Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Agelastos

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    250

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Agelastos

  1. Agelastos
    In the sense that they are not exactly the same thing, true, but, as you said, like the D&D Psionic, they fill what is essentially the 'mind mage' place in various Fantasy game repertoires. Their description doesn't really leave any other possibility. The role is described using the setting's internal logic of souls, in the form of soul manipulation through mental prowess, but at the end of the day they're still using their exceptional minds to do the fantastic. So the point isn't moot so much as you've shifted away from it intoto semantics and hair splitting, as a manner of dismissal. The fact that Ciphers manipulate souls, and all magic in P.E. is soul-based, makes all the difference in the world to me. That means it's just another kind of magic. It doesn't draw from a completely different source. I didn't mean to be dismissive, but I've barely slept in 72 hours so I don't have the energy to argue. Especially since this isn't even my native language and I have to struggle with pretty much every post. I don't like psionics in Medieval Fantasy games. That's my opinion. You have a differing opinion. That's fine. I don't see why it has to turn into a huge argument.
  2. Agelastos
    Sounds an awful lot like goblins. Apart from the hairy ears thing.
  3. Agelastos
    The point is moot anyway. Ciphers aren't psions, even if they'll probably fill the same niche.
  4. Agelastos
    I have to third this assertion. If the dungeon is supppoed to have 15 levels, then how is fresh air, water, and food being brought in to see to the needs of the inhabitants and how is all of the waste being handled? If it's populated by undead or clockwork creatures, then that eliminates a lot of the questions of biological viability, but it still leaves unsolved the question of why all of those entities are sticking around after all of these many decades or centures of abandonment. Something has to account for their presence. Maybe there are no inhabitants in the lower levels, except for (giant?) subterranean insects that get in where the walls have collapsed, and/or supernatural creatures for whom air, water, waste disposal, etc. isn't an issue? Maybe it wasn't a problem for the original inhabitants because the dungeon was actually built as a tower thousands of years ago, but has since been buried by the desert sands?
  5. Agelastos
    Vikings, the classic raiders and traders, could be considered "adventurers" of a sort and might dabble as hired muscle, but mercenaries are just that: a professional (or at least semi-professional) military force for hire. Mercs are hired to carry out someone else's agenda and adventurers are more properly thought of as enacting their own agenda. I guess it all depends on your definition of what an "adventurer" is. "Soldier of fortune" and "adventurer" are often used synonymously, and "adventurer" is commonly used as a euphemism for mercenary in fiction (the same way that a grave robbing thief might refer to himself as a "treasure hunter"). Besides, the mercenary companies of the Medieval and Early Modern periods were usually as much freebooters as they were professional armies for hire, so if a pirate is an adventurer then so is a landsknecht.
  6. Agelastos
    I never said that. I said that it was MORE of a sci-fi concept, and that it often felt out of place in (Medieval) Fantasy settings. THAT was the point I was trying to make, especially in my third post. Maybe I wasn't very clear. It can be a bit tricky to debate in a language that isn't your mother tongue.
  7. Agelastos
    If mercenaries aren't adventurers, then who are?
  8. Agelastos
    Believable? As in completely devoid of monsters or anything even remotely supernatural? How avant-garde. I like it! Edit: Nevermind me. I haven't slept in... forever.
  9. Agelastos
    Bah! The Sōhei's got nothing on the Yamabushi! Ninja monks ftw!
  10. Agelastos
    The Orlan will obviously look like a mixture of Ferengi and Hobbits, only with hairy ears instead of feet. Duh! Edit: ... and two-toned skin. Which is... weird.
  11. Agelastos
    It's definitely not "too late". Not by much, in any case. That looks like a late 15th/early 16th century landsknecht (mercenary) outfit (at least if your remove that ridiculous makeup), which would be perfect for P.E. Also, "adventurers" often wore very garish outfits during the Renaissance. Far more so than the nobility, at least during the Counter-Reformation. Edit: Ach! Beaten to it.
  12. Agelastos
    Illithids? Githzerai? *Btw could be good examples of two paths for cipher. Manipulate other's will or form the world with your's. The Illithids are abberations believed to hail from The Far Realm, a plane beyond the known Multiverse full of weird lovecraftian beings (doesn't get much more sci-fi than that). The Githyanki and the Githzerai were created by the Illithids from human slaves. I'm okay with them since they're not native to the Prime Material Plane, and because they're so rare. They still stick out in more "traditional" high fantasy settings, like Forgotten Realms, IMO, but since all settings are part of the same Multiverse I guess their presence is justified... Unfortunately, that rule can be applied to pretty much any creature from any D&D setting.
  13. Agelastos
    Polish Winged Hussar armor (mid 17th century). Roman-style parade armor of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (mid 16th century).
  14. Agelastos
    The problem with how KotOR2 handled alignment shifts is that, while it may have affected their appearances, what items they could use and how much Dark and Light Side force powers cost, it didn't change their personalities in the slightest. At least in BG2: Throne of Bhaal and DA:O when you converted someone to your way of thinking, it changed some of their dialogue. In DA:O, if you "hardened" Alistair, it could even have an impact on the ending.
  15. Agelastos
    I said that it's MORE of a sci-fi trope, and that I find it a little bit out of place in fantasy settings (I don't mind it though). The fact that a lot of fantasy novels, films and RPGs have been using sci-fi tropes, and vice versa, ever since the New Wave of the 60s and 70s doesn't change the fact that psionics is first and foremost a sci-fi trope, just like magic is first and foremost a fantasy trope. The separation is meaningless, and needlessly restrictive of creativity. I might as well go about burning the last several decades worth of sci-fi.fantasy cross overs and mixtures, of which there are more than I could rightly count if I were to believe otherwise. We'd lose some of the most definitive Fantasy and Sci-Fi out there if anyone were to mind the pointless generalizations. Don't get me wrong, I'm personally a big fan of New Weird and Slipstream. I just think that if you're to use stuff like psionics in Fantasy, it can't just be something that's thrown in there as an afterthought, which is often the case (like in most D&D settings - Dark Sun being the only exception that I can think of). There are some sub-genres of Fantasy (mostly of the Science Fantasy variety) in which it feels right at home. Dying Sun, for instance. Or Sword and Planet like Star Wars, I guess. But it usually feels horribly out of place in Medieval Fantasy. But that's just my opinion.
  16. Agelastos
    It wasn't really meant as a serious suggestion. And when I wrote it, I was thinking of a small village with maybe two or three weapon vendors, not a big city (since they tend to be very rare in cRPGs, if they even exist). Excellent point, though.
  17. Agelastos
    I said that it's MORE of a sci-fi trope, and that I find it a little bit out of place in fantasy settings (I don't mind it though). The fact that a lot of fantasy novels, films and RPGs have been using sci-fi tropes, and vice versa, ever since the New Wave of the 60s and 70s doesn't change the fact that psionics is first and foremost a sci-fi trope, just like magic is first and foremost a fantasy trope.
  18. Agelastos
    This particular kind was popular in the 14th and 15th centuries.
  19. Agelastos
    They're called sabatons, and they were tapered like that (à la poulaine) because that was the fashion of the time. As simple as that. Also, you wouldn't walk very much in them. Full plate was almost exclusively used by cavalry troops. Poulaines, also called crakows.
  20. Agelastos
    and his competitors would raise their prices.
  21. Agelastos
    There are many different kinds of dark elves, not just Drow. They don't have to look like gothy bondage aficionados covered in Spikes of Villainy™. While I do prefer my dark elves to be cruel and tyrannical (as opposed to just being subterranean elfs like the Dökkálfar, or the elves who never who never saw the Light of Valinor like the Moriquendi), I've always disliked the short, black-skinned and white-haired variety that D&D introduced. If there will be a dark elven subrace in P.E., I hope it won't be another Drow-clone. Not sure if you're talking about BG2 or Hordes of the Underdark, but I loved the Underdark in BG2. One of my favorite parts.
  22. Agelastos
    While I do like psionics, I've always found it a little bit out of place in fantasy settings. It's more of a sci-fi trope. I'm also pretty sure that it's already been established that Ciphers will be soul manipulators. That doesn't mean that it won't be very similar to psionics, gameplay-wise, however.
  23. Agelastos
    Tooltips that can be turned On or Off at any time, using the Options menu.
  24. Agelastos
    Then there has to be a reason why their cultural (cultural is probably the wrong word here - a people doesn't have to be technologically advanced in order to have a complex and sophisticated culture) evolution has halted. Maybe they live in an isolated and unforgiving environment where the necessary resources for developing a civilized society are lacking. Easily harvested and highly nutritious grains, for instance. Or large beasts that can be domesticated and used as work animals. It's hard to develop past the Mesolithic stage without those things. The word "barbaros" referred to anyone who didn't speak the Greek language. It was probably onomatopoetic, an imitation of the incomprehensible babbling of non-Greek speaking peoples. The original definition of a barbarian is a person from a foreign culture. While it was used in a derogatory manner (since the Greeks, just like most other peoples, considered themselves to be superior to all others), it didn't have anything to do with being primitive or uncultured as we understand those words today. The meaning has changed, however, and I think it would just be confusing if P.E. was to use the ancient Greek definition of the word when referring to other cultures. Especially since there is a Class called Barbarian which is designed to be a brutal and "primitive" warrior.
  25. Agelastos
    Gods, demons and monsters who look like anthropomorphized animals are pretty common in real-life mythology, and real-life mythology is by far the biggest influence on the fantasy genre. I can think of a number of gods who are commonly depicted as elephant-men, yet I can't remember any myths that mentioned... say, Ganesha, having to fight off ivory poachers. Minotaurs, centaurs, fauns, manticores, etc. are all pretty common in fantasy, so I don't really see what the problem is, as long as we're talking about rare supernatural beings rather than playable races.
×
×
  • Create New...