Somna

Was thinking in IE games. Other games do reward you for avoiding combat, but I'm struggling to come up with examples as blatant as that huge XP mine of a conversation in Planescape:Torment between you, the Paranoid Incarnation, the Practical Incarnation and that other incarnation (who's theme escapes me at the moment). And the XP was huge because you were pretty much re- discovering really important secrets about yourself if you met the stat requirements and chose wisely.

Sure, in Planescape: Torment.

What I think would be really interesting is if that opened up a limited use ability for a character to be able to repeatedly dimension door as part of his attack. The actual distance traveled wouldn't exceed one regular spell, but it's appealing to be able to attack in a Nightcrawler style.

I did say a lot, not all. But I know I wouldn't rest spam in an area that was giving me a 90% encounter rate when resting, which honestly felt like a lot of the dungeons/towers/caves/etc in the previous games in my experience.

Or you can send in summoned minions to take the traps for you. Minions. Is there any problem they CAN'T solve?

See, that choice is kinda what I'm arguing for. While I don't know how effective that skirmish option was, if they made sneak attack an option rather than there by default it would make for more possible rogues that could fit different playstyles. Want to be the backstabbing assassin? Then you can take the Assassin branch and develop things like sneak attack, but if you want to be a pirate instead you could take the 'YARR' branch instead that gives you other skills like dirty fighting techniques! [...] I don't know if I will break any rules with a direct copy/paste, so I'll just summarize. Skirmish gives you bonus damage and bonus AC in any round where you move at least 10 feet. The bonus damage follows the Sneak Attack rules in terms of immunities (i.e. can't be crit immune) and who it can affect except that the flat-footed restriction is replaced by the previously mentioned movement restriction. Damage only goes up every 4 levels instead of 2 and only applies on damage on the user's turn. The bonus AC takes effect as soon as the 10 feet is moved and lasts until you start your turn again. There's also a light armor only restriction. It's a lot easier to get Skirmish off but you do more damage with Sneak Attack. Yeah, Skirmish is ridiculously easy to use (especially with a bow), but the low damage bonus often made me wonder if it's actually worth it because moving more than five feet makes you lose Full Attack. With a decent weapon and maybe a feat or two (I'm looking at you, Rapid Shot), you would actually benefit more from standing still, unless you had to relocate to fire around a corner or something. Depending on how much splat you incorporated, there are ways to move 10 feet or use your swift action for a move action (and thus trigger Skirmish) and still be able to get a full attack off.

To be honest, you could do this in 3rd and 3.5 Edition D&D as well. It's just so feat intensive that it was clearly not optimal.

If Lockpicking and "Read Ancient Poetry" are actual choices (and yes, I realize they are examples), the simple balance between the two is that while Lockpicking unlocks the obvious chests and doors, Read Ancient Poetry unlocks information and destination choices. For example, you could have an old statue in town commemorating some event that has an inscription in the "modern" language of the game, followed by the original script below it. Without sufficient ranks in the "Read Ancient Poetry" skill, the original incription just means what the translation is. With sufficient ranks, the character realizes that the inscription has two messages due to (omitted) word choice, formatting and because of what the statue represents -- the secondary message there directs him to a location entrance and how to enter.

See, that choice is kinda what I'm arguing for. While I don't know how effective that skirmish option was, if they made sneak attack an option rather than there by default it would make for more possible rogues that could fit different playstyles. Want to be the backstabbing assassin? Then you can take the Assassin branch and develop things like sneak attack, but if you want to be a pirate instead you could take the 'YARR' branch instead that gives you other skills like dirty fighting techniques! [...] I don't know if I will break any rules with a direct copy/paste, so I'll just summarize. Skirmish gives you bonus damage and bonus AC in any round where you move at least 10 feet. The bonus damage follows the Sneak Attack rules in terms of immunities (i.e. can't be crit immune) and who it can affect except that the flat-footed restriction is replaced by the previously mentioned movement restriction. Damage only goes up every 4 levels instead of 2 and only applies on damage on the user's turn. The bonus AC takes effect as soon as the 10 feet is moved and lasts until you start your turn again. There's also a light armor only restriction. It's a lot easier to get Skirmish off but you do more damage with Sneak Attack.

A lot of the complaints about rest-spamming wouldn't exist if it wasn't possible to just save and reload until you get uninterrupted rest. Unfortunately, options to reasonably limit that without going into an Ironman mode kind of playstyle would be considered draconian for a lot of the "It's a single player game, stop messing with how I want to play it" crowd at this point, regardless of if they are or aren't. For example, I doubt people would have liked the idea of, say, only being able to save if your party is at full HP, and I know there is some discontent about having designated "rest areas" in the game. (Although I'm pretty sure there has been designated no-rest areas in the IE games.) Another point that gets brought up is that the player shouldn't be treating every battle as a "brutal" battle in the first place, but I think that's been rehashed enough at the point.

FYI, they added a mechanic called "Skirmish" later on that you'd probably use for a Swashbuckler or pirate instead. First time I saw it was with the Scout class, but I don't see why it couldn't be borrowed and thrown in as a Sneak Attack substitute for Rogues..

Your examples of original universes are ME and TES? Wow. e: Pick up something by Mieville sometime. Or Rajaniemi. Or Peter Watts, or Scott Lynch or Felix Gilman or hell even Pratchett or Herbert. If you've been so starved of good, creative genre fiction that Bioware and Bethesda are your go-to for originality, these guys are going to give you a spectacular ride. I think he meant examples of the universes implemented in game form, not all of them. Could have interpreted wrong though.

You know, that's a good thought -- if any class should have a spell sequencing effect (à la Simbul's Spell Sequencer), it should be the Chanter.

....What? Either you're not familiar with the concept of a Ranger or you've confused the tradition of a Ranger having a trusty animal companion with the Druid class' traditional affinity for shape-shifting into animals. Or maybe I'm wondering if they're going to not going to make the name necessarily match what people assume it does. We already have evidence that Priests are going to be more like Paladins and Paladins are going to be more like Warlords. So it would be appreciated if you didn't reply back with a response that's a more polite version of "you're either stupid or delusional."

Yeah...instead it was "Do you have a healer in the party?" Planescape:Torment really illustrated this by not giving you Fall-From-Grace till waaaaaaay further in the game. Difference with and without her was night and day.

No. I hope there will be no shapeshifting and stupid stuff like that what u can see in DnD. DnD is the least making sense fantasy setting in the World IMHO I prefer Westers or Adventuria much much much much more than Faerun which has only a cool name of the continent. When all the classes are being given magical abilities, I wish you the best of luck with that hope. If you're lucky, either it won't pop up or it would be kicked over to Barbarians.

I'm expecting something similar to the Dervish Dancer archetype in Pathfinder, only with singing instead of dancing. Well, for one possible aspect of Chanters that is, although bards fighting with step-dancing/jig or tap dancing kind of tickles my mind.

I know they are pegging Rangers for the ranged attack specialists, but I think it would be interesting to also give them the option to be shapeshifting fighters as well.

We're all selfish for wanting a new game, so that's not really a bad thing. And hey, there you go -- you fit it in a better sentence too.

You're getting closer. I don't want developers to beat us over the head with "HEY THIS IS THE WAY YOU DO IT." But, it would be nice for those who don't know to get a *gentle* (and I mean gentle) nudge in the right direction. I don't want tactical combat to be completely explained to the players: they need to figure it out. But put them on the right track. For example, show them that buffs work. Then they've got to figure out which buffs to use. Everyone should be exposed to a wizard casting Time Stop, followed by 4 PITA buffs. That'll drive the point home REAL fast.

In essence, do you want something more like multiple occurring plot lines, where choosing to involve yourself in one can prevent you from meddling in the other plot lines at that same point? For example, let's take a city -- you're probably going to have various guilds and factions in the city all having their own agendas to do. For the sake of the example, let's say on week two, day three in the game, the factions that have something going on are a church, the local merchant's guild, Stereotypical-Wizard-In-A-Tower and the local authorities. The church is hosting some sort of event and needs errands done throughout the day, some a bit shadier than others. The merchant guild is trying to get a hold of an incoming shipment of ... unusual ... goods. The Wizard happens to want something hidden in the church. The local authorities want to confiscate the unusual shipment. You could just flat out ignore everything, or you could choose to support one or more of the factions. You might even choose to double-cross a faction in some cases. Using the merchant guild/local authorities conflict point, the shipment that the local authorities and the merchant guild are in odds over is a shipment of communication devices that are set to communicate with an outside party at odds with the local authorities. If you start investigating (regardless of who it is for), it shifts the delivery to a more hazardous route because the deliverer is alerted through divinations to your poking around (but not who you are or who you work for) and attempts a riskier route to avoid detection. If/When you located the delivery, you can work with the deliverer to take it to the merchants or take the shipment to the local authorities. If you were working for the authorities, you can also pocket one of the devices, take the rest to the authorities, and give the merchants the remaining one. Alternatively, if you were there at the merchants' behest and found out what the devices were for, you could take it to the authorities first, let them add tracking or spying magic on them, and THEN take it to the merchants. If the merchant guild is successful, they offer you a black market option as a thank you and are able to progress in any plot to destabilize the current ruling class of the city. If the local authorities are successful, guards for the area you were working in will take your side in any public disputes/fights that get out of control provided you're not in a lot of them. But it took so long that you're not able to help the church with its events, though you might be able to help out the Wizard...but it would be harder since you're not sneaking in during the church's event, so anyone who sees you knows you're not supposed to be there. Of course, for anything like this to work, time has to become a relevant factor (i.e. no rest-spamming or you miss out on stuff).

"Somewhere over the past few centuries, Latin became the "ominous" language" - orly? What about the fact that throughout the European Middle Ages, Latin was a very ominous language to the common people? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin Incomprehensible languages have always mystified and intrigued those who couldn't understand them. http://en.wikipedia....iki/Abracadabra - sorry for the OT. It's the name of the trope. It doesn't have to be in Latin to be ominous. Some of the examples quoted are, say, Ominous ENGLISH chanting or Italian or gibberish or....

Speaking of Latin... and knowing that Josh loves Darklands... will PE have a "high language" that is used by wizards and/ or the clergy? That would be awsum (also as an inspiration for the title) Sounds like it's time to cue the Ominous Latin Chanting...

You mean turn off in the standard difficulty? Expert doesn't have a toggle -- it's just permanently off.

It's more tactical in that it wants you to focus more on accompilshing the mission/job/whatever, not exterminating the entire map, squishing every single bag of XP that pops up. Another previous comment makes it sound like there are going to be specific designated rest areas, so depending on how frequent they are, you may be heavily inclined to avoid combat as much as possible.