Doppelschwert

I hate DRM and I hate steam (which is an opinion and not an argument). Forcing me to use either of them will directly lead to me losing total interest in the game and stop me to support it any further. I understand the point of view of the companies but I also understand the fact that we live in a free market economy and I don't feel like paying for renting software, which is basically stripping several rights off me which I'd like to have for being a honest customer, especially if pirates are able to enjoy them. In essence, the following article sums pretty much up what I think: http://foobarrant.fo.../CopyProtection I don't pirate any games and I agree that pirating should have a worse image in society, but DRM is not the way to go to achieve this. Imho, a much better approach is proposed by this fine sir: http://foobarrant.fo....php/Main/FSNCP It basically uses a serial you enter at the start of the game. The game then checks at certain intervals (game-time / plot points) the serial under another condition (which the earlier checks did not). Assuming sufficient complex code, it is hard to find the code which has to be cracked and you have to play in order to find those checks in the first place. In the end, until a serial generator is made, its a pain in the ass to find matching keys through brute force. And when you patch the game, you change how the checks are made, so you have to do it all over again for every patch. It doesn't stop pirates, but it takes alot more effort to avoid the checks which essentially is supposed to piss you off so much that you don't feel its worth to keep up with - given that you are not a legitime customer.

Monks in order to stop/enhance the controversy on the boards about them.

I can't think of any mythology where anthropomorphic races are the good guys, although you're welcome to give some counterexamples. Even then, I'd guess the good anthropomorphic guys are the minority among mythology. So what do you want to imply? We're fine with slaughtering them.

I wholeheartly agree on this. Make the mechanics in a way they can be interpreted in different ways and let the player decide which way they want to roleplay the class. Although to be fair, the main concern of most people here is propably not how you play the monk as a player, but rather how the npc monks are portrayed in the gameworld. Which is a good question, after all. I'd say if you made them as diverse as players can play them, thats sufficient. It's like the portrayal of other stereotype/cliches: The problem is not including the stereotype/cliche at some point, but making everyone in the game world fit the stereotype/cliche. As long as they avoid this, everything should be fine.

Sorry, I didn't meant to be ungrateful for your link.. Your answer was just *overqualified*, so to speak, but thanks anyway for the link. I didn't know that this was free available on the net. I think that this alone wouldn't be sufficient to make the class interesting if they just had the same spells as wizards, which was my primary concern. Surely, it sets them apart lore-wise, but if the combat options were exactly the same I think you could as well play as a mage and pretend they use their mind/body as powersource. However, that doesn't seem to be the case so I'm fine with that.

I see, thanks for making that list! Although it sounds like psionics should be restricted to settings where enemies use psionics as well for them to not feel out of place (I guess you can counter psionics only be means of using psionics yourself). Most descriptions seem really nice but powerful at the same time (at least if you apply them to real life). Also, I'd rather like wizards and ciphers have mutual excluvie spell effects, as opposed to DnD where they overlap. Overall ciphers seem like a fun class to play if they are modelled with psionics in mind. However, I'd rather not give them so much cool effects in their spelllist that other classes appear to be boring in comparison. They certainly should have some unique and powerful stuff, but not everything should be screaming awesome - or else they should be at least hard to play in order to reach that full potential.

Just check Pazio's '' Psionics Unleashed '' then you will have good idea mate.. too long to explain for me ==>> http://www.d20pfsrd....onics-unleashed That's basically the same as I've seen in the NWN mod. Wizards with mp instead of vancian magic and at glance I can't find any spells that wizards don't have. I don't really want to read through all of that stuff to spot the differences, so it would be kind if anyone went into the detail about how wizards are different from psionic class.

That show certainly fits my tastes. I shall be looking more episodes in the future, thanks for sharing!

Looks like good advertising material to me.

Maybe you should explain how psionics work. I've only seen them in a NWN mod where they have been existing mage spells with a pointsystem like the traditional mp-system. Either theres more to that, or giving them psionics sounds like a wizard clone. I'll glady state my opinion on that, as soon as I know what to talk about.

I guess he meant to build a character in the image of forton / copy him as good as possible and pretend its him.

I always build the class around the character I design. I understand that quite a few people do powergame(I never do), I just think that assuming that all "munchkin" builds spring from powergaming is assuming too much about every player who plays them. Paladins really should lose their abilities when they stop being Paladins, I agree. I don't know why this was't implemented in NWN(2) and was disappointed it wasn't. However I would definitely play a fallen Paladin who became a Blackguard. It seems to be a natural route for a corrupted champion to go on. Ok, then we agree on this. I didn't want to imply that everyone playing munchkin builds only does it for powergaming, its just hard to believe that for certain builds the motivation lies in characterisation. I also don't powergame and build my characters around the concepts I design, and the combination of paladin / blackguard is something I played before and certainly liked, although not taken to such munchkin extremes.

Thats exactly how I'd imagine a fighter to work. Nicely written.

How is the personality/background of a character arbitrary? It informs every choice that the PC makes throughout the game. Fallen Paladin? Reformed Villain? It isn't uncommon for a character's alignment to shift in D&D or for them to choose a new path after said change. It all depends on the player. If when designing the character they feel that Monk/Sorcerer/Cleric/Dragon Disciple is a good fit for that character, then it works for that character. Of course you can play such characters and think about ways to make them work. I don't have a problem with that, people can do that - I just think its hypocritical to pretend the character is this way because that would be an interesting character to play instead of the powergaming. To me, original roleplaying is choosing a role and then modelling the character. Powergaming is the other way around: Modelling the character for powergaming and come up with a story to justify this. There also is an build that uses paladin as well as blackguard levels for a stacking save bonus. I doubt that player would still play this combination for roleplaying purposes if fallen paladins were properly implemented and they'd lose that save bonus...

I agree that every class should be equally competent when taken to extremes, but there should still be some balance when you're just casually playing the game. Why? If the player creates a character design that meshes with a "munchkin" build, then it does make sense from a role-playing point of view. Most character designs are just arbitrary and make no sense if you want to justify those builds. For example: http://nwn2.wikia.co...),Sor(4),Clr(5) I especially like the following where the alignment has to change during character development: http://nwn2.wikia.co...0,_Pal_2,_Wlk_1 That is pure powergaming and has nothing to do with any plausible character concept at all.

Yeah, that makes sense. I propably sounded more aggressive than intended to be, I have no offense taken in this thread Although the disregard for the monk worries me.... I'm with the answers you received so far, just as my previous post implies. I'd even go as far as not wanting NPCs to refer to me of being my class, as that hinders roleplaying. Rather, they should be refering to my equipment and/or appearance / the reputation I build up. So I think the actual role you are roleplaying and the class you have should be seperate things which can coincide if you want but don't have to. So you can roleplay your fighter as a rogue, although mechanically he is a fighter. Why? Because when you choose to roleplay some character which doesn't fit any of the classes directly, you can choose one which is pretty similar, twist in a way to fit your character through means of customisation (feats, etc) and have fun. Thats not possible when everyone is referring to you as mr. introverted wizard because of your class, when you're really running around in armor, enhancing your sword with magic and are a melee magician. I liked that in the Order of the Stick where samurais where portrayed as a dualclass paladin/monk, because the abilities fitted the concept the most. And its another reason why non-combat skills should be seperate from combat skills.

Monks are an anti-magic class in DnD 3.5. They are designed to be competent against mages. The fighter is not - in fact, mages are propably the best class to counter fighters. Barbarians are some kind of anti-thief class in DnD 3.5 which relies on short bursts of extra combat prowess. Gameplay wise, they are classes which are able to counter the core classes. I rather have an monk in the party that pummels the enemy mage instad of having a tedious spell fight between mages. Those special abilities should also change the way you play them compared to the fighter class, if you're playing them right. There is nothing redundant about them. Imitating these concepts alone would be enough to justify existance in PE mechanic wise.

In the post you're referring to, I was summarising what I think people are criticising the most. Personally, as stated in some posts before, dislike them for feeling unrealistic to me, where unrealistic means immersion breaking. They just cannot be explained in a way I'd found plausible. Explaining them through magic works, but that implies a level of magic that i personally don't want as I prefer low magic settings. I also think this kind of magic doesn't fit into the universe; merging races seems more complicated than healing, and healing isn't in the setting. Even if they had that kind of magic, the setting would lose some of its integrity as than you can start to wonder why certain other things are possible while others are not. What is left is a natural explanation, so we have evolution. Humans evolving into humans with animal heads makes no sense as that implies being seperated for many generations from the other humans. Animals themselves evolving similar to humas as apes did is even more arbitrary, as that would imply several races between the original animal and the endresult animal-head-human. There is just no way I'll find this plausible at all and I doubt this can be changed, no matter how good an explanation is. Telepathic wolves may be lazy design as well, but they weren't supposed to be a player race in my example. I don't expect as much from encounters as I do expect from playable races as the later can only be justified by giving an extended background in the world which the former does not need as much. Regarding the sexualisation of furries, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_fandom#Sexual_aspects 33% sure is much (if those surveys are reliable) so the prejudice is understandable imho.

I'd have no problem with only having the "basic races" as civlized enemies. However, note that I don't have anything against making monsters sentient, just making them anthropomorphic is what I don't like. Magical wolves who are able to communicate with you through their minds? No problem. Beholders are fine, too. I don't see how you get that impression. Most people stated that those races are (most of the time) done very badly and that they just find them unplausible. After all, there are also certain tropes with werepeople and the like. Almost always, the NPCs fear them and the quests you are about resolving the conflict between the beast people and the other people around, where the beastpeople are accused of having murdered the normal people and then you find out it was someone different and everyones happy. I don't need that, either. And the laziness argument does stand. You dismiss the argument with the notion that it would be "lazier" to just exclude those additional races, which implies there is a need for them in the first place. But thats exactly the point we're arguing about. The people who are against them state that if there are to be additional races, those should be unique and interesting, while animal-head races are not to them. So instead of making something boring just for the sake of being there, they should rather let it be and include no additional animal-head races at all. The other point of view seems to be that animal-head races are unique and interesting enough to fill that role.

I don't see where I've made any assumptions about furries expect the fact that I do not like them, but I'll give you that having animalhead-races in the game won't lead directly to furries storming the forum. In the end, my argument boils down to "I don't like them" and that is perfectly fine imho, just as stating that you do like them. As far as explanations go, I wouldn't be satisfied with the ones you gave.

What am I supposed to be dishonest about? As previously stated, I don't like / need the concept *and* it breaks my immersion. It's not like I said the later as an excuse so I don't need to say the former. It breaks immersion because I find the concept to be unplausible. How do such beings come to live? Evolution makes absolutely no sense here (otherwise, there should be several stages inbetween the animal and the animalpeople) and I find the all-purpose explanation of a wizard did it to be lazy design. I prefer low-magic settings where magic is not all potent. I can only speak for myself but most of the things you are referring to I find just as bad as the proposed player races, although some of those races are better than others. Although I will admit that I have less problems with slaughtering them as playing them. I also have no problem with werepeople turning into the animals (mind me, not some mixture of human/animal but from pure animal to pure human).

That is because you lack a imagination. They do not have to be cute. Did you ever watch thunder cats? I don't know what to say. Honestly who cares about furry lovers. Gaming forums like these are already filled with complete dorks. The was already had a armor thread with 10k posts of complete nerdgasm. There are already infinte amount of rpgs out there where you can play as your bbw strong built white man useless cute race only there to give gays players hard ons... see what I did there? This whole furry hate argument is incredibly dumb. I don't see what this has to do with imagination. I can imagine catpeople, I simply don't like it, independent of them being cute or not, and it is immersion breaking for me. The furry hate argument is not an argument but simply an opinion which people have - your argument of them being cool is not much different. They don't like it, so they are against it and that is perfectly fine. Nobody is telling you to stop liking it. Also, I prefer dorks to furries.

Somehow I don't like the attitude in this thread, especially when it comes to monks and barbarians being a subclass of the fighter. With the same reasoning, there is no real need for any classes except the 4 base classes. Cipher? Some kind of mage. Chanter? Support mage. Druid? Some kind of nature cleric. Paladin? From the description given, he's just some charismatic fighter. Ranger? Thief or fighter, choose yourself. I believe classes should only describe mechanics and not what they represent as characters - just as obsidian stated, purpose ready but not limited to that purpose. NPCs in the game shouldn't reflect my class either, only what I do in the game should be important to them. After all, its just some artificial tag given to your character. In my Ideal game, every class would have a unique set of abilities which only belong to that class and automatically imrpoves with level. The monk would be fast and magic resistant, for example. The fighter has bonuses on equipment. Mages have spells. You get the idea. Then, what makes your character unique is the feats you choose to complement those abilities. Those would have prerequisites tied to your statistics or your lvls in your class (so for some melee feat, you have to be a lvl x fighter or a lvl x+2 ranger or ... and so one.) or other feats and be chosen on lvl up. Those feats would be accesible for everyone given the prerequistes are met, but certain characters can access them earlier than others and they would constitute the most part of character creation. So what does this system achieve? - Your character is defined by the archtype you choose (unique class bonus) as well as the theme you will give him through feats - Classes act merely as templates and are seperate from what you want to play. They overlap without that being a bad thing. Therefore, if you want to play a certain character, several classes become viable. You want to play a samurai, for example and you could go with fighter, ranger, monk or paladin as the base class. You could teach the character swordfighting and roleplay him as a samurai, but all of those 4 samurais are stil distinct to play, given the class abilities feel unique enough. The difference compared to DnD 3.X is that this system removes more class abilities and makes them available as feats for everyone to take, while the remaining class abilities are fleshed out more and non-combat abilities are a distinct progression independent of class. Especially, mages don't get the ability to emulate every other class as they do in DnD with their various spells for every purpose.

I never was much into PvP in NWN, so I don't know if you're referring to those munchkins builds, but if you are, those most often didn't made any sense from a roleplaying point of view. You can offset some of the differences with equipment of course, but I do think its a major advantage if you are independent of equipment (which is the case with mages in these games). I think DnD cares way to much about buffs from magic wielders.

I don't have a house cat so your argument is invalid. On a more serious note, I don't see why I *need* to stop using that argument. If this gets into the game, such people will eventually be here and I don't want that. Besides, a samurai cat shooting fireballs I certainly do not like. For me, that would be immersion breaking on a whole new level. If I wanted to see something like that, I'd be playing one of the thousands JRPGS/MMORPGS out there were almost every game is supposed to have some cute useless race. I'd rather have them cater to my taste, for once, as it is certainly harder to find something that satisfies that (an immersive world) than finding a game featuring animalpeople as a playable race.