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PK htiw klaw eriF

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Everything posted by PK htiw klaw eriF

  1. I voted for Obama so we could get 1000 years of darkness. I'm disappointed.
  2. Will be interesting to see if far-right influences cause any damage to Ukraine.
  3. This doesn't make me want to play a Wizard or Druid, but I may have to Adventurer's Hall one if there isn't a NPC of either class. Paladins are still better though.
  4. A good NPC is useful, and a good RPG has enough NPCs to fill roles that the PC isn't built for. A good NPC isn't so absurdly powerful that a PC filling a similar role is a waste, nor so badly built the PC has to fill the role in order to have a decent [insert role] in the party.
  5. Conversely, are there any classes you don't like the flavor of?
  6. I liked the IE combat in spite of the mechanics. They just don't work well outside of PnP. PoE will hopefully provide tactical RTwP combat with a ruleset that doesn't require one specfic strategy in a given situation.
  7. You have a meth habit?
  8. Like everything else in the world, I'm sure it's somehow the fault of the US.
  9. The problem is as you said, they have to balance encounters for either a pre-buffing party or a non-pre-buffing party. If attempted to be somewhere in the middle, the game will reward save scumming rather than tactical expertise. As of now, this is a non-issue because ability pre-buffs will not be implemented. I highly doubt that item pre-buffs will either, as that would sort of defeat the stated reason of not having spell pre-buffs. It depends on PnP. The GM is sitting right there, so spending a few minutes casting spells is likely not a valid option in most situations. Take Firkraag in BG2 for example. A common strategy is to hide in the fog of war, summoning creatures and casting buff spells. This is a valid strategy in BG2, but in PnP would result in Firkraag looking 100ft ahead and unleashing his breath attack on the party.
  10. I prefer BP's tacical componets to SCS. Not only does it take this time to install, but the AI sill makes some mistakes, which seems more natural to me. I also feel that pre-buffing itself is pretty cheesy, and am glad it will not be in PoE.
  11. I ran into my ex today, took evasive action. Going to sit through todays lectures, then head off to a nice pub and drown my troubles in whiskey and stout. Oh, and the day I planned on goin to SXSW, some dude drove his car into a crowd.
  12. Ideally, the only limits on speech would be on those that would cause physical harm, such as yelling "Fire!" in a theater. Anything else should be fair game, even if some find it offensive. If you think it is fine to censor an opposing viewpoint, you have strong authoritarian leanings and little value for free speech. As to this Ban Bossy thing, I see no evidence of the phenomenon existing other than ancedotal remarks. Therefore, it is nothing more than the usual suspects making noise while far more pressing concerns exist. Of course, addresing those concerns would mean paying $20 for an Ipad.
  13. Perhaps this belongs in the Blasphemous thread, but I believe that BG2 would have been better if structured more like New Vegas. I think a plot revolving around the various factions in Amn making power plays would have been more interesting than Irenicus' storyline. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to have the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, the Cowled Wizards, the Shadow Thieves, and a few other guilds competing for power. I also would've preferred Irenicus portrayed as someone who pursues knowledge for the sake of knowledge and has lost his humanity through years of being alone studying rather than the lost love interpretation in BG2. That would make him more sympathetic IMO. I agree. Too much brandy?
  14. No can do. For some reason, BG2 shoves rose-tinted glasses on some people. As such, they can not see faults in BG2 that they criticize other games for having.
  15. Already covered that Volo.
  16. That is only true if the PC either 1)wants revenge, 2)wants to use the "Bhaal power", 3)wants to rescue Imoen. To bring this back somewhat on topic, BG2 assumes motivation that may not be true for some PCs, like DAO did. You can argue that one did so in a more palatable manner, but they both are guilty of doing assuming motivation. Possibly, but that assumes that Irenicus is after a particular Bhaalspawn(namely you). Bhaal did spawn a lot of Bhaalspawmn, logic would suggest that Irenicus would find another suitable Bhaalspawn if it required less effort. To bring this back to the first point, isn't that true of all RPGs? In (insert game here) you can't say "**** (doing what main plot requires), I'm going (somewhere else in game world) and (doing something)". This seems to be a universal problem in CRPGs, because they lack the narrative flexibility of PnP games. So developers have to design the game to provide a list of motivations applicable to the most characters possible. So in BG2, you have the options to seek revenge(I'd argue that this is insanity given Irenicus' power, but I have more problems with the narrative in BG2 that would clog up this thread), master more of your inherent power, or rescue a childhood friend, which would apply to a good number of Good, Neutral, and Evil PCs. In DAO, you have the motivation of staying alive, then saving the world from the ravishing assault by an almost unstoppable force of corruption(arguably can be considered staying alive), which applies to a greater number of PCs than something like "stay in a city run by religious fundamentalists, occupied by individuals who often become hosts for demons, and where you will be mugged every ten feet for seven years because..."
  17. In BG1, you have no idea how powerful Sarevok is until you fight him in the last part of the game, his "powerful henchmen" are pretty weak if you have done most of the side quests available to you, and you have no idea that you're fighting the Iron Throne until the bandit camp.In BG2, you know Irenicus is an immensely powerful mage right after you escape his dungeon. Not going after someone who can rip apart reality with as much effort as an average person tears apart bread is not cowardice, it's sanity. Eh, Sarevok wastes Gorion in an off-hand manner and their respective power is emphasised in the chapter start. Almost 1:1 same between the two BGs. I'd say killing one Mage with a cleric, two archers, and a pair of ogres backing you up is less impressive than slaughtering several by yourself. Also, in BG you don't know that you are going after Sarevok right after he kills Gorion. Like pretty much everything related to the main plot on BG, you discover ptretty far down the line.
  18. In BG1, you have no idea how powerful Sarevok is until you fight him in the last part of the game, his "powerful henchmen" are pretty weak if you have done most of the side quests available to you, and you have no idea that you're fighting the Iron Throne until the bandit camp. In BG2, you know Irenicus is an immensely powerful mage right after you escape his dungeon. Not going after someone who can rip apart reality with as much effort as an average person tears apart bread is not cowardice, it's sanity.
  19. I don't want political intrigue in a RPG.
  20. IMO, the problem with supermen in RPGs is that the game world is seldom constructed to accommodate such a thing, despite it being a common occurrence. I would find it pleasing if the event of becoming superhuman was acknowledged in a setting's lore and dealt with in a consistent manner.
  21. In the old attractive women thread, some images he posted resulted in some members being bombarded with malware. Wals is the one who warned everyone, so perhaps he could go more into detail about it.
  22. Eh, the guy that kidnapped you(Irenicus) took down several Cowled Wizards without any sign of effort. You would have to be plying a very stupid character to think that revenge was something you could realistically accomplish. The DAO stories while taking you away from vengeance in several of them, almost all of them gave the PC the motivation of staying alive, which IMO is much more universal motivation than "rescue annoying acquaintance" or "get revenge on incredibly powerful Mage". Granted, the motivation tends to evaporate right after Ostagar. That scumbag is also an incredibly powerful mage who can easily destroy you with magic. The most sensible motivation for someone who isn't either an arrogant or stupid character(revenge in Irenicus) or a righteous crusader(save Imoen) is to get as far away as possible, and that was not an option in BG2. The origins were a good idea executed badly. If the origins functioned as the prologue, then they would have been fantastic. As it stands, the origins function as another prologue along with the prologue of Ostagar, which results in about 2.5-4 hours of prologue you have to play through to get to the meat of the game. If Bio had somehow managed to avoid Ostagar and had the origins be the only prologue, then they would've been hands down the best prologue in a RPG.
  23. 4th pic in the OP. I'm positive it was clean when I posted it, and the url seems to be broken as well.
  24. I didn't like the origins' execution in DAO because it felt like there were two prologues, the origin and Ostagar. IMO, DAO would have been better with backgrounds like ME. You could have 2 exclusive for Human and Elf, 2 for Mages, and 3 for Dwarf. Instead of an hour-ish starting prologue, they would have the PC start right at Ostagar as either a newly initiated Grey Warden or Grey Warden recruit. Not only would that skip a prologue, that would allow a PC closer to a blank-slate and a more set motivation for the PC. As to PC motivations, arguably BG2 did the same thing as DAO. The PC is forced to have the motivation of wanting to rescue Imoen which will likely not fit a number of PCs, particularly the evil ones. On top of that the PC is forced to work with one of two evil organizations, something the more virtuous would likely not do. Granted, I believe a mod called "Alternatives" fixes one of these issues, but they still existed in the vanilla game.
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