Attribute functionality confusion (Might for Wizard)

[Guest 4ward]

wizard with high might stat - portrait ?

[drunetovich]

Then with might you can handle a higher caliber round and higher mussel velocity. I'm sure we could find equally many points of comparison as we could find analogies where it doesn't fit - But why are we even doing the comparison in the first place? it's not really relevant.. 

 

It is relevant, because in our game same gun deals a different damage in hands of different characters. That is just nonsense.

Whole point of a handgun is that a weak person as dangerous with it as a strong person. 

[KDubya]

If they were to have it that firearms did base damage only without any benefit from might or any talent/ability such as cipher's biting whip , there be ten threads a day complaining on the forums.

 

Gameplay > Realism

 

It is a world full of magic and souls, dwarves and elves and even godlike. If you can suspend belief to believe all that, then having might affect magic and firearms is pretty easy.

 

How would you have them set the attributes such that all were useful for all types of characters and that none are auto dump stats? As said before if Might only affected melee damage then every caster and every ranged weapon user would dump it to 3.

 

Would it make you happy if it was named something else like "Soul Power"?

[drunetovich]

 

Would it make you happy if it was named something else like "Soul Power"?

 

Sure, if it also wasn't used as strength in scripted interactions\dialogues

[Brimsurfer]

Maybe it was discussed somewhere earlier but I'm curious to hear fresh thought and opinions about it.

 

I have finished vanilla game with 2 main characters Wizard and Barbarian, Barb was fine by all accounts but WIz is my favorite and his build bugs me to death. Can someone plaese explain me who in his or her mad and twisted imagination came to conclusion that Might must affect magical damage attacks? I try to figure out any logical explanation, but simply can't grasp it...

 

When I roleplay my bulky, half-naked, angry Barbarian it feels right and true in every aspect to threaten and demonstrate brute force both in dialog and while swinging huge, two-handed sword in combat, but when my skinny elf-mage threatning people all around, lifting then up and show muscles exacltly the same way as Barbarian does feels completely mad and out of place... Why it was even designed that way? Let's face it, most players who build Wizard will focus on DPS, maxing Might and Intellect as much as they can, but why exactly Might should affect power of casted fireball, lightning or chage off the wand? Why not make classic Intellect - spell power, Resolve - radius/duration/etc or vice versa? Resolve seriously feels like a must Atrribute for any caster, but somehow it feels underused.

 

Mage doesn't need fortitude, it feels like wasted stat, but will and concentration would fit just right in, no? It mostly affects immersion and roleplaying feeling much more than combat system itself because despite of Might being described as "spiritual strength" we get same dialog options as if we roleplay some brute warrior, and that doesn't sit well with me. 

 

All in all Pillars' both roleplaying and combat systems are almost perfect IMO, only this one little thing drives me a bit off the rails, I do not hope for any changes and I understand this is design choice but I'm curious what others think about this.

 

 Don't confuse Might with Strength.

[pi2repsion]

Then with might you can handle a higher caliber round and higher mussel velocity. I'm sure we could find equally many points of comparison as we could find analogies where it doesn't fit - But why are we even doing the comparison in the first place? it's not really relevant.. 

 

It is relevant, because in our game same gun deals a different damage in hands of different characters. That is just nonsense.

Whole point of a handgun is that a weak person as dangerous with it as a strong person. 

In OUR world that appears to be governed by relationships that are commonly described as the rules of physics, hand guns do the same damage in the hands of the weak as in the hands of the strong, and it would be nonsense - in our world - to claim that guns wielded by the strong do more damage, since it could easily be empirically disproven.

 

That, however, is completely irrelevant to how guns work in Pillars of Eternity, because the game does not take place in our world, nor does it pretend that the game's world/universe runs by the same rules as ours.

 

Specifically, the world of Pillars of Eternity is not governed by the rules of physics, or at least not by the same rules of physics as we are used to. While there are similarities, there are also huge and obvious differences, the largest of which is the active role souls play in magic, faith, and interacting with the world.

 

In the world of Pillars of Eternity, the person whose might - the measure of his physical and spiritual strength - is great will do more damage with a handgun than one who is weak of body and poor of spirit, just like he will do more damage with any weapon and heal more with any healing if he is strong of body and spirit, and the fact that it doesn't work like that in our world doesn't make it nonsense in the game - it is merely an example of how this fantasy world works differently.

Edited September 4, 2015 by pi2repsion

[FlintlockJazz]

 

Then with might you can handle a higher caliber round and higher mussel velocity. I'm sure we could find equally many points of comparison as we could find analogies where it doesn't fit - But why are we even doing the comparison in the first place? it's not really relevant.. 

 

It is relevant, because in our game same gun deals a different damage in hands of different characters. That is just nonsense.

Whole point of a handgun is that a weak person as dangerous with it as a strong person. 

 

Actually even modern guns require more strength the higher the calibre.  Some handguns like certain magnums require a great deal of strength to handle the recoil and to not break your wrist.

[FacesOfMu]

OP, you may need to modify your thread title to make this more pointedly about Scripted events and the might stat. There's a lot of great theoory crafting on the attributes and it seems most replies so far are in good consensus that the diversity of derived stats is great for almost every class.

 

It does seem apparent that the wiki emphasises physical and spiritual strength, whereas scripted events emphasise physical strength alone.

[Stoner]

Actually I don't feel like modifing this threads' name since I'm pretty happy about how discussion went. Some very interesting ideas and theories revealed here by some people.

 

Still, this is very obvious that we don't completely dump any stats on every character but having low and high priorities are still there. All I'm saying is making Might less usefull for damage based casters and switch it to INT or RES would make it more fluffy and automatically solve any writing based issues. MIG may get some additional bonus but I honestly don't see problem with it being less usefull like CON or RES are still for Wizard.

[ISC]

 

Then with might you can handle a higher caliber round and higher mussel velocity. I'm sure we could find equally many points of comparison as we could find analogies where it doesn't fit - But why are we even doing the comparison in the first place? it's not really relevant.. 

 

It is relevant, because in our game same gun deals a different damage in hands of different characters. That is just nonsense.

Whole point of a handgun is that a weak person as dangerous with it as a strong person. 

That, however, is completely irrelevant to how guns work in Pillars of Eternity, because the game does not take place in our world, nor does it pretend that the game's world/universe runs by the same rules as ours.

 

I have to disagree with this. PoE is largely based on our world and largely simulates our physics. To say that our world is completely irrelevant is just wrong. It is highly relevant but much less so in specific aspects. And that relevance is important, in this case for immersion and plausibility (which might be a better word than realism). Whatever things work differently from our world still do so in relation to things that work similarly in our world, and sometimes its important that this relationship make sense to the player (or reader, or viewer). The mere existence of elves and magic does not discount the similarities or the need for (internal) consistency. The damage of a gun could certainly depend on the nail polish on one's left thumb, but its just so unlikely that it would require a very elaborate explanation (which ties nail-polish-magic to things like real-world physics) to be acceptable. Feel free to quote me on that last part.

[Guest 4ward]

 

i do understand that chars with high might have big muscles as well as high magical energy and chars with low might don't have big muscles and have less magical power.

 

but do people in Eora exist who are built like schwarzenegger and have hardly any soul power? So, they hardly can swing a two-hander? This is something i'm not familiar with, and also for me big soul power can only explain high will and determination ('where there's a will there's a way'). What about people in Eora who are not healthy, who have phyhsical weaknesses, e.g. missing limbs. They have big soul power so they can perform anything? It's not easy to buy into that concept.

 

As far as dumpoing strength, i never did that for my caster in BG2. Weight was an issue, and the nature of combat with lot of movement, required melee and ranged chars to sometimes have their roles reversed during combat.

[ISC]

Furthermore, I think that the key problem here is that we don't have an explicit explanation of the relationship between "soul power" (aka "might") and physical vs mental strength. Right now it appears to be directly linear (i.e. you cant have one without the other), which is both very unlike our world and makes it impossible to create the differentiated characters some players would like.

 

Edit: also, the concept of might changes the rules we are familiar with in more than one way. It does not only add an additional phenomenon (soul power) to the human beings we are used to, might also seem to change all the mechanisms influencing things like strength or willpower. These usually develop fairly separately, through different genes or experiences (strength training for example), which appears to be impossible in Eora. Might it is such a high level abstraction that encompasses things that are too different to be accurately represented in detailed interactions.

Edited September 4, 2015 by ISC

[Brimsurfer]

I understand Might is not Strength, instead Might covers both the physical and spiritual prowess.

 

But I don't understand that how come guns do more damage for the character with higher might? Bows may do slightly more damage and have extended range for characters with higher might but guns and xbows shouldn't because their trigger is mechanized. Guns and Xbows damage should depend upon the strength of their trigger mechanism rather than the strength of the wielder.

[KDubya]

I understand Might is not Strength, instead Might covers both the physical and spiritual prowess.

 

But I don't understand that how come guns do more damage for the character with higher might? Bows may do slightly more damage and have extended range for characters with higher might but guns and xbows shouldn't because their trigger is mechanized. Guns and Xbows damage should depend upon the strength of their trigger mechanism rather than the strength of the wielder.

 

In the real world firearms do varying amounts of damage that is controlled by shot placement. Getting shot in the head is worse than getting shot in the ass. Physical strength plays a large role in holding the firearm on target and achieving a hit, especially after you fire.

 

Take an arquebus - large caliber, 0.80 or so, and an overall heavy and unwieldy weapon. There were no polymers nor the study of ergonomics back then. When you pull the trigger the hammer strikes the flint, the match comes into contact with the powder, whatever the mechanism there is a delay between pulling the trigger and the gunpowder being ignited. All this time you need to physically keep the weapon pointed at want what you want to hit. Next the gunpowder burns at a very fast rate causing an explosion. This action causes a reaction of the bullet being propelled out of the barrel, the only available route for the energy to be dissipated. This action also causes a reaction, recoil, to be transmitted to the hands and shoulder of the shooter. Failure to properly  control the recoil will result in the barrel moving before the bullet has left the barrel. This will cause a miss or at least a sub-optimal shot placement resulting in less damage inflicted and is a function of physical strength.

 

Physical strength affects being able to maintain control of a firearm during shooting by properly controlling the recoil, which is a function of the action=reaction  law from Newton.

 

 

On a similar subject the above holds true for archery as well. Watch Olympic level archers, they have an intricate follow through because their actions, or reactions, after releasing the string will affect the placement of their shot. Plus a bow could be restrung for a heavier pull for a stronger archer.

Edited September 5, 2015 by KDubya

[Fardragon]

IMO, the whole PoE attribute system violates the "if it aint broke don't fix it" maxim.

[Rosbjerg]

In what way? They made it themselves, what was originally not broken?

[drunetovich]

In the real world firearms do varying amounts of damage that is controlled by shot placement.

 

 

We already have accuracy covering shot placements. Your argument would be marginaly applicable to burst fire weapons, where recoil control is a factor, but we have no such things here.

Edited September 5, 2015 by drunetovich

[KDubya]

IMO, the whole PoE attribute system violates the "if it aint broke don't fix it" maxim.

 

 

I think PoE greatly improved attributes. Their system has everything being useful for every character, nothing is an auto dump stat.

 

BG, BG2, IWD all had 2nd edition AD&D where a melee guy would get 18/xx strength, 18 dex and 18 con with the rest being ignored and useless. On top of this you rolled dice so there was a huge luck factor that promoted rolling many times to get good stats. Hell there were even third party programs that would roll characters for you while you slept so that you did not have to do it yourself. The system would work fine with a human DM who can tailor the game and difficulty to whatever stats you had but it failed badly for a CRPG.

 

DnD 3.0 and beyond had weighted point buy systems where increases cost more and more which limited your ability to max a score. Didn't change the basic issue of certain classes only needing certain abilities and could dump the rest, it just changed the math. A wizard still dumps strength, most can dump charisma and the armor system made it so that dumping dex did not hardly affect your AC.

 

A wizard in PoE wants might for damage, perception for accuracy, intellect for larger foe only AoE and dexterity for the rate at which you can do an action. Resolve and constitution have a lesser role but carry penalties if dumped. The four main stats can be varied from one build to another and all be effective. Max might and accuracy with low dex so that your spells are slow but powerful and accurate. Max dex and intellect for rapid fire AoE and CC.

 

All are viable and can be further enhanced with talents. Take interrupting blows on your max perception wizard and get interrupts all the time. Take one of the elemental damage boosters to increase your already large damage from might.

 

Melee has similar synergy between the various stats, talents and playstyles. Have your barbarian hit hard with a small carnage area, hit softer but cover a bigger area or somewhere in between.

 

It might not be perfect but it is the best attribute system that I've ever seen.

[drunetovich]

Okay, let's imagine following situation:

 

Crew of 3 men operate a ballista, firing on enemy formation. There is an ammunition carrier, loading mechanism cranker, and aimer. Who should apply his might attribute to effective ballista damage? Answer is - no one, as ballista projectile damage only depends on ballista properties, operators only factor in loading speed and accuracy. Crossbow is a scaled down ballista, with one operator, but now we suddenly need to apply his might? "Because magic", right.

 

[Rosbjerg]

True, might affecting bullet damage on its own does not really work within the lore and logic of the game, but I still dont see the problem with it affecting magic (original argument).. But a flat dam on crossbows and guns would be unbalanced as well.

So what would be a better solution?

[KDubya]

 

In the real world firearms do varying amounts of damage that is controlled by shot placement.

 

 

We already have accuracy covering shot placements. Your argument would be marginaly applicable to burst fire weapons, where recoil control is a factor, but we have no such things here.

 

 

 

Accuracy controls whether you hit or miss, shot placement determines if I shoot you in the head or in the arm.

 

 

 

Recoil does not need a fully automatic weapon to be an issue.

 

 

 

Here is a thought experiment (you could try in real life but someone could get killed)

 

1.) Take a blackpowder arquebus and hang it from the ceiling by a single string through the center of mass. Or better yet place it in a weightless vacuum.

 

2.) Now line up your shot at a target 50 feet away

 

3.) Activate the firing mechanism via an electronic ignition set off remotely so that no force is applied to the arquebus during ignition.

 

4.) What do you think happens? Does the bullet travel straight at the target, hitting right where you aimed? Or does the recoil cause the arquebus to swing wildly causing a danger to anyone in the area? The arquebus is moving in reaction to the firing before the bullet has traveled down the barrel.

 

 

 

There is a reason why benchrest shooters uses vices and clamps to hold their rifles firmly and the reason is recoil which affects the path of the bullet unless it is controlled and resisted.

 

In PoE your Might is the stat that controls the recoil of a firearm.

[redneckdevil]

Tbh as a pen and paper GM/player I'm happy with the attributes system. As others pointed out, the dnd system their were dump stats due to what class u played. Now with the new patch and how enemies work now, even tanks don't really have dump stats either. All the attributes do something nice and look viable to all classes.

 

Now the 2 things I DO think needs to be worked on. First is the dialogue with might, so far all the might conversations imply the person is physically strong. Yes I understand u can chose not to use those options if u don't feel ur character is "physically" strong, but I think I know an easy and quick solution. Simply with "might" Dialogue options, add different ones for magic. When u got one for physical intimidation such as picking someone up, add a delegate option of u visibly cackling with energy or maybe using magic to do the same effect. Second is to remove might from crossbows and guns. It's just simply gotta jump thru hoops to explain why the attribute effects it and could easily just be explained that it's the weapon against magic users etc blah blah.

[Fardragon]

I don't have a problem with dump stats unless the game uses unweighted point buy - That is PoE's real flaw  (again, IMO).

 

Real life: I'm a Physics teacher, I need intelligence and charisma - I don't need much strength. If I was a PE teacher I would need strength and dexterity, but would make intelligence my dump stat.

[pi2repsion]

Now the 2 things I DO think needs to be worked on. First is the dialogue with might, so far all the might conversations imply the person is physically strong. Yes I understand u can chose not to use those options if u don't feel ur character is "physically" strong, but I think I know an easy and quick solution. Simply with "might" Dialogue options, add different ones for magic. When u got one for physical intimidation such as picking someone up, add a delegate option of u visibly cackling with energy or maybe using magic to do the same effect. Second is to remove might from crossbows and guns. It's just simply gotta jump thru hoops to explain why the attribute effects it and could easily just be explained that it's the weapon against magic users etc blah blah.

While there are might conversation options that read exactly like physical strength tests would in D&D games, that doesn't automatically imply that the person is physically strong, since in POE the force with which you lift/hit/impact the world depends on a mixture of physical and spiritual strength; In other words, it is only because we are used to such actions depending solely on physical strength that we read them that way, whereas if we truly accepted the game's universe, we'd acknowledge that lifting a heavy weight or throwing a mighty punch was a combination of physical and spiritual strength rather than merely depending on  physical strength.

 

And then there are the other might conversation options that don't go that far. As an example, the two latest might conversation options I had were both [might x] [intimidate] and didn't - to my eyes - read like tests of physical strength at all, but rather like overawing and scaring the target into submission - i.e. intimidating.

Edited September 5, 2015 by pi2repsion

[Brimsurfer]

True, might affecting bullet damage on its own does not really work within the lore and logic of the game, but I still dont see the problem with it affecting magic (original argument).. But a flat dam on crossbows and guns would be unbalanced as well.

So what would be a better solution?

guns and xbows damage should be governed by perception rather than might, imo.