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Nope, this isn't a thread demanding answers about how awesome crafting and enchanting will be, or how will souls augment an epic weapon, but rather I wanted to talk about how much information should we the player get about magic items as we play through it? One of the weaknesses of RPGs with lots of explicit mechanics and lots and lots of explicit detail is that sometimes all of that lore and all of those numbers go so deep and is so precise that it removes any sense of discovery or mystery. It's like when you played in a PnP game as a teenager and finally got your hands on the Dungeon Master's guide and poured over the magic items list, or picked up the Forgotten Realms source book, just because it was so much fun to read ... and then you knew without a doubt that weapons did X amount of damage, and had Y powers and if you found one, you'd give it to your ranger who specialized in whatever that weapon was best at fighting and from then on, a magic item was just a collection of numbers, statistics and dice adjustment. Personally I think it would be refreshing if magic items, even after identification, just had textual descriptions of their history and possibly rumored powers but only through trial and error or long use do full extent of powers get revealed. I played in a long running PnP game where the DM used this mechanic to great affect, It was admittedly a low magic world, where everything could be kept from the player and managed behind the screen, but it really did enhance the game play and sense of wonder that we had. Could this work or is it just too extreme and would it just drive people bonkers?

First and foremost, this is not a dig or a complaint about the current up-in-the-air spellcasting system that Josh Sawyer has been talking about on the forums and on his formspring account. This is a discussion where we can discuss the potential advantages and disadvantages, and perhaps unforseen problems with it. I've just come fresh from a lavatory session where as you all know, many ideas and realizations come from, and this particular unintentional feature of the system kept bugging me, so I thought I'd bring it to the forums. for some history, here is Josh's recent formspring post concerning spellcasting This sounds pretty good. It's in the same vein as the vancian D&D style system we all know (and love?), but attempting to resolve some of the issues with it on RTWP PC games. One problem I can see though is this (and it's all relative to other game mechanics, so it may not actually be an issue): Let's use Sawyer's example. Party is getting ready for the main encounter to a quest which they have decided to solve through battle. It has been the party's experience that these types of encounters tend to last between 1-2 minutes realtime not including paused time. To get the maximum spell-casting efficiency out of Aloth, the player has him expend all of his 3rd-level spells immediately at the start of the fight so that he has the opportunity to cast all of those again by the time the fight ends. He then (with exceptions where needed) casts all second level spells and first level spells to make maximum use of the lockouts. The issue here is that the optimal method of spellcasting may be casting spells all same level spells together in a sequential order and or spell levels in a sequential order (up or down), which does not make combat that tactical really. However this issue is tied to the time encounters take, the lockout times of spell levels, what spells are available in the grimoire and how many spells of a level a grimoire holds, the developers may be able to fix this problem. What do you guys think?

Does anyone know the frame rate capabilities of the Unity Engine? I wouldn't mind being able to run this game at 120FPS+ Although these days despite technology not really getting any better, the frame rates of games are getting worse due to crappy engines, sloppy coding / design

Something I haven't seen much discussion on is the aspects of Death in Project Eternity. What is your opinion on death mechanisms? Would you prefer a Baldur's Gate style? or a more forgiving style? This is something I'd be interested in hearing about in an update (if Josh and the team have made any decisions on which angle they're going to go for the death system). I'd like to know whether it will be a brutal death system like Baldur's Gate or a more forgiving KotOR-like style. Perhaps they're going to use different systems on different difficulties? For example, on Expert or Heart of Fury mode, the BG style death? I think I'd enjoy the game if it used a KotOR style death system with party-joinable NPC deaths related to the story or as consequences of my choices in the game (but with some degree of avoidability, for instance, not a if you pick this option, Ashley Williams dies a la Mass Effect). if they're going that route that would be fine. However I wouldn't mind a harsh system like Baldur's Gate as well, that would also be fine. Do you think death should be permanent in Project Eternity? Should a Raise Dead or Ressurection spell exist?

The topic of the class system has been on my mind given how update 7 actually significantly changes the traditional structure of the DnD system, and given that this system has more classes than many other RPGs(I think we're now at 7), I think that the topic of classes would be a really interesting one to explore, especially given how it touches issues of the magical system. The way that update 7 changes things is that it abolishes the skill-monkey class while keeping the skills, which is a really cool thing. I just want to bounce ideas around though, and I hope I'm not repeating too much that's been said. Here's some ideas for conceiving of a possible set of classes: * 2 or 3 core magic classes(I've thrown around ideas in another thread on magic) http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60372-vancian-magic-system/page__st__160?do=findComment&comment=1203875 DarkWaterSong did similarly above me. * Brute (in DnD terms: fighter, barbarian.) Heavy armor, heavy weapons, high strength and constitution build. * Monk (in DnD/NWN2 terms: monk, weaponmaster, swashbuckler/duelist, maybe some paladin features.) None to medium armor. None to medium weapons. Build uses dexterity and some vaguely magical stat. Special talents focus on high skill or magical attunement, and perhaps a lot of surprises. Conceptually a martial artist. * Magic Knight (In DnD terms: Eldritch Knight, sort of like a Paladin or Ranger, but less nerfed on magic.) Light armor, but maybe heavy given the backstory. Any weapon. spellcaster/warrior with some of both sets of abilities. May not be needed if multiclassing and magic system set up a certain way * Assassin (In DnD terms: Thug variant fighter, rogue/fighter, etc.) Light-Medium armor. Light to medium weapon. Focus on misdirection, high damage precision, possibly ranged attacks, poison, invisibility, finesse. Build uses very high dexterity. * Bard (in DnD terms: Bard.) Light-medium armor. Light-medium weapons. Support class. Focus on misdirection, buffing, information, ranged support, perhaps some magic. Just some thoughts, but feel free to throw things around or criticize. The point is getting what kind of conceptions people would think would be interesting for a class system. Like the degree of magic for classes. How bizarre or conventional the classes should be. Etc.

I'm tired of playing stick thin mages and dumb as bricks fighters. I know, I know, classes must be differentiated to offer a diverse experience and meaningful choices; and if a character is good at everything it utterly destroys this. I agree. At the same time I feel it's unrealistic that a fighter must utterly lack charisma and intellect (See Alexander the Great) and a mage must have never been outside in their life. I saw an interesting idea from a poster on the something awful forums that may offer a solution. Essentially, it amounted to having two entirely separate stat pools during character creation. So for example, using D&D stats (again, JUST an example), instead of dividing points from a big pool between STR CON DEX INt WIS CHA You would have two separate and equal pools (naturally modified by race and class) that looked like this: 1. Physical stats STR CON DEX 2. Mental stats INT WIS CHA Point taken from one pool have no influence on the other. Now you can have your clever fighter, your buff mage, your charismatic ranger, etc. I'd like for their to be even more mental and physical stats to differentiate this more, but most class differentiation would come in the form of skills and talents. You may have a fastidious wizard that insists on a balanced diet and frequent exercise, so he's actually quite strong and not going to be KO'd by stiff breeze; but compared to the fighter that's been in martial training most of his life, he's still very ineffective in combat due to a lack of technique. Fencing is about far more than strength. Conversely, the fighter may be poor in academic matters, but still possess a shrewd intellect and street smarts. This could differentiate characters even within a class. One wizard may have a very high INT score, and a low WIS. You now have something of a savant. Another might have a low WIS but very high CHA, being an excellent if unorthodox communicator. Thoughts?

What do folks think about death mechanics in games. Will PE have perma-death? Will it have resurrection with penalties? Will it have drag-the-corpse-to-the-temple-for-raising like BG/BG2/IWD? I open the floor. One thing I would like is that if my main character dies, my party takes me somewhere and gets me rezzed. But where? How much do they spend? What sort of funkiness do I get up to while I'm dead? Do they sell my best magic item? I know there's going to be this soul idea, if that impacts on death Devs please feel free to tell us. xD