5th May 2004, 9:32 AM
It would be a lot easier for me to do this if I knew D&D 3's rule changes... :)
And if you used quotes. They are your friend. They reduce confusion. They are not hard to use.
Yeah... it is strange to have armor not affect how much damage you take when a hit gets through, when you think about it... but it's how D&D has always worked. Armor is just for seeing if you get hit. Of course given how the system works (as in that you miss a lot) that is a vital function... but a bit different.
What WILL affect how much damage you take is protections -- as in, resistances. They generally come from magic items... not to weapons, though (except limited-time from spells). I mean fire resistance, acid, lightning, cold, vocalize (can't be Silenced (ie can't be kept from casting spells, which require speech to work), etc, etc... they are more useful against spells than anything else, but stuff like fire and acid is obviously also useful against some weapons and stuff (like magical arrows of fire...).
Did you miss the part where I described the D&D spell system? I'm sure that NWN uses the same thing. D&D 3 made changes, big ones, but it would not do something as fundamental as totally changing the spell system. As I said, spells are divided into levels. Now... for Clerics/Druids, when you gain a level all possible spells from that level are automatically added to your spellbook. However, Mages only get a few at best when they level up (fewer as they go up the levels). You have to buy or find spell scrolls and memorize them. D&D says you can fail memorization, but thankfully after BG1 they dropped that incredibly annoying 'feature'... since it destroys the scroll if you fail... Anyway, once learned it's permanantly in your book, in that level, and you have to choose which spells of that level you want to memorize, and you will memorize them when you rest and then can use each memorized spell. Using them removes them from the memorized list until you rest again and re-memorize them... same system in NWN I'm sure.
Now, that ignores one thing -- Wands and Spell Scrolls. Wands are limited-charge magical items that cast spells from within them -- they can be cast at any time. However, they have limited charges which means that it can run out, when you can refill it by selling the wand to a merchant and buying it back. As for spell scrolls, they're the same ones you memorize, but if you want you can cast it straight from the scroll. It destroys the scroll, but you can use it at any time...
Oh, and you CAN'T learn every spell. The number you can learn in your spellbook (for Mage-types; as I said Clerics/Druids WILL learn every possible spell) depends on your Intelligence. For instance, a 16 Intelligence allows for, I think, 15 spells per level, and a 17 allows for 18... but, I believe you can remove spells from the book if you don't like them and put in new ones. You couldn't in BG1 or 2, but they added it in BG2's expansion so I assume NWN has that feature too.
And yes, the only punishment for resting is that you are vulnerable to enemy attack. You do it a lot to get back your healing spells in party-based games. In NWN it's just you so it's a bit different, but anyone with magic will still need to do it a lot... especially if you like to cast spells because resting is the only way to get them back. :) Rest doesn't heal you hugely, but it restores your healing spells, which is far more important... and unlike trying to survive on healing scrolls or something (healing potions, while useful, are limited in supply and drain your money supplies... and anyway, in BGII you're really strong and normal healing potions aren't too useful and super healing potions are in very limited supply.)
Oh, and I forgot one more very important thing. Skills! By that I mean the special abilities your character gets. I don't know if NWN has them but I bet it does... in both BG games your main character gets them. They work just like spells in practice (restored by sleeping) but you can't choose them... they just come, based on your stats and alignment I think. You'll also get multiples of the same thing. Oh, and some classes have this as well. For instance, all Rangers will get a whole lot of Charm Animal abilities in their special abilities area... like, 6-8 of them by level 17...
Oh, and ANOTHER thing. :) Some items and abilities are once-per-day. These can be used once each game-day, and won't be brought back by a single rest unless it goes into the next day. These are generally abilities gotten from objects you are carrying.
I don't know how much the bonus is for criticals...
If they even go as far as to TELL you those numbers... more often it just seems that criticals come randomly, with no explanation of why. Same with misses. It hides the numbers... they are still almost as important, but the games hide them behind a simpler shell. I'd rather it was more obvious. D&D's way of doing things is better.
As for defence... I don't know. Having it reduce damage instead of checking to see if you fully block attacks or completely fail does seem more normal, but better? I don't know, overall they're probably pretty close...
And honestly, how do magic bracers block swords hitting my chest? :) I'd say it's easier to believe that they either magically block it or not. :D (Magic Bracers of Defence AC4 or less are very nice and even give Mages negative ACs! :)) It does seem like a strange system, but it works and it probably averages to being not too different (in how much damage you take) than it would be the other way, I bet...
With non-warrior characters you'll probably miss more than you hit... same for anyone against a enemy who is higher level than you are... but that's how D&D is. And when you think about it it's much more realistic -- in real combat you don't hit them every time! You'll miss (or just hit the armor without damage) a lot! And as I said, pure chance has little sway here. Their armor class, and your to-hit, are far, far more important. Oh, sure, you will get some lucky hits, but when combined with unlucky misses it easily balances out. The most important part isn't the random factor, but your stats. By far.
I played through BGII and I can't remember many times when I was hoping any one specific hit hit or I'd die. Oh, sure, I died many times (aided by how if your main character is killed it's game over... not so for the rest of the party...), but it never balanced on any specific hit, so the fact that dice rolls meant sometimes I missed didn't matter much. They probably miss more, given my AC... :)
Multiclassing or Dual Classing? :) Very different things. Dual is only for Humans... I don't like it much, because it means permanantly giving up the class you had for a new one (and you won't be able to use your original classes abilities you had gotten until you match that level in your new class). But multiclassing (for all nonhuman races) is also problematic... fun to be, but you gain levels half as fast because your XP is split between two classes! You'll be level 13/13 when the rest of your party is 17, for instance.
Well, I played the demo of NWN, but that was so short that it barely counts and I don't think I used magic...
Oh, and I am SURE that it's not a Third Edition feature to allow anyone to gain stat ups in the main 6 categories. That just isn't something they would do in D&D... I bet it's more like Torment and they have some kind of story explanation (told or inferred).
There are a few points in BGII where you can have a stat permantantly LOWERED (and, indeed, MUST do that two or three times), but it's impossible to increase them (except by items, which only work as long as they are equipped).
Oh, levelling up... what you get depends wholly on your class. And level -- you get much more early on than later. For instance, your weapons proficiencies are set by 8th or 9th level in many classes... after that you won't get any more for Mages, for instance, so you have to be careful about which ones you choose (since if you use a weapon you aren't proficient in you get a damage penalty and maybe also a to-hit penalty)...
Oh, and you get very little choices in levelups. Oh, you can choose weapon proficencies if it's a rare levelup where you get one, and if you're a theif-type you can choose which (theif) abilities to distribute points among... and if it's Torment (or, if you are correct, NWN) you can choose which stat to put a point into... but other than that, all you can do is look and see what you got. Oh, that's a important point -- did you know that the number of HP you get is NOT set (that is, until double-digit levels, when it drops to 1-3)? It's smart to save right before you level up so you can load it and get the level again until you get the best possible health up... :) But other than that all you do is look to see what your spell additions were (set by intelligence and level), or your to-hit bonus (that lowers it, in 2.5)/resistances/protection reductions are, etc...
Feats. They existed before, but 3rd Edition greatly increased their position and formalized them I think... unless that's just KOTOR? But I know that 3rd Edition did do changes for Skills and Feats. In 2nd Edition you don't gain stuff like that on level-ups... nothing you can choose anyway. Those few skills you get based on your class (or your position as the main character) aren't something you get a choice in.
That would fit the way we know Star Wars to work better than a D&D-style memorization system, certainly... it's how I'd expect the magic system's use to work.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what your complaint is here... the only difference I can think of between low and high levels is your numbers. As in at high levels you have a better chance of succeeding on those checks. Why is the fact that at lower levels you have less of a chance of success so bad? Why does it change at high levels to you? Oh, and which stat numbers do you mean... like, resistances? In D&D2 resistances like fire and acid come only from items. The stuff affected by level-up is the saving throws and THAC0, really. Now, I'm assuming that you mean saving throws -- that is, your chance of resisting magic, etc. Those are values that start low and grow as you progress. So at low levels you'll be caught in Web most of the time and will almost never resist a spell but higher you have fair chances of doing that... but I don't see your complaint. I mean, sure, at low levels you CAN resist. But it's rare, as it should be... if it happens it's more anomalous. And at high levels it can be the other way around. As it should be. I don't see your problem... you seem to be complaining that at low levels you can fail, or something, but don't mind at high levels because you almost always succed? What, do you not like the whole idea of being hit by spells? I'm honestly confused.
As for something failing half the time and succeeding the other half... um, on averages, shouldn't it work out exactly that way? If you lose to an enemy and later win then you are on some kind of par... why is it so hard to believe that sometimes an attack would succeed and other times fail against the same enemy? It seems perfectly normal to me...
Oh, and when I lose I'd prefer to blame my strategy (and, often, that is the culprit... though which spells the enemy chooses to cast definitely has an effect as well...). :) But NWN has less strategy, I'm sure, because there's only one real party member... Anyway, only rarely can I think of where I could put a lot of blame on some unlucky hit... not that I notice every attack anyway, far too much to do to pay attention to attacks that are happening every six seconds (since in BGII a round is 6 seconds; but that leaves out of course the characters with multiple attacks per round, like most fighter-types...)
You miss my point, kinda. What would be most realistic is if they used what they have available. Now you say 'but if they did I'd NEVER win'! But that's my point exactly. It's really stupid to design it so you only win battles because the enemies are incompetent! D&D doesn't work that way. Okay, so enemies might not always use the best possible spells, but they do use a lot of them, and enough variety that you know that they're using up what they have... at least, I never felt like I was just winning battles because the enemy held back their best moves. Against really strong enemies who you probably should not be fighting yet they don't hold back... defeating one of those Demons took quite a few tries...
In the BG games anyway I've never felt like randomness has decided the battles. Oh, once in a while you'll die and not know why and blame unlucky hits, but that hardly decides the course of the game... when that happens I know that something went wrong (like not paying attention to my main character's health...). Luck has a place, but strategy and skills have a bigger one by far. Even in the beginning... though it's been a long time now since I played as a level 1 D&D character (that would be the start of Torment... which I played several years ago...). :)
And if you used quotes. They are your friend. They reduce confusion. They are not hard to use.
Quote:Odd way of armor working. In every game I played before a d20 based game, armor determined the defense stat (which was used to calculate how much damage you took), but armor is purely for determining hits and misses here.
Yeah... it is strange to have armor not affect how much damage you take when a hit gets through, when you think about it... but it's how D&D has always worked. Armor is just for seeing if you get hit. Of course given how the system works (as in that you miss a lot) that is a vital function... but a bit different.
What WILL affect how much damage you take is protections -- as in, resistances. They generally come from magic items... not to weapons, though (except limited-time from spells). I mean fire resistance, acid, lightning, cold, vocalize (can't be Silenced (ie can't be kept from casting spells, which require speech to work), etc, etc... they are more useful against spells than anything else, but stuff like fire and acid is obviously also useful against some weapons and stuff (like magical arrows of fire...).
Quote:Neverwinter, using 3.5 rules, has an interesting system. It's actually very much like FF1. You can learn every single spell in the game, but you have to "equip" them, and there are limited slots for that. Each and every single spell has it's own individual MP, and that MP cost is determined by it's spell "level". So, it's kinda like FF1 in that regard, only with a similar MP system to FF8. Like you said, you "rest" in order to recover HP and get some magic back. Thing is, as far as I can tell, the only punishment for "resting" is that you are vulnerable. No matter, that's probably enough, it's just boring to rest, hence why I like stocking up on potions and ether.
Did you miss the part where I described the D&D spell system? I'm sure that NWN uses the same thing. D&D 3 made changes, big ones, but it would not do something as fundamental as totally changing the spell system. As I said, spells are divided into levels. Now... for Clerics/Druids, when you gain a level all possible spells from that level are automatically added to your spellbook. However, Mages only get a few at best when they level up (fewer as they go up the levels). You have to buy or find spell scrolls and memorize them. D&D says you can fail memorization, but thankfully after BG1 they dropped that incredibly annoying 'feature'... since it destroys the scroll if you fail... Anyway, once learned it's permanantly in your book, in that level, and you have to choose which spells of that level you want to memorize, and you will memorize them when you rest and then can use each memorized spell. Using them removes them from the memorized list until you rest again and re-memorize them... same system in NWN I'm sure.
Now, that ignores one thing -- Wands and Spell Scrolls. Wands are limited-charge magical items that cast spells from within them -- they can be cast at any time. However, they have limited charges which means that it can run out, when you can refill it by selling the wand to a merchant and buying it back. As for spell scrolls, they're the same ones you memorize, but if you want you can cast it straight from the scroll. It destroys the scroll, but you can use it at any time...
Oh, and you CAN'T learn every spell. The number you can learn in your spellbook (for Mage-types; as I said Clerics/Druids WILL learn every possible spell) depends on your Intelligence. For instance, a 16 Intelligence allows for, I think, 15 spells per level, and a 17 allows for 18... but, I believe you can remove spells from the book if you don't like them and put in new ones. You couldn't in BG1 or 2, but they added it in BG2's expansion so I assume NWN has that feature too.
And yes, the only punishment for resting is that you are vulnerable to enemy attack. You do it a lot to get back your healing spells in party-based games. In NWN it's just you so it's a bit different, but anyone with magic will still need to do it a lot... especially if you like to cast spells because resting is the only way to get them back. :) Rest doesn't heal you hugely, but it restores your healing spells, which is far more important... and unlike trying to survive on healing scrolls or something (healing potions, while useful, are limited in supply and drain your money supplies... and anyway, in BGII you're really strong and normal healing potions aren't too useful and super healing potions are in very limited supply.)
Oh, and I forgot one more very important thing. Skills! By that I mean the special abilities your character gets. I don't know if NWN has them but I bet it does... in both BG games your main character gets them. They work just like spells in practice (restored by sleeping) but you can't choose them... they just come, based on your stats and alignment I think. You'll also get multiples of the same thing. Oh, and some classes have this as well. For instance, all Rangers will get a whole lot of Charm Animal abilities in their special abilities area... like, 6-8 of them by level 17...
Oh, and ANOTHER thing. :) Some items and abilities are once-per-day. These can be used once each game-day, and won't be brought back by a single rest unless it goes into the next day. These are generally abilities gotten from objects you are carrying.
Quote:As far as critical hits, it's the NORMAL way of doing critical hits. Multiply whatever damage the attack would have done by 2. Some weapons in a few games did it a little differently, like one weapon that did 4x damage on a critical.
I don't know how much the bonus is for criticals...
Quote:Then again, I think that's one of the main differences between d20 and Japanese RPGs. d20 uses a bunch of whole numbers and nothing but. However, the average Japanese RPG uses percentages for just about everything. So, rather than something like "defense is 18, so you have to get a 19 or higher in order to hit", it's more like "evasion is 10%" (that's dodge rate, defense, as it SHOULD be , is how much damage you take, not the chance of damage), which means if you have 100% accuracy, you will hit 90% of the time. Again, this still puts some chance in there, but it doesn't make itself so very apparent.
If they even go as far as to TELL you those numbers... more often it just seems that criticals come randomly, with no explanation of why. Same with misses. It hides the numbers... they are still almost as important, but the games hide them behind a simpler shell. I'd rather it was more obvious. D&D's way of doing things is better.
As for defence... I don't know. Having it reduce damage instead of checking to see if you fully block attacks or completely fail does seem more normal, but better? I don't know, overall they're probably pretty close...
And honestly, how do magic bracers block swords hitting my chest? :) I'd say it's easier to believe that they either magically block it or not. :D (Magic Bracers of Defence AC4 or less are very nice and even give Mages negative ACs! :)) It does seem like a strange system, but it works and it probably averages to being not too different (in how much damage you take) than it would be the other way, I bet...
Quote:Here's the thing. When, as you have put it, I miss as much as I hit, I feel very put off. A slight adjustment in chance and I've hit every time, or another slight adjustment of pure chance and I've missed every time. Sure, the AVERAGE means I'll do as my stats say I should more often than not, but a single battle won't hit that average perfectly, and if there's only a few, none of the battles may be near that average.
With non-warrior characters you'll probably miss more than you hit... same for anyone against a enemy who is higher level than you are... but that's how D&D is. And when you think about it it's much more realistic -- in real combat you don't hit them every time! You'll miss (or just hit the armor without damage) a lot! And as I said, pure chance has little sway here. Their armor class, and your to-hit, are far, far more important. Oh, sure, you will get some lucky hits, but when combined with unlucky misses it easily balances out. The most important part isn't the random factor, but your stats. By far.
I played through BGII and I can't remember many times when I was hoping any one specific hit hit or I'd die. Oh, sure, I died many times (aided by how if your main character is killed it's game over... not so for the rest of the party...), but it never balanced on any specific hit, so the fact that dice rolls meant sometimes I missed didn't matter much. They probably miss more, given my AC... :)
Quote:Anyway, I never really had a problem with anything else that d20 does. Not sure why you would bring it up. Really, everything else about the system is pretty fun, like the ability to customize a character as it develops rather than juse at the start. Multiclassing is fun too.
Multiclassing or Dual Classing? :) Very different things. Dual is only for Humans... I don't like it much, because it means permanantly giving up the class you had for a new one (and you won't be able to use your original classes abilities you had gotten until you match that level in your new class). But multiclassing (for all nonhuman races) is also problematic... fun to be, but you gain levels half as fast because your XP is split between two classes! You'll be level 13/13 when the rest of your party is 17, for instance.
Quote:As you said, you haven't played a 3rd edition game yet, so I'll explain some things to you about that now from my own experience. Yes, you can upgrade your stats, your BASE stats, on level up, without using items or equipment. Not EVERY level gives you a stat increase, like in Japanese RPGs. Generally, you'll level up and depending on the level, you'll get whatever you are supposed to get for it. For example, you may get the chance to learn a new feat or two, or increase various special abilities like Persuasion. WITH that, is the occasional chance to boost your base stats themselves. On some levels, you get 1 or 2 points you can use to boost a base stat permanently. Now, I assume in D&D, it's a random roll to determine where these points go, but in Neverwinter Nights, just like in assigning the starting stats on a character, you are allowed to pick and choose yourself. I am SO glad for that because, again, I like to be in control. Yes, it IS a control issue .
Well, I played the demo of NWN, but that was so short that it barely counts and I don't think I used magic...
Oh, and I am SURE that it's not a Third Edition feature to allow anyone to gain stat ups in the main 6 categories. That just isn't something they would do in D&D... I bet it's more like Torment and they have some kind of story explanation (told or inferred).
There are a few points in BGII where you can have a stat permantantly LOWERED (and, indeed, MUST do that two or three times), but it's impossible to increase them (except by items, which only work as long as they are equipped).
Oh, levelling up... what you get depends wholly on your class. And level -- you get much more early on than later. For instance, your weapons proficiencies are set by 8th or 9th level in many classes... after that you won't get any more for Mages, for instance, so you have to be careful about which ones you choose (since if you use a weapon you aren't proficient in you get a damage penalty and maybe also a to-hit penalty)...
Oh, and you get very little choices in levelups. Oh, you can choose weapon proficencies if it's a rare levelup where you get one, and if you're a theif-type you can choose which (theif) abilities to distribute points among... and if it's Torment (or, if you are correct, NWN) you can choose which stat to put a point into... but other than that, all you can do is look and see what you got. Oh, that's a important point -- did you know that the number of HP you get is NOT set (that is, until double-digit levels, when it drops to 1-3)? It's smart to save right before you level up so you can load it and get the level again until you get the best possible health up... :) But other than that all you do is look to see what your spell additions were (set by intelligence and level), or your to-hit bonus (that lowers it, in 2.5)/resistances/protection reductions are, etc...
Feats. They existed before, but 3rd Edition greatly increased their position and formalized them I think... unless that's just KOTOR? But I know that 3rd Edition did do changes for Skills and Feats. In 2nd Edition you don't gain stuff like that on level-ups... nothing you can choose anyway. Those few skills you get based on your class (or your position as the main character) aren't something you get a choice in.
Quote:KOTOR, so you know, uses MP, well it's FP actually (Force Points). All the spells you have are permanently learned. Force power regenerates over time.
That would fit the way we know Star Wars to work better than a D&D-style memorization system, certainly... it's how I'd expect the magic system's use to work.
Quote:Let me explain what I meant about "defeating a key part of the system". What I mean is that when you get to really high levels, the stat numbers are also really high. As such, a variable of 20 doesn't matter nearly as much as it did when you had a lower level and lower stats. At higher levels, you'll still do massive damage, and a change of 20 in that attack won't really matter at all. Essentially, I'd just like it if the lower levels depended as much on pure stats as the higher levels. Chance is still there of course, and at the higher levels I really don't even mind that much, but it's not the determining factor. Yes, if things ALWAYS hit exactly where the average SHOULD be, my stats would be the primary thing, but on those lower levels, VERY often I'll get my arse handed to me JUST as often as I hand arse over to the enemy, the SAME enemy in fact. It's THAT sort of thing that drives me nuts. Thing is, the only way to get around it is to get my level significantly higher than the enemy's at that point in the game, and that means FIGHTING them over and over, and in that case it also means reloading my old game over and over.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly what your complaint is here... the only difference I can think of between low and high levels is your numbers. As in at high levels you have a better chance of succeeding on those checks. Why is the fact that at lower levels you have less of a chance of success so bad? Why does it change at high levels to you? Oh, and which stat numbers do you mean... like, resistances? In D&D2 resistances like fire and acid come only from items. The stuff affected by level-up is the saving throws and THAC0, really. Now, I'm assuming that you mean saving throws -- that is, your chance of resisting magic, etc. Those are values that start low and grow as you progress. So at low levels you'll be caught in Web most of the time and will almost never resist a spell but higher you have fair chances of doing that... but I don't see your complaint. I mean, sure, at low levels you CAN resist. But it's rare, as it should be... if it happens it's more anomalous. And at high levels it can be the other way around. As it should be. I don't see your problem... you seem to be complaining that at low levels you can fail, or something, but don't mind at high levels because you almost always succed? What, do you not like the whole idea of being hit by spells? I'm honestly confused.
As for something failing half the time and succeeding the other half... um, on averages, shouldn't it work out exactly that way? If you lose to an enemy and later win then you are on some kind of par... why is it so hard to believe that sometimes an attack would succeed and other times fail against the same enemy? It seems perfectly normal to me...
Oh, and when I lose I'd prefer to blame my strategy (and, often, that is the culprit... though which spells the enemy chooses to cast definitely has an effect as well...). :) But NWN has less strategy, I'm sure, because there's only one real party member... Anyway, only rarely can I think of where I could put a lot of blame on some unlucky hit... not that I notice every attack anyway, far too much to do to pay attention to attacks that are happening every six seconds (since in BGII a round is 6 seconds; but that leaves out of course the characters with multiple attacks per round, like most fighter-types...)
Quote:Yeah, the enemies tend to be given some sucky moves and some super awesome moves, and then they use the sucky moves most of the time. In the case of really old Japanese RPGs, like FF1, it goes PURELY on a cycle, and it'll always go in order from move to move on the list. In the case of current day RPGs of that style, they tend to be random, but then you start noticing patterns that are JUST consistent enough to make you wonder if there's some simple AI deciding what moves to make... Anyway, a lot of them DO use randomness, and yes I do prefer when some AI is used to determine what move to perform at a time. Still, that'll leave a chunk of the moves they tend to give the baddies completely unused. That just means they'll put more work into the moves and the AI though doesn' it?
You miss my point, kinda. What would be most realistic is if they used what they have available. Now you say 'but if they did I'd NEVER win'! But that's my point exactly. It's really stupid to design it so you only win battles because the enemies are incompetent! D&D doesn't work that way. Okay, so enemies might not always use the best possible spells, but they do use a lot of them, and enough variety that you know that they're using up what they have... at least, I never felt like I was just winning battles because the enemy held back their best moves. Against really strong enemies who you probably should not be fighting yet they don't hold back... defeating one of those Demons took quite a few tries...
Quote:Anyway, it all comes down to taste. I do enjoy those kinds of RPGs, don't get me wrong, it's just that I hate how near the start victory is very often an issue of randomness when you come up to anything of moderate difficulty. Think of it like how you can't stand random encounters. I respect that opinion because I see your point there for example, it's just something I personally never had a problem with.
In the BG games anyway I've never felt like randomness has decided the battles. Oh, once in a while you'll die and not know why and blame unlucky hits, but that hardly decides the course of the game... when that happens I know that something went wrong (like not paying attention to my main character's health...). Luck has a place, but strategy and skills have a bigger one by far. Even in the beginning... though it's been a long time now since I played as a level 1 D&D character (that would be the start of Torment... which I played several years ago...). :)