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

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
I remember some game (forgot which one tho) where you could permanently activate some buff-spells, but they would occupy a certain amount of your mana pool.
The buff would always be active, but 20 mana from your pool would always be locked as long as the spell is active, so if you have 100 mana you now have a maximum of 80 to use, and no amount of potions is going to push it above that.

Whatever it was, i played it too and it wasn't Titan's Quest or multiple games did it.
Dragon Warriors CYOA books did something similar with memorized spells, usually, it takes a full round to cast a spell, meaning everyone acts before you but you can memorize one or multiple spells which you'll be able to cast instantly but they reduce your intelligence by 1 (for each spell) so it's harder to hit.

If every buff you sustain reduced your chance of success of casting any spell in combat, it'd actually be a tactical decision to pre-buff, for you and the AI, except if the AI gets god-like characteristics.


I think this kind of dichotomy is only true if you're playing standardish all-rounder parties - 2 clerics/2 arcane casters /2 frontliners etc. If you however play unbalanced parties, this does not apply. You might be playing a noncaster party, that can't prebuff by the virtue of being noncaster. This party will still face opposition that will be prebuffing, so you're entering an asymmetric territory. Or maybe one char will be a caster, let's say a druid. The kind of prebuffing available to 1druid/5noncaster will be very different than what's available to 2 clerics/2 arcane/2 non casters. Or you might be soloing the game - no party. Or the gameworld is highly open and nonlinear and you will be going through it with a party of stealthy thieves using an offbeat metaknowledge path which will result in a very different distribution of precombat variables in terms of exp/weapons/consumables etc. than in your standard all-rounder party.

Point being, this kind of rationale of - if you don't need prebuffs don't put them in the game/if you need to prebuff all the time it's all braindead gameplay anyway so better not put it in the game as well - I think that's true only for median parties with median equipment using median path through the game. If you unbalance the game, it's all scrambled and you're no longer in this simplistic binary territory and having prebuffs gives you more options to unbalance it than if you didn't have them.

What are you doing man?
You're writing for the RPGCodex, don't try to over-intellectualize things.
By the end of your post, i had forgotten what we were talking about...
 

Monkeyfinger

Cipher
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
778
Long duration +stat buffs like bull's strength and barkskin shouldn't exist and the inclusion of spells like that in the prebuffing routine is the biggest problem with it. Prebuffing should be a way to shape your party's skills and defenses to the area, not a generic stat growth.
 

Monkeyfinger

Cipher
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
778
There are some games that do pre-buffing well by making it a tradeoff and hassle-free.

I remember some game (forgot which one tho) where you could permanently activate some buff-spells, but they would occupy a certain amount of your mana pool.
The buff would always be active, but 20 mana from your pool would always be locked as long as the spell is active, so if you have 100 mana you now have a maximum of 80 to use, and no amount of potions is going to push it above that.

I think it might have been Titan Quest?

Dragon age origins?
 

Jigby

Augur
Joined
May 9, 2009
Messages
332
I remember some game (forgot which one tho) where you could permanently activate some buff-spells, but they would occupy a certain amount of your mana pool.
The buff would always be active, but 20 mana from your pool would always be locked as long as the spell is active, so if you have 100 mana you now have a maximum of 80 to use, and no amount of potions is going to push it above that.

Whatever it was, i played it too and it wasn't Titan's Quest or multiple games did it.
Dragon Warriors CYOA books did something similar with memorized spells, usually, it takes a full round to cast a spell, meaning everyone acts before you but you can memorize one or multiple spells which you'll be able to cast instantly but they reduce your intelligence by 1 (for each spell) so it's harder to hit.

If every buff you sustain reduced your chance of success of casting any spell in combat, it'd actually be a tactical decision to pre-buff, for you and the AI, except if the AI gets god-like characteristics.


I think this kind of dichotomy is only true if you're playing standardish all-rounder parties - 2 clerics/2 arcane casters /2 frontliners etc. If you however play unbalanced parties, this does not apply. You might be playing a noncaster party, that can't prebuff by the virtue of being noncaster. This party will still face opposition that will be prebuffing, so you're entering an asymmetric territory. Or maybe one char will be a caster, let's say a druid. The kind of prebuffing available to 1druid/5noncaster will be very different than what's available to 2 clerics/2 arcane/2 non casters. Or you might be soloing the game - no party. Or the gameworld is highly open and nonlinear and you will be going through it with a party of stealthy thieves using an offbeat metaknowledge path which will result in a very different distribution of precombat variables in terms of exp/weapons/consumables etc. than in your standard all-rounder party.

Point being, this kind of rationale of - if you don't need prebuffs don't put them in the game/if you need to prebuff all the time it's all braindead gameplay anyway so better not put it in the game as well - I think that's true only for median parties with median equipment using median path through the game. If you unbalance the game, it's all scrambled and you're no longer in this simplistic binary territory and having prebuffs gives you more options to unbalance it than if you didn't have them.

What are you doing man?
You're writing for the RPGCodex, don't try to over-intellectualize things.
By the end of your post, i had forgotten what we were talking about...
Uh, look at my postcount.
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,437
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
There are some games that do pre-buffing well by making it a tradeoff and hassle-free.

I remember some game (forgot which one tho) where you could permanently activate some buff-spells, but they would occupy a certain amount of your mana pool.
The buff would always be active, but 20 mana from your pool would always be locked as long as the spell is active, so if you have 100 mana you now have a maximum of 80 to use, and no amount of potions is going to push it above that.

I think it might have been Titan Quest?

Dragon age origins?

Shhh, don't let on to anyone at the Codex that DA:O had some neat mechanics :)
 

Brancaleone

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 28, 2015
Messages
1,004
Location
Norcia
There are some games that do pre-buffing well by making it a tradeoff and hassle-free.

I remember some game (forgot which one tho) where you could permanently activate some buff-spells, but they would occupy a certain amount of your mana pool.
The buff would always be active, but 20 mana from your pool would always be locked as long as the spell is active, so if you have 100 mana you now have a maximum of 80 to use, and no amount of potions is going to push it above that.
The Broken Hourglass by Planewalker Games was supposed to have that kind of system.
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
9,428
Location
Grand Chien
Yes of course, but so far this kind of solution hasn't been implemented in any of the games I've played.

KoTC 2 allows auto-casting after rest and you can pick which spells you want to auto-cast for each spell-caster, as long as they're allowed outside of combat but there's a couple of them, enough to justify the feature.

Still, you pre-buff, enemy mages pre-buff, everyone pre-buffs, why not not pre-buffs at all or just a limited amount so you can't cheese for common fights and it's less tedious overall?
Cool, I haven't played KOTC2 yet but good to hear Pierre is trying to solve the issue
 

Pocgels

Scholar
Joined
Nov 15, 2016
Messages
166
I think pre-buffing is fine as long as the game
1. Gives you a way to know what you should be pre-buffing before you go into a specific fight (NPCs that tell you about a certain enemy, ways to scout, etc)
AND
2. It has a long-term cost. A game where you can rest for free after every fight basically encourages the player to pre-buff every single fight, rather than weigh if it's easy enough to take on without buffing. But if a buff is only good for one fight, and you're locked into doing several in a row without getting to recover your resources, pre-buffing becomes a decision rather than a necessity.

If the game is designed so that you go into every fight at 100% and blind, you should just leave it out, because it just becomes a chore to give your fight +4 STR or whatever. So it just depends on how much emphasis the game wants to put on what's going on outside of battle.
 

Palomides

Augur
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
419
There has got to be a better word than 'buff'. I'm not polishing myself. Augment, perhaps?
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
There are some games that do pre-buffing well by making it a tradeoff and hassle-free.

I remember some game (forgot which one tho) where you could permanently activate some buff-spells, but they would occupy a certain amount of your mana pool.
The buff would always be active, but 20 mana from your pool would always be locked as long as the spell is active, so if you have 100 mana you now have a maximum of 80 to use, and no amount of potions is going to push it above that.
The Broken Hourglass by Planewalker Games was supposed to have that kind of system.

Don't remind me of this cancelled little gem :negative:
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

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

So that's what all that racket is, huh? I always did wonder why I'd see odd god rays and all sorts of skeletons spring up out of nowhere.

Hahaha, just kidding, nobody pre-buffs for me.
 

Joggerino

Arcane
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Oct 28, 2020
Messages
4,472
When I replayed IWD recently I used my thief to scout ahead and then pre-buffed before engaging. Party was garbage though, 1 fighter, 1 mage and 1 thief.
 

Ruchy

Scholar
Joined
Jan 11, 2017
Messages
202
Location
Australia
Essentially if there are buffs you cast before every combat encounter then I'm afraid they are no longer buffs, they're permanents with extra steps.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
I prefer passives over pre-buffing because pre-buffing is only good if it has a real cost in terms of limited resources and no D&D RPGs have done resting well.

Ironically, D&D Online probably has the best model with defined rest points in a dungeon that are exhausted when used.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
LIKE. I. SAID

OP's quandary come from a basic conflict between caring about noobs and caring about veteran players.

Normally prebuff question would not even arise because it come with magic system design AND potion system design. If potions are designed to have status effect, people would still drink it before battle as prebuff. If you eliminate status potions, your system suck so much ass. So normally this doesnt come up.

This is like asking about prebuff in Fallout 1/2/FTBOS/FNV. You have a series of status consumables. If you are not using it you just prove yourself to be a complete noob who play in easy difficulty.

Being a noob is normally not a sin. But be proud of yourself a noob and demand others to lower to your noobness is definitely BIG SIN.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Ironically, D&D Online probably has the best model with defined rest points in a dungeon that are exhausted when used.
DDO is underrated
quite a few times I had to leave dungeons in DDO because I simply couldn't continue, you also have to strategically save your rest points and go back to rest when you run out of resources
very few crpgs capture the feeling of being close to a restpoint in DDO but completely out of resources so you have to try to hobble along on fumes
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
A game where you can rest for free after every fight

It is a well known fact the only way to enjoy IE combat is a no rest self-imposed rule.

That adds a strategic element to buffing as you must be careful not to waste them on trash encounters.

I think people who hate buffing are precisely those who rested after every fight, and didn't like the tedium of having to redo them over and over. That is an abuse of the Vancian system.
 

Brancaleone

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 28, 2015
Messages
1,004
Location
Norcia
A game where you can rest for free after every fight

It is a well known fact the only way to enjoy IE combat is a no rest self-imposed rule.

That adds a strategic element to buffing as you must be careful not to waste them on trash encounters.

I think people who hate buffing are precisely those who rested after every fight, and didn't like the tedium of having to redo them over and over. That is an abuse of the Vancian system.

I still remember perfectly the first time I installed Sword Coast Stratagems II (hardest settings), and did Irenicus' dungeon with no rest (which also means you are stuck with the default spells of Imoen/Jaheira). It turned the most boring part of the game into something to look forward to for each replay.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
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

Story mode to the rescue.

Powergaming and doing research is RPGs' equivalent of player skill in other genres, just like in strategy games. Oh, but what if I want to larp a scout exploring brave new world in Civilization, how dares the game overrun my single undefended settlement???
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
A game where you can rest for free after every fight

It is a well known fact the only way to enjoy IE combat is a no rest self-imposed rule.

That adds a strategic element to buffing as you must be careful not to waste them on trash encounters.

I think people who hate buffing are precisely those who rested after every fight, and didn't like the tedium of having to redo them over and over. That is an abuse of the Vancian system.

To Which proper usage is to scout the area and draw back aggro for one big fight so you can make full use of each blessing' duration. Instead of 5-6 small fights thus 5-6 buffing sessions, you can just have two or three major fight.

You can scream about abusing Vancian system all you want. There's plenty of games that were released up to now, and no one attempt to limit free rest. (IWD1/2. BG1/2/TOB, NWN1 series, NWN2 series and various other games).

Thus you can define Free Rest as an element of the system and treat it as you see fit.

You can attempt no-rest rule but that's entirely self-imposed.

Dont even try to muddle the issue by saying prebuffing hater is whatever.
 

Joggerino

Arcane
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Oct 28, 2020
Messages
4,472
I still remember perfectly the first time I installed Sword Coast Stratagems II (hardest settings), and did Irenicus' dungeon with no rest (which also means you are stuck with the default spells of Imoen/Jaheira). It turned the most boring part of the game into something to look forward to for each replay.
So the hardest setting is with no rests? When i played that mod i had one rest in the dungeon.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
No rests unless it's supported by roleplaying.

I don't see the fact few D&D video games had any penalty for resting as an excuse. That only means the devs went popamole on the player.

No resting rule also allows you to use the five billion consumables you've been hoarding 'cause you are too cheap to use them even though money is never an issue in those games (you should also be able to craft your own scrolls but devs are too retarded for that cool shit).

For me Vancian magic is all about pulling out the right trump card at the right moment. If you are resting after every fight, you might as well have mana and pew pew super hero magic.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
No rests unless it's supported by roleplaying.

I don't see the fact few D&D video games had any penalty for resting as an excuse. That only means the devs went popamole on the player.

No resting rule also allows you to use the five billion consumables you've been hoarding 'cause you are too cheap to use them even though money is never an issue in those games.

For me Vancian magic is all about pulling out the right trump card at the right moment. If you are resting after every fight, you might as well have mana and pew pew super hero magic.
what was the last video game you played to completion?
 

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