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I'm not sure where to write my grounded idea sketches. Do I get an answer as to whether it is right here? Thank you so much for the great game and all the imagination you leave us! The File "Ideenskizzen_Grounded.docx" (35 kb) is in german, should I translate it with google translator, or would you do it yourself? I would appreciate a short message about the receipt of the file. Ideenskizzen_Grounded.docx

I play turn based mode for the first time, but the tutorials show nothing turn based related so I ask here. - Are there global rounds? Can each char act once per round? Or do the chars act in the order of the duration of their actions, similar to Final Fantasy X or the Trials series? - Is initiative a roll or is it a fixed value? If it is rolled, is it done every round or only at the beginning of combat? - I was confused when looking at the numbers. Is stuff with high initiative or stuff that increases initiative good or bad? Low initiative would be the opposite. - Some active abilities have a full square, some have a square that is empty inside and some have the infinity symbol. Infinity means you can use them as often as you want during your turn. What is the difference between the full and the empty square? - Looks like every char has a move action and an attack action each turn. Just to be sure: You cannot move twice as much if you do not attack and you cannot make a special attack if you do not move? (I needed lots of reading for the different types of actions when playing P:K) - Anything else I should know about turn based stuff? I have not played for a long time so I started in classic difficulty. I have the feeling turn based is easier than rtwp for me. In rtwp I had to pause all the time and check if each char is doing something at all and if they do the thing they should do. With pausing all the time and also pressing pause every time you selected an ability it was not much faster than turn based unless it was trash and you just let them fight automatically. I used AI to keep up some standart buffs and auto attack if nothing else is commanded, but I did not let them use abilities that require a different target than themselves (except healing). PS: Are crew members injured or permanently gone when they die during fights on deck? One of my crew died in the first battle after I woke up. I think in the past I killed some of them myself with (un)friendly fire, when I cast a spell at the enemy and they ran to this enemy during casting time.

Hi. So I've been trying to find answers to a lot of questions regarding obscure or otherwise ambiguous/unclear mechanics in PoE. I hope someone from the ranks of experts can find the time to help me out in this. I couldn't find these answers on the internet, despite my efforts. Here are my questions: -1- Is spell accuracy directly derived from weapon accuracy? For example, if I have 50 accuracy with my current weapon, and the spell says (+10 acc vs will), does that translate to 60 accuracy vs will? If yes, does this mean I have a significant boost to spell acc if I have a 1H weapon only? -2- Do talents affect spells? i.e. if I, let's say, have the 1H talent (+15% hit-to-crit), does that also apply to spells? Being a wood elf and/or having the marksman talent have any effect on spells? -3- Does sneak attack (including Skaen and apprentice) affect spell damage? -4- Does the spell Combusting Wounds refresh each time damage is suffered? Do dots trigger it? If yes, isn't it a bit redundant to use it with dots, for example from a priest? -5- Do the bonuses from MIG and INT stack when using dots? Or does INT simply make it unnecessarily longer for the same damage output? Also, I read that Wounding effect (from Persistence, for example) does the same damage every time, only affected by MIG, and INT only has a detrimental effect on it. Is that the only dot effect that behaves like this? That's all that comes to mind right now. These questions keep me up at night (not really but it's a nice figure of speech ^^ ). Thanks for your answers in advance.

Bringing out the big (testing guns) .. Made the first test run to make sure I have all the tools in place.. Hopefully during this weekend I will be able to Properly test various DOT/HOT abilities (amounts inflicted with maximum precision (float numbers) and timings (down to milliseconds) ).. Will be able me accurately measure multiple DOTs/HOTs running in parallel .. The timing down to millisecond part might might actually be more accurate for measuring attack speeds than frame by frame analysis (we'll see - another topic) .. Here a few test samples - actual testing to fallow later .. (10 INT ranger with estoc) Wounding shot . Ranger Wounding shot 33.3 - DR (15.0-5.0) = 23.5 pierce (Wounding shot) hits Sneaky, Hobbled (12.0 sec) +0 ms |Health Damage 23.309601 // Estoc weapon hit +38 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 // wound damage ticks +5175 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 +3024 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 +3002 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 +3005 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 +3028 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 +3016 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 +3024 ms |Health Damage 1.971191 Here's a wounding shot with Blunderbuss 1 graze, 4 hit 1 Crit // pellets hit +0 ms |Health Damage 1.780579 +9 ms |Health Damage 1.939209 +8 ms |Health Damage 1.627869 +9 ms |Health Damage 1.177551 +9 ms |Health Damage 1.967072 +13 ms |Health Damage 2.363129 //first DOT tick round (per projectile) +72 ms |Health Damage 0.493500 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.537445 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.451172 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.652710 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.654938 //3 seconds later another 6 wound damage tick +2982 ms |Health Damage 0.493500 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.537445 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.451172 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.652710 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.654938 +3022 ms |Health Damage 0.493500 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.537445 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.451172 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.652710 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.654938 +3011 ms |Health Damage 0.493500 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.537445 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.451172 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.654938 +3022 ms |Health Damage 0.493500 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.537445 +1 ms |Health Damage 0.451172 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 +0 ms |Health Damage 0.654938 //3 dots expired quicker +3005 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 +3005 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 +3069 ms |Health Damage 0.363464 Monk - 2 weapon style - dual fist - 19 DEX - for attack speed +0 ms |Health Damage 11.332977 +1018 ms |Health Damage 19.631348 +916 ms |Health Damage 11.370148 +1039 ms |Health Damage 10.968414 +1005 ms |Health Damage 4.430481 +1033 ms |Health Damage 7.485748 +1021 ms |Health Damage 19.314636 +1004 ms |Health Damage 6.898499 +966 ms |Health Damage 9.861145 +994 ms |Health Damage 11.060150 +1064 ms |Health Damage 10.717163 +1005 ms |Health Damage 9.395050 +943 ms |Health Damage 6.106934 +971 ms |Health Damage 2.704590 +924 ms |Health Damage 17.065369 +961 ms |Health Damage 9.399628 +935 ms |Health Damage 9.286469 +1003 ms |Health Damage 18.605988 +914 ms |Health Damage 16.781799 +1000 ms |Health Damage 17.733490 Deep wounds + Wounding shot (2 chars in paralel) +0 ms |Health Damage 13.950195 // ranger estoc wounding shot weapon hit +39 ms |Health Damage 2.277130 +2120 ms |Health Damage 4.253906 // monk with consoled deep wounds , fist hit +33 ms |Health Damage 3.810822 +849 ms |Health Damage 2.277130 +2151 ms |Health Damage 3.810822 +870 ms |Health Damage 2.277130 +2133 ms |Health Damage 3.810822 +895 ms |Health Damage 2.277130 +2121 ms |Health Damage 3.810822 +889 ms |Health Damage 2.277130 +2069 ms |Health Damage 3.756958 // 3.81 is deep wound damage tick, 2.277.. was wounding shot damage tick .. The ran in parallel for the duration . //Paladin Flames of devotion with flaming weapon +0 ms |Health Damage 19.305084 // Surprisingly the summed weapon + lash damage is applied (subtracted) at the same time to target's health testing methodology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq59wttu2Po

I'm specifically looking at the spell Infuse With Vital Essence, but it would also be nice to know the answer generally speaking. Infuse provides 50 bonus health and 50 bonus endurance for a reasonable duration, and my hope is that it'd be a useful sort of panic button for keeping my party's wizard alive in case he happens to get engaged by troublesome enemies like Shades and Phantoms. But I'm playing on Hard and often find myself running my party to the limits of their health pool, and unfortunately the game seems to offer no explanation for what happens after that temporary health or endurance expires. When temporary health goes away, is it tracked and subtracted as a separate pool from normal health, is it simply subtracted off of the top of the character's total health pool, or is it subtracted from whatever health the character has remaining? If it's the latter: Can a character die due to losing temporary health, if they had less remaining than what the spell gave them? Or would they survive with a bare minimum of 1? When a character with just temporary endurance is damaged, do they also lose real health from their non-temporary health pool? When a character loses temporary endurance due to an endurance buff expiring, does that lost endurance also have an effect on their non-temporary health? (I would hope not, as that would be a fairly broken implementation) Or for the more mathematical way of putting it: Wizard has taken a lot of damage and has 30/50 Endurance and 30/150 Health remaining. He casts Infuse With Vital Essence, bringing him up to 80/100 (or 80/50?) Endurance and 80/200 (or 80/150?) health. What is his resulting end/health if..... -The effect expires without the wizard taking any more damage? -The effect expires after taking only 10 damage? -The effect expires after taking 70 damage? All of these answers seem fairly important to practical use of temporary health or endurance buffs, and it really surprised me to see that relevant spell descriptions don't even hint at an answer. And I didn't see anyone wondering the same thing on a google search of the subject, nor was it obviously mentioned in the in-game Cyclopedia. I'd appreciate any responses from those who might know.

We need to count the number of swings made the test character attacking un-interrupted for a long time interval (10 / 20 minutes).. (game log doesn't store 10 minutes worth of slow attacks so we'll also need to record the test and read the number of hits from the video after the test) .. Hit resolution (mis..crit //damage rolls irrelevant at this stage) Simplest way to achieve this that I could think of, is attacking party member that doesn't retaliate and using console cheat - "god" to make sure he/she can take 10/20/30 minutes worth of beating .. Manual Test -prepare test char with chosen weapons/armor/DEX/ other attack speed modifiers for test -prepare outside chronometer (most phones have chronometer app this days) -iroll20s god -move test chars in weapon range -pause game -give attack order -start recording video -start chronometer & unpause game ..10 /20 /30 minutes later -pause game when time reaches threshold -stop recording Review video and get number of swings in time interval (for each weapon if testing DW with fast/slow weapons, or they do different amount of damage) With this knowledge can calculate maximal damage inflicted in time interval (assume all attacks crit, weapon damage RNG roll is always average of min-max). X_NR_swings * (((wpnmax+wpnmin)/2) * (1 + sum_damage_mods) + Transcenent_suffering_bonus/OSA) = total_maximal_"measured"_damage - fair for comparing set-ups Not 100% accurate since not all tested combos will finish an attack cycle right when test time runs out (error will be slightly bigger for slow hard hitting weapons) but we can reduce this error's influence by increasing test time.. Semi-Automated test Same steps but have some Windows macro software start and pause video recording and test .. (increased accuracy on measured interval) .. Will still have to manually count the number of swings from video later .. Fully automated test could set a break point on address value of health variable for test dummy and increase hit counter each time it takes damage and gets healed by "god mode" (no longer need to record and count swings after, but I don't know how to do that for pillars of eternity) ..So it will be semi-automated method for me .. I will update this thread with test results (might take a day or two for first test results since I'll be traveling soon) .. You're welcome to do the same if this sounds like a reasonable testing method ..

I don't expect this game to be balanced league of legends style. I know there has always been unbalanced spells / abilities in IE games yet since they did so many good changes I wonder why was there no further insight into this mechanic. Just take a look at first level wizard spells. Fan of flames (40 -55) vs Reflex (+ 10 acc) [most of the time you can target a large group] Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp (19-28) and a -10 acc debuff. vs delfection ( + 10 acc) [ 1 target ] Minoletta Minor Missiles (30 -54) [1 target] vs deflection Discarding the -10 acc de buff which is minor anyway there is only one clear winner. Consider also that 2nd one has supper close range, you risk losing the wizard when casting. I know Fan of flames is theoretically more difficult to use but most of the time you won't have any problems. I don't see any logic in this design. Heavy aoe spells where you can target almost all enemies from an encounter should have lower damage than the spells that target 1 individual. Otherwise why bother? Spells that require the wizard to come close to the target should be greatly buffed so the risk / reward balance is satisfied. Edited: I forgot to add the the 2 latter spells are rolled vs deflection. Most of monsters have more deflection than reflex so they are harder to hit also. At least that's the case on PoD. I will repeat myself : I don't expect the devs to balance this game like league of legends but it doesn't make any sense to me.

What changes in game mechanics do you like the most in comparison to other IE titles ? In my opinion they made some really good design choices and major improvements. I don't wish to discuss the story or graphics or anything like that just the core beef of the game. Here are mine: Chanters The new bards are cool. In old IE games I always liked bards as characters but they weren't fun to play. Instead of fighting they would just stand and play with their flutes. Boring. Moving chanting into background sort of aura thing made them fun to manage in combat and they kept their essence. Cool! Being able to combine different chants together ads depth to it. In theory. In the end it's the reload speed you care about. Per encounter spells There are mostly 2 types of encounters in any dungeon. Bossy hard kinda like where you throw all you have and lesser guys you just kill on the way. Per encounter spells made the latter more interesting and enabled the developers to make it harder too. You don't have to feel bad about casting a spell on just a few guys to speed up the clearing process. Camping supplies Old system was bad. Sleep almost anywhere you wanted, got attacked, reload if not back to full force. Having only 2 camping supplies available at a time is great on PoD. Brings back the pen and paper feeling to it. You have limited supplies, lets try to finish the dungeons with the resources at hand. If you fail, you are punished with boring walk back to the tavern. Best feeling in the world is not finding cool loot. It's finding extra camping supplies in the dungeon. Knock out instead of death This is the best change in my opinion. In the old IE games tanking meta was the only option. It was boring and if somehow any of your squishes got attacked you went straight into reload. Changing this "one mistake and it's over" way of playing is a major improvement. I know there still is tanking meta in this combat but think how much different it is now. They can have monsters like shades and shadows that teleport to the back of your team and wreck havoc. And it's fun, suddenly wizard's defensive spells become useful. If they get 1 out of few of your dpsing characters you can still finish the fight. You don't have to load because of 1 slip. This also makes you not worry of sending you rouges into melee combat. It also removes the model where either you have everything under control. Meaning tank standing without any troubles the rest just obliterates the enemies. Or not winnable: tanks dies and everyone soon after. This mechanics allows more close calls. 4 party members knocked out and a drake with 1 dot of hp. How is it going to end? I have had a lot of super close calls playing on PoD killing last monster with a 10hp wizard is amazing. Way more epic. They way it should be. Side issue: buggy release was still unacceptable.

Not sure if I am supposed to post this here. I just feel like this kind of spell(and any other spells that do something like a confusion effect) are simply not as good as they should be because they make enemies literally friendlies during the duration of the spell. If you cast heal, you heal them. If you cast a "Enemy Only" spell, it doesn't affect them. Not sure if this was intended. A very small gripe. However, it was one of my favorite spells in BG.

Maybe this would be a better question to ask the game designers about why we have a health (HP) and endurance. I find it rather confusing in battle when I am pausing and making choices how to advance through each in counter. Does anyone else feel the same way? Can someone explain to me why they made this choice, was it because of the people at WOTC and PAIZO Publishing not allowing them to simply use HP instead of this mixed system. Can this feature be removed if enough people complain about it?

Lying is important. In Planescape, it was common that two or three of the dialogue options one had was marked with [Lie]. You could lie about many things, not simply quest things like "Did Leandro steal my things?" but lying about personal beliefs, intentions, etc. I've seen other RPGs incorporate lying, but only P:T would have the same identical lines available, one marked with [Lie] and the other without. I also understand it would be hard work to incorporate it into the game world, but the ability to spread false rumours, create arbitrary conflicts, and in general get factions, organizations and people into hostilities with each other would simply be... terrific. I don't think I've seen this in any game before, but it was an immensely important tool in the noble's power struggles, historically. To depict a power struggle without giving room to lies is a mistake. When is it appropriate for lying to require a successful die roll? Discussion and answers to poll appreciated. Does anybody have examples of when lies have been overused, or badly used, in game before? I'm sure there must be some examples to heed.

Hi there, I've put my TLDR in the Cooldown 2.0 thread but i really want to expand a bit. Seeing as there is much discussion around this cooldown thing i would like to propose a mechanic that seems pretty good to me (or course it does, duh!, i'm proposing it lol). Ok, let's get to the point. 1. Basics Each ability or spell has two components: Proficiency and Efficiency. Proficiency is gained (points) through the use of abilities/spells or combos, and starts to decay naturally (percentage of the current number of points) after a fixed amount or time. It stops decaying once you use the ability/spell or a combo that uses that ability/spell. Efficiency is lost (percentage of the current number of points) through the use of abilities/spells or combos and starts to regenerate naturally (points) after a fixed amount of time. It stops regenerating once you use the ability/spell or a combo that uses that ability/spell. 1.a. - Proficiency is measuring how skilled is the PC in using that ability/spell. It goes up each time you use an ability/spell against and enemy that is not below a certain level compared to yours and scales with that level difference. For example if you use an ability on a target that is 3 level below you (or more), you will get no Proficiency points, if you use the ability/spell against a target that is the same level as you, you get 5 Proficiency points and if you use the ability/spell against a target that is 3 levels above you (or more), you get 10 Proficiency points. Of course, some other game mechanics (like the ability/spell is saved against or blocked completely) might be used when fighting against targets way above your level. Proficiency is used to advance your ability, either by directly applying a buff to the effects of that ability/spell, or by simply moving towards the next tier (so using Bash will slowly gain you Proficiency points towards Improved Bash). The latter would mean that the PC only learns the most basic spells/abilities from external sources, and the more improved abilities/spells he discovers by actually using the related lower tiered ones. Also, Proficiency slowly decays (at the same time as the Efficiency goes up) but it will never reach 0 (it decays by a fixed percentage of the total points that you have, so the more time passes the less it decays). 1.b - Efficiency is measuring how that ability/spell is performing, considering on how many times it has been used, successfully, over a certain period of time. The Efficiency is regenerating naturally (or through other means like drinking from a well, whatever), slowly, over the course of time. Each time you use an ability/spell however, it drops by a percentage (let's say 5%) so that if you use it 5 times in a row it will only be at 77% Efficiency. This translates into reduced effects (for the sake of simplicity only direct damage or damage over time, or direct protection/healing or protection/healing over time). So if a certain ability does, let's say, 10-20 damage, after it's first use it will drop to 9-18 damage, after the second use it will again drop to 8-17 damage (rounded up) and so on. As you can see, it's not going to be a liniar drop so you don't get to use it only 20 times before reaching 0. You will actually never reach 0 as it will always go down by 5% (of the total Efficiency points). The first time you use it it will drop by 5 points, the second time again by 5 points, by the time you reach 80 points (out of 100) it will only drop by 4 points. All numbers are rounded up, so if it drops by 4.6 it actually drops by 5 points, as opposed to 4.2 that would translate into 4 points. There might be game mechanics or skills/perks that either reduce this decay per usage or rise your maximum Efficiency to more than 100 points. It's really open to any kind of tweaking, just like the Proficiency. EDIT: I forgot. Just like Proficiency, the Efficiency percentage that decays with each use should be calculated using the same rules, related to the level difference between the attacker and the target. 2. Combo I know that this is not really related to the system, but it would work great with it. The system lets the PC combine any previously learned ability/spell. At first you will be able to only combine 2 of them, but maybe as you get better and better you might combine more than 2. The effects of the combo are the added effects of the basic constituent abilities/spells calculated at their current level of Proficiency and Efficiency. The Proficiency and Efficiency system works in the following way for combos: - Each time you use a combo you will gain some proficiency points just like using an individual spell/ability but those points are divided equally towards each basic constituent ability/spell. - Each time you use a combo you will lose 5% (again just as an example) from the Efficiency of each constituent ability/spell. 3. Conclusions Such a system, at least in my intention, would do away with resting and cooldowns, mana or stamina. Every PC will only have those two resources (when talking about abilities/spells or combos), the stats only adding the the effects of those. The complexity of it comes from the two diverging directions. PCs are free to use whatever ability/spell or even combo in their arsenal. The advantage is that the more you use an ability/spell or combo you will slowly advance towards better abilities/spells and of course combos, the drawback being that if you abuse the system you will soon find yourself with really weak abilities/spells and combos. Moreover, the PC must decide weather to use a "strong" combo (strong because it has the added effects of the base constituent abilities/spells) or a more basic ability/spell. You wouldn't want to get caught with your pants down (low Efficiency) when encountering a strong hostile NPC because in your last encounter you "wasted" your best combos on some low level critters. The system could be tweaked and tested, and those numbers that i threw here are definitely not the best, they are only used as an example. The beauty of this system is that it no longer requires a cooldown, no longer requires a rest (or maybe you could regain the Efficiency but lose Profficiency through rest). Such a system means that the player really needs to use an ability/spell in order to advance (so encourages him to abuse it) but also means that the more it abuses it the weaker that ability/spell it will get (for the moment). Such a system would mean that the PC will have overpowered combos, but it also means that the player will surely not want to "waste" those OP combos on critters and will always try to save them for when it matters. This would add so much complexity to any fight (imho) as you will always try to "balance" the rewards of killing the opponents as fast as you can with the risk of not having your best combo at top efficiency for the next encounter. Also, in longer fight this would mean that the PC must rely on a well rounded and diversified arsenal, because if he uses the same abilities/spells and well as combos that use those abilities/spells as basic constituents he will soon lose all of those due to them being weaker because of low Efficiency. On the other hand he is encouraged to use them as often as possible in order to make them better (gain Proficiency). I'm pretty sure this is not perfect, some of you might just think it's rubbish (and by the way it's somewhat inspired from Rage of Mages 2, the Proficiency part at least) but i like it (again duh!) and with some tweaking and/or refinement i really think it would work. There's at least one person here that would, in theory at least, be excited to see it implemented. 4. Expanded The game could play with such a system, by adding skills that lower your Efficiency decay but also lower the Proficiency gained (you get a PC or companion that is able to use the preferred abilities/spells more often while not being able to advance that fast), or by adding items that will tweak any of those components (or by adding Max. Efficiency points). You could get abilities (non PC, or even PC) that would temporarily raise your Efficiency (PC) or temporarily lower your Efficiency (hostile NPC). And probably much, much more than that. P.S. Oh darn... lvl 10 Fire Dragon... where's my Ice Shard + Stun combo? Oh sh!t, Ice shard is at 65 Efficiency... what do i do, what do i do. Why did i used Ice Shard on those lvl 7 Rogues?!?!

Passage of time in RPGs Quite some time have passed since the birth of RP video games, and we have seen innovation after innovation deepen the immersion and revitalize not just a game genre but also a culture. The introduction of 3D did a lot to the first-person branch of RPGs for example, and the obvious demonstration would be the Elder Scrolls series. The advancement of internet also did a lot to RPGs which by nature is based on gameplay including several players, if you consider their origins, and today we have a genre called MMORPG. I have always thought of the element and mechanics of time's passage as one of these things that could really revolutionize, or at least explore a very neglected aspect of gaming in general and worldbuilding specifically. I mean, today we can explore a sprawling and ever-so-detailed world with grass swaying in the wind and NPCs going about their daily tasks and talking to each other. But it's still like you're walking around in a world frozen in a time stasis. Nothing happens until you show up. If you can play for months or even years in-game why wouldn't you be able to see the seasons go by? I'm talking about using time as something more than just a decorative day and night cycle, or as simple quest requisites, as in "meet me here tonight". I'm talking about having the passage of time being an integral part of the game world and how things in it functions. It would be a difficult task to implement in a game like Skyrim for example, considering the massive, open, and minutely detailed 3D world it has, as regards to the pure amount of data it would require. But take something like what Project Eternity wants to create, and you can at least start to see ways of actually doing this. Brainstorming! So, let's take some basic aspects of RPG gameplay and expose them to the element of time and see what happens. Items and keeping inventory Items and the use of an inventory is elementary in RPGs, but since most of the things in an RPG inventory are probably made out of metal, paper, cloth and so on, there's really not much gong on in there. But let's say food and drink are important things for the wellbeing of a character, just like in pen-and-paper RPGs and many other games. So if food and drink are made important, you could actually have drinks going stale, bread molding, and meat rotting and becoming poisonous. Perhaps it would be wise to throw out old food if you don't want rot to spread to the other foodstuffs in your inventory. But then again, there's potions and healing... Potions and healing are the natural enemy of food and drink. Why go through all the pain of enabling players to satiate their hunger and thirst, and doing so to recover and maintain health, when you're just a couple of pots or hand movements away from full health at any moment? If food and drink is to be implemented it will compete with potions and healing since they all share the same use, namely that of keeping you healthy. Now, if everyone knew how to heal, then even potions would be superfluous, but not everyone does, and usually the healing is limited to X uses per day or something like that. If you think about it, potions and healing are almost exclusively used during combat, because that's where you often need to regain vast amounts of health in a matter of seconds. We all know only magic and futuristic auto-injectors are capable of doing this, not apple pies and dried meat. So that's out of the question. But what we do know is that a man's gotta eat and drink at some point, and hopefully not just to squeeze the local going-ons out of some poor tavern patron. What if potions actually were a rare and perhaps expensive commodity, I mean, where are all the factories supplying this ridiculous amount of potions at these prizes located anyway? If food and drink were to be made useful it would mean you somehow lost health or otherwise suffered outside of battle. I know there's a lot of people who would oppose themselves to that, believing the world outside of battle to be the safest place of all, and perhaps it aught to be in world where the urgency of time only is applied to battle, but as soon as you introduce time to the world as a whole I believe you should be able to feel it and act upon it, even outside of battle. Maybe your max health decreases if you don't eat and drink, or you become more vulnerable to some things (like poison and disease), less resistant to magic, or less efficient with your skills. Perhaps then players would feel inclined towards only using their few and valuable potions and heals when they really need them, during battle that is, and making room for the gastronomical adventure while making camp or as a non-contrived way of meeting and agreeing to help strangers at taverns. World and travel I've always wondered why some games have elaborate calendars with fancy names and mythology and the only purpose it seams to serve is to organize your saved games. Why not tie all these names and mythology to things that happen in the world? Most places located in temperate regions celebrate harvesting season for example, usually there's festivities and markets. Maybe there's a tourney every year to celebrate the local king's birthday or your own heroic deeds (after completing a quest). Maybe most shops are closed a certain day of the week, or perhaps the a local elven trader leaves town a few days to celebrate the coming of spring with his kin. There are many things going on in a town for example, many of which are daily tasks that aren't really worth plotting out in any great detail, but seeing the streets change from a sprawling social meeting place during day, to a dark, nail-biting gauntlet by night is something a lot of games have done before and with good results. Besides these area-specific events taking place you can have people moving about between towns and villages, like merchants or a traveling circus for example. Having different modes of transportation is also something that will make the game more interesting when you add the element of time. Will you make it in time to wherever you need to be if you just travel by foot, or will you need to buy horses or hire a carriage? Questing How is it that no matter how mundane or urgent a task it is, an NPC will accept no help but yours? What I'm proposing here hasn't been done in any RPGs, at least to my knowledge. To actually turn quests into their own processes of events, and if you want them to take certain path you need to intervene, and if you don't, they' will "solve themselves". Quests of the type "find the cure..." will likely only have one consequence if left undone, assuming you're the only one able to solve it. But let's say the quest is saving a merchant's daughter who have been kidnapped by bandits instead. If you never show up to take the quest, the quest will start solving itself after a while. Perhaps the merchant hires someone else to do the job, and maybe you run into this person by chance in the wilderness and he asks if you want to join in on the reward, allowing you to still pick the quest up. Perhaps you never meet the hired sword on his quest and maybe he fails, but you run into the bandits much later, and if you talk to them instead of fighting them you discover one of them was once a merchant's daughter who actually ran away from her overbearing father. Other quests might evolve in more complex ways, not always random, and you are able to intercept the quest anywhere as it travels along its' timeline and hopefully completing it, with different outcomes depending on where. This means you can't pick up every quest in the game in only one playthrough, at least not from their start, since you can't be everywhere simultaneously. Perhaps you have to make though choices based on that fact. Your choices, and at what time you make them, will have a profound effect on the story and the gaming experience of each playthrough. The replayability that implementation of time offers is immense. I'm not sure how far this project has gone and if this kind of input is "too late" so to speak, but it might still offer some food for thought.