Bradr

All IE games had weight limits and limited inventory. And unlimited resting in most areas.

It's more like eliminating time outs. Well, if soccer had time outs.

Why is this a problem? That is how those other people wanted to play the game, and how the game entertained them. What did that have to do with your experience? Did your game suffer because the party could rest anywhere? Or because someone else playing the game could rest anywhere and farmed XP? I'm just trying to get a reason for not having unlimited rest opportunities. Doesn't it stand to reason that those who want to rest anywhere can, while those who want limited resting can restrict themselves from resting anywhere? Why does the game have to impose those restrictions on every player?

Let the player rest whenever, wherever they want. Don't artificially limit it. Just make penalties, such as random encounters. If a player wants to rest in the middle of the street in the most dangerous slum of the city, fine. Just make sure the chance of a random encounter is 90% or more, depending on PC's skill set and reputation. If a player wants to rest in a dungeon, but has the wherewithal to find a defensible room, barricades the doors, and sets a sentry, don't penalize them for wanting to rest in that spot. And make sure that if there is an encounter that the player's foresight gives them benefits. Once again, artificial limits are bad. There is nothing natural about having campfire save spots in games, so why does it make sense to have campfire rest spots? There is nothing natural about saying that "You can only rest once today, you have used up your allotment." If anything is going to be imposed, I might be OK with resources, such as food and water being needed. But otherwise, let the players do what they want. If the more hardcore players our there don't like the choice of resting anywhere, then don't. Role play it guys. Self impose yourself to only sleep in town. Or in your house. Or whatever makes your game the way you want it to be. And lastly, resting provides more activities, which provides more opportunity for role play. By resting anywhere, you provide the opportunity for more encounters, random events, choices, and consequences for the player. And the more of that, the better.

The old IE games had great summoning mechanics and the system was fun. If a player didn't like those mechanics, nothing forced them to use summoning. For those who wanted to be summoners, you could literally have all summoning spells in every spell slot. I have very fond memories of Edwin maxed out with gear with damn near 100 summoning spells over his 9 spell levels. And some of my favorite BG games were as a solo summoner. I distinctly remember pummeling Sarevok with wave after wave of summoned monsters and cloudkills. And that was 15 years ago. I can barely remember last week! I would also prefer a good mix of summoning spells. Some would be summon off specific level tables (Summon Monster BG2), some might scale with level (Animate Dead ID2), and some could have unique effects in summoning (like contest of wills in Summon Elemental, dancing weapon Mordenkainen's Sword, and magic eating Summon Hakeashar). Plenty of spells means plenty of choices, and in a fighting RPG, more spell choices is always a good thing. If any limits are going to be imposed, use good old D&D as your guide. That pretty much states - summon away boys, but everything has a duration. My ideal spell lists would look a lot like D&D spell lists: Summoning Spell at every level that allows single summoning or several lower level summonings. All creatures available are on specific non-scaling tables. Bonus points if caster can choose creatures to summon from the table. Duration scales with caster, but is fairly low overall. Binding Spells that start at mid tier levels. Starting with low level outsiders that do not scale. Availability can be on tables, or perhaps only creatures caster has encountered or read about/researched. Requires protection spells and bargaining to be effective. Duration dependent on bargaining. With no bargaining, creature goes about normal behavior for short duration and is unsummoned. Animate Dead for zombies and skeletons. Scales with level and allows higher level hit dice to be reanimated at higher levels. Creatures are not automatically controlled, or caster can only control a certain number of hit dice. Indefinite duration. Greater Animate Dead at mid to late levels. Allows creation of higher level undead. All available undead are on specific non-scaling tables. Bonus points if caster can choose animations from the table. Creatures are not automatically controlled, or caster can only control a certain number of hit dice. Indefinite duration. Wide range of utility spells such as summon floating eyes, decoys, simulacrum, flame walls, illusory walls, summon dancing weapons, summoning unique creatures like Hakeashars, Invisible Stalkers, etc)

Would be great. Even add to this by having random encounter scavenger tables for each area. In a forest wilderness, maybe a couple of wolves would spawn at the corpse site, with likelihood based on the number of corpses. In a dungeon a "carrion crawler" or two. In a city, a detective could be at the site collecting evidence. After a few days in the forest, bones, and then nothing. In the city, the next day the corpse would be gone. Yep, exactly. See above Interesting. Lots of fun ideas for sure. I'm pretty sure I've read about guard schedules and patrols. If so, this mechanic would be great for stealthy parties. On the other hand, I don't want to get into a Deus Ex type situation where every corpse needs to be hidden to effectively navigate the level.

And please, let us do a bit of grinding if we want. I might be in the minority, but I want to be able to spend a little extra time and level up my characters. Without any context as to the size of this game, I can't really give any insight. If PE is similar to BG2 in scope, then there is plenty to accomplish to get my characters to level up at the rate I choose. If not, then I would prefer the opportunity to gain a few levels, at my discretion, if I don't feel the party is ready for the next challenge.

Imoen - whiny, immature, little-annoying-sister Nalia - whiny, pretentious noble, vapid Pretty much everyone from NWN & NWN2. (Although I think I was so upset with the switch from infinity to whatever that mess was, that I disliked almost everything. But I distinctly remember no attachment whatsoever with any of the characters.)

I'll admit laziness in not reading through everything. But this game needs male/female versions of breastplates and armor. The main reasoning is quick and easy discernment of each character. While historical accuracy would probably dictate similar styles, this is a game. And a game such as this needs to give the player the ability to quickly and easily discern each individual character. And male/female armor anatomy, while not historical, gives the player more visual cues to know exactly who each character is. So put a few boobs in those armors guys. And make sure we can still customize armor colors, just like old IE.

Omaha, Nebraska. Home of the Huskers!

I don't mind the idea of food being a part of the game. But it would have to be implemented in a way that food hinders gameplay when not consumed, but doesn't necessarily break the game when neglected. And when it does hinder gameplay, it is because it has been neglected for a long time. I would enjoy a system where characters have a sustenance rating. Probably something like Full, Satiated, Hungry, Starving. Full might get a minor stat bonus and last an hour. Satiated has no penalties/bonuses and lasts 24 hours. When hungry, your character does not heal HP naturally when resting and lasts several days, maybe a week. And finally starving occurs after nearly a week and only then does your character actually begin losing HP - and maybe something like nonlethal damage. When you consume food your hunger rating goes up, and your penalties disappear. Food items have different values - i.e. a full meal vs an iron ration vs an apple. And lastly, there would be an inventory slot for food. Almost a queue like system, similar to the quiver in IE games. I'd want 5-7 slots. You could designate the particular character's "ration", which would indicate how often the character automatically eats one of their food items. And the food item in the leftmost box would be consumed first, then the next item, etc. After this system is set up, and the character has their food, it wouldn't take much maintenance. And it would allow players to have food choices that have consequences. But if a player wanted to neglect the system, just make sure every player has rations in their slots, set it to eat every other day, and you could go weeks of game time without worrying about it - but character would not heal naturally either. Add in some foraging and gathering perks, and the system could be fun, manageable, and not particularly obtrusive. On another note on food, I would like to see Inns and Taverns implemented with more interactivity. In the old IE games, you could get a few qualities of room, and order some different types of booze to get your party drunk. I would like to see room choices actually open up scenarios, such as encounters and party dialogue. Maybe your party's monk praises your austerity when you select a basic room over a high end room for the evening. Maybe your overbearding paladin can't stand the thought of not having his own room, and grumbles about it. Your dwarf opens into a dialogue that raises his disposition because you bought him his favorite firebrand and he got drunk off it. You purchase a feast for the whole party, and you get a large dialogue where all the party interacts and all of their dispositions towards you and each other increase. Your party choses not to lock, ward, and alarm the inn door to their room and is caught off guard by thieves or assassins. Little touches like this can bring the taverns alive.

Fallout Arcanum Baldur's Gate (Didn't play NWN2) I enjoy the maps with freeform exploration and random encounters. Fallout especially comes to mind, with random encounters and special encounters that create new permanent zones. Some of my favorite D&D style encounters are the good old caravan attack scenarios, and this is exactly the type of random encounter I would like to see in the game. Add in a couple good ambushes, maybe a road blockade, an old abandoned tower, etc and I'll be quite happy. This. And it would be nice to see some complexity in the special areas too. Maybe a random special encounter that creates a new map point somewhere out in the map's fog of war. And then after the adventuring party interacts with the initial special encounter's map, they are sent on a quest/errand to the newly generated map point.

While big cities are fun to explore, I say keep the cities manageable. Athkatla was near perfect size in my book. Maybe a smidge bigger - like 20% or so, but not much more. And zones are good. Having bakeries, and butchers, and weavers is realistic, but if it doesn't directly complement the combat mechanics or a specific quest, it should be kept as window dressing, not interaction. There's only so much RPG that can be included in a RPG before it becomes bloated. Now I'm not at all opposed to having a butcher between an armorer and tavern. But the butcher shop probably shouldn't be accessible, and should just have a nice sign and maybe some cuts of meat in the window. Let's all take a moment when thinking about walking through huge cities: Remember Athkatla in Baldur's Gate II? Have you ever played the game, and by the endgame, have the whole party in boots of speed? And then restarted a new game? Even those "smallish" maps seemed like hours of real time walking after having used boots of speed. And if any of you remember that experience, try imagining walking through HUGE maps with mundane, non-usale buildings. <pound head> The game needs a balance, but maps that are too large become tedious.

First post. Long post. But I'm passionate on this crafting thing, so here goes... I like to think of crafting as facilitating combat, while improving combat for those who are prepared. But I also think crafting should have special uses, such as being able to avoid combat entirely, or perhaps access special places. In combat facilitation, characters are crafting supplies that give combat bonuses. Sometimes picking crafting techniques/skills requires the character to make the choice between similar non-crafting character perks/abilities that essentially do the same thing. Sometimes crafting allows a character to pick up these abilities well before they would normally be accessible - such as being able to craft +1 weapons, when a typical party would still have masterwork. Other times, crafting allows access to items through a simple crafting process, where the item may be quite difficult/tedious to obtain otherwise. Crafting also rewards the prepared. While is wasn't crafting, think back to 2nd edition where the mayor of each town would give the party a "goodie bag." If you were going into a swamp, you might get some cure poisons and a resist acid. When going into a certain cave, you would get some cure wounds and a resist fire. Maybe the old abandoned tower, you would get some holy water and stakes. In each of these examples, the party was getting items that would benefit them in the upcoming adventure. For a PE party that has an idea what they are up against, crafting can provide ways to be more prepared to face the coming dangers. If an encounter with a fire-breathing creature is likely, the the party could craft resist fire potions - and maybe in game, these potions are not readily available, are expensive, or are available in small quantities. Whereas a crafter to churn out enough for the entire party to have at least one potion, maybe several. There might be some instances where a crafted item can avoid combat entirely, or access special places that are normally difficult to enter. Maybe bribing a dragon with a sparkly sword, giving a barbarian raiding party a special totem, wearing the specific uniform of an organization you are infiltrating, crafting a long lost treasury vault key, etc. All of those items could be crafted, and unavailable/difficult to obtain without crafting. But overall and most importantly to me, crafting adds another dimension to roleplaying.