Gromnir

btw, keep in mind that Gromnir enjoys the pure non-combat aspects o' d&d... but no rules is needed to role-play. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

" the point is that it wasn't a combat-orientated spell." all divination spells is, from Gromnir's pov, combat "orientated." d&d is, first and foremost, a squad-based tactical combat game. is virtually no spell or ability that is complete removed from combat applications. craft items or earn gold? why? to help the local economy or to donate to church o' the bloody nun or somesuch? bah. Gromnir crafts to make better stuff or earn gold to get better stuff... to make us more effective in combat. ultimately there is little in d&d that doesn't come back to combat. HA! Good Fun!

uh, to be precise, the 1e had one page of weapons. as for spells, please to be explaining now the combat meaning of a spell like divination. superior intelligence is always resulting in a tactical advantage. knowledge of enemy location and numbers alone is a huge combat advantage. a clever diviner can, if played according to the rules, break a game precisely 'cause of impact on combats ant larger strategic aspects. however, the problem with divinations is that the spells that give the player knowledge they should not have will never work, 'cause no dm will let 'em work. have your adventure or campaign broken by a diviner? not likely. as for the rogue, no doubt the wotc developers will at some point explain why it is necessary to force onto characters compulsory skills disguised as a fraudulent choice, but Gromnir ain't amused. regardless, they needs to get their editors to do some better checking, 'cause ambiguity is inevitably gonna lead to argument. HA! Good Fun!

is thievery and stealth actually compulsory? wording is kinda funny. "Trained Skills: Stealth and Thievery plus four others. From the class skills list below, choose four more trained skills at 1st level. Class Skills: Acrobatics (Dexterity), Athletics (Str), Bluff (Cha), Dungeoneering (Wis), Insight (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Perception (Wis), Stealth (Dexterity), Streetwise (Cha), Thievery (Dexterity)" thievery and stealth is on the "choose" list. is poorly written regardless, but there is an ambiguity created especially in light o' the following: "Suggested Skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Insight, Perception, Stealth, Thievery" is kinda counter-intuitive to suggest the choosing o' a mandatory skill. the only thing we has viewed is the above pasted material, so spider most likely knows far more than Gromnir does 'bout this aspect. kinda sucks though if it is required. am wondering how many other Choices wotc will make for us as we build characters with 4e. HA! Good Fun!

btw, having 4-5 past skills all rolled up into one does seem to suggest that the new rogue is far less 'bout recreating the archetypal thief role. ... am ok with the goal, but the means o' achieving seems odd. HA! Good Fun!

really? the 1e PHB had no combat rules. it had a list of weapons and, of course, spells like fireball, etc. but it was nothing like as munchkin as the description of a 4e rogue above. sure, that's probably just a description for marketing purposes but it hardly augurs well. am guessing that thiefy skills is, well, skills. pretty much all the rogue build suggested skills includes "thievery" but am not sure exactly how that works, and what it includes. is lockpick, find trap, set trap and sleight o' hand all included in 1 skill for 4e? whatever changes 4e makes to skills & feats, wotc not seem to wanna let us see for the nonce. the little bit o' info we has gotten so far seems to suggest a clear move towards streamlining skills, but this thievery stuff does seem a bit... extreme. HA! Good Fun!

side note: never actually seen a dual-classed character played fair from level 1 in a pnp group. another flaw of 1e? dual worked in bg, where a single player plays a party and can get to mid-levels after 40 hours o' gameplay. in pnp though... a 7/x fighter/mage were a gimp from the time he/she dualed until time you got 8 levels o' mage... 'least compared to others in your party. and you know how long it took to get 8 levels o' mage playing 1 pnp game session a week in 1e? longer than 40 hours that is for damn sure. to dual you needed ridiculous stats and you had to voluntarily gimp self and your party to achieve munchkin status. 'course the gimping made them balanced, no? no. 1e dual made even less sense than multi-class. HA! Good Fun!

what is point of 4e quote? am relaying why you can't do 1e multi-class nonsense in 3e... is 'cause multi-class dwarven fighter/cleric is clear superior to single class character with same exp. how does jedifilly quote 'bout 4e change that fact? regardless, we doubt even jfilly would isuggest that based on his quote that the dwarven fighter/cleric 11/11 in 4e will be clear superior to a single class human cleric with same exp point totals. such stoopidity were a 1e mistake that were purged... and good riddance. 'course then, as did happen with 1e and 2e and 3e, tsr/wotc or whomever will release loads of crap to keep sales going forward. kits or prestige classes or custom classes or whatever. 4e will, like 3e, only be good if dms is very careful with just how much additional crap they allow beyond the core books. the more crap = the more difficult to balance. HA! Good Fun!

'Small size' will probably cease to matter as storage capacity for all manner of affordable gadgets increase at a dramatic fashion. Portability, however, will probably remain a concern for as long as we travel the way we do. DD will probably take a fair chunk out of movie sales, but it probably won't destroy standard sales. portability is a far less significant factor for movies than for music... still need a tv. and while maybe tvs is getting thinner, they is actually getting bigger. chances are you don't watch movies on a personal tv while jogging or while at gym or while at work.... 'least most people do not. portability is less a factor, but even so, just as most folks not use cds to listen to music no more (particularly 'cause those storage devices is getting smaller and cheaper) it will be much more efficient to store multiple flicks on a small device than has dozens o' discs cluttering up your life. blu-ray victory is pointless and will be short-lived. HA! Good Fun!

"Fine. How do I convert an dwarven fighter/cleric level 11/11 from 2e to 3e?" you can't because that sorta character were one thing that were wrong with 2e. a 2e dwarven fighter/cleric or elven fighter/mage or any o' a host o' other combinations, were clearly superior to a single class character with same exp points. it were a mistake. why can't you reproduce a mistake? 'cause that were one of the things that wotc actually managed to get right with 3e. how can you convert to 3e? no problem. you end up with a dwarven fighter/cleric 4/9 (or even a 4/6 split) that fills exact same role in a 3e campaign and is more fun to play and offers more opportunities for customization. congrats. HA! Good Fun!

a pointless victory for blu and sony? probably. microsoft backed off of full hd-dvd support some time ago. they already had a superior codec, and they saw that by the time the current dvd format were dead, direct download would supplant much of industry... as well as being the clear future. time will tell, but this ain't a vhs v. beta situation being repeated as the successor tech to blu-ray & hd dvd is not the least bit remote. HA! Good Fun!

is manifestly untrue. 1) any and all o' the splat books is usable in greyhawk... and many has greyhawk specific content example: the horrible books like complete divine has greyhawk specific material, including expanded greyhawk domain and deity lists as well as (groan) prcs that is applicable to those gods. epic book gots greyhawk characters and greyhawk gazeeter is more detailed than 1st edition analogue. even got some greyhawk novelizations. over same span o' years, 3e and 3.5 has offered as much (if not more) greyhawk material than any similar span o' time during 1e or 2e incarnations. 2) is more greyhawk adventures than newc suggests heck, one o' those new mega modules is the "expedition to the ruins of greyhawk" thingie. that one module alone is almost equal to any old series o' modules don't compare to the fr or eberon settings. fr weakness is that everything and everybody is mapped out, detailed and given a new prc... and eberon were 'sposed to be the future. greyhawk has gotten much new material (those Return To modules typically adds 2x as much material as were available in the originals) and is not as if old 1e had that much greyhawk specific. most modules were non-specific and the core 1e hard covers not have greyhawk specific for most part. greyhawk gets continued support... just not seem that way compared to fr and eby, and that is a Good thing. leave up to individual dms to flesh out and bring to life rather than being force fed wotc pap. HA! Good Fun!

the default setting for 3e IS/WAS greyhawk. HA! Good Fun!

to answer arkan, waterdeep is now a small port town, noteworthy only for the Prancing Pony brothel and its fat eunuch proprietor... a deceitful rogue named elminster who seems to traffic in information as much as he does flesh and narcotics. ... no, wait, that is in Gromnir's version o' the frs. only has run a fr campaign a couple times, but to keep our sanity we made some serious changes. too bad wotc won't do likewise... not the eunuch elminster bit, but the "serious changes" part. HA! Good Fun!

well, to be fair, Gromnir got himself banned from bioware boards... and we not even have the swede excuse. seems that tolerance for us trollish imbeciles is much more limited nowadays. regardless, it always surprised Gromnir when folks honestly asserted that da were vapourware. a bio board devoted to and maintained by bio... and a half dozen bio developers answering queries and debating suggestions were not 'nuff to convince some pretty darn obtuse folks that they were wrong. makes you wonder why recent news changes some wacky personages pov. HA! Good Fun!

best mako tactic is silly & stoopid. bounce. thresher maws and armatures and gun turrets all has slow reload times on their ranged attacks, and the mako can bounce. as enemy rocket, blast, or acid splash comes at mako, bounce. time jump right and you can jump over any incoming shot and then return fire with cannon or machine gun... or both. is stoopid. even more stoopid: gets thresher maws or armatures down to a sliver o' life with tank, then get out o' mako and kills with your pistol... triple the xp as a kill from within tank. huh? much as with kotor, we enjoyed me in spite of serious flaes. mako were, in virtual all ways, a flaw. first time you fly of of edge o' a mountain and mako takes no damage save for front right tire (what is it with that wheel anyways?) is kinda kewl... if silly. beyond that first moment o' nifty indestructableness, mako sucks. HA! Good Fun!

FR has an older fanbase? You mean, like 18 year olds? as much as Gromnir would hope that we could blame fr success on the young, taht ain't the reality. frs has been 'round a good long time, and many folks who liked in the early 90s still plays. alfa were one of nwn's larger pws... had more than a thousand members at one point. were a pw attempting to recreate large portions of the frs. Gromnir spoke with many of the alfa members, and while some were young and dumb, many others were not. it may seem as if only possible demographic fr could appeal to is young and foolish, but that just ain't the truth. would be so much easier to simply dismiss all fr fans 'cause of age/experience, but we cannot. HA! Good Fun!

apparently the achievements is all the rage 'mongst the console gaming community. am not understanding, but a significant % o' posts on the me boards is queries 'bout attaining various achievements. searching for mineral not only provides for lots o' 1007 at higher levels, but if you want various achievements such as ally and completion, the goose chase quests is almost compulsory... particularly the ally stuff. gotta get something close to 48 assignments with party member X present, and there is a bunch o' quests (including the goose chase ones) that is (or can be) completed sans party members. ... am not sure why anybody gives a damn 'bout silly achievements, but... HA! Good Fun!

the problem is that there is so much Crap in the frs, and players got access to it. "But in the FRCS it says..." to start a fr campaign you gotta lay down some pretty harsh ground rules from start, and there is usually a negotiation process involved. player: Why can't I play a half-ogre character? It was made available as a playable race in one of the fr supplements. Oh, and I should be able to monkey-grip too. Yeah, a half-orge monkey gripping a 2-handed sword. Sweet! dm: you can't play such a munchkiny character... 'cause i said so. player: Well, if I can't play a half-ogre, then how about a drow anti-paladin? dm: *groan* player: You don't allow anti-paladins? Why not? Well, I have a list of three dozen prestige class combinations that I would like to know whether you would at least consider. All the prestige classes on my list are FR canon, so if I meet the prerequisites I don't see why I shouldn't get a shot to play them. dm: perhaps we can play a Boot Hill campaign instead? nobody here has played Boot Hill, right? good. HA! Good Fun!

am not a fan o' the fr setting. only way we can see to make more Gromnir-friendly is to take a flamethrower to it and start from scratch. ... its greatest weakness may also be its one saving grace: lack o' identity. can pretty much find anything you want... if you look long enough and hard enough. though why anybody would look so long and hard is beyond our ken. developers sole goal seems to insure that everybody can find something they like. ice cream... thinks o' ice cream flavors. Gromnir likes vanilla and you like chocolate and john likes mint and betty likes coffee. fine. choice is a wonderful thing. problem is that we doubt anybody likes vanillachocolatemintcoffee. Gromnir hates drow as pcs, but developers know that some people love'em... so they purposefully made 'em playable and disproportionate powerful. killed off bane... but some people liked bane, so they resurrect... poorly. give everybody what they want and you end up with something horrible. nevertheless, a clever dm can isolate aspects o fr... find some workable corner of the realms. ... Gromnir ain't target audience for fr setting, so minor/major changes mean little to us. HA! Good Fun!

"You want some straw man with your salad? If Bio wanted DA to appeal to most people possible, then why not include aliens and spaceships and guitars and a dance/singing contest of some kind?" *chuckle* you purpsoeful uses two strawmen agruments in a row to somehow prove that Gromnir uses strawman? however, in spite of fact that Gromnir made no such ridiculous argument, it is probably true that if bioware honest believed that adding such nonsense would improve sales, they would probably do so... but you seems to lose sight of the big picture again, which is sales. can you honest think o' a game developer plausibly mixing your suggested elements such that they end up with a commercially viable whole? no? if not then you got answer why bio not doing that way. "Or maybe the fantasy SP CRPG market isn't as broad a church as you think, and maybe Bio are simply recognising that all the kids are flocking to buy so-called 'dark' games like Bioshock and Witcher and following suit." so why is you arguing with Gromnir's comments above? you suggest that really what crpg fans want is the freaking salad. *shrug* maybe you not read entire thread... which is okie dokie 'cause Gromnir rarely reads entire threads, but it is noteworthy that bio got real and serious resitance from 'bout 1/4 of bio boardies when they announced that da would be "dark," inspired by george r.r. martin and battlestar galactica. 1/4 thought dark were grand stuff. 1/2 wanted to talk 'bout other more important aspects o' game development. this debate is what promted Gaider and other biowarians to come up with a new take on da's darkness: "DA will be dark, but not too dark." the congregation responded when bio announced oncoming darkness, and it were a pretty damned broad range o' responses they got back from the faithful. again, maybe you wanna read actual thread and comments that inspired... or not. you not gonna listen anyways. HA! Good Fun!

"Does the fact that McDonalds adds salads to the menu mean that it is going vegan? Similarly, if McDonalds starts selling fancier coffee, does that mean that it will suddenly turn into Starbucks? " now you is just being silly. is not as if bio can offer up a menu to people. you want a "dark" pc crpg game? then bio can just whip up such a game, such a salad, and still has so much space on the menu for big macs and fillet o' fish and quarter pounders n' such. HA! bio, in spite o' being bigger and busier than most developers, releases how many games a year? not many. regardless, even using your ridiculous myopic view, the meal bio is offering to customers in the guise o' da is still gonna be targeted to appeal to most people possible... and if that is case, then why in their right mind would they offer all da customers only salad? HA! Good Fun!

keeps in mind that we is talking 'bout da, a pc crpg from bio. a pc crpg is already gonna appeal to a relative small subset of total potential gamers, and bio has shown a desire to reach as big a % of that small group as is possible. is the first pc crpg bio will have released since nwn and its expansions, so chances are that they go vegan is slight... and notion that doing so would be economic smart is... stoopid. HA! Good Fun!

"But if Gromnir is right in his McDonald's analogy, the economics actually favour Bio making Dragon Age as dark as possible in order to meet the demands of the market, just like McDonalds introduced salads to attract women customers and allegedly 'gourmet' coffee to win back market share from Starbucks." well that makes no sense. by adding a faux salad to menu, to attract women and health conscious peoples, mcdonalds did not overt change the menu. all the old mainstays is still there. is still a mcdonalds menu... but they throws in anemic, token salad or two. do not alienate the current established customers with any real change, and maybe with a half-hearted nod to health consciousness you gets some extra customers by adding a salad or two. is not as if every mcd restaurant renovated... added a salad bar and killed anything fried from menu. if mcd adding salads is akin to what bio is doing by adding dark to games, then Di gots even less to worry 'bout than we suggested earlier. HA! Good Fun!

our surprise would be genuine if da turned out to be too dark for Di. bioware develops games that has as broad an appeal as they can manage... given limitations o' licenses n' such. bio games is kinda like mcdonalds fast food. is anything at mcdonalds gonna be your ideal meal? probably not, but there is little surprise ‘bout mcdonalds food you know that you can get a big mac or a filet o’ fish, and chances are that with a coke and some fries you is gonna end up satisfied with your meal. Gromnir, as a food snob o’ the o’ the worst water, can decry the EVIL that is mcdonalds, but am fully aware that mcdonalds is an extremely successful business. the business o’ mcdonalds is to make money, not to make great food. Bio, as with mcdonalds, is very aware that they is in business to make money… making games is simply the means. is no way that bio is gonna risk the franchise by trying something that could be unpalatable to thousands. da is gonna be another big mac or filet o' fish... your fear that you end up with braised goat brains or black truffle foie gras seems slim. HA! Good Fun! ps keep in mind that we ain't saying that bio is crap, or that they make crap games... is simply that they is making games with an expansively broad appeal. the more you attempt to achieve universal approval, the closer you inch towards mediocrity. while people is not as diverse as they would like to believe, they is different 'nuff that true universal appeal is probably impossible. universal satisfaction? perhaps.