TRX850

Teenage brats with superpowers. "Smithers, fetch me the guillotine..."

It's not about having an xp addiction. It's about allowing the reputation system to handle your choices, and affect the story around you. - If I kill a merchant in cold blood, other merchants in the area may double their prices or refuse to serve me. If I am faced with the latter, I am now forced to look elsewhere to buy and sell items. So I've lost out. - If I complete a quest for a neutral quest-giver (for xp), then betray him by killing him and all his cronies (for xp), then other factions aligned with his may deny me future side-quests. So I've lost out. - In the previous example, I could still coincidentally kill some or all of the creatures in one of those future side-quests (for xp), but I would no longer be entitled to the finishing quest xp, because I wasn't able to establish it as a quest. So I've lost out. - If I kill a local hero in cold blood, then I should expect assassins everywhere. I should expect merchants to call for the authorities. I should even expect my own companions to leave the party if it was against their "alignment" or ideology. So I've lost out. See where this is going? If you played the game as a law-abiding sneaky diplomat, merchants will do business with you. Friendly factions will do business with you. Local heroes may join with you or offer you clues, info, or side-quests. Playing an evil hack-and-slasher means you now have to seek out darker quests and quest-givers. Shady merchants may appear. Anti-heroes seeking vengeance may enlist your services. It'd be a very different game, and the end-quest could provide some unique surprises. The xp gain for these two scenarios may be quite different overall, or they may even balance out. It's hard to say without knowing how the devs will place opportunities for either situation. But at the very least, neither play style should be denied xp for their choices.

^^^^ That's why it's so important to have the reputation system play a large part in handling these extreme cases. If you're "in character" and playing a chaotic evil blackguard, being ruthless is one thing, but stupid evil choices should also come with a commensurate penalty. Be it everything from simple future quests being denied to you, to bounty hunters actively seeking you out, and people/vendors everywhere shunning you. It doesn't mean it's impossible to play the game, but you've accepted it will be an incredible challenge, by always limiting your easy options with morally questionable/reprehensible behaviour.

TrashMan, I really like your avatar. It's cool. I want to ask you though, if you were playing BG1/BG2 as a Blackguard and making evil or morally questionable choices, how do you think objective only xp would cover that?

For those who want to play a Blackguard for example, killing in cold blood is a legitimate play style. So the design solution needs to have a combination of combat xp, quest xp, and reputation management. All three elements work together to serve all play styles.

Favoured Spell [Arcane Talent] - Per encounter use - The wizard pre-nominates one offensive/defensive spell per spell level, which is automatically quickened. Using 3.5ed as a guide, a 5th level wizard might nominate: L1 - Chromatic Orb L2 - Web L3 - Fireball Then he/she may cast ONE of these as if it were quickened, i.e. zero casting time, per encounter. Other castings of the same spell during that encounter are as normal, as are all other favoured spells. This does not preclude the use of other meta-magic feats.

Still working for that tabloid newspaper then?

What about a Cipher Rage ability? Like Akira. Build up to Cipher+ status for a short duration, followed by fatigue. I can't find the right image, but the bit where he becomes "Migraine Boy" in a corridor and his enemies explode into bloody soup.

If a wizard runs out of spells, they can still fight with weapons. So I imagine that's a simple alternative for a Cipher too.

I don't know if it's assumed yet, but would the Cipher have to concentrate on ONE effect at a time? Maybe that's the main limiting factor? He/she has to focus their mind for the duration, or the effect is lost.

Absolutely. I see them behaving more like a Use Magic Device skill, in that they'd always be a few levels behind the class ability they were emulating. And yes, more individual and nuanced effects would make the Cipher stand alone from any one class.

It'd make sense to have something like this as part of the plot, maybe? Otherwise players will rage and reload. Got me thinking though. Thumb screws all round. Edit: Spellcasters could be forced to wear a "Brank" for a set duration, magically locked to prevent tampering. Can't see that happening though. Or maybe they are "hobbled". Ankles broken then set incorrectly, like in the film Misery with James Caan and Kathy Bates.

Chameleon Skin - Hide skill receives bonus equal to Cipher level. Summon Intellect Devourer - Summon 6 HD creature for 30 seconds plus 10 seconds per level. Light Storm - High intensity strobing light effect. - Target AoE or individual enemy. - Will save or become dazed or confused. There are many other arcane spells that Ciphers could emulate. - Sleep - Identify - Ray of Enfeeblement - Blur ... all the way up through the spell lists.

I'm just trying to think of ways a Cipher could emulate arcane spell effects. Then add a twist. These suggestions are by no means absolute. Trying to think how an enemy might react logically to something like sudden encumbrance. Maybe there could be a separate ability that forces the enemy to drop amour. Drop and Give Me Twenty - Enemies drop their armour then hand over 20gp. No?

Gravity Well - The Cipher targets an AoE or individual enemy. - All carried items weigh considerably more, potentially encumbering the enemy. Amount scales with level. - Similar to Slow effect. - Intelligent creatures must make a will save or drop armour, weapons and other items, starting with the heaviest item first.

I want XP for learning how to take a p*ss while wearing full plate armour.

Which is why it's better to let the P:E reputation system handle a player's choices, particularly the extreme ones. If you took Option B above, then your NPCs have every right to walk away from you, providing it's obviously against their faction ideology. If they all walked away, most players would simply reload and choose a less-extreme or even sensible option.

"Evil round every corner. Careful not to step in any."

I agree with the OP. Players should at least have the choice. If you're unconcerned with your in-game reputation causing "good" NPCs and quest-givers to ignore you, it would be a very different game indeed, and offer interesting replay value.

You could achieve this with functionality that is already most likely to be in the game, without a huge amount of extra work. - Uncap the Sleep spell so it scales with level. - Allow more mid-range spells and combat options to create a Stunned / Dazed / Sleeping / Unconscious effect on enemies. - Buy rope. It now has a use beyond abseiling. - During combat, once an enemy is placed in a temporary state like the ones listed above, have a player click the "Bind" ability (common to all players) then the enemy in question. - Make a successful Bind [sTR] skill check. - Set hostile enemy's intention to neutral. - On a failed skill check, the enemy reacts as normal. But if the enemy is unconscious for a while, allow skill re-checks after a cooldown period (similar to stealth attempt). You might have problems with large and/or non-humanoid creatures though. How difficult would it be to bind an unconscious drider? You could even have a Bind spell. Once a creature, even a large one, is unconscious, cast Bind on them (allow a saving throw), but the effects are (semi-)permanent. And again, set their hostile state to neutral. If you then left the area and returned hours/days later, maybe all bound enemies are now gone but counted as defeated, with little or no xp.

No such thing ever existed in Dune. In the David Lynch movie I mean. Some "behind the scenes" trivia here about why they used the Weirding Module in place of the Bene Gesserit martial art known as the Weirding Way.

Hey man, thanks for replying. This ^^ thing here about reputation. I mean if your character accepts a quest, completes the quest, then returns to the quest-giver for a reward, then slaughters the quest-giver (and his people) it should negatively affect your reputation with future factions. That example is pretty much how they've described degenerate gaming. A kind of double-dipping on xp, with no consequences. But if a player knew that his/her reputation would take a dive from this sort of behaviour, and potentially mean lost future quests (and xp) then they might think twice about doing it. Degenerate behaviour is really a chaotic evil play style, because you're betraying your employer in effect, or just killing innocent people. If they acknowledged that behaviour as evil, they could let the reputation system handle it, instead of designing ways to prevent it. If you want to play a psycho nutter killing machine, you should be able to, but you also accept the consequences. I.e. don't let moral high ground affect the design of the game, let your moral choices affect your reputation. Easy peasy. PS. I'm an atheist too.

Some kind of Brainiac device?

Also reminds me of the Weirding Module from Dune. Instead of a vocal/sonic source point, the Cipher could have an intellect/soul source point, and be able to deliver physical damage via non-melee means.

Psychokinetic Ability Persuade Mechanism - Entice non-magical locks into opening. - Entice non-magical traps into disarming. Psychosensory Ability Detect Trap - Divine traps within close proximity. Maybe the Cipher will always be a certain number of levels behind a maxed-out rogue in this department. Maybe traps/locks are particularly draining, so possibly inefficient during a dungeon crawl.