robfang

A suit of armor does not need to be "grounding" in order to protect your organs from the electricity. Just like NothingToSeeHere and I have pointed out, metal armor that covers any part of your body protects that part from the passing current. Ideal is not a necessity here. Current passing through your heart is not the same as current passing through your bare kneecap. Being able to cover your heart is still quite important. The exceptions to this protection are like wearing the combination of a metal skull cap and metal boots because they make you less resistant to the current when compared to your environment without providing any major protection. So, the argument "metal armor makes you weak" is almost totally wrong.

That's not true, armor is only the body part so you could wear non metal shoes/helmets etc. Also most armor will cover only 3/4 of the body. Mail armor does cover your upper body including the head. Even if only the torso is covered with metal, it protects the heart and major internal organs from the passing current. Also you are missing the point: Metal armor does not make you vulnerable to electricity, instead it protects you. Of course, if you are not just wearing a skull-cap and metal boots.

I have read that mail and plate armors are weak against shock damage. If what is meant by shock is the "electrical" shock, this weakness is quite the opposite of truth. Plate, and mail armors are worn all over the body. It is not like wearing a metal helmet and have metal shoes. Since the armor covers all over your body, the armor forms a Faraday cage. The electrical current passes over your body instead of passing through it. The people who work with Tesla coils wear mail armor to protect themselves from the high voltage, any current just passes through the armor. I think the plate armor should protect the wearer from the shock damage. If it is mechanically necessary, the developers should add another weakness (such as weakness to heat, or cold damage).

ToEE was a fantastic game for tactical combat. Too bad the original game was butchered by the publisher. I really hoped that in project eternity they would follow the spirit of ToEE in terms of combat. Dragon Age: Origins, NWN and such was really mediocre games in terms of tactical combat due to the imprecise control and positioning dictated by the real-time with pause combat mechanics. Sadly, I have heard that RTwP was announced to be the combat style for P: E.

I believe you have not played ToEE computer game. Otherwise you would not be as eager to say that turn based combat sucks. It's nothing like actually fighting. When was the last time you saw somebody say "Oh, it is not my turn. Please hit me sir." ? I can tell you the answer: never. I don't think such arguments serve any purpose. No one says "alright sir I will wait until you decide a meaningful course of action" either. Turn based combat can indeed be somewhat strategic or tactical or whatnot. But it's not combat. It's a stupid little game of silliness. RTwP helps make things more realistic and more truly tactical/strategic. Combat SHOULD be chaotic... In an RPG, chaos of the combat is already modeled by the randomness of the dice rolls. We are not talking about a single player FPS, or an action game where you control a single character. You are supposed to control 6 characters simultaneously in the combat. Controlling them in real-time is impossible for a normal person. That is why RTwP was invented. In the old Infinity Engine games where RTwP was used, there was not a rule of melee engagement as strict as in 3rd edition D&D games. Thus, RTwP would not interfere with the gameplay too much. On the other hand, the games where 3rd edition rules were used and had RTwP, like NWN, the real-time movement from AI controlled characters was only annoying. In order to control everything you had to pause and pause again after each sword swing and spell cast. If you had not, you get random attacks of opportunities and had your mage in clusters of monsters. Those kind of things happened only with 3 characters to control. Now think about 6 characters and melee engagement rules. TLDR: Turning the game into a micro-control hell or pause-fest would only destroy the tactical combat without any additional benefits.

I have no idea how you would have a medieval world that wasn't an ongoing explosion of technology, especially in the Late Medieval/Early Modern period that all fantasy stories appear to be set in. Contrary to what Edward Gibbon said, the entire Medieval period is best characterized as period of history created by an explosion in revolutionary technology that brought the old Empires (in Europe at least) to the ground, and was defined by incredibly rapid and constant innovation in military technology at the very least. As to the topic at hand - I stand by my assertion that the best magic system is one that's truly magical, not just a fantastical version of technology. That means unpredictable, uncontrollable, personal, and mystical. D&D magic doesn't quite apply. Perhaps your understanding of a technological explosion and mine is different. By explosion I meant what we have been going through in 20th and 21st centuries and even more, due to the factor of magic in these developments in the hypothetical fantasy setting. What most people expect from a medieval fantasy setting does not even include the gunpowder which was a prime factor in a lot of battles in the so called dark ages. Thus, the medieval fantasy setting does not necessarily replicate the reality of the dark ages. What my point is that the limitations in the dark or early ages make the medieval fantasy appealing.

The social and economic impact of magic has been ignored for a long time in fantasy settings. I think this is a great opportunity to form a (somewhat) stable world under the effect of magic. Thank you for bringing this topic up. The socio-economic impact of magic is there if some thoughtfully considers the situation in a fantasy world. Lighting a furnace, driving some wind-powered devices, forming frictionless surfaces are some of the mechanically exploitable magical powers. As a mechanical engineer I can list a lot more if I go through the spell list of a D&D wizard and the spells' possible exploits. If there exist such an impact it would certainly advance the economy and the technology (just like the discovery of fossil fuels). Furthermore, as the original poster pointed out the desirability of the use of magic would only increase in time as more ways to utilize "the magical power" is discovered. A portion of the consideration regarding this topic lies with the desirability of such an impact. Do we want to have a world with ongoing technological explosion? For a fantasy setting we almost certainly do not. In a fantasy world, the limitations of a fantasy world and a medieval setting could be the heart of the setting. The power of the fantastic heroes would be to overcome these limitations. Rather than using a cell phone in a car as a mundane 21th centurist, it is more intriguing to ride a tiger while talking to birds to send a message as a ranger. Furthermore, the primitive limitations of the world itself provides avenues for the heroes to maneuver in a world filled with enemies and archenemies. If you ever played in a setting where technology is too advanced you can see how it is impossible to escape from the widespread evil authority. Widespread technological use of magic can be devastating for a fantasy setting for such reasons. Another portion of the consideration is the prevention of the integration of magic with mechanics. From a metaphysical perspective, preventing direct interaction between magical forces and physical states of the matter is illogical. If magic can burn a person it can definitely burn a furnace. Thus there always be some mechanical application of magical forces. Here, one can argue by using supposed mind-body duality, saying that what if the magic only affects the mind (or soul if you prefer). Such an interaction certainly affects the physical world through the brain and the body so not much changes there. There you go, zombie slaves as a labor force! Limiting the usage of magic per magician per day does not solve our problem. More magicians can provide the rest of the labor. Using a hard constraint like draining the magician of his life force could be effective but then one must answer the questions why anyone wants to be a magician if the drain is too much, why it prevents someone to use magic repetitively if the drain is too little (or too postponed). One way to prevent the widespread use of magic in technology would be to limit the use of magic in time and space. This way one would prevent repetitive extraction of magical forces at the same location. For example using magic at one place for some time would drain the magic web at that location. So if you were to build a factory that employ mages to fuel it, the fuel of the magical web would shortly be drained at that location and would only get regenerated after long period of time. Such application of magic could present interesting circumstances where in a battle, opposing mages would fight for the same resource. Teleportation for example would drain all the magical web through its path where returning back would be impossible for a long time. Some empty web locations along a teleportation path would make it even dangerous. An expoit for the space-time limited magic would be moving factories such as a factory built in a ship. This would either be allowed for some interesting fantasy elements, or it would be banned by requiring magic to be cast on a land. I hope I could be of some help. TLDR: Magic and technology is bad. It kills a fantasy setting. Time and space limited magic is a way to prevent repetitive, technological use of magic.

The rules of (melee) engagement makes positioning a hard constraint in combat. That constraint, if not handled very carefully could make real-time combat too chaotic due to the unexpected movement from AI controlled characters. I don't think even pause and release type interaction would solve this problem which would lead to constant, annoying pausing. A natural way to handle this problem is to have turn based combat like in Temple of Elemental Evil computer game. Turn based combat systems are perhaps the most satisfying combat system for the tactical play. It removes annoying movement rate considerations in real time and the more annoying constant shift of attention required for the control of multiple units. However, turn based combats could be quite a nuisance if the combat itself is trivial. It is agonizing to have the game paused because you encountered a couple of skeletons with your 18th level party. One way to solve this problem is to make every encounter meaningful and difficult. Another way to handle it is to have the option of playing in real time with a not-so-bad AI. While the first option is always preferable, it could be difficult to have it so. In a semi-open world like Baldur's Gate series, some of the encounters are bound to be trivial. Thus, the option to go real time seems to be necessary in order to avoid frustration of trivial turn-based combat. The option to go real time could even be a measure of the party power from the player perspective. It would be like going auto-combat in a Heroes of Might and Magic game where some people might find satisfying. TLDR: Fully turn based combat with an option to go real time seems to be the best implementation for the tactical combat presented by the rules of (melee) engagement.