Thaluikhain

1 hour ago, SoulScroll said:

Edit-to-Add: If the question I asked above has significant truth to it, I think it's pretty sad that the almighty dollar has superseded raw, unfiltered artistic expressions designed to be interacted with by the consumer, otherwise known as gaming creations. If people feel offended, just don't look at it, buy it, or play it!

 

Eh, businesses do tend to end up following the money.  Look at that movie franchise that started out ok, but they kept adding more sequels and it got rubbish.  Daresay you won't guess which one I mean if I give you a dozen guesses.

 

As for just not buying offensive stuff...that's a bit trickier.  There's offensive and then there's offensive.

10 hours ago, Epopt Art said:

 

Is this "default assumption" actual in the rules, or is it just the general mythos that players are steeped in regardless of D&D?  What you're describing is something that may have changed organically inside individual players and inside the culture at large, but not something where D&D itself pulled the rug out from under anyone.

 

Monster manuals used to (don't know if they still do) have alignments for all monsters, including orcs who were chaotic evil, IIRC.

14 hours ago, Epopt Art said:

2) "not discriminating against orcs"

 

Evil orcs still exist, and I don't think anyone ever said they were offended on behalf of the hypothetical non-evil orcs.  For one thing, good orcs did exist in plenty of custom campaign settings; having a turncoat friendly goblin, orc, or other lesser minion has always been a popular trope, easily played for both humor and character development.  (I'm willing to bet there's even a reference to this in the core 2E rulebooks from 1989, though I can't produce one off the cuff.)  For another thing, Tolkien himself brought this up decades before D&D existed -- there's a Gandalf line about it, and I'll bet more than a few in Tolkien's letters, too.  Finally, the evil orcs haven't been removed; rather more options were added.  Adding a new option because people wanted to be able to play in new and different ways is not the same as removing an existing option because it was seen as problematic.

 

While evil orcs weren't removed, the default assumption that a race of intelligent human like creatures is going to be evil (or mostly evil) and it's fair to kill them on sight has been removed.  In theory.  The topic of killing orc babies still gets people arguing today.

 

But, ok, if someone claims this is more due to people wanting to play good orcs than because making them all evil is not a million miles away from some ideas floating around IRL, no way to prove otherwise.

3 hours ago, Depth of Thwart said:

Do you have an example of something that was modified or removed from AD&D solely because people were "offended" by it, rather than for other reasons (e.g., players in general didn't enjoy it, change in design philosophy or target audience, material impact, copyright issues, etc.)?

 

You can probably see where I'm going here -- I'm wondering if there is a more relevant description for this kind of stuff than "offensive".

 

Isn't that why demons, daemons and devils became Baatezu, Yugoloth & Tanar'ri?  Cause of Satanic Panic (or so I'm told), which seems to me to be about people being offended, though you might argue that it's not the same.

 

Also nudity in the official material (usually tasteful, mind), comes and goes.

Congrats. I find it really grindy and with not enough places to level up (or maybe I'm levelling up wrong), so end up losing interest and telling myself I'll reload a save someday and then forgetting about it, myself.

Dunno if you'd call it a bug, or just an exploit of a weird mechanic, but when walking around dungeons I often find it useful to enter combat mode, walk my first fighter forward, hit a nearby monster and then end combat with the second PC.  That brings the party together a little way away from the monster before it can hit back and I try it again.

 

Useful for, say, the Shayder sewers which get annoyingly grindy.

Huh, no idea that the map making had been so extensive.

 

Idea 478 for a scenario for BoE I'll never actually get around to making involved going to an alternative universe version of Kriszan, using modified E3 map, where the slimes had taken over and those weird experiments from the slime caves were running around.

1 hour ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

You  can assign a Protection value to any equipable item. See the Shield Mace for an example. In legacy BLADBASE.EXE its item type Shield and not a weapon, but that was Jeff's mistake, not the way it's meant to be.

 

Ah, didn't know that, I always thought it was intended that way, for the mechanics to have it as a shield, but using mace graphics and called a mace to make it seem unusual, and that the Protection value only was relevant to armour and ignored for everything else.  Being able to give Protection values means it wouldn't be hard to give more flexible options.   Or, maybe even weapons with encumbrance, but not sure if that's a great idea.

1 hour ago, Salt Monolith said:

10 Defense skill guarantees an effective reduction of 1 to the value of each piece of equipment's Encumbrance value (individually).  This allows a mage to wear 1 piece of 2-encumbrance armor, and any number of 1-encumbrance pieces, and still cast.

 

Ah, didn't know they did that individually.

 

49 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

 ...Ugh. Antimagic clouds don't block the Unlock spell. Also, there's no special node to place antimagic clouds.

 

That's not great

 

50 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

 This is an item balance issue, not an engine balance issue. Hypothetically, edged weapons are the most common. Bashing weapons are common and cheap to buy. Polearms are rare and expensive but very powerful. For a given scenario, the designer can adjust distribution, cost, handedness, and stats to make weapons more balanced. Few if any scenarios adhere to Jeff's prescribed scheme or readjust item stats, but they could. I plan to, if I ever design the epic I've dreamed of for twenty years.

 

True, but even if you did that, there'd still be a correct way of arming your party.  There's be one best single handed weapon, and one best pole weapon.  You wouldn't, for example, have someone armed with sword and dagger, because one (probably the sword) would be just better and you'd take two of those.  That same weapon would be best for someone with a one handed weapon and shield.

 

57 minutes ago, The Almighty Doer of Stuff said:

One thing I want to do is make bucklers Tools instead of Shields. The point of a buckler is you strap it to your arm, allowing you to block without taking up your hand.

 

That somehow doesn't seem right to me (you could have a buckler and a shield), but ok, trying something different.

 

Now, if you could have an item that gave worked as both a shield and a one handed weapon (but not as good as a dedicated one of either), then you'd have more choice in how to arm.  But not currently feasible.

57 minutes ago, Celtic Minstrel said:

Regarding webs, I believe only NPCs of the "bug" type are immune to their effects. This immunity applies to the barrier (they simply pass through without affecting it), so if something were to directly apply the status effect, I think they would be affected. There's most likely no way to actually do that though.

 

That makes sense, I'm sure I've successfully webbed people.  Especially when replaying scenarios and I know a bunch of sliths are about to appear at the crack in the wall.

 

Also, in regards to Dumbfounding, I ended up assuming the problem wasn't so much that it didn't Dumbfound monsters, but that it shouldn't have been called Dumbfound, should have been some generic curse sounding thing.  Surprised that it actually affects spell levels.

Was thinking about making another thread, after people were more interested in missile weapons that I thought, but:

 

I'd also add Lockpicks to that.  Your party will be able to cast Unlock unless it's a weird scenario where they can't.  No point having lockpicks or lockpicking skill.  Even bashing the door works.

 

(Oh...you could stick an anti-magic field on a doorway to stop Unlock spells, and keep refreshing it each turn.  Maybe turn if off once the door is opened?  Bit of mucking around, but doable.  EDIT:  Would that stop piercing crystals?)

 

The way melee weapons work.  If you want to use double handed weapons, you want to use pole weapons.  Double handed edged or bashing are just not worth it  If you want to use single handed weapons, you want to use edged.  If you use single handed edged weapons, you want broadswords (or waveblades if you can get them).  Dual wielding is also the way to go.  That is, dual wielding broadswords (or waveblades if you can get them).

 

Some exceptions to this, might be a good idea to have one (and only one) PC with bashing weapons because you'll find some decent ones you might want to use when you don't have enough good edged weapons for everyone, and before you get the best stuff you'll use what you have.  When you get magic stuff you might want to use a weaker weapon with an ability rather than the most damaging one.  But generally there's one obvious right way to arm PCs, and a lot of weapons are just junk you don't want to use.

 

Also, armour.  Now, I sorta like how armour works, in that a small amount stops a PC from using mage spells, and a large amount will also cost them action points.  So it might not be obvious how much armour you should have.

 

However, and I might be wrong about this, there doesn't seem to be much point having a shield, unless you've already maxed everything else and want more.  As I type this, I realise that I don't know if the amount of encumbrance compared to the amount of protection is the same for shields as other armour.  If not, if you get more protection with less encumbrance, might be worth sacrificing the use of a hand.  Otherwise, you'd increase your other armour and go double handed or dual wield.

 

And there's a few weird spells that seem useless.  Does anyone use Scare, for example?  Detect Life seems cool, and I sometimes consider if you could make a scenario (or at least a part of one) where you are hiding from the monster and you can see it coming to the doorway on your map or something, but as it is I don't use it.

Couldn't think of a better title.  Anyhoo, there's been a lot of talk about how archery and throwing weapons aren't useful due to numbers, but even without that, would people want to use them?

 

Now, this could just be me, but archery just doesn't grab me.  Ok, you can differentiate your fighters by making one an archer.  But, at least the way I create parties, I tend to have front line fighters, who need use bashing/edged or pole weapons, and second line magic users.  Giving someone archery takes away useful skill points (and adds the weight of a bow and arrows, I guess) from what they'd use most.  Though, giving a mage a few points of throwing weapons because mana is limited might make sense, and some dungeons have narrow tunnels where you are fighting in single file and fighters can't in close, and there's always enemies on the other side of chasms or fences or something.  But never really justifies the cost for me.

 

Also, I'm not seeing an appeal.  Mechanically, it's just not as fun to use bows as it is hitting people or using magic.  I don't know why, and it could just be me.

 

Do other people find missile weapons just less interesting/fun, or is it just me?

 

And, are there ways to make missile weapons more interesting?  I think you could do something with level design and weird magic ammo types to encourage their use.

On 4/26/2021 at 4:02 AM, Earth said:

 

still persist on remakes, if kills attackers then town etc will become hostile so either avoid or kill and loot and use cheat to pacify town etc.

 

Huh.  Didn't know that, that seems odd.

Huh, guess someone forget to put some blocked to monsters tiles next to the bar there.

 

I always remember in E3 an evil acolyte shopkeeper that kept their default hostile attitude and you have to charm them to go shopping.  Oppenheimer, on the surface in a town east of Kriszan, IIRC.  And also one isolated road tile near the Inn of Blades.

Yeah, each time it gets harder, with different numbers of Chritrach Larvas, Chritrachs and Null Bugs, and once you win there's treasure...a Steel Shield or something?

Not a captain or champion or something?  I remember that differently, but it's been ages since I've played.

5 hours ago, Simulated Knave said:

Ilona, the accented gate guard in the new Avernum 3 (I don't remember if she's in the original Avernum 3 or in Exile 3, though I'd bet not Exile 3) is the name of his Hungarian immigrant mother-in-law. 

 

Definitely remember an accented guard at one of the gates (southern, I think, leading to upper Exile) in Fort Emergence in E3.

I've never beaten the Golems or Beasts without using the editor.  Up until then I'm usually good, but it starts turning into a grind for me once I'm trying to deal with them.

Yeah, not seen that before, that's impressive.  Back in the old days we had to rely on the hint book with pencilled in annotations from last time I played.

On 2/23/2021 at 6:54 PM, Celtic Minstrel said:

It's a degree of obscurity based on a sum of opacity over the path between the two tiles. A fully-opaque tile has opacity 5, so that's why there's a comparison to 5 in can_see. It checks a total of max(dx, dy) tiles to determine the final obscurity.

 

Opacity is normally based on the terrain (5 if it blocks sight, 1 if it's obstructed but you can shoot through it, 0 if it blocks nothing), unless there's a fire or force barrier there, in which case it's 5. A web on the space increases opacity by 2, and a crate, barrel, or town special spot increases it by 1. When in combat, lava and pits are also forced to opacity level 5.

 

This time I looked at OBoE rather than the original source, but I don't think there are any appreciable changes in this area (if there are, it's a bug).

 

Huh, so, for example, you're in a store with a long counter (like most store in E3 and BoE, it seems), and if you are standing at one short end, the Shockwave spell won't affect someone at the opposite end if it's 5 or more spaces long?

 

Also, how does it determine LoS if you are aren't in a straight line?  Say the target is 6 spaces above and one to the right, so there's 5 vertical spaces in two columns, which are you looking through?

 

Getting a bit off-topic and obscure with that, though, but am interested in working out LOS in a grid.

IIRC, the magical bonuses to stuff were very over-priced and not worth it.  Not sure if that meant they weren't better than magical weapons if you had loads of money, but I never tended to use them myself.

On 2/17/2021 at 12:21 AM, Ess-Eschas said:

Rather than describing approaches here, I think it might be informative if you looked at an example for yourself. The best example I’m aware of is in the scenario ‘Doom Moon II: Dragons’ Revenge’. This scenario features many recruitable NPCs, who will join you if you complete certain quests, and you can only choose some of them to take with you.

 

I might mention, I think it was Odessa, where the scenario is you escorting someone somewhere, so every random encounter and dungeon they show up (sometimes in creative places in dungeons).  Simple, but IIRC, worked fairly well.

Oh, Web is nice, yes, especially when you know that a bunch of monsters are about to emerge from a certain area (normally by playing the thing more than once, though, which is a bit cheaty) and you can prepare the area first.

Erm, I think Slow Group didn't need line of sight.  Also, now that I think of it, spells like Mass Charm and Mass Paralysis, possibly as they don't direct harm enemies they work differently.

As well as needing to know what you mean by "tedious", some explanation of "generic" would help.

 

For example, I'd not say Avernum/Exile was generic...but then you play as an adventuring party of 4/6 people.  In the later ones you pick each characters race and that gives them various benefits.  Ok, no elves or dwarfs, but there are cat people or lizard people instead.  You then go on quests and dungeon crawls and fight various other sentient humanoids and pick up magic gear if you're lucky.  If someone was to say that was generic, I couldn't really argue.

 

Likewise, I'd not say Nethergate was generic, it's set in Roman Britain.  But then you play as either the Imperials or the local natives wanting to get rid of them, there's big world changing magic stuff going on and dragons and giant spiders and wolves and bears to fight...and I'm describing Skyrim there.  In only the vaguest terms, but still.