RPGs with robust resource management

[Lilura]

We are not just only talking about BG2. Besides, this suggested use is exactly what you are proposing with consumables. The only difference being that they are more on demand, but it shouldnt matter if you provide enough consumables in your game to beat the challenges.

Do you have a memory that reaches more than one post prior? Single charge or multi charge is not on par with perma.

Not every party composition will have an arcane caster.

Edwin, Imoen, Aerie, Jan or Nalia can don the RoV. The majorly reduced casting time means you get the jump on the enemy, and break encounters. That's just one item, though. I've listed dozens in the past that are OP.

Rest restriction is there in almost every game, you keep complaining about it as if it meant more, but truth is the narrative allows for nigh unlimited rest spaming. We are talking about an adventure that could take place in many months, or even close to a year. So your problem is also with games that dont impose narrative urgency?

Who cares what the narrative allows for? Besides, there is a (false) urgency to find Irenicus and Imoen, anyway. It doesn't make sense to spend months rest spamming in the dungeons of the countryside, when one can quest in Athkatla to raise the funds to pay the guild for transportation, within a more reasonable time-frame.

The Vancian system employed by AD&D was not designed with unrestricted resting in mind: unload spells on enemy, rest, rinse repeat. You defended this once by saying that BG2 encounters are balanced with full spellbooks in mind, but its encounters mostly consist of bite-sized packs dotted thoughtlessly about the maps, and almost none of the tougher foes unleash a repertoire in the same ballpark as the party.

Whats a DPS? im not familiar with that denomination on BG2. Other than that you gotta remember, its just 1 of your guys thats protected, not your entire party.

DpR, then (dmg per round). That's why you just send in the mind shielded unit to soak up the initial castings. Also, Chaotic Commands.

Just saying it can happen, and could be used to great effect in games. No need to make items boring. You can either reduce gear slots or simply make gear less reliable.

I'm not rooting for boring or banal itemization. Pls stop saying that. Swordflight and Durlag's Tower don't have boring itemization: it's rewarding without going Monty Haul.

Quite a few arent.

See above.

Boots of speed dont grant haste, only give you better movement speed.

Boots of Speed round up fractional ApR. Improved Haste doubles your ApR, meaning your mundane DPS units are boosted to 10 ApR, pre-GWW. Double movement speed also means you can outrun the vast majority of foes, fleeing to break LoS and then healing, rebuffing or even resting at-will. So yeah, broken.

Im not pretending anyway, they are not flaws.

Unrestricted resting, reload-based gameplay and OP itemization that trivializes the campaign are indeed flaws. I don't want to play RPGs like this, anymore.

How is it lame?

Using prior knowledge from reloads to beat an encounter (i.e, trial-and-error as opposed to on-the-fly tactics).

You can go with those too, but if every encounter is like that it gets boring. You fall into a routine and start setting rules in stone about who to attack what and with that.

There is that danger, yeah. It requires a good dungeon master to get just right, which BioWare has never had.

Fun to come up with ways to beat something thats almost unbeatable. I remember thinking for several hours how to beat kangaxx, i dont think i beat him on my first playthrough.

I'd rather use that time strategically delving a dungeon, uncovering lore about liches, fighting through its minions using actual tactics, and then facing off against it and destroying its phylactery. Siege of Dragonspear, HotU, Icewind Dale and Swordflight do lich encounters right.

Cheese always comes from non balanced systems, they are an unevitable byproduct of you making a game without minding balance. And no, they are not the worst thing in the world.

Have you no faith in the AD&D system to host a balanced campaign? Cheese is not the worst thing, but it's up there. I'd rather not see it in my RPGs, if possible.

 

[Lhynn]

Do you have a memory that reaches more than one post prior? Single charge or multi charge is not on par with perma.

Thats exactly what i asked for, ways to perma haste yourself, and theres only 1 in the game. in the end game, if you are evil, and have proficiency in long sword.

Edwin, Imoen, Aerie, Jan or Nalia can don the RoV. The majorly reduced casting time means you get the jump on the enemy, and break encounters. That's just one item, though. I've listed dozens in the past that are OP.

It only means that you cast them faster, not that you can cast more of them, at most it makes it so that spells goes off before much has changed in the battlefield, at worst it only works as a counter measure to interrupts.

Who cares what the narrative allows for? Besides, there is a (false) urgency to find Irenicus and Imoen, anyway.

No, there really isnt. Its something that you need to do, but between putting together enough money to buy a castle, and the travel itself which lasts several weeks and the fact that as far as you know irenicus has been contained and all you need to do is sort out the misuderstanding, pay the fee and let her walk.

It doesn't make sense to spend months rest spamming in the dungeons of the countryside, when one can quest in Athkatla to raise the funds to pay the guild for transportation, within a more reasonable time-frame.

Wut? teleportation to probably the most secure anti magical facility in the entire continent? a good way to get killed due to a faulty teleport if i ever heard of one. You seem to be misremembering or havent notice a ton of details within the plot.

The Vancian system employed by AD&D was not designed with unrestricted resting in mind: unload spells on enemy, rest, rinse repeat. You defended this once by saying that BG2 encounters are balanced with full spellbooks in mind, but its encounters mostly consist of bite-sized packs dotted thoughtlessly about the maps, and almost none of the tougher foes unleash a repertoire in the same ballpark as the party.

Not what i said. What i said was that the hardest encounters have been balanced around this. The others you can rest spam or not rest spam, its irrelevant, all you are doing is padding your own run time if you rest anyway.

DpR, then (dmg per round). That's why you just send in the mind shielded unit to soak up the initial castings. Also, Chaotic Commands.

Sure i guess? i just sent summons first, oh wait, no, i sent guys with negative saving throws against spell, oh no, wait, i just stealthed and murdered everything, oh wait no... you get the idea. You even suggesting theres only 1 given tactic that works, or that something like immunity to mind spells is such a great deal when in fact there are plenty of viable tactics to tackle said encounters is p. insane. Its balanced because it doesnt solve the game, just makes a bit part of it easier. You keep calling it mounty haul as if it removed all challenge from the game, but if you send a fighter to face illithids alone with chaotic command, hes going to get murdered very, very fast.

I'm not rooting for boring or banal itemization. Pls stop saying that. Swordflight and Durlag's Tower don't have boring itemization: it's rewarding without going Monty Haul.

Mounty haul implies items remove challenge, BG2 has plenty of challenge even with the best items. So yer using the term incorrectly.

Boots of Speed round up fractional ApR. Improved Haste doubles your ApR, meaning your mundane DPS units are boosted to 10 ApR, pre-GWW. Double movement speed also means you can outrun the vast majority of foes, fleeing to break LoS and then healing, rebuffing or even resting at-will. So yeah, broken.

How is that broken? It just sounds awesome. Also, no, boots of speed only gives you better movement speed, it doesnt actually haste you.

Unrestricted resting

Then play Aod i guess, no commercial product will actually script resting and put consequences for backtracking and getting a rest. Note that even fallout has this.

reload-based gameplay

You sound like those stupid as fuck new generation of gamers that dont want to reload, which ends up presenting us scenarios where you never need to.

and OP itemization that trivializes the campaign are indeed flaws.

I agree, but ive yet to play a game with OP itemization that trivializes the campaign. Im sure there are some lesser known rpgs that do this tho.

I don't want to play RPGs like this, anymore.

Fair enough, but this is only about you and what you want. Not about what is better.

Using prior knowledge from reloads to beat an encounter

Nothing wrong with this. Scenarios where you dont need to reload have never presented a challenge for me.

It requires a good dungeon master to get just right, which BioWare has never had.

The bald faggot looks like a decent DM actually. Also you dont have load/save mechanics in rpgs for the most part. Baldurs gate did, and used them to present challenges with few answers, i believe these are the hard counters cuckyer was talking about. And i enjoyed solving them.

I'd rather use that time strategically delving a dungeon, uncovering lore about liches, fighting through its minions using actual tactics, and then facing off against it and destroying its phylactery. Siege of Dragonspear, HotU, Icewind Dale and Swordflight do lich encounters right.

None of them do them right, no game has ever done liches any justice except for maybe exile 3. I do liches justice in my campaign, i do dragons justice in my campaing, i even do kobolds justice in my campaign. AI is dumb, even great AI is dumb, and theres a lot of shit you just cant program.

Have you no faith in the AD&D system to host a balanced campaign?

Absolutely no faith in AD&D for that. Its a system where you have fun, where thieves are basically useless and depend completely on how the GM feels about traps and urban adventures. But they are really fun to play. Mages start with 1 spell slot and the spells they can cast range from useless to broken and its fucking fun to play as a level 1 one, etc.
Its not a system about balance.

Cheese is not the worst thing, but it's up there. I'd rather not see it in my RPGs, if possible.

I dont mind it in reasonable quantities. Im a powergamer but i rarely cheese, especially if it comes between who or what i want to play as. Cheese can make for great stories tho, abilities like midas touch, medusas gaze, etc. or items like the hand and eye of vecna, Excalibur, and tons others. Overcoming stuff that dont have any right to is fucking great. Using powerful mythological items is fucking amazing. Suggesting that the trite itemization we have nowadays should be the norm is fucking stupid.

But doing it in the name of balance of all things, thats just depressing.

 

[Maggot]

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...gate-series-thread.80753/page-69#post-4501266

 

[Lilura]

Thats exactly what i asked for, ways to perma haste yourself, and theres only 1 in the game. in the end game, if you are evil, and have proficiency in long sword.

The doubled movement speed is still a major issue, though. As is the fact that unrestricted resting means the party is potentially always under the effect of Improved Haste, doubling their ApR (max 10 ApR before HLAs).

It only means that you cast them faster, not that you can cast more of them, at most it makes it so that spells goes off before much has changed in the battlefield, at worst it only works as a counter measure to interrupts.

Mages often dictate encounter outcomes in the opening round. This starts in BG with Sleep and Web, and ends in BG2 with Time Stop followed by Horrid Wilting contingencies (f.e).

No, there really isnt. Its something that you need to do, but between putting together enough money to buy a castle, and the travel itself which lasts several weeks and the fact that as far as you know irenicus has been contained and all you need to do is sort out the misuderstanding, pay the fee and let her walk.

Duh fuq is Charname doing fighting trolls and yuan-ti in a countryside fort for weeks on end? It makes no sense. What makes sense is doing a city-based quest like taking out Mae'Var for Bloodscalp, then paying off the thieves or vamps for passage to Spellhold. There is multi-faceted motivation to fast track this.

Wut? teleportation to probably the most secure anti magical facility in the entire continent? a good way to get killed due to a faulty teleport if i ever heard of one. You seem to be misremembering or havent notice a ton of details within the plot.

Duh fuq? I typed transportation, not teleportation. The latter is not inconceivable, though. Remember, you end up in Brynnlaw at first, not Spellhold. Maybe use the Planar Sphere...

Not what i said. What i said was that the hardest encounters have been balanced around this. The others you can rest spam or not rest spam, its irrelevant, all you are doing is padding your own run time if you rest anyway.

Cheesiest encounters, you mean. And no, they're not balanced around a six-person party's max output. Or did I miss that encounter where you fight a flock of draco-liches?

Sure i guess? i just sent summons first, oh wait, no, i sent guys with negative saving throws against spell, oh no, wait, i just stealthed and murdered everything, oh wait no... you get the idea. You even suggesting theres only 1 given tactic that works, or that something like immunity to mind spells is such a great deal when in fact there are plenty of viable tactics to tackle said encounters is p. insane.

Not at all, because it was only one example of a blanket immunity. There are plenty of others.

if you send a fighter to face illithids alone with chaotic command, hes going to get murdered very, very fast.

Not with low AC, he won't: he will take those squishy fuckers out single-handedly. Ulitharids, too.

Mounty haul implies items remove challenge, BG2 has plenty of challenge even with the best items. So yer using the term incorrectly.

Pls, I soloed BG2 + ToB with a Fighter/Mage stuck at the TotSC experience point cap (means I didn't lvlup). That's how OP itemization is.

How is that broken? It just sounds awesome. Also, no, boots of speed only gives you better movement speed, it doesnt actually haste you.

Now you're just being unreasonable. They do haste ApR, partially. Plus the doubled movement speed is nothing to sneeze at.

Then play Aod i guess, no commercial product will actually script resting and put consequences for backtracking and getting a rest. Note that even fallout has this.

Which is why they are shit in regard to resource management.

You sound like those stupid as fuck new generation of gamers that dont want to reload, which ends up presenting us scenarios where you never need to.

Respawn is superior, if integrated into the plot and penalizing of experience points.

I agree, but ive yet to play a game with OP itemization that trivializes the campaign. Im sure there are some lesser known rpgs that do this tho.

Why did you leave out unrestricted resting and reload-based gameplay? Btw, resting in BG2 heals poison and disease, even if it's about to kill you. How is that?

Fair enough, but this is only about you and what you want. Not about what is better.

It's what's better for me, yeah. I probably would take an extended hiatus from the genre if it wasn't for Swordflight Chapter Three's imminent release.

Nothing wrong with this. Scenarios where you dont need to reload have never presented a challenge for me.

It's just boring trial-and-error because there is almost no variability: who casts what and when - counter. In the end, the so-called "difficult" encounter is likely facerolled, and the party comes out of it unscathed.

The bald faggot looks like a decent DM actually. Also you dont have load/save mechanics in rpgs for the most part. Baldurs gate did, and used them to present challenges with few answers, i believe these are the hard counters cuckyer was talking about. And i enjoyed solving them.

You have lost me here.. who is this bald faggot you are referring to?

None of them do them right, no game has ever done liches any justice except for maybe exile 3. I do liches justice in my campaign, i do dragons justice in my campaing, i even do kobolds justice in my campaign. AI is dumb, even great AI is dumb, and theres a lot of shit you just cant program.

You know what I mean... right, as in, a decent build up and a phylactery. I fucking love fighting liches and undead in general, btw. Love muh pallys.

Absolutely no faith in AD&D for that. Its a system where you have fun, where thieves are basically useless and depend completely on how the GM feels about traps and urban adventures. But they are really fun to play. Mages start with 1 spell slot and the spells they can cast range from useless to broken and its fucking fun to play as a level 1 one, etc.
Its not a system about balance.

Of course it is. It just needs a good DM/designer to present, and set parameters, for the campaign. It's a pity BioWare and, to a lesser extent, Black Isle, didn't try harder.

I dont mind it in reasonable quantities. Im a powergamer but i rarely cheese, especially if it comes between who or what i want to play as. Cheese makes for great stories, midas touch, medusas gaze, etc. Overcoming stuff that dont have any right to is fucking great.

So casting Chromatic Orb at Firkraag for the insta-kill is fun to you? (yeah, I know you have to be a certain caster lvl, but it's still low). It might have given me a giggle, but no. I don't want to see shit like that, anymore.

Edit to match your edit:

Using powerful mythological items is fucking amazing.

Sure, but not if you just bought them in the starter store (e.g, the Adventurer's Mart). That sort of shit is found in the abyss that you portal into from the depths of some mega-dungeon.

Suggesting that the trite itemization we have nowadays should be the norm is fucking stupid.

Again, I'm not suggesting boring, trite or banal itemization.

But doing it in the name of balance of all things, thats just depressing.

 

[Lhynn]

The doubled movement speed is still a major issue, though. As is the fact that unrestricted resting means the party is potentially always under the effect of Improved Haste, doubling their ApR (max 10 ApR before HLAs).

Actually even high level abilities wont let it go past 10. I dont see a problem with this btw, you are facing giants, dragons and all sorts of stuff by the time you can afford to keep it up for entire encounters. Also theres an opportunity cost there, you keep your guys hasted but you are sacrificing both the spell slot and the round doing it.

Mages often dictate encounter outcomes in the opening round. This starts in BG with Sleep and Web, and ends in BG2 with Time Stop followed by Horrid Wilting contingencies (f.e).

All meaningless when you have prebuffing or can start casting before initiating the encounter. Also asuming the AI will go towards your mage first or that youll let it is a big leap. If they ever even reach him he will have his own defenses, stone skin lasts like half a day, so not even prebuffing required.

Duh fuq is Charname doing fighting trolls and yuan-ti in a countryside fort for weeks on end? It makes no sense.

Why not? gotta raise that money, journey wont pay for itself and you are no match for either irenicus or the cowled wizards as you are. So powerful gear, allies and some extra supplies wont hurt.

What makes sense is doing a city-based quest like taking out Mae'Var for Bloodscalp, then paying off the thieves or vamps for passage to Spellhold. There is multi-faceted motivation to fast track this.

As i said, as far as the player knows imoen is in no imediate danger, just in a magical prison somewhere. I never got any sense of urgency out of it, shell be fine for another month.

Duh fuq? I typed transportation, not teleportation. The latter is not inconceivable, though. Remember, you end up in Brynnlaw at first, not Spellhold. Maybe use the Planar Sphere...

The entire island is protected i guess, its not like its a hard thing to do for a level 9 mage, let alone a group of paranoid mage police.

Cheesiest encounters, you mean. And no, they're not balanced around a six-person party's max output. Or did I miss that encounter where you fight a flock of draco-liches?

They are not even balanced around a 1 person party max output. Weve talked about this.

Not at all, because it was only one example of a blanket immunity. There are plenty of others.

Its a stupid example built on theoretical ideal circumstances, in reality it isnt powerful at all, its handy. Because there are fictional items that can neutralize fictional abilities, both made by the same people. You want something stupid OP? focus on free action, and not free action in BG2, its handy but not OP, free action in PnP is arguably one of the most powerful and cheapest effects you can get permanently. And its a great thing!

Not with low AC, he won't: he will take those squishy fuckers out single-handedly. Ulitharids, too.

I remember sending korgan in and him getting pounded rather easily if i didnt give him any back up.

Pls, I soloed BG2 + ToB with a Fighter/Mage stuck at the TotSC experience point cap (means I didn't lvlup). That's how OP itemization is.

I soloed it with a fighter/thief, scrub. It means absolutely nothing tho. That the game allows for this is whats great about it. That you can have a completely difference experience from me, and from some guy that plays it for the first time, and some guy thats playing it for the 3rd time. Well, thats just fucking amazing. Its what gets it compared to masterpieces like fallout or JA2.

Now you're just being unreasonable. They do haste ApR, partially. Plus the doubled movement speed is nothing to sneeze at.

No, they dont haste attacks, for crying out loud, boots of speed only double movement. get your facts right.

Which is why they are shit in regard to resource management.

Because resource management isnt the game beyond the first and maybe second map. I dont know about you, but if i this was the wild west and i murdered the richest guy in town and the sheriff and everyone that stood in my way guess what? id be the richest guy in town, and probably the new sheriff too. Resource management works better in large scale games, like strategy ones, or tactics. But when it comes to feeding 1 dude and dressing him up nice, well, it isnt costly at all, specially if said dude happens to be a murdererhobo.

Respawn is superior

No, its shit

if integrated into the plot and penalizing of experience points.

Its shit with no excuses. Also why would you penalize experience points? Fighting experience is fighting experience.

Why did you leave out unrestricted resting and reload-based gameplay?

Because there are no real narrative time contrains and because forcing the player to backtrack to the tavern like piles of excrement does isnt fun. A pointless waste of time the player will do.

Btw, resting in BG2 heals poison and disease, even if it's about to kill you. How is that?

An oversight out of many the game had. You are nitpicking now.

It's what's better for me, yeah. I probably would take an extended hiatus from the genre if it wasn't for Swordflight Chapter Three's imminent release.

You probably should regardless, swordflight isnt going anywhere and playing a recently released mod is usually an awful experience.

It's just boring trial-and-error because there is almost no variability

Trial and error? you say it like you could bruteforce those encounters if you tried the same thing enough times. Thats not how they work, you need to come up with a viable answer or you are not getting past them.

who casts what and when - counter.

A general strategy will do, you dont need to solve it like a puzzle. Theres a lot of wiggle room.

In the end, the so-called "difficult" encounter is likely facerolled, and the party comes out of it unscathed.

Now you just made this shit up with no basis whatsoever.

You have lost me here.. who is this bald faggot you are referring to?

You know what I mean... right, as in, a decent build up and a phylactery. I fucking love fighting liches and undead in general, btw. Love muh pallys.

Hah, yeah. Pallys turning liches was fun.

Of course it is. It just needs a good DM/designer to present, and set parameters, for the campaign.

Nope, cant be done, imbalance was written in the system from the start. Its not broken, just meant to be imbalanced. Youd have to redo large parts of the system to make it balanced, and youd probably make it a worse thing in every way while doing it.

It's a pity BioWare and, to a lesser extent, Black Isle, didn't try harder.

Its a miracle that they made those games at all.

So casting Chromatic Orb at Firkraag for the insta-kill is fun to you? (yeah, I know you have to be a certain caster lvl, but it's still low). It might have given me a giggle, but no. I don't want to see shit like that, anymore.

Sure, if you properly set it up and it fails the saving throw it goes down. I once killed firkraag with the wand of wild mage thinggy, just wanted to try the stupid thing and ended up petrifying it, no saving throw. It was great.
Why do you not want to see shit like that? i love shit like that, i can imagine it written in a book and i love it even more. Far more interesting than "the party wails on the hp bloated dragon until it goes down" dragonagelike we are getting because people like you hate creative use of magic and dice rolling.

 

[aweigh]

wow you guys are really going at it.

my only 2 cents on this is regarding vancian spell casting...

with the caveat that this is ONLY under the hands of COMPETENT game and system designers, I posit that vancian spell casting lends itself much more organically to RPG games where the focus is on any tyoe of resource management, be it obvious and logistical like managing large inventories or settlements or the like, or alternatively the opposite as well, i.e. micro-management of limited resources; usually "party resources".

I earlier wrote about how Wizardry-type turn-based dungeon crawlers, (and obviously Wizardry itself), are indeed shining examples of an RPG where a very, VERY large emphasis is placed on the ability of the player to learn, understand and master the various gameplay mechanics/systems in order to ultimately accomplish the successful management of his or her party's resources (which in these type of dungeon-crawler RPGs are as straight-foward as they come, i.e. hit points, items, and spells).

with vancian spell casting the finite number of uses for each spell means that each spell MUST be strategically utilized by the player and it also means that the player will always be more "rewarded" in his or her playing whenever he or she successfully recognizes when, where and HOW to utilize each "use" of each spell.

Furthermore the fact that the amount of uses for the spells increases as the player's magic-using characters advance in level foments a psychological narrative in the player concerning the very nature (and use) of the game's spells and spell systems.

a mentality tends to form in the players psyche that their spell-casting characters are precious commodities and this enriches the psychological logistic exercises that he or she will continually be running through their thought-process during a play-session as they also manage all of the other facets: their limited amount of items, or alternatively their LARGE amount of items and the proper distribution and usage of them, and which characters can "take hits" and which characters cannot (hit points tend to be forgotten as one of the most elemental resources to be managed in an RPG), and all of the other good stuff.

As I mentioned, though, it depends entirely on the capability of the game's designers to successfully implement the spells and the spell systems; they must make each spell a bona fide tool in the player's tool box and they must design all other aspects of the game in complete concert with the spells; and by this I mean things like enemy creature design, enemy encounter design, and other minutuae such as resistances.

if the above is not accomplished by the game designers then the vancian-type of spell casting will be completely unnecessary and would in fact be almost certainly worse, then, than a simple manna/MP abstraction.

 

[Lilura]

Actually even high level abilities wont let it go past 10.

I know, and thank fucking god (in theory you should be able to get 12 ApR with IH, but the cap is 10). What I'm saying is you get max 10 long before the HLA (GWW) that grants max 10. Moreover, GWW duration is 1 pathetic round whereas IH duration is 3 rounds + 1 per caster lvl. That's huge.

I dont see a problem with this btw, you are facing giants, dragons and all sorts of stuff by the time you can afford to keep it up for entire encounters. Also theres an opportunity cost there, you keep your guys hasted but you are sacrificing both the spell slot and the round doing it.

Warriors under IH are approaching 10 ApR long before they face epics. And whoop-de-do, it costs you one pitiful round to double your warrior's attack rate for a duration that allows for map-wide clearing. Damn. Should I or shouldn't I? I'm so conflicted!

All meaningless when you have prebuffing or can start casting before initiating the encounter. Also asuming the AI will go towards your mage first or that youll let it is a big leap. If they ever even reach him he will have his own defenses, stone skin lasts like half a day, so not even prebuffing required.

Prebuffing? We're talking about stepping forward, casting Time Stop before the opponents can raise an eyebrow (by virtue of RoV), and dropping successive Horrid Wiltings from chain contingencies that can be re-loaded, on-the-fly. That's just an end-game example. Mid-game you just nuke with Sunfires and countless other AoEs and disablers...

Why not? gotta raise that money, journey wont pay for itself and you are no match for either irenicus or the cowled wizards as you are. So powerful gear, allies and some extra supplies wont hurt.

You already have the allies from the Chateau, Circus (what a joke that quest is) and a brief stopover at the Copper Coronet, just down from Bayle. There is no reason to travel to remote regions to risk life and limb, in the opposite direction to the Docks and guild. Again, it makes no sense. You only need 15,000 GP, all told. That is chump change accumulated by taking out Mae'Var, the most obvious quest to tackle because it's associated with the guild that have the resources you need (ship).

The entire island is protected i guess, its not like its a hard thing to do for a level 9 mage, let alone a group of paranoid mage police.

Then why is spellcasting allowed there?

Its a stupid example built on theoretical ideal circumstances, in reality it isnt powerful at all, its handy. Because there are fictional items that can neutralize fictional abilities, both made by the same people. You want something stupid OP? focus on free action, and not free action in BG2, its handy but not OP, free action in PnP is arguably one of the most powerful and cheapest effects you can get permanently. And its a great thing!

lolno. Not my idea of fun.

I remember sending korgan in and him getting pounded rather easily if i didnt give him any back up.

Lrn2play?

Its what gets it compared to masterpieces like fallout or JA2.

No, they dont haste attacks, for crying out loud

They round up fractional ApR. So if you have 1.5 ApR and don the boots, you now have 2 ApR. So under IH, instead of 3 ApR you now have 4. Test it, and see.

Resource management works better in large scale games, like strategy ones, or tactics. But when it comes to feeding 1 dude and dressing him up nice, well, it isnt costly at all, specially if said dude happens to be a murdererhobo.

This all depends on design.

Its shit with no excuses.

Save scumming as a fundamental "game mechanic" is what's shit. At least respawn can be built into the plot, and made part of the campaign.

Because there are no real narrative time contrains and because forcing the player to backtrack to the tavern like piles of excrement does isnt fun. A pointless waste of time the player will do.

What makes you think rest restrictions entails backtracking to a flophouse? Restriction != ban.

An oversight out of many the game had. You are nitpicking now.

That is a massive oversight. You are dieing of poison and disease... it is rapidly eating through your HP pool. Quick, rest!

You probably should regardless, swordflight isnt going anywhere and playing a recently released mod is usually an awful experience.

Not mods built by this guy.

you need to come up with a viable answer or you are not getting past them.

Bondari reloads...

What good RPGs has he made?

Pallys turning liches was fun.

Pallys break nercomantic wards to gain access to their phylacteries, which they also turn. Hell, yes.

Nope, cant be done, imbalance was written in the system from the start.

How so?

people like you hate creative use of magic and dice rolling.

So BAM UR DEAD encounters are creative now? I'm looking for a middleground, where you have some leeway to make a mistake or two, as long as that ends up in punishment and suffering.. which is worse than death.

with the caveat that this is ONLY under the hands of COMPETENT game and system designers, I posit that vancian spell casting lends itself much more organically to RPG games where the focus is on any tyoe of resource management, be it obvious and logistical like managing large inventories or settlements or the like, or alternatively the opposite as well, i.e. micro-management of limited resources; usually "party resources".

I completely share that view, but Swordflight is the only D&D RPG I have played that pulls this off.

 

[Lhynn]

I know, and thank fucking god (in theory you should be able to get 12 ApR with IH, but the cap is 10). What I'm saying is you get max 10 long before the HLA (GWW) that grants max 10. Moreover, GWW duration is 1 pathetic round whereas IH duration is 3 rounds + 1 per caster lvl. That's huge.

Its spammable.

Warriors under IH are approaching 10 ApR long before they face epics. And whoop-de-do, it costs you one pitiful round to double your warrior's attack rate for a duration that allows for map-wide clearing. Damn. Should I or shouldn't I? I'm so conflicted!

Not really, high level power should be devastating. What do you want? 10% extra attack speed and 15% extra move speed? thats boring. Just be thankful they didnt add enlarge, it gave a damage bonus of 10%xcaster level in AD&D.

Prebuffing? We're talking about stepping forward, casting Time Stop before the opponents can raise an eyebrow (by virtue of RoV), and dropping successive Horrid Wiltings from chain contingencies that can be re-loaded, on-the-fly. That's just an end-game example. Mid-game you just nuke with Sunfires and countless other AoEs and disablers...

By the time you can cast timestop you are about to finish the game tho. Sunfires are very dangerous for your party members, so are most other AoEs. As for the disablers, they are usually useless against undeads and other creatures.

You already have the allies from the Chateau, Circus (what a joke that quest is) and a brief stopover at the Copper Coronet, just down from Bayle. There is no reason to travel to remote regions to risk life and limb, in the opposite direction to the Docks and guild. Again, it makes no sense. You only need 15,000 GP, all told. That is chump change accumulated by taking out Mae'Var, the most obvious quest to tackle because it's associated with the guild that have the resources you need (ship).

As i said, theres no rush, you need powerful allies, all of them have their own quests for the most part. And since theres no urgency and you are completely outgunned its not a bad idea to procure good weaponry, do odd jobs here and there and get to know the lay of the land. Also the problem wasnt getting a ship, it was getting a captain willing to take you there.

Then why is spellcasting allowed there?

Not amn territory im guessing, so not regulated by the cowled wizards. Makes sense to keep all that happens there far enough from their territory that they cant be held accountable.

lolno. Not my idea of fun.

Im starting to think you are really boring.

Lrn2play?

Ah, but there we go with the "you need to master the mechanics to be effective" again.

They round up fractional ApR. So if you have 1.5 ApR and don the boots, you now have 2 ApR. So under IH, instead of 3 ApR you now have 4. Test it, and see.

I have, they dont "round up" anything, theres no such a thing as fractional attack speed anyway. if you have 1 1/2 it just means that you do 1 attack on the first and two on the second rinse and repeat. Every turn for every character is based on a 6 second timeline, around those 6 seconds depending on the character initiative roll the will start their turn (spellcasters start their turn as soon as they start casting a spell, but have to wait the full 6 seconds before casting a second spell), before those 6 seconds are up the character will perform their attacks, or finish casting their spells, with the rest of their time theyll just do nothing and are free to move.
Unless you are playing a buggy version or using a different item introduced by a mod theres no way this is the case. All they do is give you movement speed

This all depends on design.

Depends on how retarded it is i guess. sensibly if your character is trained it should be fairly easy to procure all he needs. And if he isnt, he cant be a useless slob for the entire game, otherwise you end up playing a point and click adventure.

Save scumming as a fundamental "game mechanic" is what's shit.

No where was brought up save scumming, you cant even save in combat on BG2 so i have no idea why you are bringing it up.

At least respawn can be built into the plot, and made part of the campaign.

I guess. Its still shit tho.

What makes you think rest restrictions entails backtracking to a flophouse? Restriction != ban.

What? why wouldnt you be able to just take a nap? Gotta enforce all player behavior now? cant let their agency get in their way of your design?

That is a massive oversight. You are dieing of poison and disease... it is rapidly eating through your HP pool. Quick, rest!

Its rare enough and small enough that i never noticed after like 10 years of replays. So yes, nitpicky as hell.

Bondari reloads...

Mere reloads wont give you the answer tho. Youll notice that he only does this once.

What good RPGs has he made?

BG2, a large chunk of the good bits of it, largely responsible for encounter design. Also made p. good mods for victoria 2. So yeah, that makes him p. qualified to DM.

Pallys break nercomantic wards to gain access to their phylacteries, which they also turn. Hell, yes.

uh? why would you make it physically possible for anyone to reach your phylactery? Strikes me of playing fair. Liches dont play fair.

How so?

Imbalanced systems tend to be more fun. Also the entire system was made from a roleplaying standpoint, which is why you have very powerful classes coexisting with very weak ones, or have races that are incredibly strong cohexisting with humans that have absolutely no advantages. Balanced by the fact that you have to "roleplay those choices in some capacity". The reason most kits are allowed to be better than the base class.
You know, fun? no race balance, you pick something that should be better than a human dude, then its better than said dude.

So BAM UR DEAD encounters are creative now?

How is it a roflstomp if you need to reload like 16 times, before the stupid spell works? in my book you just failed that encounter 16 times. Also it never ocurred to me to use it, first time i read about it i had already beaten the game 3 times and found people talking about it on some forum. Neat little trick that you can also do in PnP. The difference being that in PnP the dragon will probably make its saving throw and the wizard just wasted his first round and gave the dragon a juicy target in the process, and there you cant really reload.

I'm looking for a middleground, where you have some leeway to make a mistake or two, as long as that ends up in punishment and suffering.. which is worse than death.

No, you are looking for a combat puzzles. Youll probably enjoy telepath tactics or even blackguards 1.

 

[Reinhardt]

You can use consumables and charges on different party members, but only one character can wear one item with immunity. 2h sword with bonus not equal, for example, bard gloves with same bonus.
So if one group of 6 people have 3 potions with mind shield and another group of 6 people - only one ring with permanent mind shield, first group will have much easier fight with boss, who use mind affecting spells.

 

[Lilura]

Well this back and forth between you and I is getting a bit tiresome. I do like discussion and debate but once it devolves into micro-quoting on peripheral things ppl forget the point of the thread.

Which is about my apparently unreasonable desire for RPGs to demand the player manage their resources, or else.
Which is about my apparently unreasonable desire for rest restrictions in RPGs that employ Vancian magic.
Which is about my apparently unreasonable desire for consumables to be mandatory in their usage.

Suddenly, I'm balance whore who wants to banalize itemization and character abilities.
Suddenly, I hate creativity and want to control how ppl play.
Suddenly, I'm a boring person who doesn't like fun and might as well shack up with Sawyer.

At least, that's your stubborn schtick which you can't seem to get off even when I asked you nicely to stop. The perhaps wilfull inability to distinguish between "restriction" and "ban" follows that pattern, too.

The problem here is that, other than Swordflight (which you haven't yet played, and that's understandable), we have not many points of reference related to my desires. These cRPGs have never really been made, are generally not being made, and may never really be made in the future. It's odd, because your average tabletop sess is gonna be more inline with what I desire and much less like BG2, and I thought the average Codexer is of opinion that cRPGs should attempt to emulate PnP as closely as possible. But it seems that only carries weight with regard to reactivity/C&C and turn-based combat, right? That's why Fallout is Codex-approved despite its pitiable resource management.

So I guess we have to stick to BG2, that we both know inside and out, and try to argue, either way, if it could have been improved with rest restrictions, resource management and mandatory consumble use.

Here is a lil' example that may be easier for you to relate to: early releases of the Tactics mod.

What did this mod do, to make ppl butthurt? Well, it thugged out Chateau Irenicus encounter design and imposed rest restrictions. In order to memorize your spells you could rest once without fear of on-rest ambushes, but thereafter you would be ambushed by tough and elusive muthas scripted to do all kinds of annoying shit, and it daunted you. Do you know what effect that had? It make CI interesting, it breathed new life into it. How? In addition to fight-by-fight tactics, the dungeon suddenly had an overall strategy to it. Consumables became useful. It made you pay attention to itemization, loot you normally look down your nose at, and snub. Arcane/divine repertoire counts for more than just one or two spells spammed over and over. Stealth became useful. How? Well, you didn't always have the resources to take a mob; so, sneak past the mob and snatch a resource, then return to the mob and now you stand half a chance. Things like that.

That's how I like it. It wasn't perfect, but no one in the IE community has put that sort of thought into resource management, since then. See Siege of Dragonspear for more unrestricted resting. For this sort of thing, one has to look elsewhere.

 

[Lhynn]

Well this back and forth between you and I is getting a bit tiresome. I do like discussion and debate but once it devolves into micro-quoting on peripheral things ppl forget the point of the thread.

Eh, big holiday weekend, so i got the time.

I get what you want, i really do. You want the struggle you get at level one, but throught the entire game. And it is a cool idea, games like neoscavenger keep you fallible and resource starved during the entirety of the run time. It just doesnt fit what BG2 was trying to accomplish at all, and if you want to force it into the game and force the player to give up freedom for challenge then all you are doing is making BG2 into a different game with none of the strengths the title is famous for. In short, what you want would make the game less interesting and enjoyable, and a lot more frustrating because you personally want to feel challenged, because youve played through it so many times it has lost all its novelty. You want to sacrifice the incredibly powerful spellcasting and the epic itemization when the game actually shines thanks to them, because you know the game so well, those things lost their appeal (or maybe never had them for you).

I value freedom a lot more than challenge for challenges sake. If i kill someone i want everything he has, if i can have everything he has, and i repeat this cycle often enough, resources shouldnt be tight.

You may want to look at 5e edition DnD tho, there magical items are a rarity and invaluable, meaning no one sells them, classes in general are well rounded enough to not depend on magical items to keep up with other classes, and in fact its designed with low fantasy in mind. So far my favorite edition. Its one of the reasons everyone with a clue is expecting a game made with 5e ruleset, and one of the reasons ToSC got so much flak.

 

[TigerKnee]

But it seems that only carries weight with regard to reactivity/C&C and turn-based combat, right? That's why Fallout is Codex-approved despite its pitiable resource management.

Holy shit, you're turning into Aweigh, except instead of Wizardry it's Swordflight.

 

[Space Insect]

These Lhynn vs. Lilura BG2 fights are probably the best time for mods to use their powers of thread splitting.

 

[Wayward Son]

ive seen non-rpg players play it, theyve gotten slaughtered in the easiest difficulties.

How the hell? I only started playing last night and I only die to the occasional encounter on Core (such as Neira).

 

[octavius]

Only game I can think of where lack of resources actually became a problem is not an RPG, but Strife. I played it on one above normal difficulty and had to give up when running out of money, ammo and health packs. But my heart was not really in the game, otherwise I guess I would have played better.

 

[Lhynn]

ive seen non-rpg players play it, theyve gotten slaughtered in the easiest difficulties.

How the hell? I only started playing last night and I only die to the occasional encounter on Core (such as Neira).

You have an account on the codex bro.

 

[:Flash:]

True, but most of these exploits are second playthrough stuff. Without prior experience or a walkthrough you're not very likely to figure them out until late game

I wouldn't say so. It is very obvious that a character with good nature skills is crucial in a game about hiking through the wilderness, and just the herbs alone are already enough to buy whatever you want. And as Sacred82 points out, there's also pickpocketing and gambling, which you can save-scum.

The German version of RoA 1 prevents save-scumming by having to buy a save with XP (except in temples).
The problem is that in the US version, all XP was multiplied by 50 (because in the US more points == better game), except for the save cost, which makes it too cheap to save.

 

[NotAGolfer]

True, but most of these exploits are second playthrough stuff. Without prior experience or a walkthrough you're not very likely to figure them out until late game

I wouldn't say so. It is very obvious that a character with good nature skills is crucial in a game about hiking through the wilderness, and just the herbs alone are already enough to buy whatever you want. And as Sacred82 points out, there's also pickpocketing and gambling, which you can save-scum.

The German version of RoA 1 prevents save-scumming by having to buy a save with XP (except in temples).
The problem is that in the US version, all XP was multiplied by 50 (because in the US more points == better game), except for the save cost, which makes it too cheap to save.

Spoiler

...
Wait a minute. 34485 - 50 isn't 34428 either.


Maybe the whole party lost 50 * 4 (4 chars in my party) and then it gets distributed according to some weird number magic.

Also that whole affair reminds me that I seem to have forgotten something important...
Can't quite put the finger on what though.

 

[Siobhan]

True, but that doesn't really address the problem with gambling, because there the strategy is

1) save in front of tavern
2) gamble, gamble, gamble, gamble until you have all the money you need
3) load if you get caught

XP cost: 1 save, which is marginal in the German version, too

It's pretty easy to get a decent gambling skill level early on (7+), and coupled with good attributes you quickly hit a 100-150D run, which is plenty. At any rate this is more of a RoA 3 exploit because herbs are the go-to strategy for RoA 1 and 2. But RoA 3 also has various exploits to get valuable books you're not supposed to, so there it becomes useless halfway through the game, too. Ultimately it was just another example to show that money is definitely not an issue in the RoA series, and many of the strategies are obvious even to first-time players.

 

[NotAGolfer]

RoA games are incredibly forgiving when it comes to resouces.
Just stack herbs and you're fine. And maybe bring a second pair of boots wherever you go, and a second weapon.
Everything else is luxury.

In RoA 2 finding herbs while traveling can be a pita though if your druid or mage or whatever didn't invest enough skillpoints or if you keep wandering around in barren mountain ranges nonstop.
But even then you should be able to survive if you run back to town when things go wrong.
These games are more about sound skillpoint allocation than resources really.

The only game with really deep resouce management I can remember playing is Robinson's Requiem.
Damn that was an ugly game.
And broken.
And still a lot of fun.


You can even call it an RPG if you only look at item progression. And a good one at that.


Oh wait, Banner Saga had quite meaningful resource management too. In fact that was a major gameplay element.
Then again it's probably the most linear game I ever played so not really such an outstanding achievement.

 

[Lilura]

Also that whole affair reminds me that I seem to have forgotten something important...
Can't quite put the finger on what though.

Does the XP penalty scale with lvl?

 

[J1M]

My preference is that you shouldn't be able to hoard because you are consistently offered just enough rope to hang yourself. If you don't use the limited consumables you are gonna be in for a slow and painful death. That's how it should be. Rest restrictions also stop Vancian builds from being OP (your haste spam example).

Lets take a lil' look at Hordes of the Underdark, f.e.

In the first dungeon of Undermountain you find items granting perma-haste, immunity to knockdown, mind-affecting (including fear), lvl drain, immobilization, insta-death, disease and poison.

That means the only negative status effect you have watch out for in the campaign is petrification.

On top of that, there are no rest restrictions, the on-rest ambushes are trivial, and you have a teleporting ability that whisks you away to vendors and healers, whenever you need it.

A solid example of a campaign with non-existent resource management, right thar.

In order to make resource management in any way effective and enjoyable you have to ensure that there's no way for any character to have a permanent use of anything, but still providing them enough equipment/skills to be useful and relevant in every possible encounter, while providing encounters that are designed to drain all your resources.

Which is a huge amount of development time, balancing and QA which is more suited to the survivalist genre than the RPG genre, no?

Swordflight does this, and is balanced and reactive for the array of D&D builds. It was made by one person.

Unless a game regularly resets consumables, it can only balanced for at most a small slice of its players. It's nice that Swordflight was balanced for you, but not everyone is going to have the same experience, especially in a game where you can build your own character.

 

[Lilura]

I'm not saying Swordflight is perfect but you will feel the resource management demands, regardless of build. It's balanced for ppl who know the system and know how to build (f.e, the NWN community).. And that's enough for me. As I've said in other threads, never balance for scrubs and newbies. Just leave that to pro devs.

Some encounters are easier for build x but build y will have issues, and that's where consumable use comes into play for build y. Other encounters will be easier for build y, but build x needs to quaff a potion, wave a wand, read from a scroll or activate a limited-charge item. A crude example and again it's not perfect balance, but it's a solid attempt.

 

[Hupu]

Holy shit, you're turning into Aweigh, except instead of Wizardry it's Swordflight.

That's what makes these threads interesting to read.

These Lhynn vs. Lilura BG2 fights are probably the best time for mods to use their powers of thread splitting.

Yeah, after so much talk it came down to Lhynn admitting he mostly ignored the OP premise.

Off-topic as the discussion about BG2 might've gone, it shows that aweigh has the right idea in that resource management is a question of carefully interwoven systems, rather than coming down to the game just being stingy with resources. It's a roguelike, so it's also outside of the thread's scope, but Cataclysm DDA is an example of how a system that appears needlessly complicated for complexity's sake, is actually as simple as possible for the whole game to make sense. I'm referring to the fact that the equipment & loot requires the player to constantly balance protection, encumbrance, inventory volume, inventory weight, the character's body temperature and hunger/thirst. Take away one of these subsystems and there's no point to the game.

Unless a game regularly resets consumables, it can only balanced for at most a small slice of its players. It's nice that Swordflight was balanced for you, but not everyone is going to have the same experience, especially in a game where you can build your own character.

This reeks of how reddit users make these subjectivity-trumps-all non-arguments disguised as arguments. This can be said about every other aspect of a game, mechanics-wise or even writing, visuals, etc.

How is balance in game's mechanics, which the use of resources, unattainable on a larger scale?

 

[Doktor Best]

Age of Decadence was one of the few games where i deliberately was an asshole just so i could get more money out of quests. I salute the game for that.