Because of the way skills work now, I don't know if I fully agree about needing to maintain skill monkey type roles since you can do nearly anything untrained with a pretty negligible penalty.
But the idea of maintaining a way to create the various types of Monks that we have seen in the past is something I fully support. I think you could probably accomplish most of what you are looking for by having them adjust the signature skill area to read:
Choose 3 from the following as your signature skills:
-Acrobatics
-Athletics
-Crafting
-Medicine
-Religion
-Stealth
I think early survival may be a concern for the monk as the bonus from expert unarmored defense may not be enough if you build more strength than dex and aren't using crane stance. I'm not sure if the ability to be more mobile will make up for the roughly 3 AC less you will have than a fighter. Our group has it listed as a concern at this point since it looks like every monk would be basically forced in the early levels to prioritize getting bracers of armor. A mandatory item likely indicates something missing from the class so we are dry running encounters this weekend to see how some of the classes feel in comparison to each other before level 10.
I personally never saw a problem with one character having a modifier much higher than the rest. The Rogue is supposed to be the one disarming traps. I honestly don't see why the fighter would be offended that he doesn't get to roll at something that isn't his job.
The only problem, I think was when some characters just get better at everything than others (like wizards being able to solve every obstacle).
I do think that there should be a skill feat that lets a class add a skill as a signature feat. The almighty Perception is no longer a skill and for any other skill, I'd say that burning a precious feat is enough of a penalty for not having it on your class list.
And I would like to add my voice to what seems to be the common trend of people thinking that there is too little difference between the levels of proficiency. But admittedly, that's just number-crunching, which is what these playtests are for.
Just really getting into the meat of the book and dry run testing as a GM, but I definitely feel like the GM is supposed to use proficiency gating as the control for specialists.
Because when you craft you can have expert, master and legendary versions of items, I assume the intent was that those items automatically gated the level of specialist that would be able to deal with them / use them. So a Fighter can become trained in thievery and can open mundane locks (trained level crafts) with increasing ease as they level, but would never be able open a better crafted lock (expert, master, legendary) where the rogue who pushed thievery up would.
To be so early in the development process I am pleased at how everything seems to be getting attention and built as a whole as opposed to focusing to hard in on one aspect.
I also really liked the armor. Not only did it have a "lived in" or "used" look but it looked amazingly practical and realistic. Really looking forward to seeing the beginnings of spell animations since I only ever play a Wizard, so keep up the good work and great communication with us!
This is the item I submitted. Any critique welcome. Want to build a better entry next time.
Gloves of Silent Echoes
Aura: Moderate Abjuration and Illusion CL: 5th
Slot: Hands; Price: 37,800 gp; Weight: 1 lbs
Description:
These exotic leather gloves bare gold inlaid runes down each finger and a gold medallion, depicting a disembodied mouth frozen in a silent scream, on the back.
Once per day, as a swift action, the wearer can activate the gloves creating a 10 ft radius centered on themselves that affects all spellcasting involving a somatic component, and all magic items that involve a spell completion or spell trigger component. This effect lasts for five rounds. Both gloves must be worn to activate this effect.
When a spell or magic item is used all choices are made normally, but as the words are spoken they are stored in the gloves for 1d4+1 rounds and no sound actually comes from the source. Each glove can store one effect, the medallion's mouth closing when it is holding an effect, and the gloves cannot store any spell over 4th level.
Once the number of rounds rolled for a glove is reached, the effect contained is released and the sound goes back to the source where it is immediately spoken. If the source is no longer capable of speech, (the source is dead, in an area of magical silence, etc ) the words are forever lost and the effect does not take place. Any effect sent back to the source to be spoken is not affected by the gloves a second time. Once spoken, the effect happens as normal with all the choices that had been made before it was contained.
Construction
Requirements: Craft Wondrous Item, Dispel Magic, Silence
Cost: 18,900 gp
Designer Notes:
I was never really happy with the name and very much just considered calling them Silent Echoes or something similar to get away from "gloves of" but was never more comfortable one way or the other so I left it alone.
I also went back and forth a lot on how many times per day the item could be used and maximum spell level the gloves could hold. I think I should have either up'ed the usage to 3/day and left the spell level alone or moved the spell level up to 6 though I erred on the side of caution when I submitted it.
Lastly the idea behind the item was to have it be flexible and create opportunities for inventive play from the character. While you could absolutely put these on the melee and sit them on a caster you could just as easily stay in range of your caster to get the benefit of silence and delayed spells to take full advantage of your targets being unaware of you.
Just a few notes about what was in my head as I was working on the item.
Just to be a bit of a conspiracy theory instigator. GW has already said they have people on the team that they haven't announced. Maybe Scott is one of the people they haven't announced and that's why he is leaving Trion.
@kirstov bel
Unless a race has light sensitivity like those that typically live in the absents of light it doesn't suffer a penalty.
@Keovar
Yes Skyrim is single player and thus why I used it as an example. A lot of people are advocating for that type of lighting system, which I agree is NOT a realistic goal in an MMO.
And the point of discussing how is to get everyone including those at GW to consider whether it might be possible. While only they can say if it can be accomplished in the engine they have, the ideas being put out are 100% capable of being created and implemented, just maybe not in their engine.
Ryan says that client side real world lighting effects are not possible. That's fine. But as a community if we really like the idea of having a dangerous night cycle then we ask some follow up questions. We come up with some ideas that get around the hacking (in a vacuum anyway) and show a willingness to compromise to get something beyond just a less bright part of the day cycle implemented.
GW can then evaluate if the system could be done in the UNITY engine. They then toss around ideas of time and money to complete and evaluate whether the added depth of game play is worth the dev time now or in the future. Because we are crowdforging with the devs we know that not every idea will make it into the game because of time or other limitations but that shouldn't stop us from having a detailed discussion about it to help GW vet the idea.
I think a big part of the disconnect is I'm thinking of a system that simulates "true night" in feel and mechanics without actually needing to be based 100% in lighting effects. You start by rendering everything darker than normal similar to current mmo's but you shorten the draw distance at night so that after a certain point (120ish? ft for max line of sight at night) the world feels closed in on you like it would at night (This setting would have to hard coded to take effect during the night cycle so it was separate from normal draw distnace). This drastically reduces the textures that have to be rendered by the system as an added performance bonus.
Next light sources are used when considering perception related checks that server is doing but are not real time effects, though with shorter draw distance you could probably add a bit of "spell effect" visual (again this doesn't let you see more or effect the environment much other than letting you "see" your light source much like a fireball tinting things red briefly). Either way YOU can see 120ish ft of environment that is rendered in a manner that feels like night, but YOUR CHARACTER will not be able to see every object in that 120ish ft unless the proper perception evaluations are passed. Even if I hack the render at this point the only thing effected is the environment so I gain no edge since objects are being handled outside of this. If I have a torch and normal vision then an object that is beyond the dim range of the torch should count as invisible to me and thus not be rendered at all. I would assume this would be much like how stealth would be handled in that I can see everything in the environment but the rogue hiding in the bushes is not rendered because my perception was not high enough to see him.
My other point was that you could use additional textures to further the feeling of the night by using textures with less resolution and more black during the night time phase. Again not completely so but to lessen the definition some as you would actually have when it's night. Same with the flavor of darkvision loading a generic black and white line texture for a human when I encounter one out and have no light source but can see them with my darkvison.
Basically you go a bit darker than most MMO's by default and let players adjust that to get the environment as night feeling as they want. But use light and vision as an actual mechanic to reinforce the dangers of the dark. I feel that completely ignoring the mechanical workings of the night and the opportunity to make people afraid of it would be a mistake.
I agree that it makes sense to defer to GW when it comes to what is actually possible in the UNITY engine but so far the only actual discussion has been about real world darkness like that in Legend of Grimrock or Skyrim and not about whether it is possible to find a middle ground.
As a player of several MMO's I miss the feeling I get in Pathfinder or single player video games of the danger of the night. That sort of monster under the bed feeling you get. I don't think its unreasonable to think that a system can be thought of and developed that can deliver on that feeling without needing to go to the extreme of 100% lighting effects.
Unfortunately, try as I might I can't seem to get people to stop discussing Skyrim type darkness and instead consider if there is a way to beef up the night cycle of current MMO's to get us closer to that ultimate goal.
I upped my pledge to $395.
Kickstarter only charged my CC $275. What to do? I really don't want to miss out on the add-ons I added the $120 for.
you'll more than likely have to contact either kickstarter or amazon payments about it, as they handle the pledge system and charging. If you do a quick search you should be able to find the thread that GW and Paizo put up with the proper links for just this sort of thing.
Have you read my posts at all? I get that people are still discussing the night cycle in the sense of dynamic lighting effects, but I think everyone can agree that in an MMO environment that can not be done.
However that doesn't mean a meaningful night cycle with racial vision taken into account can't be accomplished to give the game more flavor. It seems you are content on just hammering home the point of "client side lighting will be hacked so no night cycle" rather than engaging in any discussion that is offering up alternatives to that which could create the same "feeling" without all the actual effects.
@ Harad Navar
I don't think even with the absence of a night cycle that the spell darkness would be affected. When in the radius of the spell your screen wouldn't render anything so you would have nothing to hack per se. And when viewed from the outside so long as the client is told not to render anything currently in the radius of the spell, again no hack should negate that.
I'm curious what you think about the idea that I put forth. I clearly agree that true lighting effects for night are beyond the scope and budget of GW (and most MMO companies honestly) but that doesn't mean you can't create a meaningful night cycle.
I would be interested to see the conversation moved from lighting effects like Legend of Grimrock to a discussion of a system that makes the change from day to night meaningful and even atmospheric without needing to go all the way into client side lighting effects for all things.
As I've said before just because it isn't being done in other MMO's doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done in PFO, especially because of the added gameplay that it could bring.
First let me reassure you that I agree it would be better to have true night. But I also agree with Ryan that I'm going to want to play on an even playing field.
I keep bumping into problems with the 'reduced draw distance' idea, even though it is elegant in most respects.
At night if there is a campfire a mile off I am going to see it clearly, even though it is over 120' away. If I move and I pass some sort of object between me and that distant campfire it will occlude the view of the campfire.
If I am in a great hall in a dungeon and a sconce of oil is lit in a distant hallway I'm not only going to see that lit sconce but also the shine off the polished table, the glimmer of the utensils on that table, I;m going to see the seams in the flagstone paving the floor of the hall and all are farther than 120' (and some closer).
If I am outside at night and there are stars in the sky I will be able to see the sillohuette of the mountain as well as the fir trees.
It won't work to simply not draw what is beyond 120'.
Okay now that we are on the same page :) I think these are good points but first I can't think of a game right off that will show you a campfire over a mile away.
I think you are more in the realm of realism, which I would love to have myself, but I don't think is possible even from much larger companies with much larger bank rolls. I think the solution is to get the "feeling" of the night correct as best that you can with as much realism as you can within the bounds of the engine and the system.
For example you could potentially use "set pieces" of terrain to handle some of what you mentioned. A town way off in the distance is a known point so are the mountains beyond that. You wouldn't necessarily need a draw distance greater than your immediate vicinity to draw that as it is almost a background to your immediate area. So potentially two layers. the not quite so detailed background of mountains, and large set pieces and then the rendering of your immediate surroundings of trees shrubs, overturned carts, etc.
I admit handling campfires, assuming you can create them adhoc and are not known points, would need more thought to a decent solution. But that's what game companies are for. I am but one person so I definitely don't have all the answers.
But overall it should be possible to create a more real night than currently exists in the MMO space (lets face it there really aren't night cycles just less bright times of day) in PFO. It won't be completely real or observe every rule of the real world but it should be a step beyond what we have and we are already suspending disbelief for those.
I will try and describe my system for true night a bit better so you can understand what I mean since it seems clear that what I actually envision isn't coming across well and may help assuage some of the concerns you have.
I think a big part of the disconnect is I'm thinking of a system that simulates "true night" in feel and mechanics without actually needing to be based 100% in lighting effects. You start by rendering everything darker than normal similar to current mmo's but you shorten the draw distance at night so that after a certain point (120ish? ft for max line of sight at night) the world feels closed in on you like it would at night (This setting would have to hard coded to take effect during the night cycle so it was separate from normal draw distnace). This drastically reduces the textures that have to be rendered by the system as an added performance bonus.
Next light sources are used when considering perception related checks that server is doing but are not real time effects, though with shorter draw distance you could probably add a bit of "spell effect" visual (again this doesn't let you see more or effect the environment much other than letting you "see" your light source much like a fireball tinting things red briefly). Either way YOU can see 120ish ft of environment that is rendered in a manner that feels like night, but YOUR CHARACTER will not be able to see every object in that 120ish ft unless the proper perception evaluations are passed. Even if I hack the render at this point the only thing effected is the environment so I gain no edge since objects are being handled outside of this. If I have a torch and normal vision then an object that is beyond the dim range of the torch should count as invisible to me and thus not be rendered at all. I would assume this would be much like how stealth would be handled in that I can see everything in the environment but the rogue hiding in the bushes is not rendered because my perception was not high enough to see him.
My other point was that you could use additional textures to further the feeling of the night by using textures with less resolution and more black during the night time phase. Again not completely so but to lessen the definition some as you would actually have when it's night. Same with the flavor of darkvision loading a generic black and white line texture for a human when I encounter one out and have no light source but can see them with my darkvison.
Basically you go a bit darker than most MMO's by default and let players adjust that to get the environment as night feeling as they want. But use light and vision as an actual mechanic to reinforce the dangers of the dark. I feel that completely ignoring the mechanical workings of the night and the opportunity to make people afraid of it would be a mistake.
I do want to make clear that the idea of complete darkness and only being able to see what my torch illuminates because that's the only area that my lighting effect is helping render is not a solution I agree with either. I hope that the above helped clarify what I would like to see and what I was trying to convey earlier.
I'm not sure why you clicked 'reply' to my post when you didn't actually address it.
I addressed what I thought was a comment about the mass availability of cheap light as a reason not to have a true night phase. If that wasn't the intent of the statement I apologize. I did go beyond that in the rest of the post though.
Being wrote:
Anyone stop to think how long it might take to redownload the geometries of what wasn't drawn due to darkness the first time someone decides to make a light?
Of course you could excuse the lapse in frames saying your eyes are adjusting to the brightness. Unless the light is from an onrushing band of hostiles...
It's not really any different than having a spell effect light up an area. This portion would still be handled the same as it is now. But as far as something suddenly appearing because light was suddenly brought into existence would be no different than having a party of players suddenly pop in from being invisible since you don't download the geometries when someone becomes visible, your client is told which textures to load from your local storage (most likely in RAM while running) by the server and the client simply draws them. Again I'm not an expert but I just don't see this as much harder to handle than invisibility.
especially if the decision has already been made that everyone will cheat.
Who is more likely to cheat, the average new player or the average PK?
Whether the server takes on the processing load or the client handles it and people do or do not hack it, IT DOESN'T MATTER. GW has already invented lore reasons for MMO tropes (Pharasma marks you to be resurrected if you die), and as I have pointed out twice now, there is cheap and permanent magical light available.
Unless the world itself is bio-luminescent then light out in the world would still not be what MMO's have chosen to display. I'm not against not having true darkness, but I think the opportunities to have smugglers who specialize in running at night, and having the added tension to transporting goods at night, or even bumping into monsters while at night to be highly desirable.
I understand GW may chose not to take on the challenge of true night and that's fine but it should be because the undertaking is too big, or there are limitations beyond, what amounts to a cop out IMO of "hackers gonna hack". If that was the case then we might as well keep the game text based because people are going to Bot with 3-d characters (This is hyperbolic on purpose).
There is no reason not to present both sides of the argument and any ideas that we can about what we would like to see. It's simply letting GW know what we are and aren't interested in and something to dream about while waiting on the game.
... if you can not see something your client would never be told about it...
That's exactly what I said. That means the determination of whether or not you can see something has to be made on the server.
Yeah I think we're both on the same page mostly. The only disconnect is that I don't agree with some of the concerns expressed by others in thread over the concerns of extra load on the server. In relation to not having a true night phase, yes, there would be more load on the server.
But my point was that if you look at the load on the server to accomplish a true night phase that it would be no more taxing than running large scale combat where invisibility has to be checked for. When I am adventuring at night am I likely to ever need more visibility checks than a person during the day engaged in large scale combat where my opponents and allies both have access to invisbility? I don't believe so.
This is why I don't see having the server handle visibility in the night to avoid the potential rendering exploits, to be an issue. There may be other technical limitations but I don't agree with the extra server load portion being an issue like some people have suggested.
@Pharazon, the problem with darkness that Ryan was concerned about was that it would be easy to hack to be able to see through it. This is because the Client process can't be trusted to enforce any rules. If the Client is aware of something, then the player can be aware of it. In order to keep the player from being aware of stuff their character shouldn't be aware of, you have to make that determination (should they be aware of it) on the server, and only send things to the client if the character should be aware of it. Making that determination on the server means more work on the server.
I understand the argument but I don't think it holds up in my scenario. The difference between what he is talking about and what I'm talking about is that if you can not see something your client would never be told about it thus not rendering it, like something that is invisible. If you can see it then it just has to be determined what you see. Rather than render a character model and have the client render it with effects that make it look like its in shadow (which is what he was talking about with hackers keeping the client from adding these render effects) I was saying that a entirely different texture would exist.
For example it would be the same as telling the client to render a tree versus a shrub. You can keep any effects from being rendered but you can't have it render a shrub instead of the tree because it is going to pull the texture for the tree not the shrub.
Going one further, assuming someone took the time to replace all the person.shadow textures with person.normal textures it wouldn't really matter because you are supposed to see them anyway, just not that clearly. If the person is beyond what you can see or you fail your perception to see it, it never renders the object in the first place so no amount of texture replacing or render hacking will make it render since your client doesn't know about it.
This solution has been discussed before. It requires a lot more processing on the server, to determine what information to send to each client.
I don't see how it is a lot more processing on the server side of things. client has all the textures locally and only needs to be given the command to default to "shadow textures" after a certain time so that check only needs to be done every so often. As far as choosing whether or not to display an object how would it be any more intensive than having a platoon of mages cast invisibility or invisibility sphere in large scale combat which is likely to happen?
It would operate along the same parameters as invisibility for determining whether or not an object should be rendered by the client so I don't think its outside the realm of possibility.
As far as non player objects are concerned it seems a system that grouped objects and determined if the group was visible would also be a way to keep the number of things being processed down.
You also have to keep in mind that draw distance would automatically be cut back (overriding any other draw distance setting) during night which again cuts back on the number of checks that the server would have to do in order to tell the client what to draw.
Again I'm definitely not an expert but the processing requirement came up in my discussion with friends and if you are going to have hundreds of people in a large scale battle situation and invisibility as an option then I don't see how the system I brought up is going to be any more taxing than that.
I understand what Ryan said but what he was talking about is fundamentally different than what I was asking. What Ryan is talking about is having the environment and textures loaded then telling it to be rendered a certain way. What I am talking about is actually choosing not to render at all what you can't actually see, and having low definition (shadowy) textures for that which you cant see clearly.
This would mean that you would render that "shadow" textures normally which keeps you from altering how it is rendered. You could still technically make the environment brighter by changing the render under what I'm proposing but it wouldn't matter because its not the rendering that is making the textures shadowy to begin with.
My idea actually came up as I was discussing what Ryan said with some friends. I asked my friends that question and none of us could think of a reason that wouldn't work. I realize it might not be realistic or feasible but it seemed worth bringing up.
This may be more of a technical limitation question that only GoblinWorks can answer but here goes.
When looking at creating a darker night for enhanced imersion would it not be possible to to use a combination of actually darkening the environment and Draw Distance, Character Draw alterations to accomplish the task.
The trick, IMO, would be to have a check before drawing a character on screen similar to invisibility where a person's vision was checked and maybe a behind the scenes perception check of sorts. If at the edges of what a person can see then it would a very low detail "outline" (maybe even somewhat generic to cut down on models needed) of the approaching person. If they have darkvision you could load a thermal outline of the approaching person.
It could even be passed on to the environment to a degree as it could load a "shadow" version of the textures which I realize would increase the size and number of the textures in game but Because of the low detail and the fact you would already have the normal texture it should be relatively quick to alter.
Just some general thoughts but basically if you create textures that load during this part of the day/night cycle and simply have things that aren't seen not rendered then people can make the general area brighter but can't detect a person simply by altering how the game is rendered. I'm not super familiar with the exact tech that makes a game so there may be limitations I don't understand and any feedback would be appreciated.
--Pharazon
**Edit**
I realized an example may be useful.
I have lowlight vision and have a light source. If something is withing 20ft my client will tell my graphics card to render normally anyone that isn't invisible or stealth beyond my ability to see them.
Because I have lowlight vision the twice the area of lowlight will act the same way as above for me. For anyone with me that does not have lowlight vision if they make a basic perception check they will load the "shadow" texture of anything they see.
Beyond the lowlight area every character model for all intents and purposes would count as invisible and thus not be sent to the graphics card to render at all.
Darkvision would work as the others except it would load its own "thermal" texture.
It would make sense for the system to work something like the following as well:
Player A finds armor. based on quality it has 2-3 default looks that it can have. You don't get to pick how the armor you find looks as normal.
Player B creates armor. Based on quality and skill he has between 2 and 10 different looks he can choose from when crafting said armor. Adds variety to the craft and higher skill gives access to rarer and more intricate models of armor.
Player C has found armor and likes the bonuses but not the look of the armor. He goes to player D to have the armor glamoured where he now has access to a slot on his character screen to "equip" a piece of armor that replaces the look of his current armor. Because glamour in Pathfinder isn't restricted to the same type of armor or armor at all, any armor or cosmetic garb (dress shirt, trousers, dress, etc) can be equipped.
Dyes IMO should not simply be an item to be purchased but more of a service. You find the tailor who using a trade window of sorts performs the dyeing of your armor, with more options for dyeing the armor and more colors being available to those with higher skill in tailoring.
I think it depends on how they actually implement the system. I don't think they would be foolish enough to take control of your character away or not let you break formation or even force you to into formation.
I imagine that under certain circumstances (large scale battle) that the system would look at your positioning and recognize when you have moved into a formation and then based on the formation look at your skills to see what bonuses to apply to you.
For Example: A line of shield wielding characters followed by a couple wizards right behind them. This type of formation may grant the wizards bonus AC versus ranged attacks and bonus no to cast defensively (if there is such a mechanic) and grant bonus ac and attack to the fighters up front for working in unison. It is essentially granting them team work style feat bonuses based on their skills as a reward for holding formation, without forcing them to actually chose the team work feats.
This creates a more fluid idea of formations and would be interesting on the battlefield because you would be constantly weighing keeping your bonuses and holding formation against breaking formation because you feel your position is weaker than it would be without the formation because of the enemies battlefield position.
I would like to offer up an interesting situation that has come up in my Pathfinder games here at home. My wife is an avid player and while not a girly girl has evolved her character into a barbarian that fell in love with the more sultry evening wear of civilized society. As such she started trying to where dresses over her armor and fighting without the armor in a dress until she was able to glamour her armor.
She is now a lucerne hammer wielding barbarian who appears to be slaughtering her foes in evening wear. She also has a 14 in charisma so the people of Magnimar have taken to calling her the beautiful nightmare.
I bring this up because my wife chose one of the most fierce classes with the most masculine of under tones and surprised everyone playing by favoring the pretty. It has made for a very fun character to see played. This is not to say that she is running around as Barbarian McSlutbag but she has found a way to preserve a bit of her feminine side which should not be completely ignored in PFO.
I do not agree with chain mail bikini's in Pathfinder. In games like Terra where its not traditional fantasy they can take it however they want. But with everything else having a real feeling (economy, settlements, crafting, etc) overtly sexual armor would be out of place in my mind.
The system that EVE uses requires recipes to be able to craft items in the game. The transporting of the highest level of these recipes becomes a very dangerous task that causes bandits to try and figure out when and where the transport will happen. In addition to these recipes being only craftable by the highest level crafters, it takes a tremendous amount of research to discover them in the first place. Once learned you can then work on refining a recipe to make it better and better. So the stats of Magic Item X would be different from the same item crafted by someone who had taken the time to refine the item.
I don't think it should be so much that a caster is needed to craft as much as it should be that dedicated crafters who put time and effort in should be making better items than those that "dip" into crafting. Of course this type of system would need to be altered to work with a fantasy setting better but ultimately having a very robust crafting system is nearly the same as adding additional classes to the game.
When I originally started playing MMO's I was of a similar mindset regarding PVP and feel that most average players are as well. The difference for me came from playing EVE to be perfectly honest. Most MMO's like World of Warcraft and other themepark MMO's have a system that doesn't haven't have adequate risk to the killers and basically no incentive for the good to punish the bad. In this type of environment griefing was born and has permeated the MMO genre to the point of scaring most players away from PVP all together.
EVE has a decent system of punishment and reward but in my opinion the idea of the threads and death curse system is a good evolution of the EVE system. In addition if there are actual cases of griefing that get out of hand the devs have made clear that they will be actively banning accounts that are outside of the spirit of the system.
I think you are over estimating how complex the system actually is or under estimating how important the threat of pvp is for this type of game. Without the threat of unprovoked combat traders and crafters would have no fear of moving their goods from one hex to another and doing so would have a severely negative impact on the economy. In addition there would be no need for guards or smugglers which are directly created by the players who choose to try and prey on the good.
From a complexity standpoint the system itself is not that bad. The players that do not want to pvp can hire others to protect them or to move and sell their goods without leaving the safe zones themselves. If they do move their own goods maybe they take skills that will let them move their goods in secret via stealth or maybe they don't travel the roads directly instead taking a more round about path.
If they are killed by another player then they have two options that they can use to punish the player who killed them. First they can simply take out a contract in which they add the names of anyone capable of collecting the contract to it. This prevents the killers friends from collecting the bounty and gives me the opportunity to get revenge even if I'm not capable myself. Second if you really want to punish the player you can level the death curse which again acts like a contract where I can specify people that can kill my killer. And while under the curse the killer has to worry about losing gear that they have "threaded" to themselves which creates a much larger risk for them.
The only real issues I see right away with the system is that the killer needs to be forced to keep any threaded gear on that they had at the time of the kill so they cant simply equip crappy gear until the curse goes away. And the curse timer needs to only go down while they are online. Other than that the system is very simple.
I don't mean any disrespect but have you read anything from the devs on their intent for PVP. They have a pretty detailed post on their blog that completely negate the potential for the system that you propose and quite frankly your system doesn't fit into a world that needs to be self policing for the most part. There will of course be a couple of safe areas and some "moderately" safe areas but what they propose to handle the situation is very clear and very much a step in the right direction taking what EVE already has and building in more flexibility to handle griefing.
From the dev Blog (small section please read the entirety if you have time):
Quote:
What does "Threaded" mean?
Each character has a certain number of "threads of fate" they can use to tie their equipment to them, thanks to the rather unusual relationship the characters have with the goddess Pharasma—the same relationship that causes them to keep coming back from the dead. These threads cause the items to which they are tied to remain with the character when the character resurrects, meaning threaded items cannot be looted. Higher-level items consume more threads to tie them. Characters earn more threads as they advance in level, but they gain threads more slowly than they gain level-appropriate gear. This means a starting character will be able to thread all of his equipment to him, while a high-level character will probably have to pick and choose what he uses his threads on if he is using all high-end gear. If a low-level character gets his hands on a high-level weapon, he will probably have to expend most of his threads to keep it, meaning the rest of his gear will be lootable.
If a character dies and manages to make it back to his husk before it is looted, he has looting rights and can regain all his equipment. So if his allies can keep his killers away from his husk, they can make sure he gets his gear back.
In addition to the time it takes to loot a husk, each player has an encumbrance limit that determines how much gear he can carry. This starts out at a set number that can be increased by race (i.e. dwarves have a high encumbrance limit), by equipment (bags of holding, backpacks, etc), or by spells or feats. Each item in the game is rated in encumbrance, and you can only carry items that have a combined total encumbrance equal to or below your encumbrance limit. So even if someone kills you, they may not be able to make off with everything they could loot from you. This also allows certain crafting or gathering equipment loadouts, like trading cloaks for backpacks and wondrous item slots for bags of holding.
If you are killed in a non-consensual way, such as being ambushed while minding your own business, you may level a death curse on the killer by praying to Calistria. Doing so costs you reputation, but the cost is reduced if your killer has a low reputation (and if he is a gank-happy killer, he probably will have a very low reputation). Once invoked, the death curse causes your killer's threads to become weakened for a time. If your killer is in turn slain by you or one of your specified agents before the death curse ends, more of his gear may be looted. Your killer cannot have the curse removed by having an ally kill him and refuse to loot him; it only goes away if he is slain by you or someone you specify, such as a member of your group or settlement.
The system that GW has proposed at this point seems like a pretty well balanced plan. In a sandbox you need the risk of players being bandits to create value in the economy for guards and transporters of goods. This will go very much to the core of moving goods around and creating services that players can provide for income in addition to simply going out after raw materials they can then protect the finished products or smuggle them across the map.
To counter act people being overtly grief oriented the Threading of items to protect certain pieces of your gear and the leveling of a "death curse" which can cause your griefer to have his threaded items looted is a pretty strong deterrent that creates a fun risk vs reward for those in the bandit lifestyle.
Being able to control who can get credit for the death curse kill is how this is all balanced. same with contracts. If I dont put your name in, you cant collect. I think this will be at the very least a solid starting point that can be easily tweaked as time progresses.
Still looking for a shield mate with most of the daily deals. I only have about a weeks worth. I am an EST player who will most likely be playing a wizard type character. Send me a PM if interested.
Looking for a shield mate with as many daily deals as possible. Wouldn't mind someone who is already guild affiliated to have a good group of people to start with. PM if interested.
Just another quick note. If there isn't a specific rule that governs this type of thing I would be curious how other dm's might approach it. Just want to be able to sit down and have some more opinions for when my group next meets so we can discuss it a bit.
Isil-zha, the water was only 2-3 feet deep and not a river specifically. I understand that in water where your only option was to swim through it because it was 4-5 ft deep, acrobatics would be useless. My question is more specifically about water that you could reasonable stand up in and try and move across. Would this count as slippery or difficult terrain that would allow for acrobatics to be used to keep your balance as opposed to defaulting to getting down in the water to swim?
Also of note is that the water during this sequence does not get any higher as the flood is from a partial dam break and actually begins to recede shortly after the sequence.
I had a situation arise recently when running rise of the runelords for my group. There is a section in the hook mountain massacre where there is a flood in turtleback ferry. In order to get to a boat hung up against the side of the general store the material indicated that it would require a swim check to reach. Reading through the description that was given It seemed the water at the boats location would be between 2-3 feet deep.
It seemed odd to me that only a swim check dc was given since, it seemed to me that a player of medium size would still be able to walk though not very well to reach the boat. I gave a player with a low swim the choice to use acrobatics and treated the dc the same but made it about balance. After discussing the issue with another player after the session we can not agree if this was the right course of action.
Would like to know if there is a rule in regards to water that can be traversed by standing or swimming, like crossing a fast moving creek, and if not how other DM's would have handled the situation.
Not to complicate the matter but I have a thought that I didn't see an answer to in the comments (apologies if I over looked it).
I get that if there are 10 possible out comes you could arbitrarily pick any two of those and that would be 20%. But I think the confusion lies in the minor details.
If you have a percentile set and roll the tens place (00-90) and 00 is what comes up that is not in the bottom 20% automatically. It has the possibility of being 01-09, but also 100 assuming a zero on the other die.
I'm not an expert but the relationship of the percentile dice to each other and that you can roll low on on the tens die and still end up with a 100 seemes to change the dynamic some, while most likely not really effecting overall probability.
To the OP's point though, you can just say 1 and 2 are a miss and everything else is a hit and you get your 20% on one die. Just thought I would point out where I personally believe some confusion came from.
I can't think of a rule off hand that would make it increase the CR. The bestiary is using an average HP total but like with players you will have some above and below that number. I alter my monsters slightly anyway so the players who know the bestiary well are kept guessing a bit.
I would also think that so long as you are maxing the hp on the players that maxing the health on the monsters would be a fair trade even though I dont think you even have to worry about that really.
The text I used was overtly cinematic as to the point of hyperbole to over emphasis my point.
In actuality I would not have even given the part about crawling along the ceiling until after the player had told me how they planned to exit the room. And I would have simply let them know when the magic item function had stopped (building tention), maybe described being able to see the surface still hundreds of feet away as he begins to choke. The emotions would be the players own to feel, but I emphasized them originally so that as a DM the OP would understand to create a scene where the player cares about the death and maybe feels a twinge of sadness, rather than the "well that was dumb, your dead".
It was not the best way to go about my point for sure, but death of a character should make the player feel something and by building the scene you can keep it from feeling arbitrary or GM vs Player. Hope that clears my post up a bit.
I have had many players die after the infamous "are you sure?". I don't use it often and if asked will allow my players intelligence, gut, intuition, or whatever checks if they ask for them. I roll behind the screen and tell them info accordingly. After reading through this situation I think the GM was in the right to kill the character though I have a couple of caveats.
1st - No matter how stupid and nearly instantaneous a death will be for a player make sure to give them a bit of cinematic:
"After holding your breath for over a minute you clamber along the ceiling back to the doorway of the captains chambers as the last of the light fades. Once outside you (make a survival check to determine direction) start swimming as hard as you can but even as the light starts to come back you realize just how far down you have been drug. You think back to the pleas of your friends. The look of concern that only true friends would have, forever etched in your mind. As you begin to choke its not fear but shame that you feel. What pain will your friends endure because of your greed. As the light fades from your sight, all you can do is hope that your tears added to the oceans water will carry your friends to safety."
2nd - I don't personally believe that it was unreasonable for you to think that the ship would suck him under. (The fact that it was on Mythbusters shows how commonly that is believed). However, I do think there is extreme danger in looting a sinking ship as detailed above but just agree to learn from your mistakes, in this case physics, and move on.
3rd - I believe several people in this thread were too quick to jump all over the player for wanting to loot. While I think the below deck area of a ghost ship was pretty dumb to loot. The captains quarters were completely reasonable and maybe that would have been an opportunity to toss an intelligence check so that the player could realize that it is a ghost ship and likely only the captain has the really valuable stuff.
This is just my take on it so remember the grain of salt and all.
Yeah I'm definitely not asking people to be rude. I was very polite and pointed to the very short "quick info" posts that Kotaku is prone to due for kickstarter projects. I highlighted some of the new and interesting aspects of this particular kickstarter and forwarded the emails that were sent to me with information.
I realize there is "some" coverage but especially heading into the end of the kickstarter I think having requests going out (polite and well put together requests mind you) would be good to get a broader range of coverage for the game.
Especially considering how many times the MMO community and gaming community in general mentions that it wants another sand box to play in.
**I'm not expecting a crazy in depth article that could cover a couple pages in a gaming mag, more like a blog post that is a few to half dozen paragraphs.
I have forwarded both emails that I have received to the tips@kotaku.com ( a website about games geared specifically for gamers) and have had no luck in getting them to even put a small blurb about the kickstarter even though there have been several other less deserving kickstarters mentioned. With the kickstarter rapidly nearing its end I would love to see people reach out to the gaming websites with me to help spread the word to get people involved in the kickstarter.
If Paizo or Goblinworks read over this please reach out to these sites as you need visibility for this project and greatly deserve it. The sandbox nature of the game and the crowdforging direction alone is news worthy and should merit a decent write up from these sites.
