Lephys

Good idea, rjshae. Maybe some kind of herbal baths/spa stuff in bigger cities? That could be cool, and would make sense for different/unique resting bonuses at certain establishments.

Well, you see... I see a shiny 150+ hour RPG, and I buy it. There-in lies my problem. . I have yet to complete a good many games. I am planning on jumping back into Pillars again very soon, and actually completing it.

I can assume what he means, but I don't actually know what he means. Taking the time and effort to discuss something is, by definition, caring about it. So, I don't know whether to actually respond with discussion-related substance to a post like that, or to ignore it because the person "doesn't care at all." Is it rude to exclude them from the discussion, or annoying to include them? I honestly have no idea.

I like those, but feel they should be softer. Well, and they may very well be in 5e. But, the whole "Oh, your Strength is 12? You can't wear this. Oh, it's 13? Slap it on! You're golden! 8D!" idea is a bit silly. There should be a more gradual effect of increased fatigue/hindrance whilst wearing it, versus simply being unable to feasibly wear it. If it requires 13 Strength and you have 6, then sure. No wearies. Strength of 11? Wearies, but you're gonna be less effective. Along those lines... Constitution can make sense, in a way, but it's more your Endurance that's affected by the weight of the armor. In other words, anyone with an appropriate amount of strength could wear the armor, but someone with 3 Constitution would simply run out of stamina before someone with 20 Constitution. The attributes are abstract, to a degree. Would someone in real life have 20 Strength and only 4 Constitution? Probably not. But, there are people who are very strong but don't have a lot of endurance, and vice versa. So, it doesn't really make sense to measure them both in one stat. I get what you're saying, though. If you're mega strong, you're probably in pretty good shape as well, so you probably have MORE Endurance, on average, than someone who isn't strong at all. However, that's more fitness. Attributes are more measured as sort of your core, slightly-abstracted qualities. Honestly, I almost feel like Fitness level or whatever you'd call it should be a separate thing, because person A can be generally stronger than person B, such that, if they're both out of shape, person A is still way stronger. If person B gets super fit/buff, they could become stronger than person A, but if person A did the same, he'd be equally as far above person B as he was when they were both out of shape. Honestly a lot of this is just a coding mentality applied to much-more-complex measurements. But, the vast majority of the reality of the measurement is covered by the numbers, if you do it right. You can always supplement the attribute system with secondary attributes/modifiers, if you need to. It's all about "what would this affect, and what WOULDN'T this affect?". The goal is to get as close to perfect as possible, with an attribute affecting all the relevant things it would affect, and not affecting anything it wouldn't affect. That's not usually very easy to hit, though.

Yeah, you guys said it. It's definitely time for a fift-... errr... first playthrough *cough cough* Finally, being the slowest person imaginable at completing lengthy RPGs pays off! 8D

See, that works, IF your character doesn't already know where to go. If the game's having your character do fancy sword attacks that aren't directly Surgeon-Simulator-2K13-ishly controlled by the player (because your character possesses the skill and knowledge of how to do them), then there's no reason for the game not to have your character know however much they know. Almost every game either pinpoints everything for you (you, the player, are omniscient for some reason), OR it gives you no information at all (i.e. "Travel back to the home in which your character has lived their entire live, save for the last 2 years. But GOOD LUCK FINDING IT! HAHAHAHA!"

Imagine if your chanter just whipped out and tuned a piano at the beginning of each combat instance. Chaos ensues around him, and he's just plugging away like a lounge singer.

Ehh... it's not really about immersion. That's more of a side effect -- immersion being broken I mean. The main problem with default quest markers, at least (it's fine if there's some "I don't have time for this" mode/option you can turn on if you want everything indicated perfectly for you) is that you have the game presenting you with a challenge of "Find such-and-such," and it's pointing right at it, so you're not finding anything. The game world is telling you that your characters don't know something, yet the person controlling them gets to know it, straight from the game itself. Now, if your character speaks to someone and they say "Oh yeah, you're looking for Recluse Reynard? He's up on the mountain. Here... I'll draw you a map and/or elaborately explain exactly how to get to him, so you'll know where you're going," THEN I'd say "Okay, there's no reason my character shouldn't know where to go now." Even then, I'd kind of rather the character say "This is the tree I'm supposed to take a right at," etc. instead of just having a marker off in the nothingness that my character hasn't yet seen. Partially for immersion, sure. At this point, it doesn't much matter, objectively, as your character knows how to reach their destination. I just think it might be more interesting if they intuitively followed their directions rather than just knowing the exact GPS coordinates of the destination. Toward that end, it'd be even more interesting if people would actually lie to you, or provide crappy descriptions, in some instances, and the markers that the game gave you (because of the knowledge your character has) are actually incorrect. Sometimes, I mean. Not like "every single person in the game lies to me!"

So... if you put gelatin into a "potion," and make it a solid that you could then eat, is it food, or is it a potion? What makes a potion magical and food not-magical, in a world in which magic exists and ingredients/reagents can have magical properties? Also, just FYI, you're sending mixed signals by saying you haven't a care in the world about this, then proceeding to present arguments about it. o_O

I honestly don't think that resting too many times directly bestows a malus upon you. You simply use up all your bonuses if you rest "too many times." It's like saying "if you use healing items too much, you will be forced to play with bad heals." If every time you take 15 damage, you use a 150-HP-healing potion, you will at some point run out of those, and be forced to use lesser, more common healing potions. If this is not the case, and there's actually a "resting too much" malus ("unwell rested"? hehe), then they worded it VERY strangely, indeed.

Oh definitely. My only emphasis is to make sure the class system (or any other system, for that matter) doesn't strong-arm the stat system, and vice versa. Stats should determine what stats determine -- no more, no less. And classes should take it from there. But, the basic measure of your character as an entity is the attribute system. What are you like? Are you tall, short, spindly, beefy, incredibly witty, super agile? Okay, now what do you do? What skills have you acquired, and/or what abilities have you developed, regardless of your metrics? @DigitalCrack: I'm following what you're saying. For what it's worth, though, because we can't literally measure every single thing that factors in, it usually gets a little bit abstracted. For example, Dexterity might affect your precision or finesse with a weapon. But then, if you're a Ranger, for example, then your class progression should provide you skill-based improvements to precision, etc. Directly to the value that represents precision, itself, or to your modifier, etc. Technically, you are however Dexterous you are, and you're simply honing the extent to which you utilize your potential Dexterity. To look at it another way, you could have extremely good Perception, but learning how to better aim a bow is learning how to utilize the detail in your vision to better judge where to aim an arrow in order to get it to strike in the spot you want, at certain distances, etc. You don't actually start with 20/40 eyesight, and practice until you get 20/15 eyesight. Or, if you gain a magical ability, like Infravision, etc.... that's completely separate from the base measure of your Perception. You don't gain +2 Perception. But you DO gain an advantage on your perception checks in the darkness. So it's not really that you magically see better than you used to, in general. It's just that your eye doesn't see as much worse in the darkness now. I know it's very robotic, but that's about the only way we have of doing things. The alternative is for the attributes to directly be a measure of your capabilities at any point in time, which can be done, but it would have to be supported that way. Either everything just directly modifies them (essentially, your Perception would be come your Accuracy, so anything that wanted to make you "see better" would just directly modify Perception, and Perception would account for all things, rather than there being a separate Accuracy value which simply gets modified by your Perception.) You run into problems if you try to mix and match, though. "No no, this is your base capability as a human, but then in this one instance, I'm also going to increase it because I feel like your overall capability increased." That's what modifiers are for. You generally have attributes, modifiers, and secondary stats that get modified (like Damage, for example. Strength may give a Damage modifier, then other things that aren't attributes could also give separate Damage modifiers, as Damage should be affected by more than just Strength.)

I understand. I was only attempting to clarify the confusion about the actual system as presented in Josh's tweet. I believe it to be a lack-of-bonuses situation, rather than an actual negative/malus thing like Gfted1 was worried about. Only thing I'd say about the penalties for pre-buffing is that they should probably be outside the realm of buffs/debuffs. Otherwise, you're getting debuffs for using buffs, in which case it's a bit counter-productive. That's why most systems give you a resource penalty. Your mana pool isn't usually something that gets buffed or debuffed. It's a different factor in the system. So, the tradeoff becomes "I get cool buffs, but the more cool buffs I have on me, the less mana I have available with which to cast other spells and do other things in combat."

Well said, Morty. A character should be limited in their core capabilities purely by the way in which they build their character. Having high Strength doesn't make your Wizard a Fighter. It just makes them a strong Wizard. The Fighter and Wizard classes should easily be able to differentiate your character, and they should do so on a completely different layer than the stats. If a Wizard who can adequately wield a two-hander and wear plate armor is basically the same thing as a Fighter, but with the addition of arcane spells, then your Fighter class is doing it wrong. Again, this goes for more than just Wizards and Fighters and Strength and whatnot... these are just examples.

^ It is worded strangely, but I'm almost certain that what it means is you'll eventually fight with, quite literally, bad bonuses, as opposed to good bonuses. In other words, if your food bonus can be from 1-10, and you use up all your 10 food, then you'll be to your 9 food, then 8 food, then 7 food, and so forth. Awesome-bonus food will be limited, therefore, the more often you rest, the more food you'll use up, and the closer you'll be to a bonus of 0.

12 was actually kind of cool, but it could've been better. 15 was also cool in its own way, if they had just reigned it in a bit more and had like... Crystal Chronicles-style spell-comboing to produce -aras and -agas. At first, with 15, I thought "What is going on?!", but then I realized the level of control I actually had over the auto-attacking, and the different maneuvers I could do. I'm all for that. That's actually a huge thing that I think pretty much any game with basic/auto attacks could do: make the auto-attacking actually flow. The super basic example here is, if you want someone to attack once per 3 seconds and deal ~10 damage, just make them attack like once every half-second (obviously this would depend on the weapons being used, etc.) for like 1.5 damage per hit. That's REALLY oversimplifying it, but the "let's all stand around and just have our one thwack per day be symbolic of the fact that we're engaged in epic combat" got old about a year after it first showed up in games. It works really well with a system like PoE that uses Engagement. You should be trading blows with each other, and dodging, etc. (when possible), in a "flowy" way (as if combat is actively going on). It doesn't have to be fully real-time with attacks as fast as they'd be made in real life. It can be a bit slower for easier reaction time from the player who's managing 5+ party members and several enemies on the screen at once. But, yeah... That's one thing that 15's combat did pretty well. But all those ancient King's weapons were useless (the life drain was like 90 times higher than any damage output increase), and all the magic was turned into stupid grenades. Which, hey, cool for "spell" customization, but they're not spells anymore, for some reason.

Very much in agreement here. I just think that, with a few exceptions, there's very little reason to say "You're an (insert class here), so you use these few weapons and armors. All the other ones are for other classes, u_u...". I'm all for stats determining your raw capabilities when it comes to weapons. Although, I kind of like the idea (at least to an extent) of, for example, a big two-handed weapon having a lower minimum Strength requirement simply to wield it, then some kind of "par" rating for it, below which you simply attack more slowly with it or something. Basically, "You can use this, but it's a bit troublesome." That can make for an interesting character. Especially if you have someone like, say, a Barbarian, and they use a weapon that they can't wield SUPER easily, but they recklessly wield it anyway. But if you have 4 out of 18 Strength, you probably shouldn't be able to swing a Great Maul around.

^ I agree on that can't-put-my-finger-on-it aspect of some of those old mechanics. I think the biggest problem is that modern game developers tend to look at old stuff, and go full black-and-white on it. "Nope, this was bad, so let's make something that looks NOTHING like that!". Like... turn-based combat. That's seen by many to day to be too slow and clunky and outdated, and no one wants that anymore, etc. So what do they do? "Let's just dodge it. No turn-based combat. Only fast-paced action combat = good." It's overly simplified. I think you could modernize turn-based combat. So, actually use it, but improve upon it. Simulation is in that boat. There's a lot of stuff like ammo-crafting, etc., that maybe at the time was just stuffed into the game for an added bit of simulation/immersion, but didn't do much other than that. However, it COULD, if used properly. Not necessarily everything, especially not in every game's design/context. But, it tends to get just put in just like it was, or nixed altogether. More developers should look at the value of these old mechanics, and make a 2.0 of them. Take the good, discard the bad. Puzzle out how to make them cooler today. Anywho... definitely agree that discussing the merits of this older stuff is quite useful and productive, even if some people just don't want to hear about it anymore (threads are optional participation. You don't even have to read them if you don't want to, )

No worries on that front. I completely understand, and I'm not trying to dictate your preferences or anything, nor combat them. And, admittedly, I'm not presenting a refined system. I'm honestly just tossing out food for thought on the matter of class restriction, because I believe there's plenty of room for less restriction while the big class distinctions are still maintained. For example... A "tank" is essentially just someone who can clog up the enemies' attention/fire and remain alive whilst doing so. I'm not saying that a Wizard should be able to wield the largest, heaviest equipment AND still be an uber-powerful caster. That's still thinking to restrictedly, in a way. I'm saying that there's no reason a Wizard can't wizardly enchant his own armor or use barriers, etc., to wade into the fray and tank, whilst the Fighter (just for example) rushes in and flanks everyone to death with his super cool martial training abilities that the Wizard doesn't have. Basically, it's silly for the system to go out of its way to be like "No, no you just go do these Wizard things, befcause I've decided those are the things that you do, and THESE are the things that Fighters do, and that way I've created artificial class differentiation." I think things like "You only get to use sticks, Mage!" (again, just as an example) create exaggerated class distinction. That makes a Mage different from a Fighter, but to what end? And why? Why can't I wield a freaking kusarigama and also use magic? Is that illegal? How would that make me no-longer-a-Wizard? Secondly regarding that lil' quoted portion, there is nothing in the universe that suggest magic would require incredible intellect. How do we know what feels "correct" when we're dealing with the shaping of a fictitious power source into spells? I'm not saying that treating magic like med school is inherently incorrect, but neither is it inherently correct. It's just kind of boring, if you ask me. "Study a lot, kids, and you can SUMMON INTERDIMENSONAL RIFTS! Don't, and you can't. Everyone can do it all the same, as long as they're smart and they study hard." That's almost like saying that if you have high enough Strength, you can be the best Warrior ever. When really, it takes agility and smarts and talent, etc. Now, you CAN be a super-buff smashy Barbarian/Fighter, and just tear into people head-on. OR, you can be a very defensive Fighter, or a Fighter who focuses on countering, etc. To be clear, I realize that with Fighter and Barbarian and Rogue and Monk, etc., that some of this is split between classes. Which is okay. If they're kind of specializations of "fighting" (which... "fighter" is pretty broad to begin with, so yeah...), then that works, I suppose. This is why so many systems use base classes (Fighter, Mage, Rogue), then have prestige classes that build off of those, rather than just 12 different base classes. But, the point is, if it makes sense for there to be variance, there's no reason to artificially limit that. We should only limit it when it causes a problem with another class component that has a place in the system. I mean, if you wanted to have "Knife Juggler" be a class, and you already had Rogue and Fighter, I don't think you should just limit Knife Jugglers to being able to use daggers, JUST so you can justify the Knife Juggler class. That's awfully specific, and there's still no reason other classes shouldn't be allowed to use daggers, other than "but if they all can, then my Knife Juggler isn't distinct enough!" Does that make sense? I honestly think there's room for your preference to remain happy, AND for there to be less artificial limitation amongst certain classes. And just more creativity in how they function, to be honest. The focus of class distinction needs to be how characters get stuff done more so than what characters get done, as almost all of them are going to have a lot of overlap. What do you do, Mr. (insert class name here)? Well, I deal damage, prevent other people from dealing damage, help allies out a bit, etc. That's pretty much going to be the answer for any class. "I do damage by creating tiny vortexes of energy that ricochet between walls" versus "I deal damage by utilizing fancy weapon techniques" is where it's at. Not "I do damage from way over there, and you do damage from up-close. That's what makes us different." That's a boring distinction. A magic person could burn people up close just as easily as from far away.

@Goddard... You have good points, truly. However, you're making good arguments for preparation, not pre-buffing specifically. I don't think you understand this to be the case. You already have swappable equipment with various resistances to things. You have spells and abilities that can be cast the second combat begins, and wiill basically be active before others can cast spells on you, etc. I don't know what else pre-buffing would add to this equation that the game/world needs. You could give everyone the ability to teleport everywhere, and your party would just be smart and use that to avoid all the dangers of pathways, but then if the world was intelligently designed, you'd have people intercepting/distrupting people's teleports, etc. So then you'd have to have a counter for that. Then a counter for that. Etc. As I have said before, because the intent of "only in-combat" casting is really just to have that level playing field and eliminate the trouble caused by dozens of spells being stacked onto people before combat, I wouldn't be against a system in which each character could have one "prepared" spell/ability at a time, so that they could always instant-cast one thing. That way, you're prepared for combat, with the thing that you would do when you start combat anyway. "AMBUSH! Casting a Divine Shield!". Boom. There you go. Now you're ready to react to something, but you're not just jogging around immune to everything. Also as I have said before, I find the idea of "I have created this dome, into which fire cannot penetrate" to be much more interesting in the context of PoE's combat than "I have made your body immune to fire. Now fire just doesn't damage you whilst you jog all over the place. Also it lasts a while, so any time we suspect fire is going to be a thing to look out for, I'll just cast this on everyone, because if I don't we'll all die to fire, but if I do, we're all just back at square one, as if the traps/damage sources just weren't even there, unless an enemy dispels it, in which case we just wasted each other's time and are now back to square one again."

Hehe. "BEHOLD! AID of KOOLNESS +1!!! It bears the flavor of GRAPES!"

Biggg-Head FRESH-nessss, lasts right THROUGH yahhhh! EDIT: (It might be "blasts"? But growing up, I always heard it as "lasts right through ya.")

You're missing the point. You addressed like on leg of the centipede that is the point. Regardless of how much they can dispel in one shot, they're inherently always at a disadvantage, as they have to wait until combat starts to begin casting spells to affect the situation, whereas you do not. Is this what you want? A game world that throws unprepared enemies at your always-prepared party? That's a fair question. @Goddard: Some people are seemingly dismissing your arguments with one-line responses, yes. However, they also are already reading what all has been typed in your direction. But, I've noticed you say people are doing that but then you only respond to specific posts. I rather elaborately and probably over-explanatively detailed many of the problems with specifically things you've said are good about pre-buffing, and reasons it should be allowed (as have others), and you seem to be mostly overlooking those posts, whilst responding when a 10th post comes in saying "This is not DnD! You shouldn't want it to be exactly like DnD", then saying "Hmmm, no one seems to be able to say anything other than that they think I shouldn't want pre-buffing." Many of us have laid it all out in detail, and we would appreciate it if you'd address our counter-points, which are most certainly not subjective dismissals.

I'm not ridiculing it. I'm simply using sarcasm, a dash of humor, and the broadened illustration of the idea to show why the idea is flawed. Clearly it DOES matter how you do attributes. That isn't to say that universally, there is a best attribute system that all games should use, or that SOME games don't really need attributes. However, PoE/Deadfire is not one of those games, because it is actually utilizing RPG systems, which are heavily influenced by the design of the attribute system. I see the arguments you've been making as overly dismissive of others' efforts to evaluate and collaborate on the specific effects of attribute design and the possibilities there-in. So, I can either respond with "No, man, you are incorrectly applying these valid points, and I implore you to reconsider this," or I can ramp up the potency of my responses to actually try to illustrate, in a deeper/different manner, the counterpoint that I am trying to make. Is it okay for you to simply hand-wave away evidence I've presented behind a point, but it's not okay for me to actively redouble my efforts to get you to not hand-wave away my point? So, if people don't see multiple uses for something, they just won't use it? Your point seems to be "people don't care about using weapons and armor, really," but you've provided no evidence to support this. Why not? And, if not, is this the fault of how Strength works, or the fault of how the weapons system or class system's work? Also, hand-to-hand fighters might be content wearing light armor, but would probably want as much weapon damage as possible to make up for the fact that hands don't inherently do as much damage as maces and axes, so you're simultaneously pointing out an effect that would make Strength more niche AND an effect that would make Strength even more desirable. True, but who says things must be designed this way? They'll be better served investing more in Intelligence and disabling or destroying enemies because of how Wizards are designed in that ruleset. What about wielding magic makes it so that, say, a Wizard couldn't conceivably be a huge tank who enchants his body/armor with debilitating effects when foes try to strike him? That wouldn't go against the idea of a magic wielder, would it? Is it not arbitrary to think "you INHERENTLY try to stay at range and blast things with uber-powerful spells"? There are all kinds of schools of magic, even in DnD, some of which don't even have anything to do with standing at range or blasting anything. So if the magic's so versatile, why is the idea of what a Wizard might basically, functionally do so limited? (To clarify, I'm not suggesting you're arguing specifically for these things. I realize that we're talking about DnD rules, which is why I'm positing these questions, as my biggest point is not that DnD's entire ruleset is the best, but rather that the way in which it handles Attributes, at its core, is extremely useful to build a versatile class-based system.) Exactly. None of that is necessary, nor is any of that Strength's fault, nor any Attribute's fault. So why are we talking about how dumb Strength is for a DnD Wizard, and not how dumb their class-specific BAB, hit die, armor restrictions, and weapon restrictions make Strength? This is one of the over-arching questions throughout this entire thread (and several others): People are quick to condemn an attribute system when it might be doing its job just fine. Just because DnD has problems doesn't mean they're at all related to the fact that it measures a character's Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc.

@Valci: I don't understand what the "main stat" for classes accomplishes. Why do this? Allow me to illustrate the main problem I have with this. In DnD (earlier ones, at least), Intelligence = good for the Wizard. It affects bonus spells per day, AND some magic checks, AND gates spell tiers. Okay, so, you could make some different Wizards, but you probably don't want to go lower than about 12 with Intelligence, and 18 is obviously ideal. Heck, I think there was a minimum requirement to even BE a Wizard. Anywho... so in this world, no dumb Wizards exist. You can have a SUPER smart Wizard, or just a pretty-smart Wizard, but you're never going to have Wizards of average Intelligence or lower. Also, how is potency measured in this system? Can I have one Wizard who only has access to spell tiers 1-4, but is much more powerful in his magicking? In other words, if Intelligence makes you a better Wizard because you can better comprehend the complexity of spells, etc, then what affects the POWER of spells? The Precision of spells? If it's Intelligence that does all that, then again, we have a very boring spectrum of Wizards. This is one of the only things that PoE's attribute system did correctly: they took something like DnD's attribute system and allowed all aspects of things to be tweaked: Might can make you a Powerful Wizard, etc. However, they lost track of how unique and interesting the attributes can be. Each one should feel like it's contributing to a large aspect of a character, regardless of class. You should be able to build a character type, THEN select a class and have the class be affected in interesting ways. For example, Resolve could affect a Fighter's taunts and warcries, etc. (regarding the old "but how do you make things other than Strength and Constitution appealing to a Fighter?" issue). Want to make that type of a Fighter? Boost Resolve. Want to make a power-smashy Fighter? Boost Strength. The way in which PoE attributes simplified things just doesn't provide THAT much benefit, other than allowing all classes to adjust different sliders. But it doesn't even give them enough of the sliders, AND the same thing could've been achieved by simply lifting class restrictions from DnD-esque rules. Like the "heavy armor makes you a horrible spell caster" thing. Strength already globally made you a better melee attacker, and Dex made you a better ranged attacker. It didn't matter what your class was (except for the weapon restrictions). I'd often play as an Elven Wizard in DnD, and use a Bow. To look at it another way, you're either supposed to ALWAYS and ONLY do what your class specifically does, or you're supposed to do a mix of things that all humans/peoples do AND specifically what your class does. If it's the former, that's boring. If it's the latter, then you've gotta build attributes around character types, THEN apply class to the mix. "This affects this person's accuracy, NOW how do spells utilize that accuracy modifier?" Etc.

It's not about making it more difficult. That's not the goal. The goal is to make your choices more significant. With pre-buffing, how do you get a level playing field? You go into combat where you were expected to "be prepared" via the encounter design, and you don't have buffs stacked all over your party, then you're at a severe disadvantage. You go into combat in which you aren't expected to be prepared, but you have buffs stacked on your party anyway? Now it's WAY too easy, and you can just do that every time. You go into combat and neither side can have buffs or debuffs ready until they encounter one another and begin a battle? Everyone's always on a level playing field. That isn't to say you might not be outnumbered or overpowered by the enemy. Or you might literally be on an unlevel playing field because they're all standing on the cliffs above you, surrounding you. It's just that, "preparedness"-wise, you both have to start at the same point. You're acting as though magical preparation is somehow an inherent part of real life. Like "Obviously, if we all had magic, we'd just be prepared." Well, don't you think that group of necromancers in the crypt you're about to enter would be prepared, too? What if every time you fought something and died and restarted to try again, the enemies remembered what they learned from fighting you, and pre-buffed themselves to counter your abilities and prebuffs? Wouldn't that make the most sense? Wouldn't that be your ideal situation, based on the reasoning you've presented in this thread, Goddard? The enemy should be just as prepared as you. Hell, if we're gonna go with that, then "Ignore Protection From Fire" should be a buff, too. Because, wouldn't you think, if you were an evil fire mage, that someone might be smart enough to cast a super commonly-known Protection From Fire" spell before attacking you? Joking aside, they kind of have that. It's called "Dispel," which you yourself have brought up in here, and I KNOW I've brought it up this exact same way before. Realistically, all magical enemies should anticipate your ability to pre-buff (because in the world lore, everyone can just jog around beefing themselves up magically before combat to get the upper hand), so they should just be ready to dispel the crap out of you the second you enter combat. Then all that "more interesting" choice-making you did before combat (which was really your only valid choice, as I pointed out above) was for naught, as all your buffs are gone, except now you've wasted spells and are DEFINITELY going to lose because the encounter either required that you were buffed properly before combat to be a match for the enemies, OR it was ludicrously easy and it doesn't even matter that you got dispelled because you didn't need the buffs anyway, except now you're short on spells from the pre-buffing and dispelling, so now you're STILL going to lose because the encounter was still designed for you to have to use your spells and abilities in combat. So, pre-buffs either give you an artificial "your party is always prepared, but enemies are not" advantage, OR it gives you nothing but busywork, as the enemies are going to be prepared as well, and your +5 cancels out with their +5, and everyone's just fighting at 0 again, after a bunch of useless work. Honestly, buffs themselves that just protect you from stuff are never as interesting to me as more tool-oriented buffs. For example, "you're all just magically protected from fire" isn't as interesting, to me, as "this person's shield is now immune to fire damage, so if they see someone casting a fire spell, and can get over there and block appropriately, you can manage to negate that fire spell." Basically, I'm a fan of buffs leaning more towards granting people the ability to do cool stuff, rather than just passively boosting stats and/or negating things. Or, a bubble/partial bubble that would block fire spells would be cool. But it still requires strategic placement, etc. That's just another example of how magic can be designed different ways. The idea of slapping effects directly onto people's bodies = buffs is a very specific way of thinking about buffs. It's not THE natural way in which buffs were excavated from the ground or something. Human brains just invented all of this one day. I think having spells you can tactically use intelligently in combat is a much more interesting type of preparedness than "Okay guys, our numbers are all just tweaked such that the enemy will lose the fight now. YAY FOR PREPAREDNESS!"