Epsilon Rose

I don't think making it a choice between Per and Dex (in your system) would be a very good idea, because they already work together very well. Increasing your chance to hit and increasing the number of attacks you make both work together to increase the total number of crits you get. If you want to tie to stats together and make it a choice, I'd suggest using two stats that don't naturally go together (like per and int), otherwise people will want to take both anyways.

Thank you. I think that all makes sense, though I wish the speed had an actual number in game. Do you think you're better off with a single big weapon or a pair of fast weapons for stun-locking via interrupt?

That's the be expected: in all these years of RPG gaming, I never quite encountered a game that didn't ship with some balancing issues. At least it's nowhere like BG where ranged was overwhelmingly the way the go. While that is true, these seem like they should be fairly obvious errors and they're ones that have been known and, mostly, fixed in pen and paper games for a while.

It seems like PoE has a lot of weird balancing issues.

Has this been working for you in game? I haven't noticed an increase with 18 int so far. Definitely working. My tank chanter has like 15 or 16 int can't remember at the moment, and the linger is over half of the duration. So running the chant that gives will/fort saves I have almost a constant +20. I'm also not really noticing the problem with how fast chanters get their invocations. Granted I am playing on POTD, but I also wasn't having problems with on Hard either. I wonder if some of you got hit with that difficulty bug unknowingly. On POTD I have noticed however that a tank chanter just cannot soak the damage that even a super sub-optimal fighter tank can. I don't have Eder spec'd for tanking at all, but I am using him as a tank and he has soaked nearly 2x as much endurance damage as my super-duper min-maxed chanter tank. It's ok though! Thematically I love chanters and the utility they bring is insane. There's a difficulty bug? How do you know if you have it? I'm playing a chanter that's not too terribly optimized on normal, which the game describes as fairly difficult, but things just keep exploding on me and I'm having trouble building up to invocations until the very end of fights.

On a similar note, does the time it lists for traveling between locations or resting actually effect anything? I'm just starting out, but it seems completely irrelevant.

The problem with your suggestion is that all of the things you listed are contingent upon the attack succeeding or not. You want to interrupt, you need to hit first; You want to debuff, you need to hit first; you want to do more damage, you need to first; etc. Anytime you add accuracy back into the attribute mix, it becomes the most important stat. How about replacing to hit with chance to crit?

I don't necessarily agree that every stat needs to be super-amazing for combat, if that's what you're saying. Could Perception/Resolve/Constitution get a bit better? Sure. However, it doesn't make quite a lot of sense for the smart, perceptive, resolved Rogue to spontaneously be excellent at combat. That Rogue shouldn't be as effective at combat as the Might/Dex/Int DPS Rogues we see, IMO. Maybe the gulf shouldn't be massive as it is now, but there should definitely be a difference in effectiveness between the two, or there wouldn't be much point to putting points into Might/Dex/Int. I'd argue that a more perceptive rogue should be better at doing damage, because they'd be better at finding the weak points they're supposed to focus on exploiting. At the same time, a strong wizard shouldn't necessarily be amazing at blowing things up, but that's how the stats have it. I think that would help if anything. I do not like Might being the Damage stat for everyone, I think it sucks for a story/dialogue/RP standpoint, and it just does not fit. Might in conversation is always almost brute force, intimidation and meat head in context. You have to stack it on anyone that wants to deal damage, even a damn Priest or Wizard. Please don't tell me that my puny Wizard is going to pick someone up by their shirt collar and intimidate them...It just doesn't fit. I don't know why they felt like they had to reinvent the tried and true systems we've been used to for years. I think if anything, people would have been more happy to see systems that make sense instead of trying to be different. To be fair, the old d20 system wasn't actually well balanced either, especially between classes.

D&D isn't exactly a sterling example of good game design. It's actually pretty badly balanced.

I'd like something to explain how weapon speed and interrupt actually work. Is a chanter with the concentration debuff actually a good idea? How do you take advantage of it? How does weapon speed interact with damage (why doesn't the game show bloody DPS)? What does interrupt actually do? For bonus points: How do I actually tell the weapons apart and figure out which I should use for what type of character? Right now, it feels a bit arbitrary, especially within a class. For example, what's advantage of wands/rods/scepters over bows/crossbows/guns(?)?

Would adjusting certain things based on class help? For example, maybe Wizards and Ciphers use Int for damage, but wizards use resolve for duration while CIphers use it for AoE and Rogues use Per for damage?

I have to agree with the people who say this isn't really a problem that needs a solution. That said, if it really bugs you then taking a page from dark souls might help. Rather than only being able to save at certain check points have the game save pretty much constantly. That way you're free to stop whenever you like, but you can't brute force encounters. The only problem with this is that it prevents you from trying out a new ability/upgrade to see if you like it or it works the way you expect and then reloading if it doesn't.

Do you mean the official mod or the homebrew one? Would you mind linking to your post? It sounds interesting. Did I leave that typo in? Darn, I thought I had fixed all of those. Yup, that's what I meant. Is there a way to fix it? Mages use their health as a casting resource in Betrayal at Krondor/Betrayal in Antara, and I find it more hassle than a strategic addition to the games, particularly because those are use-skills-to-improve-them games. I suspect I'd like the approach even less in a game that's party-based, but where the protagonist will not always be part of a party. I wouldn't rule out the approach for really powerful spells, but I've not found it particularly fun in the past. I agree that defaulting to casting from HP is a bad idea, but that's not what this is. Under this system you'd have a separate stat for special abilities (I'm using mana for convenience, but the original homebrew used strain and tolerance). While the homebrew did have a function that allowed you to cast past your limit at the risk of taking damage this isn't really central to the idea and I'd probably leave it out of the game, or save it for a feat/skill.

I've seen a number of threads on what type of magic system people would prefer and most of them seem to be following the standard tropes. However, a few years ago I ran into a Mana Based homebrew for D&D 3.5 that did some really interesting and inovative things and that I think could work really well for this kind of game. For those of you who don't want to follow the link; the basic premise of this system was that, rather than gaining a huge pool of mana so you could pay for increasingly more costly spells as you leveled, your mana pool would be kept relatively tiny and the cost of spells would actually decrease. This was accomplished by setting there pool equal to your primary casting stat + your level + your con-mod* and providing a level based chart for spell costs. While this means that your pool would increase a bit over the course of play, you'd have to be really trying in order to break 60 points by level 20; which is nothing compared to the 232 points the official mod gave to wizards. The first outcome of this is that you get a really smooth and easily controlled power curve. Since a character's resources aren't going to change to much you can make sure that they're always able to cast a similar number of level appropriate spells, so at level 1 they're not going to fire two magic missiles and then switch over to a crossbow and at level 20 they're still not going to be able to spam Dragon Slay. Yes this does mean that eventually the cost of lower level spells goes down to zero, but this isn't actually a problem. The thing is, when you're fighting Cthulhu, nobody cares if you can cast an infinite number of fireballs; it just isn't relevant. One of the other interesting things this does is let you put a reasonable limit on the number of different spells a single character has access to at any given time. If you rely on the limited casting of a Vancian Magic system then you have to eventually give the player many spell slots; which they might, reasonably, choose to fill with many different spells. This seems detrimental to play for three different reasons. It encourages the bars of abilities found in games like WoW. These take up a good amount of space on the screen and break immersion (especially if you're controlling them via mouse). Having a large number of spells that have to be fit into premade slots of fixed level actually hampers experimentation and tactical play. The reason for this is simply one of numbers and effort. When given a relatively large number of choices it becomes significantly easier to repeat a small number of good selections as many times as necessary. Ironically, they're still likely to have a spell for almost any given situation on-hand or, failing that, enough generic spells to bludgeon most monsters into submission based on sheer weight of magic. Having discreet chunks of spell power makes gradual recovery harder since you have to come up with a scheme that's more complex or cumbersome than "the number slowly ticks up". While it can be done, this tends to encourage all-or-nothing recovery and, since no one want's to play while their favorite character has been rendered all but useless, this tends to encourage the five minute work day. With this system your power isn't determined so heavily by the variety of spells you have (in fact, there could be some advantages to purposely limiting your selection) . When combined with Grimoire this opens some interesting possibilities. One way of doing it would be to tie your spells to a Grimoire; under this system you could have trade offs between the number of spells it holds (capping at maybe 5 for one-handed spell books and 7 for two-handed ones) and other attributes like mana cost, strength and casting speed. Alternatively, if you wanted to take a page from demon souls, you could have the number of spells available be determined by a secondary stat; which would help discourage S.A.D. and allow Grimoires to effect spells on a more fundamental level (rather than just making spells faster or stronger the Book of Ra might convert all spells into fire spells while the Book of the Shattered Prism might multiply all projectile spells). And, of course, there's nothing to say you can't do both. After all, there will be more than one casting class. The last thing this sort of mana system does is bring mages more into line with mundane classes. Normally Mages get a completely unique mechanic (like vancian magic) or a completely new stat (like mana) while mundane characters either get to use their abilities for free or use stamina. The problem with this is it leave the mages playing a slightly different game. This can make balancing the two types of classes hard (just look at D&D 3.5) and, on a more interesting note, this makes it hard for mundanes to gain magical abilities and for mages to gain non-magical abilities. What tends to happen is either the character is free to use abuse the ability as much as they want , because the resource it draws on isn't used for anything else) or they can't use it a relevant number of times, because they haven't invested or couldn't invest in it. With this sort of system, there's no reason "mana" couldn't be some form of stamina that gets used by all of the classes. In fact, that would go along way towards explaining how some of the more impressive physical feats are performed and just what HP is. Right, I guess that's all I have to say for now; so, does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

First off, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SPELL AND GRAMMAR CHECK YOUR POST AND POLL. The numerous errors in both make them quite hard to read. Now, on to the topic at hand: I personally favor the third option, it seems to give the best of all worlds. Before I go into why I like it let me give a quick run down of what I see as the downfalls of the other methods. Starting a player of as a generic class and having them join a guild to explain their specialties may seem like a great option from an immersion standpoint. Unfortunately, this automatically excludes any origins that would require an early start (for example anything that's culturally based or requires long study). What's worse is that buy requiring a player to start as a generic class you're delaying their access to the features that make that particular character special; which would be especially jarring for a caster type that you'll be asking to rely on mundane (probably melee) techniques for a bit. This method also hurts replay ability since it's probably not going to offer much choice in play and by your third character will probably have devolved into an unwelcome slog to the finish-line. Actually, I don't have a problem with this method. In fact, I favor combining it with the third. I'll come back to this latter. Same with this. As you pointed out, having a mentor might make sense for certain classes (both thief and wizard come to mind) but also works exceptionally poorly for others (clerics and barbarians, for instance, seem unlikely to have a single instructor. This seems like something that would be better as one option among many. Now that I've discussed what I think you shouldn't do, lets move on to what you should. I mentioned earlier that I don't actually mind having a specific origin for each class, but I think it would be better to do the opposite of what DA:O did. Rather than have one or two origins for each race or class I'd have maybe 3 generic origins and then have the class/race combination unlock a few more unique options. The first thing this does is give the play more choice, which is all ways a good thing, but beyond that it helps to eliminate repetition. One of the things that always bugged me in DA:O was that if I wanted to be a magic user I was going to have to go through that blighted chantry. Aside from the fact that I found the chantry origin particularly annoying this also eliminated the options of being an apostate or dalish elf, even though we see that both things exist in the world. By building on to a list of generic choices (rather than creating a new list each time or subtracting from a short list) you prevent a player from being locked into an extremely restricted set of choices without having to spend too much time on extra scenes (maybe 2 unique origins for each class plus some minor dialog change on three generic ones Vs. 3 unique origins for each class nets you 8 free scenes).

Sounds a lot like what they do in The Elder Scrolls series. What I'd like to see is a more believable reaction to your accomplishments or active missions. If merchant x has a job for you and sells something that would make it easier it makes sense that he'd give you a discount on it so you'd have better odds of doing what ever it is he want's you to do. Similarly, once you've saved the town/world/become god emperor it would be nice if people reacted differently to your presence. Actually, the same thing goes for enemies, if your in an area where their level doesn't scale it would make sense for weaker enemies to go out of their way to avoid you or, if they don't know your level (maybe you're not famous enough), try to run/surrender when they see you using Wrath of God to takeout hapless mook #3.

I'd like to see a technomancer. Someone who mixes technology and magic could be fun and there are a ton of ways to do it. For example, you could have power armor, better weapon enchants, golems, runic stuff or spell gunners.

I'm all for any choice that gives a greater range of possibilities to moders. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if you could hack together a Frozen Synapse-esque version of turn based (I'm assuming that's what TB stands for) combat even without the main part of combat being script based.

As I said, by the very nature of the type of game we can make this assumption. PCs are more competent then normal people. That's why we play as them. I can literally garranty you that the PCs will end up as some of the most competent people in most organizations. Right, I'm just going to quote you on this. So, should I be classifying you as a troll or just intellectually dishonest?

That's pretty debatable. For one thing nobody says you have to be even remotely the most powerful person in your standard fantasy organization. And also of course that police has better or more experienced members. They either still wear the same uniform, go plain clothes (no uniform) or SWAT (just a different uniform). They do not buy their own kit at an army surplus store and spray paint "LAPD" on it. No, it's absolutely not debatable. Not even remotely. The LAPD may have different types of cops, but they're all normal humans and in this world that means there abilities are going to fall into a relatively narrow range. Also, you do have to assume that at some point the pcs are going to be some of, if not the most, powerful beings in any organization they're a part of. Rpgs, by their nature, are about advancement of one sort or another. Consequently, the main characters advance faster than everyone else. Which is good, because part of the fun is seeing how your character grows stronger and becomes able to handily beat previously unbeatable foes. Similarly no one wants to be part of an organization were they feel like any of a dozen other mooks could be doing the same job when they could be out saving the world. Further more, swat is NOT just a different uniform, though compared to the possible differences in rpg Armor it might as well be. I'm not going to bother dignified the rest of your analogy because it's becoming both ridiculous and insulting. I'm also beginning to think your refusing to see the Forrest for the trees.

That's easy enough to fix. Just have them react to the displayed armor. In fact, I would argue that doing it that way is better because it let's display your aliegence to a faction even if their default armor doesn't fit your play style. No Chief Inspector, I will not wear the standard issue uniform, it does not match my unique sense of style. I mean black and white with a yellow reflex vest, really? Do you have something matching with my eyes? Quite the reverse, actually. It would be more like going "Hey Chief Inspector, you know how you're always sending me on extra dangerous missions? Well I sprung for some better body armor for my men and my self,but don't worry I made sure it looks like the normal uniform so no one gets confused". In fact,not allowing people to set their armor's cosmetics is more likely to result in your scenario as they out level the faction armor and are forced to switch to a more effective armor of a different style. Police does not work that way. They also don't employ beings who are orders of magnitude more powerful than everyone else on the force. Analogies to real world organizational structures breakdown in worlds with heroes. The fact that real world cops don't work that way Is a terrible basis for an argument against including this feature.

That's easy enough to fix. Just have them react to the displayed armor. In fact, I would argue that doing it that way is better because it let's display your aliegence to a faction even if their default armor doesn't fit your play style. No Chief Inspector, I will not wear the standard issue uniform, it does not match my unique sense of style. I mean black and white with a yellow reflex vest, really? Do you have something matching with my eyes? Quite the reverse, actually. It would be more like going "Hey Chief Inspector, you know how you're always sending me on extra dangerous missions? Well I sprung for some better body armor for my men and my self,but don't worry I made sure it looks like the normal uniform so no one gets confused". In fact,not allowing people to set their armor's cosmetics is more likely to result in your scenario as they out level the faction armor and are forced to switch to a more effective armor of a different style.

That's easy enough to fix. Just have them react to the displayed armor. In fact, I would argue that doing it that way is better because it let's display your aliegence to a faction even if their default armor doesn't fit your play style. Mostly see above, but I will say I'm more than ok with having type restrictions. It would be a bit silly if you could make your long sword look like a dagger, but I really see no problem with making it look like a different style of long-sword. Armor would seem much the same, you shouldn't be able to make full-plate look like a loincloth, but I see no reason why you couldn't make a set of dwarven full-plate look like a set from the imperial guard.

I dont see any reason this would have to be true. Why don't you see any reason? Devs will not waste resources on descriptions that won't be relevant and may cause confusion to players (seriously, that has been used before). Either they will need to find some way for the description to change or not bother at all. I see two flaws with your stance. First, I doubt the description on the stat item being different from what's shown on the avatar would actually confuse anyone when they explicitly set the cosmetic pattern themselves. Second, there are two really easy solutions for this: either make unique items lock the cosmetic slot (I really could care less about the description of chain shirt I looted from "mook guard #35") or don't bother describing the items physical appearance and instead focus on what it does and it's history (arguably they should do this anyways, since this game should have a decent graphics engine capable of displaying the item in question).

Actually, adding a time based element could be really interesting, particularly if you're doing a stealth based run or are trying to escape.