Mr. Magniloquent

The pre-buffing response was slightly calming to me. It's good to hear the phrase "opportunity cost". It gives me some confidence that the protection spells will be worth-while, and therefore, that other spells will be as well.

I believe that PoE is going to really do the base melee class "Fighter" a great deal of favors. Their use of group stealth should be very interesting, and the actual presence of substantial choice (rather than a false dichotomy) is highly anticipated too. The health and damage system feel reminiscent of FATE RPG, which is very good--if new only to electronic mediums. If they can resist the compulsion to kneel before the profane and unholy "Altar of Balance", then I'm sure many other innovations will exist as well. Narrative and literary depth aside, their main goal seems to be much like any other cRPG. Refine traditional class structure into something more distinct, fluid, and fun.

That polymorphed vampire encounter definately sounds like a sucker-punch if I've ever heard/read one. A DM that I used to play with had an affinity for Rust Monster and Black Pudding surprises. A little known fact about Black Puddings in D&D, is that their acid attack destroys armor and metal items on contact. Even as a Wizard player, the threat was real. After one particulary awful encounter, I demanded to be able to extract components from the creatures, to make a salve which would permanently protect metal items from rust and corrosion. The DM grudging agreed to a questline where my Wizard made this happen. It's not difficult to believe the enthusaism and gusto the rest of my party had in supporting my Wizard's efforts.

Overall, I'll definately conceed that ToEE was the better tactical combat cRPG, though I expected that one. NWN...agreed, but again as an overall combat system. 3rd ed. was just a major improvement over 2nd Ed. Judging by spell books alone though, BG still comes out ahead by a wide margin. True Strike in a D20 system basically assures that the character will hit. If that caster happens to be a "Gish", then they're garunteed to hit several times. Spells like the Mantles and Protection from Normal/Magical Weapons functioned in a very similar manner. Very powerful, but very brief. If truly meaningful spells will be able to be cast repeatedly--particularly if spontaneously as the Sorcerer class does in D&D, then of course duration will matter much less. I just don't see that happening, particularly because Obsidian has stated that spells will not scale. Many strings come attached with allowing spells to be cast more frequently, and in the past has almost always resulted in such intriguing spells like "X Elemental Bolt" and little else.

Who cares. It's single player only. Nothing is compromised by save-scumming but threads within this forum and the scummer's dignity. Iron-man will also exist for those without self-control, or like the gamble.

Thank you for agreeing with, and supporting my point. I want to be sympathetic towards your statement. The BG2 spell book, as robust as it was, did need refinement. The existence of the superb G3 Spell Revisions mod is proof of this. Ultimately though, I can't pity anyone who found coping with BG2's spells overwhelming. There are so many options (which I was trying to illustrate), that people should have been tripping over solutions. There are 8 spells alone which counter just invisibility effects directly, and many other spells which do it indirectly. Theives even have an unlimited True Sight ability! I'm sorry that I'm not more sorry for any deficiencies someone may have with that much depth. Gross overstatements like, "every ruse has a billion exceptions" certainly doesn't help your argument either. We've seen what catering to that playstyle and demographic have wrought upon us. Enough is enough. Lephys, your post is an excellent example of someone wanting and attempt to force all holes to be square, because they only like using square pegs. Durations matter. Combat is almost always longer than 20 seconds. Unlike a P&P game, CRPGs are strewn with extremely frequent combat. This is all compounded by a spell system in which uses per day are very limited. All of this culminates to make duration extraordinarily important. Your argument is disingenuine at best. In a word of magic, protection for whole classes of damage is not unreasonable. When the duration boils down to 18 seconds and is a finite resource which incurs explicit opportunity costs of another spell...well, it's not so rediculous anymore. Particuarly when playing a character that has an HP enough to be killed a as little as a few arrows, which a fighter can produce as much as 5 per round of. Many of the spells even have caveats. Only +X class or lower, only magical, only normal...and oh yeah--18 seconds in duration. These effects are also mutually exclusive and preclude stacking. Lets not forget the many many spells which can remove these brief defenses and the many spells and forms of damage which can simply circumvent the spell entirely. See rhetorical fallacy: Ad Absurdum. It will help you. Then please point me to the cRPG which does it better. Perhaps ToEE, a veritable D&D simulator? My comment was more referent to the spell system, but I doubt I even need to limit myself there. Name one cRPG. Bonus points for any cRPG released before P:E's kickstarter launched. Please enlighten me. This belongs with many of the sweeping over-statements made regarding vanilla BG's spell system. Dispel/Remove magic would remove all magical effects (potion, spell, or otherwise) on all creatures in its radius. Breach would remove every combat protection in the game. Not just one mind you--all active ones. With two relatively lower spells, you could trash every every protection in the game, then mow down the wizard in a round or two with...well...anything at all.

I actually like this feature. It doesn't inhibit players who do not wish to re-roll in anyway. Those who are new to the game, or find that another class/build would be better suited to them can easily adjust things without starting all over again. In Fallout 3, I even had a master save at the point where this choice was offered so that I could start any character I desired without having to run through the prologue yet again.

I find many of the negative attitudes toward Baldur's Gate 2 spell casting to be vexing. Baldur's Gate Spell Combat The enemy wizard has made their self either totally or partially invisible and cannot be directly targeted. What do you do now? The enemy wizard is protected against your (conventional) weapons. What do you do now? The enemy wizard has created a duplicate of itself. What do you do now? The enemy wizard has summoned a powerful demon rampaging across the battlefield. What do you do now? The enemy wizard is bathing the screen in a damage type or effect they have protected themselves against. What do you do now? The enemy wizard has dispelled your compliment of buffs and enhancements. What do you do now? The enemy wizard has Dire Charmed your front-line fighter--the backbone of your defense. What do you do now? The enemy wizard has used a contingency/sequencer to revitalize its defenses which you had just disabled. What do you do now? The enemy wizard has just dismissed your powerful summons by casting Death Spell. What do you do now? Your spell was sent screaming back at you due to the enemy wizard's use of Spell Reflection. What do you do now? Your Breach spell failed due to the enemy wizard's use of Spell Shield. What do you do now? Your Spell Thrust spell failed due to the enemy wizard's use of Spell Immunity: Abjuration. What do you do now? Your fighters can't reach the enemy wizard due to its use of Teleport Field. What do you do now? Need I go on? There is more. Much more. That diatribe above is only from the reactive perspective. Considering there are two-sides to every coin, the implicit tools at the proactive end of the spectrum are equally dazzling. The breadth and depth of tactical play/spontaneous tactical decision making from a nearly 20 year old game entirely outclasses and dwarfs anything ever seen in a cRPG ever since. EVER SINCE. I'd like to have one of the most essential aspects of that masterpiece revived, thank-you-very-much. Spell casting was damn near half of the game renowned as the greatest cRPG ever, yet somehow it was a chore? It was a masterpiece in spite of this complexity and lethality? That is an extremely dubious claim. I'm sorry if you didn't enjoy the complexity and sophistication that came with a fantastic and powerful spell system. I'm sorry if you found it overwhelming and tedious. I truly am. You must be ecstatic with the state of spell casting systems in cRPGs these days. Good for you! You go play those games. [/rant]

One thing people needs to keep in mind, is that within BG--death meant game over. Even if you had the option to be resurrected, the plot would still end for you. This is not necessarily the case for PoE, and I doubt it will be. I see no reason why someone can't "Stone to Flesh" a petrified PC within this game. I am imagining that most status effects within PoE are going to be brief to the point of pointlessness, like most modern cRPGs. People don't like dealing the ramifications of magic in a magical world. Use a spell-slot to hedge against the risk of a magical combat in a magical setting? Nah. That's asking too much. After-all, high-rolls are good build design by the player, while low rolls are uncontrollable punishments of inferior system design by the developers. This is largely why hard-counters faded away. Spells became mediocre first, protections against them simply became unnecessary afterward.

I disagree. I like cohesion and rational consistency to my dungeons. This is not to say I dislike fantastic settings, I just want there to be a reason for it. That was probably my chief complaint with Watcher's Keep. It was a schizophrenic assortment of unrelated dungeons. Individually they were good dungeons. As a whole...just lost. I prefer things to go like Durlag's Keep. While even the upper floors contain danger and are more than a pass-through section, they largely serve to build drama and flesh-out the mystique. The comparatively small and vacant upper floors function(ed) as both a teaser of what is to come and a warning to anyone who might not be able to handle it.

While I share your dislike of FF X-2 (that game, for me, marks the moment where the Final Fantasy series fell off a cliff, quality wise), what exactly makes western RPGs any more "legitimate" than Japanese RPGs? AGX-17 is correct. JRPGs almost always permit zero choice. Rarely do you even have a choice as to what class the PC even is, let alone what motivates them or how they act. JRPGs are merely stories where the player is but a passive observer who may get to participate in combat--which itself is often heavily scripted and out of the hands of the player.

@ AGX-17 Balance/perks/items, quests, and world reactivity were much better in F:NV, for sure. The writing in general was better as well. I also liked the survival mode, even if it didn't exactly feel very harsh to me. Like others have have said, it is in most ways to be considered a superior game. However... I liked the open world and setting of the capitol wasteland better. The mood was superior, the exploration was superior, and the quantity of things to do were fantastic. Particularly in that my character was a tech oriented, it felt alot more gritty/difficult. The setup as a vault-dweller, rather than some errand person was also a much better hook. Probably the biggest fault that F:NV had for me, was the map. This really irked me. Large portions of the map were made inaccessible by hordes of killer insects, death claws, super mutants, etc. Having a large mountain range smack-in-the-middle didn't improve my exploration either. I felt very shepareded in F:NV, which I do not care for at all. This is magnified in an open-world adventure setting.

It's all relative. I petrified the Shadow Dragon with a Chromatic Orb spell from my lvl 10 wizard/party. Some of my party members who had their Negative Energy Protection dispelled had been obliterated by the level drain of the Dragon's breath if not the acid itself. My party couldn't really hit the dragon or stand-up to it, but my spellcasters certainly exposed and/or created weaknesses for it, only to deliver a killing blow on the brink of defeat. That was my very first encounter with it. No metagaming. No-reloading. That was a white-knuckle victory. People have different tastes. Sometimes they are dissapointed by slaying a major foe with one spell--other times people are elated at their character's prowess. What people also seem to ignore, is that not all enemies are the same, nor should they be. Jumping into melee with any dragon is generally a very poor choice, but slinging spells at the golem is an equally poor tactic. It's not exactly like Finger of Death is some chump spell either. Casting that spell requires serious power in the D&D universe. Context is important. Meta-gaming does not make encounters fun. Nor do hard counters. Hard-counters are great, because they make things matter--this is besides the point. Whether hard-counters are reasonable comes down to encounter design. Context is the word. It was reasonable to have a Shadow Dragon with level-draining breath because you were at the end of a dungeon filled with undead. It is reasonable to expect that a party will be prepared for such an effect. Furthermore, you are given PLENTY of warning. Not just warning by NPCs, but an actual object that allows you to engage the encounter on your terms, or bypass it entirely. Decidedly not a sucker punch encounter.

Final Fantasy X-II, as if it were possible to define any Japanese game a legitimate RPG.

For whatever reason, I enjoyed Fallout 3 more than Fallout:NV, overall. I thought Mass Effect 2 had the best story-telling of the series. I felt Mass Effect 3 had the best combat/abilities of the series. I couldn't get invested in Fallout 2 and ended up quitting early on. I don't like it when games ego-stroke. I often relapse into "muchkin-hood" and "save-scummery" Many "classic" genre defining games that I never got around to playing as as a youth are difficult to enjoy because of the dated graphics. Temple of Elemental Evil had the most efficient and superior user interface of any cRPG I've ever played. I thought Grobnar Gnomehands was both the best NPC of NWN 2 and was genuinely amusing. I will sometimes differ to playing a familiar game I have mastered every aspect of and offers no challenge or new experiences over a game I both own and have been meaning to play. That's enough for now.

I'll definitely agree with you on the "and you have to complete the quest-line to get off the island" bit. I will likewise agree about the traps in the Captain's Cabin, but everything else...I felt like those were appropriate. The quest is designed for higher level characters, any +2 weapon can harm Karroug. This includes the "Spiritual Hammer" spell. You should have at least one of these by then. If not, there is the Silver Dagger. It's known that the monsters live on the ship, so it's reasonable to expect their leader makes it den there. Karroug is a "Loup Garou"--very powerful Werewolf, his abilities are reflective of this. He's difficult for sure, but he's supposed to be. Your points are reasonable and persuasive though. I may be just an apologist of sorts, but I'm overall OK with that quest. To me, there perhaps.....5 sucker punches in the BG Saga. There are probably others, but these are the ones which stand-out in my mind the most.

Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast was more of a software update/patch in the days before internet downloading was a ubiquitous and efficient distribution method. I digress... That being said, I think I prefer expansions which enhance the base game, rather than those which go beyond its scope. Quests inserted into the main game ex-post facto can still be intriguing and dramatic while fitting into the greater framework. The DLCs of Fallout are proof of this. What makes me leery about expansions which continue after the finale of the original game, is that they often "jump the shark". Scopes generally become epic, and exhausted wells are drilled. "Independent" expansions often have many of the same caveats as creating a brand new game. While it's always nice to have a fresh narrative direction, my pro/con list still comes in favor of enhancing the base game. It provides opportunities not merely for fixing any faults of the original, but expanding on strengths as well.

An "instant death spell" is unbalanced only the way that the more powerful of any given two weapons, spells, or items are unbalanced. In D&D, a 5th level Wizard now has access to the Fireball spell. This spell is capable of inflicting 6 to 30 damage to all creatures within a 30' sphere, whilst Magic Missile can only inflict 6-15 damage to a single target. At level five, the a great many of the enemies you are likely to face will not be able to survive a 5d6 damage roll, and that roll can be committed against the entire field! Unbalanced much? What about boring? The death spells within the IE and Aurora Engine games worked. They didn't break them, nor did they ruin them in any fashion. They were a great and flavorful addition to them. Observationally, they worked well. I can't think of any games were there even were any instant-death-spells. Concisely, I can't find any evidence contrary to the successes of those spells within the IE and AE games.

That definitely is a concern. I theorize that spells will be grouped by the effects which they produce and perhaps the areas of effect they possess. Similar to how Charm Person is a level 1 Wizard spell in D&D, but Dominate Person is a 5th level Wizard spell. Likewise, level two spells may be able to produce the "Line" area of effect, while level 8 may be able to produce the "Burst" area of effect and any which preceded it in lower levels. I'm not sure how else it might be done without resorting to what you've described. That's just guessing though. It's a long-shot. I too, would certainly appreciate any information anyone has on this.

I found myself at certain points actually hoping that the stretch goals wouldn't be met when they started introducing classes. While I'm very glad for Obsidian and look forward to all of the stretch material, I was deeply concerned with them getting the "core 4" correct first. All things are a variation of these, and I wanted both the focus and a chance for retrospection before going beyond them. Again, I don't regret the kick starter successes, but there are more than a few people nervous about the amount of work on Obsidian's plate.

Agreed. One area which I would really like to see change revert to the "old school", would be smaller scale Gold Box scenarios. I'm so tired of LoTR derivatives where ONLY YOU--THE CHOSEN ONE, can save ALL OF EXISTENCE from the HORDE OF BAD GUYS. *Sigh* What happened to haunted keeps and swamps? When the scope is too large, both the stories and the characters get lost--player controlled or otherwise. Just take things down a notch and focus on the quest your on. Make each quest have character and meaning rather than being a speed-bump to aggrandizing your messiah complex. I would have been much happier with the NWN official Campaign if they had just focused all of their energy and equivalent resources into Chapter 1 and the city itself. There was so much room for intrigue and drama, but it just got lost in the yawn-worthy epic scope they pushed. I believe it to be the main reason why the expansions were so much better than the original OC. I feel this can be said just about every c"RPG" ever made since.

I would define RPG more along the lines of having a meaningful choice in not just the development of your character, but more importantly how that character influences the events in a game. In that sense, Icewind Dale and even Planescape: Torment more closely exemplify an adventure game, while Arcanum and Fallout are more representative of a actual RPG.

There are people who like(d) this? I consider myself closer to a traditionalist in nature, but when has this ever been a "feature" anyone enjoyed? *Edited for grammar/spelling corrections.

This is what is going to matter for PoE, I believe. If spell do not scale with caster class level, then spells must be differentiated by what effects they can produce. For example, areas of effect. A first level spell would only be able to target a single foe, while a second level spell could use the "line" or "single target" area of effect. The same would be applicable to other effects, like Paralysis, Concealment, Poison, Absorption, Reflection, Damage over Time, etc. There are two issues for a system that would work in this way though. DCs and damage would both have to be calculated independently of the spell level they belonged to. If not, lower level spells would become completely, or at least effectively useless. Only by computing these things through class level + abilities + feats/traits (etc) without respect to the level of the spell being cast would they be able to translate to higher level engagements. This is a form of scaling though, so I doubt that we will see this.

I see Mr. Sawyer has been on a posting rampage of sorts. Thank you for the information both in this thread and others. Our current design for wizards allows them to learn a new spell every time they gain a level, so if there's one that you REALLY want, the system allows you to take it when you advance. E: This doesn't apply to unique spells, but there will probably be very few of them. How are you handled "Difficulty Class" of spells in PoE? With not having spell scale, I'm hopeful that you're planning to have a universal spell DC for each caster based on abilities/feats, while having spell levels differentiated by what effects they can produce. That's the kind of information I was looking forward to seeing in this most recent update. Is it still to "risky" to share any of those details?