Lephys

^ Sneaking is a completely different animal, though. Also, it's only the base numbers that even remotely seem low. With sneaking, for example, once an enemy was investigating (which you almost have a 50% chance of), the evasion numbers (unaware ranges) would shrink drastically, and the alertness chance would increase drastically. Anywho, different animal, and that's really hard to even think about with the same ranges, heh. But, well, while I see the value/idea behind your "grazes do 1/15th" thing, the system/scale is going for a much broader representation than that, so it would be inconsistent. In the midst of the mathematical abstraction of all things combat, occasional hits that do 1/15th damage (already from a potential range of damage) would be blatantly inconsequential to the outcome of any combat encounter, ever. But, yes, the system isn't trying to directly represent every single action, in sequence, that would occur in combat, all the way through. It's more generalized than that. Sure, that level of representation would be AMAZING. But, shy of actually implementing a system that would do all that with extreme accuracy, the best we can have is a broader representation. You're right about the evading/parrying bit. Your defense is going to be working all the time, no matter what. However, you're not equally effective at defending against an attack at all times. The most blatant example of this is "you're lying on your back," and how that tends to negate almost any defensive rating you have in a lot of games (I think in BG, something that's rooted and/or knocked down provides a guaranteed hit every time?). But, factors change, and the effectiveness of your defense fluctuates with each shift as time passes. Sometimes you have better footing, sometimes you're in a better position relative to the angle/style of the next incoming strike, etc. So, I was just thinking that, in an abstract fashion, that fluctuation could be represented almost as a % chance to receive a defense bonus. So that it's not just bland "this person might hit you, with all things considered into one single lump percentage." *shrug*. I know you COULD put it all into one number, but it's just nice to know when your success was attributed to these fluctuations, and when it wasn't. With a single percentage, you're wondering "how much of that miss was his fault, and how much of that was my doing, as opposed to any other miss?" Sure, it can show "*dodge*" accompanied by an animation of your character dodging, but did your character's specific dodge-ability actually cause this, or did the system just go "Well, this guy has this much chance to miss on his own, or get a bad strike, and you have this much chance to dodge, or your armor has this much chance to deflect the attack, so let's just pool all those things together, spin the Wheel of Defense, and pick one at random to say happened here"? A better example of this (because I don't think I'm making much sense) is critical miss. I know they're not in P:E, but bear with me. A character could attack a STATIONARY object and still critical miss, as it simply represents a very terrible swing (do to whatever factors). However, if two people were fighting, and some kind of defensive move resulted in a disarm, that would be different. You didn't drop your sword... I CAUSED its removal from your hand, despite your nice swing. So, in that case, I'd rather not go through the game SIMPLY seeing weapons fall out of hands, and not knowing what caused it. I'd have no basis for what effects were how prominent. "Are these enemies just dropping their weapons a lot, or is my character's specific use of his shield causing these disarms?" Again, it's not necessary, I know. But, it's just nice when there's some separation of the individual effects. I'm not sure how it'll work in P:E, though. I mean, there are 4 different types of defense that we know of, and they each work against a different type of attack (Deflection and Reflexes don't both work against melee attacks, I don't think). So, it may just be that your Agility or Dexterity or whatever simply factors into the to-hit percentage, passively. *shrug*

OP says (paraphrased): "I happen to subjectively value the idea of pickpocketing in games, but the implementation pretty much dampens it into being uninteresting in every game. I think maybe a game could NOT do that, and it would, indeed, be more than just a subjectively interesting concept, and would make for interesting and fun gameplay." Then you say (not paraphrased): "In any game where my hand hasn't been forced, I have never put a single point into that skill, and despite the passion of the thread's other contributors I feel I am hardly alone." I apologize for somehow drastically misinterpreting that as "No game has ever made Pickpocketing desirable, and I think many others feel the same way." Which is, conceptually, the exact same thing the OP said. Maybe if you had said something like "even games that didn't do it crappily, such as (example here), I still have never felt the desire to pursue Pickpocketing," that would've obviously expressed purely your subjective disinterest in the concept of Pickpocketing gameplay, in general. I truly do apologize if my tendency to miss your intended meanings causes frustration, but it is not a voluntary thing. If I knew what you meant, then I would've reacted accordingly. My reaction to what you didn't mean, or suggestion that maybe you meant something different than what was said, is hardly criticism. I can sadly only suppose your intended meaning from the actual meaning of your words, and not the other way around. If I happen to be mistaken, then anything beyond simply correcting me is a rather unconstructive waste of effort.

^ This. I'd like it if spells and scrolls had their own set of unique effects, instead of simply being vessels for existing, already-limited-and-balanced spells within the class/ability system. I dunno... to differentiate scrolls from wands (and the like), maybe they could be copies of spells, but just never be as effective as the spell itself? Or maybe have some kind of cooldown limitation between them, so they're not just a pile of free ammo outside of the numbers constraints of the Vancian (or, in the case of P:E, pseudo-Vancian) system? *shrug*. Magic's a bit weird in this respect, since you'd never see a Fighter go "Aww man, I'm out of sword attacks. OH, SWEET! I CAN USE THIS WAND OF SWORD ATTACK! 8D!"

Yeah, to make sure I have this right in my mind: If you have a Rogue with a Stealth of over 9,000, maybe he has a 10ft ehh... detection radius, we'll call it. But, enemies have a perception radius (just as your character has in regard to things trying to hide from him). So, it's still easier for him to sneak past a drowsy Human with a perception radius of 5 ft than it is to sneak past an alert Skuldr with a perception radius of 50 ft. Whereas, even though the drowsy guard's detection radius is only 5 ft, it might be really tough for your unstealthy, plate-clad Fighter to sneak past him if said Fighter has a perception radius of 30 ft, since he's got to stay THAT much farther away from even the guard's tiny perception bubble. Also, since your detection extends out in a radius around you, I'd wager that sound's incorporated into that. Of course, I do hope that things that affect sight and sound can modify the radii, be it lighting, armor material, floor material (grass quieter than cobblestone), etc. I only say that because, technically, all that was mentioned was "based on the character's actions." Though I realize that that was just an example of the fact that it could be affected, and not necessarily a list of all the things that can affect your base detection radius as calculated straight from your Stealth skill.

Yeah, but the element of control is merely a chance factor that doesn't in any way handle the extreme value of the summon. It simply turns it into a potential value, with the potential for catastrophe thrown in. I agree with the control thing, however, but I look at it differently: The COST of control. The most prominent/easy-to-think-of example being "I summoned this big strong thing, so now I have a caster AND a big strong thing, but I can only fully control one at a time." Obviously there's leeway there, and it depends on the potency of the caster and the potency of the summon. If you're level 15, and you summon a little badger, I don't think that should cost you full control. But, maybe all your spells are 15% less effective while part of your energy is going toward the dominion of that magical badger friend. Heck, maybe the big strong baddie summon could still do things while your caster also retains control of himself, but suffers an 80% penalty to spell/ability effectiveness while they're both being controlled. *shrug* I think the easiest way to handle that is simply the "if you start casting a spell, you have to divert your efforts of control back to your caster to effectively work the spell to full effect, so the summoned thing is just going to go dormant while you're casting. Then, when you're able to devote full attention to control of that minion, it can function to its fullest." Basically, you have two characters worth of utility. You simply can't have to share active energy between both of them. You can't have your summoned demon thing be casting Hellstorm WHILE your caster is casting Energy Shield. One or the other. Again, doesn't have to be that way. Could be some hybrid. But, I don't think "there's a percentage chance this thing will break out of your control and go apeshyte on everyone in the area, but so long as that doesn't happen, he still gets to be an additional, fully-functional party member" really handles the problem. That isn't to say the "potential to lose control of your summon" idea is useless or dumb. I just don't think it's enough to handle the issue at hand on its own.

I would call it... STEAMPUNCALYPSE!!!

Agreed. Look at how combat works. You basically function as the judgement for your character. "Aim your bow at this guy and try to take a shot." You can't aim the bow better or worse than your character. You simply direct him which move to make. His chances of hitting from a given distance, or the abilities you can choose from, are his and his alone. Thusly, your skill in determining what's a good move and what isn't and his skill in making the moves with varying degrees of prowess work in tandem. Another thought I just had is that you could actually have the exact radius of an AOE spell fluctuate by, say, 10-20%. That way, one time you cast a fireball, its explosion may affect things 10% further out than edge of the targeting indicator, while another time it might affect things 10% further in than the indicator. (Again, I'm still for the idea of this becoming more precise and less variable as the character progresses in skill, relative to the difficulty/level of the ability in question.) However that's handled, though, the "I'm not sure" portion of the spell's effect still holds true as a direct conveyance of your character's knowledge. The indicator is his estimation, so he's got to deal with that amount of uncertainty, and that is beamed straight to the player. So, your use of judgement in how careful to be around that indicator ring (regarding friendly fire and the like) can almost be seen as a direct representation of the character's resorting to judgement regarding his own imprecise knowledge of the spell's exact results. Annnnywho, I'm getting a bit technical. Another interesting factor, though, is the variation in the placement of characters (both friendly and hostile) between when you target a spell and when it actually gets cast/strikes the target. I don't know how much an EXACT targeting indicator (complete with highlighted "here's who's going to be caught in the blast" action) really helps when the fireball isn't going to hit that spot until 2.3 seconds later, during which time no one's been forcibly held in-place. With that in mind, something like fluctuation in spell effect radius isn't really a big deal to me, in terms of "No, I need to know EXACTLY which pixels will be affected by the spell, and which ones won't!" Especially if we don't get that sometimes-how-grenades-work-in-FPS's implementation of an area effect, where position A takes no damage, but position B -- 3 inches to the right -- takes 10 points of damage (even if things closer to the center take more than 10 damage, so you do have SOME gradation). There shouldn't be that much difference between a babystep of space. I'm inclined to favor the dwindling of AOE damage from something like a fireball all the way down to about 1 or 2 points of damage, at the edge of the radius. Of course, all of this only really applies to radial areas in which the effect explodes outward from the center. If you cast a spell that is just a perfect cylinder of holy light/lasers/fire or something, either erupting straight up from the floor or straight down from above, then obviously you could have some rather precise edges. Then again, it could still be interesting to have something like a magically-precise column of fire still have some fuzzy "you might get a little burned from standing so close" edges skirting its exact radius. Or, maybe a precise circle of ice gets you damaged and frozen, but standing within a foot or two of it slows your movement temporarily. *shrug* Sorry. I kinda went idea shotgun there. Lots of tiny pellets.

Yeah, 'cause that makes it constructive. "Um, excuse me. Your suggestion that all that stuff you just said was fact is inaccurate, as some of it is subjective. Therefore, I'd like to point out that EVERYTHING IS ACTUALLY 100% SUBJECTIVE! MUAHAHAHA!" That's equally as inaccurate as claiming everything is OBjective. TL;DR -- Two wrongs don't make a right.

Well... I think the idea of in-dialogue actions is that they're supposed to be the subset of actions you could potentially perform under those circumstances, in relation to the dialogue (does it end, does it continue, etc.). I mean, I don't even know how you'd keep something like "*Attack!*" separate from dialogue, as it's merely an indication to the somewhat turn-based nature of the dialogue system that you wish to end the dialogue system and perform some combat related action. Beyond that, I don't know how you'd manually end dialogue, do something like slap someone in the face, or take something from their hand, then re-engage in dialogue. Or how the game would handle you just deciding that kind of precise action. The regular game controls would have to allow for that; for slapping people or snatching something forcefully from someone's hand, as distinct from a simple melee attack or pickpocketing. In other words, how do you handle these things in relation to ongoing dialogue, which changes in reaction to both actions AND words, if not via the dialogue system?

Hmm... well, what if the "maybe" area still existed, but wasn't shown to you? In other words, your character knows that his fireball will explode in approximately this radius, so that's indicated to you in your tactical overhead targeting. However, it's not entirely accurate. But, as your character progresses in prowess, it becomes more accurate, but you still only ever see a single approximation circle, even if that can eventually become 100% accurate (or if it caps at less than that... whichever). In this way, you, the player, can still employ your own awareness and skill in determining just how much care you need to take regarding the radii of your AOE spells in relation to friendly fire. The problem I have with "I'd rather just always have to figure it out" is that this steps all over the idea of character capability and player capability working in tandem. It would be a bit like saying "I don't want a perception check from my character to reveal a hidden enemy to my sight. I'd rather just rely on my own eyesight to pick enemies out of extremely camouflaged backdrops, and manually aim spells thusly, with no indication of whether or not there's actually a target there." Does that make sense? I understand and share the desire to have my skills as a player matter, but I don't ever think they need to completely override my character's capabilities. In other words, the game should never fail to communicate to you something that your character intuitively knows, just so you can treat it as your own personal challenge.

I actually have no problem with that type of technique working, so long as it doesn't just ALWAYS work against all enemies, everywhere. But, if you can combine AOE offense with stealth evasion effectively sometimes, I say awesome. Makes for a pretty nice "They never even really saw what killed them or knew what was going on. They just saw me for a moment, then they saw me vanish, and a cloud of death filled their room." But, yeah, basically... this and pretty much ANY tactics need to be situationally feasible. It's when something's ALWAYS feasible and always convenient/easy that it becomes "cheap"/problematic.

Apologies for going pseudo-off-topic, but this talk got me thinking about racial reaction in relation to the whole "We should be able to pick who does the talking for the party, instead of it being automatically chosen for us" notion. Wouldn't it be great if we could switch talkers in the middle of a dialogue? You know, your Charismatic (or whathaveyou) main character Elf greets this farmer, and he reacts decently well. But, as indicated via dialogue action/description text (or by how he's speaking, etc.), he seems to be eyeing your godlike companion with what appears to be awe. So, your character takes notice, and subtley nods to the godlike, or motions in some way, or whispers, to suggest "Would you be so kind as to take over?" I don't know exactly how that would be systemized (for lack of a better term), as far as the mechanics go. But, I think it could be done, after some thought and effort. After all... how are you to know how someone reacts to which races/traits in what ways, until you see their reactions in action? And it seems a little silly to just abruptly drop a "Goodbye!", then immediately turn around and have another character in your party strike up with "Hey, I know that guy just said 'goodbye,' and we're traveling as a group, but now I want to talk to you, about the exact same stuff he was talking to you regarding. :)" It could even be based on a sort of perception check, or some manner of check. You notice evidence of the NPC's reactions toward certain characters in your group, and you get the choice of reacting accordingly. Or those characters do, based on their own perceptive skills. Maybe they discreetly ask if they might take over? *shrug*. Or, obviously, if the person was reacting quite negatively to the character doing the talking, "I should probably try letting someone else give it a go" is a simple conclusion there. Something along those lines.

As if beating a dead horse is pointless... it TOTALLY tenderizes the meat! @Hassat: The whole "transition" aspect is a tricky one. It's one of those things that I know exists, but I couldn't really say, with words, exactly what manner of transition it is. It isn't so much a literal transition between what's rendered on the game area and what's rendered on the UI (like blending purple between blue and red... although, having said that, a sort of glass-like or semi-reflective effect might actually be kind of interesting. The idea interests me, in an experimental sort of way...). It's more about how your brain, without your conscious effort, fits the two together. How it naturally goes "yes, this frame with buttons makes sense while I switch back and forth between focusing on these things that are going on in a forest/plane/area of simulated 3D space with characters moving about and whatnot, and a purely 2D (functionally) UI frame/pane. Anywho, I'm really not trying to initiate an elaborate discussion as to the exact nature and detail of that transition. I only meant to point out its existence, and the fact that it does have some importance, especially when it comes to all the people that will be using the game. Also, I do like the larger portraits, and how they were used to display hitpoints. I think the "fullness" of a portrait "container" (or sort of the inverse of that, with it "filling up with blood tint" signifying the missing hitpoints) is a lot more intuitive than a tiny bar. And yes, the radial popup menus can be rather crap. I think the main thing with them is to not use them for navigation. That's when they start clashing with mouse-cursor controls. You open a radial (like in DA), and select a category of things, then it loads another radial, etc. They function better as individual hotbar-type displays. That's why I used the example (which is all it is) of a hotkey for something like "Quickspells/abilities" that would open a radial of just a specific set of spells/abilities, all of which bloom around the mouse cursor. It's sort of "bring the hotbar to the cursor," instead of "okay now move the cursor away from wherever you're currently using it to the place on the screen where the spells and abilities sit." It's not a huge problem to not have that. It can just be REALLY nice (especially when you think about how many times, in an entire playthrough, you're going to need to select one of a character's abilities... even if that's 1 second of saved time and effort in each instance, that's about 1,000 instances of convenience) when done properly. The option to fully collapse the HUD I think is a prudent one, too. I personally enjoy the HUD/UI, but if someone wants to play almost entirely with hotkeys, with quite literally minimal non-game-space content being displayed, I say go for it, assuming it isn't some horribly troublesome option to implement. What we don't need is for the UI to defaultly try to serve both parties: Oh look, it's a nice full UI, but also each individual thing is collapsible/resizable, too! Like in an MMO!". I think that works fine for an MMO, but it is kind of its own enemy as far as the users of a CRPG go. The modular nature of it displeases the people who want a full-frame UI, and the full-frame UI resemblence displeases the people who have no interest in that and would rather just display what they wish to. At that point, you might as well just have options for the type of UI you want, set those, and be done with it for the rest of the game. Less work, better results. So, yeah, I actually agree with you on quite a bit, heh. (Psst... don't tell the Internet Police!)

I'm not really sure how else to emphasize the fact that both games share a lot of differences as well as similarities, without simply repeating myself. If you compare Oblivion's/Skyrim's and the Witcher 2's general graphically-rendered style to other games of the genre, you see a much higher attention to detail/realistic proportion. On environments, character models, items, props, etc. Also, I possess 20/15 vision, for whatever that's worth to you. I'll let you decide whether or not I have eye problems. Also for what it's worth, the human eye gets naturally strained from looking at a 2D screen and constantly adjusting focus for completely artificial perspective depth, lighting, and details. Not to mention we involuntarily blink less often when engrossed in a game/show/film, etc. (pretty much anything we engage ourselves in via a video screen). I really don't see any value in an argument about this, as it's just an aside to the discussion at hand. You may obviously believe what you will, and decide what you will. It's by no means my job to alter your decision-making process.

That's kind of, sort of how it works in Shadowrun. Except it's much more front-side prep heavy in that. You spend resources on a contract with said spirit, so you're guaranteed to get it for so many actions/rounds/hours, or whathaveyou. After that, you can, through sheer force of, ehh... not really will, but, sort of... dominance? You can basically resist its resistance. Or, I might be getting the Shadowrun:Returns method of handling it mixed up with the actual PnP rules now. I just remember there being some sort of "you can keep controlling it without any actual contract charges left, but you risk a lot at that point" bit. Also, people could actually make a check to wrestle control away from you. They could even accomplish this, THEN lose control of the spirit themselves. Sometimes the spirit, once under no one's dominion, would attack everyone in sight. Sometimes it would keep fighting for whomever it pleased. Sometimes it would simply pull a "ta ta for now!", wave, and go back to its plane or whatever. Anywho, while that's a good way of doing it, it still doesn't handle the problem of a summoner being stupidly capable by simply adding manpower to the existing forces of a battle, especially if allowed to summon multiple things. Not that I'm against that type of mechanic by itself, or anything. The variable control over a summoned thing, I mean. Also, I just wanted to point out, for what it's worth, that the sheer combat strength of summons is not their only utility. So, even if we're going with the D2 necro-type summoning, where you can basically be super potent by yourself and have very weak (combat/resilience-wise) summons, OR be pretty weak on your own but have numerous/potent summons that are almost constantly at your disposal (to functionally serve as your weapons). Even if you choose to go light on the summoning, they could still be quite useful with unique abilities/traits, regardless of how many hits they can take in combat or how much damage they do. Having your summoned minions literally just be grunts in an army is but one use for them, which is yet another reason I think the "summoning as a manifestation of your potency/capability as a caster" blueprint is such a good one to go with. It really handles a lot of problems and provides a lot of choice, and there's a good bit of flexibility, still, with exactly how to do it. You could still have more potent, individual summons limit the amount of other things you can summon at the time, etc. Or have talents(feats) that serve to help progress your style of summoning in different ways, so that even when only going partial summoner and focusing more on caster non-summoning prowess, you could either tailor your summons more to being numerous and varied, or less numerous and more focused in role, utilitarian or straight up potent, ranged/stealthy or defensive/melee/tanky, etc.

Ehh... that just seems like an awfully high miss chance, to me. For just "am I or am I not hitting and damaging this entity." Unless something has particularly high evasion, you're generally not ever going to actually "miss" it. And, I'm not sure if parries/blocks/active-dodges are being covered by this base system or if they're in addition to it. You know... "*roll*... this will be a hit, except *PARRIED*!" Because, if you were literally missing the person anyway, why would they parry? You'd think a skilled fighter would only attempt to actively deflect/dodge the attacks that were threatening to damage them. Of course, these aren't completely separate things, obviously. You're not just standing there, swinging away at each other, and then SOMETIMES dodging and moving and deflecting. So, again, it comes down to what the numbers are actually representing. I don't have an issue with the current system, though, because you don't really know what the average defense of opponents is going to be. Or, rather, it ALLOWS for plenty of missing, if you don't have exceptionally high Precision (which is kind of the point of chances/percentages). If you have statistically average Precision, there will still be plenty of enemies with higher defense relative to your attack, and there will be plenty of enemies with lower defense. Plus, the whole Graze thing already covers what amounts to a partial miss. It's not a clean hit like intended, but it's still technically a hit. This will sometimes deal almost no damage, and will sometimes deal still-decent damage. So, I think the range is covered, as far as the successfully-damage-to-unsuccessfully-damage ratio goes. What gets REALLY lame in my current playthrough of BG is an entire party of people, all missing a single enemy about 5 rounds in a row (some with multiple attacks per round), THEN finally hitting it. Honestly, even the exact same amount of damage, spread out more over those 5 rounds, would be oodles better. The only way I'd accept the typical 20-40% miss chances is if there were flanking bonuses and all other manner of adjustments, etc. Because, if that chance IS including DEX and armor deflection and all that jazz (which, I'm pretty sure it is, via AC), then that can't apply in total to MULTIPLE opponents attacking simultaneously. That math just doesn't come anywhere close to matching "reality" (what it's trying to represent, even in fictitious reality).

I understand what you mean, I believe. I think the problem lies with the attempt to abstractly quantify Intelligence. Which is quite an ambiguous, intangible thing. But, at the same time, failure to represent it leaves some pretty serious gaps in things. Either everyone's of equal intellect, or they're not, and it's just kind of a mystery factor that isn't quantified. But, I just don't really see the problem, even applying such a modifier to an entire race, because it's an adjustment to a relationship. Even if ALL orcs have a -1 to Intelligence, this in no way dictates the Intelligence of a given Orc. Even if Elves have +1 Intelligence, it doesn't mean that a given Orc is less intelligent than a given Elf. It's a purely abstracted thing. 0 doesn't mean a race is "the norm." It just means that, statistically, if you measure everyone's intelligence in the entire world, the people of that race fall into the average of all those numbers. Again, it's merely a mathematical representation of a relationship. If everyone on the planet was exposed to the exact same things, in the exact same order, from birth to adulthood, then you could simply measure the rate at which they each learn, and write all that down, and compare. Just because we're exposed to differing things and use our intelligence to differing degrees doesn't mean that quantifiable "hardware" aspect simply vanishes. In that way, it's no different from physical properties, like size/height. It's all a hell of a lot easier to abstract in a video game -- in fiction -- than it is in real life. The point is, there are obvious differences in levels of intellect between individuals, and that's being represented, no matter how accurately. The accuracy isn't even THAT important, as it isn't really trying to represent every little detail involved in what is encompassed by the term "intelligence," anyway. It's simply differences and relationships, statistically recorded between races' physiologies.

This is true, but, to be good at summoning, as the Necro, you had to kind of sacrifice your direct-damage capabilities (relative to any other character that wasn't summoning). In other words, you weren't a mega-powerful Necromancer (individually) who now has an army of summoned things. You were a Necromancer who was powerful BECAUSE he had an army of summoned things. If you were still uber-powerful on your own, PLUS the army of summoned things, then something would be wrong. That's why it worked so well. The problem with some of the summons in games is that they're hardly a trade-off. "Choose a new Level 8 spell, Mr. D&D Wizard. Okay, you chose Summon Major NetherDemon." Awesome. Now you're a fully capable Wizard, on your own, with like 20 spells at your disposal, all WHILE a powerful NetherDemon basically joins your party for 20 rounds. There are many adjustments to that that suck. - "He only joins your party for 2 rounds." Great. Now summoning sucks, because you have such a small window in which for him to do things. - "He's actually not that powerful." Great. Now everything else is a much better option than that summoning spell. To name a couple. So, IF you're not just going to go with the whole build balance thing, like Diablo II did, where you basically rely on your summons as what makes you powerful, rather than your character's own spell-tossing capabilities, you've got to figure out SOME way to make the summoning a manifestation of your power, and not just a supplement to it. Otherwise, you've got the magic equivalent of a Warrior growing a third arm, complete with its own longsword +2, and you're fine with it because it's only temporary. That's another problem with the way D&D does it, for example. Early on, you can summon maybe a wolf or something. Maybe you can even do this a couple of times. But you can only do it for a round. So, you get two rounds of wolf, and pretty much nothing else (if you used up all your memorization slots with Summon Wolf). That's literally as hardcore summoner as you can go, and it only gets you 2 rounds of wolf, that MIGHT actually be effective, maybe. Whereas, 2 Magic Missiles gets you a guaranteed 4-10 damage. In Diablo II, at Level 1 (or 2? If 2 was the first level at which you gained allocatable skill points... I can't remember), you could choose "Summon Skeleton," and that skeleton would serve as the core of your effectiveness from that point on. It never felt like an addon to your Necromancer-ness, but rather a part of it.

True, but it's typically highlightable even on the other side of a wall and such. Thus allowing the player to go "Ha-HAH! The characters can circumvent their own perception restrictions via MY birds-eye view! MUAHAHA!". Of course, once they've seen it, that's fine, I suppose, to show you "where they remember it being." Especially with switches and the like -- things that you need. I was just thinking, in terms of the "let's walk around and then search around with the mouse-cursor to find spiffy lootable things" system. "Let's just highlight everything in this room that I haven't even walked around fully yet" just seems kind of self-defeating. I mean, why aren't all the lootables just blatantly placed if you can just find them no matter what? Why are some of them kind of hidden? So, I was just thinking that actually not being able to find non-blatant things until you specifically search for them would be interesting. And, simply waltzing your person around so that their search radius covers everything feels mildly silly, as well. It's not dumb or anything. It just... I dunno... feels really gamey? I just thought it might be interesting to have some sort of "your character is looking, with a vision/search cone, in the direction that your mouse cursor is pointing" system (or something similar) might be kinda neat. Often when playing these games and not using the "highlight all things" button (or when that isn't available), I find myself thinking "if I were really that character, in that room, wouldn't I be able to simply scan that corner, with my eyes, rather than have to walk 10 feet closer to detect something hidden?". You know, just stuff you wouldn't notice unless you were actually looking for it. Not something you had to necessarily actively search for, by digging through stuff/very closely examining an object/wall, etc. I just know there were some games that actually had the "search" check, and I think it worked in a radius around you. But that felt a bit silly and slow, compared to simply walking around and searching, in some kind of search/focus mode. You're not looking for hidden things on the open floor that surrounds your character on 3 sides. You suspect there might be something hidden in that pile of what looks like junk, though. And, I think it would be cool if, once a character with sufficient perceptive abilities detects something lootable, it would be indicated/highlighted in some fashion, regardless of whether or not you were pointing at it (or maybe just if you were pushing the "show me where things I know of are" button.)

At what Mr. Magniloquent said: A) What if potions weren't actually potions? As in, the item functions "the same way," but it's not an ingestable bottle of liquid? What if they're something that, in the lore, can be used instantly, without disadvantage (time lost from use)? B) What if they provided unique-yet-temporary effects? Look at the utility of a potion of invisibility versus a potion of improved defense. The potion of invisibility allows you to do something you couldn't previously do: move across the battlefield unseen, and/or fully escape your current attacker. Whereas, the potion of improved defense merely alters the numbers behind an existing ability: defense. Most potions just change some numbers in existing factors, rather than introducing new factors. What if they introduced new factors? Potion of Force: for 10 seconds, all your physical attacks produce knockback. You could pop that potion when near a cliff or environmental hazard, or to knock people into some conveniently-placed traps. Or knock an enemy into a smaller group of other enemies, to then strike at all of them with an AOE attack. Or for something like Barkskin, instead of gaining defense/armor (or, at least, instead of JUST that), what if melee bladed weapon attacks produced a disarm when they struck you (got stuck in your wooden skin)? Things of that nature.

On this note, what if you could hold a spell in the event that you fully cast it, but your target died before you finished? I don't mean "I shot a fireball, but it was still 10 feet away from this orc when it dropped dead from another source." I mean that whole "the orc dies, but your mage is mid-cast, so he keeps chanting for 2 more seconds, then hurls a fireball at nothing" deal. It's a bit annoying. Fireball was a bad example, because this probably wouldn't apply to ground-targeted spells. Although, it COULD. There could be a manual "hold spell" button/option. Basically, as long as a spell was held, you'd get the advantage of, from that point onward, casting it instantly (avoiding cast time). BUT, until you fired off that spell, you couldn't cast any other spell without "losing" the held spell (as if you had cast it, because you did fully cast it, but you just "drop" the spell's energy/weave, so it doesn't really serve you to any effect at all). Really, at the very least, I was just thinking of specifically target-based spells, like Magic Missile, ESPECIALLY in the round-based IE games (like BG). Many times, I've told my Mage to cast something at a tough enemy I want to take down as quickly as possible, only to have the next round begin, and my Mage begin casting a 5-second-cast spell, and my Rogue to stabbity-kill the enemy in .2 seconds. And my Mage just-a keeps on casting, firing Magic Missiles at nothing. At the very least, I think we should be able to cancel the spell. And, I just thought that some sort of hold mechanic might be interesting, actually. I agree with this, I wouldn't like the target area to be an absolute, but rather an approximation of where the AOE will spread to. Maybe one circle shows where the spell will definitely hit, and a less opaque, larger circle to show where the spell might hit. What if, as you progressed in power/prowess/experience (whathaveyou), you gained control? So, If you can just now cast Level 3 spells (for example), then a Level 3 AOE spell will have about a 25% "maybe" section of radius, whereas a Level 1 AOE spell might, at this point, show you an exact edge (because you're able to control the spell to a greater degree). That might be kind of splendid.

*tips hat*, Anytime.

True. But that's one of the reasons we use "balancing" to describe what we're going for. When a scale is balanced, both sides of it are equal in weight. They aren't simply equal. You could have 5 lbs of gold on one side, and 5 lbs of wood on the other. If you want to make arrows, the gold isn't very useful, but the wood is. If you want to trade for money/items, the gold is probably much more useful. They'll even be different shapes and sizes, densities, colors, etc. The important aspect is that they share a certain equality. That the factor you're equalizing is weight, with a scale, is unimportant. It's just an example. The point is, if you give someone the choice between two things, then those two things need to be equal in some wy. You're suggesting they are, even with all their differences. Ranged combatant, or melee specialist? Those should both be equal, if you're offering them as mutually exclusive choices. If the cost of specializing in ranged weaponry is relatively sucking with melee weaponry, and vice versa, then you offer 70 instances throughout the game where melee weaponry works best against your opponents, and 3 in which ranged works best, then you've lied. Even if it's just an imbalance in your encounter population, it translates into "ranged weaponry is absolutely, quantifiably less useful, no matter what, than melee weaponry." None of it is about making sure an arrow does the same damage as a sword, blow for blow, or that a ranged specialist can do all the same things as a melee one. That's why the word "viable" gets tossed around so much. It's hard to put your finger on exactly what kind of equality you're looking for between any two choices in a game, because it's so specific-dependent. So, it's very easy to use "viable."

Indeed. A good example of this was Wrex. Although I'm not sure how extensive it was, I know he could possibly die early on, and he could possibly leave you but go on to become the leader of the Krogan. I don't know if the only two choices were "he dies" or "he lives and becomes leader of the Krogan," but in my playthrough of the entire ME series, it certainly felt like the potential was there for various outcomes. If there weren't, then there simply should've been. Problem solved, heh. But, yeah, I like this idea. I think the most potent effect would be seen in some kind of carry-over into an expansion/sequel, like ME did it. It's a bit tough to have drastically different outcomes for a character in the span of a single game, unless the narrative covers a LONNNNNNG time. Granted, you can still easily have slightly less drastic differences. "Hey, because of what all went down, I moved to this city and joined this group," or "I moved back home to take care of my family" instead of "I BECAME PRESIDENT!". 8P

Also, I believe that separating the perception aspect of knowing what someone is carrying and what they aren't from the Pickpocketing skill is one of the simplest things that can be done to improve the typical implementation. The whole "rummage through pockets as if a treasure chest" thing is not only silly because of the time element, but also because of the "how would you even know what is in this tiny pocket without actualy STEALING whatever's in that pocket and looking at it?" As many have mentioned, that's kind of the whole factor with a literal cutpurse. You know that person's carrying a purse, filled with SOMEthing. So, you take it. It's a gamble. There's probably SOME money in there, but you don't know how much. Maybe they're a super stingy person who carries none. They may not catch you swiping the purse, but they're definitely going to notice their purse is missing, at some point in the near future. Picking your mark should definitely be a separate aspect, reliant upon perception and research. Shadowrun, the PnP game, has an entire Concealment factor. It applies heavily in instances of getting weapons past security, but it could easily work for Pickpocketing. You get bonuses to concealment from things like cloaks/coats, and things inside containers/bags would not be able to be noticed. I dunno, you could have some kind of expertise element to Pickpocketing -- a kind of street knowledge/experience type thing -- so that you might be able to recognize whether or not a small pouch is carrying money, or gemstones, etc., based on the shapes. Or, maybe when you get good enough, you get access to some kind of "test" ability, to basically feel up a pouch to get an idea of what's in it. Or, maybe you have access to that early on, but it's quite risky, and as you get much more skilled at it, it's much less risky. Still, the least risky thing would be to just find out what that person carries around via word of mouth, etc. Or by stalking them, *shrug*. I wouldn't want this to get TOO in-depth (i.e. the stalking), with you following people around for an hour to find out all the things they do, and what all they take with them when they leave their house, THEN going for a risky Pickpocket. But, I think Pickpocketing could definitely be much more useful in utility than it is in most games, like for altering quests and the like. Steal a key, go unlock an outer gate, then put the key back on the guard's belt. The higher ups think he left it unlocked, so they fire him and hire a new guard. One that's either a member of your party, or an ally who's helping you. Now you have access to EVERYTHING that guard has keys to. Or, just more simple deception. You know a person's doing bad things, but you can't prove it. So you steal stuff from them to plant evidence. Boom. Now everyone believes you, and now they investigate that person further, and discover all the truths about them. OR, the "evil" kind, where someone's innocent, but it serves you for someone else to think they're guilty of something, so you frame them. It's kind of like hacking in tech-savvy games. You can do a lot with pickpocketing/sleight-of-hand, beyond just boosting your funds/item pool, or more easily completing simple "get this thing from this person" quests, but most games leave it at that.