Shevek

Can I feed Kerfluffles to my pet hound instead? ;p

I am willing to bet OE will get some of those modders' attention. DA was good but working with that game was very very different than working with the IE games. I enjoyed (and still do) making minor mods for the IE games for personal use (custom classes, modifying NPCs, creating my own NPCs, custom rules, etc) and I can't wait to mess with PE.

Enoch is most likely right. Prone probably just means you have been knocked to the ground.

Ya, even if they do not put in a bunch of mod tools, openning up the game files to us is huge. I would love to see this game make inroads with IE modders like the folks at Spellhold Studios and the Pocket Plane Group.

They will be simple bots. If you don't like that then do not use them. Use the fully fleshed out companions if thats your thing. This pleases folks that like fleshed companions AND folks that want to option craft an entire party.

I dunno about you guys but I do not want a walking Jell-O cube as a pet. I would prefer either a hound or perhaps a hawk or something.

In the video he says, "When a wizard casts a low level spell, theres no limit on how many times he can cast that. He can just keep casting that over and over." He also says, "its the the high level spells that have a limit on how many times they can cast before the wizard will have to rest."He goes on to say that the player can choose whether or not to pull out the big guns depending on how combat is going. He then goes on to speak on cooldowns. First he says, "There are not gonna be any individual spell cooldowns." Then he says, "Spells of particular levels may have a cooldown on spells of that level." He goes on to mention that many spells are in the wizards grimoire (but not all). Switching grimoires leads to cooldowns all being triggered. So, put it all together. 1. The spammables are spells not in your grimoire. They are, as he stated, lower level spells. These could be at-will powers with no cooldown. We do not know at this point. but he does seem to suggest this. 2. The grimoire spells most likely have a cooldown and switching grimoires just triggers the cooldowns. This is obvious and clearly stated. 3. Lastly. some spells he states require rest. These are probably your highest level spells. They do not get recharged until, as he stated fairly clearly, you rest. Sounds like at-will, encounter and daily powers to me.

This is pretty much what iit sounded like to me. It is the 4E system modified somewhat. So encounter (recharge) and daily (no recharge until rest) powers. What powers fall under what depends on your level. I do not believe there will be at-will (spammaable) powers but we shall see. I do not believe there will be "soulpower" or mana. Nothing in the video suggested that. The grimoire probably refers to prepared spells. Swapping your spells results in a long cooldown. They should have left that for rest. Not sure. I have watch that video again. A little confusing but generally sounds better than what I had hoped after they announced cooldowns.

I currently have the $20 digital download of PE selected on KS. I have upped my pledge to $35 but I have not selected the $35 tier. I have no interest in PDFs and am waiting ofr a tanginle reward I can select once the KS ends. I would love to go all the way to $50 but I would love some tangible goodies (though I do not want a game box). For example, why not put out a softcover collector's book or a physical strategy guide for that extra cash? The profit margin has to make sense and all that; just putting out a suggestion...

The ultimate bard is Homer. It is an old blind man who sits around singing long epic poems for the enjoyment of the king and his court. Any class should be able to be a bard so long as they put points into a lore skill and, perhaps, a perform skill while also having respectable charisma and intelligence. They can include bards by just having bardic quests where you go uncover lost histories and entertain royal courts. Singing Trolololol while in combat is not required to be a bard.

Aha! I knew thats where they were going with the spell system. LINK Regenerating levelled action points. Sorta. I guess the whole level goes on cooldown. That makes sense though. I also like idea that they are considering that the highest level spells do not get regenerating action points (or levels). However, this now means that rest issues must be addressed. In order to address rest spam, rest must come with risk or must be in some other way limited. Also, please include reach weapons. Those are very useful when you are in a tight hallway. This allows more combatants (both enemy and pc) to engage and not be blocked by friendlies. *edit: made some changes to my post after watching the vid again for clarification.

They have to include them in some capacity. Failure to do so is a big screw you to their backers and folks would be less enticed by stretch goals of other products in the future.

I think multiclassing could work very well with the core classes. Just like the IE games, all classes should not be allowed to multiclass.

Well, we don't know if multiclassing is even in much less what form it will take. That is largely dependent on their rpg system. That being, 2E multiclassing was ten times better.

I do not believe time and resources should be spent on fiddling with the controls to make them more streamlined. This is supposed to be a homage to the IE games not Diablo. Development spent on a separate slate of controls could be spent on things to deepen the controls already in place. I recall the wonderful system put in place for ToEE. I would love to see then take that radial system and make it even more in depth. Attempts to make some oversimplified ARPG alternate interface would probably both draw resources away from the prime interface AND result in the limitation/modification of content to fit the mold of a simplified alternate system These are bad things. Leave the ARPG control to the ARPGs.

Honestly, advancement in BG1 was abysmall. I am currently replaying it as a mod with BG1/2 combined. Even though it is much better with BG2:ToB kits/classes added, the early combat feels extremely homogenized (and way too skewed towards archery, but thats another issue). Now that I finished the Cloakwood Mines, the game is getting more interesting. My Fighter/Wizard picked up a few 3rd level spell slots; my Ranger/Cleric has some more interesting spells under his belt; my rogue can lay some traps and poison his weapon, etc. In part due to the lack of combat actions, combat was a tad lackluster until I gained levels. Surely, PE will have more combat actions for all classes than the old IE games (at least from what has been said about the martial classes). ToEE, for example, had much better low level combat (Btw, that game, which was fairly hardcore, let you get to level 10). Still, the number of uses and/or variety of said actions will most likely be at least partially dependent on level. While it may be fun to slog through levels 1-5 in Pen and Paper, I do not feel the same is always true of a video game.

The problem with 3E multiclasses is that players take a dollop of this class and that class just to get certain key bonuses. Also, that kind of multiclassing works very VERY badly when multiclassing a martial class with a spell casting class. There are some fixes to this but none are particularly elegant. WoTC essentially made Prestige Classes as a way to apply a bandaid fix to the many flaws in 3E multiclassing. The IE games used set multiclasses and those worked very very well in my view. This was in part due to the to-hit calculation being based on THAC0 instead of a straight AB bonus. Also, it helped that experience tables were not done on a linear curve. So, the same XP it woulld take to be a 20th level Fighter could allow you to make a Fighter (14)/Wizard (14). I would like it if they at at least added multiclass variants of the "core" classes (fighter/rogue, wizard/priest, rogue/priest, fighter/wizard, etc).

The question is worded oddly. Here is how I would do it if it were up to me. 1. Personally, I would like two have a few multifacted ability scores instead of many. That ensures all ability scores have value to all classes. 2. Certain races should have stat bonuses or penalties. All characters should be able to dump as many points as they like into a stat. Classes should not give stat bonuses. IMHO, all classes should have some need of every stat. 3. I do not like 3E style multiclassing if this is to what are referring to as far as multiclass penalties go. Instead of players adding levels of classes to their character, there should be set multiclass types like how 2E DnD did it. In that, players did inherent class restrictions and I fully support that.

I was very pleased with the answer. They are (a) thinking ahead for a sequel and (b) planning to have about 50% more advancement than there was in BG1 (which I felt had too little advancement).

I really didn't like the interviewer. He kept assuming that "oldschool" meant less evolved or somehow worse. Frankly, I would argue the opposite.

No thanks.

I had asked Feargus how much advancement there would be in PE on KS. I was worried that since this was gonna be part of a series, there there might not enough advancement in the first installment. According to Feargus, leveling in PE will be comparable to like 12ish levels in the old IE games. This leaves room for more advancement in a sequel.

I don't think the dev team is crunching those numbers that way. I genuinely think they just want to make a good game and not necessarily play to any of the crowds out here. If they wanted to 100% play up to the codexians, this thing would be TB and have Vancian magic. If they wanted to play up to the Biowarians, they would have left the boobplate and they wouldnt have included custom party creation. *and, yes, I do not believe most folks fall under those extremes.

Quote of the day: "I don't like a class, so they must be childish" ^^ But seriously, if you don't like Paladins, then that is okay. I don't really like Monks either, but I know that many people enjoy this class and that is why I think they should be in the game. It is as simple as that. I love the deep convo we had. What a great way respect another's arguments... take 2 snippets, ignore the rest... thats just awesome.

I think you are making some big assumptions there that aren't necessarily true. Paladin code being entirely "alignment based"? Well yes and yes. Yes in term of "paladins associate themselves with good." No in terms of "paladins must have hardcoded morality mechanics to make sense". The devs have told us that they aren't using morality mechanics. That doesn't mean that the world and/or game will have no good, no evil, and only murky grey morality. It means that the game's mechanics will not make moral judgments about objective good and evil. Characters and cultures will continue to have their ideas of what is good and evil, and you don't need Lawful Good or Lightside V on your screen for a rigid moral code to be present in the class narrative. Why does moral relativism mean that a paladin can't fall from his code? He can only fall from his own code of moral values, not from the codes of moral values that belong to other cultures/religions/whathaveyou. Why would relativism affect that? Other people's consciences don't matter in terms of the paladin falling or not falling. Maybe you think that without clear, objective moral choices and morality mechanics, a moral code would be meaningless because any action can be interpreted as "good" in some way. But I disagree. If we are told that the paladin code is X, Y, Z, we don't need a morality mechanic to hold our hands and tell us that we are *this many* bad decisions away from falling. As long as the code is defined, it doesn't matter if there is objective morality or not, because we know what the code is, and what it means to fail it. I think the lack of objective morality mechanics would make paladins more interesting, not less. If Good is Good and this is objectively true and recognized as a cosmic force, recognizing it and struggling to uphold it is nowhere near as meaningful as if good is an elusive, fragile idea in a murky world. We're gonna have to agree to disagree here. Everything that has been said from the devs makes it clear that they aren't about the whole good/evil dichotomy. Just because some in game cultures may "believe" in good and evil does not mean that good or evil actually work as a gameplay mechanic within the framework of the world. Especially when one considers the overall moral greyness of the world design. The simple fact that Paladins were not included should be an indicator, man. Bottom line: Paladin good and evil is a child's good and evil. The real world is not as cut and dry as it is in eyes of some religious zealot. While this works in childish high fantasy, it falls apart the grittier the fantasy gets. I recall those CS Friedman books (Coldfire Trilogy). In it, the main character is a typical DnD paladin type halfwit who would have fallen 10x over since he has to work with a guy who is evil as Hell in order to save his world. The reason the book works is because traditional high fantasy morality is cast to the side. The protagonists morality is warped over and over - just like most people's morality gets warped in difficult times. For PE to seem credible, a Paladin would have to fall within the first hour. Paladins just don't make sense in PE.