What's with developers' obsession with D&D?

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Luckilly, the common D&D stereotypes - such as that one regarding wizards always being sickly - have not contaminated all CRPGs.

[Drakron]

Luckilly, the common D&D stereotypes - such as that one regarding wizards always being sickly - have not contaminated all CRPGs.

 

 

[Slowtrain]

Well you missed a lot, in MC salvage mechs depended if the mech was destroyed or not.

 

I got a lot of clan mechs (and a Madcat early) because I ordered group target the head section that either killed the pilot or forced it to eject, make many missions easier that going around with Inner Sphere crap.

 

Now the funny part ... Mechwarrior series come from a tabletop game.

I would get that Madcat in the early mission (was it the very first mission?) about half the time without paying particular attention to whether I wanted to salvage it or not. If I did, great. If not, it really didn't matter. The game wasn't very hard.

 

The only really hard mission was that stupid one where you had to protect the farm. Until I figured out to use a minelayer to cover the approaches that mission really pissed me off.

 

I hate missions like that.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Luckilly, the common D&D stereotypes - such as that one regarding wizards always being sickly - have not contaminated all CRPGs.

 

 

My fault, replace sickly with weakling.

[Drakron]

I suspect that is Rastlin influence.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I would get that Madcat in the early mission (was it the very first mission?) about half the time without paying particular attention to whether I wanted to salvage it or not. If I did, great. If not, it really didn't matter. The game wasn't very hard.

 

The only really hard mission was that stupid one where you had to protect the farm. Until I figured out to use a minelayer to cover the approaches that mission really pissed me off.

 

I hate missions like that.

It's the one standing next to a refinary tank. You blow the tank and its 50/50 give or take whether it blows up or is just disabled.

 

Out of curiosity did you gather up your mechs in one unit then sweep around the battlefield on most of the missions?

 

Nothing wrong with actually requiring someone to think now and again.

[AlanC9]

I suspect that is Rastlin influence.

But Raistlin came along fairly late in D&D history, didn't he?

 

It's a strange stereotype, since D&D really penalizes it. I've never willingly played a wizard without a Con bonus since Wiz HPs are so terrible.

 

Of course, even a 16 Con wizard is still "sickly" compared to a fighter.

 

Here's what I've always wondered about Lionheart. Did the devs themselves think the combat was playable? Was fun?

[Slowtrain]

Despite the advice of many the devs swore that there would be no need for a pause feature in lionheart.

 

 

hahahahaha.

 

morons.

[Drakron]

No, Rastlin come about after the first Dracolance modules.

 

Have I said I hate the Heroes of the Lance yet ... no? Well I do.

 

I really dont know much about it but if not in error Dracolance predates FR as a published setting, DL was heavly influenced by the novels (even more that FR) and eventually was driven by it ... they must be around the 41537572th age by now looking how those autors appear to just write couple of book and then advance 100 years for the next book.

[Spook]

SPECIAL is turn based with action points or it is not SPECIAL.

 

 

Nuff said! :angry:

 

 

 

 

(Waiting for reply from Sp and the start of the TB vs RT war )

[Slowtrain]

SPECIAL is turn based with action points or it is not SPECIAL.

 

 

Nuff said! :angry:

 

 

 

 

(Waiting for reply from Sp and the start of the TB vs RT war )

technically SPECIAL is:

 

Strength

Perception

Endurance

Charisma

Intelligence

Agility

Luck

 

and nothing else.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

And thus was war averted

[Lord Tingeling]

As Enoch said over @ Iply, SPECIAL is a skill system, not a combat system. Therefore, wheter it's implemented in a RT or TB engine is irrelevant, since it will still be the same system.

[Iolo]

No. SPECIAL refers to the combat system as well. There definately need to be modifications to the rules to change TB to RT. Besides, most of the skills are combat related anyway.

[Drakron]

Well FO:T implemented both RT and TB and did it right.

 

Unfortunatly today there is a movement towards RT as if TB is "not cool" or some other crap, a point-in-case is FF X-2 that returned to ATB system but was so speed up that it removed the tactical aspect of combat.

[Spook]

Any system that uses big automatic weapon like bozaar/minigun should use TB. It is to damaging for the team members otherwise. Guess one could do that move each character a little bit in turn, and repeat, but I did not find that very funny in FOT. Good thing they had a half-functioning TB at least (though it did not work properly).

 

 

I get nightmares thinking of Marcus with a bozaar in RT.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Unfortunatly today there is a movement towards RT as if TB is "not cool" or some other crap, a point-in-case is FF X-2 that returned to ATB system but was so speed up that it removed the tactical aspect of combat.

There is an option menu for slowing it down if its too fast for you.

 

Speeding something up dosnt remove the tactical options it just requires you to think faster.

[Lord Tingeling]

No. SPECIAL refers to the combat system as well. There definately need to be modifications to the rules to change TB to RT. Besides, most of the skills are combat related anyway.

Of course they are. But they are also not dependant on TB/RT.

[Lord Tingeling]

Any system that uses big automatic weapon like bozaar/minigun should use TB. It is to damaging for the team members otherwise.

Mwahahahahahaha. Guess you never heard of the concept called "staying out of your teammate's LOF".

[Spook]

Sure I have, and used in FOT, but if we are not given full controll of characters, like in FO2, team members will still be masacred by uncaring AS (artifical stupidity) controlled NPC team members.

 

If it is real time and and you have to switch between all characters to set up called shots, move to better fireing position and other needed actions you will lose some control and it is twitch of players that decide if you handle a fight well or go down. It should always be the characters stat and skills that decide if a fight is successfull, and never the player's twitch uberness.

[Lord Tingeling]

Sure I have, and used in FOT, but if we are not given full controll of characters, like in FO2, team members will still be masacred by uncaring AS (artifical stupidity) controlled NPC team members.

Well, that's a different thing entirely. Just get some okay AI, or tell them what to do yourself (using teh magicz0rz of "pause")

 

 

If it is real time and and you have to switch between all characters to set up called shots, move to better fireing position and other needed actions you will lose some control and it is twitch of players that decide if you handle a fight well or go down. It should always be the characters stat and skills that decide if a fight is successfull, and never the player's twitch uberness.

 

if you can't "twitch it" enough to hit the spacebar a few times in a fight, how long did it take to write your last post? An hour or two?

 

Hitting the pause button once in a while can hardly be called "twitch

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Sure I have, and used in FOT, but if we are not given full controll of characters, like in FO2, team members will still be masacred by uncaring AS (artifical stupidity) controlled NPC team members.

 

If it is real time and and you have to switch between all characters to set up called shots, move to better fireing position and other needed actions you will lose some control and it is twitch of players that decide if you handle a fight well or go down. It should always be the characters stat and skills that decide if a fight is successfull, and never the player's twitch uberness.

Thats going to happen in TB too if the AI is that bad. It happened in FO and FO2 if you recall. The only way to solve it was to take away the NPC's burst weapons. Well you can do that in RT too.

 

Thats why there is invariably a pause function either state dependent and or something large and easy to press like a space bar.

 

The whole character stats and skills arguement is flawed. It simply replaces one type of player ability with another. I'm much better than the average person at tactical combat games for the simple reason I am me.

As long as you limit either player tactical ability or player reflexes to a reasonable level thats the best you are going to get.

[AlanC9]

No, Rastlin come about after the first Dracolance modules.

 

Have I said I hate the Heroes of the Lance yet ... no? Well I do.

 

I really dont know much about it but if not in error Dracolance predates FR as a published setting, DL was heavly influenced by the novels (even more that FR) and eventually was driven by it ... they must be around the 41537572th age by now looking how those autors appear to just write couple of book and then advance 100 years for the next book.

Yes, Raistlin was introduced with DL1/ Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I consider this to be late in D&D history, since I'd been playing the game for years when DL came out. You may have a different perspective.

 

The DL novels came out starting in 1984, at the same time as the modules. And yes, the setting ended up being driven by the novels - for some reason, TSR didn't publish very many modules in the setting, and gave up altogether after 1990 or so

[AlanC9]

The whole character stats and skills arguement is flawed. It simply replaces one type of player ability with another. I'm much better than the average person at tactical combat games for the simple reason I am me.

As long as you limit either player tactical ability or player reflexes to a reasonable level thats the best you are going to get.

Which takes us right back to the KotOR combat system, where player ability is irrelevant. :D

 

Seriously, people do have preferences as to what kind of player ability is required by a game. A lot of folks don't want an RPG to make them think or react quickly. I'm not one of them, but I can understand the preference.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Which takes us right back to the KotOR combat system, where player ability is irrelevant.  :D

 

Seriously, people do have preferences as to what kind of player ability is required by a game. A lot of folks don't want an RPG to make them think or react quickly. I'm not one of them, but I can understand the preference.

Yep it pretty much is

 

There is a huge difference between preference and claiming something is right and something else is wrong though.

It's moot anyway in most cases because they all have pause functions. FOT being the exception. But then FOT didnt require either great reflexes or great tactics.

 

In both cases the abilities of the characters should be able to offset the lack of ability of the player. But then you still have players who are good at a particular type of game having a very easy time.