Somna

I'm not quite sure if this thought has come up yet (since it may have zoomed past my glazed eyes), but... We know we have the stamina/health split. So why not use it here? Have physical armor convert incoming health damage to stamina damage, probably in a magnified ratio like 5 Stamina:1 Health. Depending on the incoming kind of damage, different armors (and protections) can convert things differently. So the "heavy" armors can have an easier time converting melee and ranged damage, the "medium" armors can have an easier time converting firearms and ranged damage, and "light" armor has an easier time converting magical and ranged damage, for example. Alternately, the "lighter" armors convert the health damage at a lower ratio (but at a lower limit) and the "heavier" armors convert the health damage to stamina damage at a higher ratio but at a higher limit. Then introduce abilities that let you reduce the damage you take in lighter armors, or increase your stamina pool/bar/whatever while wearing heavier armors. Magical protection can thus convert damage in a fixed ratio somewhere in the middle, except that firearms get to bypass the conversion entirely on a magical barrier. In response, you can have abilities that are more effective while you keep a magical barrier up, like being able to use a fire shield to amplify fire spells cast through it, for example.

Experience/Level costs are only meaningful if there is a limited amount of experience you can get in the game. Otherwise, people are actually encouraged to respec because they will have hit the cap. I'd say it's possible for Respecs to be done and done well, but we'd really need more information about the game to really get anywhere. In the current stage, it's just one side wanting it because of X reasons that aren't related to the actual game and the other side not wanting it because of Y reasons not related to the game. I disagree with that underlined, I am discussing speculations, thoughts, ideas and suggestions even and we could probably reach the moon and beyond with our thoughts and imagination of a valid functional satisfactory Respec system (e.g., "What would I want my Respec to be like in a game like P:E if I got to choose?", "How do I prefer my dish served?", slightly unrelated but personally I prefer lots of spice ). The game is still in a very early phase, and perhaps Obsidian has a completely fleshed out idea on their tables, or maybe they only have 10% briefly outlined (about respec). I think that us discussing actually helps Obsidian in their internal discussion, I might be wrong of course, some statements by Obsidian says otherwise though. Josh asked for input on the Armor Design he presented in Update 29. Chris Avellone also mentioned (not literally, but the jist of it) "people talking on the forums helps us with our discussions" in a recent interview (the Awesome interview with Avellone thread). I'm not saying discussion is useless. It's just that without more information, we're just cycling through the same stuff over and over at this point -- posts of "I want it, and he agrees with me" countered with "I don't want it, don't make it a part of the base game." Speculation only goes so far without something to back it up -- I know I would consider it a waste of time exploring a tangent that may not even be an issue in the first place. As a result, it would be helpful if we had a few more details thrown our way. For example, would they be using something like the trait system in Pathfinder, for example, where you start with a base race and traits and can apply customization to the traits? You can have an elf character that swaps in the ability to use stealth while running and, as a result, loses a standard trait that grants a +2 bonus on spell resistance checks and Magical item ID checks -- something a stealthy, non-spellcaster would probably jump on in a heart beat. (You will have to scroll down to Alternate Racial Traits to see this.) That is something that, if available, would be in the realm of what people expect to be able to change in a respec. Or using something else? Would they be using the equivalent of kits again? Would they be using something like proficiencies again, or doing away with it entirely? How are they determining the requirements for using abilities in the game? it could be point based, where your number of points in a field determines what abilities you get, or could be inherent in the class (and thus significantly harder to argue a respec for). Heck, how many options are already pre-packaged anyway? Then there would be questions on if certain options were pre-packaged, on whether an actual respec would let you substitute options and other billions of possible questions that are a waste of time to postulate without more information. Or maybe the whole respec process is how people get "fragmented" souls in the first place, so you can respec but end up with a reputation hit each time until you're shunned. With the armor information, they've given us a lot of information and explanation about their thinking process for it so far, to the point where people can provide more relevant feedback. We haven't seen anything like that about respecs yet.

The whole wizards in armor issue just feels like a non-issue to me. Since they've told us that bullets are going to be strong vs. magical protections, that gives me the strong impression that there's going to be a kind of rock-paper-scissors relationship on types of protections and types of attacks. I just can't tell mechanically why bullets are going to be strong versions magical protections -- for example, is it going to be stronger because it's a firearm type of attack, or is it going to be considered a blunt weapon attacking and magical protections are weaker to blunt weapons in general, or is it going to be something wierd like magical protections hit by a strong enough ranged attack (that arrows don't normally qualify for) shatter and cause backlash to the caster or...what exactly? And if they're applying this kind of drawback to magical protections, I'd expect the other armors to have similar sorts of drawbacks as well.

Experience/Level costs are only meaningful if there is a limited amount of experience you can get in the game. Otherwise, people are actually encouraged to respec because they will have hit the cap. I'd say it's possible for Respecs to be done and done well, but we'd really need more information about the game to really get anywhere. In the current stage, it's just one side wanting it because of X reasons that aren't related to the actual game and the other side not wanting it because of Y reasons not related to the game.

If by dungeons, he was thinking about places like Ravel's Maze...I'd approve!

Changing gear does not count as respeccing and never has, and actually it shows how respeccing can ruin the impact of gear has upon an encounter: if you can respec yourself to fit an encounter then picking the right equipment for the task at hand is no longer as important. Why take along that mace that kills undead when you can respec yourself to have that anti-undead power that lets you take along that more powerful sword and then imbue it with anti-undead with your respecced powers that you wouldn't normally take because they are so situational? Please read my post carefully. And yes There where completely situational spells in BG2. You could respec your mage very nicely for an undead-encounter. How about: Hold Undead (Necromancy) Range: Sight of caster Saving Throw: Neg. Casting Time: 3 Area of Effect: Special Duration: 2 rounds/level ? [Edit: I just saw that you quoted my unedited post. My fault, sorry, didn't want to offend you with this "read carefully" thing..] Changing your spells prepared and gear equipped is not a respec. "Respec" came from MMOs, where people used to make permanent choices on abilities. Changing your prepared spells is a class feature of mages. Changing your spells available on a Sorcerer, on the other hand, would probably count.

Pretty much. The whole argument itself is popping up because of a fear of extremes--while it's understandable that you may want to respec because the ability you chose to specialize in turned out to not work as expected for your character, it's not fun if the game is designed around being able to hyperspecialize for every single major encounter in the game. In D&D terms, having a spellcaster respeccing as a specialized item crafter during downtime for the cheaper and custom magical items when you have down time, then replacing away all those feats and current skills with ones that help with diplomacy to get past those encounters, then replacing those feats and skills with abilities to make your spells more effective fighting a major encounter would be an example of what respec opponents DON'T want to see happen.

It's really not that big of a deal. And just because healing is specifically at a low, crude level doesn't mean protection/preventative magics are too.

No, he said you use 10 lockpicks for a 10% increase: Which means if you bring 99 lockpicks with you to, say, the endless paths, it'll take only 10 such locks to use them all up. Hey, if it takes 9-10 locks for the fact that your lockpicking is almost there but not quite to sink in... I have a hard time seeing the expendable consumer part being universal, but I do get the point that the skill checks are supposed to be a bit more grey than just a flat number. Kind of like if you fail the skill check to convince an NPC about something based on skill alone, you are given an option to try to bribe (throw in 10*x coins) or perform a service for the NPC to sweeten the deal.

Interesting thought: What if the only way to magically heal yourself was to damage your soul? So if your soul took too much damage, it becomes one of those "fractured" souls that everyone discriminates against?

I think for the strongholds, depending on how fast paced the game is, I'd want the option of building-specific options available to speed up construction/repairs or unlocking stronghold options. For example, Fabricate in D&D lets you do construction at a much faster rate than one craftsman alone, and putting that together with something like a Lyre of Building (30 minutes of playing = 100 people doing 3 days of work, can keep playing till you fail a check) can turn a building project of months into days or weeks. I don't quite like the idea of being stuck with a castle/fort/standard fantasy structure, but I doubt their art department wants to have to deal with drawing a large number of stronghold variations either (short of putting into a DLC). Still have a lot of love for the idea of the Planar Sphere though.

If a stronghold was integrated into a city, I think it would make a lot more sense if it was control of a significant building (or set of buildings) IN the city rather than the city itself. For example, the possibility could exist to take control of a well known (and well supplied) library in town (regardless of your class). The library can then provide some sort of research/spellcaster themed alternative option to any circumstances that comes up in the game plot -- without otherwise being a required option. If they did something like that though, they'd have to limit things.