Malkin

I believe you should be able to attempt to steal everything, but I don't believe you should be able to steal actually get away with every time if your skills are high enough. I mean what kind of merchant does not notice you walking out of their shop with 5 new swords, and a full suit of plate armor stuffed under your robes. If anything there should be more of a beak in at night while the shops are closed, and then you should run the risk of real repercussion. For instance being branded a thief, and having merchants and guards know this about you when you walk into a shop. Also merchants should treat stolen as stolen and offer you less or more depending on scarcity of an item. A well respected merchant is probably not going to want your stolen goods. As far as merchants not knowing what goods are there. Blacksmith, armorer, and other craftsmen having been marking their goods for centuries as a way to show off their craft, and skill. They should at least be able to tell their own work from another trades man. Edit: I selected the Elder scrolls option.

I've played many games where by the end of the game I wanted to be hugely powerful, and able to wade through wave of enemies with my party. If i've spent tens of hours leveling my skills, and progressing my characters then shouldn't my character be mightier than the average monster. I mirror the comments above discussing how HP is really just the represenation of how much punishment your character can take before being lost. I always feel that you should not bring too much reality into this game element. Otherwise how would you explain your character being able to withstand a magical fire blast, or a sword slash to the chest. By keeping HP low, all you are doing is scaling the game to lower set of values. For me I think the classic way to improve HP should by spending skill points to increase conditioning. A good example of this was back in the M&M series where bod building granted you additional health for each skill point you placed into it.

And if you were the hero, seeking to rid the world of this powerful lord, wouldn't you approach that lord with the necessary protection from death spells? If you enter the castle of a great lord with no clue at all about what he might do to you, or what you might need to defeat him, I say let him wipe you out. It's a good lesson . I see your point, and agree that you should expect this kind of thing from a wizard of a certain level of power. I just still don't enjoy the frustrating portion of these types of spells. It adds to frustration and a needed save/load situation. I think this is especially true in a game where there will be perma death for party members. Even with buffs to protect from time to time your going to run into a insta death for a party member and then going to have to start over with a new party member.

With the 2 hubs I would almost want to see a faction system where your actions affect how 1 or both cities perceive you. This could be related to your stronghold where you swear allegiance to one faction to gain benefits, and or build a powerful stronghold to maintain neutrality. Also as far as hubs I agree that there should be some changes depending on how far along in the game you are, and what choices you have made. I think with the thoughts behind limited medicine in the game you could have events like plague, or other diseases that could sweep through the cities/ make the inaccessible due to quarantine.

I've always hated insta death spells/skills. I think it just adds a frustrating aspect to any boss/battle. There are so many games where you end up with a random encounter/boss battle where the first spell cast wipes out half your party. I would rather that this types of spell be left out of a game. Besides if you were an evil lord who could cast insta death spells wouldn't you just do that the first time our heroes show up to foil your evil plans?

I would really only want rare artifact drops, but they should actually be worth it. It should take a good amount of effort to find good stuff. loot for the sake of loot is just junk that you sell for cash anyways.

You could always handle it like the Might and Magic series. As you got older your wisdom stat went up and you strength went down. So choose to be old and have a higher base wisdom and lower base strength.

I'm less concerned abut the instant lack of instant healing spells, and more concerned with how disease and sickness are going to be balanced. Am I going to get a cold/fever and suffer stat penalties then have to wait a week in game by sleeping before it's removed. Or am I going to get bitten by a giant rat during a quest make it half way to a rest area and then die in a road ditch because there is no/limitied medicine. With no/limited healing it make it more likely sickness and disease become unbalanced killing machines that frustrate the player, and I will need to hear more about how these ailments will effect the play before I can really judge if healing is needed in game.

I agree with you. I think the game needs to stay consistent throughout in how it treats it's reality. You need to build a world that feels real to be able to immerse yourself.

I think it's a terrible idea to allow respec. In my opinion It goes along the lines of games are too hard/challenging so lets make them easier on the player. I'm not saying the game should be impossibly hard to beat/frustrating in the extreme. I just miss the strategizing and planning that made "old school" games so fun to play. It makes every point a tactical decision rather than a meaningless choice. For me it also indicates that you have a broken skill/stat system set up. If you are constantly respecing it shows that certain skill are pointless to have, and that most characters will fall towards the "broken skills" that are required in order for your build to work. .

That's sort of how the mix-and-match enchanting works in 3rd edition D&D with all of the +Xs. Considering they don't want Scale Mail +Xs floating around though, they are definitely going to need an alternate system in place. That doesn't mean some of the stuff in place in D&D can't be carried over though. For example, item hardness strikes me as a good way to compare material durability -- if you want to enchant leather to be as tough as metal, what you are actually doing is enchanting it to make the item hardness match up. If they did this though, they'd probably want stats for other factors of the material. Maybe a stat for item "flexibility" where the higher the flexibility stat, the less hampering the armor gets. Then if you get it high enough, it can enhance the character's own movements. I could see a system like this working. It would be more invovled, but would also make it a area where you could spend more time/effort to build your unique armor sets for you party.

I agree. I think it's one thing to change weapons which could be done quickly on the fly, but changing a whole set of armor is not a quick process, and should be done prior to battle.

I always come back to the issue of enchanting when questions armor restriction based on class. Why couldn't you enchant leather to be just as strong as plate, but more flexible or chain to be silent, ect. I would like unique crafting/enchantment system that would allow you to build your own. If you want to wear plate as a weak mage then you can either pay a NPC to make it lighter, or make your leather stronger. I think this could even tie into your strong hold by either recruiting stronger NPC, or locating better resources/arts to change the variety that can be produced.

It depends on how EXP is earned. As mentioned in previous postings if EXP is unlimited then I don't mind having to go back and level the characters who are left behind. If EXP is limited then this would really force you into sticking with the first party members recruit. Also since there will be a stronghold I could see having non party members receive EXP for a job like systems. Protecting the townspeople, guarding trade caravans ect. I think the job system worked well in Final Fantasy Tactics. Where you assigned a job, and then a small amount of EXP/JP were received. This way they would receive some EXP the longer you left them to their task. This could also become a tactical decision by giving certain classes bonuses for job assignments ect.

I voted FOR quest related. I enjoyed the Bloodlines style, but felt that this limits developing a character. I felt I had to do all the quests I possibly could, not just those I wanted too complete because of the desire to level a character. Reward questing/events to give a great deal of exp while fighting and killing should still give minimal exp. Edit: Also why not assign a negative value to NPCs. Or some sort of negative soul value that would limit your options on available quests/factions.