Gromnir

one other neato combo to consider for melee types who want big skills and great dialogue options is the swashbuckler builds. swashy insightful strike stacks with combat insight. make a tiefling character with good dex and great int... take at least 3 levels o' swashbuckler and add to either pure ranger or ranger/rogue. a character who gots +30 int and benefiting from insightful strike, combat insight & perfect dual wielding, armed with short swords you can craft in motb, makes for a silly powerful melee combatant 'gainst creatures who ain't immune to crits... and your super high intelligence opens up loads o' dialogue options related to int checks and skills checks. can try boosting AC by taking duelist levels, but then you probably ain't gonna be able to get perfect dual wield... is a tough choice. 'course, the problem with swashbuckler is similar to weapon master in that so much o' combat efficacy is based on criticals and bonuses that only affect creatures subject to criticals. is a rapier in motb that can do crit damage to Some crit immune creatures... only elementals. btw, you get the transcendent edge falchion via some berserker lodge stuff... don't skip berserker lodge. HA! Good Fun! ps keep in mind that the ranger takes a major leap forward in combat efficacy when he gets 21 levels in class. perfect dual wielding is nasty powerful with a str based ranger.

you sent Gromnir to the nwn2 board... a game developed by obsidian. freak. HA! Good Fun! Yes, but the nwn2 board is hosted in the Bioware forums and the people who post there are 90% Bio fans (they play nwn2 because of nwn1). your reasoning is... suspect. the only reason they continues to play nwn2 is 'cause they liked nwn1? huh? "I didn't like nwn2, but I liked nwn1 so much that I felt compelled to not only purchase and play its bastardized progeny, but I must continue to visit a developer message board and discuss nwn2 years after its initial release. But keep in mind, I like nwn1, not nwn2." right, gotcha. an obsidian fan mistakenly directs us to a bunch o' clown obsidian fans in an attempt to illustrate a point 'bout wackiness o' bioware fans. ... am thinking that your vol logic proves something much different than what you were intending. HA! Good Fun!

keep in mind that you get perfect 2-weapon fighting for free at ranger level 21... every level o' something else you add is longer you wait for dual wielding perfection. bane of enemies feet is also available at level 21 of ranger. HA! Good Fun!

some peoples don't want to saddle their child with big debt. admirable. 'tween some part-time work and scholies, Gromnir got his undergrad and grad virtually for free. on the other hand, 3 years o' law school at a public school resulted in considerable reliance on student loans. having been down that road our self, am understanding why parents who have the means is willing to sacrifice for their children... am just not sure how they pull it off nowadays. competition for scholarships is getting so much tougher. as a non-resident, it woulda' been a close call for Gromnir to get accepted into Cal without football paving our way back in the 80's. had a 3.85 and ridiculous high sat scores. 'course we hear all sorta anecdotal stuff 'bout how for a California resident to get into Berkeley now pretty much requires a +4.0 gpa and +2000 on the SAT (am not understanding the new sat scores). lord only knows what non-resident requirements is like. makes you wonder why any out-o-state resident would ever go to Berkeley when with same grades and test scores you could go to yale or princeton instead. shoulda' skipped school and become a plumber... or a ups driver. HA! Good Fun!

plumbers can do very well. a friend o' ours from Danville is a plumber... is sending his Second kid to Stanford. obviously he is doing something right. cannot even imagine food/housing costs for 2 kids in palo alto nowadays. tuition is actually relative reasonable at Stanford... something likes 12k a year. HA! Good Fun!

'harsh' or being honest? Why tip toe around the topic? He was a vile man who molested children and IMO got what he deserved. If this guy was some average guy who lived down the street from you all the facts the same except we wasn't a singer/celebrity there would be a lynch mob after him and most everyone would be dancing on his grave. But he had some hits in the 80s and only because of that some of you are blinded by that. Its sick and some of you should be disgusted with yourself for celebrating the life of a CHILD MOLESTER. Unreal how celebrities blind some people. I liked some of his songs in the 80s as well does not make him a good person. ...or the guy simply was never mentally fit to become old. Maybe he stayed at the mental age of 8 for the rest of his life. None of his children is biologically his. I bet that he wasn't even interested in any form of sexuality to begin, because that was icky grown-up stuff. I also bet that he died as a virgin. I wouldn't dispute this and say its just as possible. Have you seen the items in his house? A pic of him as jesus with children following him, tons of collectible kid toys on display, a wall sized print if him dressed as royalty with words implying he is some kind of savior and immortal. It's pretty messed up and creepy. Either case he has at LEAST a unhealthy attraction to young boys or was guilty of molesting them. Either case IMO he got what he deserved like all people like that. Love karma. Many celebrities develop a form of jesus-complex during their careers. am not sure if we would say "many." am suspecting that the vast majority o' celebs never go quite so far as thinking that they is jesus or some kinda messiah. on the other hand, Gromnir, a non-celeb, has a jesus complex... but we thinks we is Jesus Dominguez, a plumber with a wife and five children from Los Gatos California. HA! Good Fun!

you sent Gromnir to the nwn2 board... a game developed by obsidian. freak. HA! Good Fun!

and Gromnir would recommend not using power attack. take a -5 on attack rolls with pa. disable via your little modes menu... bottom right. second symbol from left in the bottom row... picture o' a sword. click so it ain't highlighted no more. HA! Good Fun!

crits is great... save for fact that d&d takes cheese route and makes many (most) high level critters crit immune. elementals and undead and golems and most unique foes all gets crit immunity. is a weapon in motb that lets you crit those critters normal immune to critical hits... and it is a falchion. you want weapon master? our suggestion is to go with the earth gensai fighter(4-6)/weapon master(7)/frenzied berserker... or whatever... specialize in falchion. actually, our favorite melee build for motb is simple strength build ranger with a couple o' levels o' rogue thrown into the mix. the epic ranger feats is excellent, and you gets good skills points availability... can pretty much be party rogue & diplomat as well as a pretty darn good melee fighter. gets the dual wield feats for free without having to put points into dex. Gromnir is at least as concerned 'bout skills checks as he is 'bout melee power, so rogue (2or3)/ranger is a great build for us... but is not the Ultimate Combatant if that is the goal. motb levels is high 'nuff to make those rdd builds useful. rdd melee builds gets real powerful right 'bout level 15 or 16... which is kinda a waste in a game that goes from 1-20... but in motb... *shrug* fighter(4)/bard(1)/rdd(10)/fb or fighter or whatever... use falchion. is some pretty tough skills requirements, so be careful as you build. am personal prejudiced 'gainst all rdd builds, but they does get very tough at high levels. HA! Good Fun! ps... as for paladin stuff, you is gonna have to check with others for the anti-paladin builds as those is the serious power gaming builds. even so, is tough to go wrong with a fighter/paladin/divine champion. typical it not make much sense to take more than a few levels o' paladin. epic divine might is eventual goal that makes you a nasty death machine as you spam turn attempts into melee maelstrom... but you need 21 str AND 21 chr. assimar is probable the easiest route. the thing is that your skills points... suck, and is not smart to put much into wis neither.

am not suggesting a mod. if betehesda did wrong way, then what is correct way? is there a more appropriate raison detre for the player? save-the-world is popular 'cause gives understandable motivation for any character, regardless of moral or philosophical pov... but that gets the cliche label, no? so bethesda story is busted and save-the-world/village/galaxy is tired. so, give Gromnir a broad stroke sketch of right way, given the limitations noted in our previous post. HA! Good Fun!

Fallout 3's major failing: the game is built around your love for your father and doesn't even try to act as if one could feel anything else than unrestricted, completely compassionate love for that character. fix it. am no more a fan o' fo3 plot than is most in this thread, but if you see busted, then fix... but keep in mind that you got a protagonist-centric, character driven story. now, make compelling. keep flexible so that Mikael can play how he wishes to, but gotta also work for vol and aristes and a few hundred thousand other folks. fix it. for the nonce, ignore whether or not a crpg needs to be story driven. also, assume that the player's character has gotta be more important to story simply acting as the means by which plot points is advanced. now, fix. find a way to make story compelling And universal flexible. o' and mere fact that player is the protagonist will not result in a compelling story anymore than story o' your pong paddle becomes inherent compelling. am not a fan o' protagonist focus in a crpg story, but most developers start with such stuff. assuming you start as does bethesda and bio and so many other developers, come up with a story that retains protagonist focus and considerable flexibility while achieving emotional impact. HA! Good Fun!

is backtracking a bit, but anybody that believes that a game is made superior by including a definition o' "knife" (sans humor or some other similar secondary aspect) is embracing some kinda definition o' gaming goodness that is so alien to Gromnir that we cannot comprehend. fact that the knife nonsense were embraced by numerous folks is what genuine disturbs us. ... the kinda stuff some o' you people sees as essential or meaningful is baffling to Gromnir. "knife"? HA! Good Fun!

"I believe the main reason to have six origins is to show that there

"am thinking that maybe Bio's got the right of it (maybe), despite the inherent limits of the approach." bio thinks like does you... and that is why we will never see no genuine improvement. the inherent limitations is insurmountable. a new approach, player focused or otherwise, is necessary to make actual progress. iwd is an interesting case. black isle hurts self by calling it a dungeon crawl 'cause most story elements were superior to bg. even so, once you label as a dungeon crawl, you is telling fans and critics that story is not a strength. mistake. in addition, the lack o' vacuous party banter, necessary given iwd's streamlined production, were also much missed by fans. in spite o' such, iwd were black isle's most successful game... period. regardless, bio puts lots o' effort and considerable hype into a DA feature that is ultimately broken. is not an improvement on bhaalspawn, so much as it is a multiplication. actually, this is one of those situations that requires pre-game hype to be successful. the typical player only plays a game once, so the average player is unlikely to get any use out of the other 5 origins. if you is able to convince fans Before they play game that those 6 origin choices is meaningful, then as a developer you has already won. player feels as if their character is more special because they gots an opportunity to choose something important. ultimately not matter if developers convince fans through content or guile, 'cause if player actually believes the origin choice were meaningful, then it IS meaningful. given the "inherent limits" of the approach, is gonna be real interesting to see if this feature is actual 'bout genuine improvement, or is more a matter o' smoke n' mirrors. HA! Good Fun!

"Can we call criticism where we see it is warranted, such as cliched stereotypes," is not possible to see such until game is played. is only cliche if is done poor. back in the other thread we addressed the Ancient Evil complaints. is more than a few fantasy and sci-fi stories that is considered groundbreaking in spite of Ancient Evil. in any event, Gromnir is unimpressed with the notion o' origins. sure, you get six origin choices 'stead o' one, but those six origins is still gonna have to be written with general appeal in mind... and as Gromnir and others point out, you is not gonna have true 6 different stories. is gonna be some key plot points that is common to all six origins. is a bass akwards approach. sure, is intuitive, but you simply multiply vague bhaalspawn into six near equal vague da protagonists... 'cause regardless of origin choice, developers is still gonna leave up to the player to decide if you is a tough guy or a sneaky bastard. maybe you is helping little old women across the street... or maybe you punt puppies into oncoming traffic... just for fun. maybe you does a little o' both help and punt? try to write compelling story wherein the protagonist can be nice, naughty, tough, cowardly, boastful, humble, aggressive, passive, or a combination of any of the aforementioned. go ahead, we dare you. fact that the hypothetical protagonist is a dwarf noble or a human peasant not make writer's job markedly easier. am fully understanding why bio did origins... 'cause it is an obvious approach. the problem is that the bio origins approach not genuine solve problems involved in making a story 'bout a vague protagonist. 6 vague origins is better than a single vague bhaalspawn? maybe. keep in mind that Gromnir has always complained 'bout overemphasis on a necessarily vague and fluid crpg protagonist. is a dead end from a writer's pov. 'course, 'stead o' having 6 different protagonists why not instead has 3 different antagonists that change depending on gameplay choices? actual meaningful bifurcations 'stead o' inevitable chokepoints and merging regardless of origins. villains not need to be vague... can be static. *shrug* am thinking that best we will be able to say 'bout origins is that 6 is maybe better than 1. am thinking that more than a few people will complains of linearity regardless o' origin choices. am betting that more than a few will be disappointed by lack o' choice the origin options genuine provide. am betting that many o' the complaints would be heard regardless o' how good or bad the origins is implemented. nevertheless, the origins options is a safe approach that will not doubt be lauded by many, and criticized by a few. 1) 6 is better than 1. 2) 6 or 1 doesn't make for a genuine difference. get to wait 'til october to see if Gromnir prognostications is the typical scary accurate. HA! Good Fun!

the katana is a very nice sword for cutting up lightly armoured and unarmoured foes. geometry makes it an inferior thrust weapon and it is deficient as a parry weapon. the folding stuff is mostly symbolic, but originally got started 'cause japanese ores were inferior. katanas were surprisingly fragile, and if you ever get a chance to see katanas that were ever used in combat, you sees that they looks a bit like a dog's chew toy... is hardly the indestructible weapon that they is portrayed to be. the katana is not gonna cut an opponent's weapon in half and is not gonna cut through any serious armour neither. is surely not gonna cut roof off of a car, or cut through steel doors n' such. have seen some interesting theories 'bout how the katana myths got started, but have never seen any explanation that seemed to fully make sense o' the vast gulf 'tween katana myth and katana reality. is a good design for combatants facing typical japanese unarmoured and lightly armoured opponents... which is not a criticism. as for some o' the other weapons... *shrug* dunno. Gromnir is extreme unimpressed with big handguns... too easy to make a freudian argument. even so, fo is not 'bout reality or realism... is bout kewl. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking o' building a cheap gaming pc... not wanna spend more than 'bout $600 on this thing.. preferably $500. to that end, we is using the amd phenom ii x2 550 black edition cpu on an asus m3a78-em mb... use radeon hd 4770 'cause is a pretty good card, but also 'cause o' size and power considerations. am gonna use the antec sonata iii case with the earthwatts 500 psu. the thing is, the sonata cases is sometimes a little tight on space. could save a couple bucks-- use stock heatsink, but Gromnir rare skimps on heatsink. only other stuff that is gonna take up space in the case is the memory, and that is kinda standard. hd and optical is in bays, so ain't genuine a factor. probable use on-board sound as this computer ain't gonna be using 5.1 or 7.1 surround... got klipsch promedia 2.1. even so, we not want some monster heatsink in this thing. anybody got some recommendations for good heatsink? would prefer something that not sound like a cesna engine. HA! Good Fun!

"So long, and thanks for all the fish." dolphins, recognizing the imminent peril o' earthly annihilation, leave. am just saying... HA! Good Fun!

y'know, Gromnir never played basic or expert d&d... played d&d, which had a messy evolution into ad&d. most d&d players were playing ad&d previous to the official name change, but we didn't realize we were playing ad&d. 'course original d&d were much closer to d&d basic/expert than it were to ad&d. sounds weird, no? does anybody know what is the over/under on pages needed for any codex thread to eventually include bio bashing? start a thread entitled " Your Favorite Tree" and am betting that by page 5 somebody will bring up and slam bio. "I bet Gaydar's favorite tree is the Maple or the Pu$$y Willow. Damn Canadian %^&*. What the hell is a Pu$$y Willow anyway? Is it even a real tree? Well, I guess that is ok because bioware isn't a real game developer." didn't learn anything from josh's interview, save to reinforce our belief that these internet interviews ain't conducted via the phone or in person... that or josh is an alien. real people not talk like josh responses. HA! Good Fun!

you think it were a great post? "These are sealed bubbles of activity that exist entirely outside of time and space, as time and space can be understood by their presentation in the free-roaming action that constitutes most of the game's content." Carl Sagan died in 1996... just in case somebody didn't read the obituary. stopped reading the "great post" at this point. if there were greatness after this point we is unaware, but surely there weren't any such quality previous. HA! Good Fun!

is not how we recall. defy God is how immortality got disrupted... if had stopped with listening to snake chatter... Which boils down to talking to snakes and then eating apples will strip one of immortality. ... you have an intriguing notion of "boils down." the boils down = defy god and you get punished. chatting with a snake not have no immediate or even secondary results. Galileo: looking at the stars will get you imprisoned Mark Twain: working on a riverboat will make you a great writer Sir Issac Newton: falling fruit is the key to scientific discovery bad logic is ok when being funny... but if you ain't funny... gotta know your strengths. and for a person seeming no longer having positive expectations regarding DA, you sure spends considerable effort educating folks 'bout the game. nothing wrong with such behavior, but is a little odd. am recalling a girl that dumped us in college. s'posed Gromnir weren't spending 'nuff time with her, or somesuch nonsense. sadly, the woman had some strange notions 'bout break-ups, 'cause in spite o' her being the dumper rather than the dumpee, we still got daily phone calls and accidental visits 'n such. were... disconcerting. am wondering if bio feels same. HA! Good Fun!

is not how we recall. defy God is how immortality got disrupted... if had stopped with listening to snake chatter... in any event, aristes is understandably confused. listen to Biowarians for 5 minutes and you get notions that DA is gonna be different on virtual every level: setting, rulez, character develop, thematic (Mature & Dark,) etc. the thing is, if you listen to Bio for 5 hours or 5 days, then you hear, "dark, but not too dark." is DA tolkienesque? sure, and more than intended. pretty much any setting that gots elves, dwarves and humans as major races, coupled with a Terrible Evil is gonna invoke the spirit o' tolkien, no? 'course it turns out that the biowarians didn't honest know the tolkien origin for orcs, so the parallels were a bit more pronounced than they realized. regardless, weren't as if setting were meant to be complete original. ps:t failed in part 'cause it were too unfamiliar. black isle coulda' very easily made a ps:t game that utilized same death mechanics, themes, basic plot, and recognizable same characters... but place in a more familiar setting. wouldn't actually have been planescape, but it woulda' sold better. you not think bio listen and learn from ps:t feedback? likewise, biowarians is no doubt familiar with nwn persistent worlds. honest take a look at the characters people create for the pws. am particularly recalling the pw developments Before nwn were actual released. what we saw from the pws were a disturbing parade o' overused archetypes. maybe you has heard Gromnir reference alfa in the past? were possibly the single most ambitious nwn pw project... literal thousands o' applicants. alfa required applicants to submit a character bio and concept along with their alfa application... were s'posed attempting to attract serious role-players. *groan* accepted members, of which there were many hundreds, had their character concepts and bios posted in the alfa character bank. you know what those hundereds o' serious role-players came up with? 'tween 80-90% o' alfa characters were cliche/archetype. left to own devices, serious role-players is a bunch o' unimaginative hacks. even so, Bio ain't in the business o' education... they is in the business o' entertainment. take your customers as you find 'em. aristes may not like to hear, but Most crpg fans wanna play one o' a handful o' familiar archetypes. is reason bio comes up with Origins. bio developers, from very start, claimed that they were gonna do different. the thing is that most people didn't stick around to hear what bio meant by "different." is understandable that aristes and others didn't wanna stick 'round for bio dog n' pony show... wade through the bio-board crap were probable equal unappealing. nevertheless, those folks who did listen and watch learned that bio were not intending to rebuild the crpg genre. bio were pretty up front and honest that they were Not attempting to reinvent the wheel. bio planned from very start to meet player expectations... give players what they wanted, while at same time they were gonna make more dark and more mature and more... different, but not too different. can't realize player expectations and be too different, can you? unlike bio, Gromnir starts from position that if you give folks what they ask for, they is gonna be disappointed. folks can only ask for what they know, but what they genuine want is to be pleasant surprised. folks ultimate want to have their expectations and assumptions redefined. even so, a smart developer that is looking for commercial success probable ain't so much interested in redefining expectations. if a developer can earn money by following formula and embracing conventions, then what motivation is there to risk originality? bio made clear from start that their DA originality were gonna be tempered and limited. if aristes got wrong impression it is understandable, but can't blame bio for the misunderstanding. yeah, bio said they would do different, but they also spent the last +5 years explaining that their "different" weren't same as aristes "different." HA! Good Fun!

Er, forget the E3 videos, what about the new website? And marketing campaign? And that the developers are clearly embarrassed by the marketing campaign? And that on the website the origins / RPG stuff is hidden in a bit about 'The Hero', as if your are playing a game where you're a pre-defined character? And the Paper / Scissors... review that outs the frankly toe-curling romance content? Hey, I know you are involved in all this and you know stuff we don't, but please don't take us for complete mugs. Cheers MC am not seeing a reason to forget the 3 stuff. for something approaching 5 years, Gromnir has been told "dark" and "gritty" and "mature" and "violent." have never really got even a halfway satisfactory notion as to what that all meant in terms o' da. so, violence trailer is released and we see what looks like some terrible attempt to replicate miller's 300: shower o' arrows, blood splatter, and a guy we genuine were expecting to yell, "This Is Sparta!" e3 demo is released and we get out-o'-context mercenary love that represents "consequences" and we sees a bit o' e3 combat that leaves us with more questions than answers. ... now Gromnir don't put much stock in trailers, but the trailer is meant to encourage potential buyers. in absence o' other material that tells us what is dark and mature, am finding it perfectly reasonable that some other folks is swayed by the trailers. act surprised that a trailer influences purchaser? why? trailer is 'posed to influence. for folks who has been following da that don't know what bio meant by dark and mature, the e3 stuff is maybe not what they were expecting. is no reason to forget the e3 stuff. *shrug* as has been noted previously by Gromnir elsewhere, am not knowing how to do 1 minute of good sex-me-up dialogue shown removed from the entire "romance" that led to the awkward game moment. on the plus side, bio romances is tangential and we can skip. on bad side, the bio romances is tangential and they is thus doomed to be rushed, immature and... stoopid. am not worried 'bout the romances. am betting that folks that liked previous bio romances will like da romances. folks see something genuine different 'bout romance shown at e3 demo compared to past bio stuff? as for the dark and mature... for Gromnir, is just a trailer, but is understandable why some reviewers and fans question. bio says for 5 years that da will be different than previous bio titles... dark and mature. violence trailer and e3 demo is what bio meant? am not convinced or even worried, but am seeing why some folks gots their shorts in a twist. HA! Good Fun!

red sonja is... *shrug* the original character by Howard (Red Sonya of Rota-something-or-other) were a polish chick with guns and the setting for her story were real world ottoman empire at the height o' its power. 1 short story. No Conan and no swords for Sonya. am honest unfamiliar with the comic stuff. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna slight disagree. is no good reason to alienate so many potential purchasers just 'cause o' reality. got no problem seeing the women fighting on equal terms with male counterparts... is a fantasy setting and not medieval europe. is arguable that there if there is dependable birth control methods available to DA setting women, they can be capable combatants. HA! Good Fun!