Also worth noting is that the Longbow historically was the Middle Age Machine Gun, they were fired in such quantities they darkened the sky. It wasn't that the archers carried a great deal of arrows each (40 arrows are not "light"), but that it was overall a simple matter to make more wherever one might find a tree. If BG could emulate this feature to make "craft wooden arrows" a standard ability for the Archer class, it wouldn't be unbalancing and would ensure they always have ammo to handle the issue; an option with more verisimilitude to my mind than either magically infinite arrows or essentially carrying around sixteen quivers of arrows to make sure you don't run out.
However, on the mage topic: AD&D is several games within games. For Mages, the name of the game is Strategy.
A mage must prepare spells, and more importantly, must conserve them for when they are needed. They must be cautious, especially in the early levels, because they only have a few spells, but chosen correctly, even one of those spells can change the course of an encounter - if they prepared the right spell.
Where a Fighter can swing a sword all day (hitpoints permitting), a Mage can stop time itself, rewrite reality, and destroy their targets in such numbers and with such brutality that Fighters would weep like little girly men - if they picked the right spell.
And this is what being a mage is all about: Prepare for what you expect to face at the beginning of the day, then balance the need to conserve those resources with the need to win the game. In exchange, Mages and Clerics gain more power and versatility than any other class (can you imagine a Dragon Age mage casting "Wish"? Or summoning a literal army of creatures more powerful than the party fighters to fight for them?)
To give them the ability to cast spells at whim is to destroy the entirety of game balance because you're not very good at resource management. In 3.5 Mages dominate, with or without optional spellpoint rules (because they do indeed still use Vancian casting as a default), but the class that's *balanced* around magical access all day long is the Warlock; a Warlock cannot fulfil the role of a primary caster. A Psionicist uses "spell points", but in return, they have nowhere near the Mage's ability to change their spell loadout; a Mage can be a completely different character from one day to the next.
In 4e, they didn't scrap Vancian casting either, instead, they went in the other direction and gave Fighter classes "powers" that they can use per/day, per/encounter, and At Will, just like the mages got, except more arbitrary. And because Mages got powers per/encounter and At Will, the things they could do were stripped down to simple combat tricks, barely any utility abilities, none of the spells that allowed them to scry out their opponents and appear in exploding balls of lightning, and instead of being able to pick and choose their powers to prepare for the day they were stuck with particular spells they had to use over and over.
In 4e, the game became more about resource management, not less, and D&D Next is likely to head back the other direction and give their mages spells per day again, because 4e was not the success they had hoped for.
So yeah, no spell points, and if you want infinite wooden arrows, try scripting a "make arrows" option like Eldoth has, and have it applied to CHARNAME automatically, so you can make 40+ arrows per day on demand (and out of combat).
I was disspointed in bioshock they marketed as the second coming of SS2 and it came out as a watered down over simplified mess, if you can ignore the clumsy deaf/blind AI, so many items being every where you can never hope to carry them all, lack of death penalty,unpolished weapon upgrade system and heavily under utilized U invet ect,ct,ect.
All what you just said can be boild down to defend the mages in the party and kill things with everyone else unless you can actually find a use for the mage. You do that too in Jrpgs but at least they do not try and make up a silly rule where you can't really use the magic you have on hand.
Even Final Fantasy 1 spell point system is better developed/suited for video games than the Vancian system.
Almost anything is better than it, but in my last post I was talking about looking at how much spells are used during a normal adventure and come up with an improved system. It seems no one wants to bother thinking the old horrible mechanic is fine because its old.
I get around the ammo issue by using the cheat console to create an ammo belt, it's not limitless but it can hold a good amount of ammo and saves having to faff about switching items between the PC & NPCs in the inventory screen because someone's encumbered or their slots are full. (I do the same for scroll cases, potion bags, gem bags & of course the bag of holding. Yes it's cheating a little but it's a convenience thing rather than an out & out cheat, and when you bare in mind that, unlike a lot of games with offer limitless ammo, you soon find certain types of ammo ineffective again certain foes, why would you want it to be limitless anyway?
I get around the ammo issue by using the cheat console to create an ammo belt, it's not limitless but it can hold a good amount of ammo and saves having to faff about switching items between the PC & NPCs in the inventory screen because someone's encumbered or their slots are full. (I do the same for scroll cases, potion bags, gem bags & of course the bag of holding. Yes it's cheating a little but it's a convenience thing rather than an out & out cheat, and when you bare in mind that, unlike a lot of games with offer limitless ammo, you soon find certain types of ammo ineffective again certain foes, why would you want it to be limitless anyway?
Well I was thinking normal ammo would be infinite but fancy ammo never, this way you do not have to worry about ammo unless you are useing all your good stuff.
All in all I would rather have a setup where ammo did not take up alot of slots/weight that way I don't have to worry about it.
All what you just said can be boild down to defend the mages in the party and kill things with everyone else unless you can actually find a use for the mage. You do that too in Jrpgs but at least they do not try and make up a silly rule where you can't really use the magic you have on hand.
Even Final Fantasy 1 spell point system is better developed/suited for video games than the Vancian system.
Almost anything is better than it, but in my last post I was talking about looking at how much spells are used during a normal adventure and come up with an improved system. It seems no one wants to bother thinking the old horrible mechanic is fine because its old.
Allow me to simplify into a shooting game analogy for you.
Early game:
"Your mages are limited-use bazookas with limited, specialist ammo. They need protecting." "Your fighters are machine guns with unlimited, but largely unchanging ammo."
When something needs blowing up, you bring a bazooka and you let rip. If you select the right shells to fire, then you will either:
1: Kill everything. 2: Disable everything ready for your machine gun to take out easily. 3: Leave large numbers of targets helpless, giving you a much easier time in general. 4: Protect yourself from harm.
Mid game:
"Your mages are now howitzers with bazookas attached. They have limited ammo but can select for a wide number of different shells now. They're pretty hard to kill, but need some support from Fighters to keep from having their spells disrupted. They can also summon machine guns." "Your fighters are machine guns with an ROF and Accuracy upgrade."
Now, mages have a larger number of spells per day, not only can they concentrate on doing the big things, they can spare extra spells to blow on Force Multipliers, like Haste, damage mitigation, simple and easy crowd control....
And because Mages are awesome, their low level spells get better as they level, without taking any more resources to do so, so the Chromatic Orb spell that, at level 1, blinded a target and hurt them, by level 12 does four times as much damage and is a save or die.
Late game:
"Your mages have an almost unlimited arsenal of nukes. Also they can summon howitzers with bazookas attached. Also they can turn themselves into an infinite number of slightly weaker duplicates of themselves, all fully loaded." "Your fighters are machine guns with another ROF and Accuracy upgrade."
And here's where the analogy breaks down, because a Mage offers things that simply break the game.
The Vancian system is why mages in D&D are more powerful than mages in most other systems, because they have "MP" per level, not overall (which they spend in advance, unless they're a sorcerer).
Saying "sure thing mister mage, go ahead and cast "REVISE OBJECTIVE REALITY" on a cooldown that's anything shorter than 'one year'" is the suggestion of someone who has no freaking clue whatsoever how the Vancian magic system works, nor any grasp of the strategic implications it requires you to consider.
Every day playing a mage is like building an MMORPG character from the ground up. Do you get "cast magic missile three times", or do you go for "cast magic missile once, and Sleep twice?"
Do you think you'll be meeting a lot of creatures immune to the Sleep spell? If not, then the ability to disable entire squads of enemies leaving them vulnerable to being beaten to death even with your terrible mage THAC0 makes Sleep probably more worthwhile. You only need one sleep spell per fairly large combat and your mage has won the battle for your entire party with one spell. He can do that only one time a day? At first level? Maybe even two or three?
Damn right, if your mage is not outright winning battles for you by spending *one spell* as early as level 1, then you're not playing your mage right, and they definitely do not need to be able to beat more than one or two encounters *by themselves* per day.
Moving on to your suggestion, might I direct you to one of many such reasons why your idea is loathed?
Level 1 Spell: Naharl's Reckless Dweomer - Cast any spell in your spellbook.
Yes, your "new system which nobody appreciates because they just don't appreciate how 'improved' it is" means that wild mages can cast any spell they like, as much as they like. And you're requesting this as a core feature to the game, rather than some wildly inappropriate cheat mod?
To be blunt: Yes, the Vancian system is a strange beast, and yes, it may not be the best system in the world, but no, you clearly have no clue how mages work in D&D to suggest an alternative, nor is there a simple one which would not be hilariously ass-backwards broken with the wide range of system quirks interwoven with it. In AD&D, the fact that the Mage has just brought down two level 9 spells onto their target doesn't mean they can't then bring down a level 3, a level 6, and four level 7s. Everything is based and balanced around this idea.
It is also based and balanced around the idea that mages cannot, unless they are willing to rest every combat, Nova and cast every single spell they know.
Yes, I appreciate you're not very good with mages, try wands instead of wasting your spells every combat. Play a sorcerer. Try multiplayer with someone who can handle your mages for you. Please do not try to rewrite a game system you neither appreciate nor understand.
So? I am more worried about making it more fun and less mindlessly tedious, as I said don't make it the default option but at least do something other than the horrible magic system it has.
Also forgot to mention if you run out of stamina you pass out kinda like in Arcanum.
I don't think most folks think its tedious right now? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a poll would be a good idea to gauge it.
So? I am more worried about making it more fun and less mindlessly tedious, as I said don't make it the default option but at least do something other than the horrible magic system it has.
Also forgot to mention if you run out of stamina you pass out kinda like in Arcanum.
I don't think most folks think its tedious right now? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe a poll would be a good idea to gauge it.
I think the only people to buy this are crazy table RPG nerds :P
But all in all it will be interesting to see the market penetration on it once it launches, for myself being a crazy half wit nerd I just want it to be a bit less of a pain to play.
I would love to see something in between spam them all Jrpg and crusty and rusty ancient Wrpg mechanic time should have forgot.
The main target for this game is "we" the crazy half wit rpg nerd. But I remember one thing. When BG was new in 98 there where some angry nerds too... they wanted turn-based fighting system like in old SSI games. (they are old indeed. bg is considered "new") This game is created for hardcore fans and even if I can understand that this system is complicated for people who have grown up playing action rpgs and mmos this won't be one of them. It would be like blasphemy. I am not a hero or something but I started this game when I was 11, without any english education or d&d knowledge with a dictionary and some Diablo 1 experence and I still play it even if I know the whole game by heart. So it's not for people who like easy solutions. This game needs some learning but believe me it's really worth it.
The main target for this game is "we" the crazy half wit rpg nerd. But I remember one thing. When BG was new in 98 there where some angry nerds too... they wanted turn-based fighting system like in old SSI games. (they are old indeed. bg is considered "new") This game is created for hardcore fans and even if I can understand that this system is complicated for people who have grown up playing action rpgs and mmos this won't be one of them. It would be like blasphemy. I am not a hero or something but I started this game when I was 11, without any english education or d&d knowledge with a dictionary and some Diablo 1 experence and I still play it even if I know the whole game by heart. So it's not for people who like easy solutions. This game needs some learning but believe me it's really worth it.
True true. BG has pause and command so that's close enough, when it comes to a party based RPG game I'd like a mix of Dungeon siege and Fallout with smarter(?) script sets for your AI companions from DA:O and BG 1-2.
I loved DS1 you can easily move party members where you want and stuff. Hell even the gambit system from FF12 is a good idea for AI tuning just not gaining the gambits LOL(if you do not know gambits are AI actions, there are a few dozen of them but you have level up how many gambit slots you have).
I just do not see any games trying to take the good mechanics and making a great game of it all the can do is make shallow knock offs(glares at you Castivlnia lords of shadow).
random rant LOL
I'm more of a nutty half wit than most Fallout can be tedious(try majoring in throwing ><) but wooly hell Fallout 3 is blindly piss easy its like they didn't even try and balance it, even with all the mods I have shoveled on it it didn't really make it great 0-o .
...dun mind me....on topic? I never know what that is >>
System shock 2, now there is a game that qualifies for an enhanced edition. It was only accidental that I had the privilege to play it back in the day and it does not get enough credit for being awesome.
To go back on topic: Lets save the ridiculous ideas for BG3, which will be a watered down disaster anyway. Just the ideas they are coming up with on the project eternity forum is causing me great distress.
System shock 2, now there is a game that qualifies for an enhanced edition. It was only accidental that I had the privilege to play it back in the day and it does not get enough credit for being awesome.
To go back on topic: Lets save the ridiculous ideas for BG3, which will be a watered down disaster anyway. Just the ideas they are coming up with on the project eternity forum is causing me great distress.
Hopefully it wont be a bioware game. Tho Looking at games like Arcanum MP is not that bad.
I also been thinking if you convert spell points to magic points straight up and leave regeneration out. Just sleep/rest for a day to get them back the up side you can cast more low end spells but not as many high end spells and you still have retain some level of balance.
Honestly this sounds dumb I've never had a probablum with the magic system. In fact I find it easier then mana based magic systems. Plus you feel more like a real Mage in my opinion.
The closest thing to what you're describing in 2nd edition was Psionics (though if you wanna wadd psionics to BG, be my guest, but do so as their own class, not replacing the whole magic system to do so. part of what broke me from using them is that NO dnd game video game official uses them (The PRC for NWN was working to add them and got pretty close, but I heard they shut down))......Though the sorcerer is basically a bridge between Vancian style magic (which most DnD systems have primarily used) and mana point system (which Psionics basically is).
And whoever made that FF1 comment...The magic system in FF1 was LITERALLY the same as what a 2nd/3rd edition sorcerer uses. You had a very limited number of known spells per spell level (3 per spell level out of a choice of 4 of black magic or white magic, class depending (and the red mage had to pick from all but the class exclusive spells), and got so many casts per day per spell level as you leveled up which casting any spell used up from that total and they never returned unless you used a tent or stayed at an inn. It's LITERALLY the same thing as a sorcerer is in Baldur's Gate.
Comments
This explains a lot actually.
Also worth noting is that the Longbow historically was the Middle Age Machine Gun, they were fired in such quantities they darkened the sky. It wasn't that the archers carried a great deal of arrows each (40 arrows are not "light"), but that it was overall a simple matter to make more wherever one might find a tree. If BG could emulate this feature to make "craft wooden arrows" a standard ability for the Archer class, it wouldn't be unbalancing and would ensure they always have ammo to handle the issue; an option with more verisimilitude to my mind than either magically infinite arrows or essentially carrying around sixteen quivers of arrows to make sure you don't run out.
However, on the mage topic: AD&D is several games within games. For Mages, the name of the game is Strategy.
A mage must prepare spells, and more importantly, must conserve them for when they are needed. They must be cautious, especially in the early levels, because they only have a few spells, but chosen correctly, even one of those spells can change the course of an encounter - if they prepared the right spell.
Where a Fighter can swing a sword all day (hitpoints permitting), a Mage can stop time itself, rewrite reality, and destroy their targets in such numbers and with such brutality that Fighters would weep like little girly men - if they picked the right spell.
And this is what being a mage is all about: Prepare for what you expect to face at the beginning of the day, then balance the need to conserve those resources with the need to win the game. In exchange, Mages and Clerics gain more power and versatility than any other class (can you imagine a Dragon Age mage casting "Wish"? Or summoning a literal army of creatures more powerful than the party fighters to fight for them?)
To give them the ability to cast spells at whim is to destroy the entirety of game balance because you're not very good at resource management. In 3.5 Mages dominate, with or without optional spellpoint rules (because they do indeed still use Vancian casting as a default), but the class that's *balanced* around magical access all day long is the Warlock; a Warlock cannot fulfil the role of a primary caster. A Psionicist uses "spell points", but in return, they have nowhere near the Mage's ability to change their spell loadout; a Mage can be a completely different character from one day to the next.
In 4e, they didn't scrap Vancian casting either, instead, they went in the other direction and gave Fighter classes "powers" that they can use per/day, per/encounter, and At Will, just like the mages got, except more arbitrary. And because Mages got powers per/encounter and At Will, the things they could do were stripped down to simple combat tricks, barely any utility abilities, none of the spells that allowed them to scry out their opponents and appear in exploding balls of lightning, and instead of being able to pick and choose their powers to prepare for the day they were stuck with particular spells they had to use over and over.
In 4e, the game became more about resource management, not less, and D&D Next is likely to head back the other direction and give their mages spells per day again, because 4e was not the success they had hoped for.
So yeah, no spell points, and if you want infinite wooden arrows, try scripting a "make arrows" option like Eldoth has, and have it applied to CHARNAME automatically, so you can make 40+ arrows per day on demand (and out of combat).
I was disspointed in bioshock they marketed as the second coming of SS2 and it came out as a watered down over simplified mess, if you can ignore the clumsy deaf/blind AI, so many items being every where you can never hope to carry them all, lack of death penalty,unpolished weapon upgrade system and heavily under utilized U invet ect,ct,ect.
All what you just said can be boild down to defend the mages in the party and kill things with everyone else unless you can actually find a use for the mage. You do that too in Jrpgs but at least they do not try and make up a silly rule where you can't really use the magic you have on hand.
Even Final Fantasy 1 spell point system is better developed/suited for video games than the Vancian system.
Almost anything is better than it, but in my last post I was talking about looking at how much spells are used during a normal adventure and come up with an improved system. It seems no one wants to bother thinking the old horrible mechanic is fine because its old.
All in all I would rather have a setup where ammo did not take up alot of slots/weight that way I don't have to worry about it.
Early game:
"Your mages are limited-use bazookas with limited, specialist ammo. They need protecting."
"Your fighters are machine guns with unlimited, but largely unchanging ammo."
When something needs blowing up, you bring a bazooka and you let rip. If you select the right shells to fire, then you will either:
1: Kill everything.
2: Disable everything ready for your machine gun to take out easily.
3: Leave large numbers of targets helpless, giving you a much easier time in general.
4: Protect yourself from harm.
Mid game:
"Your mages are now howitzers with bazookas attached. They have limited ammo but can select for a wide number of different shells now. They're pretty hard to kill, but need some support from Fighters to keep from having their spells disrupted. They can also summon machine guns."
"Your fighters are machine guns with an ROF and Accuracy upgrade."
Now, mages have a larger number of spells per day, not only can they concentrate on doing the big things, they can spare extra spells to blow on Force Multipliers, like Haste, damage mitigation, simple and easy crowd control....
And because Mages are awesome, their low level spells get better as they level, without taking any more resources to do so, so the Chromatic Orb spell that, at level 1, blinded a target and hurt them, by level 12 does four times as much damage and is a save or die.
Late game:
"Your mages have an almost unlimited arsenal of nukes. Also they can summon howitzers with bazookas attached. Also they can turn themselves into an infinite number of slightly weaker duplicates of themselves, all fully loaded."
"Your fighters are machine guns with another ROF and Accuracy upgrade."
And here's where the analogy breaks down, because a Mage offers things that simply break the game.
The Vancian system is why mages in D&D are more powerful than mages in most other systems, because they have "MP" per level, not overall (which they spend in advance, unless they're a sorcerer).
Saying "sure thing mister mage, go ahead and cast "REVISE OBJECTIVE REALITY" on a cooldown that's anything shorter than 'one year'" is the suggestion of someone who has no freaking clue whatsoever how the Vancian magic system works, nor any grasp of the strategic implications it requires you to consider.
Every day playing a mage is like building an MMORPG character from the ground up. Do you get "cast magic missile three times", or do you go for "cast magic missile once, and Sleep twice?"
Do you think you'll be meeting a lot of creatures immune to the Sleep spell? If not, then the ability to disable entire squads of enemies leaving them vulnerable to being beaten to death even with your terrible mage THAC0 makes Sleep probably more worthwhile. You only need one sleep spell per fairly large combat and your mage has won the battle for your entire party with one spell. He can do that only one time a day? At first level? Maybe even two or three?
Damn right, if your mage is not outright winning battles for you by spending *one spell* as early as level 1, then you're not playing your mage right, and they definitely do not need to be able to beat more than one or two encounters *by themselves* per day.
Moving on to your suggestion, might I direct you to one of many such reasons why your idea is loathed?
Level 1 Spell: Naharl's Reckless Dweomer - Cast any spell in your spellbook.
Yes, your "new system which nobody appreciates because they just don't appreciate how 'improved' it is" means that wild mages can cast any spell they like, as much as they like. And you're requesting this as a core feature to the game, rather than some wildly inappropriate cheat mod?
To be blunt: Yes, the Vancian system is a strange beast, and yes, it may not be the best system in the world, but no, you clearly have no clue how mages work in D&D to suggest an alternative, nor is there a simple one which would not be hilariously ass-backwards broken with the wide range of system quirks interwoven with it. In AD&D, the fact that the Mage has just brought down two level 9 spells onto their target doesn't mean they can't then bring down a level 3, a level 6, and four level 7s. Everything is based and balanced around this idea.
It is also based and balanced around the idea that mages cannot, unless they are willing to rest every combat, Nova and cast every single spell they know.
Yes, I appreciate you're not very good with mages, try wands instead of wasting your spells every combat. Play a sorcerer. Try multiplayer with someone who can handle your mages for you. Please do not try to rewrite a game system you neither appreciate nor understand.
But all in all it will be interesting to see the market penetration on it once it launches, for myself being a crazy half wit nerd I just want it to be a bit less of a pain to play.
I would love to see something in between spam them all Jrpg and crusty and rusty ancient Wrpg mechanic time should have forgot.
I loved DS1 you can easily move party members where you want and stuff. Hell even the gambit system from FF12 is a good idea for AI tuning just not gaining the gambits LOL(if you do not know gambits are AI actions, there are a few dozen of them but you have level up how many gambit slots you have).
I just do not see any games trying to take the good mechanics and making a great game of it all the can do is make shallow knock offs(glares at you Castivlnia lords of shadow).
random rant LOL
I'm more of a nutty half wit than most Fallout can be tedious(try majoring in throwing ><) but wooly hell Fallout 3 is blindly piss easy its like they didn't even try and balance it, even with all the mods I have shoveled on it it didn't really make it great 0-o .
...dun mind me....on topic? I never know what that is >>
To go back on topic: Lets save the ridiculous ideas for BG3, which will be a watered down disaster anyway. Just the ideas they are coming up with on the project eternity forum is causing me great distress.
I also been thinking if you convert spell points to magic points straight up and leave regeneration out. Just sleep/rest for a day to get them back the up side you can cast more low end spells but not as many high end spells and you still have retain some level of balance.
-Endure, in enduring grow strong.
And whoever made that FF1 comment...The magic system in FF1 was LITERALLY the same as what a 2nd/3rd edition sorcerer uses. You had a very limited number of known spells per spell level (3 per spell level out of a choice of 4 of black magic or white magic, class depending (and the red mage had to pick from all but the class exclusive spells), and got so many casts per day per spell level as you leveled up which casting any spell used up from that total and they never returned unless you used a tent or stayed at an inn. It's LITERALLY the same thing as a sorcerer is in Baldur's Gate.