Lephys

Ohhhhhh. They're not part of the Core Rulebook. Heh. We're restricted to the Core Rulebook for this campaign, as the DM is a bit new, and the group's a bit large. He wanted to narrow the scope of all the possible things he needed to deal with and look up, so as not to postpone our campaign for several weeks, AND to limit all the stuff the new people needed to learn for their own character creation, and about the rest of the party's characters. 8P Good stuff, though!

I don't think the idea behind godlike is that they're a mix between the power-rating of mortals and the power ratings of deities. I think it's more just characteristics of the gods that create a sort of hybrid person of whatever race, resulting in simply a different person than a strictly better person. The effects of this will be dynamic. Maybe, as a godlike, some people will be more easily intimidated (because they're afraid of godlike), whereas others will straight-out be less amiable (because they hate godlike). Not to mention you might have subtle, inherent ability/skill bonuses as a certain type of godlike, along with specifically-paired detriments, I'm sure. You know... higher base Perception, but lower base Willpower. That kind of thing.

That too. I wasn't intending to suggest the only possibility was the one I cited. I just wanted to spare people 1,000 words for once, by not citing every possible way in which you could "complete the quest." Heh. The point was that you should be able to get things done without going around and properly having tea with everyone in meetings about how you're going to get things done. Hell, you should be able to tell the Mayor you're going to rescue his daughter, use his aid to your advantage somehow, then help the kidnappers, and vice versa. Alongside not telling anyone anything, and still doing basically whatever the hell you want about the situation. For what it's worth, I believe their planned reputation system will be fully capable of dynamics such as what you have described.

^ I definitely think you should have the opportunity to be a PART of your stronghold's economy/"ecosysytem," rather than the very engine behind everything that happens to it. Your choices should cause changes and effects, which, in turn, cause changes and effects to your own situation, to which you must react within limitations. Not just "I decide this is a peaceful place! I decide that we make lots of money! I decide that we have AWESOME blacksmithing technology! 8D"

I think it would be awesome if your ability choices at level-ups were representative of putting your time, experience, and study into achieving a breakthrough with your abilities (which they're kind of supposed to be), in that you (as a Wizard, for example) only actually learn a rudimentary magical concept, and it develops from there based on a combination of further progression choices AND documents and artifacts you find, as well as things you can potentially learn from others throughout the game. So, maybe you basically learn the ability to manipulate/manifest ice, and you have a few basic aspects to any spell, just for being a Wizard (basic projectile, basic field, etc.). Then, as you go, you learn things like how to split a weave into multiple projectiles, or how to generate additional effects once a projectile collides (or cause it to leave a trail-effect as it goes, causing a detrimental line foes regret crossing), etc. So, you only inherently learn simple types and utilities of magical energy, and you learn/discover more elaborate effects and effective uses for various types as you go, from all manner of sources. *Shrug*

Well, I'm glad, because I really have no intention of wasting people's time, or simply cluttering up a forum, even though I sometimes feel I'm doing just that despite my efforts. And I think you've got a splendid idea there. I must admit... I didn't realize until now, but I've kind of been restricting my comments to the "assuming we're designing P:E here, within the scope of similarity to the structure of IE games and such." I'm not against your idea at all. I LOVE stuff like that. Who could say whether or not that would be feasible? I think it's definitely worth trying. I really don't know that P:E should try it. Not to such an extent, at least. And, on that note, I just think that there's still a "too much" threshold, you know? I mean, look at a typical narrative (like how I made an example of a static book narrative), and how it develops to the end. If you don't take part in the first 90%, you're not going to have the same effect with the last 10%. It's like... meeting someone and marrying them the next day. You have no relationship with that person, even if you have 1 day's worth of seeing really awesome things. There's no personal connection there, between the characters and the narrative, and, in turn, between the player and the narrative. That isn't to say that I don't think there shouldn't be sections of the narrative during which EXACLTY what you've said should be true. I think there should be a BROADER sense of connection to the overall narrative, rather than a constant, step-by-step connection to the narrative. I think that kinda comes back to the simple "Linear versus non-linear" topic at hand. I don't advocate a strictly-linear narrative/gameplay-experience in an RPG (or, really, in most genres, although it still has its value in several). But, at the same time, you have to make sure you don't run the risk of not even having the story be DIRECTIONAL at all. I mean, if you're building an enclosure, and you never ultimately follow the pattern of having the walls meet up because you just build them off in random directions, you end up with not-an-enclosure. That's not to say only enclosures are good, and open structures are bad. It's just... a narrative is kind of like an enclosure: No matter what shape you make it, or how big it is, or what different sections are made of, or how it shifts as you go, it's got to at least retain the basic structure of a narrative. If you wind up with "Some stuff just randomly happened, depending on what the main characters did, and it didn't necessarily even lead anywhere or develop into anything specific," then you don't really have a narrative. You just have a record of arbitrary, disconnected events. But, anywho, I'm getting a little overly analytical. I like the idea, and I hope it's considered and explored, honestly. The aspect, at least, in P:E. I don't want everything to be "No, you HAVE to choose, to either help this village or attack it! You CANNOT ignore it!" I think the game benefits highly from mutually exclusive branches via choice, including in-action in specific areas. I don't think everything should wait on the player. But, nor should EVERYTHING just not care whether or not the player engages the content or not. I mean, obviously 100% optional would be terrible in a narrative. But, I couldn't tell you at what percentage it's feasible and doesn't shatter the nature of a narrative. There are wayyyy too many specific factors at play. It would basically require some game design experiments (which I think there should just be some think-tank somewhere that does that, just to record data and functionality and such, and figure out what works and what doesn't in a load of various ways).

If I could re-arrange the alphabet for the purposes of game design, I'd put U and I together. In serious business, I think a minimap shouldn't be incorporated in the generic video game sense. It should probably be tailored to an RPG. Maybe what all is viewable on it and/or how far it shows is dependent upon your party's Perception/Wilderness skills, and the current lighting level, etc.. Maybe you can purchase/find maps of places, that are all ranges of accurate. Without any maps, you just see a black void until you actually discover it with your own sight range. But, some might just have landmarks and such (like in The Witcher 2, sort of), and some might be 100% accurate, but cost more or be more difficult to acquire. *shrug*. Just minimap brainstorming here. Sorry. *deploys brain lightning rod* Oh, and @ Morgulon... *Thumbs up*. Seriously... Even if that thing might need some functional tweaking (I'll have to mull it over in my head a bit more), I admire the aesthetic "ergonomics" of it, and the effort you put into its quality, just to post a mockup suggestion on a forum. GO YOU! ^_^ Sorry... rapid-edit, heh. One thing I wanted to note about Morgulon's mockup is how much it benefits from contrast, as compared to the original prototype posted in the update. I don't think the color scheme necessarily needs to be super varied or crazy (although I'm not at all against color schemes/style options/customization), but the original was a little... homogenous. It kind of looked like one big carving in a bronze slab, ya know? Not that the overall shapes/layout was terrible or anything. But, yeah, the contrast in Morgulon's DEFINITELY provides a huge benefit. Just for what it's worth.

Ohhhh, I forgot. As long as BOTH people get to use ultra-binary tactics, everything's okay. Don't wanna die to Disintegrate? Have really high resistance. Don't want to die to Insta-Murder? Make sure everyone in your party has Ludicrous Evasion, which required them all to take 5 Evasion Perks in a row for the last 15 levels in lieu of other interesting mixes of perks, which don't work because you're never not going to not-face Insta-Murder-wielding enemies. My mistake. I stand corrected. Insta-death rolls are fun, and tactical combat doesn't require multiple factors at play. Just one at a time will suffice. Emphatic sarcasm aside, the problem with insta-death checks is that they reduce combat from "let's prevent that enemy from effectively fighting us" to "let's prevent that enemy from fighting us." In normal tactical combat, you've got OODLES of factors you can adjust for. That guy does really high damage? You can mitigate it with armor, or send someone who has high HP to face him, and/or high evasion will help, too. You can even tag-team him with your whole party. It might be an elaborate, 5-minute fight, and when someone gets hit, you've got to back them off and switch their role and let someone else take over the frontlines. Rangers might slow him to make it more difficult for him to get near someone. Warriors might knock him away, or go all ultra-defensive with a shield and full plate, sacrificing offense for a significantly defensive stance. Or maybe they'll knock him around a lot with lots of knockback. Rogues might trap him, etc. What do you do against an enemy Necromancer who has a "YOU DIE NOW" beam? Hey, Ranger, slow him! Oh, wait, he doesn't need to move to hit you with his ranged "YOU DIE NOW" beam. Hey, tank, knock him away! Oh, wait, he's not even trying to come close to you. Have fun getting to him before he INSTANTLY annihilates your Warrior, no matter what your armor or health or stance. The ONLY way to stop it is to kill him before he can cast it (which, wouldn't it be convenient if you ALWAYS only faced one insta-kill-wielding mage, maximum, per combat encounter?), or have ludicrously high resistance and get lucky on a roll. There is no range of effectiveness. His spell isn't better or worse depending on your tactical choices. It just kills you, and you can have a CHANCE for it to do nothing. He's either the easiest foe in the world, or the hardest, all at the flip of a coin. Simply put, such abilities turn combat into lockpicking. Do you have high enough resistance (lockpicking skill)? Well, then you can pick this lock and get past this door. Do you not? Well, you're stuck. Only, in this, everyone in your party needs high lockpicking, or they can't go through the door. The door being a figurative continuation of the game, as opposed to game over. And, for what it's worth, rolls determine small outcomes regarding the clashing of smaller factors within the greater outcome of combat in classic RPG roll-based systems. Not entire combat outcomes. You don't send your Warrior at an enemy, and you roll "Warrior versus Mage" dice, and see who dies and who lives. You actually choose all the steps to get you to victory, and chance plays a small part in that. Got a Base Attack Bonus (in D&D rules) of 9? Well, now even if you roll a 10, you get 19, so chance plays MUCH less of a chance in your decisions to attempt a physical attack with that character. And, it STILL only determines whether or not you hit. Then, you deal damage, based on yet another modified roll. That's why it's fun. Because it's tactical, and it reacts to your decisions, while simultaneously preventing them from being binary in effectiveness (they work awesomely, or do nothing). When random dice rolls start making things binary again, you've gone full circle and defeated the purpose of them entirely.

Awesome! I'm actually in a Pathfinder campaign right now (we're only level 2) as a Wizard. I take it Magus is a prestige class?

Instant time-of-day significance! 8D! You could be in a field of those little guys, and you definitely wouldn't want to make camp... 8P

I just want to point out just how much room there is between "no consequences" and "you are now a kitten."

Just imagine this: 1 character in your party is a Wizard and has 5 AC and 20 hit points. Another is a Warrior with 40 AC and 100 hit points. So, you've spent time, effort, and resources making sure your Warrior is tougher, because you want him to run up to things and do awesome melee battle with them. So, this 1 enemy (we'll call him Insta-Slayer) slays your Wizard in 1 hit. He's faster than your Wizard, so there's not really any way to just tactically get your Wizard to "dodge" out of there. So, you say "Hmm, I'll send my tough Warrior to tackle this guy!" Boom. Your tough Warrior dies in one hit. But, wait... how much damage does that Insta-Slayer do? ALL OF IT! But, didn't my armor block a bit of his blow, at least? NOPE! EITHER YOU HAVE HIGH ENOUGH ARMOR VALUE TO BLOCK THE BLOW'S DAMAGE COMPLETELY, OR IT DEALS FULL DAMAGE! But... that kind of goes against the mechanics of the entire rest of the game, plus this whole strategy thing. Oh, but wait! There's a "Protection from Insta-Slayer" spell! 8D! All you have to do (literally, this is all you can possibly do... your one option other than "die") is cast that on your people before you fight him, and his attacks will be useless! That is literally reducing tactics to binary. Doesn't matter how you position yourself around Insta-Slayer, or who you send to attack him and who you don't. He kills, or you cast the protection spell and he doesn't. Strategy regarding this entity has been reduced to "make sure to cast this protection spell." So... I'm gonna hafta agree with Josh here.

I'm pretty sure the point was to figure out there wasn't one.

Maybe there's an economic aspect to the stronghold, and you can invite/allow people to move into sections of it who are merchants and suppliers, etc. With something like merchants, you could obviously purchase directly for them, but maybe they produce variance in the development and capabilities of your stronghold? Also, some of them could be shady and skim off the profits, so that, even though they're pretty awesome, YOU'RE not actually seeing a big boost from their being there. Maybe that's the type of thing temporarily-not-in-the-party characters could be set to investigate/deal with while you're out adventuring. *Shrug*. Set George to keep an eye on them, and you know exactly who's doing what. Set Steve, and maybe you get half the results. Set Marvin, and it gets even WORSE! (Marvin has no economic know-how, whatsoever, and is non-confrontational... haha).

Obviously, some old, mad Wizard developed the Flame of Eternal Burnitude, and made oodles of money by selling it to all the dungeoneers throught the land. Afterwards, they killed him off, took their money back, and re-dubbed the technology Infini-Bright.

*Sees what you did there.* On-topic, I'd have to say that there are certain things *namely skill checks* that could be spiced up a bit, and those little scripted events might be a perfect way to do it. Maybe Lockpicking could get some (with rarer/story-based and/or elaborate locks and such). You already see this in a lot of games. Something that's already handled via direct gameplay mechanics, but then, it comes up in the story, and it's handled differently. I think there's definitely a place for these little scripted events, where they can be significant and appreciated.

The first thing I thought of was a Wizard traveling door-to-door to see if people want to enclose their backyards. Does that make me strange? o_O But really, a barrier-focused Mage would rock. 8D Also, though I really like the idea of the scene/caster described in the OP, I'm not foreseeing that level of control or perspective in P:E. I definitely think there should be a lot more interesting things to do with your magic, though. And, that kinda makes me think: Having your weapon sort of be a conduit through which you can cast would be a good change for a "battlemage" (sword-mage). Instead of just magically making yourself physically awesome with weapons, and also happening to toss some spells here and there that don't have much to do with weapons, what if there was an ENTIRE specialization of magic that focused on your weapon? So, you train (with regular old skill) with your weapons, JUST enough to allow you to properly wield them, and get them stuck in things sometimes (maybe with the help of the tactical magical diversions that create openings for you). Then, your weapon is MAGICALLY more effectively going to do awesome and destructive things to that entity, since you got your focus lodged into the enemy. Next thought: ARCANE ARCHER! 8D

Does his mortal half also get a crown and a castle?

Yes! Like that! I would add in a "just go and complete the 'quest' without actually telling anyone you're going to do it" option. I mean, if you show up with the Mayor's daughter, and they know YOU didn't kidnap her, I think he wouldn't say "Wait a minute... you never asked me about this, and officially did all the paperwork, so, I'm afraid I'm actually NOT grateful to see my daughter alive again, and I shall provide you with absolutely NOTHING in return. You know what? You can't even talk to me about it! Nor do you even gain experience, u_u..."

Sorry for the delayed response. I was away for the weekend. Yeah, I'm pretty analytical. It doesn't always provide helpful immediate results, but it does help me to figure out where to look and where not to for the heart of the matter. But, I do apologize when people are trying to have serious discussions on results, and I'm here going all "Well, let's look a the relationship between these things, and maybe that can give us a better idea of what can be ruled out and what can't, and THEN we can go from there! 8D!" Heh. I don't mean to be obnoxious or anything. It's just what my mind likes to do. I don't think having sandbox content is bad, or automatically hurts anything. You're right in that people can just ignore it. But, see, people can't just ignore the narrative. If you can ignore the entire narrative (or even the vast majority of it), and it still develops all the while with you being highly significant to it, then there's something wrong. You can't be a major focus of the narrative AND just be perfectly fine when absent from it. "A bunch of things happen in the world, for like 75% of the game, and you just gather pine cones and investigate ruins. Then, for the last little homestretch, you actually come in and take part in the story itself." That's not very interesting. You can't go back in time to that village that was slaughtered and question that one guy about that thing only HE knew. You had to do it back WHEN. HOW you get the info from him, and whether or not you kill him, or let the village burn, anyway, is one thing. I'm not talking about making sure only specific things happen in the narrative. Just... the player should have to participate. I mean, that's why the game ends when you die. With you dead, the story pretty much writes itself from there, without you, and without you, everything falls to pieces, and not in the way that you wanted it to even when you have the freedom to make it fall to pieces in a controlled fashion. I mean, take any book you've ever read, and imagine that the main character, at key points in the story, just left wherever they were, didn't handle situations, didn't talk to people, and just went out exploring for their own personal gain. That doesn't make for very interesting narratives. That hardly makes for narratives at all, really. And yes, the mature thing to do is not to railroad, but to provide narrative consequences for the player's lack of action/influence on the events and situations therein. But, see, the player's influence on situations throughout a narrative is very much a core part of an RPG. So, that's what I'm getting at. And I think the best way to handle the whole thing is with good design balancing. If you've got 10 hours of exploratory content (I realize it's hard to EXACTLY measure such things, as people can take more or less time exploring), then you don't need to have a narrative that demands all but 1 hour of your time in the game. No "Okay, you've got about 15 minutes between every quest!". And, again, I don't mean the game's literally set up so that there are timers in-between a bunch of linear quests. I just mean, you've got to have appropriate windows of NON-urgency. You know, "We need to make our way to Villethdale, to find such-and-such. We don't really have much to go on, though." So you're headed to Villethdale, but you can explore at your leisure, because we can assume your leisure isn't 752 weeks. OR, hell, maybe the party even comments on how long you're taking to get to Villethdale, after a couple of weeks (if it's a 4-day journey to Villethdale or something). But, the player shouldn't be punished for simply taking part in the unknown provided to him by the game's own design for the sole purpose of being explored. Sure, it should tie into the world lore/narrative and all that, but, if it's not discovered or explored in any capacity, how can it really do that? You can have "If you had explored here, you would've found out about THIS" bits in the game, but again it comes back to balance. If you literally have to sacrifice narrative influence just to NOT sacrifice exploration that would have, in turn, allowed different actions/influences upon the narrative... well, now we're in a big scary loop of nonsense, haha. So, in short (why didn't I just do it in short from the beginning? ), you can have both awesome exploratory freedom AND restrictive, reaction-inducing narrative structure, but it's highly difficult to have them both be the focus of the game (unless the narrative itself is about exploration, I suppose).

I guess your word attacks would be slower to work, and/or would deal less damage in Opposition Points. And if you don't do enough damage, the target remains Opposed to your Diplomatic Solution, and the battle is lost. Diplomacy is the most civilized form of warfare, after all. Or maybe you just get a big "I'll totally give you all this stuff I'm carrying if you succumb to my will" option.

Let's say a surgeon can't bake delicious goodies. But I can, 'cause my class is Delicious Goodie Baker. But, I can AlSO wield bandages and sharp utensils. Does that mean I'm automatically better than the surgeon, because I can utilize basic physics to cause sharp edges to cut things and to apply adhesive to fleshy surfaces that are presumably bleeding, and the surgeon can't bake yummy things? Riddle me that, Batman. (I get what you're asking and why you're asking it, but I don't really think a Wizard's inability to wield a sword would make things even, since there is already balancing in place between the Wizard's class-specific abilities and the Warrior's [like spells-per-day limits, etc.]).

The fact that one type of weapon isn't always better than another type of weapon isn't really a matter of complexity. The fact that one type of weapon will suck in certain situations and rock in others is a matter of complexity. I see little difference in having fireballs be more effective in some situations and less effective in others, and having weapons do the same. Why would you say that this idea about AOE spells is somehow crap, and point out Josh's weapon system design as not crap, when they're basically the same principle? I'm literally baffled. o_o Which is exactly why I'm supporting the well-thought-out-ness of complexities, Would it be better to just have 1 AOE spell in the game and call it a day? 'Cause multiple are too complex? Obviously that would be a bit silly. So, they've got multiple in there, and they behave differently. So, why not have them behave like they should? If you try to throw a knife at an enemy who's around a corner, the wall corner blocks the knife from making contact. Same with an arrow fired at an enemy behind a tree. Why, then, would someone standing behind 7 other people take full damage from an exploding fireball on the opposite side of the 7 other people? Just because walls don't die when they stop fireballs and knives doesn't mean people don't have any of the same properties as walls. It's just like what you said about weapons. Why is it stupid to have 17 different types of weapons in the game if 10 of them aren't viable? "Hey, this level 20 dagger only does like 10 damage, but this level 20 greatsword does 700!". That's silly, right? Why? because it's self-defeating. You're saying "Hey, you could use a dagger instead of a greatsword! The dagger is a unique and viable weapon option!" But, it's basically removed as an option when you make it suck in the later portion of the game. Same thing with AOE spells. Why would you use Fireball instead of 1 of 16 other AOE spells when they all just do the same thing and there's never any incentive to use it rather than something else? This suggestion is NO different from the complexity level of having some AOE spells fire in cones, and some fire in a circle, and maybe some even in a line (lightning bolt from some RPGs). If you fire a linear lightning bolt perpendicularly at a row of enemies, you're only going to hit one. If you fire it ALONG the line of enemies, you're going to hit ALL of them, with the same resources used. Boom. You have to make sure you're casting the spell in a tactically effective fashion. If you fire a cone spell at a group of scattered enemies, you're only going to hit a couple. If you use a radial spell, you're going to hit all of them within a 25-foot circle (rather than just one cone/pie-wedge of a circle). Boom. Effectiveness. How is it unreasonably complicated, then, to say "This fireball is exploding outward in this circular targeting area, so if I cast this at a group of decently spread-out enemies, it will work best, and if I cast it at a group of clogged up enemies standing in a line, it won't work as well."? It's as easy as "Hmm, it kinda looks like the front ones would be blocking the rest of them from the blast. Better cast it to the side of the group," or "better use a different spell that doesn't radiate out from the center, and, in stead, rains down from above, or strikes from the ground, or just produces a gas or wave of energy that hits everything in the circle no matter what." No one FORCES you to stand there all day calculating the most effective pixel to click on with the Fireball spell, just like no one forces you to use your dagger instead of a hammer if there are a bunch of heavily-armored enemies about. To make one more example, it's no different from elemental resistance: "Oh, these guys aren't going to be hurt by fire? Well, I shouldn't use Fireball, then. Better use Lightning Orb." The fact that you have to consider what the effects of your choice will be before you finalize it is in NO way a bad thing. And it's not overly complicated, either. If there were 700 different behaviors for spells, that would be one thing. But, this topic is only suggesting adding essentially ONE more factor (that already exists in the rest of the game's mechanics) to spells that often don't pay any attention to it in existing games.

I wonder several things about that: A) Is the overflow space limited? Maybe it's only limited by encumbrance... i.e. you can technically carry infinite overflow stuff, but when you get to battle and it takes you 3,000 seconds to cast a spell, you'll wish you hadn't tried to grab so much (I'm sure the encumbrance penalty value would be shown to you, so you wouldn't have to be surprised when you discover just how slow you cast after waiting to test it out first-hand.) B) What kind of penalties, exactly? I would have to assume they'd be along the same lines as equipment penalties, simply slowing your combat actions (as Josh stressed the "not your movement speed" thing with armor/equipment penalties in the exact same manner). C) ... I forgot what C was... o_o

We don't yet know what all does and does not exist in P:E.