Greensleeve

Lephys and his puns... We'll never get rid of them will we? (I'll admit to a chuckle though) I very much agree with cultural equipment though. It's one of the things I greatly enjoy about Morrowind, where the difference between Dunmer, Imperial, and Nordic equipment are very noticeable and very cool.

Well, as far as I know, the level cap of the game will not be a hard one, but a soft one. In other words, your level will be limited by the amount of experience points in the game, not by some arbitrary numerical level.

I disagree. I think it adds some variation to the reward system. Part of the things I hated about NWN2 was the way all of your characters levelled up at exactly the same time. I always preferred 'Ooh! Xan has levelled up, how does that change the party mechanic?' as opposed to 'Oh, the entire party has levelled up. Guess the mechanics stay the same but we're a bit more tough.' Ymmv, but I would be deeply disappointed if all classes levelled up at the same time. I hate having different XP tables. It just adds annoying busywork and can easily unbalance classes.

How do you know spells will all last 10 seconds, and why is Obsidian using Roman numerals to convey spell duration?! o_O I joke, and your info is solid. *nods* OMG, you haven't heard? Liek seriously? Gooooooooooooood you are so behind on this stuff.

The name definitely fits. When that update including Defender Mode used the term, I immediately knew what kind of abilities it was referring to. I was just a little confused about what some were referring to in this thread, as people started mentioning cooldowns, something modal abilities usually don't have (although they could...). I think the strong benefit of these abilities Josh is referring to is the allowance for much more passive characters. You can, if you so choose, set your Fighter to Defender mode, and any number of other toggles, and leave him be. Boom. He's your Foe-Wrangler, for all of time. Or, you can toggle him very little and still be effective. Lots of enemies? Defender mode, ENGAGE! (pun totally intended). A handful of tougher enemies? Maybe you see this, turn off Defender, and turn on something that sacrifices engagement/defensive capabilities to boost specific offensive capabilities (critical strikes, accuracy, armor-rending, etc.). But, on the other hand, even passive-friendly modal toggling allows for extremely active modal toggling. You could have him engage a few foes at once over here in a battle, with Defender, until 2 of those targets are slain (by collective party shenanigans), then toggle defender off to take out the remaining foe with greater offensive efficiency. THEN move him to some big target and toggle something else. Then, of course, you'll have (I'm sure) a nice buffet of active, non-modal abilities at your disposal, and the option of focusing much more on those throughout progression, or much less on those (and more on modals). But, my main point is that, even if your character is knee-deep in modal abilities, that doesn't restrict him to playing the role of Passive Pete. Oh, I agree completely. I think modal abilities are great and should be encouraged in RPGs, generally. I was speaking more outside of modals, about the fighter class more specifically and their capacity to be an active class. Nothing on modals.

I honestly cannot understand your position. In my opinion, the things you are describing as good things are the things that make it excruciatingly hard for me to go back and re-play these games. The things you are describing about mages and fighters are the worst things about the IE games. Having more active fighters is one of my number one wishes from PE. Them being fire and forget is something I absolutely abhor. I do however agree with enjoying the math being accessible to me, without it being hidden behind the scenes. You know, I honestly cannot understand your position either. I loved everything about IE games. To each his own I guess. But I could understand if Obsidian wanted to improve the combat mechanics. That is build on AD&D (much like DnD 3rd edition did). Now I understand there are problem with licences (although much of 3rd eidtion is under OGL). What I want to say, it seems to me that Obsidian doesn't want to tweak and improve the system. It just seems they are going out with the old and in with the new. Cooldowns, per-will abilties and stuff. Why are they taking out the old attributes system. that worked so well in a number of RPGs? Why are all classes proficient with all weapons. Why are they inventing new mechanics when there are already old existing mechanics that work well (the new engagement system vs. attacks of opportunity). A change here or there is fine. But this is full on rebuilding mode. It's just that it seems to me that Mr. Sawyer didn't really enjoy playing IE games (or at least wouldn't enjoy playing them now). It also seems to me, like a lot of people here wouldn't enjoy playing them now. That's fine, but then they should have made it more clear during the kickstarter. I feel (please note the word feel which, instead of think, meaning that I'm acting emotionally rather than rationally), I feel I've been promised an IE game and what I'm getting is a game in an IE wrapping, but a different thing underneath. See, things is that AD&D and 3.5 had a lot of design problems. 3.5 more so than AD&D, I want to say, but I think that's just due to inexperience with the system. Given the system you say they should improve upon, they more or less have to throw it all out if they wish to create something really quite good, particularly given Josh Sawyer's design sensibilities (which I feel myself agreeing with more often than not). Don't get me wrong, I love 3.5 and the things that system have done. But a fair bit of it is either a) very different from a so-called core D&D experience, or b) despite the system, not because of it. As for the more specific things you point out... Well, the attribute system doesn't work all that well, it's typically just there. In the worst situations, the attribute system actually just hinders character building potential, in the best it's there. Making all classes proficient with all weapons, doesn't bother me. Sure, I would've liked to see some form of proficiency system, but it doesn't really in any way affect me. Weapon specialisation capabilities will be more important to me than baseline proficiencies. You do realise that the engagement system is probably the closest possible adaptation of the AoO system into a non-turn based RTwP game we could ask for? It is basically the same system in every meaningful way. To me, D&D is a flawed system. It seems to be as though Obsidian, and Josh in particular, agree with my gripes about the system and wish to fix them. It also seems as though the proposed fixes, or replacements maybe, are very much in line with what I consider to be good design. I feel as though I was promised an isometric game with hand-drawn maps, developed by Obsidian Entertainment, that would try to recapture the magical feeling (now this is incredibly hard to pin down. I do not think it has anything to do with mechanics though) of playing the IE games. One of the things I was most scared of early on was that they would keep to close to D&D when it came to the mechanics. When it became evident that wouldn't happen, I feel incredibly content with the direction the game is being taken.

If the entire party has blown out movement bonuses (most don't), it's less useful, but still useful. There are three aspects of haste that make it a Big Deal even without the extra attack: 1) the non-movement bonuses are unnamed/dodge, i.e. they stack with everything 2) it can be cast at range (unlike heroism) 3) it can affect the entire party. Standing back and giving the entire party a free-stacking attack bonus, AC bonus, reflex save bonus, plus an enhancement speed bonus is pretty good. E: A bonus standard is nuts considering most spells take a standard action. You can say that again. Even just the additional attack is insane. My Wild Stalker Ranger does crazy amounts of damage, and with haste he easily carves almost anything our GM throws against us into shreds.

Yeah, we call them modal abilities internally. The idea is that you're turning modes on and off rather than gaining a passive benefit or activating a single-use ability. If a class has more modal abilities, we're designing them to be more low-maintenance. Fighters fall into this category. That said, you can buy Talents that make fighters more active if you want to, but their core design leans more heavily toward passive and modal abilities. I sincerely hope that you can buy Talents making one's fighter very active. The lack of active fighters in RPGs is one of my biggest gripes. I'm not particularly worried though as all I've seen so far regarding class design in general and fighter design in particular gives me hope that I'll be able to play a fighter to my liking.

Also bear in mind that there will be no artificial time units in this game. Everything will have durations based on seconds or whatever. Warriors will have attack speeds measured in seconds, not attacks/round, spells will last X seconds, etc.

I honestly cannot understand your position. In my opinion, the things you are describing as good things are the things that make it excruciatingly hard for me to go back and re-play these games. The things you are describing about mages and fighters are the worst things about the IE games. Having more active fighters is one of my number one wishes from PE. Them being fire and forget is something I absolutely abhor. I do however agree with enjoying the math being accessible to me, without it being hidden behind the scenes.

I think one of the biggest hurdles for porting PE to, for example, the PS4 would be the lack of mouse and keyboard. This game is being developed with them in mind, and a console simply does not have any good alternatives for mouse and keyboard when it comes to isometric games like these.

That'd be really cool. I'd also like to see a level where the outside has broken in. Say that a few (non-bearing) walls to the outside collapsed, revealing a enclosed cave system. This would lead to the entire level being 'taken over' by fungi, preferably glowing, and preferably blue. So you've been fighting your way through the levels of Od Nua's tower, through his experiments and through would-be usurpers of his power. Then a complete change of pace as you have to contend with the abominations created by the mix of natural flora and fauna with the magical energies and experiments infused in the entire complex. A bit like Vault 22(?) from New Vegas. You know, the one completely overgrown. Only with mushrooms. That are blue and glow-y. And want to eat you.

I don't understand that either, which is why I withhold judgement until we've been shown the system in full. It feels as though we're not getting very much (if any) of the picture, so I think it's very premature to say very much about it.

I really don't think we have enough information to make such a judgement call. Wait until we get an update or something showing us the attribute system in full. I think it might surprise us.

Well, keep in mind that many of the class abilities and talents will actually be passive, ie, not so different from upgrading a numerical stat or skill. Well, stuff like the Barbarians' wild charge thing, or the wound resource for Monk, seem to be very clicky It's been said over and over again that you can build any class and character to be more or less active in usage. You can build a bunch of characters who don't really need to activate very many abilities to make it through a fight, or you can build a character that relies on using lots of special abilities to make it through the fight. The choice will be up to you.

Because, you know, the Strength stat might not exist at all. So the reason why the Barbarian deals a lot of damage is that he has a high Soul Power stat or something. All classes are trained with all weapons, you can then take talents that increase damage and accuracy with a certain themed group of weapons, just like in New Vegas (the Cowboy/Grunt perks). This is confirmed.

The sentence is ambiguous and unclear. I honestly have no idea what to expect from this. All I can glean is that there is a focus on avoiding dump-stats. It would be very, very nice to have a real update on the attribute system, explaining it to us. I mean, it's done. Why not show it to us?

So, uh, I seem to have gotten the Dragonborn DLC for free. I have the necessary files on my computer, my Skyrim launcher tells me I have them, but my payment didn't go through and I haven't been charged for it. Nor does the Steam client say that I own the DLC. So I'm in a pretty weird situation right now.

It's worth the full price without a discount in my opinion. The major patch was just out a couple of days ago as well, so most little annoyances people had before, you should not encounter. -snip- Cool. Might just pick it up then.

Scratch what I said about the app. Really slow as well.

I voted Dishonored. Far Cry 3 is still a bit too expensive for my tastes, even as a communities choice.

The app works just fine. Try that instead.

So Expeditions: Conquistador is 50% off. Is it worth pouncing on, despite the rules, or should I truly wait until a better deal (possibly) comes along?

Just do bear in mind that those guns are matchlocks, whereas P:E will have wheel lock guns. Though I seem to see a wheel lock on the pistol of the commander looking fella in the first picture.

Thac0 is exactly the same as d20 positive it's just you read the numbers differently. Mechanically there is no difference, it is merely a matter of presentation And presentation is extremely important.