Lephys

Well, for what it's worth: 1) I'm not suggesting forcing the checks of the whole party's skills every time. I merely gave an example of a time when that might actually occur (in other words, very occasionally, your whole party's skillset might be checked, no matter what. Occasionally...) 2) I really don't think it would be as much of an ordeal as you think. These values are in what amounts to a spreadsheet, and the code goes "Here's a list of the characters skills you need to check," and for each one, it runs the "check such-and-such skill table cell at E1." It takes a computer all of a fraction of a second to do that, to 6 characters, or 60, really.

It wouldn't imbalance that attribute/skill any more than having a high Intelligence and gaining access to more dialogue options than "I didn't understand a word you just said, but I'll take your word for it" imbalances things. For what it's worth, I wasn't thinking of a "Determine NPC Traits" skill, exclusively. I was thinking something like "Sense Motive" or "Bluff," etc, supplying a slight boost to determining these things. Also, many of them would be able to be determined by simply putting extra effort into asking about that person and gathering info. With the Cat Lover lady example, that's probably not going to make much of a difference (knowing beforehand how strongly she feels about cats), since you're not likely to start the conversation off with "Hello, ma'am! *pulls a kitten out of rucksack and punts it across the room*". However, if someone is Hot Tempered, that might be best to know BEFORE you begin speaking to them, and say things that would only mildly frustrate a normal person. On the other hand, there might be things about someone that you can't really learn easily by talking to people (Perhaps that they are Deceptive, since they'll have everyone fooled into telling you otherwise). In that situation, it would be to your advantage to be able to discern, while speaking to them, that they are indeed ultra-deceptive sooner rather than[/i] later. So, it's not really a one-sided "win all" automatically-imbalancing button. It's simply two different aspects of learning about people, and a way to be better at one of them.

@Rahelron: Sounds like your mockups are a pretty good representation of that treatment of dialogue, ^_^

Yeah, I just meant that they've already got a trigger that checks for the 7,000,000 different possible main-character variants it's possible to make, so you'd think it wouldn't be that bad to work in 5 other static companions' check values, if they so chose. And I realize what you meant on the people chiming in thing. Sometimes there would be a reason to have multiple people try something, and I think, in those situations, there should be the potential for increased effectiveness coming from combined skill/stat values. And there are times when it only make sense for one skill/stat value to matter (like with a bowshot's precision, or the pick of a lock, or a perception check, etc.). THEN, there are times when multiple people COULD affect a skill/stat check, but you'd only want one person to do it because of other people's low skill values. But, even within that, there'd be times when they'd have such a low score, it would affect them. Or, you now, times when everyone's skill would HAVE to have some effect. I mean, if you're terrible at acting, I can't just act FOR you if we've both got to act our way past some guards. However, in that last case, the lower numbers would most likely be lessened. Basically, there'd be a a different way of determining the outcome of that, instead of the "You need 40 for this, and you have 3 people, each with 14, so you made it." You'd have a different check value. Probably a little lower. I just think it'd be interesting if (like in the case of your entire party infiltrating some place disguised as servants or something), you could have a variety of outcomes based upon your overall party scores. If you HAPPEN to boost everyone's Charisma (to roll with D&D stuff), and you beat a total of 40, then maybe you manage to pass for higher-tier servants with better access to the palace/event. Whereas, between 30 and 40, you can only pass as lowly kitchen servants or something. And below 30, you can only pass as stable muckers. So, as the top-tier servants (maybe servers, or... I dunno... the kind that are trusted to actually stand around the nobility themselves in the event that they need anything), you'd have the easiest/best access to the facilities, without being questioned or anything. As kitchen staff, you can only make small forays out into the nobles' area, but you can also easily get out to the stables if you need to (to throw out scraps, etc.). As stable muckers, you have to figure out how to get into the palace itself, THEN into the nobles' area. It would still be possible... it would just be trickier to spy on people/find anything out/do anything if people think you're supposed to be out in the stables all night, covered in horse poop, than if you're a kitchen servant or, better yet, a "personal servant" (I don't know what they're called, but they're not the kind of personal servant that goes with the noble when the event is over. They would be palace staff, but trusted with a lot more tasks than JUST kitchen tasks or JUST stable tasks.)

Well, the key word there is "some." I wasn't meaning to suggest each and every single quest provide you with the exact same abstract value of reward. Obviously a farmer quest doesn't NEED to give you as much as a monarch quest. I mean, the farmer's most likely tied up in far less complex things than the monarch is. On that same token of individual imbalance, you could even be surprised to find that the farmer quest is more substantial and even more rewarding than the monarch quest, against all first appearances and assumptions. BUT, I will say that I don't very much like the idea of story content that rewards you with little-to-nothing, for your time. That's almost like... the purpose of the game. You play it because you get something out of it. That isn't to say your reward must be restricted to money, or precious items, or awesome equipment, or that every 10 minutes you must gain a certain amount of something, etc. But, with a much broader sense of the term "reward," as simply "give you something that is useful in some way," I think rewards should remain quite proportional to the amount of effort involved in the quest (or, at least, potential rewards, I should say). For the most part. If you spend 3 hours figuring out some elaborate plot and stopping an assassination, it would be ridiculous if all you got, the entire time, was a silver piece, or a discount at the manure vendor.

Ok,Lephys.Had to say something. What is your point,exactly,besides to mock me? Is it that I am supposed to view you as some superior person that has all right to tell me how my view of a cleric should be? EDIT: Crap... I tried to fix a quote glitch and botched this whole response... haha. Here goes attempt #2: o_o... Whoa whoa, there! I meant no provocation! Honest! I just really seem to recall the description of Paladins in P:E revolving around them being more like leaders/warlords who are dedicated to their own capability and desire to effect change rather than drawing any kind of ability from elsewhere. From the Eternity Wiki: So, if that's the case, then that VERY closely resembles the whole "faith simply in oneself, rather than in a deity" notion with a Priest. Therefore, that would seem to cause a logical, mechanical conflict between certain self-faith Priests and pretty much the entire Paladin class. I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea. I just think that, the way they already have the Paladin set up, a deity-less Priest would pretty much be a Paladin, in how his soul-powers worked. I realize people often infer much more than they actually say, nowadays, but I try to express my ideas and thoughts as literally as possible. If I'm not trying to be literal, then I try to be as obviously inferring as I can be (such as with sarcasm, etc.), so as to avoid confusion. So, I'm sorry that I failed to not seem like I was inferring things and provoking you. That was not my intention.

-NULL-

Well... yeah... you probably just shouldn't gain 100 permanent modifiers. Problem solved, haha. Really, though, I think they should still be quite limited. I just think it's more natural to gain bonuses to certain things than THE ENTIRETY OF ENDURANCE! You know, like... you listen to someone talk for 5 hours, without freaking out or walking away. Suddenly, you gain 10 hitpoints. Hmmm... a good example is Pathfinder (well, D&D in general, I suppose, since I'm sure there've been oodles of instances of this type of thing throughout... but I'm playing Pathfinder right now, so... stick to what I somewhat know, haha). As a Wizard in Pathfinder, when my familiar is "within arm's reach," I get a +2 to Perception checks and a +2 to Sense Motive checks. I don't get +1 Wisdom (Even though it's temporary and not permanent.) As an Elf, I get +2 to Perception checks. See, granting a straight-up improvement to Wisdom wouldn't be prudent, unless you wanted to give me a bonus to literally everything encompassed by Wisdom. Keep in mind, the permanent stat-increase thing tends to happen multiple times per game. So, now you're trying to balance your game against those possibilities (Does this person take 1 point in each stat, for a total of 6 points? Or does he take 6 points in Dexterity, so that he gets like +3 AC and +3 to-hit with ranged weapons, AND an additional +3 to all DEX-based skill checks?). Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. It's just... I dunno. Seems like you generally don't want to give a bonus to everything a stat encompasses, yet you still want a stat to encompass all those things. *shrug* The best D&D example I can think of is Charisma: Why give a character a bonus to Charisma (and therefore also to beauty/attractiveness) when you really just want to increase their ability to Persuade/Inspire via speech? To put it another way, I think skills and prowess in certain areas improve naturally a lot more often than overall strength or overall Intelligence or overall Endurance, etc., do.

I love how it's now "so-called." Would you at least please make up your mind? First, it IS binary, but that's okay, because look at all the other stuff that's binary! But ALSO, you're not even sure what I'm referring to is binary? You're missing the point, and taking things out of context. You wanna compare what I said to lockpicking? All right. You're in a dungeon with 15 locks. It's you versus the dungeon. When you select your Rogue and click on a door, he tries to pick the lock, and a roll takes place, based upon his lockpick skill. If that succeeds, do you instantly "defeat" the dungeon? No. You just beat that one lock. You've still got to go through the rest of the dungeon. There could be a trap in that very doorway that you DIDN'T see, because it has nothing to do with your ability to pick locks, or whether or not your lockpicking roll succeeded or failed. Are you following? Let's warp back to combat, shall we? Before you say "BUT ONE ENEMY IS LIKE ONE DOOR, NOT A WHOLE DUNGEON!" please hear me out. In combat, facing a single enemy with a single character, you try to attack, so you make an attack roll, based upon your weapon/fighting skill. Let's say it hits. Okay, it hit. Is the thing dead? Well, you don't know yet. How much damage did you do? For the sake of looking at usual combat, let's say it takes at least a few hits to take down this foe. Okay, so one roll has occurred, and you hit it. It's still not defeated. Maybe you cast a spell, or use an ability. Another roll! Now it's rooted in-place for 3 seconds. Guess what? You still haven't won. Now your attack rolls get boosted because it can't use footwork to dodge. So, you run around behind it (since it can't turn around), and you roll to strike it in the back. Well, now, since your rolls are so much better, you easily land a critical blow to the spine, dealing 20 damage instead of 12. And it had 15 hitpoints left, so one more regular attack wouldn't have killed it, but, one more critical strike to the spine (that you just set up for) did actually kill it. Add to this the fact that it's been hitting you the whole time, and the possibility that, if you had taken the time to strike it TWICE more with normal attacks, it would've had time to hit you the last time it needed to kill you, and you've got the dynamics of combat factors. Yay! NOW you've won! Do you not see how far off picking a lock is from facing an enemy? A lock doesn't move... nor does it do ANYTHING to you. Nor does it have a varying amount of hitpoints. All it has is what mechanically amounts to defense/dodge. It's not even a range (again, because it can't do better or worse at anything. It rolls 20s at just sitting there and being an inanimate object, though.) You're really asking why I have a problem with combat being even remotely similar to [/i]skill-battling an inanimate object?![/i] And you say I have silly reasoning? And Speech? Speech isn't even binary, unless it's terribly implemented. "Oh, you have a skill of 50? Now you have jedi mind tricks. Skill of 49? You can't even persuade this person to so much as hear you out." Yup, that's about as much fun as simplistic insta-death.

The "Speed only comes from certain muscle Strength" thing made me think, once more, about the idea of deriving most specific "ability" values from multiple stats/attributes rather than just single ones. Regarding the speed issue, you could have both Strength AND Dexterity contribute to Speed, with Dexterity representing, primarily, precision, and Strength representing raw muscle power. So, basically, the person with 17 STR and 17 DEX would have a higher speed than both the person with 10 STR and 17 DEX AND the person with 17 STR and 10 DEX. Maybe, though, at a certain point, more STR or DEX doesn't help you unless the other stat is raised, as well. With each pair of stats providing a different effect, you could still gain SOMETHING from higher DEX or higher STR, individually, but you simply wouldn't gain Speed without raising both. I don't know what exact math to even start with on that. Just the idea of it. Maybe 17 STR and 10 DEX means 10 Speed. That's a simple starting point to tweak from, I guess (for example's sake). So, to get 17 Speed, you'd need both stats to be that high. Or, maybe the difference between them simply gets halved. So, 18 STR and 14 DEX gives you 16 Speed. (I think Josh said they're going to be using decimal values for calculations in game, so maybe even 15.5 and such would work.) And, for another example (one I've made before), you could have both INT and DEX derive your Critical Hit factors. INT would allow you to better identify weak points/"plans" to get to weak points, whereas DEX provides you with the hand-eye coordination/physical capability of striking the intended points more often. You could even split it, if you so chose, between DEX boosting critical strike chance and INT boosting critical strike damage multiplier (as you're finding better weak points to strike and better ways in which to more effectively strike them). *shrug*. Just an example to show how it could work. I haven't done much hashing out to see how such specifics would work with the rest of the game. But, I know Josh has already mentioned trying quite hard to eliminate clear dump stats, etc. I think a system in which combinations of stat/attribute values in conjunction determine your effective abilities supports that better than one that relies on individual stats. Not to mention you have more control over the specifics of your character's strengths and weaknesses. Just with the example above, if you wanted a MAX Speed character, you'd have to sacrifice some INT (or some other stat), so you'd lose out on Critical Damage Multiplier. OR, you could go with high INT and STRENGTH, and simply lose out on some Speed and Critical Strike Chance. As for how stat selection/progression will work, while I'm still not against rare stat progression (namely tied to narrative events or significant happenings/choices), I think I'd maybe rather see purely fixed stats, but with bonuses to specific stat-affected values via progress. For example, instead of gaining Endurance when your character undergoes some rigorous event (maybe you're tortured for a week in a dungeon?), you simply gain maximum Stamina? Or Stamina Regeneration, or some kind of Resistance? Or, instead of gaining Intelligence or Wisdom, you gain a Casting Time Reduction, or Greater Arcane Resistance? I think there's actually very little need for our actual attributes to ever increase, since the whole goal of that is to cause some effect. After all... you don't deal damage with your Strength value, but rather with a modifier based on Strength. So, why not just augment the modifier and let your Strength still represent how overall strong you are? This provides much more contextual bonuses (instead of applying a bonus to ALL things based on that stat). AND, it allows stat-reducing ailments to remain scary. If you can increase your Strength by 5 throughout the game, then, later on, you've got to increase any kind of Weakness effect there is. But, then, while that is great for your 20-Strength Warrior, who now has 25-Strength and gets drained by 5 Strength, if that hits, say, your Rogue, who still only has 11 Strength, he now can barely swing his dagger at anyone. Whereas, if your Strength remains static, then you could have a -3 or so penalty from Weakness effects, and your Warrior is ALWAYS going to feel that -3. He's never going to say "Oh well, I have 5 more points of Strength than I did earlier on, so it's really like a +2 still." He can't evolve BEYOND the Weakness effect and shrug it off.

Agreed. It was like a nostalgia grenade to the face, haha.

I really like the idea, and I'm very much for variety in the cost of service (for those companion's who have one). You know, "I'll join you, so long as you let me do such-and-such." Or "I'll join you so long as I get to take some shiny loot every now and again." Basically, I just don't see everyone doing everything you say just because. People would definitely have conditions. Usually, at least (you gotta have all types, heh.)

I'm sure that if someone fired up a Kickstarter for a serious gaming console to compete with the Playstation 4 that doesn't require "frequently on" internet connection, they'd probably get all the new Xbox's deflected customer base in backing. Slightly unrelated, I know. I don't think it was Kickstarted, but State of Decay is a new game from a new studio, and it's actually quite well done and is doing very well, and right now it's console-only. So, it just got me thinking about the potential for non-PC Kickstarter RPGs and projects. Basically, the future of PC gaming looks pretty good, and I wish I could say the same for consoles (in general).

Now that you've made it clear that it wasn't an argument, I apologize for misunderstanding. I don't know how else to take it when you correct my use of terminology, and I explain that your correction was exactly what I meant, and you respond with simply a more specific source of your basis for the initial correction. I'm simply explaining why I was confused, here, in case you wanted to know. Again, sorry about that. I wasn't trying to go out of my way to "treat it as an argument," I just really was trying to figure out if it was one or not, since it seemed to be. Which is why I was confused.

^ True. McManusaur brings up a good point, though. With a reputation system in place already, and assuming it's going to be sufficiently complex and splendid, you've already got everything you need, really. I mean, once you've got a reputation for, say... kicking polar bears, people just react to THAT. they can react in oodles of different ways, even with just a single positive-to-negative "regard" scale. I mean, you don't even have to tie everything to that scale. Maybe something you say triggers some dislike in that person (within the "under the hood" machinery, as Archmage Silver pointed out), but has no effect whatsoever on whether or not they'll pay you for some service you performed. That's really up to them. Some people might respect you, and still hate you, and decide that the hate overrules the respect, and that you shouldn't get paid. And some people won't, and will still pay you, despite despising you. And, essentially, you've got 2 forms of reputation: Hearsay, and experience. What people think of you without first-hand knowledge or evidence, and what people "know" about you based on first-hand interaction with you (I say "know" because you could obviously be acting or otherwise tricking them). We don't need meters to see exactly how everyone's going to react to different factors in that reputation. However... this brings me to a new thought spark: What if we extended the idea of reputation to EVERYone? Well, I mean, for the most part. Obviously that person who just pretty much delivers a line about the weather whenever you click on them doesn't need much representation in the reputation system (as far as game-coding goes, their reputation is irrelevant if you happen to be incapable of ever talking to them in detail, or having them affect anything else in the game, really). But, what I mean is, maybe NPCs have traits/characteristics, and you can either find out about them via hearsay and information-gathering, or you could discover them via dialogue. Maybe this stuff would be noted, to give you SOME idea of how they will react to things? A simple example would be "cat-lover." Obviously, if you speak ill of cats to a little old cat-lover lady, she's probably going to react negatively (although how negatively is still up in the air). And if you talk about how great cats are, she's going to react positively. Or, if she finds out you ever did anything of any significance that helped stray cats, or saved someone's cat, or protected/aided cats in some way, she's going to like you. Hell, maybe if your Ranger has a feline pet, she reacts to that, even. Thing is, "Cat-lover" just tells you about that ONE aspect. So, it's not like a cheat sheet or anything. But, you could even have some kind of mental stat or wits-based skill, with different values affecting how easily you notice specifically what people are reacting positively or negatively to in your dialogues, etc. You know, "I noticed she scowled when I said the word 'son,'" as opposed to "I dunno, I asked if her son had ever met a man named Gregory, and she scowled. Maybe she hates Gregory? Or maybe she just doesn't like people asking about things? *Shrug*". Since that was so narrow a scope for so much elaboration, I'll throw out a few more examples of NPC reactionary traits: Hot Tempered. Honest. Greedy. Deceptive. Lover of Silver. Sympathizer. Paranoid. Just a thought. A really long thought. As always,

There's a significant difference between the potential for swift, even instantaneous single-hit death, and a simple ability whose effect = absolute death. I really, honestly don't mind single-hit death at all. It's the overly simplified method by which its determined that negates choice-making and reactivity on both the player's AND game's part. Look at the original Super Mario Brothers. If you touch an enemy (without jumping atop it, if it's jump-on-able), you die. If you don't touch an enemy, you don't die. Simple as that. Look how uncomplex that game was. Even then, you had mushrooms, so you technically had 1 hitpoint by default, and COULD have 2 hitpoints (if you were Big Mario). So, even that had a way to mitigate instant-death effects. And, even keeping Mario from touching a Goomba offers more tactical control than the same thing would have in P:E, since you had full, real-time "puppet" control of Mario's every action and movement. What if you just commanded Mario to move forward, or backward, and whenever he got to a Goomba, he had a 50% chance of touching it, and a 50% chance of actually jumping over it? How badly would Super Mario Brothers suck then? Very badly. Plus, there's the lessened gravity of such spells/effects. "OMG, YOU JUST BURNED OUT THAT GUY'S SOUL! Now we're gonna hafta fast travel back to town, after this battle, and pay like 5 gold to have a Cleric splice it back into his body, u_u... *hands on hips in exasperation*". Wow. Some uber-powerful necromancer that was, huh? He could've just charged you a toll. Ability's not so scary when it's just a temporary inconvenience. Okay, so let's make it permanent. Well, now you've got a dice roll between you and not-using that unique companion (for which OODLES of lines of dialogue, and scripts, and animations, and effects upon the rest of the story and characters were written) for the rest of the playthrough. I'm betting 95% of players, at that point, would simply reload, and swallow their frustration as they hope the roll goes better THIS time when they face the necromancer. And with good reason. So, yeah, it's not that something that can kill you instantaneously is problematic. It's that overly simplifying the use and striking capability of such an effect to one little value-checking dice roll is a problem. It's the odd man out in the midst of complex combat tactics, involving a multitude of ways in which to affect each and every strike and effect. "Not me," said the insta-death spell. Honestly, a really good rule of thumb with anything in a complex combat system like this is to avoid any situation that can be reduced to a single reactive tactic. "If you see one of these, do this." In other words, "Make sure you cast 'Silence' on that necromancer" is not a good implementation, really. You're saying "How do you deal with that insta-death spell? Make sure it doesn't get cast." Or "Make sure you cast protection from insta-Death" or something. You've just countered an all-or-nothing effect with another all-or-nothing effect. You've doubled the amount of binary tactics in your combat system.

Some comments do lean a bit that way. But, on the other hand, I see a lot of people over-reacting a bit to "divergence" from the IE games' specifics. Just because you make a new sword out of steel, when your old sword was made of bronze, doesn't mean they aren't both EXTREMELY similar in nature. Something in P:E being different from something in the Infinity Engine doesn't automatically mean it's contrary to the Infinity Engine. So, while some people do seem to dislike some actual key design aspects of the original game, I think some people are attributing the "key aspects" quality to some pretty minor things.

That's exactly why there are so many different rewards that can be gained. While the monarch might have oodles of money (one thing that is very useful to you), the dirt farmer's reward need not come directly from the dirt farmer, even. Maybe he just needs you to help him with some kidnapped loved one (CLICHE, YAY!), and you uncover a much more elaborate situation involving some rich bandits (just to point out, even, that a dirt farmer quest can actually still lead you to even the exact same monetary reward as the monarch quest), whom you dispatch, then "rob" of all their stolen goods. But, obviously the dirt farmer could have valuable knowledge that the monarch doesn't, or could put in a good word for you with the Merchants' Guild (as his brother is one of the higher-ups), or he can move into your stronghold and put his masterful dirt-farming skills to good use optimizing the agricultural state of your stronghold's land, etc. Money can bribe people and result in otherwise-unknown quests, and quests can lead you to money. All the types of rewards are pretty directly related to one another, in a big circle.

Well, see... now we're just talking efficiency, really. I would ask, why, in the same amount of time that it takes a skilled Warrior to individually fell several opponents by "hitting things with a stick," should a Wizard be able to root them all in place, throw a fireball at them, teleport across the battlefield, throw 3 more people off a cliff, then put shields on everybody, then summon a dragon? Why is performing a task with magic inherently less requiring of time/effort/focus than performing a task physically with a tool? Think about it... if you're going to unlock a lock with magic, instead of a lockpick, wouldn't you STILL need to know the mechanics of the lock? What if it just LOOKS like it's a lock on a door, and, on the inside, it's actually just solid metal with a fake keyhole in the outside? You just go "Oh, a lock! Stand back... I've got this!" And you cast a spell that... what... operates the lock mechanism from a distance? The lock mechanism that doesn't exist? So, yeah, I would think that tracking a foe with my eyes and aiming a spell and focusing magical energy (however it is I focus magical energy) would require just as much focus and such as aiming a bow, or going through sword forms. Imagine trying to write a complex program on a computer in the midst of battle to reprogram some robot that can POTENTIALLY attack people, but doesn't have the programming to do so. Why would that be instantaneous and easy, while a guy running around holding the enemies off with a stick would be super difficult and time-consuming? I think magic is like that robot. It has the potential to do things, but the caster actually makes it do them. To make a simple comparison between Wizard and Warrior: The Warrior can take on 3 enemies at once, with his awesome melee combat prowess, but he's not near them yet when he spots them. So, he must make his way to them, THEN put his awesome prowess to work to dispatch them. Meanwhile, the Wizard could go ahead and start prepping a fireball, and toss that at them without having to get closer, striking all three and taking them out (as well as producing fire rather than simply physically trauma-ing them to death). But, one would think that level of effort in shaping magical energy into enough of a controlled fireblast to take out 3 enemies, and aiming it, etc, would leave him just as mentally tired as the Warrior is physically tired from swinging his stick about. Also, you change factors, and we get more differences. OH NO, AN AMBUSH! Stuff leaps from the shrubbery around you! Well, Mr. Wizard, your fireball isn't gonna do you too much good if you hurl it right here in the middle of your group. Meanwhile, Mr. Warrior gets to IMMEDIATELY go to town on people, while you're standing around trying to avoid death and resorting to lesser, individual-target spells so as not to melt your own party. And, actually, in light of this analysis, I dare say I'd be interested in the possibility of instant-cast abilities/spells that leave you with down-time AFTER their use. Almost like taking cast time and putting it AFTER a spell, instead of before. Not that you couldn't still have cast times... But, anywho, I don't see why efficiency isn't a factor that can reasonably balance out things between a hit-things-with-sticks Warrior and an annihilate-small-villages-in-one-fell-swoop Wizard. Instead of seeing a Wizard just get to produce exponentially more and more powerful effects as he progresses, why couldn't he progress more like a Warrior? You know, gain speed, endurance, utility, etc. with his spells. Even MORE simply, I'd ask: Why does the ability to strike 10 things at once even need to be strong enough to KILL those 10 things at once? Doesn't it make sense that the more pieces of toast you put butter on, the less butter each piece of toast gets, out of the same stick of butter? Why do you suddenly get 5 sticks of butter instead of 1 just because there are 10 pieces of toast instead of 1 piece of toast? People seem to have this idea about magic that the people using it aren't living and breathing in a world of physics, and working within the limitations of the human mind and senses, and that the effects of magic aren't at all subject to the physics of the world, etc. If that's the case, then I don't see why Warriors can't move infinitely fast and just kill 10 enemies in the same amount of time it takes a Wizard to summon a Flame Maelstrom to kill those same 10.

Awww, man, I can't believe I didn't think of this before! CANNOT PASS UP! Hey Stun. ... I bet after you were reincarnated, you were the... Centaur of attention in that campaign. COMMENCE THE FACEPALMING! u_u

As opposed to the SlingBlader archetype. "You got a purty soul... MMmmHMmmm... Ah lahk thuh way yew cast."

I also back the "fixed" idea. For the most part. I think the aspects that stats/attributes embody are extraordinarily permanent/static in nature. In other words, Intelligence is really just a scale. If it goes from 1-10, and you have a 1, that means you're about as intelligent as the leas-intelligent tenth of the populous. If it's 10, then you're as smart as a person can be. If you're 5 years old, and you have 10 intelligence, that doesn't mean you possess the mind of an adult instead of a 5-year-old. It just means that you're as intelligent as any 5-year-old can be. So, to establish that, then say "Oh, the gain of experience is actually going to increase your inherent ability to aim, see things, and process information! 8D!" is a bit silly to me. Of course, I did say "for the most part" up there. The reason is, there are things like Strength to consider. Through some extensive occurrences/tribulations, you may actually improve your physical muscle mass to the point of moving you significantly enough along that 1-10 (example numbers) scale to constitute a whole point being gained. However, it's really all in how everything's handled, and what it's actually representing, specifically. Because, again, Bruce Lee was smaller than I am, and probably was smaller than a lot of big wrestlers, and yet he was STILL far stronger. So, again, I think, even with Strength, it really compares to an average, all other things the same. If you have 10 Strength and are 5 years old, maybe you're stronger than 95% of other 5-year-olds. Doesn't mean an adult can't still kick you across the room if he chooses. But, once your body is fully grown, just like that other guy's, you're now going to be that much stronger than him. To put it simply, the stats/attributes typically seem to represent your potential in a given area, as opposed to rating your ability with all factors considered at a specific point in time. I mean, you can be the most intelligent person in the universe, and that doesn't inherently grant you literacy, or knowledge.

Ahh, but, riddle me this: If you hear something that you doubt from one person, do you not doubt it more than if you hear it from 17 different people? I'm not saying "All social things should always use aggregate skill values from your whole party." I'm just saying that I think that's definitely worth considering. Like I said, though, you and a friend can't combine your aiming prowess into the same bow shot, or merge your consciousness on Perception checks. Certain things obviously don't really stack in effect. Ehh... when it comes down to it, it's really all just math. I mean, I get that it's more writing, etc. for dialogue and the gameplay to visually and audibly represent the different outcomes and happenings, but... still. The game already knows what everyone's skill levels are, and what value it's looking for to determine what outcome to represent to the player. It's simply a matter of whether or not it collects rolls from/performs math with all the values and looks for a higher total check difficulty value or not, really. The slightly different lines and such would be minimal, as you'd already have these in a game devoid of any manner of combined skill checks.

This was something I was wondering as well, as it seems a bit confusing. My best guess at this point? Maybe they meant that, if a 6-year-old boy with a young, underdeveloped soul (as far as soul powers go... maybe he hasn't hit soul-puberty yet? *shrug*) worships the god of Awesome, he doesn't just get a big powerline from his god to himself that supplies him with 7,000,000 volts of Awesome. I think he gets the ability to channel his own soul's power into forms of Awesome, but his own soul is the power source, rather than the deity. It's kind of like someone giving you a key to the library. You're still either literate or you're not, and which books you read and what knowledge you gain have nothing to do with the person who gave you the key. Again, "stem solely from within" is confusing, as it seems to imply "the deity isn't really important here." *shrug* I may be mistaken, but isn't that essentially how Paladins function in P:E? If so, this would be problematic, in that Priests would quite literally just be Paladins who happen to be religious.

Well, they've mentioned a per-day limit and a per-encounter limit. I'm not sure if it's just going to be spell "ammo" or what, and I'm not sure if still are limited to how many spells at a time you can memorize/prepare or not. As Gfted1 said, I believe they said something about your spell access limitation basically being what fits in a given grimoire (for Wizards, at least), and I think even hinted at being able to switch out grimoires much like weapons, so that you can actually prepare different sets of spells to use at different times. This leads me to believe that we won't see the "You're Level 1? You can only prepare 3 different spells per day, even though you know like 10 spells" limits as in D&D rules. *shrug*. There's a lot we don't know, I don't think. Personally, I think that if they've already got a per-day refresh and a per-encounter refresh, it would make perfect sense to have yet another sub-set of time, even within an encounter, such as a real-time cooldown or a limited mana pool. However, I'm not sure whether or not an additional subset like that would really be necessary, in the grand scheme of things.