Tsuga C

Gaaahhhh! Monks have all the appeal of fingernails on a chalkboard. Oh well, to each his own. Maybe I can burn down a monastery in the game...

If the dual-dagger fighter is fair to good (and thus still viable) while the hand-and-a-half sword fighter is good to great in open melee, then game-oriented balance has been achieved. I understand that some people really want to go for the "kewl" factor with their character and that they must be accommodated. P.E's a game--I get it. I just don't want them both to be good to great in open melee as that flies in the face of basic common sense and reduces player choice to distinctions without meaningful differences. By the by, what's with your frequent use of the royal "we"? You don't appear to be an Obsidian employee.

Not necessarily. The players should be smart enough to understand that the hypothetical "average rogue" shouldn't expect to out-fight the fighters in a toe-to-toe confrontation without significant mitigating factors in their favor. This is a class-based system, after all. Again, this is a class-based system. If I know I'm going after the Foozle Lord and that he's well-nigh immune to direct magical attacks (think D&D evocations) but is only so-so against melee attacks, I'm probably going to leave the wizard in the rear with the gear for that quest. Amongst the dedicated powergamers this might very well ring true if you set up the combat system so that this or that weapon or party configuration was head-and-shoulders superior to everything else. Perhaps I overstated my point earlier, but I'm simply concerned that the system(s) not be designed in such a way that all is equal to all, thus effectively rendering our choice of weapon (other than slashing, piercing, and crushing) essentially moot. Let's take a look at two weapons that do both piercing and crushing damage: the morning star (spiked ball of iron on a solid shaft) and the spiked flail (spiked ball on a chain attached to a shaft). Here's how I'd set them up to let the choice actually matter: the morning star would do less damage and have a lesser critical, but be less fatiguing (stamina drain) to employ than the spiked flail which must be kept in constant motion during combat. The spiked flail is an inertia-dependent weapon and is not like a whip that one can simply flick out at an opponent. Provided that stamina is a matter for serious concern in P:E, this makes the choice between these two weapons significant as it involves much more than simply looking up the damage for each and choosing the greater of them. Knowing nothing about the "soul powers" at this point, I'll stipulate this as a given. This is key. It should be costly in terms of feats/skill points to make patently inferior set-ups perform on par with ones that common sense and history have shown to be better overall choices. If not, then things get silly right quick.

Non-stop Celtic music, courtesy of the Thistle & Shamrock and Fiona Ritchie.

Verisimilitude ranks quite high with me. P:E need not be an exacting combat simulator, but I do think that it should retain a reasonably high degree of realism. If all the slashing/piercing/crushing weapons are more or less as effective as all other slashing/piercing/crushing weapons, what's the point in having more than three weapons (one from each category) in the entire game? It's merely a matter of aesthetics if two daggers are as good as two short swords or if flails are as good as maces with no significant advantages or disadvantages to speak of. Does weapon selection matter from lower to higher levels, or are such choices as we make at higher levels merely a game of paper dolls? Does my light, flanged mace go with these boots or should I go with my quarterstaff? Yes, I'm being facetious with that last question, but not with the rest of this post. I'm both concerned and curious about the significance of the "tactical challenges" regarding weaponsplay.

Some weapons are, in fact, superior to others. Why would a dex-based fighter dual-wielding daggers be roughly as viable as a similar fighter wielding a hand-and-a-half sword in an open field of battle? In a cluttered alleyway or a tight/low tunnel in a cave system, sure, he might have an advantage because the terrain inhibits one's range of motion with a sword. In an open area where there are no restrictions on one's movements, the fellow with the daggers should end up dead 90% or more of the time. Will you be implementing attack modifiers based upon terrain? If not, how else can this egalitarian viability be justified?

That's the general idea. I can't imagine myself standing around bantering with the enemy while my limited-duration defensive and offensive enhancements are running down. It's foolish, plain and simple. Chat all you want when he's down to six hitpoints and is begging for mercy; otherwise, ATTACK!

Bocca Musica--[url ]The Lusty Wench[/url].

I'd like to be able to choose a color, color pattern, and/or eye color for familiars and animal companions so as to make them stand out from all of the others of their type within the game. If crafting is included, I'd like to be able to select which style of hilt and blade we forge if we were forging, say, a sword.

Damh the Bard--The Hills, They Are Hollow.

That's fine, but my fingers are crossed that none of the companions with particularly profitable, informational, or moving sidequests happen to be monks as I'm likely to leave them in the Hall of Adventurers or their monastery.

Ignore the screaming meemies accusing this or that person of racism. Let the writers write as they see fit and we'll see what the market has to say about it. I offend people all the time because I refuse to cowtow to Political Correctness. Does it bother me when others accuse me of this or that -ism? Not really as I simply consider the source, roll my eyes, and go on about my business.

Err... now wait a minute... in a fantasy game filled with wizards, dragons, demons, wands, elves, teleporters, psionics, and unicorns, you draw the line at monks having extraordinary abilities? Never much cared for psionics, either, as arcane and divine magic was enough for me to manage as the DM. The concept of some Bruce Lee wanna-be standing toe to toe with a cloud giant and beating said giant to a pulp with nothing but kicks and punches never sat well with me. Sorry, Monk-o-philes, but I've never appreciated the Asian-style monk in my Euro-style game.

Monks are a character concept inspired more by supernatural fantasy than reality. One of the general fantasies of the class (in A/D&D and elsewhere) is that they are unarmed dudes and ladies who at some point in their career can run at Mach 2 up to a bad guy in plate armor and quivering palm his internal organs. Never cared for them because of just those sorts of "general fantasies".

Your party is more focused on stealth and social interaction than in dishing out raw, physical damage. You know the Foozle Lord is in the cave. You buff your party in anticipation of combat and enter the cave. SURPRISE--you're treated to a long monologue or interogavtive session by/with the Foozle Lord during which half of your buffs expire. You now have a hell of a long fight ahead of you and you're probably looking at having to re-load 4 or 5 times as the Foozle Lord is one tough hombre. Crap like this is not fun; rather, it is aggravating and pointless. You made the right call in buffing before you entered the cave, but the forced chit-chat nullified your tactical decision to go in fully prepared for a fight. This is poor game design, plain and simple.

Of course, it's now sitting in a Perier bottle because it was an ice sculpture carved from distilled water (very clear) and packed in dry ice for shipping, but Avellone forgot to put it back in the freezer.

Will anyone name their orlan character "Eeyore"?

That's almost as much fun to do to the family dog or cat as popping bubble wrap!

I couldn't disagree more. Gimme tags, Obsidian.

Bibi is known for saying what he means and meaning what he says. If they decide to purge the illegal aliens from their country, I say more power to Israel.

With ears like those, I would think that orlans have at least a +2 racial affinity for the Listen ability/skill.

Stretch goals are only BS if they've offered too much for too little and can't include features because they've run out of time to implement them or release them with a good number of bugs because they lacked enough time to properly de-bug the stretch goals.

Panoplies, not ponoplies. Typo, oops.

No, not especially. I'm very reluctant to spend money on better equipment for my party and I dislike having to wander from merchant to merchant to find the best weapon or armor for this or that companion. I strongly prefer using what we find along the way, thus our arms and ponoplies aren't always the best they could be and the party tends to take a good deal of damage. Resting works to counter this, as does the profligate use of spells.

Weapon swapping doesn't bother me, but it should cost you an attack. Item degradation I can live without. I don't see the appeal of having ones shield come apart when you're off in the hinterlands and are thus forced to do without it or trudge back to town so an armorer can fix it. *yawn* Thanks, but no thanks, to item degradation.