Greensleeve

Fantastic post. Very well put together. Personally, I'm very happy at what we seem to be getting, and it seems to very much be in line with what I thought. I'm extremely happy with the rules presented so far, but even more so with the lore and the stuff we've been told about the world. And lets face it: the WORST part of the IE games were the D&D rule set.

Considering that it seems as though the modal auras work on the paladin's themselves, I have a feeling that we'll be able to build offensive, more self-sufficient paladin's that will kick some evil butt.

i'm not that huge of a fan of the fact that your class is tied to a specific single order, and that you will probably get associated with it even if you don't like it. I think the same for monks... -snip- Eh... All Josh said was that the origins of the paladins are to be found amongst the Darcozzi guard. Modern paladins are not in any way necessarily tied to that order. I can guarantee you that there will be multiple orders of paladins, and I wouldn't be surprised if you don't necessarily have to be part of any of them. Edit: Right, I should probably say something about the update. Great job! Really looking forward to having a paladin in my party.

Those schiavonas are absolutely gorgeous. The detail work on the pommel, the lovely shape of the basket. Lovely weapons.

You don't "need" anything. In theory, you should be able to complete the game with ANY class combo. If you want to take 6 mages or 6 fighters, go ahead. Not everyone is a powergamer who will always just take the highest DPS. But can you really say a game if well balanced if 6 mages breeze through the game MUCH easier than 6 fighters? I mean, if the game isn't decently balanced, then either we end up with 6 mages not being challenged at all by the game, or we end up with a game that 6 fighters can't complete. Neither of which are good outcomes. Furthermore, this is an issue we need to look at from a system design perspective. The roleplaying perspective is not at all as important when it comes to balance, and saying that "Well that's only an issue to powergamers. A true rolepayer will pick the classes he wants to no matter what." is completely missing the point. It's a mix of ignoring the issue at hand an ad-hominem.

Come again? -image- I'm not following? If you disagree, please show how the games are balanced? Or is it the statement that competitive games that tend to be balanced that upsets you? I'm not sure why... Nor am I saying that PE should be like a MOBA or MMo. So please, do clarify what you mean.

Wow, that's missing the point. The point is that all you really need are full casters. You don't need fighters, or rogues, or anything really aside from full casters. That's the problem.

Going back to the question of well/badly balanced games, anything relying on D&D is badly balanced. And I say that as someone who plays fighters most of the time. ToEE might be one of the worst games of the bunch, balance-wise, because it's basically just D&D core in video game form. Well balanced games tend to games with competitive aspects, like MOBAs or MMOs. At a glance, the Banner Sage seems fairly well balanced too. RPGs tend not to have great balance, to be honest...

Now that is something that I can agree with. I do feel that diversity is important and classes need to feel different. I don't think that means that there needs to be substantive power differences between classes just because of that though. Difference in build power I wholly embrace however. I do not feel that every build should be equal. But then again, I also love optimizing and having a vast amount of character options to sift through at my finger-tips.

1. Why is someone who uses his soul power to set someone on fire 'logically' more powerful than someone who uses his soul power to make his body a killing machine? Where does it "stand to reason" that the first one is more powerful than the first one? Consider the setting before you make such claims. 2. Having the classes perform different roles is good game design. Having certain roles be worse than others, or some classes capable of performing multiple roles, is bad game design. And no, more balance would lead to greater diversity. It's quite simply to show: in a unbalanced system, it would be better to just just the most powerful classes, and as such reduce the tactical complexity of the game. In a balanced system, there would be a much larger amount of valid choices, creating greater tactical diversity. 3. No class should be inherently worse or gimped or have a harder time at different points in the game. Some builds having a harder time on the other hand is perfectly fine. And don't bring out the "true roleplayer" bull****. Creating capable, powerful characters does in no way hinder roleplaying. It is not a zero-sum game, despite what is commonly touted.

That dungeon looked fantastic. Keep this up and we'll be exhausted when the game itself actually comes out.

Not really. There are plenty of examples where the concept has been very well balanced. The Magus and the Duskblade being prime examples.

Eh... No. Not at all. Very few computer games do this archetype properly, but look at table-top RPGs. Pathfinder has the Magus. D&D 3.5 has a bajilion variations on it, but the purest would be the Duskblade. None of which is a gimped mage and a gimped fighter. They are something unique in nature, fighting in a way that the other classes don't. Which is how it should be.

You don't see everyone running around playing Magus in Pathfinder. You don't see everyone running around playing Eldritch Knight in NWN2. You don't see anyone at all running around playing Fighter/mage in IWD2. Why would including mages who can also fight in PE automatically mean that no one would play anything else? It's all about balance, and it seems as though a lot of posters here just assume that what this means is that this character is as good as a fighter, and as good as a mage, whereas in reality the character is less good if both sides are compared individually, and very different but still on par with the others when the two sides are taken together.

I don't know, the idea of a sword-mage is relatively prevalent in RPGs as a concept. I wouldn't be surprised if there will be support for mages who kick ass with both sword and with spell. Whether it'll work the way you described in the scene though... That's a bit of a doubt. What you describe is almost more at home in an ARPG rather than isometric, tactical RTwP that this will be.

Brilliant tournament armours. I really like the foot armour in the background too.

I really don't see why the art style or level of detail has any impact at all on the idea itself. The idea itself is pretty fantastic. Now, a higher level of detail might make it more expensive to implement this, but I still think that the idea is worth investigating. More portraits is always better than fewer portraits.

You are starting to disappoint me, you are not reading what I write, just in order to have an argument. I already stated that the self-discipline and ideals part is of course a core part of the monk. If the monk could not fight at all, it would also find resemblance in the real world. Would this be a good concept for a monk in PE? According to your logic that everything is fine, as long as there is a match in the real world, then a monk class that has no use in the game and just uses up a party slot would be fine, too. And using flagellation as excuse for the combat mechanics merely shows that the concept of flagellation is not understood. It's part of meditation and rituals, not something people do while fighting for their life and it has nothing to do with masochism, where the person seeks out the pain itself. A monk who would be able to sacrifice HP temporary before a fight to receive a buff f.e. would reflect the concept of flagellation ten times better than a rage counter (and even add a strategical element to the class, not just a tactical). Anyway, I don't think I can add much more to explain my point of view in this thread. See, the problem is that we cannot even agree on the basic premises. You just categorically claim that the Monk's Wound mechanic are Rage counters. Those of us who think it's a cool way to treat Monks say "Look, it's totally something that can be flavoured as something very disciplined. Calling it Rage counters is premature and unnecessary." So please, tell us how the Wounds MUST be Rage counters, because we have shown how they very easily can be used in a far more disciplined fashion. If your point ends up "Well yeah, they CAN be treated that way... But they're just Rage counters." you've lost. You're not arguing your point, you're not showing why your interpretation is the only one, or a valid one, or even a good one. So please. We have tried to show you why this still fits the Monk concept. Show us why it absolutely CAN'T, because that is the point you're arguing. That it is more or less impossible for Wounds to feel Monk-like.

This, pretty much.

Ahh, but are there not already multiple types of monks in reality that are rather different from one another? Why not a new variant that simply doesn't exist in reality? A little creativity is all that is. Monks of any kind are typically quite devoted to rigorous forms of self-discipline and ideals. You're telling me that people who meditate on the embracement of suffering in life bear absolutely no resemblance to monks of the real world? I find this hard to believe. Calling a table a chair might be confusing, but calling it a stool might just make it an ogre's stool, even though they're different things. 8P Yes. This. Also Re: No Monk abilities outside of Wounds, it sounds as though something like Transcendent Suffering doesn't require Wounds to use. Josh spoke of the Monk being super-fast with it out of combat, so I imagine it's not something limited by Wounds. Could be very wrong though, as it's based entirely on conjecture.

Pretty sure there's confirmed no multi-player in PE.

I don't know. A Mario running around Mushroom Kingdom with a bitchin' assault rifle, going all Commander Shepard on Goomba ass might be a pretty cool game. In all seriousness, your right. I suppose I didn't really write my post clearly enough. Complexity for its own sake can ruin a game. It's what's done with the complexity that makes or breaks the game, and I have faith in that Obsidian will create compelling mechanics that are well integrated into the game, without making them too simple.

Here. Thanks, the system hold itself, but a plate armor still remains the better choice in almost all situations. A more simple system would be to have all heavy armors to have the same DT (adjusted for quality with + 5 or + 10) and then giving each type of armor different DT bonus depending on the damage type. Fast weapon could work better against light armor, 2 hands against heavy (bad against light armor because evasion rate would be higher), and 1 hand being average against both types of armor. I don't know if it's just me, but every games want to scale armors depending on it's type. While it would be so much simple to have only two ''class of armor'' heavy and light. Each class having it's benefits, light armor doesn't slow your character as much as a heavy one and also gives better chances to succeed a sneak but heavy armor does protect more, at the cost of speed. Then within each class, types of armors providing different situation benefits. I hope the Devs get notice of this idea, it may solve some maths issues with armor scaling. The truth is armor doesn't have to scale with types, but with quality. I much prefer to have variety. A variety of both armour classes and types within each class. I don't mind if plate is always better than, say, scale. It is in real life, and it is very intuitively so. Simplifying for the sake of simplifying, which is more or less what your proposal sounds like, is bad. Complexity is good, and I expect complexity from this game.

I'm not sure why the PE Monk seems strange. Drawing power from rigorous discipline is what the Monk is about. The PE Monk absolutely does so. Also, for those of you who want to know more of Monk lore, Josh posted a brief history of the Monk class on page 8 or something of the Update thread itself. Pretty good stuff.

What kind of businesses are the only kind in the P:E world? ... ... ... ... ... ... "Soul" proprietorships. I... Bu.. What.. I don't even... Not sure if I should offer applause or just cry.