Update #74: The Mob Rulers: Wizards and Druids and our Partnership with Paradox

[Stun]

The idea that it's all random, and therefore all has the exact same sort of probability spread, is kind of nonsense. Damage typically has a higher chance of being successful but a lower payoff.

In what system is this ever the case? Certainly Not in the IE games. In the IE games the odds are fairly equal to start with. In order to do damage with a melee weapon you must first score a hit (defeat the enemy's Armor class via your THAC0). With the majority of death spells, you do not have to score a hit, but you do have to overcome their saving throws. Both use a d20. Those are the unmitigated basics.

 

But of course, the IE games were all about combat complexities. Thus, Both melee and death spells had huge lists of things that increase or decrease the chances of their success. You will do no damage in melee if your opponent is stoneskinned. Your chances of doing damage in melee are greatly reduced if your opponent is mirror imaged, or invisible. You will do zero damage to a clay golem with your sword. You have a higher chance to miss a heavily armored and shielded opponent etc. And Death spells.... Non-living things are immune to death spells. Your death spell will fail against a Death warded enemy. You cannot target invisible creatures etc.

 

Save-or-die necessarily has a higher payoff, and therefore needs a lower chance of success to be remotely balanced (assuming equal number of targets, etc). Hence, the probability spread is quite different. If you don't understand that, I'm afraid I don't know what to say. This is basic probability here.

Not necessarily. Balance is already achieved within the rules inherent to the system. Death spells are... Spells. And spells 1)can be interrupted. 2) Death spells, specifically, are higher level magic and thus, 3) less spell casters will have them 4) the ones that do have them will have less of them. 5) All spells run out, unlike sword swings, which don't run out.

 

 

^There's your balance. Elegantly done without messing with the dice-roll probabilities.

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, obviously the system can handle different sorts of durability. But the more the system relies on additional systems for fundamental issues of durability, the more complex it becomes

Correct. Complainers of this phenomenon are certainly free to go play facebook or IPhone games or whatever stimulates their simple minds.

 

and the more difficult it is to balance. Sense the presence of save-or-die effects has a massive effect on the durability-contribution of any characteristic that can be used to resist such effects, the presence of save-or-die effects makes balance much more complicated to maintain. Not impossible, mind, but far more difficult.

Oh you're right. Lets make things easy on those poor, overworked Developers and just ask them to give us a simple (but perfectly balanced!) turd.

 

I'm not comparing death spells to sword blows. I'm comparing them to everything that deals damage. That includes sword blows, but it also includes fireballs. And, I'm sorry, but the mere idea that save-or-die spells are anything but extreme in their effects is simply ludicrous. Beating the target is, by definition, a highly extreme effect against that target.

Therefore, Fireball is extreme (unless you want to argue that a fireball can't, on its own, instantly kill several targets) Hell, even a spell that does NO damage can be extreme under your definition. Take Hold Person, for example. It's a seemingly harmless 2nd level spell. However, Sucessfully Hold anything in BG1 or BG2 and you have essentially defeated them, since a held target is automatically hit Which means the elimination of all probability as your entire party gets free damage, for several rounds.... ie. long enough to kill anything in either game.

 

Now, as to one-hit-kills, I'm pretty sure Josh was referring to the fact that stamina totals will be such that sometimes things will die in one hit, just from damage.

Josh was referring to Power differences between an attacker and his target.

 

 

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/62090-instant-death/page-5

 

PCs can be downed in a small number of hits (possibly one if the enemy is powerful enough), but that has less to do with luck and more to do with the raw power difference between the attacker and the defender.

 

 

^he's arguing against the chance factor inherent in Save or Die spells, while completely ignoring the fact that Save or die spells happen to be High level magic that can define power differences in the first place.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Stun

[Jarrakul]

In what system is this ever the case? Certainly Not in the IE games. In the IE games the odds are fairly equal to start with. In order to do damage with a melee weapon you must first score a hit (defeat the enemy's Armor class via your THAC0). With the majority of death spells, you do not have to score a hit, but you do have to overcome their saving throws. Both use a d20. Those are the unmitigated basics.

But of course, the IE games were all about combat complexities. Thus, Both melee and death spells had huge lists of things that increase or decrease the chances of their success. You will do no damage in melee if your opponent is stoneskinned. Your chances of doing damage in melee are greatly reduced if your opponent is mirror imaged, or invisible. You will do zero damage to a clay golem with your sword. You have a higher chance to miss a heavily armored and shielded opponent etc. And Death spells.... Non-living things are immune to death spells. Your death spell will fail against a Death warded enemy. You cannot target invisible creatures etc.

 

First, I would never, ever, under any remote circumstances point to the IE games as examples of good game balance. So what they did is kind of moot. However, if you want to go down that road, I would point out that, although the die rolled was the same for both attack rolls and saving throws, it was virtually never true that each had equivalent chances of success. At low levels, the odds tended to be comparable, but THAC0 and save numbers improved much faster than armor class and save penalties. Hence, by mid levels, your chance of failing a saving throw was vastly lower than your chance of being struck by an attack.

 

 

 

Not necessarily. Balance is already achieved within the rules inherent to the system. Death spells are... Spells. And spells 1)can be interrupted. 2) Death spells, specifically, are higher level magic and thus, 3) less spell casters will have them 4) the ones that do have them will have less of them. 5) All spells run out, unlike sword swings, which don't run out.

 

^There's your balance. Elegantly done without messing with the dice-roll probabilities.

 

You are once again assuming my argument only compares spells to physical attacks. That's not what I'm doing. It's not a dichotomy that has any bearing here. Both spells and non-spell abilities can potentially have save-or-die components, or they can have damaging components, or even both. My point is that a save-or-die effect has to be balanced against similar effects that deal damage. Save-or-die effects will, by necessity, have to involve a lower probability of success, or else they will simply be better.

 

 

Correct. Complainers of this phenomenon are certainly free to go play facebook or IPhone games or whatever stimulates their simple minds.

Oh you're right. Lets make things easy on those poor, overworked Developers and just ask them to give us a simple (but perfectly balanced!) turd.

 

Ah, the "it's simple so it sucks" argument. Tell that to a Go player and see what kind of reaction you get. But to address the issue in more depth, of course the same does not necessarily become better as it becomes simpler. Nor does it become better if it becomes more complex. Simplicity is one goal, feature-completeness and depth are others. Complexity is not a goal, but rather the cost of feature-completeness and depth. Elegance is when the complexity cost is low compared to the payoff. My argument is not that adding complexity is bad, it's that the potential benefits (greater difficulty variance due to higher randomness) are outweighed by the cost in additional complexity (difficulty in tailoring difficulty to produce an optimal player experience).

 

 

 

Therefore, Fireball is extreme (unless you want to argue that a fireball can't, on its own, instantly kill several targets) Hell, even a spell that does NO damage can be extreme under your definition. Take Hold Person, for example. It's a seemingly harmless 2nd level spell. However, Sucessfully Hold anything in BG1 or BG2 and you have essentially defeated them, since a held target is automatically hit Which means the elimination of all probability as your entire party gets free damage, for several rounds.... ie. long enough to kill anything in either game.

 

Fireball is not extreme unless its damage looks, for example, like a uniform distribution from 1 to 200. This makes it highly extreme, because the variance in its results is going to be huge. Sometimes it'll do basically nothing, and sometimes it'll kill everything, just based on pure random chance. The mere ability to kill a lot of things does not make something an extreme random effect. For that to happen, it's effects have to vary highly based on random chance. In other words, for something to be an extreme random effect, it has to be extremely random.

 

As for Hold spells, and all other long-duration stuns, yes you're absolutely right. They are exactly as extreme as save-or-die effects, and should not exist for exactly the same reasons. "Dead but hasn't realized it yet", as someone on the Baldur's Gate forums once put it, is not functionally different from dead (except that it's not as mean when used on the player, I suppose, but that creates an asymmetry that I'm not fond of). Such spells are extreme and should be removed. Short-duration stuns are fine.

 

 

 

Josh was referring to Power differences between an attacker and his target.

 

Here's the quote:

 

http://forums.obsidi...nt-death/page-5

 

PCs can be downed in a small number of hits (possibly one if the enemy is powerful enough), but that has less to do with luck and more to do with the raw power difference between the attacker and the defender.

 

^he's arguing against the chance factor inherent in Save or Die spells, while completely ignoring the fact that Save or die spells happen to be High level magic that define power differences. 

 

I'm confused by your use of Josh's quote here. He's referring to a very powerful creature instantly killing a much weaker creature because of large power discrepancies. I'm not arguing against that. I think that should be able to happen. You're referring to a very powerful creature instantly killing anything if it gets a bit lucky (and apparently you're okay with it being just as easy as hitting an attack, judging from your earlier arguments). That is not an analogous situation. At all.

 

If I may ask, what is it you think save-or-die spells add to the game? I've given my thoughts on the subject, and you've argued that I'm wrong about them. So I want to know what you think they add.

[Stun]

First, I would never, ever, under any remote circumstances point to the IE games as examples of good game balance. So what they did is kind of moot. However, if you want to go down that road, I would point out that, although the die rolled was the same for both attack rolls and saving throws, it was virtually never true that each had equivalent chances of success. At low levels, the odds tended to be comparable, but THAC0 and save numbers improved much faster than armor class and save penalties. Hence, by mid levels, your chance of failing a saving throw was vastly lower than your chance of being struck by an attack.

The numbers are the same. Period. What changes as you reach the mid to high levels is... well, a couple of things

 

1) You and your enemies become able to attack multiple times in a round (a 13th level fighter with grandmastery in a weapon type will be able to get off 3+ hits per round.) The same cannot be said for Magic. No wizard, regardless of level, can fire off more than 1 spell per round. The end result is you'll get hit physically far more often than being forced to make a saving throw.

 

2) Melee and ranged enemies are more common than spell casters. If less people are throwing spells at you, then obviously it's going to seem like successfully getting hit with a DEATH SPELL is a rare thing, while successfully getting nailed with a sword is happening all the time.

 

But then again, all of this is the inherent balance you claim does not exist in the IE games, so...

 

 

 

 

You are once again assuming my argument only compares spells to physical attacks. That's not what I'm doing. It's not a dichotomy that has any bearing here.

It's not? Fine then, we will dismiss any further discussion about physical attacks as Irrelevant/off topic. Have it your way.

 

 

Both spells and non-spell abilities can potentially have save-or-die components, or they can have damaging components, or even both. My point is that a save-or-die effect has to be balanced against similar effects that deal damage.

You mean similar spells and spell effects that do damage. Yep. They are. More on this below.

 

 

Save-or-die effects will, by necessity, have to involve a lower probability of success, or else they will simply be better.

Nope. About 6 other balancing factors can be employed instead of just skewing the probabilities.

 

1) A Save or Die spell can be limited to 1 target, while another spell of the same level can effect multiple targets

2) A Save or Die spell can require a longer casting time than another spell of the same level

3) A Save or Die spell can simply be more situational in nature than another spell of the same level (example: Delayed blast fireball will be far more useful against more types of enemies than finger of death will)

4) A save or Die spell can have less general utility use than another spell of the same level (example: Protection from magic weapons was *literally* more useful in combat in BG2 than Flesh to Stone.)

5) A Save or Die spell can have negative effects on its caster while another spell of the same level does not (example: Disintegrate destroys an enemy's equipment, chain lightning does not.)

6) A save or Die spell can have a hit dice/level effected limit while another spell of the same level does not ( Example: power word kill vs. Meteor Swarm)

 

 

^There it is again.... the balance you claim does not exist in the IE games.

 

 

 

 

Ah, the "it's simple so it sucks" argument.

Damn straight. Thinking is an essential life skill. A good RPG developer shouldn't have to dumb down an RPG in order to cater to those who refuse to engage in an essential life skill. But if it makes you feel any better, I will amend my original argument to be more fair: When it comes to combat in an RPG, complexity > mindless simplicity.

 

Better?

 

Tell that to a Go player

A what Player?

 

 

 

 

Fireball is not extreme unless its damage looks, for example, like a uniform distribution from 1 to 200. This makes it highly extreme, because the variance in its results is going to be huge. Sometimes it'll do basically nothing, and sometimes it'll kill everything, just based on pure random chance. The mere ability to kill a lot of things does not make something an extreme random effect. For that to happen, it's effects have to vary highly based on random chance. In other words, for something to be an extreme random effect, it has to be extremely random.

Fireball gets there, actually. When you've got a game with some semblance of complexity, you're going to have mages that do significantly more damage with their fireballs than other mages, due to either meta-magic feats, or items or levels. On top of this you will have targets who will take less damage or more damage from a fireball due to innate resistances, or items, or potions. You'll have enemies that take double damage from fireballs. You'll have Rogue-types who take NO damage at all from fireballs if they make their Evasion checks. And this is on top of the standard saves that everyone gets. So you actually ARE, looking at an "extreme" fireball that can do anywhere from 0 to.... whatever double the max is.

 

 

 

 

As for Hold spells, and all other long-duration stuns, yes you're absolutely right. They are exactly as extreme as save-or-die effects, and should not exist for exactly the same reasons. "Dead but hasn't realized it yet", as someone on the Baldur's Gate forums once put it, is not functionally different from dead (except that it's not as mean when used on the player, I suppose, but that creates an asymmetry that I'm not fond of). Such spells are extreme and should be removed. Short-duration stuns are fine.

A question before we get too carried away. Tell me again what's wrong with "extreme"?

 

 

 

If I may ask, what is it you think save-or-die spells add to the game? I've given my thoughts on the subject, and you've argued that I'm wrong about them. So I want to know what you think they add.

I've already answered this question about 47 times on this thread alone. Nothing is stopping you from reading it.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Stun

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Ah, the "it's simple so it sucks" argument. Tell that to a Go player and see what kind of reaction you get.

 

I don't see how Go has any relevance to this discussion. It's not a crpg. And game developers should not be aspiring to the extreme of have their crpgs like Go. That means your character only has a certain amount of abilities all at once at the start, middle and end of the game. There would be no development in character. Just like it is in Go. You have no development in your pieces, they are all the same at the start, middle and end of the game. You can't even add skills or feats. Nothing. And the enemies would have all the same abilities and skills and be the same as you. No thanks.

[Ffordesoon]

@Hiro:

 

I stand by my post.

[Jarrakul]

The numbers are the same. Period. What changes as you reach the mid to high levels is... well, a couple of things

 

I'm sorry, I don't really know what to say, but this is simply untrue. The numbers aren't the same. When I'm looking at characters with THAC0s and saves in the ballpark of 0, and armor classes in the ballpark of -6 and spells with maybe a -3 to the save, it's pretty obvious that attacks are going to hit a lot more often than people are going to fail saves. And that is exactly the sort of thing you get around late-BG1/early-BG2.

 

 

 

1) A Save or Die spell can be limited to 1 target, while another spell of the same level can effect multiple targets

2) A Save or Die spell can require a longer casting time than another spell of the same level

3) A Save or Die spell can simply be more situational in nature than another spell of the same level (example: Delayed blast fireball will be far more useful against more types of enemies than finger of death will)

4) A save or Die spell can have less general utility use than another spell of the same level (example: Protection from magic weapons was *literally* more useful in combat in BG2 than Flesh to Stone.)

5) A Save or Die spell can have negative effects on its caster while another spell of the same level does not (example: Disintegrate destroys an enemy's equipment, chain lightning does not.)

6) A save or Die spell can have a hit dice/level effected limit while another spell of the same level does not ( Example: power word kill vs. Meteor Swarm)

 

A number of the spells you list aren't damaging spells, so direct comparison is difficult (and I will also not argue that Protection from Magic Weapons was anything near balanced). As for the others, you're kind of right. There are a number of factors that can be altered. Of course, there were a few high-level, single-target damaging spells in BG, and there will likely be a few in PE, so that one doesn't really work. As for situational-ness... of course different spells are more useful in different situations, but if save-or-die spells were anywhere near as good as you seem to think they are/should be (and in the IE games, they simply weren't), I guarantee that these spells will be the most useful in a great many situations, because a 50+% chance of killing any given enemy with a single spell is amazing. As for casting time, yes that is a factor that can be played with, and actually I think you could do something interesting with very long casting time (1 minute or more) spells that just killed a target, no save allowed. As it is, I'm just gonna say that in order for this to be sufficient for about a ~50% chance of killing the target outright, the casting time difference is gonna have to be big (on the order of several rounds or equivalent), and that's just bad game design when you spend a ton of rounds doing something that then just fails because you got unlucky on one roll (fun fact: that's what this boils down to anyway). Negative caster effects tend to produce the sort of NPC-PC asymmetry that, to my mind, typically destroys immersion (you won't use Disintegrate because you can just reload if you die, but the enemy can use it all he wants because what does he care about loot?). But hey, if what you want is a win-button against any boss that makes you not get loot for the fight... wait, no, that's still dumb.

 

Damn straight. Thinking is an essential life skill. A good RPG developer shouldn't have to dumb down an RPG in order to cater to those who refuse to engage in an essential life skill. But if it makes you feel any better, I will amend my original argument to be more fair: When it comes to combat in an RPG, complexity > mindless simplicity.

Better?

 

Well, no. Because I'm not arguing for mindless simplicity. I'm arguing for you not being able to win a battle on round 1 because you got a single lucky roll. I'm arguing for well-tailored difficulty. I'm arguing that not all complexity is good, and you don't seem to get that. Which would worry me, if it weren't crystal clear to me that the devs disagree with you.

 

A what Player?

 

And this is where I decided not to bother anymore. Seriously, you accuse me of not dredging through 17 pages of thread to find your views on what made save-or-die effects good, while you can't be bothered to spend two seconds Googling one of the most popular board games in the world? Fine. Have a wikipedia link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)

 

Importantly, the rules of Go can be taught in about five minutes. The depth of strategy makes Chess look like Parcheesi.

 

Now, to Hiro Protagonist: Go is relevant because it's the disproof of the "simple is bad" argument in games. Obviously I'm not arguing that PE should be Go: The Video Game, but Go proves that simple games do not necessarily lack strategic depth. Go is, in many ways, the pinnacle of elegance in game rules, and although PE is not aspiring to be Go, that elegance is something that all games should aspire to, even if they are building something more complex. In other words, if your game is gonna be complex, you'd better get a lot out of that complexity, or else you end up with the universal TV remote of video games.

 

Fireball gets there, actually. When you've got a game with some semblance of complexity, you're going to have mages that do significantly more damage with their fireballs than other mages, due to either meta-magic feats, or items or levels. On top of this you will have targets who will take less damage or more damage from a fireball due to innate resistances, or items, or potions. You'll have enemies that take double damage from fireballs. You'll have Rogue-types who take NO damage at all from fireballs if they make their Evasion checks. And this is on top of the standard saves that everyone gets. So you actually ARE, looking at an "extreme" fireball that can do anywhere from 0 to.... whatever double the max is.

 

What you miss, crucially, is that, with the exception of the rogue's Evasion ability, none of those changes are random. There's no "roll to see if your opponent is fire immune." Even when the rogue increases the randomness through Evasion (which, notably, is not itself random), it doesn't reach save-or-die levels because if the rogue fails his save, he just takes some damage. Possibly enough to kill him if he's squishy, but that's because of largely-deterministic or low-variance factors like hit points. He doesn't just die because he got unlucky once. He dies because he has a low Con and then got unlucky once. Which, frankly, is something that just sort of happens to characters with low Con (seriously don't dump Con). Maybe that's its own problem, but it's not the same problem.

 

A question before we get too carried away. Tell me again what's wrong with "extreme"?

 

As I've said repeatedly (you'll note that I'm actually willing to repeat things for you), the problem with extreme randomness is that it leads to difficulty curves that make no sense at all. A random fight with goblins could be very difficult while a dragon in the next room could be a cakewalk, just because of how lucky you've gotten. Sense good difficulty curves tend to be important for immersion, sense of progression, and just general fun, this is a big problem.

 

Let me illustrate with a story. A couple months ago, I was playing BG2 for the umpteenth time. It was late in the game, and I had just finished trashing Firkraag's minions. Now, I love Firkraag. He's literally my favorite enemy in the game. I was a bit overleveled, I'll admit, but even so I was looking forward to a good fight. And so I cast my buffs, walked in, and started fighting. About 10-seconds in, he just dies all of a sudden. Turns out my Silver Sword's vorpal effect proc'ed and Firkraag failed his save. Seeing him just die to a random effect like that, not because I was skilled but because I got lucky, was almost physically painful. Nothing that game has ever hit me with has hurt more than seeing Firkraag just die because he happened to roll a 1 at the wrong time. So I reloaded, unequipped the Silver Sword, and fought him again, because stupid random save-or-die effects had trivialized a fight that should've been at least challenging.

 

Now, of course you could argue that I could've just not used the Silver Sword, but from a designer's standpoint, that situation shouldn't even be allowed to happen. It'd be like dropping a +10 sword into the beginning of BG1 and going "it's okay, some people just won't use it." Extreme randomness makes the game less fun, and therefore should not be allowed.

 

I've already answered this question about 47 times on this thread alone. Nothing is stopping you from reading it. 

 

And then this. This would be fine if you'd been willing to make a passing effort to find out what Go was. If you hadn't just asked me to reiterate an argument that I think I've made with every post in this thread. If you were willing to put in a fraction of the same effort you're asking me to put in. But now? No. I'm sorry. I'm done. You're clearly not interested in discussing this in a reasonable fashion, and I'm not willing to indulge you with an argument conducted in an unreasonable fashion. I've made my points for all to see. There is nothing further to be gained. Goodbye.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

@Hiro:

 

I stand by my post.

 

That it's completely pointless and doesn't contribute anything to the discussion, much like this one? Thanks for proving my point.

[Ffordesoon]

@Hiro:

 

I don't "contribute" to discussions I don't believe are constructive, but I also won't sit idly by while someone is mischaracterized and baited. I've registered my distaste for your tactics, which are either entirely deliberate or the work of people who don't understand the difference between opinion and fact.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Now, to Hiro Protagonist: Go is relevant because it's the disproof of the "simple is bad" argument in games. Obviously I'm not arguing that PE should be Go: The Video Game, but Go proves that simple games do not necessarily lack strategic depth. Go is, in many ways, the pinnacle of elegance in game rules, and although PE is not aspiring to be Go, that elegance is something that all games should aspire to, even if they are building something more complex. In other words, if your game is gonna be complex, you'd better get a lot out of that complexity, or else you end up with the universal TV remote of video games.

 

You miss the point that in Go, all the pieces are the same. In Chess, you have different pieces that can do different moves. However, the enemy has the same pieces and the same number of pieces as you. Regardless if its chess or Go. In Go, the simplicity is that there are no different pieces. There is no variation in the pieces. And yet you want all games including crpgs (as well as PoE) to strive for that elegance and simplicity?

 

To have a crpg that has the same pieces and same number of pieces with the enemy. No ability to develop your character with skills or feats and if you do, then the enemy has to do the same. You basically want a mirror copy of your party or character to go up against. That's one of the reasons why Go is popular. It's because there's a level playing field between the opponents. There's no one person is stronger than the other. No enemies that are higher in strength to challenge you. There's no 'dragon' to fight with your party. No thanks.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Hiro Protagonist II]

@Hiro:

 

I don't "contribute" to discussions I don't believe are constructive, but I also won't sit idly by while someone is mischaracterized and baited. I've registered my distaste for your tactics, which are either entirely deliberate or the work of people who don't understand the difference between opinion and fact.

 

So now you're trolling and baiting with your posts. You admit you don't contribute to discussions but just want to attack people on this forum. And you show no proof or facts. All you've done is shown your opinions. The fact is you're doing to me (baiting) what you accuse me of doing to others. Well done.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Ffordesoon]

No. I am explaining why I am not engaging with you. I don't know how I can be any clearer.

 

May you find what you are looking for in Pillars of Eternity. Good day.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

The fact you still engage with me goes against what you're saying. Well, good bye.

 

I hope you can get over that bridge and not take it upon yourself to jump into threads and attack people. We already have moderators on the forum and don't need backbench moderators like yourself. I await our next engagement where you can't sit idly by and jump into threads, don't contribute to the discussion and attack people like myself.

[Stun]

I'm sorry, I don't really know what to say, but this is simply untrue. The numbers aren't the same. When I'm looking at characters with THAC0s and saves in the ballpark of 0, and armor classes in the ballpark of -6 and spells with maybe a -3 to the save, it's pretty obvious that attacks are going to hit a lot more often than people are going to fail saves. And that is exactly the sort of thing you get around late-BG1/early-BG2.

Any thorough research into the subject here will only confirm what I'm saying. The problem with character screens is that these negative numbers for THAC0s and ACs you're seeing are the result of Items and other external factors or strength/dexterity modifiers. If one were to look at the actual THAC0 TABLES, they'd see the truth of the matter. And the truth is that at their core, Saves & THAC0s are remarkably identical depending on character class and race.

 

There IS one rule, though, that is in effect by default in the BG games, which DOES support your argument. Rolling a 1 is an automatic miss, no matter what, when it comes to melee attacks, but it isn't when comes to saves. In other words, in the BG games if you manage to drop your saving throws to 1, you will never miss a standard saving throw.

 

But I don't see how that suddenly makes you right and me wrong, especially when it comes to death spells. Finger of death, for example, is exceptionally powerful, and targets suffer a -2 penalty to save against it (so getting your saves down to 1 will not automatically help you. you can still die). And, of course, you can't ignore the external factors. No intelligent gamer will deign to go through an RPG without Improving his chances to hit, improving his saves, and doing the complete opposite to his enemies. And who's to say what a gamer chooses to focus on most?

 

A number of the spells you list aren't damaging spells, so direct comparison is difficult (and I will also not argue that Protection from Magic Weapons was anything near balanced).

That's intentional. And it's my point in fact. In a good system, magic is not one dimensional. You cannot measure every spell's power and calculate "balance" on a simple damage scale. And you definitely cannot pit a death spell against a fireball and conclude that the death spell is more powerful simply because it can do 100% of its target's health pool in damage while the Fireball may not. It doesn't work that way. A Spell's usefulness and power depends on many, many factors. This is why most players don't even see death spells as particularly powerful. They tend to be a little too situational, and nothing hurts more than when you're 14th level, and you only have one 7th level spell, and you choose Finger of Death, and you use it, and it FAILS for whatever reason (enemy made his save; enemy is immune; enemy is the wrong type etc.)

 

As for the others, you're kind of right. There are a number of factors that can be altered. Of course, there were a few high-level, single-target damaging spells in BG, and there will likely be a few in PE, so that one doesn't really work. As for situational-ness... of course different spells are more useful in different situations, but if save-or-die spells were anywhere near as good as you seem to think they are/should be (and in the IE games, they simply weren't), I guarantee that these spells will be the most useful in a great many situations, because a 50+% chance of killing any given enemy with a single spell is amazing. As for casting time, yes that is a factor that can be played with, and actually I think you could do something interesting with very long casting time (1 minute or more) spells that just killed a target, no save allowed. As it is, I'm just gonna say that in order for this to be sufficient for about a ~50% chance of killing the target outright, the casting time difference is gonna have to be big (on the order of several rounds or equivalent), and that's just bad game design when you spend a ton of rounds doing something that then just fails because you got unlucky on one roll (fun fact: that's what this boils down to anyway). Negative caster effects tend to produce the sort of NPC-PC asymmetry that, to my mind, typically destroys immersion (you won't use Disintegrate because you can just reload if you die, but the enemy can use it all he wants because what does he care about loot?). But hey, if what you want is a win-button against any boss that makes you not get loot for the fight... wait, no, that's still dumb.

I don't recall ever claiming that Death spells are great because of their power, or that they were more useful than their peers. I DO remember arguing, over and over again that:

 

1) they have their place in a dynamic, complex, robust combat system and their removal constitutes limiting that system

2) They add Variety to a spell system

3) They add a welcome element of fear to combat (this wizard can kill me instantly if I'm not careful)

 

 

 

Well, no. Because I'm not arguing for mindless simplicity. I'm arguing for you not being able to win a battle on round 1 because you got a single lucky roll. I'm arguing for well-tailored difficulty. I'm arguing that not all complexity is good, and you don't seem to get that. Which would worry me, if it weren't crystal clear to me that the devs disagree with you.

 

Suddenly, Luck is the Devil. I knew we'd get here. More on that later. PS: you ARE arguing for mindless Simplicity. You came here to this thread and your very first argument was to compare Save or Die spells with effects that just cause damage... as if such a moronic, one-dimensional comparison of two wholly different effects can ever be made. Well? it CAN be made.... in a stupidly simple system where power is measured only by how much damage you can do and durability is measured by just how big someone's health pool is. <gag>

 

But back to Luck. Oddly enough, the devs - excuse me - JUST Josh, is against Luck/chance, obviously, but NOT for the reasons you've stated. He's against them simply because he thinks they promote save scumming/reloading (ie. degenerate game play) Which is something you did not bring up a single time in any of your posts here. So don't pretend that your arguments have any developer weight to them. They do NOT.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is where I decided not to bother anymore. Seriously, you accuse me of not dredging through 17 pages of thread to find your views on what made save-or-die effects good, while you can't be bothered to spend two seconds Googling one of the most popular board games in the world?

You're right. I can't... or more specifically, I WON'T. I won't be goaded into any of your red herrings. If I wanted to discuss the mechanics of a board game, and whether my claim that "Complexity > simplicity" applies to every game ever, I'd do it on that board game's forums. But we were discussing cRPGs, remember?

 

 

 

 

Now, to Hiro Protagonist: Go is relevant because it's the disproof of the "simple is bad" argument in games.

Straw Man. Anyone with 2 working brain cells knows full well that the simplicity argument I was making, and we were discussing, was strictly in regards to cRPGs, not "all games in general".

 

But I apologize if I offended any "GO" players out here. lol

 

 

What you miss, crucially, is that, with the exception of the rogue's Evasion ability, none of those changes are random. There's no "roll to see if your opponent is fire immune."

True. There may, however, be "roll to see what opponents you face". And of course, unless your wizard's spell selection is based on metagaming, all of the above may as well be random, since the wizard would not know ahead of time how effective his fireball is going to be, and he's virtually pissing in the wind when he casts it.

 

 

As I've said repeatedly (you'll note that I'm actually willing to repeat things for you), the problem with extreme randomness is that it leads to difficulty curves that make no sense at all. A random fight with goblins could be very difficult while a dragon in the next room could be a cakewalk, just because of how lucky you've gotten. Sense good difficulty curves tend to be important for immersion, sense of progression, and just general fun, this is a big problem.

No, that's not a flaw with randomness, that's a flaw with encounter design. If Devs meant for Dragons to be awesomely tough opponents and goblins to be weak trash mobs, then the smart thing for them to do would be to give that Dragon adequate counters to save or die spells and give Goblins no such tools.

 

 

Now, of course you could argue that I could've just not used the Silver Sword,

Why would I argue that?

 

No. Again, I'll put blame where it belongs. Fiirkraag was poorly designed. In more ways than one. Forget about Vorpal Blades and Death spells. Firkraag can be insta-killed with Thief Traps, and 2 shotted by a cleric with Harm working with an archer. Why? because he doesn't turn hostile until he's directly attacked. That's Silly encounter design. if *I* was designing a dragon fight, I'd make sure that this dragon was *aware*. Aware of that thief who's laying 6 traps around him. Aware of the incantations that the cleric right in front of his face is uttering.... aware that a party of adventurers armed to the teeth have entered his lair and are buffing themselves, and positioning themselves.

 

And most importantly, I'd have that dragon pre-buff himself. Oh wait, did I just say pre-buff? Sorry Josh!

 

<slaps self> I'm such a shameless degenerate!

Edited April 8, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

And then this. This would be fine if you'd been willing to make a passing effort to find out what Go was. If you hadn't just asked me to reiterate an argument that I think I've made with every post in this thread. If you were willing to put in a fraction of the same effort you're asking me to put in. But now? No. I'm sorry. I'm done. You're clearly not interested in discussing this in a reasonable fashion, and I'm not willing to indulge you with an argument conducted in an unreasonable fashion. I've made my points for all to see. There is nothing further to be gained. Goodbye.

Now you know why I officially gave up on him, Jarrakul. A valiant effort, though. What's worse... he reads something like this, and just thinks "Lolz, they think they're right and I'm wrong!", like the discussions's just as simple as one big "yes or no" question that we're all debating the answer to. No effort, at all...

 

Then, of course, Hiro has to jump in with his game of "I WIN!" from the Adam Sandler film Big Daddy. "I had that same hand last game! Why do you win?" "Because... I WIN!" Then he just tells Ffordesoon, in answer to his accusation that he's baiting people, "So what... now you're doing the same thing! And also I'm not and never was doing that, u_u..."

 

Some men can't be reasoned with. Some men just want to watch the thread burn.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Then, of course, Hiro has to jump in with his game of "I WIN!" from the Adam Sandler film Big Daddy. "I had that same hand last game! Why do you win?" "Because... I WIN!" Then he just tells Ffordesoon, in answer to his accusation that he's baiting people, "So what... now you're doing the same thing! And also I'm not and never was doing that, u_u..."

 

Some men can't be reasoned with. Some men just want to watch the thread burn.

 

 

No Lephys. I didn't mention anything about I win. Nice try. And I've never watched the movie Big Daddy. So I have no idea what you're talking about. Also, I never said 'so what' because I wasn't baiting anyone. He accuses me of baiting (which I'm not) and then baits me with his posts. The guy is a hypocrite. The fact is Ffordesoon is baiting people. He admits that he doesn't want to be part of the discussion and wants to attack people. And you're okay with this. You're okay with people like Ffordesoon attacking other posters. That really says a lot about your character. Anybody like Ffordesoon who posts trolls, attacks people with no substance and is a hypocrite, you're fine with because they are attacking people that disagree with you.

 

This seems to be your thought process:

 

. o O (Keep going Ffordesoon and anybody else, keep posting those troll posts and attacks on Hiro, Stun, etc, so I can like them)

 

The fact is this post of yours is just another troll bait post and further takes this off topic. I've been part of the discussion. You are not contributing anything other than to incite another response from myself by this post. Yep Lephys. Some men can't be reasoned with like yourself. Some men just want to watch the thread burn like yourself.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Stun]

It's not surprising that we see Lephys salivating over Jarrakul's every word, here. They employ virtually identical argument tactics. It's uncanny:

 

1) Burn a straw man as the first line of defense.

2) Then cite ridiculous examples from way out in left field (the Evil Hipsters are discussing how overly simplistic RPGs with dumbed down mechanics have severely damaged the genre, so of course lets "prove" them wrong by citing GO! and then lets whine like little babies when our examples are Ignored and dismissed as the shameless subject changes they are)

3) And later, to drive all our points home: Lets exaggerate. Incessantly. Lets do it in the hopes that people will see our flimsy arguments as powerful and obvious.

 

<gag> They are a 2 or 3 member hive mind. There is no real need to distinguish one of them the other.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Stun

[cornishr]

Dear God make it finish...

 

 

Edited April 8, 2014 by cornishr

[tajerio]

Dear God make it finish...

 

Once Stun and Hiro have both posted multiple times in a thread, it's usually time to abandon ship.  I occasionally read on for the lolz.  

[illathid]

So, after reading the past few pages of this thread I've decided I'd rather not interact with some of the people who have been posting here. Does this forum have an ignore function? I've checked the few obvious places, but thought I'd ask in case I'm missing something.

[Ineth]

In a good system, magic is not one dimensional. You cannot measure every spell's power and calculate "balance" on a simple damage scale. And you definitely cannot pit a death spell against a fireball and conclude that the death spell is more powerful simply because it can do 100% of its target's health pool in damage while the Fireball may not. It doesn't work that way. A Spell's usefulness and power depends on many, many factors. This is why most players don't even see death spells as particularly powerful. They tend to be a little too situational [...]

 

+1

 

And in fact, this "multi-dimensionality" is at the core of what I liked about combat in the BG and IWD series.

 

There are so many different axes, along which you can try to optimize your character's power and durability. Some of them overlap, others are completely orthogonal. No character will master all of them. And the same goes for enemies - you have to use the right tools for each encounter, in order to win.

 

Unlike Jarrakul I don't see this "complexity" as an unfortunate side-effect. While it can be a little overwhelming at first for new players, I think it ultimately makes those cRPG's more tactical, fun, memorable, and of course vastly increases their replayability.

 

 

Fiirkraag was poorly designed. In more ways than one. Forget about Vorpal Blades and Death spells. Firkraag can be insta-killed with Thief Traps, and 2 shotted by a cleric with Harm working with an archer. Why? because he doesn't turn hostile until he's directly attacked.

 

Not only that, but Fiirkraag is also infamous for having unusually bad saves/resistances/immunities for a dragon (and for a "boss" type enemy in general).

So even if you don't abuse the blue-circle mechanic, he is still susceptible to effects (such as the mentioned vorpal effect) that he really shouldn't be.

 

That's not a general failure of those gameplay elements though. Encounters can be balanced in a way that takes things like death effects into account.

 

 

I don't recall ever claiming that Death spells are great because of their power, or that they were more useful than their peers. I DO remember arguing, over and over again that:

 

1) they have their place in a dynamic, complex, robust combat system and their removal constitutes limiting that system

2) They add Variety to a spell system

3) They add a welcome element of fear to combat (this wizard can kill me instantly if I'm not careful)

 

Good summary.

 

Keep fighting the good fight... I've sorta given up, except for the occasional low-effort post from the sidelines...

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Once Stun and Hiro have both posted multiple times in a thread, it's usually time to abandon ship.  I occasionally read on for the lolz.  

 

Thanks for highlighting my point tajerio. Unable to abandon the ship without taking one last swipe at others (Stun and myself) and Lephys liking your post.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Lephys]

I actually move that they put Balefire (from the Wheel of Time) into the game. It's not an insta-death spell. It's a "you never even existed" spell. Thus, any damage and/or effects that target had inflicted upon anyone previously in the battle would go away. I think it'd add a lot, tactically, to combat, and shouldn't even have a chance to fail. And I definitely want to see enemies using it.

[Ffordesoon]

I actually move that they put Balefire (from the Wheel of Time) into the game. It's not an insta-death spell. It's a "you never even existed" spell. Thus, any damage and/or effects that target had inflicted upon anyone previously in the battle would go away. I think it'd add a lot, tactically, to combat, and shouldn't even have a chance to fail. And I definitely want to see enemies using it.

Stop goading them. I know it's tempting, but nothing good comes of it.

[Lephys]

A) I remained silent, and still Hiro found a way to pick apart even the way I did that (apparently you aren't allowed to continue to read a thread and like posts if you've declared you're done responding to certain people in it, and the only reason you could be liking the posts is to somehow spite said people, and not simply because you like the content of the posts.)

 

B) I'm dead serious. If there's no such thing as an effect that's too extreme, I want the functional equivalent of balefire. If I see a spider queen, and a bunch of spider soldiers, I want to be able to balefire the spider queen, and all the spider soldiers cease to exist, too. It'll be a really high level spell, and you'll probably have to soften up the target's willpower for an actual success, so it'll be perfectly reasonable. It'll also be just as tactically deep of an option as actually killing all the spiders to death via conventional means and a lot more actions.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Lephys

[Hiro Protagonist II]

A) I remained silent, and still Hiro found a way to pick apart even the way I did that (apparently you aren't allowed to continue to read a thread and like posts if you've declared you're done responding to certain people in it, and the only reason you could be liking the posts is to somehow spite said people, and not simply because you like the content of the posts.)

 

 

Another strawman you're trying to blow over. Where did I say you aren't allowed to continue to read a thread? Completely false. And the fact is you do like posts to spite people you disagree with on these forums. It's one thing to like posts that have reasoned points in discussing the actual topic that's been discussed by posters. It's another to like troll posts. And you have a history of liking self confessed troll posts by others due to those people debating against others you disagree with.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II