Ability Scores Generation

[Excidium]

I don't think forcing people to play a bunch of gimps is much interesting difficulty. The point pool in D&D point-buy is meant to represent the overall power-level of the campaign, technically it should be challenging regardless of the amount of points people used to build their characters.

I like where you're going, but 'set your own stats' is pointless. It may sound silly, and it is, but rolling your stats sky high doesn't feel like straight cheating because you 'earned them' after a million hours of rolling.

A million hours...more like 5 minutes. It IS cheating, but the game encourages you to roll until you get the stats you want anyway.

 

[Fenris 2.0]

Neverwinter Nights 1 used 30 Points, NWN 2 32 Points, ToEE 25 Points.

Our PnP Group used 32 Points.

You need 16 Points to get 18 in one Stat (without racial Modifications). As long as you have 16 Points, you can create strong Casters, with 8 or 10 Points you still get decend Casters (if you could choose the right Spells^^) but abysmal Fighters. Other Classes, like Paladin or Ranger, need lots of Stats - Strength for a Bonus of to hit and Damage, Constitution to get more Hitpoints, Dex to get harder to hit, faster to act and for better ranged Attacks, Charisma for the Paladin-Special-Abilities, Int for Bonus-Skillpoints, Wisdom for their few Spells...

The more Points you get, the better it is for non-casting-Classes. While the Casters still benefit from more Points, Non-Casters benefit far more from them.

It might make Sense to give different Amounts of Points for different Classes, especially since Mulitclassing is out

 

[zornskin]

...and that's cool too. I personally would play a system like that. At this point though, I just feel like if we allow maximum inclusion while not ruining the game for ourselves, allows us the best possible outcome, which is either sequels to this game or parallel product lines.

The newbs don't know the stats. And in large part, they don't care. They just see one 18 and five 7s. They don't know how they are gimped, they just know that they are. They may not even get for sure which are the most important stats for each class. Sure we can have a description of each, but those descriptions are situational. I have always favored lightly armored fighters, that sacrifice large hit-point pools for avoidance. How do you communicate that in the stats without just data-blasting folks and just overloading them out of the equation? There's a lot of newbies who might like my idea and build for that paradigm, and then stupidly wear every piece of plate armor they find and then get to enjoy the next fight as the bloody rag wrapped around the ogre's club. It's difficult to encapsulate years of experience into small enough bites so that neophytes will be able to grasp all the new concepts at the same time and keep the game fun for them as well.

I understand the desire for a tough game and the feeling of accomplishment that comes from finishing it. I just feel like if all the options are available, we can adjust quite easily to the difficulty level to the one that best suits our own tastes and keep it the most enjoyable for everyone. Maybe the new crop of TB dummies will come in and create a team of all 18s wrecking-balls and mow through 5 or six groups and maybe they'll think to themselves... "hey, maybe I should try to challenge myself next time?" or maybe they'll just play through and be really enjoying the level of wrought destruction, but maybe they'll talk to their buddies who are playing the harder modes and hear from them about how much more fun maintaining a consistent challenge is, instead of having a group full of 18s and 7s that gets destroyed by the second pack of goblins they meet, and then put the game on their shelf or delete, never bothering to ask about anyone else's experiences, "cuz that game fuckin sucked, amirite bro?". Keeping them having fun, has the potential to keep them involved in the discussion and maybe even keeps them buying games like this, which is a win for all of us, regardless of how they choose to play.

I think it is experienced gamers themselves, that are generally better at inflicting/implementing their own ideas of difficulty into a system that affords the most enjoyable experience for themselves.

I'm not always the same player, even. When I start this game, I'm sure I'll do relatively minor min-maxing and head out on the road of adventure and appreciate the lumps I take along the way. Some days when I get outta a really shitty day at work, and for those days, I just want easy-mode and maybe I'll have a save with an ironman-superman squad that I can play just absolutely stupid, but not caring, but they can take significantly more punishment, which is fun to do when I just wanna play with my brain turned off.

The way things look right now, this game is a day one purchase for me, for myself and possibly as gifts for friends. No matter which Ability Score generation method they choose. I just feel like allowing people to effectively and clearly define their own difficulty settings, in this manner, is one of the easiest ways to keep the game at the same time challenging for the hardcore, while at the same time being most inclusive to the folks who are new to the system(s).

 

[Excidium]

The newbs don't know the stats. And in large part, they don't care. They just see one 18 and five 7s. They don't know how they are gimped, they just know that they are. They may not even get for sure which are the most important stats for each class. Sure we can have a description of each, but those descriptions are situational. I have always favored lightly armored fighters, that sacrifice large hit-point pools for avoidance. How do you communicate that in the stats without just data-blasting folks and just overloading them out of the equation? There's a lot of newbies who might like my idea and build for that paradigm, and then stupidly wear every piece of plate armor they find and then get to enjoy the next fight as the bloody rag wrapped around the ogre's club. It's difficult to encapsulate years of experience into small enough bites so that neophytes will be able to grasp all the new concepts at the same time and keep the game fun for them as well.

Then the newbs should read the rules, I'm p. sure all the necessary information will be available in-game.

There's no need to treat the player like a retard.

 

[Rpguy]

Meh. I just want them to make a lot of money. It seems to me, if they let newbs set their own stats, those people who are short-bus strategists won't lose interest in a game that just crushes them from combat numero eine and just get's worse from there.

This satisfies the criteria of making the game more approachable to folks, but maintaining the quality and difficulty level for those of us who would prefer a challenge. I know it's super cool to be elitist and be "one of the few", but maintaining an artificial level of difficulty for everyone only scares folks away from trying a game that we would prefer developers make more of.

If people don't play this game, sure we can all sit back and say- "Yeah, I guess they just weren't hardcore enough.". While we all wait another 10 years for another game that we genuinely want, and coreplay can go back to making cheesy workout software for the Wii U. I'm sure everyone would be super-psyched with that result.

Keep difficulty high, but allow for entry level players to enjoy the games we've loved for years. It seems like the one of simplest ways to keep everyone happy. Lowering the bar for entry doesn't hurt the hardcore at all, esp given that it's a single player game. It just saves them the trouble of downloading a trainer to set all 18's anyway.

OR they could just do what every other game does and introduce an EASY difficulty.
There is no need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[Fenris 2.0]

I just remembered one thing - the Cleric is the only Class that remains where it might be possible to play a "Hybrid" and use two different skilled ones - one as primarly Caster, the other as buffed Combatant; a Combat-Cleric without high Stats is very tedious to play..., so a lot of Points to distribute might be the only chance to get a bit different characters in the Party and wouldn't force us to highly optimize them - and the coreplay guys seem to think, that the need to optimize is a very bad thing.

It's all a matter how to balance this stuff...

 

[Ian_the_wise]

They should just do it like it was done in Baldur's Gate 2. It worked fantastically when it came to score generating.

 

[bigdogchris]

They should just do it like it was done in Baldur's Gate 2. It worked fantastically when it came to score generating.

The problem with that was already pointed out; it will lead to people endlessly rolling stats. I understand that everyone has the right to play how they want, however, I think the developers need to decide on the type of game they want to make for people to play. Meaning, create a challenge or create a game where a few lucky rolls means you can breeze through the game with overpowered characters.

I think limited dice rolls work well for PnP, but 3rd Edition and the point buy system works better for video games because the characters are more balanced. The developers will be able to balance the game knowing only X amount of ability scores were assigned to characters, rather than trying to balance it for people who take the first roll vs people who roll continuously for all 18's.

 

[Ian_the_wise]

They should just do it like it was done in Baldur's Gate 2. It worked fantastically when it came to score generating.

The problem with that was already pointed out; it will lead to people endlessly rolling stats. I understand that everyone has the right to play how they want, however, I think the developers need to decide on the type of game they want to make for people to play. Meaning, create a challenge or create a game where a few lucky rolls means you can breeze through the game with overpowered characters.

I think limited dice rolls work well for PnP, but 3rd Edition and the point buy system works better for video games because the characters are more balanced. The developers will be able to balance the game knowing only X amount of ability scores were assigned to characters, rather than trying to balance it for people who take the first roll vs people who roll continuously for all 18's.

This isn't entirely true, it would up to each individual player to decided if he/she wasn't to take all of the time to get a "perfect" character. Personally I have never re-rolled stats for any of my D&D based games, nor have I cared to. Not to mention if you plan on taking along non-player created NPC's the stats will be made up. While I'm not entirely against a point buy system. If you really wanted to make it harder on yourself you could just as easily roll until you get bad stats as you could good ones. In a perfect world you would have the option to do either or kind of like a already generated team.

It's not an either or in regards to difficulty either. If you drop anything less than 10 and if you roll 4d6 drop the lowest the chance of you getting a +2 modifier on even just 3 of your stats is 5.5% per character. The chances to roll all 18's for 1 is a whopping .092%. *note these percentages change if you re-roll all 1's, or if you allow numbers below 10* The average for the 4D6 dropping the lowest is a 11(2 dice at 3, and 2 at 4). The percentages that someone would have to roll to have such a roflstomp party are astronomically high that if someone really want to take all the time to roll out 6 perfect characters than at that point you should just let them. People are going to find a way to break the game regardless, and since it's not a PvP game there isn't any harm in letting the computer doing the rolling.

Something often missed is this idea that the game will be easier, and less challenging if you allow generated state rolling. Which is only true if you decided to continuously re-roll stats. If Joe blow decides he wants to re-roll stats doesn't make the game easier for your or for me if neither of us decided to re-roll stats. Keeping a computer generated stat systems makes the game easier to jump into especially for those who aren't used to the CRPG way. It doesn't make any sense for anyone who is against computer generated rolling because of the potential for others to cheat to let that ruin their experiences with the game. At that point it's just a conscious effort on the part of the individual on whether or not he or she wants to cheat the game, and the challenge for his/herself.

 

[baturinsky]

I like presets. Or combination of them. Choose class/subclass - you get the base. Choose race/subrace - add/substract bonuses. Choose background (something about who was your oarents) - another bonus. Quite enough to have different characters. Character-y characters, even.

 

[zornskin]

It's funny, really how against this sort of thing people are. I would posit that the ones most vociferously opposed just don't trust themselves to select the modes that are most restrictive, when push comes to shove, and are just afraid they'll ruin the game for themselves.

I stand by including point buy, 4d6 and choose your own stats, selected by the people who laid down their cold hard cash, and let everyone play the game the way they would prefer. Subsequent posts only confirm, that no matter which character generation method is included, there will be those who are powerfully against it.

Honestly, it's not that big a deal and someone will mod in the methods eventually, or create a trainer or people will just use cheat engine(or some variant) anyway.

It just makes more sense if the developers state which generation method the game is balanced for and let people make their own call on it.

Seriously - I'd be fine if the devs only included set your own stats... and I can do my point buy and 4d6 generation on a piece of scratch paper. As far as fun goes... 4d6 drop the lowest feels like the most "fun" method of auto-generation. Rolled once. Then set classes by the results. Which is how I chose my classes in PnP... get the right stats, Warrior/Rogue multi. If I only rolll a couple good numbers, hi con or wis mage. It can definitely be fun to let the numbers decide who's going to be what. But I can do that on paper. If I cheat... well I'm only cheating myself... at least until the multiplayer expansion....

 

[HobGoblin42]

Subsequent posts only confirm, that no matter which character generation method is included, there will be those who are powerfully against it.

Unfortunately, this applies to other design decisions, too.

Character Generation is still a very hot topic here, I am a big fan of randomness and dices, but other team members point to the fact that some maniacs will reroll until they get 18 stats.

 

[Grunker]

Subsequent posts only confirm, that no matter which character generation method is included, there will be those who are powerfully against it.

Unfortunately, this applies to other design decisions, too.

Character Generation is still a very hot topic here, I am a big fan of randomness and dices, but other team members point to the fact that some maniacs will reroll until they get 18 stats.

So? Let them. Don't make decisions for the players, let them make the choice that fit them best. Most of the games you claim to have loved all allowed players to continue rolling.

I'll use point buy, but I don't get why you can't have all the options. Players can simply cheat if they want 18 in all stats as has been said many times. More options = Good. Always.

 

[baturinsky]

There can be also a compromise between preset and rolling - choice of prerolls.

 

[tuluse]

I'll be disappointed if point buy isn't there and the game isn't balanced around point buy, but I don't care what extra options are available.

 

[Maerimydra]

It would be great if, a few weeks prior to the release of Chaos Chronicles, the details of ability score generation would be explained here or on the official site. In that way, we could make our characters on paper before the release so that when the game finally comes out, we could quickly reproduce them in the character generator and jump right into the action. I like theorycrafting and I can spend hours working on different party compositions and it would be great if I could do that before the game hits the shelves!

This is another reason why I prefer point buy over dice rolls: I don't need to be in the game, not even in front of my computer, to work on my characters with point buy.

 

[AbounI]

So, what system will it be? Have you finally made your choice?

 

[sxyz123]

When I pick a difficulty level, I like to know everyone else is essentially playing on the same difficulty, so when i talk, discuss my enthusiasm, etc, I know everyone else is on the same page. I don't like the implementation where you re-roll until you get the stats you want because it largely makes your character's power depend on one thing -- how long you want to roll the dice before you start playing.

When I played gemstone III you also had to roll your stats. I remember downloading a program to auto roll for me because I didn't want to invest so much time developing a character that wasn't optimal. Once I did that, I started to justify just using an editor to give my chars the stats I wanted in single player games. Since I could, in theory, just get those stats if I had the patience to keep rolling all day....

I suppose a lot of you have the will power to NOT do these things. Unfortunately, I don't, which is why I like games that enforce the rules for me, to prevent me from easily breaking them. Its why I love dark souls, because I don't control when/how the game is saved. I can't experiment, and say "meh - reload." I have to think about the potential consequences, and if I make a poor choice, i'm kind of stuck with it.

I wouldn't mind a system, where some of your rolls are hidden, and as you play the game you "discover" your potential. Like in gemstones III, I discovered as my character leveled up, that my mage was attuned to lightning (all mages get an elemental attunement), and he had inherent bonuses to certain spells other players/mages didn't receive. I thought that was awesome; I wondered if I had made any special choices to get the particular spell bonuses, or if it was just secret rolls and I was discovering the attributes of my character. Whatever the case, it made me want to continue leveling him; I felt there was more to my character than what I could already tell by looking at his stat screen, and that as I leveled him, I would discover more about him...

 

[zornskin]

When I pick a difficulty level, I like to know everyone else is essentially playing on the same difficulty, so when i talk, discuss my enthusiasm, etc, I know everyone else is on the same page. I don't like the implementation where you re-roll until you get the stats you want because it largely makes your character's power depend on one thing -- how long you want to roll the dice before you start playing.

I can appreciate that take. That was what I was thinking of when I mentioned Steam achievements implementation. Of course, you'd get what you want if they choose your implementation. And there's really nothing wrong with that.

I think your other idea would be cool in some ways, but frustrating in others. Especially when trying to implement it in a system that has scaling requirements for chained feats. Still neat though.

 

[daveyd]

I prefer point-buy system. If it is dice rolls, then I just know I'm going to re-reroll like I do everytime I make a new character in Baldur's Gate. And that is tedious and as mentioned makes it hard for the game to be balanced for all characters.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

You do not necessarily need to roll for stats at char creation, it's OK if everything just starts with a 18.

 

[ikarinokami]

Rolling. A proper "AD&D" like game has to have rolling.

 

[Delterius]

Rolling. A proper "AD&D" like game has to have rolling.

Eh... isn't CC based on 3rd ed?

 

[forestrunner]

alas the title of the forum is open game content 3.5E !! (i vote pt. buy btw)

 

[bigdogchris]

Subsequent posts only confirm, that no matter which character generation method is included, there will be those who are powerfully against it.

Unfortunately, this applies to other design decisions, too.

Character Generation is still a very hot topic here, I am a big fan of randomness and dices, but other team members point to the fact that some maniacs will reroll until they get 18 stats.

So? Let them. Don't make decisions for the players, let them make the choice that fit them best. Most of the games you claim to have loved all allowed players to continue rolling.

I'll use point buy, but I don't get why you can't have all the options. Players can simply cheat if they want 18 in all stats as has been said many times. More options = Good. Always.

You're points on more options = better is taken. In many cases this advice is for the best. However, balancing a game can be incredibly difficult. One party accepts all default rolls (or only can reroll a couple times) vs a party that has (or almost has) perfect stats. Those two parties will experience a completely different game, challenge wise. That's a large range for a developer to balance against and can throw a wrench in to cause extra challenges.

I believe that people will play the game with the rules provided. Some will use cheats to get all 18's, and by doing so knowingly bypass the difficulty of the game, but most people will just use what the game provides. A point buy system gives the developers the foundation to balance the game on because they will know about how powerful characters are out-of-the-box. This will ease development thus lowering development cost. That is of course unless you want them to build a scripted system that just randomly spawns enemies, regardless. I appreciate hand designed challenges and would prefer it over what NWN does. This would require knowing the approximate strength of the parties, though.