Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity [BETA RELEASED, GO TO THE NEW THREAD]

[Lhynn]

Ok, my turn

a) You did say something about a witty fighter, made no sense, still doesnt, you try2hard.

b) We do, which is why we dont need a main stat to tell us how we fight.

c) Past a point they dont, im p. sure im smarter than most soldiers, and boxers, pretty sure you are too. Im also sure any one of them (even the crippled ones like lt. Dan) can kick my ass.

c.2) you can, just dont link it to a main stat and force everyone to "fight with their wits", seriously dude, this isnt monkey island.

d) no one gives a shit about the stupid stat anyway, just dont try to find a logical explanation to something that does not have one, only "balance", its insulting.

 

[DefJam101]

Thats an archtype dude. A nobel prize in psychology has a better chance of spliting a brick in half with his punch than an orc? what.the.fuck.

sheer power behind a fist is in no way related to intelligence.

^ Things that I didn't say.

While the way Lhynn phrased it was retarded, people in this thread have, on several occasions, given explanations as to why +DAM from INT makes sense without also explaining why STR should not carry a damage bonus.

Also there's very little motivation for anyone to write reasoned arguments in favor of this position because they're just going to be called simfags and, on the off chance they back the gamefags into a corner, the gamefags are going to say that this thing they just spent ten pages arguing about doesn't matter anyway and is purely for grognards

 

[Delterius]

Lhynn. Apparently, you don't know that wit is another word for intelligence.

makes sense without also explaining why STR should not carry a damage bonus.

Missed that part.

Haha oh wow.

 

[SCO]

butthurt detected

do you lift by the way?

 

[DefJam101]

makes sense without also explaining why STR should not carry a damage bonus.

Missed that part.

Haha oh wow.

Apparently I cannot into words either? I mean to say that "STR should not carry a damage bonus at all" does not in any way follow from "INT should have a damage bonus because striking at weakpoints".

 

[Lhynn]

No, i happen to know a lot of scientists, they are not witty at all. Also they fight like little girls. But i bet one of the big fat ones have a stronger punch than the skiny old ones.
I cannot believe you cant see this.

 

[Delterius]

makes sense without also explaining why STR should not carry a damage bonus.

Missed that part.

Haha oh wow.

Apparently I cannot into words either? I mean to say that "STR should not carry a damage bonus at all" does not in any way follow from "INT should have a damage bonus because striking at weakpoints".

No, not really. In here I'm the idiot who forgot the part where STR doesn't carry any influence on melee damage.

No, i happen to know a lot of scientists, they are not witty at all. Also they fight like little girls. But i bet one of the big fat ones have a stronger punch than the skiny old ones.
I cannot believe you cant see this.

The idea isn't that someone is using his vast intellect to outfight a professional soldier. Rather that Intellect, much like D&D's CHA, means different things for different characters and, for a certain kind of build, it would mean a trade. It would mean a character that doesn't fight as straightforward as others in battle, instead relying a bit more on his 'wits'. A different kind of fighter that would sacrifice a little bit of his STR in order to fight more like a skirmisher, or maybe a swashbuckler.

That way you can have a contrast between a brute of average intellect and the smaller elf or whatever who relies less in his more limited strenght and more in trying to outwit the brute. Both fighters. Like a battle between an ogre and pretty much anything else.

This wouldn't be particularly innovative, pretty sure there are ways in 3rd ed to convert the INT bonus into AC or even AB.

On its own I think the idea has merit. It only falls apart when there's no trade involved, when sacrificing physical attributes for intellect apparently doesn't seem to involve much of sacrifice. Even now, though, I doubt that will the case in the end.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Heavy weapons are a misconception unless you're dealing with extreme WoW-stylized stuff that wouldn't be practical in reality.

Well yes, but that depends on how you define heavy - a typical longsword is ~1,5-2kg which may not seem like a lot if you just lift it and do a swing or two for teh lulz, but actually using it in a fight does require strength.

It's more like 1-1.5kg, 2 is too much for a weapon that's supposed to be usable with one hand. But agreed otherwise. In terms of muscle mass, a medieval knight would probably be similar to an MMA fighter, rather than someone who just spends a lot of time at the gym - the latter would probably collapse of exhaustion after a few minutes of fighting with a longsword in heavy armor.

 

[Lhynn]

The idea isn't that someone is using his vast intellect to outfight a professional soldier. Rather that Intellect, much like D&D's CHA, means different things for different characters and, for a certain kind of build, it would mean a trade. It would mean a character that doesn't fight as straightforward as others in battle, instead relying a bit more on his 'wits'. A different kind of fighter that would sacrifice a little bit of his STR in order to fight more like a skirmisher, or maybe a swashbuckler.

That way you can have a contrast between a brute of average intellect and the smaller elf or whatever who relies less in his more limited strenght and more in trying to outwit the brute. Both fighters. Like a battle between an ogre and pretty much anything else.

This wouldn't be particularly innovative, pretty sure there are ways in 3rd ed to convert the INT bonus into AC or even AB.

On its own I think the idea has merit. It only falls apart when there's no trade involved, when sacrificing physical attributes for intellect apparently doesn't seem to involve much of sacrifice. Even now, though, I doubt that will the case in the end.

Yes, i agree, completly, which is why i believe its the most nonsensical thing i have read after hiver sperging posts.

Knowing how to use your smarts when it comes to a fight is a skill in and on itself, its not something you are born with, its not something non intelligent life forms can do.
This is (mostly) the way stats influencing bonuses should be done:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125732

As an exception to the rule, not as the rule itself.

 

[Rivmusique]

I wonder if character writing will pay attention to their stats. Will we ever see the typical giant-idiot-goon-bodyguard character who can barely string a sentence together, but needs to hit like a truck so has a maxed intellect behind the scenes?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Well, I know that being Obsidian they will certainly be cleverly written to speak in 3rd person. And you'll be able to ask them why they do that and they'll say they don't know what you mean.

 

[Evil Melonhead]

Naturally nearly all the attributes can be argued to have some contribution to damage.

In this case, a decent compromise would be that STR increases the overall damage and INT increases the actual "weak point" damage, which in the context of PoE's damage threshold armor system would translate into maluses for any armored enemy's DT.

To recap, STR affects your damage, PER affects critical hits, and INT affects your DT bonus. That could be a really cool system actually, but I don't know how much they would have to redesign their core mechanics to rebalance weapons and armors.

Of course my suggestion will be too good for the cool kids to use.

 

[Sensuki]

The only attributes I see as problems are Strength and Perception. Perception seems really pointless without a high accuracy, in most cases you are much better off bumping Dexterity instead.

Critical Hits are only scored when your accuracy is equal to the defender's defense - then you have a 5% chance to crit, if your accuracy is five points lower (equivalent to +1), you have 0% chance. If it's higher then it increases exponentially.

These games are generally designed with your party going up against content that is equal level or a few levels higher, so in order for Perception to be a good choice you have to pump the fuck out of dex as well.

It is *possible* that this isn't as big of an issue if there are a lot of ways to drop the deflection score of enemies.

But still, Strength and Perception don't seem as good as the other four stats. I think they need a bit more work, but obviously Josh has better things to do.

Hopefully these are moddable.

 

[Infinitron]

It's not like they still can't change everything. Heck, they can change them even after the beta.

 

[Excidium]

The only thing that needs to be changed in my view is criticals, p. lame and backwards that only damage can crit.

 

[Sensuki]

Duration can crit ?

 

[Excidium]

Duration can crit ?

It can? Also heals, etc.

 

[Sensuki]

Only offensive stuff. If you crit on a stun, the stun lasts way longer.

 

[Excidium]

I see. I wonder how it works with an ability that controls and deals damage over time.

 

[tuluse]

The duration should be increased. I'm pretty sure Sawyer talked about that. So a 6 second stun would become a 9 second stun.

 

[Infinitron]

IIRC, when damage is an element of an effect, it is always the thing that is modified. If it's a "flat" status (like a Stun), duration is modified.

Interesting. That means spells that do both damage AND paralysis are more reliable paralyzers than pure paralysis spells.

I don't follow that logic

Because if you fail the defense roll, you still get the same duration of paralysis - only damage goes down.

Of course, said durations will probably be absolutely shorter than in the pure spells.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

honestly, a game need only do one thing very well in order to be forgiven in all other respects

the prime example is skyrim, which was fucking shoddy in every way except for its scope. more towards the codex's tastes though, there was a lot of awful crap in arcanum, but the breadth of character creation options available redeemed it.

Character creation system wasn't the only thing people really liked in Arcanum, there's also C&C, quest design, setting (sort of Victorian steampunk), crafting (fiddling with different schematics is one of the high points of the game and I usually can't stand crafting in games), (mostly) good writing etc.

Of course it can be crucial for the game that Josh's CC system serves its intended purpose (wide variety of viable attribute/class builds and character archetypes), especially when it comes to replayability (as I doubt POE will have BG2's sheer scope of class/kits/items combinations to rely on in that regard) but combat encounter design has to support it otherwise it won't work.

i think you missed the bit where no-one actually cares about versimilitude after five minutes in the game

I think you're underestimating it, especially among the Codex crowd, it's the prime reason many prefer Fallout to the sequel.

That said, versimilitude is much more than names of stats and Obsidian is certainly capable of making an interesting to explore and coherent world.

 

[Sensuki]

Dunno about that. Damage and duration may be dropped on a graze. Depends on the spell/ability design. May or may not be necessary.

 

[Excidium]

Why do I get the impression that dot effects will check for crit when they are applied as opposed to each time they tick.

 

[Sensuki]

Because that's when the attack roll is made.