Carbunkle Squirrelbane's page

Any build using a medium mount (halfling paladin etc) .

Long story short without pvp'ers losing thier gear pve'rs are going to lose out on alot of business on the flip side pve'rs will also make the potions food gear etc etc that pvp'rs need to succeed so it is a ying and yang system that needs to be balanced within a reasonable amount so that everyone can contribute in some sort of way

I have not played the original kickstarter so am unsure exactly what is proposed for the Beta.

There are a few things that help in other games to mitigate the consequences of pvp griefing. These all have upsides and downsides. Strategies include hire-able NPC bodyguards for characters below a certain level, pvp being disabled at early levels, the inability to loot equipped items and the provision of player housing and/or bank vaults to store valuables not needed when adventuring.

Oh come on don't be like that. I remember hearing about half-dragon players before 4.0 was ever released, and dragon disciples even longer before that. Red Dragon Disciple was a prestige class in an expansion for Neverwinter Nights that predates 4.0 by years.

Not saying I'm super excited to see this end up on game... but that comment was as rude as it was wrong.

Apologies then.

I was trying to make the point that half-dragon was not commonly a player race until 4.0 and that if you can choose any race at all as a player race why not a beholder? It probably came out badly.

As far as flight goes it would need to be limited to travel I suspect. The combat dynamic for flying players would be tricky especially if you allowed fly-by-attack/shock-trooper feat combos against ground targets and the whole concept of air to air combat WWI style between flying player characters while interesting might be a nightmare to implement in the short term.

The serious PvP/griefing issues will probably not arise until after the beta.

The sort of player that enjoys singling out non-combat roleplaying/crafting characters (the sort of character often played by highschool aged girls who are in the game to socialize not fight) and harassing them to "teach them a lesson" are unlikely to bother with the Beta.

in terms of Remapping Keys this is also very helpful for those with disabilities, in one of the MMO's I play (LOTRO), one of my kinmates is paralyzed from the neck down, and use his mouth to play the game. Turbine was very helpful with getting his system set up to use the game via video conferencing, and now it is pretty amazing to watch him that straw.

Tell him to investigate the TrackIr system or one of the free alternatives.

Long as I can get my vorpal dagger I am happy :D

To be honest I much prefer characters that create themselves by finding items/weapons over time to the WoW style pre-optimised build that is preplanned from day one.

... interesting side point, if you stick someone with a vorpal dagger instead of throat slashing does it still function ?

Being wrote:

Understand that a neutral-populated hex surrounded by Good aligned hexes would behave similarly.

So, you're saying that a Neutral Settlement surrounded by Good Settlements would seek to sabotage or weaken the Good Settlements?

That doesn't seem right to me. I would think their self-interest would give them an incentive to, in effect, mooch off the benefits of having nearby Good Settlements.

Neutral does not necessarily mean selfish or having no moral standpoint. In fact to some extent that view is a result of people wanting to be self centered and independent and choosing neutral alignemnt as an excuse to allow that play style.

In contrast I have seen many people play a neutral alignment in a manner that in modern politics would be called "centrist".

A true neutral community may for example be simply opposed to fanaticism of any type and actively oppose extreme views. As I stated in another thread, from a TN point of view a Paladin is just another fanatical Sociopath.

Pathfinder Online
No rattle of D-20 dice
Just windows crashing

I don't expect it to be implemented on at launch, I am more curious as to whether its even being considered for the game. Although I suspect you would have to design the game with flight in mind from the beginning to get it right.

Its really a 4.0 thing.

Meanwhile I want to play a beholder :D

A paladin who is paying an assassin isn't a paladin anymore and you clearly don't understand what a paladin is.

A Paladin is just a Sociopath working for the good side. :D

Cannot see Wood Elves being available in the near future ... unfortunately ... they are hardcore

Since you're playing a human, you have access to something better than Toughness, Fey Foundling! My favorite starting feats for a human paladin are Power Attack and Fey Foundling.

Then, you get a very interesting choice at 5th level. Do you want a divine bond mount or weapon. Both are very good, but call for different feats to get the most use out of. I suggest choosing based on the campaign you expect to play. If there's going to be room for a mount, get a mount! If not, go for the weapon.

I'd do one of these two:
level 1 - Fey Foundling, Power Attack
level 3 - Furious Focus
level 5 - (Bonded Mount), Mounted Combat
level 7 - Ride by Attack
level 9 - Spirited Charge

OR ... if your DM allows Shock Trooper and you are going mounted, replace some of those with Improved Bullrush and Shock trooper - lets you Ride by attack, full power attack and take the hit penalty off AC instead.

Seriously though ... with that sort of party mix, if you are going to tank it, especially on foot, you are far better off building a Battle Cleric ... gives you Righteous Might, Heroes Feast also sorts of other goodness.

In Real Life, an Evil organization survives by removing internal threats to their organization, usualy by killing them. This won't truely remove a threat in an MMO because there is no perminant death. You can try casting out a "trouble maker" but it won't do much good if there are those who have already been swayed by them, and they are free to continue to talk to their "friends" that are still within the organization.

Well the other issue is "spies" are impossible to track down. There is no way of knowing if a new prospective member is genuine or another alt of the leader of some enemy guild which is out to destroy you.

Thus nefarious activities are hard to keep secret unless the plotting is kept to a trusted inner core who conduct their plotting in a secure environment.

(And water proof halls, with slight incline, a removable plug and drain at the end...got to think about the clean up.)

A twin empowered disintegrate trap with maximize thrown in will leave very little mess to clean up.

Actually, forget that, just use a 9th level Imprisonment spell in your trap. Guaranteed no mess.

Alignment discussions can often end up going in circles but are still important. :D

I might add at this point that I also see LG Paladins as Sociopaths :D

I believe that we can have a very solid reputation by being lawful, while at the same time advancing the cause of Evil by increasing our holdings, power, and naturally the bad-assry of our standing army.

A bit of off topic alignment philosophical discussion ....

I see that as actually tending more NE rather than LE --- all that self interested increasing holdings and stuff. Selfish motives are not Evil in themselves, just selfish and hence neutral.

Overruling Selfishness is Narcissism and hence neutral. To me Evil is typically more Sociopathic rather than narcissistic.

There is an unfortunate tendency for many players who claim to be evil to actually play chaotic neutral, doing whatever suits them at the time or whatever benefits them as an individual, including "blowing stuff up and killing stuff" just for fun.

Real life LE groups such as the WWII NSDAP in Germany expected self sacrifice for the benefit of the nation. Individual "rights" do not exist in a LE ideology - survival of and enforcement of the rules and social structure is what matters. If an individual is a problem eliminate them as a matter of course efficiently without passion.

LE is actually rather hard to play well in an online game context as much of what you might want to do counts as grieving in the mod/GMs eyes. For example LE might involve destroying, as a matter of course, any resources not immediately useful and exterminating mercilessly any group seen as an obstruction to your groups aims ((all good individuals not in an aligned guild ?) . These actions are unlikely to be well received on a game server (or in real life for that matter).

My Drow clan on one of the Richterm NWN perpetual world got there fingers smacked for leading Red Dragons across 3 maps to the enemy surface city.

I mean we didn't attack the city right? ... the Dragon did and its an NPC right ?

We were actually trying to be funny but I would not actually encourage such behavior it can get you banned on many servers.

Shame there are no Drow on the to-do list :D

Though the Drow are an interesting anomaly of CE individuals in a LE society.

This ain't WoW raiding. I can't think of anything short of an invasion where we are gathering the army that we would "strongly recommend" you be on TS for.

Well setting up as a nation pre-beta is sort of painting a big target on your rear ends :D I don't envy the 24/7 inter guild diplomacy some of you guys will need to be involved in. But that is half the fun.

I am currently thinking a CG dwarven crafting battle cleric with a tendency to payout "prissy LG types" especially Paladins. Though anything could happen in the 18 months before beta.

Might check out your site later.

Ironically bots often appear as a "counter" to players who are online 24/7, often but not always, because they are bedridden, home-bound or in some cases even institutionalized. Such players a can be hard to compete with.

User built Bots are of course a very bad thing as they are not controlled as part of the game mechanic and give the bot user unfair advantage.

One option is to limit the time an account can be actively logged in over a 48 hour period. Say a maximum of 20 or 30 hours out of 48.

This would have several effects.

1. reduce the effectiveness/need-for having the bots
2. reduce the risk of game induced necrosis
3. improve the general quality of in-game behavior as people that are logged in 24/7 eventually get very irritable, obsessive and unpleasant to deal with.

Of course 2 and 3 can be easily bypassed by logging in as another character (I wonder how many "guilds" will turn out to be multiple instances of one or two real players?) however every little bit helps.

meh ... just set a few Cadaver Collectors loose.

That should provide endless hours of fun for any one below level 6.

If nothing else it would encourage undesirable game-restricting powerblocks.

A Paladin is not really meant to be a tank but can do it.

paladins are best if you single class them.

Consider something like power attack and mounted combat.

Remeber Charisma and Strength matter most for a Paladin.

Carbunkle Squirrelbane wrote:

Tarondor wrote:

Preferred Alignments: All Good and Lawful Neutral

No true neutral ? Even if they behave?

From a mechanics point of view, I don't think you can a join an organization that has an alingment two steps away from your own. IE a LG group can have LG, LN, and NG members, but not CG or TN because they are more than two steps away.

If it is true, then I don't know if CG will be able to join either.

That is certainly how it works with clerics and dieties.

If you are correct, the illustrious Knights might need to modify there entry requirements and decline applications from CG.

EDIT: I see the CG problem has already been discussed at the start of the thread.

My question about exactly how military the organisation is still stands :D

Carbunkle Squirrelbane - True Neutral is not a desired alignment for those who risk their lives in the service of others. You have to be willing to take a stand on the moral issues of the game!

Spoken like a true Paladin.

So how military are we talking? Will there be ranks and a chain of command? Would a Chaotic Good character be able to fit in without ruffling too many feathers?

Preferred Alignments: All Good and Lawful Neutral

No true neutral ? Even if they behave?

It is unfortunate there is no mounted combat.

I am not sure how joining a guild helps the original poster "contribute" extra funds to the development :)

On a related note, I will point out the biggest issue when joining guilds can be finding one that has sufficient players in a compatible time zone. No matter how great the guild is, if they are only online at 5.00 am your local time its not much help to you.

In fact the only game where I would still encounter players travelling the roads a year after release was Everquest, since it did not have instanced content or instant travel(exept for ports from Druids and Wizards) at that time yet.

The NWN Richterm perpetual worlds had a lot of traffic on the roads.

However on Richterm servers instant travel was limited and generally one way. You walked to the destination of interest (for mining rare gems and ore for example) and then if you had the ability could port home. The exception was you could port out to an individual in the field who was in your own guild, however that individual still had to walk there.

So close to 1.1 Million ... amazing last minute response.

On another note I have yet to work out how to attach that pledge tag to this old forum account.

The term "pet" definitely implies a roleplay item that is not useful to the game mechanic.

Considering how often Animal Companions are accused of being overpowered it is a poor choice of wording.

[Raises hand slowly]

Uhm...I've never played Pathfinder before. I've seen posters of it hanging in my local MTG/Comic Shop, but didn't really know what it was before a couple days ago. I've also never played PnP D&D either.

I did play Neverwinter Nights on a hardcore PW Forgotten Realms role playing server for approximately 7 years. I also played World of Warcraft for a few years. So I'd say I come from a Persistent World, D&D, Roleplaying, MMORPG background. That's really why I'm glad I stumbled upon the Kickstarter page in the last couple days and why I chose to back it. So far it sounds like it has the potential to be an amazing game, and fits a niche of many in the NWN PW community looking for a way out of a dying game.

I think some of the best online gaming I ever had was with a Drow clan on a NWN persistent world.

We were always in trouble with the mods for playing the Drow as actually Evil whilst not technically breaking any rules :D Stuff like leading Ancient Red Dragons into surface cities where they would kill all the NPC guards and merchants used to get us in a lot of trouble.

In the original game the alignment was meant to work both ways though many DMs did not enforce it.

Hence your actions effected your alignment. However a strong alignment would to some extent "magically" effect your actions or ability to take certain actions.

It would be interesting to see this implemented in an online game. The paladin simply cannot kill the baby, his blow is somehow deflected and he gets a slight alignment shift for even trying. meanwhile the chaotic evil character randomly kills chickens and kittens and tells lies, with the player having no control.

I think it would go against the spirit of the kickstarter.

Besides, I believe they talked about having various other ways to get in (being an active member of the community and contributing a lot is one I hear... Despite I don't seem to do that a lot.)

+1

It would be unfair on people who left themselves short moneywise to get to a certain reward level if you could later just add stuff at the same price.

Any further fun raising should be new rewards.

1. Mounts or horses have almost always been convenience creatures. 95% of what I used a mount for never involved quests, it was just getting from place to place.

In online games yes.

In tabletop D&D especially the 3.5 period, no.

In 3.5 mounted Paladins with shock trooper/Ride by Attack/improved crits etc etc when full power attacking and smiting could do 500+ damage on a critical hit. Plus with a level 15 paladin they could fly. Well built druid animal companion mounts could be more powerful than most optimised player characters.

Local observation ...

Existing player base have tried it and do not like it, though casual players with a background in WoW or LARP seem more accepting.

The game here locally attracts a continual flow of younger players who try it for a short while before throwing the books in a cupboard and moving on to something else to be replaced by a new crop of youngins.

This is similiar to the Gams Workshop marketing model appealing to a continual turnover of young teens rather than trying to establish a solid player base.

Commercially if that is what is happening 4th ed may be quite a success.