Lephys

Excellent update! I can't wait for more details on this, and what all it affects/affects it. This is heavily pertinent to the Duck and Sidestep thread I just created. Things like the Fighter's Defender modal ability actually engaging multiple targets in melee combat are right up the alley of what I was hoping for in terms of tactical, positional control. 8D I wonder... will there be ways of moving the engagement, as a whole? What I mean is, can a Fighter actually draw his three (maximum of three, with the two additional?) targets over to a canyon mouth chokepoint (so as to cut off incoming reinforcements from that direction), or rotate the engagement (so as to grant other party members line-of-sight on his targets?) Or, is it simply going to be "Well, here's where we're engaged, so here's where we're standing and which direction we're facing until one of us either dies or breaks engagement..."? Juuuust curious. 8P Also, apparently Josh has unlimited Targets of Engagement, as he is engaging THE ENTIRE FORUM! Nobody sign off, or we'll suffer devastating hits from both that sword AND that mace! O_O

^ I actually hadn't thought of modal behavior settings like that, but yeah, that's the right idea! Like I said, it's not exactly a single mechanic idea. So, I'm very much open to any and all thoughts on the matter. And, to clarify, I'm not looking to eliminate the risk of friendly-fire, or the very existence of situations in which you simply cannot have line of sight or an ally-free AOE zone without an equal (if not greater) cost than the friendly-fire. There should definitely be plenty of times when AOE or ranged attacks are just a bad choice, or are going to be REALLLLLY tricky to pull off without being a bad choice, etc. I've just played a lot of RPGs in which it was a constant chore to get clear AOE shots and whatnot, even in simple situations.

No. Those are patients. Pre-xactly! Ex-cisely! ^_^

I'm hoping for that Power Ranger spandex that deflects lazers and metallic blades, alike, and seems to be powered by sparks.

Croikey, people... Croikey, o_o It's quite simple. Your character's skill with a sword determines whether or not he hits an enemy or misses, but it does not determine whether or not he kills an enemy based on a single command. You don't click "Kill," then target an enemy. No, you choose an attack, or an ability, or you issue a move command, and you continue doing this until the thing is dead. If you just issue move commands all day long, obviously the thing would never die. Your character would simply run around in circles, until he eventually died, DESPITE his copious amounts of character skill that allow him to dispatch the foe. The same could feasibly go for lockpicking. A lock is not something you just hit or miss. When you fail to pick a lock, it's because you didn't successfully "solve" it, basically, which is MUCH more a mirror of killing an enemy in combat than it is of simply striking an enemy with a sword, or moving from point A to point B (a single move command) without tripping and falling. If you don't want complex lockpicking, then awesome. No one said you have to like it and want it. But that doesn't change the fact that it makes perfect bloody sense, and that we're not psycho crackpots for suggesting it. Nor are we slapping character skill in the face, or advocating first-person shooter gameplay to take the place of lockpicking, or anything even remotely so radical. If it doesn't make it into the game, for whatever reason, then no big deal. It's obviously not the end of the world. But, it's a completely arbitrary decision to have picking a lock be a single action, as directly decided by a skill-check roll (just like a single sword-swing in combat with an attack roll) instead of having it occasionally be more complex than that. It really is. Your character's skill would present you with the available actions to be performed, and you, the player, would simply decide when and how to use them, EXACTLY as you do in combat. Yes, this means that, to some degree, your actions are affecting the effectiveness of your character's actions, despite their skill. The exact same can be said of combat! If you cast fireball on a single enemy, instead of a cluster of 7 archers, then you just made your character less effective than he probably would've been had HE gotten to decide the target. But he doesn't. He just either has the ability to strike a target with a fireball, or he doesn't. Seriously... how many pages must we go arguing silly semantics of player "skill" and other such nonsense? Obviously, whatever we call it, the player affects how the characters do things, despite their skill values. And, obviously, that player "skill" shouldn't override that completely, just like nothing should override attack rolls and defense values in combat. No one is arguing to the contrary. If you think the very idea of more-complex-than-a-single-action-skill-check/roll lockpicking is dumb and you hate it, then why not spend your time not-posting in this thread, and maybe constructively posting in some other thread about ideas you actually WANT to spend your time hashing out? Because I can't think of many things more pointless than telling people how much you hate ideas they aren't even advocating, regarding a topic you aren't going to do anything but assume the worst about.

@ Sabotin: It seems their "cost" is going to be the time-sensitive building of their abilities to full potency. Not that they couldn't have others. But, that defeats the need to have some kind of other pre-requisite in place (like some form of "mana" or something, specifically for Ciphers) in exchange for the power/usefulness of their abilities, as the pre-requisite for potency is cast/sustain time.

Two ideas: 1) What if merchants simply had fluctuating amounts of gold? For example, one day when you happen to get to town, the blacksmith's business hasn't been to awesome lately, so he's a little low on what he can give you for metal things. BUT, the Alchemist on the other side of town has seen booming business, so they've got plenty. They'd probably pay less for things (and maybe the Alchemist was a bad example of a different shop), but they'd have plenty of gold. OR, if it would be better/easier, maybe the prices for things simply fluctuate (while the merchants still have "infinite gold."). AND, maybe there should be 3 or 4 merchants of the same type in the cities and larger towns, rather than the one... MAYYYYYBE two you generally see in a lot of games, and maybe they have competing prices. *shrug* 2) What if things (such as used equipment) that weren't obviously highly valuable or useful were only useful to get you some other form of credit, or goods, or reputation gain, etc., in lieu of money? That way, you're out adventuring, and you think "Hmm... do I need money right now? Yes? Okay, I'll take only the most valuable stuff I can find, and leave all this riff-raff." OR, alternatively, you think "Hmm... I'm not really that worried about money right now, so maybe I'll grab all the used equipment I can, so I can turn it into the smiths' guild for salvage, and they'll give me a free re-forging or something." In a world where there aren't mass-manufacturing factories for things and products are relatively scarce, maybe you take any decent clothing you find (monetarily worthless) and donate it to a charity organization when you get back to town, and this affects your reputation to a great degree and provides non-monetary benefits of sorts? Etc. I had also suggested the idea, in another thread, that skill-dependent components and things (like Alchemy ingredients/herbs, or trap-creation components, etc.) would not even show up in chests or other lootable containers (or on bodies) in the "loot list" unless one of your present characters possessed enough skill/lore/knowledge in that area to know what those things even were, much less how much money they were worth. Why does my Barbarian go "Oooh, a Corranthium Blossom! This can be used in making powerful potions, and is worth like 50 gold! I have no idea how I know this, but let's take it anyway!" I mean, there are probably cobwebs and broken trinkets and such in barrels, or on bodies, that your party just goes "Meh... that's not even worth considering taking," and therefore the game simply omits it from the loot list. Just some thoughts. I apologize for their fragmentation. *points to head*... Defective brain. It's hard to find parts. *shrug*

Thanks. I really, truly appreciate it, ^___^

Hello everyone, ^_^. I got a carrier pigeon from Squeakycat, and would like to express my interest in joining the Order, as per Squeakycat's very generous donation of his... donation? (I had actually thought joining was impossible, for a time, after the Kickstarter had ended, for I am but a silly, simple-minded person who read something wrong and then didn't read the updated somethings for a while. *Le sigh*) EDIT: Erm... Could I, perchance, have the title "Punsmith of the Obsidian Order"? If the powers that be see fit.

This was an idea in the "Small Suggestions..." thread, and it was growing a bit big there, so I decided to move it here. The idea is for the game interface to allow the player to utilize inter-character teamwork (in some form) to pull off things like friendly-fire-avoiding AOE abilities, or any other ability in which an ally's position would detriment the effectiveness of an attack. The initial idea was callouts, much like the "grenade out!" in a lot of shooters (as such things are actually used in military group tactics so that no one inadvertently charges into a grenade zone or something, etc). I realize now that what I'm after may be achieved through various implementations (not simply callouts). BUT, maybe the callouts are codewords (like I said, so the enemy remains unawares), and maybe they, at the very least, give your allies who are within the blast zone a bonus modifier to defense/evasion, since they know it's coming? I guess it just seems silly to me that there's almost NO synergy there in avoiding friendly fire. It's like 1000% of the control for even very simple AOE scenarios comes down to the player. It almost feels, in most games, as though you need to meta-game your way around things, so that everyone will be in the desired position, and your spell/ability will go off at the desired time. Almost... What if we simply had more positional control? As in, maybe your Fighter (or other melee combatant) who is engaged in direct melee combat with an enemy can "Push back" to a targetable location (short-range) at the cost of defense/attack effectiveness? So you can feasibly get enemies into better positions for simple, small-scale AOE's, without it simply being a matter of "Welp... friendlies are in the cone. Do I hurt them, or do I just stand here like an idiot because I can't really do anything else...?" The type of character cooperation/capability I'm after makes more sense if thought of in terms of non-magic abilities, like ducking melee arc-swings or side-stepping arrows from archers, etc. There's a huge difference between the player selecting a character and saying "You there... you STOP fighting and move 3 feet to the right!", and letting that character know that another character needs them out of the way for an attack or ability to land, and having that character be able to time a sidestep in the midst of combat. *Le shruggles* EDIT: Just realized that the Wizard's Familiar enables additional positional control over spell "aiming." I just didn't really think of that before. That's along the lines of what I'd like to see, rather than a Wizard who has to run around for 10 minutes like he's trying to get a good spot at a concert. Hehe.

Haha. Touche. But, maybe they use code words/phrases? "Blue thunder! BLUE THUNDER!" -- EDIT -- Moved to a new thread.

^ All I know is, the party shouldn't go "Ahh, drat... we didn't get to set up an ambush ahead of time, and/or the enemy isn't conveniently standing around in a glob, so we're pretty much just going to have to use our AOE abilities on each other." It shouldn't be quite so much trouble just to be capable of luring several enemies into a bundle to set up for an AOE attack. OR, if they're in a bundle but currently engaging allies, it shouldn't be completely out-of-the-question for the allies to intentionally duck out of the way of an AOE spell or something (unless the Wizard isn't even trying, and literally just casts it centered on the allied group, with the enemies at the edge.) Hell, not even AOE... if an archer is going to fire a flaming arrow at something, but an ally is in the way, he should be able to shout "Landreth, DOWN!", then fire, and Landreth should be able to kick or pommel strike the enemy, duck the arrow, then simply raise back up and continue mercilessly killing the thing to death. You shouldn't have to primitively jiggle your people around the battlefield with movement commands to try to indirectly get line of sight or a clear AOE target whilst keeping the enemies there. *shrug* I guess I'm just asking for better positional tactical ability, really? *Shrug*

I never suggested you were arguing that a fantasy world has no basis in reality. A) The lore doesn't have to do anything. The lore is only part of a GAME world. In a book, or any other non-interactive fantasy world, you don't have HP and other mathematical abstractions of the world. In a game, you do. It doesn't matter if the ruleset states it, or the lore states it. It's still stated. The D&D ruleset doesn't imply that you'll gain XP, and levels, and HP. It specifically states it. So, yes, when you pointed out that he keeps using reality as a basis for the ways in which he wants to handle the design of the fantasy world (such as HP-handling), he said "this is the reason I do that." Let me put it this way... a fantasy world doesn't even EXIST unless specifically stated. Anything that's placed into a fantasy world is intentionally altered from reality. People are in? If all that's said is "There are people there, too," then I have to assume they're just like people in reality. They have skin, and eyeballs, and vital organs, and health, etc. Now, if you say "Oh, but they gain health durability as they progress through adventures," then NOW it's different. So, yes, the basis for health is real-life human health. Well, that doesn't quite make sense, really, since no one stated other differences. For example, how much blood does a D&D person have? A level 17 person can bleed for 10 years before they die, but a level 1 person can only bleed for about 7 rounds? See, discrepancies. That one's pretty minor, but it was just to make the point. So, yes, I understand his argument. But, you're trying to suggest that somehow he's wrong in what he said simply regarding the basis of fantasy things being reality, purely because "the lore doesn't say it." Well, even the lore says it, because the lore includes tales of things that actually happened. Some legendary guy that fought a dragon, and took 5 dragon claw swipes to the face before finally collapsing and dying. So, yes, the lore literally tells us that that guy innately had more "health" than those hundred peasants whom the dragon slew with merely the wind from his wings. The only thing the lore implies is the terminology/quantifications, such as "hit points," because they simply don't exist within the lore. They exist only for the purposes of the interface with the game world, and thus exist outside of it. D&D's world (as per your example) states that people gain health as they become more skilled and experienced. It is specifically stated. So, Trashman isn't even arguing that it isn't. He just doesn't think it should be, for other reasons. And yes, HP does basically inflate values, in modern RPGs. You've already got changing values (like damage) that illustrate the effectiveness of an attack versus ANY amount of HP (as damage values can be lowered, by things such as armor or resistance, AND raised, by a lack of armor or a critical hit or an extra-effective attack versus a specifically weak defense, etc.). So, I do see why he's advocating a lack of HP-gain. I see a point to that. Do I know for a fact that there's absolutely no reason modern RPGs use HP gain now? No. No I don't. So thank goodness for discussion with other people who know things I don't.

If this entire thread didn't even exist, it wouldn't change the fact that reality is the foundation for all things fiction. If you make a world with magic in it, then it's a realistic world + non-realistic magic. Whether or not he's correct about HP is irrelevant to that specific fact. So, if you want to continue telling him he's wrong about HP, that's fine. But you're wasting your time trying to tell him that reality isn't always the starting point for a fictional world, and/or trying to say that that can't possibly be what he meant by that. As I said, I noticed what I believed to be a misunderstanding, and thought I'd save you the time and trouble of arguing against a meaning for something that wasn't even being used. As for the HP issue, I don't feel I'd be able to contribute much to the discussion in my current frame of mind (I'm sick, and a bit out of it right now), so I'll think on it for a bit before I say anything.

You would, but the player-controlled characters essentially "don't know" unless you "pass the knowledge onto them" by moving them manually. I just think it would be great if something supported the player in the coordination of extremely simple AOE ability usages. I've seen several RPGs with behavior settings such as "try to get out of the way of spells," or something along those lines, but it's always pretty iffy. What I was specifically suggesting is an actual slight delay for the spell or ability, for the purposes of the callout, and to give people who are able the time necessary to stun-and-move. You could still cast the spell or ability "instantly" (without the added delay) if you so chose. And, to clarify, I'm not suggesting how easy it be to pull this off, or how often such opportunities come up. I just always play these games as a Mage/Wizard, and, while I don't mind the friendly-fire (I rather like it, as it adds challenge and immersion), it's usually simply FAR too difficult to make proper use of AOE abilities. Look at Dragon Age (not that it's a shining gem of all things perfect in RPGs or anything): You got those huge Earthquake and Lightning Storm spells that hit like, a 30-foot radius, and yet it was pretty much impossible to hit more than 1 or 2 enemies with them without hitting also your entire group, no matter what you did and how awesomely tactical you were.

I think you're being a bit academical here. There is no skill that tells your Barbarian to pick the blunt weapon against skeletons; you do. There is no skill that tells your Cleric to heal the Barbarian when it's time, you do. There's no skill that tells your Mage to cast ice spells against fire salamanders. Combat depends to a large degree on your skill, your timing. The difference to my lockpicking example is therefore minimal; in both cases, both character and player skill affect the outcome. The Wiz6 example is more twitchy than what you do in RTwP combat, that's the only difference. Dialogue depends entirely on your mental faculties, apart from player skill/ attribute maybe unlocking different options. Stealth in P:E hopefully will be more twitchy than in IE games; I hope you'll have to constantly move between covers, avoid lit places etc. So again, there would be no difference to the lockpicking example. Also pretty academical I'd say Unless "academical" means "incorrect," then I merely apologize for being slightly annoyingly technical. It's just how my brain works. *shrug* I realize that player skill does sometimes involve timing, but, it doesn't generally involve the timing/aptitude of the character with specific actions (you can't try harder and make your character run faster, or make them swing more accurately at a foe, or make them be better at Spot, etc). If I knew how to describe the specific facet of character skill I'm trying to describe, I would, but all I know is that it's an aspect of it that's best kept separate from player skill (within the context of such an RPG). The best comparison I can think up is this: In combat, your character's "skill" (Attack rating, or whatever it's labeled in a given RPG) determines the range/modifier on his attack roll, which represents his ability to physically make an attack with a weapon, You tell him to attack, and you even tell him when and whom to attack, but you NEVER get to directly affect that attack roll. Your character makes that roll, every time. Does that make sense? It seems like, if you do a "twitchy," timing-based element in a lockpicking interface, then your character would have a tumbler-timing "roll," which is then overridden completely by the player's ability (or lack thereof) at timing the tumblers. As I said, your character could have a 90 lockpicking skill, and you, the player, could still botch the tumblers, just as they could have a 20 lockpicking skill and you could nail the timing on the tumblers perfectly on a rather difficult lock (if the game allows you to attempt beyond your character's skill rating.) Whereas, in combat, if your character has 90 Attack rating, then he's going to produce better results with swings, every single time. You can prevent him from swinging, but you can't affect HOW he swings. You don't actually time the action of his sword hand, or his aim. Or, if it helps, you don't actually MAKE your character DO things. You just tell him what TO do. With a twitchy tumbler timing interface (say THAT ten times fast, ), you're actually directly determining the deftness of the character's action. You're essentially making them perform an action with either good or bad timing, regardless of their own ability to time deft hand movements. So, I don't know if that helps, but that is the only reason I don't advocate "twitch"-based elements in the given RPG design. I don't disagree that player skill is integral to an RPG, and that testing that in different ways (such as with puzzles, or dialogue, which is kind of like a puzzle, sort of...) isn't inherently bad. You simply have to make sure the test of the player's skill doesn't stomp on the toes of the character's skill in your game's design. That's all. And, @Umberlin, while I understand your frustrations and concerns, I believe you're nuking what could be handled with a rifle. Basically, I want the design of any kind of non-combat "minigame" interface to be handled with the same approach (not to be confused with "I want them to be the same" or "I want them to take the exact same amount of time," etc.) as combat. Think of it... In combat, there's a group of enemies, and you have a group of allies. You have abilities and movement speed, etc. When you've overcome all the obstacles (all the enemies), combat is over, and you are victorious. As your party gets better and better, they become better tools with even more versatility and effectiveness in combat, and you fight tougher and tougher enemies. Well, pretend your Thieves' Tools are your party, and the tumblers/lock-mechanisms are the enemies. In fact, someone was talking about how the "Thieves' Tools" sets in RPGs are representative of historical sets of tools that include far more than just lockpicks. They might've had certain acids that ate through certain metals (lockpicking skill could allow you to identify the metals of components of a mechanism), various picks and such for tumblers, and even punch/chisel-type tools for breaking or jamming certain mechanical components. The way I see it, your lockpickist will know HOW to do things to locks, but not necessarily what all they need to do to the locks to successfully best them. Again, just like combat. Your character doesn't go "Oh, I should use Hack, followed by Leap to this other enemy, then maybe Power Strike, followed by Riposte -- because THAT guy's gonna try hitting me at that point -- then a Whirlwind while the Mage throws a flame wall here and here..." No, you decide all that, as you go, until the battle's won. The character just presents you with all those abilities/capabilities as tools, at your disposal, with which to command your party to victory. Hence, my take on complex lockpicking. With simple locks (relative to the character's skill), your character doesn't really need to make any decisions or "solve" the lock. All they need is their skill. So, they just pick it. With complex/difficult locks, they may scratch their heads a bit, and have to employ some trial-and-error to get through the lock. There are essentially 3 ways to handle this: 1) Just say "Eff it," and don't even worry about representing the complexity of the lock, or the challenge to your character's skill, in any way, shape, or fashion. Just make it an instant skill check and the lock opens. 2) Represent the complexity of the lock and the challenge to your character's skill with a progress bar, adding a modicum of immersion at the cost of tedious waiting because the player can't make any decisions other than "watch a 30-second progress bar and pretend they're picking a complex lock, or don't even tell them to pick it." 3) Actually represent the lock's challenge just like combat, by allowing the player to utilize the options/resources provided by the character's skill to "solve" the lock. If lockpicking just plain isn't you're thing, then that's fine. But, I really don't see why people act like I'm crazy for suggesting that Option 3 is a good option. *shrug* Again, it still has to be hashed out and balanced. It's not just "Well, I don't even care if it's an interesting or fun puzzley interface, or if it takes 7 hours, or what... Just as long as those super-basic decisions are made... that it WILL be a minigame, rather than instantaneous skill check, ^_^"

There are no immoral posters. Only unconstructive ones, u_u...

... SOYLENT BACKPACK IS PEO-PLLLLEEEE!!! IT'S PEO-PPPLLLLEEEEE!!!!!!!!

I really don't know what to tell you. No one's arguing the meaning of "specifically," yet you think that's what this is about. The ruleset "specifically states" that you gain levels with experience, and you gain HP when you gain levels, and how much, and when, etc. That stuff isn't ambiguously stated. It is "stated" in the rulebook. Therefore, that's how that world works. A character in the DnD world gains levels and HP. However, the terminology and concepts of "HP" and "levels" don't actually inhabit the fantasy world. They exist outside of it, as a liaison between the player and the game world. Why? Because the only way we know how to govern interactions with something as dynamic as an entire fantasy world is through math. So, yes, it is specifically stated. In the ruleset. The ruleset governs the game world. The game world exists without knowledge of this governance, because it has no need of such knowledge. If Trashman could've worded it better to prevent confusion, then so be it. But now we're clarifying (and have been for like 5 posts). Words mean what they mean, and he meant what he meant. You're not even arguing semantics anymore, because I've already clarified, and you're saying that my clarification is false and doesn't exist, and that your suggested meaning is the only possible meaning, whatsoever. You're just being silly at this point. I've nothing more to say. I was just trying to help clarify so you didn't have to waste your breath arguing that obviously-misunderstood point of his. It is what it is. *shrug*

I'm going to have to disagree to disagree, unfortunately, heh. Allow me to attempt to clarify. In your Wizardry 6 example from above (in which you "twitchily" time the stopping of the tumblers when they all turn green, your skill at timing overrides your character's skill at timing. In the combat comparison, you do sort of "time" your character's attacks, to an extent, but not on such a precision level. If the objective is to strike (as opposed to missing) the foe with your character's sword, the player doesn't time that action. You might not order your character to attack whilst he's blinded (and therefore more efficiently make use of changing factors in combat), but he still decides how to swing. With tumblers inside a lock, your character is operating the lockpicks with their own dexterity and finesse. So, whereas turning the lockpick a certain way, or choosing which tumbler to push on might be fine for player choice, I don't think timing the actual manipulation of the lockpick and tumblers is a good choice for a mechanic. This is pretty much the nature of most "twitch" mechanics, as the player's dexterity/precision/finesse is being tested, rather than the character's. And yes, you can increase or decrease the correct-timing window based on the character's skill, but that doesn't change the fact that you're still allowing the player to have significantly less finesse with an action the character would've already completed by now (because of their skill), or to have significantly MORE finesse than the character is supposed to (a la Oblivion, where, if you were quick with the lockpicking, you could pick master locks as a fledgeling lockpickist). Subjective value is part of it, but, objectively, the sheer twitch/timing element of it always causes a discrepancy between the character and player skill, in a way that pretty much nothing else in the game (combat, dialogue, sneaking, etc.) does. Fair enough. . I understood what your meaning, as well, for what it's worth. I simply wasn't sure if mine was muddy or not. Never hurts to check. I got your point, but it addresses differences I had no intention of denying. The only comparison I was trying to make was this: A certain class is something you might not have, and a certain skill level is something you might not have. So, in that, they are both optional things that should not be mandatory for core story progression. I understand their differences, but in that respect, they are the same. Please forgive my poor wording.

Well... my only problem with challenging different player skills is that that seems to override (rather than cooperate with) the idea of the character's skill level. In other words, the system should ALWAYS make the lockpicking "minigame" easier when your character's skill is high, and more difficult when your character's skill is low, which is exactly why I don't think you should be able to attempt level 100 locks when your character's skill is 30 (like in Oblivion, etc.), and why, at a certain threshold, the lockpicking should be instantaneous (like a level 50 lock and your character has 65 lockpicking or something). Just like how, in combat, you don't directly affect how fast or accurately your character swings a sword or dodges a sword stroke, I don't think you should decide how effectively a character actually makes individual actions with a lockpick. Which is why I think it should be more of a puzzle-type thing. And maybe you can alter variables based on your character's skill level (just like, in combat, how your character's exact same sword swing might do more damage, or be more accurate, or be faster/more-frequent, etc.), while the player's responsibility is to decide strategy and tactics. An example for lockpicking would be that (just like in Fallout or Skyrim), the better your character is at lockpicking, the less often you break picks. It's assumed your character gets more and more delicate and precise with pick movements, so you get more pick attempts with the same pick. Apply this to lock-type puzzles that vary in complexity (down to the threshold, at which point there is no puzzle and you simply pick the lock), and voila. Your character knows how to operate a pick, and tumblers, and various other lock mechanisms, but they don't inherently know many tumblers are inside the lock, nor their arrangement, or the wardings on a warded-key lock, etc. It's very similar to sight range. Your character's ability to see in low-light allows you, the player, to see what they see when it's farther away from the group, but it has no bearing on what they action they do or do not take. You still decide whether or not they attack it from a range, or hide to ambush it, etc. And, if they can't see in low-light well, and it's quite dark, their sight range is diminished, and you, the player, cannot simply spot that creature 30-feet away in the darkness and override their inability to do so. Well, not to get overly technical, but I think it's phrased okay as it is. I didn't intend any confusion. If you don't have to pick that lock, (because you can open the door a different way, or bypass the door entirely), then it doesn't matter if the lock's difficulty is 743 million, or 10. Basically, this goes even for any other method that's skill-based (like speeching someone into giving you the key, etc.). Simply put, if it's possible to get to that point in the game without having that level of that skill (lockpicking, speech, stealth, etc.), then I don't think it's a good idea to put a skill-requirement in for a mandatory obstacle. Like I said, it's fine if you can optionally have enough lockpicking skill to simply pick the door, or you can optionally talk someone into giving you a key, but there should always be a non-skill-requiring means (that's character actual hard-coded, number-value skill) of getting past that obstacle/situation. It's slightly different in that skills seem to be accessible to all classes though. Well, what I meant was, in general, in an RPG like this, if you can only have 6 party members, and there are 10-or-so classes, then the game shouldn't say "Oh, you can pick any 6 classes you want to travel about, but when you get to this one spot, you HAVE to have a Paladin in your party, because the main-story is Paladin based." Should you miss out on stuff for not having a Paladin in your party? Sure. Should you be prevented from advancing the core, mandatory portion of the game's story? Absolutely not. It just plain doesn't make sense. Or, I should clarify, you can't require a Paladin AND have the Paladin be optional. You could make it so that you can't NOT have a Paladin available, at that point in the game, but that kinda hurts the game in other ways, methinks.

That statement declares that if something is not explicitly confirmed, then it must work as it does in the real world. As for D&D, yes the rules tell you, but the setting does not. No lore ever confirms that people get harder to kill as experience is gained, but it does happen. It is an implied fact, not an explicitly stated fact. *siiigh*... I comprehend what you're saying, but you're arguing semantics. He didn't say "unless specifically stated by the setting and the lore and in no way by the ruleset..." He's talking about it being "stated" ANYWHERE within the design of a fictional RPG world, or any fictional world, for that matter. Even in some fantasy novel, the author has designed how everything mentioned in that world works, whether he tells the reader or not. Also, how could people in the world NOT know that certain people were harder to kill? They hit Drizzt 17 times with a sword, and he's fine, and he punts them in the face and gleefully skips away, and they don't say "My god... some other person I attacked died in less than HALF that many sword strokes! Clearly that man is more resilient than others!"? Basically, it's stated by the people who created that world, even if it's only muttered to themselves. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't happen. Nothing just happenstancically gets put into a fantasy world without the world-designer's say-so. "Oh, it turns out that, in this world I'm creating with my imagination, people get stronger with level-ups! I didn't know that. I guess I'll leave that in, since it added itself to my world, ^_^" Again, if I'm wrong, and you're write, then let Trashman clarify for us. Because the meaning I'm suggesting makes perfect sense, and what you're suggesting is pretty silly and doesn't make much sense. So, if I had to assume, I'd say he meant the less-nitpicky meaning of "stated" as it makes oodles of sense, rather than the non-sensical "If people in the fantasy world don't often discuss the underlying mechanics of health-inflation and experience gain in their world over tankards of ale in the tavern, then those mechanics are obviously not stated in any way, shape, or fashion, u_u"

The entire design process of a video game is based on "what if"s, hypotheses, and trial-and-error/testing/balancing. So, forgive me if I don't feel silly for speculating on potential game mechanics in a discussion forum specifically for such speculation and discussion, for a game that's currently in the midst of development. Also, if you agree that it isn't impossible, and you'd simply bet, if you had to bet one way or the other, that a good implementation just doesn't get achieved, AND you are fine with simply ignoring/never-using such an implementation anyway, then what is there to even argue? This isn't "Haha, I win, and your lack of faith and preferential stance on this is WRONG, LOLZ!" It's a discussion of how best to handle Wizards and Weaponry. How can we even know whether how likely it is to be properly implementable if we don't discuss possibilities and rule out the obviously bad ideas while we preserve and combine the good ones? If we were discussing "Should the game FORCE your Wizard to simply wear full plate and wield dual greatswords and not even be able to cast spells?", then I would immediately understand the objections. But what point is there in objecting to constructive discussion? Even if we discuss this for 20 pages, and end up arriving at "Okay, well, we've thought of 1,000 different things, and there's still no really good way to do this, so, no, I guess they shouldn't be allowed to wear armor and wield weapons," it would still be a worthwhile thread, because then we'd know more than we did, instead of simply pessimistically assuming it can't be done and shouldn't even be discussed or attempted. That's very true, but how would those classes have ever been born if people had all just thought "Nah, we've already got rules and boundaries, and we can never redraw those or think outside the box"?. I highly doubt we've reached the edge of the world in terms of class creativity, and that goes for variance within existing classes/archetypes as much as it does for new and separate classes/archetypes all together. Again, you can't know until you try. And if you're fine with not-knowing and not-trying, that's cool. No one's gonna make you, or think lesser of you. There's just absolutely no need to discourage other people from trying so that they can better know, or to suggest that trying is somehow dumb or pointless. The more the better. I actually agree with you there, within reason, of course. There can only be so many before it gets ridiculous, but I don't think you were suggesting "more" went on into infinity or anything.

I just really don't think that's what he's saying, in that one particular regard. I dunno, maybe he could come in and clarify. I think you're confused by the specifics of the word "stated," and you're thinking that nowhere does someone necessarily tell you that such things happen. However, in D&D, the ruleset "tells" you how everything works. Basically, health represents your well-being, exactly like in the real world. Only, in D&D, you gain the ability to take a greater number of sword strikes to the torso without dying, unlike in the real world. So... health - based directly on reality (bleeding, unconsciousness, death, poison, abstracted forms of physiological damage, etc.). Increasing amounts of health - completely fictitious amendment to reality's health "system." I really believe that's all he's getting at (again, on that one particular note), and I agree with that, specifically.

Patience is a virtue... as well as the source of income for medical professions.