Alexjh

On initially rading the whole "always get damaged" thinf I was strongly against it, as a character who is good at dodging is if nothing else one of the main archetypes of combat, however, on consideration of the context of the 2 tier health system I can see ways to make it work sensibly. If stamina is representative of the ability to continue fighting while health is the representative of the ability to continue living, a dodge would therefore be represented as no health damage you haven't been actually hurt, but you have completed an action whereby you have exerted yourself, and thus you still take a hit to stamina even if you successfully dodge. One thing I would say is that I think people have the wrong idea about what the dice role actually represents, there seems to be this assumption in some quarters that it is just representing randomness of scuess,whereas I've always seen it as being representative of all the random factors in a fight that it would be too fiddly to calculate but just simulated into one conveniant form. So rather than just "will I hit or won't I hit" being representative of luck, its more things like whether you came out of tht last round in a bad stance, whether there is some light reflected in your eyes, whether the very slight changes in your poise are going to have a positive effect or negative effect etc, whether you choke on a bit of dust thats been kicked up and so on. Which isn't to say I can't see why people dislike the random rolls (but I find predictable combat far more tedious that one with a wildcard element) but the simple way to fix that is to proportionally increase the portion of a roll that is stat based, so that character skills plays a bigger part of a roll relative to the d20 or whatever. You could also halve the d20 to d10 but then you end up with much more probable critical succeess and critical fail rates, so it makes more sense to double (or whatever) everything else.

To be fair IWD2 did actually have quite a solid story (which by the end was basicly implying that in some ways you/the Ten Towns weren't necessarily the good guys), but unlike BG you aren't so much a participant in the story as much as the tactless wrecking ball that smashes through something far more subtle purely because that's what you've been told to do.

This game though is a spiritual successor to ALL the Infinity Engine games not just Baldur's Gate. They aren't really as removed from each other as you make out. There are several benefits of IWD over BG, some are purely due to the assets they had (I consider IWD and IWD2 to be far better looking and sounding on average than BG, and better looking than PS:T) but some such as the greater feeling of exploration of unknown lands (even the obscure side areas of BG felt like they were just dodgy areas that people knew about but didn't bother visiting) and the linear objectives actually helped format the game a bit. What I would suggest on that front is where you have to get from A to distant B, give us a "Moria choice" ie. You *could* go over the treacherous mountain pass or, through the ancient necropolis beneath the mountain or go the long way around which will take far longer and be dangerous but not in such a concentrated way. On the subject of puzzles though, what I'd say is that puzzles should be skippable by certain party characters - like the annoying zapping mirror puzzle in IWD2, if instead of having to use the fancy device a wizard could just bypass that by casting lightning bolt on it. Or a rogue could disarm the ancient doorway you need to solve an ancient dwarven rubix cube to pass otherwise or something. Perhaps just let your barbarian go all gordian knot on a puzzle. Incidentally one minor puzzle I did really like was the one in IWD2 where you have to free the villagers and kill the Orc boss with the gate shut to the villagers shut and him threatening to blow you up if you approach the camp. It was optional, but its a different sort of challenge to just another generic orc battle that could have been in its place.

I'm quite happy for animal-communication, but it should definitly be within the scope of a particular animals comprehension. If you "talked" to the wolf and it told you concepts that a wolf would understands in possibly some empathic way thats fine. Any animal would be intelligent enough to communicate danger, friend, food etc, and something like a wolf could probably give you enough of an impression to know there were, say, snow trolls or a tribe of barbarians or something. They are also sophisticated enough to understand concepts like friend or foe etc. But yes, I'm certainly against normal animals being able to "talk" to you in english, but having oppinions of you and communicating concepts is a different thing entirely.

But that (50% or less) is pretty much the tabletop gaming experience. I suppose if you were only going to play it through once then you'd want to hit most of it. That spoon-fed approach isn't for everybody though. Depends on how you run your campaigns though: the campaigns I've both played and run have always been homebrew settings and finite stories, so function a little differently to a bought in campaign. I try to account for whatever the player might or might not do, but if the party decides they don't want to go up the ancient tower, then I just reuse the content I designed for it elsewhere either as a whole or just little bits I liked from the first time. If they then decide to go back to go up the tower after that, then I'' improvise something, but I consider the key to be making sure that whatever they do is interesting and engaging. In P&P you can kind of play it loose because you have human imagination to adjust accordingly to make for an interesting game, while in Baldur's Gate you can theoretically blunder past everything of interest.

Just because they've never been fully implemented doesn't make them a waste of time. Ideally, a pet should mimic their use in a PnP RPG. A Mage's familiar should be able to act as a scout, or the mage should be able to cast spells through it allowing him to sneak attack an unsuspecting group with a crow or cat. He should be able to use it to eavesdrop on a conversation, or send it to trigger an unreachable area, or obtain a hidden or unreachable item. A Ranger's pet should be able to sneak around an enemy and flank them when combat starts, the Ranger should be able to have his pet hide in the shadows or behind some smallish object and sneak attack the enemy. His pet should warn him of impending danger, and perhaps even be able to communicate the type of danger through body language and animal verablizations. His pet should reduce or eliminate his odds of being surprised. His pet should open dialogue paths along the lines of "Oh my, is that...A Wolf?". Pets are many faceted and have enourmous potential in all aspects of an RPG. Just because they've never been done right, doesn't make them a "Waste of time". Honestly, I find it extremely depressing that these last few years of gaming have been so creatively bankrupt that people no longer bother thinking of the many things that could be done with RPG elements and just assume that everything will be Bethesda style streamlined weak design. PnP D&D has the possibility of some very fun/ridicolous things in it: one campaign I played I was a sorcerer, and along with the rogue and fighter in the party none of us was more intelligent than average. My companion was a Jay (using the raven stats), and what essentially happened was that because of the way familiars develop, it because by far the most intelligent member of the party to the point where because it had the special ability to learn languages at a certain rate, by the time we got stranded in this place with a language none of us knew, the bird had a free language or two in hand to learn, so learnt the native language on our behalf and acted as translator for the party. It was slightly embarrassing that we were all outsmarted by something that presumably spent most of the journey looking for acorns to eat...

For me, the linear flow in IWD2 doesn't make an area feel better designed. It just feels pipelined like a factory floor. I've attempted IWD2 twice, but became bored from the linearity. The looser area designs of BG gave more of a sense of choosing my own destiny. Yes there were some bottlenecked areas leading to boss battles, but the looser mix of destinations felt a lot more like the table-top experience. To be fair, if you switched it around and had BG be the linear one and IWD be the open one it'd respectively suit each of them less well due to the environments: mountains and icy passes tend to be fairly restrictive anyway without just going into empty wilderness while what is effectively temperate middle ages Europe was much more populous and built up so there is a lot more reason for more free travelling. There are certainly strengths to each, but I tend to prefer at least moderate linearity purely because then you can control when the players are going to run into Interesting Things ™ whereas a lot of the BG1 areas in particular relied on you bungling into them or getting missed entirely. Which isnt to say that there shouldnt be thing which are optional, but not in the sprawling BG1 way - at a guess, I'd say that ideally around 70% of the content should be encountered on a standard playthrough, while IWD is probably 100% and BG sometimes feels like less than 50%. This might of course be because linearity counteracts my own playstyle: if given the option to go around a difficult battle I probably do, so I kind of like it when the game makes me deal with things, which sounds kind of silly...

It probably depends on how linear P:E turns out to be, my suspician is more BG than IWD (though as a whole I'd say I prefer IWD, as a whole areas are better designed when linear vs. free flow) but that you'll probably have minor puzzlish elements inserted into bottlenecks in navigation like Moria-style mines or geography with a specific path through it (specific mountain/swamp/forest paths). I think the trick is to make how you do them fairly simple but just require a bit of experimentation. I'd much rather have a mix of things like the ones in IWD2 than the generic "kill the boss and get his key" style of thing.

I have honestly always just resorted to walkthroughs for the forest, at least in terms of getting about it, but, the reason it doesn't get on the list is I really liked the "feel" of it, if not the playable reality. Had some nice creepy area designs.

With a few exceptions, I'd generally go with no class is inherantly better with certain weapons than others, at least at the basic level. The few exceptions are as follows: Magical artifacts: Depending on the precise mechanics of it, non wizards shouldnt really get any use out of wands, rods, sceptres, spellbooks, magical loci etc. I like the idea that a barbarian with a wand would literally only be able to use it as a small sharp stick Fighters: In general, the fighter is about mastery of equiptment when compared to the other front line classes, so in general, if you have an identically levelled fighter standing next to all the other classes every one holding, say, a morning star, the fighter should be better with it than any of the others. Divine Weapons: As the idea of faith in project eternity seems to be faith empowers the person, in Paladins and clerics I can see the equivelant of a cyclical power up where you find a holy weapon of your guys religion (like the Moonblade or Cera Sumat in IWD2) which you then give to say, your Paladin of the Order of the Moon Goddess. The Moonblade technically has identical properties whether you give it to your Paladin or Gruk the slug worshipping barbarian, but because our Paladin *believes* in the holyness of her Goddess, that transfers soul energy into the weapon making it more potent than before, but not through any property of the weapon itself. Monks: Obviously the unarmed thing goes without saying, but I'd also extent it to staffs and other humble/peasantly weapons - these tend to be low damage, but with the power of the monks chi (or whatever) they suddenly become much more formidable. But generally speaking I'd go with somethign not that far removed from the simple/martial/exotic model of D&D - separating out classes which don't focus in weaponry as their main thing, classes which do and individual characters which invest in specific knowledge.

Much as I think that the Ice Temple interior is maybe my second least favourite part of IWD2, (after the Fire Domain... urgh that is frustrating) I really don't think the problem with it lies in its puzzles which are pretty simplistic, but more that for an area where you have to do several things it feels fairly directionless. As I say the puzzles aren't that hard but it is structured in a fairly abstract way with no reason to make the leaps of logic required to assume that battle square = getting bedroom key or those random phrases you know for the portrait for no explicable reason get you to specific places. The individual elements are not bad at all, but the fact there is such a high concentration of the, plus loads of entirely optional and not particularly worthwhile rooms on the upper floor doesn't really help matters...

I did say modern world, not modern developed nations. There is still extensive use of pack animals in North Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and even some of the poorer parts of Eastern Europe. Plus as established P:E isn't set in a modern world, it's set in one probably contemporary to the 1600s.

A car has power and security compared to a beast of burden, a pack animal like a donkey or ox is slow and stupid and prone to wandering off or getting stolen (you can't lock a mule or the burlap sacks it has slung over its back.) There's a reason most farmers in the first world now use tractors and combine harvesters rather than oxen. The car getting stolen in Fallout 2 is a one-off that occurs in one of the most populated cities in the game, and it's stolen by people who have the knowledge and skill to bypass the security of your car as well as operate it. In the medieval world, all you had to do to steal an animal was untie its reins and then lead it away from where it was tied. For people who live in conditions where animals are no longer a utilitarian necessity, people for whom seeing a horse is a novelty tourist experience (you would have to search far and wide to find an ox if you live in the developed world,) animals don't come across as the best solution when they've already played games with more efficient alternatives (magic bags, teleportation spells, etc.) Generally, I don't like the idea of a defenseless beast of burden taking up a party slot arbitrarily (all other companions except the first 4 will refuse to travel in the presence of a donkey? How do you justify this in the game world?) much less the idea of this beast being subject to death or theft. What's the point of carrying all this stuff if the ass gets killed at the bottom of a dungeon and now you've got 3 dungeons' worth of loot lying at the bottom of a dungeon? However, pack animals do have advantages over vehicles even in the modern world - notably they are cheaper to buy, cheaper to run (let them graze and they do it themselves) and are able to cross terrain that no vehicle could do, particularly in mountainous and desert regions. I don't think the game fundementally needs a mule, but, there are things that could be done to make them a worthwhile tactical choice. Take up a party slot sure, give it say, 6 characters worth of (top of pack and/or stash) slots and perhaps some sort of bonus in regards to camping and you have a party member which has merits to inclusion. Should it die at the bottom of a dungeon as you say, that's tough, but thats part of the gamble of having it in your party in the first place, though it should probably run away fairly readily and be reasonably tough. As I say I don't think P:E *needs* a mule, but its certainly possible to make having one or not a valid strategic choice when considering composing your party.

I would say this on the subject of undead - of any group of monsters they are probably the most likely to appear in any individual game or setting. Which isn't to say they should be in every setting, but given the fact that death in a universal constant it means that the undead are found in many world mythologies and in many forms. As the thing about them being a representation fear of death / oblivion and are essentially an animate version of a thing found plentifully in fantasy and real life (dead bodies) they manage to be far more numerous even than other things which turn up across the mythologies like dragons, giants and lycanthrope-esque things.

I wouldn't say it added that much in the way of tactical layers, but definitly added layers of character. I honestly think that the mule is one of the best things about Dungeon Siege.

I think the reason that undead are particularly singled out for Clerics does have some worthwhile reasoning behind it but setting wise and gameplay wise. Which isn't to say I think it is necessary, but more that I see why they've done it in the past. The thing about undead in D&D is that they tend to be some of the tougher standard enemies you are likely to face in a campaign - particularly because their undeadiness entirely negates rogues, often resists various schools of magic and damage reduction and immunity to criticals even makes them proportionally tougher for the "smashy" classes than an equivical levelled orc or whatever. As clerics don't really specialise with in offensive combat on an average basis, matching up a fairly broad tough type of enemies with a thematically matching class is a nice mix. However, I can see why not everyone would want that, so as a compromise, perhaps if it became a class power for specific churches. If you had a selection churches and each gained a special power, one could have turn undead, one a version of lay on hands, one that had some sort of fancy auras, one that just made them far better in combat etc you'd end up with a system where choosing which religion your protagonist belonged to was far more important in what your character could do.

Well, are the corpses really soulless or are they souls bound or caged by a Necromancer inside the animated body? Shale was a great fun companion and had a very interesting quest tree What is the Necromancer? A philosopher of the Soul? Is it possible to use it differently? Some might use it for science, scrying, looking into another man's soul (Cipher) and another might use Necromancy to "cleanse" someone's Sins (Monk), perhaps Necromancy is even part of a Paladin's ability to give "Salvation" or "Redemption" by a powerful "Hammer of Resolution" to the face. Eh... am I going off topic? How micro-cosmic vs macro-cosmic is Necromancy, spiritually/physically/philosophically/scientifically? I kind of see wizardry in general to vaguely equivical to doing science at university, some people might do something incredibly broad and make no particular specialisations, whereas someone might just find one thing SO interesting they dedicate themselves entirely to something like.... fishomancy (piscomancy?) with some very specific uses but generally impractical for anything but someone doing a job related to that. Necromancy is a bit weird though, I see it as a subject that at best gets you seen a bit odd and creepy, at worst like an abomination who needs to be stopped. It's not a vocation that people should be comfortable with by any means. As to origin of the undead there are so many types that I don't think there is any definative answer. A turn undead spell should definitly be more effective against incorporeal undead (ghosts, shadows, spectres etc) as any magic would be directly against the soul rather than having a shell to resist the turn. In P:E I see these types as being either "loose" souls, or souls with some very loose bond to a certain "element". Similarly, it would be very effective against mindless undead like zombies and skeletons as they don't have any will of their own to resist with, these I see as the soul being converted into a powersource to fuel them without actually functioning as a working soul. When you get into the higher levels of things with Vampires, Wights and Liches inparticular its a bit different because they remain sentient, these are where they becoem very resistant as they have will, purpose, form and often magic. In the case of Liches inparticular I see this as having constructed spells to "lock their soul in" while a Vampire is perhaps more a specific "soul mutagen" that repurposes the soul into a new creature. Either way, you'd have to be spectacularly powerful to turn a Vampire or Lich, though a "turn" might still drain them somehow. This is of course assuming any of these are in at all...

I do quite like the "turn undead" ability of D&D, its one of the few things that, for me, gives priests "badass moments" which pretty much every other class has to a much greater degree. That being said, I don't necessarily think it has to be undead to get the same effect, depending on the setting you could do something similar with celestial/infernal beings, constructs, incorporeal creatures, elementals or even just folks who are opposite to your deities ethos. That being said, undead remain the logical choice - particularly in a game about souls that one class would be able to repel soulless corpses.

I'd just make up a unit/use the names of one that no longer exists, as realistically metric wouldn't make sense (given in all liklihood that the P:E world isn't exactly identically size as Earth rendering metric nonsensical to exist in the world) and really, imperial units are convoluted and are far harder to keep tabs on. Theres bound to be some good archaic units around to use, though I do like the idea of some ridiculous unit like "this suit of armour weights seven pigsweights!"

Honestly I hope they don't do it like that, it's been done in so many games and they can never get the balance right, usually favoring dualwielding. If they really must have it that "Greatswords give moar damage!" and the like then I hope they mix it up a bit, such as giving two-handers greater reach as well (if formations matter then reach will then be useful), shields should not just be 'the tank' option but be used as a weapon as well as for defence, (and no, it won't be 'unbalanced', sword and shield will give increased damage and defence, greatsword would give increased damage and reach, done right it would be fine) dualwielding I honestly can't think of an advantage that using a shield wouldn't also logically give better (going all-out attack without a shield is suicide but I suppose some people will want it for the 'cool' factor though I personally don't think it's cool so can't be bothered to come up with one for them, insert whatever you want for them here), and single 1-handed weapons should give the benefit of a free hand for things like grappling (which is already confirmed not to be likely to be in the game unfortunately), spellcasting etc. Completely unrelated opinion here, but I just don't see the appeal of dualwielding personally, and seeing a character in a game dualwielding just makes me eyeroll as they are usually the character that thinks he's cool or something and when I see one charging me my first thought is always "Why can't I just smash the guy down with the shield? He doesn't have any means of stopping me and hasn't got the reach to keep out of range! Oh right, because people think shields are only for defense..." but I suppose everyone has their own tastes. Shame the poll doesn't reflect that by giving people the option to say "I don't like them/don't want them" though. I do qualify that that list was a gross simplification of the gist of what would hopefully a more complex system. I think the thing to bear in mind is that I think people go with the assumption that a greatsword does more damage than a longsword "because its bigger", whereas it's actually going to be a mixture of two hands being stronger than one, longer length meaning greater magnification of force at the end and greater weight magnifying it further. The trade off obviously being that you only get to make one movement with your weapon at a time vs shield / dual wielding and the weight means its harder to do that that just "mono-wielding" I think the thing here though is you have to bear in mind that counter-intuitive as it may seem, going for "Hollywood realism" in the case of melee fighting actually gives move strategic depth and player choice. I think the thing with dual-wielding is that in the way its shown on TV, it's fundementally a showy style of combat, but isn't entirely without merit - though shields are powerful weapons in their own right (and I fully support being able to build a character who uses their shield offectively offensively) having a sidearm of a small weapon like daggers or even including preprepared projectile weapons like pistols and 1-handed crossbows could easily tiebreak a close quarters fight. But honestly even if we were going to go the 100% realism route, I'd still want dual-wielding included: if people want to "look cool" and die early that's their choice, not the designers to make for them.

Another iteration of the popular 'you don't agree with me, therefore this game is not for you!' trope. Well played sir [troll], well played! Hardly, more to the point that you disagree with/want removed design principles from the games that this game is very overtly a direct spiritual successor to, to the point of that being THE selling point of it. To me, that says that you probably aught to be looking elsewhere for the kind of game you are looking for. Also I'm not sure you have quite got the idea of what exactly a troll is, I certainly disagree with you and am willing to debate those points, but I'm not in any way trying to wind you up for my own amusement. Generally trolling doesn't entail recommending an alternative which matches the preferences you keep on talking about or giving detailed explanations of why they disagree with you. Anyway I was going to say something about weapon speed - I actually strongly dislike the idea of inherant weapon speeds, its always seemed articial. If you are going to have different weapon speeds, it should be calculated by using the weight of the weapon and the strength of the character. If weapon speed is inherant to the weapon you end up with weird scenarios where a frail wizard can swing a hammer as quickly a musclebound barbarian. The 3rd edition system is passable as the fightery classes end up with more attacks/round than the less melee orientated ones, but still a gnome wizard with 6 strength can swing a broadsword at the same speed as a half orc barbarian with 20. But as you can put it down to the barbarian swinging at the speed but more accuratly, I can live with that. But yes, I definitly dislike inbuilt weapon speeds.

It's a bit of a fine line really, my general assumption is that in terms of your individual characters, the level 1 format should be either "normal" (ala Dungeon Siege 1 or Elder Scrolls, you are literally or effectively a peasant) or slightly above normal (where you are a little badass relative to everyday people). In a party based game, I dont feel like your guys should ever individually be the most powerful people in the world - on their own they are good but not unstoppable, its that team dynamic and their strategies which really sets them apart. All classes should be what I consider equal but different, and more importantly benefit from the versatility the others bring, sure if you lock two guys in a 10 meter cubed box, barbarians and fighters should win generally, but, its the versatility of powers and new strategic options the different classes give when acting in concert that means that adding, say, a chanter to the team rather than a 6th fighter enhances your parties abilities. I actually really like the "saving throw" model of high end powers - where if you have a direct insta-kill power or ability (like disintegrate or quivering palm) it depends on who you use it on and a bit of luck to see if it works. The kind of scenario like I had in my most recent playthrough of Icewind Dale 2 fighting against the black dragon for example - Dragon was butchering my party, I'd used up almost all my spells and 2 of my 3 disintegrate spells and they'd failed. As a last ditch attept I threw my last disintegrate at it and it worked, saving my entire party from being eaten on what was an improbable roll. Thats the kind of high power spell thats fun because it means you end up using them as a role of the dice when all hope seems lost. If you can just explode all enemies with ease its just not the same.

By popular demand, we implement the 'silly hat'. We're still contemplating two ways: 1) You can put on the hat instead of a helmet but you'll die in one hit. You will be happy about this option if you're a real r0leplay0r! 2) We make the silly hat just as strong as a normal helmet. Nobody should be penalized for their choice of equipment/ style! Perhaps you aught to go and play Mount and Blade, I think the fact that there is no magic or people with larger than life abilities in it would probably be more to your tastes than this. Other than that, despite again missing the point that silly hats aren't a fantasy archetype and aren't a gameplay choice, the answer option 1, I'm sure that silly hats exist somewhere in the world of project eternity, but should you wear one indeed it would offer no protection. Giving the player choice does not mean all the choices the player can make are good ones, or that all choices should be easy. Being a master of combat while dual wielding is harder than the other options and requires more investment of skills/abilities/attributes, being a master of combat while wearing a silly hat is also more difficult than wearing a helmet, doesn't mean the player shouldn't be able to do it.

If we think about it, there are more or less 4 basic forms of melee weapon usage, and I do think they all have slightly different role to each other enough to justify their existance: 2 Handed Weapons: High Damage, No Defense bonus Dual Wielding: Below normal damage but x2, slight defensive bonus Weapon and Shield: Normal Damage, big defensive bonus Single 1 handed weapon: Slightly above normal damage, greater accuracy, slight defensive bonus But really this doesn't even matter, the largest part of the reason this choice exists is basically because people like options for their character and people consider dual wielding cool, therefore, it is a good option to include. It's a staple of the genre and I don't see "but its impractical!" as a good reason to remove player choice, as long as it gives sufficient advantages and disadvantages for all the choices.

My point was more that while they draw on certain christian influences (asceticism) they are in no way obliged to be representative of Christianity because this isn't a game which has Christianity in its world, and therefore the culture of this world is presumably fairly far removed from Medieval Europe anyway. Especially as, you know, last I checked there weren't Elves, Dwarves, Godlike etc in Medieval Europe who presumably have their own cultures to varying degrees. Well, as this is a playstyle thing, if we look at 3rd Edition D&D and the five front line class there is a definite pattern to their design: each is built around a different aspect of character design. Fighters are built around freedom to choose feats with no special abilities Rangers are built around skills Paladins are built around spells/spell like abilities Barbarians are built around a single powerful special ability Monks are built around a suite of special abilities This is of course a generalisation, but its the basic core of why the classes work differently. Anyway, I've given you plenty of reasons and as Monks are in the game and your arguement seems basically boil down to "I don't like monks" I think we may as well leave it here.