Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Sylvius the Mad

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    374

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Sylvius the Mad

  1. Sylvius the Mad
    That's one of the best things about Wasteland 2. What are you talking about? I want exactly that from a roleplaying game - drop me in the world and let me figure out what I want to do. Giving me strong direction is the last thing I want. That's a big part of what's wrong with modern games. Wasteland 2 is incredibly refreshing in this regard.
  2. Sylvius the Mad
    I just have to echo this. The 3E Cleric is a massively powerful class.
  3. Sylvius the Mad
    Other game developers should take note - THIS is the sort of announcement that is valuable during development. It discusses mechanics and lore, but doesn't discuss any events or characters within the game, and doesn't spoil anything.
  4. Sylvius the Mad
    I do, actually. I think that was a good feature in BG - particularly with how the game wouldn't let you access the inventory while paused, so you really needed to think about where all your ammo was in advance. I was very disappointed that every other IE game paused the in-game action when the inventory was open. Hopefully, you'll let us at least control whether the game pauses while accessing inventory.
  5. Sylvius the Mad
    I prefer not to have my words and actions so irrevocably intertwined. Just because I say I'll press the button shouldn't force me to press the button. I'd rather the words and actions be kept separate, and the actions be done outside of dialogue events.
  6. Sylvius the Mad
    It depends what you mean by PnP-like. Modern PnP games have very simple mechanics, to avoid making the players do a lot of work in terms of mathematics. That's bad for CRPGs. But that doesn't mean that CRPGs shouldn't use rules that are still theoretically compatible with tabletop gameplay (even if their computational complexity makes actual tabletop gameplay impractical). I would like to see a ruleset that incorporates things like archery range bonuses from firing from higher ground where the bonuses are adjusted for tiny elevation differences, even though that wouldn't work in PnP, but I do not want to see mechanics where the rules are inconsistently applied in the name of encounter balancing, for example, because that's not how PnP rules work.
  7. Sylvius the Mad
    A good companion is a companion I can customise to suit that particular playthrough.
  8. Sylvius the Mad
    It should absolutely be possible to build a character who is bad at his class. As for beginner traps, I would argue that later editions (3+) did that more often than the earlier editions did, as the earlier editions offered dual-classing as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Plus, dual-classing allowed you to mix-and-match abilities in non-stanard ways without disadvantaging your character. Do you want your Necromancer to dual-wield rapiers? You can do that in 3E by taking some Fighter or Rogue levels, but that reduces your effectiveness as a Necromancer relative to your encounter level. But in 2nd edition, you could simply dual-class from Thief or Ranger and then your Necromancer ultimately pays no penalty.
  9. Sylvius the Mad
    I'm not interpreting his meaning at all. I'm interpreting his words. His meaning is unknowable to any but him. Viable does not mean excellent. His remarks leave open the possibility that some concepts will be better served by some attribute distributions, but it does not allow that there exists any attribute distribution that will break any character concept.
  10. Sylvius the Mad
    That we don't know which specific thing he meant doesn't prevent us from knowing that he must have meant at least one of them. If he's said that each character would be viable no matter how points were allocated, that would actually be good news. That would suggest that each character, regardless of class, could be built a variety of different ways and still be useful and effective. But what he said was this: What it really comes down to is what he means by "character concept". I would think that a concept is something like a combination of class and combat role. So, let's suppose a character that is a fighter archer. My take on Josh's statement is that there is no way to assign attributes to that character such that he will be non-viable. And that strikes me as wrong. It should be possible to assign attributes such that the character won't be good at the thing he wants to do.
  11. Sylvius the Mad
    Words have meaning. It could also mean that we won't be allowed to assign points in such extreme ways - that viable scores will be mechanically enforced (much like how NWN2 had a minimum score that was well above the D&D theoretical minimu of 3). But either way, that's what he said. And it follows, deductively, from what he said that we won't be able to assign points in a non-viable way. First of all, you mean infer, not imply. And second, no, that's not obvious at all. If it were obvious, everyone would see it, and I certainly don't.
  12. Sylvius the Mad
    I can't even begin to fathom what it might mean to take something "too literally."
  13. Sylvius the Mad
    In a fantasy setting, verisimilitude is generally more valuable than realism. But gamist designs are typically really bad at maintaining verisimilitude. I'm willing to be surprised, but this sounds like bad news. It should be possible to design a character suboptimally.
  14. Sylvius the Mad
    More "gamist" than "simulationist". That's the wrong direction. Simulationist is better.
  15. Sylvius the Mad
    I have to agree. But then, I think the desire to avoid dump stats is too gamey a motivation. It's possible this all makes perfect sense, but that sense is not yet apparent.
  16. Sylvius the Mad
    No. Specialisations encourage the designers to shoehorn each class into specific roles (or each specialisation into a specific role), and I don't want them to do that.
  17. Sylvius the Mad
    Technically, my first character was illegal. 1st edition AD&D Dwarf Paladin. But I hadn't read the rules, yet, and the DM suggested it. Presumbaly he wasn't really into race restrictions. As it happened, I didn't ever actually play in that group, but that's where I created my first character. Then came the Star Wars RPG - not the d20 game that WotC made, but the original d6 rules. I played Kilchatca, a wookiee with 6 dice of strength - he could just about lift an X-wing himself, and did far more damage with his bare hands than he could with a blaster or bowcaster. So he ended up learning stealth skills so he could sneak up on guys and rip their heads off. And I've been playing non-standard characters in non-standard ways ever since.
  18. Sylvius the Mad
    I like hoarding potions. I want to hoard potions. Don't take that away from me.
  19. Sylvius the Mad
    The mechanic was officially announced, and they appear to have abandoned it for little or no reason.
  20. Sylvius the Mad
    Abstract realism is tremendously valuable. That alone, I think, is sufficient reason to keep item durability.
  21. Sylvius the Mad
    How is that a bad idea? It makes perfect sense, within the world, for those skills to be related. Being good at making something helps you be good at fixing something. Would having two separate skills with synergies be better? Maybe. But not having that shouldn't be grounds to discard the repair mechanic entirely. While I like the gold-dump aspect of item durability, the primary benefits are, I think, roleplaying based. Item degredation improves the overall credibility of the setting, and how the character deals with item degredation is a roleplaying opportunity. Durability always makes sense. Stuff wears out. Again, I'm not claiming the durability system couldn't be better. I'm claiming that having the proposed durability system is better than having no durability system. I wouldn't like that at all. Having a completely stand-alone system would be too video-gamey, and would make less sense in the world. I don't want to have to worry about item durability all of the time, but I also don't want to be able to completely ignore item durability. Again, it's just like inventory management; I don't want to do it all the time, but I do want it to be necessary on occasion.
  22. Sylvius the Mad
    Adventurers' Hall. I expect I will make extensive use of this feature. Now, if only we could have any party member act as party spokesperson, rather than it always being the PC.
  23. Sylvius the Mad
    I'll play on whatever setting creates the most level playing field. The party and its enemies should be governed by the same rules. Friendly fire should exist, and be equally deadly to everyone. I don't really understand why any settings other than this even exist.
  24. Sylvius the Mad
    oops
  25. Sylvius the Mad
    Have they actually said this? What I've read is that i.e. rogues are optimized for massive damage to single targets, not crowd control or tanking Right. Each class is aimed at a specific combat role, and it is easier to build them to fill that role, but they're not limited to that role. This isn't going to be like DA2 where you must have a tank and only warriors can tank. Ideally, I'd like to see a game where I can load up the party with just mages, and then those mages can both do enough damage and crowd control that I don't need anyone else.
×
×
  • Create New...