Tsuga C

Tale has the right of it. I have no love for any sort of XP grinding, so let's just base things off of the PC.

You've mis-read what I wrote. I was referring to the attacker using the beard of an axe to hook the shield of an opponent, not a defender taking advantage of the axe being lodged in his shield to torque the axe from the hand of the attacker.

I've shot a number of traditional flintlocks (not the modern in-line ones) and they're not much good in the rain even with the frizzen covering the pan. Wheel locks rely upon a lit match/cord touching the powder in an open pan. Sorry, but rain + wheel locks = no joy. Rain should negate the use of these early firearms in P:E.

No, he's not hanging in his closet with his gi down around his ankles.

That is the idea. My green dragon was an example of this. The party was in the 5th-6th level range and to the dragon they were little more than uppity chipmunks. The party never did rise to the point where they were able to challenge the wyrm and that's the way I wanted it. As a DM, it's good to have the players aware of the fact that I always have something to hang over their heads should I choose to do so. Gromnir, a poster from the old BioWare site, once used an unstable demi-god looking to test all comers at a particular road intersection to see how well they are able to handle a beatdown. If they fought cleverly and well, they were rewarded. If they didn't.... In both examples the opponents are legitimately unkillable within the rules of the game, not simply because they were designated as invulnerable. This is what I'm hoping for as it'll force us to keep our egos in check and take seriously the idea that our party doesn't have a lock on prowess, be it stealth, magical, or main force.

I'm not sure what drives the need for an exacting depiction of various combat moves. As it's an isometric-only game, I anticipate playing this game zoomed out substantially to monitor the entirety of the combat zone. So long as there's a combat log I can pause and refer to, I don't need one-for-one animations. As long as my opponent is disrmed or dumped on his rump after I queue the special attack, I'll be quite satisfied.

The NWN inventory system worked just fine for me, especially as I always inserted a few Bags of Holding. Yeah, I'm a hopeless pack rat. Inventory tetris was almost a mini-game all by itself, too. List-style inventories are absolute dog poop as they deny me the ability to organize my equipment logically.

That would be perfectly acceptable. Improved familiars go all the way back to AD&D and they offer the PC yet another choice. And choices are most often a good thing for players.

I'll second this motion. If there's another continent that's mainly a high-latitude deciduous and boreal one, it might be a good place to designate as an epochal "lost world" that still has thriving populations of mega-fauna. Some of those critters were plenty monsterous without having to indulge in anything like fantasy.

I'd rather not have to go searching half the game to find the one F/AC my wizard or druid is interested in bonding as a F/AC. It might not be as emotionally satisfying for some folks, but I'd rather start my characters off with the F/AC that matches my concept of the character in question.

Hyperbole much? And, yes, I agree with you.

Oh, I'm no sadist looking to set people up for sure and utter destruction. I don't believe in sucker punching the party for the sake of abusing them. If I've dropped a number of clues or hints from reliable sources, however, then I expect the party to be paying attention. If they don't, tough cookies. They learned from that encounter, albeit the hard way, and it had a salutary effect upon the level of their play from then onwards.

Many, many moons ago I presented my players with a scenario in which they had to go about their business of pursuing the main storyline and, periodically, had to avoid a particularly bright and tough green dragon. The dragon was simply beyond them in terms of power and intelligence, but they eventually became arrogant and deluded themselves into thinking that they were clever enough to challenge the dragon (or at least pilfer some of its hoard). I had a trustworthy ranger NPC/companion attempt to dissuade them from this activity by pointing out a smashed shield lodged in a tree not too distant from the dragon's lair that had formerly been of greater dweomer than any currently possessed by the party. Its former owner, a member of a powerful and ill-fated attempt to dislodge or kill Mr. Green, fed the dragon that day as did a number of others. The players heard him out, but decided to make the attempt anyway. Long story made short, they ended up fleeing with their tails tucked between their legs and down a party member or two. Nitwits. *chuckles & burps* Provided that there are some clues or tales, would you mind having one or more encounters in the game that are either things that must be endured or avoided as no matter how clever, strong, magically potent, and/or stealthy your party might be, you don't have a snowball's chance in the Phlegethon of overcoming it in the game? Humble pie: it's what's for dinner!

Good lord, NONONONONONONONO! Furthermore, I... Hmm, I think I'll make a topic about a related thought that just came to mind.

Beyond a doubt, Planescape. As P:E is their own IP, I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing what these fellows can craft when the shackles of outside corporate restraint have been removed. Thrill us, shock us, make us cry, and offer us delightful dialogue and banter that has us chuckling or shaking our heads a day or two after experiencing it.

I have no problem with the NPCs wanting to keep their own equipment so long as I can assign them other items to use as I see fit. If I need an archer, then the NPC fighter in question can keep his favorite axe in inventory and put it to use when hard pressed in melee. Otherwise, I want him sticking opponents with arrows, period. Some sort of Bag of Holding equivalent would facilitate this quite nicely when it comes to armor. As I'm in charge, I'll decide who gets what from the pile of swag, thank you very much. If the NPC in question doesn't agree, they can always leave. This is one reason why we have the Adventurer's Hall, yes? Gift giving between the PC and NPCs or amongst the NPCs themselves is fine by me. It's not disruptive of my control of the party and it adds to the verisimiltude.

I believe they've already stated that we'll be able to generate companion NPCs via some sort of adventurers hall. I'm in favor of this option for those who desire it, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Obsidian comes up with for us to choose from. If they try to hand us another Qara, I might be utilizing that generate-your-own option, myself.

Give me the 80/20 mixture or maybe a 90/10 ratio of familiar to new creatures. I don't see any point in trying to completely reinvent the wheel monster-wise and I like much of what's been done in the past with D&D. The suggestion to make monsters less common is a good one as many of the monsters offered would quickly rise to the level of alpha predators and would seriously derange any conventional ecosystem. While we're talking about opponents, I think it'd be a good idea to make most of the normal animals neutral in terms of their factions. It's more than a bit silly that every normal predator (e.g. wolves, great cats, etc.) are automatically hostile towards the party in a lot of cRPGs.

The rogue/skill points issue never bothered me very much as I like having plenty of skill points to use for two of the social skills. Seeing lots of "one and done" rangers and shadowdancers, however, always rubbed me the wrong way, as did taking one level of monk just for the wisdom bonus to armor class. How many freakin' Lawful Neutral monk/druids can there be running around the woodlands, after all?

The key thing with multi-classing is to eliminate the "one and done" phenomenon that crops up regularly when a particular class is front-loaded with a particularly desirable feat or skill at 1st level. Please, Obsidian, do NOT front-load powerful abilities into any of the classes you construct for P:E. If your playtesters are consistently creating characters with a level profile of 1A/19B, you really need to take a look at the powers of class A and adjust their distribution. I have a strong preference for single-classed characters as I believe it tends to promote the "team concept", but I have used multi-class characters in NWN1 (e.g. rogue/shadowdancer or rogue/assassin) when two classes are needed to realize a particular character I have envisioned. At epic levels, I've used a 20A/10B before, but I'm generally a single-class player.

Don't bother trying to limit the way people play a single-player game. Frankly, it's none of your business and if I have something to attend to, I want to be able to stop and save right where I am without losing 30-45 minutes of play and a really fortuitous, randomly generated piece of swag I just picked up 5 minutes ago.

http://t.co/5YWT12tP A show on viking swords offered by PBS tonight. It seemed like an appropriate thing to link, OK?

Death machine Miyagi is right on the money. Every now and then I'd make an evil character in a BioWare game (NWN1 series) and the experience taught me not to bother unless I was specifically creating a blackguard or an assassin. An evil alignment just wasn't worth the bother as the choices offered inevitably pushed me into a neutral alignment unless I held my nose and selected the thuggish choice. I usually couldn't stomach the insipidly stupid choices that were constantly forced upon any PC trying to retain a fiendish outlook on life, so I'd well nigh inevitably drift towards "upwards" on the Great Wheel and long for the old days of pen & paper gaming. If evil options are available, let's make sure that at least half of them are of the cunning variety, please.

I'll throw my lot (as usual) in with the more conservative, real-centric crowd. I have a limited sense of credulity when it comes to arms and panoplies and if something insipid makes me roll my eyes, then it genuinely detracts from the pleasure of playing the game. Here are some attractive swords and some attractive bows. One need not detract or add too much in the way of "artistic license" to these weapons to come up with a very satisfying range of plain to ornate arms for the game. Much the same applies to panoplies--squire plain to royal parade, it still needs to look functional. It's armor, not S&M gear, after all.

Sounds like a prime home for the nibelung.