Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

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

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,160
I never quit on a game, even if it's a shit game.

For that reason i don't play as many games as some here but i've played all the IE games with that rule and did fine in all of them. In Icewind Dale i even imposed myself a rule to limit in game time (as in, taking five months to do a simple fetch quest because you are sleeping for weeks with the rest until healed option).

Icewind Dale becomes piss easy after Yxunomei. Resting after every fight would literally be sleep walking through the whole game.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Pre-buffing kinda sucks because it's a non-choice.

Bullshit. Every pre-buff is a spellslot or mana not spent on combat spells. Memorizing a Haste spell means sacrificing a goddamn FIREBALL.

The "autocasting" sounds great on paper as does anything that saves you from excess clicks, but it doesn't work when all spells have different duration, with many expiring within mere minutes - and not being recoverable until rest under vancian or even with SP barring SP regen.

I'd settle with a bunch of lightly scriptable hotkeys - one to cast every buff, another for select few, etc.

Now, prebuffs that need to be cast on every character individually - this shit I wouldn't touch. Fuck it, casting some stupid spell 6 times.
 

Pink Eye

Monk
Patron
Joined
Oct 10, 2019
Messages
5,793
Location
Space Refrigerator
I'm very into cock and ball torture
>The "autocasting" sounds great on paper as does anything that saves you from excess clicks
>doesn't work when all spells have different duration.
Except durations are done differently in Chalice. *All* buffs that can be autocasted are given an indefinite length of time. Losing their effect when the party rests.
lHiT2pl.png
The other buffs that have different durations, are those that have to be cast during combat. Mass Righteous can last until the combat ends.
snY4ywJ.png
Prayer can last for ten rounds depending on your level.
IZ6ci9d.png
But yeah, for autocast to work. You need to change the durations of spells. Otherwise it will be a mess.
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Except durations are done differently in Chalice. *All* buffs that can be autocasted are given an indefinite length of time.

In other words, only a small portion of buffs can be autocast, likely the shittiest and most skippable ones. You still have to cast the good ones manually before every battle.

Sufficiently exploited Daggerfall comes closest to perfect buffing. Create a bunch of combined spells that cover all buffs and resistances for the same maximum duration, cast them all for 5 sp a piece and forget about it until 2 days later.
 

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.
Sufficiently exploited Daggerfall comes closest to perfect buffing. Create a bunch of combined spells that cover all buffs and resistances for the same maximum duration, cast them all for 5 sp a piece and forget about it until 2 days later.

Daggerfall has buffs?

I always play it with magic immunity, spell absorption, and then just walking up to enemies and fireballing my own feet until everything around me dies, while I myself am immune to my own magic damage but absorp the spell and recharge my mana for free :dance:
 

Brancaleone

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 28, 2015
Messages
1,004
Location
Norcia
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.
No, no, the hardest setting affects mob composition and AI. I just always do Irenicus' dungeon without resting.
 

Pink Eye

Monk
Patron
Joined
Oct 10, 2019
Messages
5,793
Location
Space Refrigerator
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Except durations are done differently in Chalice. *All* buffs that can be autocasted are given an indefinite length of time.

In other words, only a small portion of buffs can be autocast, likely the shittiest and most skippable ones. You still have to cast the good ones manually before every battle.

Sufficiently exploited Daggerfall comes closest to perfect buffing. Create a bunch of combined spells that cover all buffs and resistances for the same maximum duration, cast them all for 5 sp a piece and forget about it until 2 days later.
>In other words, only a small portion of buffs can be autocast, likely the shittiest and most skippable ones.
Not necessarily. Foresight - a level nine druid spell - can be autocast:
sQe5vQa.png
Freedom of Movement - immunity to all movement impairment effects - can be autocast:
37eBU3K.png
Greater Omnidirectional Eye - prevents you from being flanked by enemies - can be autocast:
Cz9nkzw.png
Like Darth Canoli said. There's enough in there to justify the feature. It covers all the essential buffs that you'll need. Besides, the game isn't really about pre-buffing. It's about controlling the battlefield. Dominating your enemy. Impairing their abilities to retaliate against you. Slashing their numbers down. Sure, I can cast Greater Prayer to increase the potency of my melee units; or, I can throw pandemonium at the enemy - nullifying their means of using spells against me. Thus facilitating me the means to rush them down like the dogs they are. Perhaps, if I might be so daring, I might hurl a couple of fireballs at them to dwindle their numbers. Annihilating their meek. You get the idea.

Chalice is less focus on melee and pre-buffing; more on spellcasters asserting dominance on battlefield.
 
Last edited:

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Daggerfall has buffs?

Regeneration, levitation et al.

I always play it with magic immunity, spell absorption, and then just walking up to enemies and fireballing my own feet until everything around me dies, while I myself am immune to my own magic damage but absorp the spell and recharge my mana for free :dance:

Fireballing one's own feet until you max out your level and all magic skills is what you do before you start adventuring in the earnest :smug:
 

Maxie

Guest
Yes, my favourite gameplay loop is to get randomly exploded on entering a room, loading a save, and casting buffs preventing this specific kind of getting randomly exploded
 

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
Yes, my favourite gameplay loop is to get randomly exploded on entering a room, loading a save, and casting buffs preventing this specific kind of getting randomly exploded

Death to savescoomers! You are supposed to restart the game! Better yet, accept that this particular adventure is over for you and never touch the game again!
 

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.
Yes, my favourite gameplay loop is to get randomly exploded on entering a room, loading a save, and casting buffs preventing this specific kind of getting randomly exploded

Death to savescoomers! You are supposed to restart the game! Better yet, accept that this particular adventure is over for you and never touch the game again!

People with this attitude are not gonna get their money's worth out of KotC2.
 
Joined
Dec 12, 2013
Messages
4,229
Prebuffing should be balanced by all the shouting you're doing (verbal components) alerting enemies instead of them waiting nicely just around a corner.

-You send a scout near enemies
-Scout shouts prebuffing verbal components alerting enemies
- Enemies respond by taking defensive position and buffing themself
- You wait until enemy buffs expire
- Then you buff yourself and attack the party which lost many spell slots
-You go to the forum to complain that the game is too easy and enemy AI sucks
 

Fluent

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
830
hmm, this is a tough one. i guess ideally, your rogue would scout ahead, see a couple of mages with a tough looking knight and a couple of soldiers, plant a couple traps on their way back to the party and then inform the party of what they saw. the cleric would then jump into action and bless everyone, maybe the fighter drinks a hill giant strength potion to deal with the knight, and some magic from the wizard to protect against magic missiles and the like. then the rogue carefully draws the enemy party into the traps, and the combat ensues after. i dunno, that style would be cool if it could be pulled off.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
Prebuffing should be balanced by all the shouting you're doing (verbal components) alerting enemies instead of them waiting nicely just around a corner.

-You send a scout near enemies
-Scout shouts prebuffing verbal components alerting enemies
- Enemies respond by taking defensive position and buffing themself
- You wait until enemy buffs expire
- Then you buff yourself and attack the party which lost many spell slots
-You go to the forum to complain that the game is too easy and enemy AI sucks

YOu lack a critical step:

- Enemies start chasing your scout's ass until either he's running totally out of their sight, or dead. In some games, running out of sight doesnt work unless scout re-stealth.

With this step there's 50/50 chance you can disengage and wait for their buffs to expire.
 

Rafidur

Learned
Joined
Sep 12, 2019
Messages
411
That's when you lead their fastest chasers into an ambush, splitting their forces.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
One thing I would like to see tried is a pre buffing phase.
To explain how I would design this:
You can't prebuff out of combat. You can buff in combat, but it is usually not that optimal.
Whenever you trigger combat you get an UI window where your characters can preemptively apply buffs and similar precombat actions. A bit like the darkest dungeon rest UI. How many actions you get in total to apply pre buffs depends on the situation of the encounter, so if you surprise your enemies you get more.

I think a system like this could fit for tactical rpgs, which tend to have a deploy phase before combat where you can set up your formation anyway. So basically you can prebuff, but not on the campaign map, but only in the deploy phase, and the amount of prebuffing you can do in the deployment phase is limited by rules.
So basically your prebuffing becomes a part of your formation.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria
I like prebuffs like in bg 1&2,you could finish a whole dungeon with one prebuff and without resting. While shitty poe type of buffing is tedious,combat ends up too fast for buffs to be useful,they end up as caster losing a turn so another companion have some kind of bonus for a round or two. Old D&D type of magic seem more useful and logical.A spell that wast your time and gives another one some kind of bonus for a few seconds seems useless skill in real life.

A good work around prebuffing would be to make casters have X amount of passive slots for aura like buffs,that depend on levels or casting attributes.
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
12,869
Location
Eastern block
Of course you should pre-buff, it adds a whole another tactical layer.

I mean what is the alternative? Soyer's per encounter garbage he took from 4ED? :lol:
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,131
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
hmm, this is a tough one. i guess ideally, your rogue would scout ahead, see a couple of mages with a tough looking knight and a couple of soldiers, plant a couple traps on their way back to the party and then inform the party of what they saw. the cleric would then jump into action and bless everyone, maybe the fighter drinks a hill giant strength potion to deal with the knight, and some magic from the wizard to protect against magic missiles and the like. then the rogue carefully draws the enemy party into the traps, and the combat ensues after. i dunno, that style would be cool if it could be pulled off.

This is how I play P:K/Wrath. Supplemented with a few long lasting buffs, and sometimes Charging beats luring.
 

Fluent

Arcane
Patron
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 8, 2021
Messages
830
This is how I play P:K/Wrath. Supplemented with a few long lasting buffs, and sometimes Charging beats luring.

nice! not only is it cool that u do that, but it's cool that kingmaker/wrath allows one to make that strategy viable. i'm going to have to try it myself on my kingmaker run or on a new start of wrath (when it's released), but i'm also going to try and start doing it with any party-based crpg i play. icewind dale, baldurs gate, etc.. it definitely seems like an interesting and natural way to play those games, if possible.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom