Gorth

I can't wait for my full plate wearing rogue to sneak up behind the enemy and backstab them with my claymore.. Edit to add: I've never seen a D&D crpg that allowed you to cast "Silence" on a rogue so he could sneak around without being heard, regardless of how much noise he makes within his bubble.

Wasn't that amongst the tropes that PS:T deliberately tried to avoid? There were no swords and rings for the player character. Daggers, clubs, maces, hammers (and a torn off arm). Then you could wear ear rings (those characters that had ears) and tattoos (those who had skin). I think your could also wear a bracelet or two on your wrists, but that was about it. Good times. In my current game of IWD2, I've got exactly one character wielding a sword (and shield). The rest is using spears, slings, bows, daggers, flails and lastly a dual axe wielding barbarian (just for coolness sake). I don't mind there being swords, but I hope the alternatives are equally attractive without just being a sword in a different shape.

I get the feeling that "classes" are more a starting point and a broad generalisation than a set in stone development path for a character.

Ctrl 0 (zero) does it in Firefox.

Exactly. For too many years, us who likes iso-metric, tactical squad combat based crpg been downtrodden and oppressed by the major publishers and our core values, that games should be challenging without being impossible, guide you without always fondling your hand been ridiculed as some kind of genetic disorder that could be cured by adding QTE's and mini games to make us see the error of our ways. Stand for it no more! Time to arrange an Old School Pride Parade somewhere and wave signs with SSI Goldbox, "No to FPS" and equal rights for all camera angles!

Icewind Dale 2. At the Ice Palace. Playing through the 45 levels to obtain Battle Mastery >_

Rune Magic. Say what you will about Warhammer dwarves, but their take on magic is different than the other two options which seems to be the two crowd favourites. Something less flamboyant, yet used to deadly effect, tied to objects of various types.

I hate cooking (and I suck at it), so most of my food is fast, convenient and easy to clean up afterwards. Personal favourite is some sides of salmon (skin on one side) in the oven for 25 minutes in some aluminium foil. While they are in the oven, put some vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower in the microwave for 5 minutes. Cover with plenty of your favourite herbs and spices (dill, ginger, peri peri whatever). Add slice of lime fruit. Squeeze rest of lime fruit over an avocado for desert.

Yay, welcome to LadyCrimson and Gorgon

Strange for me to read those two things in the same post. I loved the first one and found the second one cringe worthy. Just goes to show how hard it is to please all tastes

First time I experienced Planescape Torment. Not the game or the story per se, but the visuals, the art direction, the music, the entire surrealness of the Planescape universe. It made it easy to overlook the many flaws in the game mechanics.

Arrows in the games probably have reasonable weight, but unreasonable storage characteristics. Characters can carry around hundreds of arrows with very little impact. In reality that's a lot of bulk. You never see hunters carry around more than 10-20. Not sure what can be done about that though. Maybe severely limit the number of arrows you can lug around, but make each arrow account for more. I.e. do serious damage, but you want to use it for worthy adversaries, not all the small critters you run into (which you could finish off with a recycleable throwing dagger or some such). It's all down to the (as of yet unknown) game mechanics.

I hate to break up the party, but we seem to have passed the 500 post a long time ago... Nothing wrong with creating a new thread on cooldown in particular or continue magic system discussion in general here

Anyone played Paradox's 'Magicka'? It may not be to this particular crowds liking, but I kind of enjoyed it, not just for the humour, but because of the spell customisation. You had a number of basic mechanisms you could combine to create new (and sometimes unexpected) effects involving elemental, physical and other alterations to the result (one of them catapulted my mage to his death in a most surprising manner).

Let them eat experience points... If you want to put a serious strain on your soul (which presumably powers "magic"), let it come at a cost that cripples magic wielders that are over reliant on their "gifts". I seem to remember some different approaches in one of the updates, like rituals and flesh mortification to wring out that extra energy of your soul. Wouldn't be surprise me if they came up with not one, but several alternatives to fuel such stuff coming with different downsides, depending on your chose flavour of magic.

My preferred option too. I like that "hoarding" ammo comes at a consequence (i.e. you have to give up something else in your inventory). It makes you pick your targets and you are not completely defenseless if you run out (assuming you keep at least some kind of melee weapon on you).

I lost plenty, but then I didn't have the familiarity with D&D that some seems to have Yeah, I worked out the spell immunity abjuration for myself, as I did using the ring of the ram (which Kangaxx for weird reasons was not immune to at all) and barbarian rage seems to negate the imprisonment as well (although Minsc for other strange reasons didn't seem to have the same kind of rage, him still getting imprisoned) and then just whack away with the few +5 weapons you've got in your arsenal. Easy enough when you know how, but for the uninitiated there is/was some trial and error involved

Interesting At least I could make basic assumptions about the respective enemies "deadliness".

F:NV used Level-Scaling Which brings us back to: We have no specifics on how exactly it's used and people are automatically assuming their worst nightmare here. Quoting this for the new page to let Gorth see it. It did? It sure fooled me. I found the deathclaws damn near invincible until I came back later. How was it implemented then (genuinely curious) as I felt it was more an "area" difficulty than meeting first whimpy deathclaws and then later deathclaws from hell in the same area.

Nah, just not omnipresent. We actually like to read and post a bit too in between. Existing thread on the subject here

As mentioned in a different thread, level scaling sucks. I took great pleasure in getting back at the deathclaws in FO:NV when I was finally strong enough to survive and explore Quarry Junction (let's forget that I then crawled up on top of the heavy machinery, fell down and killed myself in the fall).

Hey, sounds not too different from software projects I always suspected that it was a lifestyle choice...

Easy. Let's think about unusual forest dwarves. Men are fishermen and woodworkers, while women are hunters and warriors. It just historically happened to be so. And now your male character meets them for the first time. Dwarven women laugh you off, since a man carrying a sword is stupid and a farce to them, they are sure that a man simply isn't capable of warfare. And dwarven males outright disrespect you for "lowering yourself to brutish fighting", instead of being a true craftmaster and devoting yourself to creation like all men in their opinion should. Isn't that just the real world stereotype with gender roles reversed? Many cultures have had gender "typical" roles over the millennia, from Vestal Virgins to male cannon fodder on the fields of battle. Since there are only two genders (in most cases), it sorts of limits the choice of assignment to a binary choice unlike say, races where if you have 10 races and maybe 30 subclasses, you can much better assign various stereotypical biases and prejudices. Personally, I'm in favour of the "Celtic model" where gender mattered way less than individual prowess when it came to roles. But that is just my particular taste/opinion, doesn't make it right or wrong

I prefer the way it was handled in FO:NV. All I'm going to say about level scaling (because I hate it). It is interesting to see what gets people all riled up though, as you can sort of shortlist it on 5-6 subjects that brings out the worst (and most passionate) in people. Favourite contenders so far are romances, camera perspective, turnbased/rtwp, vancian/cooldown and level scaling.

A: How do you save a Gnome from drowning? B: I don't know... A: Good! Something like that? Or that elves steal babies and use them to fuel their sinister, evil rituals. Never ask a Dwarf to hold your wallet if it has any gold in it. Typical racial prejudices. Not sure anything similar could work well with genders though (not without just parroting real world issues and resorting to common stereotypes).