Hormalakh

Not only should a skilled playe be more likely to hit an enemy, they should also be more effective with a weapon, causing more damage.

It was written in jest. This is a game afterall Nobody should be taking this stuff that seriously. Except for the devs - it's their job to do so.

The masses have spoken! Stamina it is.

The whole point is for vitality to remind you of hit points because that's what the devs are aiming for with the "stamina" mechanism. They're both hitpoints (stamina/vitality and health). Health is a fairly constant (over short periods of time, barring damage) factor whereas "stamina" is a more variable (in short periods of time) factor representing hitpoints. The fact that vitality evokes images of health to you speaks to the point that I'm trying to make: stamina is only meant to be used as a hitpoint mechanism and not any other mechanism.

Why would you leave your friend? That's the whole point of this discussion. If you were a true friend then you wouldn't be leaving the companion high and dry. If you're going to treat him like dirt, then he's going to act like a hireling. He's going to demand payment, since it's all business with you. As for godmode, apparently P:E will end at around a D&D equilavent of Level 15. So no godmode.

Couldn't a rogue be a merchant sub-class? That's the way I've always seen merchants anyway, a bunch of bloody thieves and robbers....

Thanks for the link. I like Brian's work.

A lot of people on the forums have been trying to incorporate stamina into a variety of different actions and mechanisms that apparently the devs didn't have in mind. Per J.Sawyer [source needed] stamina is meant to be mainly a combat-specific marker, and not used for things like encumbrance, magic "points", running, etc. I don't blame these members because stamina usually implies energy used for doing a series of different jobs. I frankly don't like the term stamina as a term used mainly for combat or "hit points." Instead, I propose that the devs use the term "vitality" to describe this term. It has more of a combat-oriented connotation, and will not confuse players as to the actual use of the mechanic. "Health" as it stands for a long-term hit point system works. But "stamina" doesn't. Use vitality instead. The definitions (per dictionary.com are listed below) Stamina: noun strength of physical constitution; power to endure disease, fatigue, privation, etc. Vitality noun 1. exuberant physical strength or mental vigor: a person of great vitality. 2. capacity for survival or for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence: the vitality of an institution. 3. power to live or grow: the vitality of a language. 4. vital force or principle.

Edit: Wrong post.

Now you're just fishing for likes.

Dynamic lighting has been confirmed. In older games, (BG/BG2) as the day turned into night, an animation would play right before the map changed. I don't see why this wouldn't be possible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bssuD7HE198

Models are 3d. More animations are always good, but they shouldn't be created while sacrificing other more important things. I think weapon animations falls behind 3D model work for the character (the so-called "paper-doll").

I really liked Casey Edwards's music: both Noble Serenity and Dwarven Dweller. Celestial Terrain sounded too heavy for me. Anyway, now with the live instruments stretch goal being hit, I hope that OEI is willing to do a call for sample music from musicians who are interested in sharing with Mr. Bell's creative direction. More music from different musicians is double-plus good.

Maybe they can incorporate the enchantment/crafting mechanic into this somehow? Each curse has a certain set of ingredients that you need to mix to make a potion to drink. But the specific ingredient you need differs for each curse and you need to get that information from a temple or someone with high-lore. Once you know the set of items you need, you then have to either craft the potion yourself or get someone else to do it for you. Ultimately, for each curse, you have to 1) find out the potion requirements. 2)Go find the potion requirements in the game 3) Make potion. They can make these curses-time dependent as well, if you don't cure the curse after a certain period of time your stats start to fall. If you wait too long, your health falls, and you end up dying (maybe after playing with the curse on your person for 10 real-world hours).

Eh, not really... if the concept is understood by most players, then you can always assume that a weapon will give higher damage with increased skill. The standard deviation bit might be a little difficult to convey, but I'm sure they can figure out a way of conveying that. Maybe a graph like I showed. Have a "standard" curve for like a simple "sword" always hitting 2-8 with a standard deviation of 2. Then everything is always compared to that standard. The good thing about this is that these all already have equations that a computer can quickly calculate. he only difficulty with this is if this game becomes Pen and Paper, maybe they can give a software program that calculates the damages for you. You could always use a calculator too. Edit: Also, I just realized the irony of xDy damages being confusing for me when I was young, and now coming up with a much more complicated system.

Curses should be applied to the person, not the weapon. That is to say if a cursed berserker sword of +3 was wielded, the sword could be unequipped, but the curse remains with you. You still go on berserker rampages until you apply a remove curse spell regardless of what weapon you use. The curse reapplies itself each time you wield that weapon. There should be items like the cursed belt of gender change (or whatever its called) should be unequippable until after the curse has been removed. More than one way to apply a curse, and generally speaking curses should be applied to the person. What do you think?

I actually really liked what someone else said here on this thread and wanted to expand on it. Firstly, I don't like either 2-8 or 2d4 or any variation of that. I played old IE games for many years without understanding exactly what those meant and I hated it. It was too complicated for me. My proposal. Make the whole thing have a range, but base damages on probabilities that are skill-based. For example, you have a sword that does a damage range of 2-12 fatigue points, and 1-3 health points. Then you utilize both randomization and probability. This post requires some understanding of probabilities so go here if you don't understand what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia....on_distribution At a low character skill, you have the same range-distribution (2-12/1-3), but at a lower-mean for a Poisson distribution. Therefore, while you are likely to hit with 12/3, it is extremely rare. It is more likely to hit with a 2-4/1 range than anything else. At a medium character skill, again you have the same range-distribution (2-12/1-3), but at a gaussian/normal distribution. Therefore, you are just as likely to hit 12/3 as you are 2/1, but you are more likely to fall in the median range of 6-8/2. At a high character skill: again, same range-distribution (2-12/1-3), but at a Poisson distribution with a high median around 10/3. Thus, much more likely to hit at higher ranges. For those who like pictures, here are the differences. The abscissa (x-axis) is the fatigue hit and the ordinate (y-axis) is the probability for that. I didn't graph the hit-point damage. You can then also have different weapons with the same range-distribution, but with different coefficients of variance. So maybe at medium skill one weapon is more likely to have a wider variance than another weapon. http://en.wikipedia....al_distribution What do you guys think?

Well, if they internalize the skill check before giving you dialogue options, then you shouldn't have a case where your low intelligence character gets a high-intelligence dialogue option. But it should also work the same way the other way: a high intelligence option should only be available if your character is high intelligence. Since you don't need [dumb] as a tag for low intelligence, you shouldn't need [smart] as a tag for high intelligence. What I don't understand is, is why it's OK for combat to be a difficult tactical, strategy based issue, but dialogue and other aspects of the game have to be as easy as possible? If you're not willing to sit and read through the dialogue options and think about it, then just play a fighter. Always answer with "argggg you die now" and take it to combat, and leave the diplomacy to those of us who actually want to enjoy thinking about what is the best thing to say. Tags ruin this sort of thinking for me. ------ for those of you who didn't understand what I wrote up there: [intimidate] If you don't let me play this game without tags, I'll be angry. [intelligence] Something about dialogue being a tactical choice just like combat is. [wisdom] this joke tl'dr for those of you who really don't like reading and understanding but want to play an old-school RPG.

They could be found on coastal areas. Kind of like sahuagin from D&D. Sahaugin die within a day if they can't immerse themselves in water. You could change it to lizardfolk, but their primary advantage is a thick hide: you don't need an aquatic race for that. ... and coastal areas don't have any water nearby? I don't see your point. The party travels a day's march from the sea on a quest. Your aquatic companion dies. The point is that an aquatic physiology is at the minimum not a benefit, and possibly even an encumbrance, for a non-aquatic campaign. If there are balancing factors then that would be fine. But an aquatic nature in and of itself usually isn't useful unless there is swimming involved. Bring along a fishbowl. Or a lot of water canisters.

Yes. This! Remember that we're talking about a "race" here, not a culture. Races should be physiologically different from humans, elves, dwarves. Each race will have different cultures. So humans have multiple cultures. Elves multiple cultures. Dwarves multiple cultures. So aumaua should have a varied number of cultures. They shouldn't all be coastal fishermen. There should be some living in cities (even one or two). Physiologically describing these races might be better than trying to describe their culture. Do they have fins? Wings? Arms? Are they primarily land-dwelling, sea-dwelling, amphibians? How does their musculature work? Body type similar to a human? Humanoid? I would expect this to be the case just so they can wear armor and wield weapons, but imagine if this race didn't use armor or weapons. What if their bodies could change to becoming more armored, and their claws could be magically infused as they level up? Just a thought. I've always hated how every viable race is a bipedal-humanoid. It doesn't make sense for reptiles (from a physiological perspective) to evolve into a biped race even if they do become intelligent. I don't see enough quadruped races out there. Biped or quadruped? How do they make sound? Through vocal cords similar to humans? Do they only roar or utilize acting to make themselves be known? Languages would fall under a cultural setting, so there should be several languages. Are they as a species able to breed with humans/elves/dwarves? Are their children fertile or infertile (a la real-life mules, a hybrid of a horse and a donkey)? Grip strength? Do they have hands, talons, claws? Are they as dextrous as human hands? Feet, hooves, talons? Kangaroo-type reproductive organs (which would be cool) or mammalian organs (mammary glands, etc)? What about laying eggs or giving live birth? We have mammals that do both (see Australia). Skin tones/colors/texture? Scales? Cold-blooded or warm-blooded? Internal heat generation or heat gained from external sources? (Might make a difference for fire/cold resistances.) Any other unusual physiological attributes not shared with humans/dwarves/elves?

It wwould be nice for those players who didn't want to beta test but got it anyway (higher tiers) to pass on those opportunities to people who would beta test and actually make the game better for it. That rare individual.

If I'm going to beta test. I'm going to treat it like I was a QA guy. I'm going to try to break the game and tell them where the bugs and mechanics issues are. That's the way I'd do it. I'd treat it like a stress test. See in what ways I can break the game. So no day 0 patches for bugs that beta players didn't find.

Puzzles are a staple of any good RPG. Not liking puzzles is liking RPGs only for the acting.

The discussion is about two very different kinds of [tags], and it should be clarified which ones we are talking about. There is the [skill] tag, which tells you that a certain dialogue option exists solely because you have sufficient skill in a certain area (intelligence, wisdom, persuasion). There is also the [narrative] tag, that tells you either the intention of the character's words. These two are very different. One, often-times, stands in as a "insta-win" button, while the other might not necessarily be the best choice in a dialogue tree. An example might help elucidate this. Guard: Did you see who killed this peasant? You: Option 1) [Persuasion] Why worry yourself about a simple peasant? You are more important than this, etc. Option 2) No officer. I'm just travelling through. Option 3) [Lie] Yes officer. It was that evil adventuring party that I really hate over there. While option 1 is blatantly the best option since you have a good chance of knowing that it is effective in getting the guard off your back, it isn't clear which is the better option between 2 and 3. Maybe with option 2, the guard pulls you in for further questioning and option 3 saves you from having to kill the city guards. Or maybe option 2 saves you from a battle with the adventuring party who clear themselves. The point is that a [narrative] tag doesn't appear as an "insta-win" option. It merely guides the player toward understanding the PC's internal reasoning for a certain dialogue. Of course, there are other narrative tags except for [lie]. There might be [threaten], [coax], [tell truth], etc.