To Pre-Buff or Not to Pre-Buff: THAT is the Question

[King Crispy]

This is a discussion regarding preparation for combat in RPGs. It is a discussion that has taken place here before, but is also one that warrants revisiting from time-to-time.

Long have I despised the computer RPG that completely does away with respecting a player's wish to play it "naturally". Let me explain:

If an RPG, let's take Icewind Dale as an example, is designed in such a way that can result in a typical party very easily being overwhelmed by unfair numbers and strength of enemies that one normally wouldn't expect to see in the PnP equivalent of said game, then you're skewing how it must be played in favor of both the metagamer (*scoff*) and the savescummer (*spits*). Icewind Dale is guilty of this on occasion, but most notably in its Trials of the Luremaster expansion. Even the base game itself has fights that almost demand pre-buffing if the party is to survive.

What is this, you say? Crispy, have you lost your mind? Icewind Dale is the easiest RPG there is! You must suck at it! My party -- hell, my SOLO CHARACTER -- waltzed through that game without taking a scratch! You suck!

Okay, with that out of the way, what if you prefer to play a game like Icewind Dale in the following manner:

- You design all the characters in your party creatively, from the standpoint of either basing them on their portrait appearances, even if that means a sub-optimal build, or strictly from a roleplaying perspective which can easily also result in vulnerable characters

- You "go in blind", meaning you ignore online guides, walkthroughs, hints, and even upon a replay (many years later, in my case) avoid "cheating" by not necessarily pre-buffing for a particular encounter should the party not reasonably have known they were about to face a deadly fight

- You generally go about playing the game in order to have fun as opposed to dominating the game, which makes NO SENSE to the min-maxer crowd, I know

If you do these things, if you prefer to emulate PnP in a game like IWD as much as is reasonable to do so, you're inevitably going to have your face rearranged on many occasions by swarms of greater jackals, by vicious mobs of greater ice trolls, and worse. Unless you're very carefully scouting ahead with a thief (which I do, almost religiously) or use some other means of detecting what lies ahead such as frequent use of Wizard Eye, etc., then the opportunities to perform pre-buffing are likely going to be few and far between.

But a game like IWD (and moreso TotLM) makes it worse: there are too many instances of the player having no possible way to know -- unless metaknowledge is used -- that their next encounter is going to be one that utterly requires massive pre-buffing in order to even stand a chance of being successful.

**Spoilers for Trials of the Luremaster ahead:**

Here's an example from TotLM, albeit possibly an unfair one since it's the ultimate encounter of the expansion: the final meeting with the Luremaster himself.

- You've just placed all the flawless gems in their positions around the portal and it's open now

- There is a reasonable chance to expect that once you step through that portal you're going to potentially face combat

- It is possible to go back and rest before stepping through

But can you really say, if you had never played TotLM before, that you're certain that combat is going to ensue immediately upon using the portal? It turns out that isn't the case. It doesn't take long for the combat to begin -- only a short conversation with the Luremaster -- but if it were anything but a single-player computer RPG in this case, the designer of the encounter could not reasonably expect the player to know he had to prepare to the gills before facing the Luremaster for the final time. Who would know what the Luremaster would have to say to the party? He might have simply congratulated them on completing his tasks and set them free immediately. Or he might have allowed the party to prepare for combat with a courteous warning (he does seem to be quite polite, afterall).

The point is that it's a vicious circle when it comes to designing a computer RPG for a single player who might be playing the game for the first time, or even for the fifth time. You want to avoid tuning all the encounters specifically for PnP "accuracy" and "fairness" for fear that they'll all be far too easy upon replays (or just in general). But you also run the risk when designing in the other direction of forcing the player to face multiple party wipes leading to finally just giving up and "cheating" by, using the example above, standing outside the portal and casting every preparation spell in your arsenal first to take another stab at that bastard Luremaster and his bloody teleporting everywhere.

Yes, there are more challenging difficulty levels available to partially remedy this, and no, no one wants to play an RPG that guarantees success from start to finish. But there has to be concession made to the notion that an honest computer roleplaying game has to make an effort to give the fresh player a reasonable chance to make it through any given encounter that isn't prefaced by some sort of warning or clue before it takes place so that the game at least pretends to care about PnP authenticity. I contend that IWD generally does okay at this, but that TotLM does not. Again, maybe not the best example, since it's an expansion and one that was advertised as being challenging from the beginning, but the example of it remains nonetheless and makes a good model on which to base the discussion.

How does one balance the excitement of the challenge with the satisfaction of not having to resort to gaming the system (no pun intended)? Forcing the player to pre-buff without warning in order to even stand a chance is too far on one side of the scale. Then again, where's the impetus to even play if the game is a cakewalk?

These are the questions that may haunt us for all eternity.

 

[Ruchy]

I know there are a lot of haters of 5th ed DnD however they have done this well I think having each character only be able to "concentrate" as in keep active one spell at a time, all other spells have had their length quite reduced.

 

[laclongquan]

You are under a conflicting agenda.
+ You want tactical combat at harder difficulty level, which is for veteran only, noob need not apply (prebuff issue).
+ You want to cater to noob player who suck (yourself), who can not even remember to save in separate saves

Play it "naturallly" is a legacy of playing tabletop where you dont know shit, you come in blind, and you hit each other in the ass (friendly fire). It's good only because of nostalgia factor. Because being noob really, really suck. No seriously. Only tabletop gamers would like keeping the original state of innocent (suckiness).

On the other hand, computer tactical game by design is for veteran player. Why? BEcause save reload feature by its own quality develop gamers into veterans. Hell, even if you dont use reload system and going in blind in every New Game, you still become veteran because the ease in restarting (quick, dont have to wait for other players, fully by your own decision). The default state, default level of each computer gamer is VETERAN.

So you have too choose which to cater: you want noob or you want veteran.

Mind you, the question is not as disparaging as it sound. Noob is easiest to provide commercial success. So any professional developers generally concentrate on this group and cater to veterans as an afterthought.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Then again, where's the impetus to even play if the game is a cakewalk?

The impetus is to start with a rather hard game and make it cakewalk yourself. If you do it without foreign meta - by accumulating meta yourself - it's the real deal.

 

[Wunderbar]

I like pre-buffing.

 

[Fedora Master]

Pre-buffing, but only with a limited number of buffs.
The shitfest that is PoE combat is one end of the spectrum while the shitfest that is prebuffing in NWN is the other.

 

[laclongquan]

Nah, Icewind Dale2 prove that there's such thing as too much buff.

You dont want to take 10 minutes to cast 10 buffs on each of your party 5 times each map. That will tire you and make you lose interest in playing.

You want to develop strategy to make full use of your buffs so that you spend not so much time buffing.

I develop the habit to scout the entire map and draw aggro what I can back to where my party is preparing for a major fight. Like, 6vs15. The game would freeze and crackle if all gfx spell effect is on.

So that you have to fight about 3 times each map. And instead of tiny fracas we have big battle that sometimes slightly more than you can handle.

Note: my spell books are also picked and prepared that way. Like, 12th level cleric has tier 1 has 3 buff, and maybe some self defense spell. Each battle would be one of that tier1 buff.

 

[deuxhero]

Prebuffing should be balanced by all the shouting you're doing (verbal components) alerting enemies instead of them waiting nicely just around a corner.

 

[Pink Eye]

Knights of the Chalice 2 handled this pretty well. Most spells are not allowed unless you're specifically engaged in combat. Only a very small selection of buffs can be used outside of combat.

 

[CappenVarra]

the Arcanum way - keeping a buff active has a cost

 

[rusty_shackleford]

pre-buffing is shit

 

[Sweeper]

I don't care how devs handle buffs. Make them rare. Active cost. Balance the game around them. Have none whatsoever. Make them have negative effects after x turns.
Whatever they do, they'd better NOT make buffs usable during active combat only.
I mean really, someone has to be swinging a mace at my cleric's head in order for him to cast a buff? That's like the ONLY time when you ABSOLUTELY don't wanna cast 'em. That shit makes no sense and is fucking retarded.

 

[octavius]

I think Icewind Dale can be completed without resorting to any cheating as long as you know the game mechanics well and always scout ahead.
As for the Luremaster himself, I wrote in the Icewind thread, about my swords&sorcery inspired power trio run:

Luremaster cheats shamelessly, by having some enemy spell casters getting off spells as uninterruptable abilites instead of having to cast them. Usually it's Dispel Magic, but since I don't buff the joke is on them.

The final fight was relatively easy and I did it on first try with no pre buffing (would have been Dispelled anyway). The Mouser was killed though.
Annoyingly Power Word Silence again worked, but yet had no practical effect.
I made a stand to the left hand side of the throne, keeping Cappen Verra out of harm's way. My warriors getting confused and berserked was the main disruptor of my combat plan.
The Three White Doves mace worked quite well against the Spectral enemies.

In general the ability to scout is one of the many things that make the IE games superior to the Gold Box games. The BG games, especially BG2 sometimes cheats, though, by cutscenes being activated by a stealthed or invisible character.

In principle it can be annoying that a game is based on the assumption that the players are mondblutoids. But the opposite design philosophy - catering for the casuals - is so much worse. Nothing makes me lose interest faster than a game that is just too easy. I'd rather have a game that sometimes forces me to reload and buff my party.

 

[Tacgnol]

I've posted this in other threads, but I'll post it again here.

Pre-buffing is fine if the party would realistically know they are about to encounter something ahead. Maybe they were told (or knowledge checked) the area ahead was the domain of vampires, so they reasonably cast death ward as a defence against being drained.

Perhaps someone in the party passes a perception check when nearing the end of a corridor and hears the tell tale wind whistling sound of flying polyps, the party casts freedom of movement to prevent themselves being slowed and grabbed.

Most tabletop games I've played, the DM will give the party at least some warning before barging into a difficult encounter.

One of the more interesting in a game I played not that long ago was a bunch of corpses in an area. The DM allowed us a fairly high DC heal check to work out the cause of death (extremely strong poison), passing that check allowed us to pre-cast delay poison before entering the next room.

tl;dr pre-buffing is fine, IF the party has non-meta knowledge that justifies the pre-buffing.

 

[ItsChon]

Honestly, if they made it so your buffs only effect allies instead of effecting the enemies as well, I think that would help a lot with the prebuffing. A big part of the reason I felt I had to prebuff a lot of the time because if you don't metagame and wait for the combat to start, have fun trying to cast,, for example, haste on your party without buffing the enemy as well.

Outside of that, as someone has suggested, perhaps make it so a limited selection of buffs can be prepared, so they can be quickcasted during combat (perhaps two in one turn versus the usual one). This way it's more viable to actually cast buffs during combat without sacrificing too much damage and utility, because in IWD I found that a lot of the time I needed my Wizards/Clerics to be doing other important shit instead of standing still for several combat rounds just casting buffs. I think these two things are a good middle ground so that you don't HAVE to prebuff for the really hard encounters, without also making it so you can buff the shit out of your party in every combat situation.

 

[Darth Roxor]

the gentleman's choice is to cast day of sorcery and be done with pre-buffing for the next 24 hours

 

[Pink Eye]

I don't care how devs handle buffs. Make them rare. Active cost. Balance the game around them. Have none whatsoever. Make them have negative effects after x turns.
Whatever they do, they'd better NOT make buffs usable during active combat only.
I mean really, someone has to be swinging a mace at my cleric's head in order for him to cast a buff? That's like the ONLY time when you ABSOLUTELY don't wanna cast 'em. That shit makes no sense and is fucking retarded.

It's in Turn Based. So it's okay, you have to wait your turn before smashing my cleric's head with a mace.

 

[Pink Eye]

Anyways. You still can cast the basic buffs and the like that you can in other games. Such as Mage Armor, Blur, Mirror Image and so on. Heck, there's a script in Chalice 2 to allow the characters to put those spells on autocast.

It's just that some spells, like Prayer, Greater Prayer, Bless, Mass Righteous; can only be cast in combat. It's no big deal because the game is turn based, and you usually start the fight away from the enemy. Thus giving you plenty of time to buff up.

 

[Yosharian]

I like the strategic aspects involved in deciding what spells to cast before an encounter. I do not like the tedium of casting 30 buff spells every time I finish resting.

There are quite a few ways a developer could fix this problem, so far I haven't seen many that I've liked, definitely not POE's solution.

 

[laclongquan]

I've posted this in other threads, but I'll post it again here.

Pre-buffing is fine if the party would realistically know they are about to encounter something ahead. Maybe they were told (or knowledge checked) the area ahead was the domain of vampires, so they reasonably cast death ward as a defence against being drained.

Perhaps someone in the party passes a perception check when nearing the end of a corridor and hears the tell tale wind whistling sound of flying polyps, the party casts freedom of movement to prevent themselves being slowed and grabbed.

Most tabletop games I've played, the DM will give the party at least some warning before barging into a difficult encounter.

One of the more interesting in a game I played not that long ago was a bunch of corpses in an area. The DM allowed us a fairly high DC heal check to work out the cause of death (extremely strong poison), passing that check allowed us to pre-cast delay poison before entering the next room.

tl;dr pre-buffing is fine, IF the party has non-meta knowledge that justifies the pre-buffing.

See this? What did I say? Nostalgia effect from tabletop gamers.

Computer game define gamers at default level as veterans. because you have free rest, free spell, free save, free reload. NOT making use of all that is a complete noob.

Of course, later on devs change the normal into hard, veteran into impossible tittle for difficulty. But that's purely marketing tactic to lure noobs into playing.

The automatically assumed level of every computer gamer is veteran, because the games already throw so many powerful tools at your fingertips.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

what if alcoholism is a constant pre-buffing

 

[Tacgnol]

The other point about pre-buffing, it makes a lot of sense for a party to use general long term buffs early in the adventuring day if they were expecting potential trouble.

The more meta side is if you cast more situational buffs without any realistic clue as to why you would need them. In character that would just be a waste of effort/spell slots.

 

[Grunker]

I know there are a lot of haters of 5th ed DnD however they have done this well I think having each character only be able to "concentrate" as in keep active one spell at a time, all other spells have had their length quite reduced.

this

 

[Harthwain]

I think there is room to say that pre-buffing has it place, although it's very easy to abuse it by memorizing when there will be a fight or simply reloading a save after stumbling into a fight.

All spells have their own casting time, meaning some are faster to cast than others. Some spells can be cast quickly (1 casting speed), while others require longer time to cast (9 casting speed). So casting spells that have longer casting time in combat means it can be interrupted. However, you can cast spells that have short casting time instead - it's much less likely for you to be interrupted. It's also more advisible to cast faster spells in combat, because spells are limited by another factor: their duration. Faster spells can fade quickly (3 rounds + 1 round/ level of the caster, for example), whereas spells that have 9 casting speed usually have longer duration (12 hours, for example). The key here lies in knowing when you should pre-buff. Some of it can be done through scouting. Some are fairly obvious (entering a potentially hostile place/dungeon).

I like the strategic aspects involved in deciding what spells to cast before an encounter. I do not like the tedium of casting 30 buff spells every time I finish resting.

There are quite a few ways a developer could fix this problem, so far I haven't seen many that I've liked, definitely not POE's solution.

What about the AI script, where you tell the AI what spells to cast from a list after resting, so it can cast the spells for you?

 

[Yosharian]

I like the strategic aspects involved in deciding what spells to cast before an encounter. I do not like the tedium of casting 30 buff spells every time I finish resting.

There are quite a few ways a developer could fix this problem, so far I haven't seen many that I've liked, definitely not POE's solution.

What about the AI script, where you tell the AI what spells to cast from a list after resting, so it can cast the spells for you?

Yes of course, but so far this kind of solution hasn't been implemented in any of the games I've played.