DemonKing said:
I think the problem with NWN is a problem with D&D v3.0+ - you do level rather quickly. I just started a new PNP campaign and my players all hit level 2 after two sessions since the only need 1000XP to do so (although admitedly the monsters are generally a bit tougher than in earlier versions) and to be honest they spent almost as much time arguing/discussing strategy as they did actually getting through encounters.
Thats a flaw in how you're running the campaign and giving out XP, not the system.
Anyway I'm moderately impressed that Obsidian actually managed to make the OC even worse than earlier previews suggested with that stupid as shit storyline. This level of bad decision making takes some serious fucking effort.
"Hurr, Hurr. We's got this story, see, but the NPCs are absolutely required to go through the checklist of required plot-points. Because the game shouldn't be about the player's decisions. They all just want to see what happens when we pull shit out of asses and smear it all over the walls. So, because we don't want to put any effort into either, lets just make all the NPCs immortal. Just like how we didn't bother to see if this story holds up to the standard resources available to various adventurers/villains in FR. Yeah, so these immortal characters thats just a flag and a short script (which we can just steal from KOTOR 2... now that we've done that, lets stick small animals up each others asses. Cuz that would be cool."
Knowledge skills. Too much effort. Can't have that.
Petrification. Theres a relative handful of things that use this. Hmm. Full effect (a non-standard death effect, essentially), leave it out, or do it half-assed? This is obsidian! Half-assed it is.
32 point buy. Eh. A little high but within the range of FR campaigns if the campaign is difficult. And given this is going to essentially be a single player game with a couple poorly scripted henchlings, acceptable since the system itself is balanced for 4-5 characters.
Max hit points. A clickable option/slider couldn't take *that* much effort, could it?
Could do it with point buy, too, really.
Up to level 20. In a single campaign? Kinda stupid. But then computer games have often taken the stupid ass crap of hordes of dragons, swarms of beholders and other shit like that in the endgame. Chalk this one up to a continuation of bad campaign building.
Sawyers takes
parry/discipline/knockdown- But the character had to have special powahz! And rez scripts for all! No time for basic rules!
Raise dead and Res in combat? More rules getting shitcanned for no apparent reason (see casting time). These are combat spells, dumbass.
knowledge skills- hey, heres a novel thought. Make all skills useful in some way. Oh, wait. Thats too much effort again. Even with a basic set like knowledge :arcana, religion, history, nature. Cuz there aren't synergy bonuses or anything like that aren't already worked out in the skill rules. (spellcraft, turning undead, bardic knowledge and survival, respectively). And clearly those skills are going to be more rare than immortal NPCs.
proficiency... You've got time for ' a you can't wield this' script/interface response, but a simple check of IF nonproficient THEN -4 Attack is too hard? The fuck?
and finally. Its not my fault, it wasn't my decision I don't want to hear about it, LALALALALALALA.
But you knew you'd have to deal with shit like that when you took the job. Don't want to deal with this shit? Don't take over a lead position towards the end of a project.
Its the Pool of Radiance 2 effect all over again. 'We switched lead designers, so the fact that the game is crap and we made a shitload of bad decisions isn't our fault!'
