Lephys

Sorry for fallin' behind a couple of days. I had a really busy weekend. Your titles are being forged in dragonfire as we speak. Er... type... and read...? Edit: Croikey! The mighty Fionavar is so high-level, he can cast multi-target title-weaving spells with no incantation!! He beat my apology by like 10 seconds!

I things like "hitting hard" tend to get applied a bit too generally when people read them. Your Rogue being a "heavy hitter" does't mean he runs in and goes "It's CLOBBERIN' TIIIIME!". It just means that, in the grand scheme of things, and in the abstraction of damage and targets, the Rogue doles out some of the highest damage amounts to individual targets, when used properly. It doesn't mean you have to "do a lot of damage" as in "your sheer base damage value is high" or "all your hits produce oodles of damage, because you're just super powerful" or anything like that. They basically (the Rogue and Ranger) specialize in creating opportunities to then take advantage of, to make the most of their strikes, rather than just plain smashing defenses and such. I imagine there are certain foes that make that a lot tougher without the direct support of the rest of the party, and other foes against whom it works amazingly without much help. Thing is, the Rogue can't always just run straight into any given situation and start "hitting hard," nor can a Ranger just pick a nice spot away from the frontlines and simply dish out effective arrows-to-the-eyeball. So, essentially, it's a very specific, active style of "heavy-hitting." Not just a "this guy is your powerful damagey guy" situation. I dunno, maybe calling them "Cleverly-effective hitters" would eliminate any thoughts about a direct Might/DPS/what-have-you affiliation? *shrug*

But, why would you restrict that spell to just the villain? Players can cast Finger of Death, so why can't they cast "Destroy Universe"? Or, to make it more applicable (since the goal of combat isn't really to eliminate all matter in the universe), let's go with "kill all (insert creature type here)" as a spell. Would that be okay, as long as there was a possible way to affect its chances of succeeding, and why would it be restricted, if it were restricted (to "just the villain," for example)? Also, that's not a counter, because the spell isn't targeting any other universe. That's like saying D&D has a passive counter to your whole party dying: rolling new characters! 8D!

Everything else doesn't revolve around counters, though. Not "hard" counters, anyway. But then, an effect like Death can ONLY be hard countered. That's an objective truth, as well. You can either: 1) Die, or 2) not-die. With a given regular weapon attack, for example, you can: 1) Dodge it 2) Have armor mitigate the damage but still not nullify it all 3) Reflect part of the damage (via some buff or something) to offer up a cost for the hit 4) "partially dodge" it (graze in PoE) 5) Affect its likelihood of being a critical hit with active/modal defense-bolstering abilities 6) Actually counter-attack or perform some other action that's relevant to having just been hit but living etc. In comparison, it's just so simple, to be honest. Everything else affects your ability to kill something, and an insta-death spell simply IS your ability to kill something. You're looking at a crowd of factors, all painstakingly designed into the system and balanced and everything, in support of this elaborately tactical stage, then, you just pick the simplest two factors you can find: "accuracy" and "defense" (whatever names they go by). Again, ANY other effect in the game, even after it succeeds on its chance roll -- sleep, stun, burn, just-plain-damage, blind, etc. -- is variable in its result. AND, they all have chance as a factor, because they all use dice rolls. Thus, look at a system in which there are no dice rolls. Would you have all the same choices in there for abilities? "Hmmm... I could put that guy to sleep, or I could firebolt his face, or hit him with my sword, or I could blind him, or poison him, or shield bash him, etc.... OR, I could kill him instantly." Guess what? Even with the removal of chance-based hit rolls, everything else still functions just fine. Things still have cast/usage times, and finite damage/effects/durations, and the system still functions. Only now, there's never any reason not to use as many insta-death spells as often as possible. Without insta-death in, you'd still have to figure out how to kill the enemy, with the tools at your disposal, before they kill you. You'd just be missing the whole chance factor that makes things a little more interesting. But, hitting that guy with more armor still results in less damage than hitting that guy with less armor, etc. Hitting things with a fireball still only does so much damage, etc. Why? Because the combat system is built upon so many other factors that are all still standing. Chance isn't the core of the system. It's simply one, single factor. A single factor upon which insta-death's remote wisp of viability relies. Because, if it didn't, it wouldn't make any sense, at all. Also, the only thing special about most magical spells/effects is the means by which they're created/achieved. I can paint myself to be camouflage, or I can cast a magic spell (in a fantasy RPG) that produces the visual camouflage to make me look just like a tree without any painting involved. There's nothing magical about being camouflaged. Hell, there's not even anything magical about death. Finger of Death stops the heart? Awesome. You know what's possible, even without magic? Heart-stopping. And you know what's even able to be PARTIALLY done? That's right. Heart-stopping. You can DAMAGE someone's heart, but still not kill them. In fact, if a big scary dragon or other magic-possessing being is so awesome, then you'd think, in the amount of time it has before it runs out of oxygenated tissue from its heart stopping, it could simply restart its heart. It's not like it's going to save versus its own spell, right? Hell, electricity can restart a heart. So, how about you name one thing that dispenses death, in the real world. Not dispenses damage or some other effect that then LEADS to death. But, something that actually just produces death. Death isn't even a substance or energy or thing. It's just a state of not being alive. Or, in game abstraction terms, having 0 HP. Also, why didn't someone just come up with a spell that detonates a creature's brain? Then there's no way it could possibly come back to life, because it would lack the capacity to do anything about its injury. Why were the D&D gods all like "Hey, no, we should probably draw the line at heart-stopping, which is actually not that hard to undo, especially, one would think, in a world full of magic that doesn't need explanations because it's magic, u_u"? So... if there was a "destroy the entire universe" spell, it would be totally fine, as long as there was a chance to stop it from succeeding?

And, on that note is another very simple but very useful sound option: A distinction between voices and "sound effects." So many games have explosions and clinking swords drowning out what people are saying sometimes, or causing me to turn the "sounds/sound effects" volume down, only to realize that I need to turn it back up whenever people are talking, because it now sounds like they're whispering. Very useful distinction, 8P

^ Indeed. And there's no reason you should be absolutely sure of a whole enemy group's makeup in anywhere close to every single situation. Good scouting could easily lead to always at least having some idea of what you're up against, but there's no reason you should just easily big-brother everything, then prep accordingly before every fight. Besides, you end up with tools in the enemy's hands, like Mass Dispel or something, and *poof*. The player's time is wasted by the game's own design. The only things that are already "balanced" are circumstantial factors, because the require reaction, on both your part and your opponent's. Buffs should really be a lot more about when and how you use them, than just "+bonus! +bonus! +bonus!" on people's passive capabilities. It helps to have some minor drawbacks, too, sometimes. Maybe Stoneskin, for example, actually slows the target's movement speed. Thus, you wouldn't want to just slap that on people all the time, because it's not just a free bonus to armor rating.

I didn't misconstrue anything. You just don't get it. You cast Finger of Death. Why does target have heart attack? Because "divine being." Thus, why is that being able to stop ANYTHING'S heart? Because divinity. Thus, what CAN'T that being do? Whatever isn't in the spell system, as set forth by the creators of D&D. You seem to be incapable of reading people's words, then actually attempting to apply them to the notions at hand before dismissing them as nonsense. I figured you were perfectly capable of connecting "anything goes" to the idea that a spell can do anything as long as its source of power is a divine being. Why? Because it's a friggin' divine being. But, see, I didn't want to type all that, and you're now just going to ignore it all/LOL at it anyway, so I'm not sure why I bother. But, you still haven't answered the simple question: If you were designing your own fantasy RPG ruleset and world/lore, would you draw a line anywhere, in terms of a ceiling for abilities available to a player-character (or really, any character, for that matter)? And, if so, where would you draw it? Also, you act as though the ability to shoot fire is equally as fantastical as the ability to divinely stop any living creature's heart. Even though anyone with a flamethrower can shoot fire, albeit from a few feet in front of their fingertips, and yet not anyone can touch something into heart-stoppage. You generally have to administer an actual substance or drug to the creature, or mechanically damage its heart beyond function. Besides, no other "binary effect" (sleep, daze, blind, etc.) enters into the territory of damage versus HP and builds itself a throne on the top of the mountain, declaring itself king. "Oh, you put the enemy to sleep if you work? I MAKE IT NOT-ALIVE! MUAHAHAHA!" All other effects just help you work toward the goal of making something dead. "Make that thing dead" spells just do the job for you. And, again, if those are acceptable, as an effect extent, then why not "this spell completely wipes dragons off the face of the earth"? It's either convenient that a deity can't do that, or convenient that there's no deity in existence that WOULD do that. The only reason such ridiculous-extent effects were ever put into the game is so that the player could at some point go "Aww man, that was awesome! I was so powerful, I can poke things to death!" It certainly wasn't because they were mechanically in sync with the rest of the system. "Hmm, percentage chance to just give the enemy a status effect and/or deal some finite amount of damage? Or percentage chance to DEAL INFINITE DAMAGE?! You choose, player! This is TOTALLY a flawlessly-designed system! 8D!" It literally serves no objective purpose in the design of the system. Every time I point out the tiny chance of it working on some big scary dragon or something, the ONLY response I get is "it's such a low chance, it's not even feasible to try and use." So, the system's arbitrarily allowing it to happen, even though it's not really intended to be done. But then, why would you use it on not-so-tough enemies when you've got so many other things to use? "Hmmm... I could use this big fireball, that will happen to do enough damage to kill this thing instantly, OR I could use this spell that kills things instantly!" The only reason you or anyone else has given for this is "there are enemies who are really hard to hit/damage via other means, so that it's actually really useful to take them out with that spell." So... an insta-death ability is justified by the existence of foes specifically designed to be countered by an insta-death ability, and those foes' existence is justified by an ability specifically designed to only be significantly useful against specifically designed foes? Seems legit.

Yeah, I think the main thing most games do wrong with this is to not balance the sheer content. I mean, if you wanna, for example, make armored enemies even more armored later in the game, that's fine. But, that doesn't automatically mean it's fine to just start making more and more enemies armored. You have an offense, and a defense: extra armor piercing/higher damage, versus higher armor/DT value. That's a factor pairing. The trick is balancing that against other factor pairings,. All the system balancing in the world is meaningless if 80% of the enemies in the game favor one-or-more of the distinct "tactical" factors. It also helps to have overlaps. A la, a high-damage weapon may not pierce armor (based on whatever criteria you use for armor penetration -- weapon type, sheer PER value, etc.), but it STILL is going to be more useful against higher DT ratings than a lower-damage weapon. So, instead of the counter to heavy armor being armor penetration, high-damage works, too. With the optimal solution being the highest damage AND penetration you can find, in conjunction. Then, maybe you've got the ability to debuff or otherwise detriment a foe's DT-rating, etc. What makes this all tactical, though, is in how it is achieved. You have tools that serve various purposes under the right circumstances. Also, it's never just about one factor. Even when you've got the "I can pierce through 10 armor, and that guy's got an armor rating of 10," you're not golden, because you still have to effectively deal with his ability to kill you and/or prevent you from hitting him, etc. It's kind of a dance. It's gotta have a lot of active factors in it, too. If everything's just a passive factor, it doesn't work very well, because then it's just "do some math"/rock-paper-scissors.

Yeah, I don't think the problem is so much the ability to cast buffs technically before battle starts (as opposed to just before the fighting actually "begins," but after the start of battle), as much as it is with the whole premise of stackable buffs, in the first place. But, especially when you can just casually cast 10 things outside of combat on, say, your Fighter, you have to look at it from a capability standpoint. How much of an advantage does it give you to do that? If it's a huge one, then it's something there's pretty much never a reason not to do that's making all combat encounters that much easier. "I just negated all the effects of the enemy's combat group makeup BEFORE WE EVEN CLASHED! HAHAHA!" What's the point in having such varied enemies to have to cope with if you provide an easy way to simply never have to deal directly with those enemies' unique combat factors? If it's not a huge advantage, then either those spells are kinda pointless (if you have to stack 10 just to get a "meh" advantage), OR, combat is balanced against your stacking those spells like that, meaning it's essentially "necessary" (not every single fight, but, in general, the game bets on you doing that, and if you don't practice pre-buffing, you're pretty much not going to make it through the game). In which case, aren't there more fun ways of designing that in the first place, than requiring the group to just pre-buff up before going into combat, just to gain a fighting chance? So, I dunno... it's kinda hard to limit spells cast before combat without simply denying the ability to cast any of them at all. If you have spells that can be cast at any time, and they last X amount of time, then you can stack them all, THEN enter combat. You either have to make them all really short-duration (which hurts in-combat functionality and design), or only let them be cast within combat (so that your casting decisions are tactical and meaningful, rather than just freebies). I very much think that Mr. Magniloquent's idea is a good one; quantity limiters. However, it still seems like the quantity of spells on a given character should be more limited outside of combat than it is inside combat. If you can manage to get 3 spell effects on someone WHILST being attacked by a whole group of enemies, that's one thing. But, if you can still just do it for free outside of combat, then, well, you've got the benefit of a quantity limit at least (so you can't just stack 18 spells, then charge into combat), but, it still seems like there's a better way to do it than just allow spell-stacking before combat. I mean, same thing with traps, sort of. Sure, you can lay traps before combat, but, just putting a cluster of 17 bear traps, then luring the enemy group into that one blob and killing them all is a bit silly, really. It's kind of anti-tactics. The combat encounters are supposed to be easi-er if you do it right, not just-plain effortless. Also, you'd think a cluster of bear traps would be much easier to spot than just individual ones. Kind of like how a group of people is easier to spot sneaking around than just one sneaky person. So, maybe have traps lose like -1 from their Spot-ability DC if they're too close to each-other? Something like that... Anywho, I think there's plenty of room for pre-combat preparation without specifically casting duration-based beneficial spells on characters before entering combat. There are a lot of ways to do it. You could even do things like allow each person to have 1 prepared spell/ability (supportive/augmentative) that auto-activates at the beginning of combat (basically when your party goes "All right, let's DO this!" if they've got the jump on stuff, or "Oh crap, BATTLESTATIONS!" if you didn't know about it beforehand), whether on that character's self or another friendly target, depending on the ability. Or, maybe you couldn't use these if YOU didn't initiate combat or something, *shrug*. Or, maybe it's as simple as "once you successfully cast the first 'round' of spells, the enemy gets to act," so you just control it manually just like pre-buffing, but you don't have to jump out waving your hands and yelling before you get to cast buffs and stuff. *shrug*, I just really don't think casual effect-stacking is a good thing to need in the game, in any capacity, as there are much more engaging ways in which to allow for preparation and meaningful buffing. Spell-stacking just turns level-up/progression power partially into stacked spells. "You're more capable because you have more effects to stack on yourself before combat even starts." At the very least, if that's the intent, then you might as well just let them all auto-activate instantly at the beginning of combat, even if they were to still take up Vancian "ammo" each time until you rested. That being said, I'm also very much in favor of a lot of utility spells being castable and useful outside of combat. Like Light (to visually lure enemies), etc., as Nonek and others had mentioned up near the top. But, for the most part, I think combat is best served by borrowing Vegas's slogan: "What happens in combat, STAYS in combat." . For the most part...

Thanks for the sincere response, Mr. Magniloquent. And yours and Stun's, Tajerio. What Tajerio said is basically how I feel about all this. And here's why... Sure, magic can "bend reality," okay. But, the reason I'm asking "where do we draw the line" is, if things like Finger of Death are simply the will of a divine being, and the explanation is "*shrug* they can pretty much do anything," then why isn't there an "erase this person from the fabric of time" spell with just a really statistically tough saving throw, that you can cast on the main bad guy (who's surely done enough to wrong some specific deity to warrant his will being for such a thing to work) and cause him to suddenly never have existed in the first place? Thus, altering the whole world in a blink of an eye, a la Back To the Future? Why not that? Even D&D is just a game. It was designed from the ground up to be played, by real-world players, and enjoyed. So, it's not as if they just stumbled upon a bunch of lore, and how magic worked, THEN said "hey, we should try to make a game around this, but have no control over the rules of this world." No, they literally invented them all out of the fabric of their imaginations. So, yeah, what I'm wondering is, why draw the line at heart-stopping? And why is a divine being's will rule-istically regulated/balanced in such a convenient fashion by dice roll ranges? I mean, look at Quivering Palm. That's pretty much pure discipline, right? And yet, even it doesn't become a guaranteed thing. Is it like that in the Chinese mythology from whence it was borrowed? "You have a statistical chance of possibly killing something with one blow, so that if you tried like 5 different times on the same target, your outcomes would vary."? I thought people who mastered things like that in martial arts (mythology or not) had either mastered it and could perform it at-will, or hadn't and couldn't. Yet, in a game, we convert it to chance, and regulate it roughly along the threat levels of foes in relation to our own characters' capabilities. Why do we design game rules like that? Why do we balance anything at all? Why is a Wizard designed to be SO weak in early levels in D&D, but be a friggin' master of the cosmos later on? You already hit a certain level, and your spells become so powerful that you can instantly kill lots of relatively not-tough foes with them, through sheer power/ability (damage, accuracy, etc.) extending beyond their ability to defend/survive (health). Why does anyone need the ability to trade that dynamic for a "this effect is completely unrelated to your power/capability, but is simply divinely powerful, but you just have a really low chance of it happening, typically, because arbitrary balance."? And, again, why is the line drawn at heart-stopping?

To an extent, I'd say. It's all degrees, not just yes or no. I think there are a handful of things that are blatantly overly restrictive (like how a game that can represent someone with 3 Intelligence still allows Intelligence checks and such, but somehow DIVINELY prevents a Wizard's hand from clutching the hilt of a given weapon). But, also, there are just multiple ways of doing it. Allowing multi-classing is one way of achieving build variation, while simply implementing individual classes with a lot less restriction is another (kind of the one PoE's going for, it would seem). I don't think one approach is really any wronger than the other. It's all in how you implement it, and what your goal is in the design. If you have a class system at all, you obviously want some sort of distinction/restriction between characters. So, whichever system you use, the more restriction you do away with, the less point there is in even having a class system in the first place. But then, there's obviously ways to put too much restriction in. So, it's a happy medium, and each method has its own factors to deal with to get it right.

Why is actually giving a crap about mutual understanding some kind of shunnable trait in a person? That's the better question. You can stir flour and sugar all day long, but without milk and eggs, it's never going to become cake. Comprehension is the binding agent for the cake batter of discussion. The even better question is: Why is it fine for certain people to speculate, but wrong for someone else to speculate differently? And the followup, why is criticism of my speculation totally fine, but my defense and/or clarification of my own speculation is bad and dumb? TL;DR... if you don't want to hear me explain something, don't prompt responses from me. And if you don't want analysis on how you've misunderstood me, don't ask how you've misunderstood me. It's not as if I'm making things up to which to respond.

*sigh*... If person A says "this is true," THEN person B can now actually correct them, definitively, and it's not just "well that's your opinion." If person A simply says "I'm worried this might happen," then person B can't actually correct them on anything. But, person B can still say "Here are ways in which that wouldn't be able to happen," and they aren't correcting anything, or challenging any opinions. They're simply supplementing the discussion. That's what I'm "claiming" is true, in the portion you bolded. This is relevant because you accuse "random posters" of telling you you're wrong, which I have yet to see here. So, it seems as if you're simply perceiving people's supplemental opinions and perspectives as corrections or truth claims. *shrug* From this... ... I don't gather what's causing it to "seem" as though I've taken such a stance. I'm very curious to know, so that I might avoid giving people that impression in the future, because all I'm doing is responding to your words with my own perspective on the matter. The reason I'm quoting you is because we're addressing the same things. You seem to be defending your opinions from my opinions, for some reason, and I don't know why. And, apparently it's because I seem to be correcting your opinions, which I'm not doing. So, seems like if I could take efforts to not make it seem like that, we could avoid an awful lot of back-to-back clarifications and "I never said"s. *shrug*

I can't say what will happen, but it seems that the intended design thus far is that you'll actually have to use your abilities, regardless of whichever ones you choose, if that's what you're asking. As Josh put it, when he had Class A in the party and played, he missed Class B's abilities, because they were actually very useful in ways he could no longer replicate. And, likewise, when he swapped in Class B for Class A, he then missed Class A's abilities. Since there's variation amongst class builds (however much there is), I believe the intent carries forth into that variable zone, as well. So, I'm not sure if you're asking if they'll be like plasmids in Bioshock, in that you'll have like 10 different abilities to use with a character in a given battle and you won't really need them for anything, or if you're asking if they'll sheerly be ammo we won't really need to expend. But, either way, I believe that the answer is the same: stuff will be necessary, in its own way. You could probably pick any one ability from your available list at any given time in the game, and go the whole encounter without it. In some, you might not miss it much at all, and in others, you might miss it a bit, but could probably still do without it. However, I suspect that if you started picking 2, 3, 4, etc. and going without THOSE in a battle, your need for the abilities you aren't using would increase exponentially. Just what I believe, based on what we know thus far.

By patterning of saving throws & defenses. If another PC would have zero, or essentially zero chance of surviving a single ability, then it is too powerful. I also like (in this case) powerful spells to have certain risks involved, like rolling against a consequence table for failing to meet a skill check at time of casting. I meant more with regard to these abilities' use as a tool, by the player. In other words, what is it okay to allow the player to accomplish with a single enemy's saving throw, as long as it's really really "hard" (unlikely) to succeed? The argument is basically that the effect of, say, an insta-death spell is unnecessarily extreme and circumvents all the combat factors that make combat actually tactical in nature. The counter-argument seems to be "Meh, it's super-rare, so it's perfectly fine to instantly kill whatever." So, I'm wondering: where do you draw the line, and why? I mean in the design phase of this. Not necessarily in-game mechanic specifics. Just... the idea, from the "I'm developing an RPG" standpoint. When do you say "No, that would be an issue, as an ability"? If getting loot-but-not-XP for something's death isn't ever a valid benefit, then I don't see how getting XP-but-not-loot from something would be a very valid drawback to a spell.

I don't know what's making me seem to take that stance. I simply said that you'd have to put each point into either one or the other. In other words, they share level-up resources. No, I don't know for a fact. It seems that they share level-up resources, from that little 2-line quote I posted above, from the update. Thus, I'm in no way disputing what you've said. I was simply talking about focii/branches for build type. A build "tree," if you will. At the very least (meaning there COULD very well be much more to it than this), you'd have the "beef up your companion" branch and the "beef up your Ranger" branch. Thus, with 10 points, you could spend 'em 10 and 0, or 7 and 3, or 5 and 5, or 3 and 7, or 0 and 10, etc. Yet, all your abilities that still rely on teamwork would be detrimented by the weaker "half" of the Ranger, resulting in different strengths and weaknesses. Maybe you focus on supporting your animal companion from afar while it takes stuff down and/or deals the heavy damage. Maybe you focus on your animal supporting your Ranger by controlling things while your Ranger's shots/attacks do all the heavy-lifting. Or some combination there-in. That's what I was getting at. Absolutely nothing to do with disputing what you've said, or telling the devs not to come give us nice official infos, or any of that. I'm not, and I didn't say you were. I simply stated what was true IF you were claiming such. Which automatically covers what is true when you aren't claiming such. The point was, you're implying that your mere observations of possibilities/concerns with the limited knowledge we have with the given system are perfectly valid (which they are), but then, other people's mere observations of possibilities which would alleviate/take care of such concerns (and are perfectly feasible within the confines of the presented system, I might add) cannot simply be that, and must somehow be claiming that the game will definitely eliminate those concerns or be devoid of those problems. I don't know about you, but I can't summon a statement from Josh Sawyer with the snap of my fingers, so I, personally, choose to put what effort I can into voicing what seem to be valid ways of addressing valid concerns with the in-progress system, until such time as we hear official word on it from the devs. Why is saying "Hey, FYI, here's a way to make sure that doesn't happen" somehow "shooting down" questions and concerns? I just meant that if each Ranger AND animal companion each performed as almost the equivalent of a whole, individual character from any other class, then having 12 characters would probably make the game pretty easy. Which is why the functionality of animal and Ranger need to be well-integrated into the overall Ranger class, so that they collectively function as one, rather than there being some significant imbalance due to their being double-trouble. Which is why that's a perfectly valid concern. But, I also suspect just from the dev team's general attitude and the design of things thus far (that they've revealed) that they've already got that concern in mind with the design of the Ranger class. Just for what it's worth.

What he's talking about is that Josh has said that you won't be able to cast buffs until combat has started. Thus, gone is all the "pre-buffing" as we know it. It's not that buffs are gone. Just that buffing up before starting combat (pre-buffing) is gone.

(DISCLAIMER: The following is merely an explanation of why I took it the way I did.) Since they've already talked about wanting to offer build variation in all the classes, and they've already (in that quote) referred to individually investing progress resources (improvement points) into your animal companion's capabilities and your Ranger's, individually, I just sort of guessed that, at the very least, the minimum of 2 possible main focii in building a Ranger would shift between the effectiveness of your animal companion and the effectiveness of your Ranger. And since they seem to share progress resources, you'd either have to spend each given point on one or the other, in such a case. So, I took it as Josh simply pointing out the merits of both focii, as in "you probably want to worry about both a bit, but you COULD just pump everything into one or the other." I don't understand why when something seems a certain way to you, it's not about your opinion being right. But then, if something seems a certain way to someone else, it's automatically some kind of opinion battle. IF you're claiming something to be definitively true (such-and-such is how the system's going to be, and that's problematic), then someone pointing out how that isn't necessarily true is telling you you're wrong. However, if you're just saying "this could happen," and someone else says "Yeah, and that would be a problem, but this could also happen, so that that wouldn't be a problem," why is there anything to do beyond just mutually note one another's observations and consider them both now? In other words, why isn't bringing up possible solutions to concerns just as valid as bringing up concerns, themselves? Isn't that what bringing up the concerns is all about? Making sure they aren't still concerns in the final product? I got that. I simply took it objectively, as an example that illustrated how an imbalance between other classes and the Ranger class, with its animal companion, would affect things. If there was an imbalance significant enough, and you DID do that (6-Ranger party), you'd basically win the game, versus any other party composition. Even if it was just a half-joke, it still made that good point. It's not as if I was responding only only to concerns about a 6-Ranger party. Also, I think animal companions should get a passive, conditional ability called Snack Attack.

Let me just ask this, of anyone in favor of these "extreme" abilities: If you were designing an RPG like this (like the IE ones and PoE), where would you draw the line on the extent of ability effects, and why would you draw the line there?

I think it's mainly focusing on the things that would physically prevent that character from denying the Rogue the advantage. Sure, bleeding could lead to dizziness (for example), but the statii (statuses?) are separated out like that, already. I mean, that being said, it would be really cool if the system allowed for some amount of "ticks" spent bleeding to cause the target to become Dazed or something. In isolation, that would be really cool. And that would then lead to an advantage for the Rogue's Sneak Attack. But, as it stands, simply having blood pouring from your appendage does not prevent you from keeping your wits about you and denying your Rogueish opponent his sneaky awesome attacks. Using poison as another example, the fact that the "poisoned" status doesn't affect anything but stamina/health loss over time in no way prevents the game from including various different poisons, some of which might worsen over time, and/or apply more than one affect. (This, like the bleeding thing, would be very cool).

Thank you! Just saw it pinned. (hope it was not there all along *shrugs*) It was, but it has a very high stealth skill. No worries,

Just FYI, the current member count is... *drum roll*: 687! Woot!

I'd like to know the specifics, as well, but, we've already got this: With everything that's been said about them, it seems like it's going to be that your Ranger + animal companion, working in tandem, = roughly equivalent effectiveness to any other class. Obviously that varies depending on the circumstances, and what the immediate goal is, etc. But, well, since they're grouped with the rogue as "heavy hitters," I'd say that a Ranger utilizing his animal companion will be roughly equivalent in general heavy-hitter-ness to a Rogue. Sure, the Ranger gets some benefits, like getting to possibly target 2 abilities at once (something the Rogue can't do, because he's just one entity), but, it still looks like the focus is on their collaboration producing the overall effectiveness of the class. And, from that quote above, it seems as though every point-boost to your animal's standalone abilities/capabilities comes at the cost of a point not-spent on your Ranger's, and vice versa. Thus, in the end, it still comes down to both of their powers, combined, to summon Captain Class Effectiveness. In other words, if you just got the animal companion as a whole "character" (without a Ranger), it would be blatantly inferior. Same with the Ranger-minus-the-animal. And, again, that plus the fact that they share hitpoints = easily balanced. I'm not at all saying it can't end up being imbalanced with them being overpowered. I'm simply saying that nothing about the sheer fact that "a Ranger" is essentially comprised of 2 individually-capable entities inherently causes the system to be horribly troublesome to balance out. And, for what it's worth, they seem to be already addressing this balancing consideration. So, we can point out plenty of "make sure this doesn't happen" notions, and that's perfectly helpful. But I, personally, don't really see a reason to just worry about the system inherently making the Ranger overpowered or anything. That's all. And, for what it's worth, this isn't an opinion war or anything. You've expressed your concern, and I'm simply supplementing the discussion with my perspective on the matter. You can have an epiphany, or think I'm crazy and don't make any sense, or anything in-between, and that's fine. I'm simply pointing out what I see, in case it's of use to anyone, in regard to how the Ranger and animal companion will compare to other classes.

It only looks like they're overpowered if you're not comparing 12 apples to 6 oranges. A Ranger's animal is an inherent part of that class. It's not 2 entire individual characters; one character, two entities. It's not like for every talent/ability another class gains, the Ranger AND his companion BOTH gain a new talent and ability and skill points. It's the same with Wizards and their familiars; Familiars don't just get a whole 'nother Wizard worth of Health and Stamina and spells and attack damage. They simply function as a sentient tool of the Wizard's. So, between the fact that they share health/stamina pools (which we don't even know will be any larger than any other class's pools, just that they'll be split between 2 entities), and the fact that many of the abilities just listed in this update require the coordinated efforts of both the Ranger and the animal companion, I'd say the basic framework is for them to be very much not-overpowered. Of course, they could end up being overpowered, but it won't simply be because there are 2 entities instead of 1. If the dev team didn't think of that 3 seconds into the Ranger design, I dare say they wouldn't have had the capacity to make ANY intelligent design decisions thus far, and we'd all have formed a huge disgruntled mob after like... Update #5 or something. Also, I get all the concerns over supposed restrictions like Rogues being melee-specialists, and Rangers being Ranged specialists, but, Josh and co. haven't figured it all out yet and carved it into stone. Personally, I don't mind if, say, Rangers are about 60/40, ranged-to-melee, and Rogues are vice versa. In terms of overall "build-a-bility." In other words, if you want to specialize SOLELY in melee, as a Ranger, you suffer just a little bit (you don't quite get perfect trade-off options for what you'd get with ranged stuff). This way, you can still be like 90% melee, and still use a ranged weapon as a backup, and take strategic advantage of some spiffy ranged abilities/benefits without at all having to focus on "ranged" as the core of your build. As long as those ratios aren't much higher than that, I don't mind if it's not 50/50. Don't wanna see any 85/15... "You CAN build a Ranger who uses a sword, but, *chuckle*... man you're gonna suck!" And Josh has replied here saying that he's going to make sure they give melee capability its fair share of consideration for Rangers, so, that's quite comforting. That's the kind of stuff I've seen them doing from the beginning of the project, which is why I keep encouraging people to simply point out things they feel might not be getting enough consideration, rather than assuming they just don't care about it and that they just want to tell us how to play their game.

Sorry for the title delays, as I, your humble title request collector, have been a bit busy for the past couple of days (I haven't even read update 71 yet! I know! o_O). Welcome to our most newest and folkiest of folk. ^_^ You should see a nice, quite official welcome shortly. Trust me, it's much better when it comes from a mighty green dragon. Welcomes from slow, pink pokemon are just pretty weak. 8P