I bet you're kicking yourself for not getting SoU now!!!

[Spazmo]

Or how about Ted the Fighter? I imagine he might think it's mysterious that brutal crime sprees erupt in every town he and Jim the Thief come across. Sure, Jim might be trying to keep it low-key until he can get into some good stuff, but you don't need magic to be a good judge of character.

As for the poorness of ToEE's story, where are you getting that from? Does dungeon crawl somehow equate to bad story for you? Funny, because if nothing else, the Icewind Dales had nice plots.

 

[Volourn]

I'm basing it on the module it is based on. And, yes, I thought IWD1 had a good plot for what it was. However, IWD2's left a lot to be desired.

 

[Jed]

I'd like to add to this discussion that whether or not ToEE's "party based alignment" is an "artifical limit" or not, unlike all these other games that let a player have one of every alignment in a single party, in Tim's game the alignment will actually matter! I applaud Tim for making a bold decision that I can only imagine will enhance the game experience by allowing better roleplaying, rather than shitty ol' "good does it for free; evil asks for payment up front."

 

[Volourn]

Nope, it won't enhance anything. It probably won't hurt it much either. Why? Because the five characters you control won't really be interacting with each other, anyways. They are just automated stat beasts.

 

[Jed]

Nope, it won't enhance anything. It probably won't hurt it much either. Why? Because the five characters you control won't really be interacting with each other, anyways. They are just automated stat beasts.

The fact that differing alignments get different starting scenarios alone is more enhancement than any other D&D game of recent memory. The four characters you create may not interact with each other, but they will be interacting with NPCs, joinable NPCs (of which there can be two at any given time), and following a series of choices & quests that are tailored for their alignment, rather than just following a single, linear quest that gives the options to do it for free or to ask for money as the prime outlets for RPing. Why do feel the interaction between party members is more important?

 

[Spazmo]

XJEDX makes a good point. I agree with Volourn that the five core party members will be somewhat static and lacking in personality--aside from the lead character who usually does the talking--but when dealing with NPCs and the like, if the party's alignment is divided, it creates big problems. Unfun problems. In a game where one player controls an entire party, it is far better to have group alignment than character alignment.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Henchmen can lie, betray, and leave the PC any time in pnp. They are not automations.

Sounds like you're talking about hirelings. Henchmen are permanent lackeys of your PC that you (usually) control directly. In practice, they are your automatons, unless your DM is a control freak/masochist. Unless the game suddenly takes control of your CE rogue and has him backstab the paladin and run off with the loot when they find a large hoard of treasure, this is exactly the same situation. While you might end up with hirelings of a vastly different alignment, one of them becoming a henchman is a bit hard to swallow. If you think a lot different from them, they're not going to let you control their actions to the point they're basically a secondary PC.

 

[Volourn]

Huh? Under normal circumstances, henchmen are not controlled by the player. The five characters in TOEE are not henchmen; they are PCs.

PCs = Player controlled

Henchmen = NPCs who willingly travel with PCs due tof riendship, love, loyalty, and/or rpesect.

Hirelings = hired guns.

In TOEE, you will have up to 5 PCs, and up to 3 henchmen or hirelings.

XJDEDX, I'm not complaining about the different scenarios for different alignments. That's a good thing. I like party interaction. It always adds to the game. This is why most prfer BG series/PST to IWD amongst the IE games - the party interaction.

Spazmo, acually I find it better and more interetsing with character shave different alignment. Even as simple as LG vs. CG can make for some interetsing scenarios. It's too easy to role-playing if all characters have basically the same outlook on life. Ad, no, I'm not reccommending for paladins to be allowed to travel with evil. However, it shouldn't be artifically stopped. The paladin should jsut face the music if he chooses to break the code of not adventuring with evil.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's too easy to role-playing if all characters have basically the same outlook on life.

We are not talking about "the same outlook", we are talking about drastically different, often opposite outlooks. That simply would not work.

One example you used was about an evil character travelling with a party hiding his alignment, etc. First of all, there are alignment detection means, and an experienced party, good or evil, would use those to ensure that people are who they say they are. I don't mean casting a spell on everyone in sight, but surely a person who wishes to join the group and share its goal must be checked. Second, if a person hiding his alignment is doing anything beside travelling with the group, and actually role-playing his alignment, his actions and disagreements with the group would speak for themselves.

Alignments are a part of D&D, every character has one and acts accordingly. It's possible to mislead a person who does not have any detection abilities, but not for long. The nature of alignments would never allow characters to agree on anything but minor details effectively paralizing the party. If you have a detailed example that you think might work, please share with us.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Back to the subject at hand...

I went ahead and made the plunge. I'm still playing NWN and had money to burn, so I figured what the hell. And it's something else fun to bitch about.

Anyone else with the expansion think some of the additions are a bit ridiculous? I'm playing a paladin mod and tried some new things. The dude's become quite the engine of destruction. There's a 1st level spell that adds +1 to attack and damage for every three levels, max +5. I haven't tried the divine might and divine shield feats, but they have the potential to be even more deadly with the 2nd level eagle's splendor. +1 to damage, +1 to AC respectively for each point of charisma bonus. Lasts for a round per charisma bonus and uses up a turn undead attempt. Yikes! A paladin with items and spells can easily hit the mid-20's in charisma. He also now has discipline as a class skill. I don't see how a fighter, barbarian, or ranger could possibly keep up; this dude would be a total nightmare at high levels. Taking a cue from the uber spellcraft skill, tumbling now also gives a +1 AC for every 5 ranks, an enormous advantage to rogues and monks. Did they actually think this stuff through?

The funny thing is, I was expecting the prestige classes to trash everything, but other than the arcane archer and shadowdancer, they actually look a tad weak. It's what they gave to the regular classes that really takes the cake.

 

[Jed]

The funny thing is, I was expecting the prestige classes to trash everything, but other than the arcane archer and shadowdancer, they actually look a tad weak. It's what they gave to the regular classes that really takes the cake.

Is this simply the result of Bio twinking around with shit, or are these changes based on the new 3.5E ruleset?

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Yeah, they ditched the prestige class spellcasting. So the Blackguard, Assassin, and Harper scout wind up with 4 low-level once a day spell-like abilities instead. Yawn.

The Arcane Archer doesn't need to prepare the special arrows though, just rest, and it gets its standard abilities, so I imagine it pretty much trashes everything. Arrow of death, sleep, arrow of death, sleep, arrow of death, sleep. Not to mention every day you get 3 fireball arrows, two arrows that automagically hit, and the ability to hit everything on the screen at once. And +5 to hit and damage. Heh. Pretty much out of the DMG, but with NWN's sleeping system, it's even more crazy. I imagine the realms will be filled to overflowing with elven 4/6/10 fighter/wizard/arcane archers.

One good point I just saw, ransacking people's homes without permission makes your alignment drift towards chaotic now. So no more money-grubbing paladins and monks, at least.

 

[Volourn]

Once again, detetcing alignment is pretty much considered taboo. Doing it, and getting caught often leads to unpleasantries.

You also missed an example of mine I beleive that is in this thread. How about a thief who wnat as much as treasure a spossible. He;ll do anything to get it including robbing citizens, killing if need be, etc.; etc. How about if he hooks up with an adventuring party as a "scout" and soon realzies he can get all the gold he wants in a sfaer environment hiding behind the fihters0 than working on his own. He's still evil as he still has no qualms on harming others to satisfy his greed; but he dosn't normally show this side of him to his party members.

How about the good brother who travels wiith the evil brother in some lame attemp to convert or safe him? This happens all the time. Even in real life, family members tend to be hesitant to turn their back on loved ones who committ even the most heinous of crimes.

The list goes on.. Once again, alignment is a tool; not a straigtjacket. That['s the main alignment rule.


SOU: Yes, some of the nw abilities seem out of whack; but then again, that's not too surprising. All game have something that are over-powered. As far as ransacking homes; I think the alignment hit is too small. It should be a little higher to really get the point across. THis, also unfortunately, virtully disseappearrsin the interlude and beyond. Sad really.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Once again, detetcing alignment is pretty much considered taboo. Doing it, and getting caught often leads to unpleasantries.

I don't know about taboo. It's basically like asking someone today to take a lie detector or drug test. You ask your buddy to take a lie detector test because you think he stole your beer, yeah, that's tacky. You're a suspect in a crime, that's a different story. Given the ease, I imagine it wouldn't be a rarity for adventuring parties to give one to prospective members, as long as they told them what was going on and gave them a chance to back out. That's basically how many employers are with drug tests, and people complain but them's the breaks.

You also missed an example of mine I beleive that is in this thread. How about a thief who wnat as much as treasure a spossible. He;ll do anything to get it including robbing citizens, killing if need be, etc.; etc. How about if he hooks up with an adventuring party as a "scout" and soon realzies he can get all the gold he wants in a sfaer environment hiding behind the fihters0 than working on his own. He's still evil as he still has no qualms on harming others to satisfy his greed; but he dosn't normally show this side of him to his party members.

You know, he could just hook up with an evil adventuring party or a group of bandits or the like just as easily. Then he still gets all the same benefits but also gets help and approval with his rapin' and pillagin' exploits.

"Hey, Chuck, that haul from the dungeon was pretty sweet, but how about we rob this village and have our way with their women while we're at it."

"Sounds like a plan."

How about the good brother who travels wiith the evil brother in some lame attemp to convert or safe him? This happens all the time. Even in real life, family members tend to be hesitant to turn their back on loved ones who committ even the most heinous of crimes.

Good point, really. But again, when you're controlling both of them, it's not quite the same, is it?

SOU: Yes, some of the nw abilities seem out of whack; but then again, that's not too surprising. All game have something that are over-powered. As far as ransacking homes; I think the alignment hit is too small. It should be a little higher to really get the point across. THis, also unfortunately, virtully disseappearrsin the interlude and beyond. Sad really.

The Arcane Archer I can understand, since it's pretty much verbatim from the DMG. I'd think it would be pretty obvious something like Divine Might is overpowered, though. Yeah, it's lackluster with 14 charisma, but who's going to bother if that's their objective? With a paladin with 20 charisma who has +10 in items and spells, it's silly. They could have just made it a flat bonus and lasts as long as your charisma bonus, then it wouldn't have that exponential growth in power. I mean, I spotted that the first time I looked at it.

 

[Psilon]

So Team Chuck is evil-aligned, huh? I can see that. They do sponsor suicide ghouls, after all.

Most of these evil-character-in-good-party situations should be temporary. Xzar and Montaron needed meat shields, so they hook up with you and Imoen and then start steering you their own way. Once they finish their objectives, they betray you. Kagain the Lawful Evil Dwarf joins up with you to find out whatever happened to his supplies (and keep you from lying about it), but then he should have left the good party.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Once again, detetcing alignment is pretty much considered taboo. Doing it, and getting caught often leads to unpleasantries.

To cast it on every person you bump into is not nice, I agree, but to do so to ensure that a person who wishes to join your party is sincere is an entirely different matter. After all since such a spell exists, it should be used, should it not? Also its existence logically points that there was a need for such a spell in the first place.

How about a thief who wnat as much as treasure a spossible. He;ll do anything to get it including robbing citizens, killing if need be, etc.; etc. How about if he hooks up with an adventuring party as a "scout" and soon realzies he can get all the gold he wants in a sfaer environment hiding behind the fihters0 than working on his own. He's still evil as he still has no qualms on harming others to satisfy his greed; but he dosn't normally show this side of him to his party members.

That's still too general. It's not enough just to say or mention some "after hours" activities. Wouldn't the party get suspicious if a character leaves in the middle of the night, especially if in the morning the locals would complain about theft? Then there are other issues, like party's loot (would not an evil character be tempted to steal that and dissapear), selling out to the highest bidder, go behind backs, etc. Besides, all the goodness an evil character would have to endure during the day, will drive him insane.

How about the good brother who travels wiith the evil brother in some lame attemp to convert or safe him? This happens all the time.

Hmm, it never happened to me Well, I can see how a good brother would try to safe an evil one, but I don't see him travelling together while the evil one is ransacking, killing, and terrorizing everything in his path. Remember, we are talking about games and parties, so suppose the evil bro asks the good bro to assist him in his evil plan that the evil one can't do alone. What happened next? Nothing, and that's the main reason why different alignments don't work together.

The list goes on..

I have to repeat my request for a detailed example proving your point

 

[Voss]

The paladin thing with that first level spell wouldn't be so bad if they had implemented a fairly important rule for paladins and rangers: their caster level is 1/2 their actual level, maximum of ninth. It makes a big difference for things like that.

Its also amazing how much more difficult the game gets when you take out those stat affecting items. Or if someone had realized that they aren't supposed to stack. (And think how useless the NPCs would be if they were made with a standard point buy, rather than a 35-40 point one)

I think the alignment difference thing works a lot better with NPCs, even in PnP that sort of conflict causes more headaches than anything else. It can add slightly to the game...but in my experience it just causes problems.

As for the brother thing- if one is evil and one is good. Wouldn't the evil one just kill the annoying git, and not be hampered by him any more? He is evil after all. Or at least ditch him somewhere safe if he actually cares a bit.

 

[Spazmo]

Wait a minute--bonii of the same type stck in Neverwinter Nights? Seriously? Jesus Fucking Christ, BioWare, how do you manage to fuck up so horribly!

 

[Volourn]

Voss:*sigh* Not every evil person goes around killing everyone that bothers them.

VD: Just because a spell exists doesn't mean people approve of its use. Animate dead exists; but you ain't gonna see it being used by good aligned clerics often.

There are places, and people who would use detect alignment as a matter of course; but they tend to be highly suspicious types. Still, when you play pnp; every person that joins your party; you automatically dtect alignment on them? Good thing I ain't the dm there or you'd lose quite a fw possible friends. The useage of detect alignment is a sure sign of mistrust.

I never said he'd rob citizens while he was with the group. I said he has a choice of either between robbing people; or going the highly lucrative route of taveling with adventurers. Adventurers s have a reputation for making good money.

Ahh... Not all evil people ransack, kill, or terrorize everything in their path. Evil manifests in very subtle ways.

You want a prime example? Raistlin, and Cameron Majere from the Dragonlance novels If you want lot sof detail on this; read their books.

Spazmo: No, bonuses of the same type don't stack for ac. They only stack for ability scores up to a maximum of +10 total above a character's natural score.

 

[Spazmo]

Even that stacking of ability score modifiers is a game-breaking aberration.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You want a prime example? Raistlin, and Cameron Majere from the Dragonlance novels If you want lot sof detail on this; read their books.

Damn, now you are sending me on a quest to read some novels just to continue our discussion. Thou art evil, Volourn :twisted:

 

[Volourn]

Spamo, only if stat increasing items are too common like in most dndn compute rgames. I know it isn't for when I dm; they are almost non existent.

VD, heh. Heh. Basically it comes down to Raistlin being an evil punk bent on world domination, and Cameron his brother beinga goody two shoes yet neither of them will do anything to really oppose each other, and even when they evntually do cross one another; they do it lovingly. Not to menntion, the est of their friends/party who travels the evil Raistlin. Heh, he.

I wouldn't advice you to read all their books unless you actually land up liking them since it's a lot of books. That said, just reading the first one would illustrate the point.

Yes, I am evil. :twisted: I do like NWN, afterall. :evil:

 

[Vault Dweller]

I would have to look at that before I continue our argument, but books are different from games as books do not have choices and interactivity presented in games. What you accept in a book, you may not accept in world where you have a say. But like I said I would read a few books of the series and get back to you later.

 

[Volourn]

Well, of course, that's true. I'd never compare a book to a game in terms of role-playing or player's choice. That'd be silly. I'm just saying it's an example of evil and good being in the same party and making sense from the characters' perspective.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

There are places, and people who would use detect alignment as a matter of course; but they tend to be highly suspicious types. Still, when you play pnp; every person that joins your party; you automatically dtect alignment on them? Good thing I ain't the dm there or you'd lose quite a fw possible friends. The useage of detect alignment is a sure sign of mistrust.

Like I said, think of it as a fantasy drug test. Quite rude in some situations, almost expected in others. If you do it just as a standard precautionary measure, people shouldn't be that offended. Many good-aligned people would probably welcome it, as it's for their own protection against other evil recruits as well. If someone I just met wanted to be sure I wasn't likely to knife them in the back when we run off to the middle of nowhere to collect a king's ransom, I really wouldn't be that offended. Likewise, I could imagine evil parties doing the same. They could just ask the recruit to go kill a baby to make sure they're one of the boys instead, but this is easier.

I never said he'd rob citizens while he was with the group. I said he has a choice of either between robbing people; or going the highly lucrative route of taveling with adventurers. Adventurers s have a reputation for making good money.

And adventuring parties always have to be good? Like we've been saying, why bother with a good party when you can pal around with people with similar interests.

Ahh... Not all evil people ransack, kill, or terrorize everything in their path. Evil manifests in very subtle ways.

Yeah, and this is a computer game. Any major subtleties are likely going to be left to your imagination anyway.

"Ooooh, I'd like to pickpocket elderly villager #12, but the omnipresent paladin's still around. Hah, I'll just wish her ill instead." *cackles*

"Hey, mayor, you say you can pay 500 for killing the goblins, how about you just hand it over now and we won't gut your family." *LG cleric just stares off aimlessly into space, since he isn't the one talking*