all that much before they get fatigued. It's usually just not possible to execute a flanking movement with heavy infantry; they're too slow and tire too quickly. You want them to get into position and stay put, and ideally get the enemy to break itself against their lines.)

I think the way P:E frames it -- "are gods worthy of worship?" is a pretty good one and does make sense in a world where gods go around smashing atheists' windows. It is, incidentally, also a question that's come up on our planet, notably on the Indian subcontinent. Some, notably some Buddhist schools said no, others, notably most Vedic religions said yes. Neither considered the question of their existence all that much, both did spill a lot of ink regarding their nature. That debate would fit the world of P:E just fine.

No. The idea of faith and souls is not fundamentally different at all. In our world, the existence of souls and active gods was accepted as a given for almost all of our recorded history. The only large-scale exception is the past couple of hundred years in parts of the Northern hemisphere. For the people concerned, they might as well have been "objectively proven truths." They were as self-evident for them as it is that the sun rises in the East. Therefore, the whole notion of "proof" and faith as "belief in something unproven" did not enter into it, because it never occurred to people to doubt. In fact, this whole notion of empirically-based facts is a product of the Enlightenment. Before that, empiricism was a tiny and insignificant philosophical sidetrack; even the tiny minority of people who spent time doing some serious thinking about this stuff were approaching it from a Platonist-Aristotelian POV.* So yes there were cases of people born without souls, or possessed by demons, gods, and angels, casting spells, working magic, wielding mysterious powers granted to them by ancient powers, digging their way out of the grave and feeding on the blood of the living, taking on shapes of feral beasts when the moon was right, or having children stolen away by the sidhe and replaced with evil changelings... as far as everybody was concerned. They took this so seriously they bleeding burned people to death for it. Again: faith as "belief in something unproven" didn't enter into it. The raw agonizing questions torturing the occasional saint or sinner were "Has God forsaken me?" or "Am I irredeemably damned?" or "Who the bleeping bleep cursed my cattle so they all keeled over dead and how am I going to make it through the winter now?" This, really, is my only objection to your statements. You're saying something that's just plain incorrect, and I'm attempting to set the record straight. Your preferences about how the game should be are neither here nor there. *Discussing Western intellectual history here. Stuff in e.g. India and China were radically different and way-cool, but that's a tangent I won't get into here.