Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

TRX850

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    632

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    6

 Content Type 

Everything posted by TRX850

  1. TRX850
    "Scourge of the Deep" - Barbed whip crafted from (depending on scale) Kraken or huge Jellyfish tentacle. - On Hit: X% Darkness, Y% Poison, Z% Pain. - Granted Feats: Improved Disarm / Trip. - Cold Resistance: 10
  2. TRX850
    When you loot important documents from plot characters or containers, keep it either rolled up like a scroll or a faded colour in your inventory until you actually open it and read it. Sometimes when your inventory has multiple documents in it, it's difficult to tell which is the one you just picked up until you click through all of them.
  3. TRX850
    Some awesome Minotaur concept art. .....................................................
  4. TRX850
    Mech Morph [Psychometabolic Ability] - "For when you absolutely....positively....got to polymorph-into-a-mechanical-fighting-machine and kill every last enemy in the room..." - Level 5 [Mechanical Warrior] - Level 10 [Mechanical Crab] - Level 15 [Mechanical Mammoth]
  5. TRX850
    I imagined it to be like "Heart of Fury" mode in IWD1&2. Enemies have much higher HP and do more damage, but give a lot more XP. Need to remove level capping in that case.
  6. TRX850
    Mind Harvest [Multi-Tiered Clairsentient Ability] - Target one creature - On a failed Will save, the Cipher receives vital information from the target. - Tier 1: Special Abilities / Talents / Skill ranks - Tier 2: Combat Strategy [summary of AI/scripting behaviour] - Tier 3: Spell Pool [Per encounter / Daily] - Optional: The Cipher gains +2 to all saves vs. spells/abilities from the target for 10 seconds per level.
  7. TRX850
    Unbinding - Target one Construct - On a failed Will save, the construct is Slowed (45% chance) or Enfeebled (45% chance) or both (10% chance) for 10 seconds per Cipher level or until concentration is lost. - The effect represents a temporary dislodging of limbs and joints.
  8. TRX850
    Living Tunnel A geographic anomaly that drips acid and splashes travellers with bubbling sulphur. Rockslides and falling stalactites are also known to target passers-by. A deep, gusty wind wheezes back and forth, like the trachea of a living, breathing mountain. Half Man / Half Cave [boss Level] Living walls of flesh, grafted with a fearsome array of slashing sword arms and abhorrent limbs, all controlled by the transplanted head of an experimental but misguided vivisectionist. "Sincere apologies, but I'm all out of anesthetic..."
  9. TRX850
    If NPC's have background professions, they should be able to earn a living doing that while away from the party. When you swap a current NPC for a new one, there could be an intermediary dialogue option that confirms what you want them to do. Earn money from: - Soldiering - Blacksmithing - Domestic Trade - Scribing - Teaching - Construction etc. So if/when they rejoin the party, they bring a little extra gold, and possibly a quest lead or some interesting lore.
  10. TRX850
    I was thinking of easily recognisable icons. but I suppose tags could work. I thought of icons too. Then thought, we'd have to colour code them or something, which goes back to the colour blindness argument. But it could still work. Maybe a simple tool-tip when you mouseover, so you can learn which is which when first starting out. I just wonder if having icons alongside text would cause a styling issue though. No way of really knowing until we see a working model. Either way, I like the "tonal" options you mentioned. It would save a whole lot of editorial work.
  11. TRX850
    ^^ Not a bad idea that. Maybe if the options were greyed out, just remove them from the line altogether? One small suggestion though, would be to have the full word listed. [c][o] feels more like a game development app. Whereas [intimidate] [Charm] [Observation] feels more like the fulsome, chunky RPG of old.
  12. TRX850
    I like the idea of putting points into an armour proficiency skill. Using 3E terms for a moment, if my fighter had 8 ranks in armour proficiency, would that mean he/she could wear full plate with no negative effects other than whatever the base armour applies (like armour check penalty for hide/move silently etc) ? But if I then add more skill points, I gradually offset and possibly improve their ability while wearing it? So if I add an additional 8 skill points, it cancels out the ACP penalty entirely? And along the way, the Max Dex Bonus (or equivalent) ? It could also apply to Arcane Spell Failure, which would be an obvious bonus for wizards. Each skill point reduces the ASF by 5%, for example.
  13. TRX850
    I really like the LOTR trolls, with their scraps of steel or hide armour. It gives them a hint of intelligence and "culture" if you can call it that. Here are some other designs from a quick google search. Scary Troll. Hairy Troll. Scaly Troll. (LOTR Concept Art). Thorny Troll. And an on-all-fours Troll.
  14. TRX850
    I thought the setting was on the threshold of new technology and new discoveries though. So while cures could be found, they would still take an appropriate amount of adventuring and investigation time to solve. So the characters wouldn't be able to sleep it off right away. It would gradually worsen (up to a point) until remedied. You gave me an idea though. Once a cure was found, i.e. adventuring + ingredients + lore + alchemy/herbalism?, and the potion/remedy was consumed, it might not cure everything immediately. Maybe the symptom reversal takes time to fully unfold? Maybe the same time it took to incubate? Or slightly faster than that, and maybe the character still needs a good night's rest to fully recover? At least that way, it fits with the setting. It becomes part of the story. It's somewhat manageable with temporary counter spells. It generates its own side-quest. You get to use alchemy or herbalism skills. You learn something about disease lore. And when you recover, you are now semi-resistant to that type of disease. To me, that's a great RPG experience.
  15. TRX850
    The afflicted character could also have a minor stinking cloud effect on them, which would mean close proximity to party members would make them nauseous if a Fortitude save was failed, but would wear off once the sickened character moved away for a while. Maybe party members could even say something appropriate (or inappropriate) whenever the disease-stink bothered them.
  16. TRX850
    They don't have to be crippling though. Disease symptoms, in their simplest form, could be any combination of known states: - Fatigue - Nausea - Blind - Deaf - Enfeebled - Slowed - Unlucky - Silenced - Doomed Even though they wouldn't be individual "icon states", a resourceful party could temporarily relieve some of the symptoms with counter spells/buffs. Certain symptoms like blind, deaf and silenced can't get any worse, but other effects could worsen for every hour or every day the character went without a cure. So even if the disease itself sounds truly awful, like "filth fever" or "slimy doom", they might only be a combination of the above effects, made slightly worse, but the player could at least attempt to offset them while finding a cure. It's all part of the challenge of an RPG, rather than having full HP and abilities the whole time. The worse a situation gets, the more memorable it is.
  17. TRX850
    One of the important factors that stood out for me from reading these posts is the notion of disease foreknowledge. That might be because on the way to the location where you caught the disease, you encountered a druid or healer type NPC with useful info. Maybe you can talk them into giving you a tome with curative recipes, or you just go back and talk to them and they diagnose it for you, then suggest curative ingredients. But yes, the diseases should be very specific, and possibly vary slightly from infection to infection, otherwise, as you say, it could become a nuisance. It also implies there'd be no Cure Disease spell, so you couldn't even buy your way out of it at a temple. And rather than the curative ingredients be found at locations with the sole purpose of providing a remedy, those ingredients could just be part of regular quests or side-quests, so you gather up components along the way, without really knowing what they're for. But I'd also suggest that at least one of the ingredients was more rare than the others. Whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, the party would need to use their adventuring knowledge to find it. A bit like the Nashkel steel problem in BG1, all metal weapons had a disease with a timer delay on them, and whilst it was slightly annoying, you never felt like you couldn't complete the quest, which took a few hours of game play. Not that I'm saying it should take that long to find a disease cure, but if it did, once you finally cured the disease, it would be such a relief and would *definitely* make you more careful next time. And if the next disease was different, requiring different ingredients, it would lead you to different places on the map, so it shouldn't seem as tedious and repetitive each time. I'll add some other ideas once I've "road tested" them a bit more.
  18. TRX850
    There is a fourth way, as I mentioned before; add a timer delay on disease notification. Moving away from abstraction into reality for a sec, you wouldn't know the exact moment you contracted a disease in real life. Incubation periods differ wildly for all sorts of nasty illnesses. If anything, you'd probably notice the first effects while attempting to rest, and end up having a terrible night's sleep. Or if you weren't able to rest (in the game) for a while, then sure, the effects would appear some time after the initial infection. Even if the disease you caught wasn't part of the overall game quest, it could become a mini-quest in itself. If your party members react accordingly, with dialogue and suggestions for a cure, it could maintain the illusion that it was all part of the main story. So adding it all up: you were warned about the possible dangers of disease in advance, plus your party members warn you in combat to stay back, plus it's obvious the creatures you're fighting are disease carriers, and if you ignore all those warnings and go steaming on in to melee, then the end results are a delayed notification and a mini-quest. Either way, you'll have learned something from that encounter/experience and will possibly change your behaviour next time. Edit: Meant to say, ....AND....there wouldn't be a reload to avoid the effect. Edit: AND....you may also build up a resistance to that particular disease. Maybe each time you contract it, the chance of a future infection is halved? 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5% etc.
  19. TRX850
    ^^ The devs needs to decide whether these two scenarios are workable designs: 1. A sneaky diplomatic pacifist avoiding combat for most of the game, but is awarded quest XP which means (among other things) their combat ability increases even while being mostly under-utilized. 2. An axe-wielding, bull-buggering lunatic that slashes their way through everything, and is awarded quest XP that means (among other things) skills like stealth and diplomacy increase even though never utilized. I would hazard a guess that in most level-based cRPGs, these sorts of extremes are unavoidable, at least in concept, if not in practice. One of the reasons I'm advocating an unbiased Cause and Effect core design is because sometimes when you analyze extremes, you find solutions to mechanics that were previously put in the "too hard" basket which inevitably led to lop-sided behaviour and/or degenerate play. It would be very interesting indeed if the devs designed the game for purely evil and/or non-compliant game play, and then measured how the core mechanics reacted, compared to lawful/compliant game play. I'm only speculating here, but I dare say they'd find ways to improve the overall design.
  20. TRX850
    I read your post! I agree with your assessment of why this whole debate came about. We don't know much about this reputation/faction system yet, but we shouldn't underestimate the potential it has to affect player behaviour in the long term. I'm starting to think of it as a kind of "Big Brother" system that would kick in if I did something out of character. Not simply if I did something unlawful or antagonistic. I see this game accommodating all play styles equally by employing a combination of kill XP, quest XP, and consequence management from a Big Brother system.
  21. TRX850
    So.....doors may require brawn, thievery, or magic to overcome. That's not punishing rogues. That's including them in the solution. Maybe the real scenario is when a player is in a tight spot: "I wish I had a rogue with me right now." Because they are always (?) better at unlocking doors? It still feels like a square peg in a round hole. The solution is lurking somewhere around here, hiding, as always.
  22. TRX850
    ^^ That reminded me of a suggestion. How about putting the weapon/item stats at the top of the description, and the backstory under it? I like some backstory, but once I've read it, all I need to know is the stats when I right-click.
  23. TRX850
    ^^ The rage-quit option is a valid concern. But that is probably based on learned behaviour from older IE games, when it comes to eye-rolling effects like poison or disease. If players were furnished with the right information up front about how to handle disease, it could make all the difference between a nuisance feature and a compelling player-generated side-quest. Who knows, it might even make the character *less susceptible* to that same type of disease as the game unfolds. Would that be a useful feature?
  24. TRX850
    Hey Raz, this debate is still smouldering throughout various threads. So here's my updated view on things. The best real world example I can think of is the separation of Church from State. The State represents the core game mechanics, which should forever be incorruptible and unbiased, and should only deal with numbers. The Church is the game system where morality and behaviour is adjudicated, and either rewarded or punished, based on factional beliefs, and susceptible to corruption and dubious special cases. Which in game terms means, let your character run around and be the character they are. Noble, nefarious, indifferent, and various shades in between. Allow them to make adult choices that reflect their agenda. Only the player knows their agenda, not the game engine. However, if/when they do make choices that require a behavioural check, then apply the full force of the factional reward/punishment system. It allows freedom of choice to play against the system. To earn XP from whatever agenda the player has decided, and then accept the consequences of their actions. Don't ever bring morality into the core game mechanics.
  25. TRX850
    Clearly, you didn't read this thread.
×
×
  • Create New...