Avernum 6 Discussion

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

I know this might be a little early, but seeing how fervid the discussion about changes made to Avernum in the second trilogy is at the moment, I thought I could open a thread in which we could sort things like that out.

 

So, what would you like to see in Avernum's future? Note that this is not supposed to be a suggestion-thread directed at Jeff, but a more general one where we can discuss our imaginations for Avernum 6 (it's plot, engine enhancements and so on) as well as technical issues we might have with the re-writing of the older Avernums.

 

And be nice to each other!

[madrigan]

NPCs that join your party for a time. I think the older games had that.

 

The encumbrance system of A5, but the action point system of A4.

 

Better boat pathfinding.

 

A character editor that lets you give your characters experience, money and equipment -- any item in the game with the possible exception of unique items like Demonslayer. Along with, of course, all the skills and spells.

 

The return of Dionicio and Melanchion. And the talking spiders. It would be funny to meet an Intelligent Friendly Talking Unstable Mass or something. "You're cute!" BOOM!

 

An adventure ranging over all of Avernum -- Upper, Lower, the Abyss, the Frontier, and beyond. I missed being able to visit The Castle in A5.

 

As this is the last chapter, beyond-the-grave communication from legendary characters -- Erika, Micah, Motrax. Maybe PC heroes from previous games also, in some sufficiently generic way.

 

Possibly, some time on the surface.

[Zummi]

Quote:

Better boat pathfinding.

Agreed. It's funny how your PCs don't try to maneuver around an isle to get to the other side instead of just going straight ahead.

Quote:

It would be funny to meet an Intelligent Friendly Talking Unstable Mass or something.

I would rather see more of the GIFTCs. "Look at my mandibles. It's so mandibular!"

And I would like to see a longer-than-A5 A6. A5 was too short. You won't enjoy the uber trainer and equipment since you'll be getting them near the end. That raises another thing I want. Earlier uber things. Not that early but not that near end either.

[Sullust]

Unidentified Items and Item Lore...

[madrigan]

Quote:

Originally written by Lt. Sullust:
Unidentified Items and Item Lore...

Hmm, maybe. As long as it doesn't cost a huge amount to pay for identification.

I can't believe I forgot this: The ability to smash down doors!

[Cadfan17]

1. Skills shouldn't have non functional prerequisites, such as melee weapons as a prerequisite for a spear wielder who wants to get to blademaster. If this is a balance issue, just increase the cost of blademaster directly, or add a semi-functional prerequisite instead of a non functional one.

 

2. Reduce the amount of foreknowledge necessary for optimization. If the game is ok with me buying 3 ranks of a skill from a trainer, then paying for 3 more ranks with skill points, it should be ok with me doing this in the opposite order. If the concern is for balance, since leveling a skill up prior to paying for ranks would let you pay less for a higher level rank, either account for this in game design, or make training cost you a small amount in skill points equal to the difference between what you would have paid and what you did.

 

I'm not sure if that's clear... let me explain this way.

 

Lets say that NewSkill starts by costing 4. There's a trainer that lets me upgrade it for 500, 550, 600 in gold.

 

In AV5, I'll probably hold off on investing in NewSkill until I meet the trainer. So maybe I'll buy three ranks in it for a total of 1650 gold, and then pay 5 skill points to get a total of 4 ranks in NewSkill.

 

But lets say I've already bought one rank in NewSkill for 4 skill points. When I meet the trainer I upgrade my rank in NewSkill twice, but can't train the third trainable rank. I'll have to spend 5 skill points if I want it, leaving me at 1150 gold and 9 skill points spent.

 

Why not set it up like this instead?

 

Lets say I've already put four skill points in to buy a rank of 1. When I get to the trainer, I want to train 3 times. The cost to me is 500 for the first training, 550 for the second, and 600 gold plus one skill point for the fourth.

 

Now, mathematically, I'm in the same position I'd be in if I had done things AV5 style and waited to meet the trainer before investing at all. Plus I got to play with a cool skill earlier.

 

This can easily extrapolate out further. Suppose I had bought 4 ranks with skill points. Now it would cost me 6 to upgrade again by using skill points. If I go to the trainer, the cost would be

 

500 gold and 2 skill points

550 gold and 2 skill points

600 gold and 3 skill points

 

Still putting me at exactly the place I'd be in if I had held back from investing in advance.

 

See the advantages? Now I don't need a guide or multiple playthroughs to optimize my character. I can just do what comes naturally, and things work out on their own.

[madrigan]

Sorry to post multiple times, but I keep thinking of stuff! I like this topic.

 

I'd like a diplomacy/bartering/charisma skill.

[Brock The Archmage]

i'd like to see the return of some of the old spells from exle. the arrows spells for multiple targets, the field area spells to make dangerous terrain, creating magic barriers, quickfire, and above all, mindduel!!!!!

 

Edit: mindduel without th stupid going over max spell energy bit.

[Tyranicus]

If we're bringing back Exile spells, I want Shockwave.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

Personally, I was a little disappointed by Battle Disciplines. I had anticipated things like a Chuck Norris-roundhouse kick kind of attack skill that would damage all adjacent enemies, etc.

In Avernum 1-3, I sometimes played non-magic parties for fun, but in A5, that seems absolutely impossible. Don't know about A4.

 

What do you think? Would that be overpowering?

[Guru]

All the game mechanics suggestions are great.

 

I miss the ability to curse with a spell rather than only with disciplines

 

For the interface, i suggest the ability to zoom in and out on the playing area (like civilization). This would make a large map more player-friendly.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Cadfan17:
2. Reduce the amount of foreknowledge necessary for optimization. If the game is ok with me buying 3 ranks of a skill from a trainer, then paying for 3 more ranks with skill points, it should be ok with me doing this in the opposite order. If the concern is for balance, since leveling a skill up prior to paying for ranks would let you pay less for a higher level rank, either account for this in game design, or make training cost you a small amount in skill points equal to the difference between what you would have paid and what you did.

This is a clever idea and worth emailing to Jeff. I doubt he'll implement it, but I kinda hope he will.

[tappie]

1)I agree.

Personally I like to make the most of my character, but dislike having to check all the guides to see which trainers exist to make sure i don't waste skill points because you cant buy certain skills if you train in them first.

 

2)would also like to see atonomy work on bows and other throwing weapons(I feel they are neglected)

 

3)and would like to be able to take 2 positive character traits and one negative.

 

4)would like to see more unique items

 

% chance for some weird special effect on hit makes items feel more unique and interesting.

(including bows, and throwing weapons)

 

15% chance to fear on hit or a chance to be confused or a chance to charm, or something.

 

or some amulet or ring that gives a chance for something you kill to come back as an undead on your side.

 

unique items with unique effects that require clearing puzzles or dungeons or something for the player to earn.

 

Or for example you may hunt down some super powerful mage and you get access to a unique spell from one of his books that cant be found anywhere else

 

5)battle disciplines

 

I did like the addition of battle disciplines in A5 but I feel some of them are not very useful.

 

And it would be nice for a few secret ones to be hidden somewhere to be learned from a book or something, or maybe even you have access to a special one if you have equipped a certain unique item.

 

6) I felt some special skills were very hard to reach and you couldn't really invest much into them first time around be cause you didnt know to save points for them until it was too late.

[Student of Trinity]

I also find it a bit irritating to have to buy Pole Arms levels just to unlock Blademaster for a fighter who will never touch a pole arm in the entire game. But it actually seems somewhat plausible to me, somehow. To be a real expert with a shorter weapon, against enemies with pole arms or long claws, you might well need to know a lot about just how such weapons work. And you might well then find that the alternative perspective gave you some outside-the-box advantages in fighting other swordwielders.

 

I'm the first to argue that CRPGs don't need to be realistic, that a lot can be idealized or iconified in the name of playability. But on the other hand these games are basically a simulation genre, and they lose their appeal if they don't have, among their conventionalized representations, enough things that seem realistic in some sense. Realism isn't the only criterion by any means, but it does have some merit. So I don't see a big need to abolish the useless prerequisites just for the sake of so doing.

 

What I could certainly support, though, would be taking a harder look at whether more interesting mechanics might be used to represent the same quasi-realistic concept. Perhaps you could instead unlock Blademaster by defeating a certain number of levels of opponents who use each of several classes of attack. That would be the same idea, really, but fun instead of irritating.

 

About not needing background knowledge to optimize, I think I agree, but only in a sense. I don't think it has to be totally obvious how to make the ideal character. The fact that it takes some skill and experience to make a really good character is one of the attractions of games like these. But knowing that you have to hold off on training in a skill until after buying it, that's a perverse and meaningless kind of knowledge. It's more like knowing how to exploit the game's bugs, and less like appreciating the well-balanced subtleties of its combat system. So I agree we should have less payoff for that kind of trivial foreknowledge.

 

Consider a hypothetical FRPG, however, in which archery is weak at low levels, but can eventually become very strong because of the way it can be cleverly combined with other advanced abilities or items. A novice player would notice no big payoff from archery and give up on it. But an expert would relish the challenge of having to struggle with wimpy archers at the start, for the sake of later being able to stomp the big endgame demon, on Torment difficulty, by combining high Pwnagemastery skill with the Hail of Arrows feat.

 

To me, that would be a good feature in the game. Especially if half-way through the game, or just at the point where even the more persistent novices would be abandoning archery, there was an in-game hint from an NPC about how powerful archery could eventually become. That sort of thing adds a lot of replay value, I think.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
Consider a hypothetical FRPG, however, in which archery is weak at low levels, but can eventually become very strong because of the way it can be cleverly combined with other advanced abilities or items. A novice player would notice no big payoff from archery and give up on it. But an expert would relish the challenge of having to struggle with wimpy archers at the start, for the sake of later being able to stomp the big endgame demon, on Torment difficulty, by combining high Pwnagemastery skill with the Hail of Arrows feat.

To me, that would be a good feature in the game.

I disagree. Earning a payoff for challenges taken on earlier in the game is all very well if you know in advance that that's what you're doing, but it seems to me that having difficulty remain constant throughout the game (after accounting for the need for a learning curve) is more important. If a game is easy or difficult with a certain skillset for the first 25% of the game, then the logical development of that skillset should keep the game equally easy or difficult for the other 75%: there's not much that annoys me more than a game that suddenly gets much easier or harder at the end.

I will concede that making a previously useless skill valuable isn't as bad as making a previously valuable skill useless, though.

[Slawbug]

I dunno, SoT. I intensely dislike the possibility of playing at a disadvantage for a while in order to gain an advantage later. I dislike it precisely because it exists in most games in some form or other, and usually the time you wait is long and the advantage is small. The problem is that in Avernum-style RPGs, the further you are in the game, the less difference any individual skill, spell, or item is going to make. Torment or not, economizing on a couple of skill points isn't going to make a huge difference in any game.

 

But for those of us who are compulsive optimizers, it's still hard to pass up. Yeah: I could pretend the opportunity isn't there and not optimize on that. But it's a slippery slope. As soon as I'm willing to depart from the reality of the game mechanics in that small way, I may as well depart in other ways, and pretty soon I'm flat out cheating.

 

The idea of needing to combine archery with Pwnagemastery or some other obscure combination of skills in actions to defeat a big bad on Torment is great. Space for creativity is always good. The idea of needing to play suboptimally for half the game in order to be creative? Really crappy.

 

Which leads directly to my brilliant reinvention of the CRPG that I will never make. Sigh...

[Nioca]

Something I recently thought of: Level-acquired skills. Basically, it'd be 3-5 tiers of unique skill sets, and each time you hit a level requirement for a certain tier, you could select a single skill from that tier to keep and train in for the rest of the game (sort of like traits, but trainable). Each tier, the skills would get more powerful, from the first tier holding a few interesting skills that grant a small edge, to the final tier holding some uber-powerful skills that drastically improves a character's performance.

 

It's an interesting thought, anyway. Definitely holds potential for making interesting character builds.

[Student of Trinity]

Hmmm, maybe my suffer-to-be-strong theory is a matter of degree. Being a bit weak for a third of the game, say, in order to be a bit strong for another third or more, that still seems reasonable to me. Being useless for half the game in order to totally break the game's last chapter, I agree that that's just ridiculous and infuriating. The differences at stake shouldn't be negligible, but they shouldn't be totally game-changing, either.

 

A game should not become trivially easy or impossibly hard, but I don't see that uniform difficulty is really important. Variation can be fun, with some spots harder and some easier, as long as it's within limits. The problem is when it's not variation, but a steady trend, because then the limits will eventually be exceeded.

[tappie]

would like to see a return of mind duel too.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

How about this:

 

There are skills (standard, trainable ones as well as unique ones found somewhere... btw, wouldn't the Mad Monk Monastery be the ideal place to acquire a unique Battle Discipline in?) which enable a character to be ass-kicking in a specific way.

 

Think - archery, in real life, is ideal for killing single enemies, while swords are more effective vs. many foes. Why can't bows and javelins deal huge amounts of damage, maybe be poisoned, strike vital points to "curse" the target in a specific way, etc., while melee weapon-wielders may use an ability to hit multiple targets, and so on.

 

I don't think one has to decide between weak character builds and overly powerful builds. There should be enough possibilities to specialize your characters in what way you see fit according to your party composition.

[Alorael at Large]

Quote:

Originally written by Rent-an-Ihrno:
Think - archery, in real life, is ideal for killing single enemies, while swords are more effective vs. many foes.

That's not really how archery works. Swords are useful for killing people close to you and help a lot for not getting killed by people close to you with swords. Bows kill people from far away. You can actively do something about swords coming towards you, but it's much harder to do anything that put a shield in front of you and hope arrows hit it.

The limits on an archer's deadliness is his supply of arrows and his ability to hit enemies before they get too close.

—Alorael, who really thinks it works best to think of longbows, at least, as very gun-like. They have more limited range if you want accuracy, and they never become semi-automatic, but an archer is more likely to kill many enemies quickly than a swordsman. Swords are much more dependent on opponents having poor armor or being unskilled.

[Slawbug]

Not to mention: how exactly are swords more effective against many foes? Cute as it is to picture Hollywood heroes doing some kind of whirl and gutting three orcs with a single sword slash, that's not exactly practical with most melee weapons.

 

Nioca, you have a fine idea for a skill system there; but that's a very large step in the direction of classed as opposed to generic character abilities, one of the last things we'll ever see from SW.

[*i]

The main thing I would like to see changed is a refinement of buff. Things such as bless and shielding would be a far longer lasting effect with a corresponding higher SP cost much like augmentation and steel skin are now. This would force the player to be more judicious about which buffs to apply to whom. Negative status effects would fade with time.

 

In this vein, the negative status effects should not cancel out the positive ones. It would be fully consistent to have a character both blessed and cursed. The net effect should either be zero or slightly with benefit for the negative effect since it fades faster with time.

 

Also, haste is too unbalancing. The chief problem is spell casters being able to double up on things. If the cost for using a spell action were raised to 12-14 AP, I think this would restore a lot of the unbalancing nature of haste and make a hasted warrior that much more valuable.

[Randomizer]

Quote:

Originally written by *i:
Also, haste is too unbalancing. The chief problem is spell casters being able to double up on things. If the cost for using a spell action were raised to 12-14 AP, I think this would restore a lot of the unbalancing nature of haste and make a hasted warrior that much more valuable.

Can you hear the howls of a thousand anguished spell casters? Except for a few rare monsters that are almost immune to spell damage, spell casters always do more than fighters. Multiple targets and the massive damage per target make it possible for them to tear through monsters. Rebalancing it will take a major over haul of the games.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

Men are able to fight well with swords not only in movies. A good fighter is able to take care of multiple enemies at once, and this is not restricted only to swords. Still, it usually takes longer to kill someone with a blade than it does with an arrow because the arrow pierces armor the blade does not.

 

I doubt that varying the damage dealt according to distance and whether the target is wielding a shield or not and according to the fighting skill-differences between the combattants is so easy to implement, so my suggestion is still the same.

 

Archers should be able to kill regular foes with a single shot and somehow curse major ones, while melee fighters should be much more useful in cuddles, by better defense and new battle disciplines.

 

And I would strongly disapprove of a further weakening of Haste. I'm already disappointed it doesn't haste the entire party anymore.

[Student of Trinity]

Just about any weapon could make an instant kill if it hit in the right place with full force. There may be some advantage for arrows in penetrating armor because they strike at higher velocity than melee weapons, but they are going to strike with about the same kinetic energy and much lower momentum. Lower momentum seems like a disadvantage, but higher speed impact means that the target has less time to absorb energy by just moving. A spear mounted on a slowly crawling 60-ton tank could deliver the same kinetic energy, and enormously more momentum, but it would just push the target away, not pierce its armor. So probably this gives arrows some advantage, but I don't know enough about the physics of armor penetration to say how big this is.

 

I don't think it matters. I believe that historically melee weapons were about as deadly as even longbow arrows, once they were actually within striking range. But I don't think that matters either.

 

FRPGs that use 'hit point' systems are highly abstracted representations of combat, in which successful 'hit' and damage rolls do not correspond directly with actual physical injuries to the target. So arrows should definitely not have chances for instant kills. If you want instant kills, you have to revamp the entire combat system so that any attack with any weapon has some chance of killing.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

I don't mean bows and thrown weapons should have a chance for instant kills; I meant they should deliver so much damage to a single target regular grunts fall before them in a single hit. Ingame that wouldn't be so great an advantage as it might sound, since you can only hit 1 target a round, unlike magic. Plus, heavy armor could have extra defense vs. piercing attacks or whatever it's called.

 

I'm trained in both archery and sword fighting in RL, and very familiar with their history and physics. You're absolutely right about what you say, SoT, and the practical difference is actually tremendous. Many wars have been won or lost because of what armor the participating armies used and how highly their weapons were evolved. See the Spanish conquistadores for examples, whom the Aztecs couldn't withstand although they had an army of 1 MILLION men, or the English longbows which annihilated the heavily armored French knights during the Hundred Years' War, etc.

 

edit:

 

Major enemies (say Dorikas or Dirty Dan ) could be able to deflect any arrows or thrown weapons, because of the massive shield their wielding. Oh oh, and then PCs could have a Battle Discipline that distracts him/her, like Leg Sweep or something, so the archer can hit him/her off guard! I'd really like to see a playable non-magic party in A6...

[Swimmin' Salmon]

Not having read this thread, other than SoT's latest bit, and drawing on my experience as a hunter, but not as a bow hunter, I have to agree with him about the disadvantage of using arrows.

 

If you intend to go bow hunting, you either have to be stealthy enough to get extremely close to your target, or be a good tracker. Because, a well hit animal can go for 90-1000 yards after being shot in the lungs. They are not instant kills. Getting closer means trying for a heart shot, which is about the size of a softball, and the animal will still crash off 40 yards.

[madrigan]

Personally, I think the appropriate referent for archery in a fantasy RPG is The Lord of the Rings, not renaissance longbowmen or bow hunters. I would like a dedicated archer to be a viable character. How one gets there, I don't have a preference.

 

What I really want is to be able to equip two melee weapons.

[Zummi]

Quote:

What I really want is to be able to equip two melee weapons.

Ohyah! I missed ambidexterity and it always seemed cool when you wield two swords at once and not just one unreasonably, large sword.

[Student of Trinity]

I do agree that archery ought to be as viable as melee combat, overall, and that in A5 it isn't quite as good as it should be.

 

I can accept that arrows might never quite compete with melee damage. As far as simulation goes, there's the basic disadvantage that if someone's shield or breastplate is in the way of your arrow, you can't reach around it the way you can if it's blocking your sword. Against lightly armored targets that's not an issue, but then again it is much easier to hit an unarmored opponent within arms length with a sword, than to hit the same guy with an arrow when he's a hundred yards away and running fast.

 

As far as balance is concerned, archers have the luxury of changing targets with no AP cost to do so, of staying back near cover and healers, and of being able to attack enemy spellcasters and the like past their line of bodyguards.

 

So on both counts, melee needs to enjoy some significant damage premium over archery. What archery probably needs more is something to make it competitive with spellcasting, which has essentially all the same advantages, but does much higher damage. The disadvantage of magic, that it costs spell energy, is almost entirely mitigated by the fact that the party can just go back to town once the spellcasters run out of steam. Probably spell energy should be made harder to regain, somehow. Fewer energy potions, more areas where it's hard to get back to town, or something, anyway.

 

As to history: it's certainly true that military technology can make a huge difference. Guns, steel, and horses beat clubs, stone, and lots of guys, with no question. And it was indeed decisive at Agincourt that a longbow arrow could penetrate armor. Solid information about what really happened at Agincourt is a bit scarce of course, but it does seem that it was also a big factor that the French knights got bogged in mud, making them easier targets, and giving a longer time to keep shooting at them. In any case, this decisive victory for archers over knights probably still meant that dozens of arrows were fired per knight killed. By that sort of standard, even A5 archery isn't so lame.

[Evnissyen]

In regard to archers, and I think I mentioned this before: In real life, bows are a formidable weapon and can kill or disable a human being in a single strike. In A4 and A5, if not the earlier Avernums which I haven't played: The bows don't seem very powerful. A6 definitely needs more powerful bows, and deadlier archers.

 

On the subject: The Romans developed a heavy javelin that would penetrate an enemy's shield and would be very difficult, in the pitch of battle, to remove -- thus making the shield useless and exposing your enemy. Also, fighters of exceptional strength and heavy weapons should be able, I think, to shatter an enemy's shield in a couple blows.

 

But here're a few more ideas:

 

1. Damage bonuses with certain types of weapons (melee, poles, bows, thrown, magic) should increase in proportion with the amount of time spent using them.

 

2. The player should have some cability of telling things such as his/her character's dodging ability & to-hit percentages, which are not provided in the character info box.

 

3. Instead of restricting certain quick key slots to either items or spells: give the user the option of assigning a quick key to an object or a spell (and reduce or extend the slots in the character profile accordingly)... this including the function keys f1-f4 which, honestly, I never use. With both the Avernum games and the Geneforge games, I always have more spells that I want at the ready than there are slots for.

 

-- or: You could try to squeeze in a second row of options (possibly optional), that besides being clickable can be accessed by pressing down SHIFT in combination with the designated function key.

 

4. More realism in relation to people's reactions and attitudes toward me, and more significant consequences. In other words: their personalities, attitudes, prejudices, moments of taking offense should matter; if I offend them then there should be consequences. I shouldn't be able to reinitiate conversation and find it's as if the person never heard me say what I've just said.

 

And... when a dialog box says a character leaves the room, I should be seeing the character leaving the room once the dialog box closes (or else find them gone).

 

5. More variety of character images, or at least different ones. Honestly, I'm tired of ones I'm given. I usually like to pick the innocent-looking guy for my primary character, although he's got a cross and all, because he resembles me more than the guy encased in what looks like some sort of modified garbage can (I hate that graphic)... and it gets tiresome using him all the time. Also: character forms and roster-images should match; otherwise the player should be able to choose one roster-image & another character form

 

. . . Also: I agree with the people who say more spells!. And too many of the spells are repeats & improvements of the other. And there're maybe one too many fire spells in A5.

[Naldiin]

I don't post often, but we've entered the realm of military history.

 

The advantage of a bow is not that it kills with a single hit. The advantage of a bow is that you can fire it at distance. Conservative estimates on medieval longbows give them 200 yards (600ft) of range, while reconstructions of bowstaves recovered from the sunken Mary Rose have reached over 300 yards (900ft).

 

Given that a 'tile' in Avernum isn't probably more than a squad meter, you see the problem. The advantage of the longbow is pretty simple to calculate. 200 yards is just over 11% of a mile, the world record is 21 seconds and change. Expect a man carrying his own equipment and armor to be slower, closer to 45 seconds. Expect men (plural) in formation, to be slower still.

 

Add in mud (which is not unfair, contrary to popular belief, muddy battlefields are the norm in Europe, not the exception), and you have more than a minute to toss out fire. That does, quite literally, mean almost a dozen shots.

 

If you wanted to make bows realistic in Avernum, you'd either want to increase their range so that it takes 10 turns to cross, or to speed up bowfire, so that 10 shots could happen in the time it took a normal monster to close the 10 or so tiles of range you have. Either one would be a game-breaker.

 

As to lethality. Being struck with an arrow may not kill you, but it will absolutely render you 'out of the fight' instantly. It's not the force of the arrow but the shock (in the medical sense) of being struck.

 

Now, from an actual gameplay perspective...I'd suggest a slight upping-of-the-damage, to bring it inline with the damage from swords, but still less of pole-weapons.

[Evnissyen]

21 seconds? Are you joking? I could tie both of my shoe laces, and both of yours, in that time.

 

Arrows are not toy airplanes.

[Student of Trinity]

21 seconds is not the time of flight for the arrow, it's the sprinting time for the target to close with the archer and cut his fingers off so he can't shoot anymore.

 

The scale problem is a real issue for FRPG archery. It always has been. The weapon ranges in good ol' D&D were absurdly low — a scant 70 yards underground for a longbow's extreme range, if I remember rightly. The rationale was something about low light, low ceilings, low oxygen, damp bowstrings, I don't know what. It didn't really make too much sense, but the alternatives were either archery ruling everything because you could fire twelve unanswered shots before melee, or archery being useless if it were nerfed enough for that not to be a problem. Probably the only really good solution would be to invent an entirely new mechanic for archery, in parallel to melee and magic. But no-one has come up with one, that I know of.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

You all have very good points there. Letting bows and thrown javelins cost less ...uh... damn, what was the word? Movement point... thingies? You know. Also doesn't sound so bad to me. But I still think the damage should simply be greatly increased (though not to a higher value than pole weapons). Plus, they should have an ability like stunning the target or something like that, to slow the approach of the enemy or give him a disadvantage for the battle. As Naldiin already pointed out, the shock of being struck by an arrow is not to be underestimated. It's actually bigger than the one produced by a rifle.

 

One thing we should remember is that the parties we play are not armies. A single archer has a different significance than the ones standing in rows at the edge of a battlefield or on walls, shooting as far as they can into the faceless mass which is their foe. Our archers can only be highly skilled assassins, which have to use their advantage of delivering high non-magic damage to single targets at a distance in a strategically effective way. It doesn't matter that you can fire so and so many rounds at someone in RL.

[Slawbug]

The problem is hit points.

 

When hit points were first used in RPGs, decades ago, they did not represent health! They came from wargames in which "hit points" were the number of hits a unit could sustain before it was removed from play. This is different from health -- it's more abstract. If you lose a hit point it could mean a weapon injures your arm, or it could mean a javelin sticks in your shield, exposing you and reducing the number of future hits you can take, or it could mean anything else you imagine.

 

Then the numbers were ramped up, to reflect the fact that some hits are worse than others. But they were still hit points and not health points.

 

It was only when magical healing became powerful and widespread that HP began to be treated as health. Because it's hard to picture a simple spell magically repairing -anything- that happens to you in battle, but it's easy to picture a spell binding wounds and restoring biological order. Healing in original D&D was very limited, and even today most paper and pencil RPGs have weaker healing spells and lower HP totals, compared to CRPGs where you can almost always heal all your HP with a single spell, at any point in the game, and HP may go up to 9999.

 

If hits points represent abstact hits taken, you can be "hit" by an arrow or a blade and keep on fighting. If they represent actual biological damage, you can't really treat the damage realistically.

[Student of Trinity]

Arrows may be great, but no, they are not like rifles. Even pistols and submachineguns are not like rifles, where by 'rifle' I mean a weapon with long, fat cartridges and supersonic muzzle velocity. .22 caliber gopher-zappers don't count for present purposes, even though they do have rifled barrels.

 

Rifle bullets travel so fast that they create a dramatic ballistic splash effect inside a body, so that even if there are only neat little entry and exit wounds to show on the skin afterwards, inside everything within six inches or so of the impact has been pulped. You can survive a rifle shot to a limb, but not to the torso or head. In fact, a rifle shot in the torso trashes so much of your circulatory system that your blood pressure drops instantly to near zero, and you lose consciousness immediately and drop like a stone.

 

This is stuff I learned from my father, who once did the year-long course at the British Royal Military College of Science, and did his major project on wound ballistics. That included shooting slow-motion movies of big gelatin blocks getting hit by high-speed ball bearings, and briefly ballooning out to several times their initial size, just after the projectile passed through them. Sometimes they collapsed back to their original shape and looked undamaged afterwards, but living tissue would have been toast.

 

Arrows are not like this. They puncture you, but they don't splash your insides around.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

You're right about what rifles can do to you, but arrows are still worse in some ways. It's hard to explain in English, and really not all that relevant. I think our discussion has ended up in a corner a little -- any other suggestions? Plot-wise, for example?

[madrigan]

Quote:

Originally written by Rent-an-Ihrno:
I think our discussion has ended up in a corner a little -- any other suggestions? Plot-wise, for example?

I'm not sure how big the game will be. I'd like it if the game was really gigantic, and ended with the three nations -- Avernum, Empire, Vahnatai -- combining to defeat some incredibly powerful villain. Perhaps each nation is combating some internal threat, which drives the plot until the PCs discover that the three threats have the same source.

I like happy endings. I assume the game will have multiple endings, but I want the super-happy-good guy ending -- the forces of evil crushed utterly, all plot threads resolved, all circles closed, and the start of an era of peace and harmony among all peoples.

Of course, there would also be the option of allying with this malevolent force to destroy the rival nations, or simply to destroy everything good in the world.

[Student of Trinity]

Yeah, wound ballistics is certainly off-topic. I didn't really mean to beat an argument into the ground; I just got carried away on a factoid I acquired as a kid.

[Evnissyen]

That said, and sorry if I sound like I feel ignored or neglected here: Does anybody have any comments, in favor or against, on any of my proposals several messages up? ...That is, if we're no longer talking about ballistics and weapon speed and so forth.

 

I mean, well . . . I thought they were good suggestions... .

 

I'll actually modify one of them: Instead of adding a second row of spell and object slots: keep the one row except that when you hit the shift key (or control or, on the Mac, the option key), the slots on the screen change to the second series that you've selected. That, I think, would preserve that very 'clean' look that A5/A6 & especially Geneforge have.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

I agree with you on two points, Clavicle: character graphics should be enhanced, and there should be more of them, and there should be more spellls. Attack spells could be a little more interesting, and too many of them inflict fire-damage.

 

I guess the second row of quick slots-thingy could work out, so why not. I don't use them anyway, though, so perhaps I can't really tell.

Same thing with the dodging/hitting chances showing up on the char screen: I wouldn't care, and I'm not sure if it's possible, as those chances stand in relation to your enemies.

 

Most of your other suggestions seem very hard to implement. Plus, I don't like the idea of getting better with a weapon type by using it for a long time. You'd be stuck with it, and it contradicts the logic of the skill-system.

I think Jeff has already made the consequences your actions and things you say very realistic. Completely changing everything because of one answer you give wouldn't be fun, IMO. That aspect is already done perfectly in A5.

 

Concerning the plot: Yes, it definately should be much, muuch bigger. And I'd love to see more endings than two, as in A5. Why are there 3 nations in Avernum, anyway? I'm sceptical about the completely new-all powerful common foe, though. The end of the series should close the circle, but according to how it started.

A war between the nations, for example. A little A2-feeling

[madrigan]

Quote:

Originally written by Rent-an-Ihrno:

I'm sceptical about the completely new-all powerful common foe, though. The end of the series should close the circle, but according to how it started. A war between the nations, for example. A little A2-feeling

That's a good point. Introducing a very new adversary could feel contrived. There has already been a war between Avernum and the Empire, so that might feel like a rehash. I don't think Jeff could bring back Rentar or Grah-Hoth, or Garzahd, as central villains without it being totally lame. What about Mutant Undead Magical Hawthorne? He'd be tough.

It seems to me that the plot is going to involve the enormous Imperial fortress that is now located in Avernum. It's not likely that Jeff is going to put it there, emphasize its significance, and then ignore it in the final chapter.

What if we looked at it this way -- what, if any, plot threads remain unresolved? There's the Imperial fortress. There's the diplomatic relationship between the two nations, with a new emperor and a relatively new king.

I think the status of of the Nephil and the Slith remains ambiguous. The slith have Gnass, but otherwise they're scattered all over the place, plus there's the random hidden savage slith tribe. In A5, Jeff seemed to be emphasizing the plight of the Nephil diaspora and the ways that different individuals and communities are dealing with their present and historical displacement. Despite their improved legal status within Avernum and the Empire, I think that the Slith and Nephil are nations within the nations. I would like to see a more thorough treatment of this aspect of the story.

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

Exactly. I was thinking about the role of the Sliths and Nephils all game long - I don't think Jeff would've neglected them so much in A5 if he hadn't had something in mind for them in A6. And surely, after humanity has settled their conflict, the other peoples want to decide their own fates as well. And it doesn't look like the Vahnatai are that satisfied either.

 

But what could trigger the next events? One shouldn't forget that most nations have a mixed population by now - a secret plan of some sort seems more likely to me than an official invasion (for starters). And I think the Vahnatai would make the first move. After all, they're the ones losing their lands.

 

*cough* playable vahnatai pcs *cough*

 

edit:

 

Btw, I'd love to see Mutant Undead Hawthorne. I actually thought the same thing

His right hand could be Unleashed Pestulant Limoncelli.

[Slawbug]

What are all of these "nations" everybody is talking about? The Abyss has clearly been subsumed by Avernum, so there's really only one nation in Avernum; the only other "nations" are the Empire (covering the entire surface) and Vahnatai tribes (in the lower caves, never considered part of the caves of Avernum).

[Rent-an-Ihrno]

I meant Avernum as a game. Ermarian didn't seem appropriate as that term doesn't include the caves.

...or does it?

[madrigan]

Quote:

Originally written by GVDT:
What are all of these "nations" everybody is talking about? The Abyss has clearly been subsumed by Avernum, so there's really only one nation in Avernum; the only other "nations" are the Empire (covering the entire surface) and Vahnatai tribes (in the lower caves, never considered part of the caves of Avernum).

The three nations I have in mind are Avernum, the Empire, and the Vahnatai, as you say.

I would say that the Nephil and the Slith are also nations in the sense of "a people" as opposed to "a state."

[Locmaar]

Something just occured to me that we all should be more aware of. In a thread in 'General' it was rightly mentioned that we should be careful about language and take all due care not to insult one another, because, people pointed out, mothers of children, or worse, children of mothers might be reading this.

 

Keeping this in mind and with all due respect to the resourcefulness and knowledgability of certain members: do you actually think it appropriate for the aforementioned audience to read gory details about what kind of wounds which type of weapon inflicts?

 

Just a thought.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Locmaar:
Something just occured to me that we all should be more aware of. In a thread in 'General' it was rightly mentioned that we should be careful about language and take all due care not to insult one another, because, people pointed out, mothers of children, or worse, children of mothers might be reading this.

Keeping this in mind and with all due respect to the resourcefulness and knowledgability of certain members: do you actually think it appropriate for the aforementioned audience to read gory details about what kind of wounds which type of weapon inflicts?

Just a thought.

It's been a long time since you knew any children, hasn't it? Believe me: whatever we talk about, those little vermin will think up something worse on their own.