TRX850

The axe analogy aside, the real question is what happens to a magic weapon with a string of bonus properties when it gets damaged? Would the game engine randomly reduce/remove/disable item properties or damage output until you repaired it? And could it be repaired by mundane blacksmithing skills, or would it require magical blacksmithery?

Also reminds me of someone's NWN walkthrough suggestion of having a hell hound (100% immunity to fire) as your wizard's familiar, and sending it out as a combat decoy, then fireballing it and all surrounding enemies. Rinse and repeat.

I've never been sure about the option to repair magical items, because you get the "Ship of Theseus" Paradox. A common example is something like "Grandfather's axe has been in the family for years. We've replaced the handle three times and the head twice, but it's still Grandfather's axe." This is especially problematic for high level items that become damaged, then repaired by mundane means. Where is the threshold between mundane and magic?

I'm ok either way with the idea of repairing armour or weapons that have been damaged, if there's a sensible system that allows it, so that early in the game for example, if you had the requisite skills you could make extra money from improving the resale value. But once the party is equipped with magical gear and acquires more gold, the issue fades away.

By night, a dandy highwayman. By day, a door-to-door cosmetics salesman. Because even a thief needs a "real job" sometimes.

Psychokinetic Abilities Spontaneous Combustion - Causes a single creature to erupt into gouts of flame. Convert Element - Turn an enemy's metal armour into leather. - Neutralize poison. Psychic Weapon - As Mordenkainen's Sword. Attack enemies anywhere on the battlefield, from a "safe" distance. Clairsentient Ability Remote Viewing - Divination similar to Wizard Eye.

Like a summary of their current spell pool, or special abilities. That'd be worth knowing just prior to combat. A "Data Thief".

We should start thinking about merging some of these threads now too. Maybe folks could submit 2 lists here. One list of spells they used most frequently, and another list of spells that were rarely or never used. And tell us why. Off the top of my head, in IWD2 in the Ice Temple, I'd cast Improved Invisibility on my Sorcerer, sneak into a room full of Ice Trolls, then take them out with Sunfire. Oh, the satisfaction! Spells I was least likely to use were the ones that didn't scale with level, like Minor Mirror Image, Summon Monster I, and most spells with the keyword "Minor" in them. I have other suggestions for both lists. Just need to take time and go back over them all.

Loot, whether in a chest or worn by my about-to-be-barbecued-enemy, is an abstract form of reward, or should be. Otherwise, apart from player aggro, there have to be special rules to ignore magic or plot items (including parchments) from being destroyed, which seems like a rather messy system.

We need a better Lightning Bolt spell. For too long, this spell has had a description similar to this from NWN2: Range : Straight line extending 100 feet Target/Area : Chain of targets in a straight line Now, the above image is merely one example of real lightning, and most AoE spells are likely to out-perform "straight line" spells because a straight line of enemies is a comparatively rarer event in a modern CRPG, as opposed to the old PnP game where a good DM would "line up the enemies" to appropriate squares. I don't recall using Lightning Bolt very much at all in IE games because it always felt somewhat wasted. So perhaps use the image here as inspiration to tweak the target area into something more like a tapered rectangle or cone shape.

Apocalyptic Boneguards.

I would prefer if they didn't dumb down your dialogue responses based on intelligence. It might have seemed a legit design consideration in NWN, but I found it very difficult to read, and conversations took twice as long to resolve. Also, they need to be careful with modern English too. It bugs me when I see words like "Okay", "I guess", "sure" etc. And modern shortenings like "gonna" always make me cringe. And going too far the other way, into Shakespearean territory, often leads to a player having to decode what's really being said. I think the original BG had the balance just right.

Yes, just one example there. Do we know much about souls yet, and how they could be manipulated? (Apart from what's already in the wiki I mean). It has to translate into a useable mechanic so it can be compared to other effects like combat and spellcasting at least.

I'm thinking Ciphers could capitalize on "the power of suggestion", i.e. planting illusion-type effects in the minds of their opponents, and among other things, affecting enemy positioning on the battlefield. If a Cipher "suggests" a fireball illusion, it could make enemies scatter or disrupt their spellcasting. Same with suggesting a summoned frost giant has joined the battle, distracting front-line enemies and causing enemy spellcasters to waste offensive spells (assuming they were unable to detect the illusion). So in a way, they could emulate illusionist wizards, but they would have to concentrate on each suggestion/illusion, rather than "fire-and-forget".

Something like this, mayhaps?

What if we had the option of displaying the local map as PnP style on graph paper? A fitting nod to the tabletop era, because a game should never forget its roots. And you could annotate it in "faux pencil" too. (btw: why do my attachments never embed themselves in the message properly? <mumble> <mutter> )

The option to equip a cloak to your off-hand and get all "cloak and dagger" on your enemies. But instead of a shield bonus, you can distract or temporarily blind your opponent. (Might be a headache to animate though).

Anyone remember the curse from Ladyhawke (1985) with Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer? I was thinking, instead of that idea working on people in P:E, what if it worked on weapons? Companion weapons, like a longsword and short sword pairing, unable to both be beneficial at the same time. One is cursed during daylight, the other during night time. And when they switch over at dusk and dawn, the combination of curses and benefits provide the player with some unique abilities and a great dilemma. ????

The new reputation system seems like a step forward, by doing away with D&D alignments, so I'm interested to see how that affects player choices. It might be a simple matter of: if a player attempts to kill everything in the game for the supposed combat xp, their reputation takes a dive, which in turn closes off certain future side quests. Because those quest-givers have heard the rumours and are not interested in doing business, therefore denying the player potential quest xp. Swings and roundabouts.

I was a bit fired up when I wrote that. But I've chilled out now.

Reminds me of Wizard Eye. I suppose crucially, if a ghost-rogue or wizard eye was detectable and allowed enemies to move and attack them, it might disrupt the intention of placed encounters in the area. One group of enemies could end up mingling with another group and so on. But as we saw with the cursed items discussion, anything that can reduce rage-and-reload should be considered as part of the design. Edit: Slightly off topic, what if wizard eye was made into a special ability to be used 1/Day instead of a spell? I'm guessing it never made it into the IWD series because it was overpowered as a spell. If it was handled more like a wizard's familiar, but with a short duration, it could work.

Dwarf Tossing!

It would make sense to have a range of options that affect buying and selling. Charisma / Race / Reputation / Merchant Background / Appraise skill and so on. Reputation could be a major factor to the point where reputable merchants refuse to do business, leaving you no option but to deal with shadier sorts. As long as there are about equal numbers of merchants at either end of the spectrum. Edit: Also Quest Talents. If you become a known hero within a certain faction, the discounts could be "handsome".

My caffeine for the day might not have kicked in yet. All along I've been in favour of a combination of combat xp AND objective/quest xp. The archetypal fighter that kills everything is unlikely to gain xp for successful diplomacy or stealth alternatives, so they won't have the advantage there. I just want a system that equally rewards all play styles over the course of the game (not necessarily with each encounter, that would be a design nightmare), but I would like the xp as I go (if I choose to fight) the way it was always done.

You know anyone can get drunk, right? The Dutch aren't particularly known for their drinking excesses, so far as I'm aware (being of Irish descent, I openly challenge you to a drinking contest.) I hear more about Tulips in regard to the Nederlands than alcohol. You can't make any liquor or beer or wine out of a Tulip, can you? Besides, not everyone is an angry drunk. Some people are happy drunks, some people are funny drunks, some people are stupid drunks, some people are horny drunks, etc. In the context of choosing thuggery as one of your character's traits, alcohol can be used for short-term gains (i.e. fear, taunt, damage) so long as you accept the short-term penalties (AC, concentration, intelligence). I used the word "Dutch" because that's what it's known as in the real world. Some interesting facts here. Also, as was pointed out in another thread, there wasn't much you could really do with alcohol in previous games, apart from the odd fed-ex quest, or intoxicate your characters and walk it off. PS. I may have accepted your drinking challenge years ago, but I'm sure I'd fail miserably at it now, and we'd only end up hugging and slurring our brotherly love for one another. Don't make this weird.