Mechanics?

[TrashMan]

I'm very interested in what kind of mechanics this game will have.

 

Partially, because plenty of RPG have come close to my ideal, but never quite reached it.

Pathfinder would be the closest.

I enjoyed Temple of Elemental Evil (loved the abiltiy ot actually block acess to aeas with my fighters. Finally a credible mechanic and not the stupid aggro). But D&D does have some parts of mechanics that bug me.

 

Like attributes points only having worth if 2 are invested. STR 10 and 11 were equal. That one point had no effect and that was IMHO bad. But at least the attribute point range made sense. Not like Dragon Age, where you start wiht 15 STR and end up with 80????? That huge attribute change never made sense to me. People don't change that much physicly.

 

Or like Armor Class...which made STR fighters in heavy armor and dex fighters in light armors effectively the same. It bothered me to the point I modded BG2 and put in damage reduction to armor. The feel was quite different and I loved it.

 

And lastly, the bane of almost every game out there - HP inflation. You start with 100 HP at lvl 1 and end up with 80000 at vlv 20/50/whatever.

HP is remenant from the old days, when procesing power was a problem and simplicity was key. HP was a representation of your abiltiy to survive - it was health, doge, block, defense, parry - all in one. Yet as games and technology moved on, we now have those distinct attributes as separate. What exactly is the point of inflating HP anymore?

To get the feeling of power or improvement? I hate it. It's a cheap and simple way to represent power, but ultimately rings hollow. Power comes in many shapes and forms, so why do game developers simply stick to linerar (or exponential) increase of numbers?

Here's an idea - SKILLS. FEATS. Become more powerfull in a more realistic and sensible way.

Plenty of games have proven that HP boosts are not necessary. Best of all, this makes balancing easier. If you HP is determined only by constitution (and nothing else) than those bandits early on will never turn to be a fight you can ignore. At high levels you will be be better of course, but your main advantage isn't that you can stand in the middle of a group of 10 of them and let them hit you knowing their they can't really damage you in a meaningfull way. You dont' have a HP shield to hind behind. You have more options and abilities. One-on-one you are a death machine. But even those early bandits will be the end of you if you take them too lightly. Likewise, now those impossible encounters that oyu had to avoid early on become possible to take on (evne if difficult), cause your enemies also don't have a HP shield. And at lvl 1 you won't be a frail flower with only 8 HP that gets trashed by a rat. Your HP would be concsistant, not chanign much (if at all) during the game.

At 10HP per CON point, that's 150HP for a CON15 fighter. No bad.

 

 

Lastly, this applies to items too. No items scaling. No daggers that to 10 damage followed by daggers that do 100, followed by dagger that do 1000. No daggers that out-damage a greatsword.

And no ARTIFICIAL limitions on equipment (and no escalating requirements either). If I can credibly use an item (even if clumsily) then I should be able to equip it. If I have enough STR to wear plate mail, then I should be able to wield ANY plate mail... and also any sword.

 

Freedom and realism. Those are the two things I want the most.

Edited September 22, 2012 by TrashMan

[TrashMan]

ADDENDUM:

For combat - no twich-based combat. I prefer slow and tatical combat. Realisticly a combat is not non-stop sword swining. Combatants stop, pull back to cath a breath, wait for an opening, etc..

[Knott]

What we know so far is that PE is going to be a Class-based system with levels. I'm not too much a fan of either, but it does have some benefits if used right.

 

I must say, that I do like your thoughts on HP, maybe not the way you present it, but definitly the intention behind it. And would support a system that managed to balance and scale it well. (Because normal HP/Damage-systems doesn't really scale well when you reach higher levels)

But then again, the the mainstream opinion is that the bigger the numbers that pops up on the screen, the bigger your epeen will be.

 

Personally I would love a system that was much more free-form than using classes.

A comprehensive list of background options during character creation would be much better for the narrative than a class.

Then perhaps the use of a flexible ability tree would be easier to make and handle than classes. And also provide a lot more freedom for your character customization.

[TrashMan]

Erm..what makes you think levels and classes are opposed to what I said?

 

You cna have levels wihtou having HP inflation.

 

Also ,yo ucna have classes wihout those classes being straight jackets.

 

 

for example - I wanna make a smooth-talkign fighter. In normal D&D you cannot do that since fighters class skill is only intimidate. but that is only because class skilsl work by not giving oyu a penalt,y while everything else does. Now immagine if class skills dont' work like that, but insted a "class skill" simply means you get a starting bonus to those skills?

 

So as a fighter you get a +1 (or +2) INITIAL skill bonus on intimidate (non stackable. You don't get it for every level. Just first), but all skills cost the same to increase - 1 point. Same for all other classes. A thief may have a headstart and he may have more skill points, but you aren't penalized for taking any skill.

 

Now suddenly you can have a smoothtalking fighter. Far more flexibility when creating characters.

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

Oh. Almost forgot - a RETREAT OPTION.

Edited September 22, 2012 by TrashMan

[rjshae]

Based on what I've read so far, I'm guessing they'll stick close to the D&D model. Hopefully they'll add a few differentiators that take advantage of the game being computer-based. Personally I'd like to see the more detailed component armor from Drakensang and the segregation of armor defense and damage resistance ratings in rules systems like GURPS; those shouldn't be too difficult to implement, I think, and they add a lot of meat for gaming wonks like me.

[Knott]

Certainly, aything is possible.

 

But when you start using labels such as "level" and "class", then a majority of people will have expectations related to what they asociate with those words. And thus some devs become afraid of straying from the "norm".

 

A smooth-talking fighter is a rather simple example. Try a sneaky character with low, but very specialized magic who utilises a sword&shield-style. That is still very possible in Table-Top d20 and even better with a kind GM who is not afraid of house rules that doesn't punish the unique and creative. But in a computer game, getting such a character in a restricted class-system usually requires modding or a more flexible free-form kind of character system. Because the more customizable/flexible things get, the less usefull it becomes to call something a "class".

[eimatshya]

@TrashMan:

 

Since they are basing Project Eternity off of the old Infinity Engine games, I'm pretty sure combat won't be twitch based. Also, they've already said they're going for a real-time with pause system, so ToEE style combat is probably out. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Tim Cain will be giving an update on the gameplay mechanics in the near future, so we'll hopefully find out more then.

 

On the subject of D&D's shortcomings, have you ever tried Green Ronin's True 20 system (a variant on third edition D&D rules)? I've never actually played a game with it, but from looking over the rules, it appears to offer an alternative to some of the problems with D&D 3.5. It has a wound system like in the classic World of Darkness system, so that takes care of the problem of colossal hitpoint accumulation. It also changes ability scores to be roughly equivalent to the bonus you would get in 3.5 (so instead of having 12 strength, your strength is +1), and to compensate, you only get to increase your abilities every six levels (rather than every four levels in 3.5). This means you don't have that awkward situation where you increase an ability score to an odd number and nothing improves.

 

Anyway, Blue Rose (the game that technically introduced the system, although a lot of it came from the system used in Mutants & Masterminds) won the silver ENnie for best D20 game at Gen Con (Arcana Evolved took the gold), so I'm assuming it's mechanics must work pretty well. The system was later republished as as True20, so you might want to check it out if you're interested in game mechanics.

Edited September 22, 2012 by eimatshya

[TrashMan]

@TrashMan:

 

Since they are basing Project Eternity off of the old Infinity Engine games, I'm pretty sure combat won't be twitch based. Also, they've already said they're going for a real-time with pause system, so ToEE style combat is probably out. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Tim Cain will be giving an update on the gameplay mechanics in the near future, so we'll hopefully find out more then.

 

On the subject of D&D's shortcomings, have you ever tried Green Ronin's True 20 system (a variant on third edition D&D rules)? I've never actually played a game with it, but from looking over the rules, it appears to offer an alternative to some of the problems with D&D 3.5. It has a wound system like in the classic World of Darkness system, so that takes care of the problem of colossal hitpoint accumulation. It also changes ability scores to be roughly equivalent to the bonus you would get in 3.5 (so instead of having 12 strength, your strength is +1), and to compensate, you only get to increase your abilities every six levels (rather than every four levels in 3.5). This means you don't have that awkward situation where you increase an ability score to an odd number and nothing improves.

 

Anyway, Blue Rose (the game that technically introduced the system, although a lot of it came from the system used in Mutants & Masterminds) won the silver ENnie for best D20 game at Gen Con (Arcana Evolved took the gold), so I'm assuming it's mechanics must work pretty well. The system was later republished as as True20, so you might want to check it out if you're interested in game mechanics.

 

Hm..never heard of that True d20 system. Have to look it up. Thanks for brining it up.

I always had a big interest in modding and game systems, so this will be an interesting read for me.

 

 

That said, I dislike collosal HP accumulation mainly because it's unnecessary, doesn't make sense and creates other balancing problems.

Also, it's far less immersive.

 

 

 

 

A smooth-talking fighter is a rather simple example. Try a sneaky character with low, but very specialized magic who utilises a sword&shield-style. That is still very possible in Table-Top d20 and even better with a kind GM who is not afraid of house rules that doesn't punish the unique and creative. But in a computer game, getting such a character in a restricted class-system usually requires modding or a more flexible free-form kind of character system. Because the more customizable/flexible things get, the less usefull it becomes to call something a "class".

 

I see where you're coming from, but I dont' see why classes have to be so restrictive. It leads to palyers roleplaying a class and not a character. Which, for a ROLEPLAYING game, is very bad.

And partially because many restrictions dont' make sense.

Why SHOULD a thief/rogue get double skill point bonus for social skills compared to a fighter? By what logic?

[TrashMan]

Just looked at the True 20 system.

It is ... interesting.

 

Don't want to make judgment on it jsut from skimming trough tough.