Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[IHaveHugeNick]

Sidekicks are completely pointless feature and a waste of money. All you have to do is to make a couple sets of VO with generic barks and banter for the custom adventurers and make them selectable by the player during creation of the custom dude.

Serves the same purpose with none of the confusion. And yes, it si confusing because most people don't sit on the Codex following every development news. Most people just launch the game and see that certain companions have no content.

 

[Reinhardt]

I've GM'd campaigns wi hardly any combat, never ran a campaign with lads not interacting wi each other. Romances are fucking cancer i'll give you that.

That's why you hate elves?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

EDIT - Also, yes, you can cite this and that sourcebook (exceptions), but the framework given in A/D&D core books (PHB, DMG, MM) is basically 100% combat RPG. Compare that with a "real" role-playing system, like Ars Magica (where the rules for non-combat activities are fleshed out, in-depth). Also, go and read transcripts of Gygax sessions. There is little story-/lore-faggotry involved. Instead, he throws them into a dungeon and gets ready to kill them off, as appropriate: a real DM.

Again, this is nonsense. Just listing all of the non weapon proficiencies from the player handbook and the race and class books takes 8 or 9 pages; the full descriptions span hundreds of pages. Much of this is in the player handbook. Here are all of the non weapon proficiencies from second edition.

https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1472/29/1472299031415.pdf

The rules for NWP checks are simple and the implementation tends to be fairly ad hoc, but this stuff is not ancillary and it comes up often when you’re playing with an experienced group. I agree that Ars Magica or World of Darkness or Burning Wheel are much better systems for everything outside of combat, but that’s neither here nor there. AD&D can easily accommodate a party that wants to take a break from adventuring, settle down in a city for six months and open a blacksmith’s shop or a pub or a dancehall or a fucking pottery studio.

While I can see how someone would get the impression that AD&D was all combat from playing the gold box games or the non PST infinity engine games, a few pen and paper sessions would disabuse anyone of that notion. And look, even a pure dungeon crawl campaign is a lot more than just combat and exploration because interacting with your party members is always going to be a major component (at least if you’re playing with people who are even a little bit creative). Simply dividing up magical loot can be very dicey and time consuming.

As an aside, replicating this sense of interaction with other players is why Baldur’s Gate was so successful. The lack of meaningful companion interactions in POE1 is one of the big reasons why its sequel is doing so poorly: they don’t fight with each other, they don’t turn against you if you piss them off, they might as well just be player created hirelings with sidequests and some unique dialogue—nothing like Edwin vs Minsc or Viconia vs Keldorn.

As for Gygax, it sounds like he was a shit dungeon master.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Sidekicks are completely pointless feature and a waste of money.

sidekicks are the best because they shut the fuck up

 

[dragonul09]

The only ''companion'' that I liked was Concelhaut because he insulted the entire party every other minute and was actually funny. Why couldn't they made Concelhaut a fully fledged companion and everyone else a side-kick, he had more personality in his little toe than that peta loving faggot Edur or Shoty, what a disastrous rooster of misfits.

 

[Tacgnol]

Could be argued that companions are fulfilling role of other players in pnp, if so then its at very heart of dnd.

The heart of D&D is combat.

Luke K. said something about how BG fans writing fan-romances caused BioWare to include romances in BG2.

This is a prime example of why devs shouldn't take note of what fans are doing/saying.

I've GM'd campaigns wi hardly any combat, never ran a campaign with lads not interacting wi each other. Romances are fucking cancer i'll give you that.

Yeah, I've played very intrigue heavy campaigns before that were very combat light.

Lilura is oversimplifying pen and paper. The heart of the game is whatever the GM wants to focus on.

 

[MajorMace]

concelhaut's barks fire every 5 fucking seconds though

 

[Fairfax]

And look, even a pure dungeon crawl campaign is a lot more than just combat and exploration because interacting with your party members is always going to be a major component (at least if you’re playing with people who are even a little bit creative).

That was the Gygax approach:

Q: What do you consider the soul/spirit/heart of D&D as you wrote it?

Gary: In as few words as possible:

• Absolute authority of the DM, rules lawyers given the boot
• Rule books seldom used by a competant DM
• Action and adventure in play
• Swords & sorcery, not comic book superhero genre material
• Group co-operation paramount for success
• Freedom to extemporize and innovate for all participants
• Reliance on architypical models for characters
• Fellowship of those participating

I’ll take a stab at the five elements that make a game session enjoyable:

1. Good personal relationships between all the participants.
2. Subject matter that interests the whole group.
3. Able GMing, including animated participationby that one.
4. Able play, role-assumption, and roleplaying by the players.
5. A sense of danger from the environment, but knowledge that clever play will likely overcome all hazards,
6. In-game reward for characters played successfully in the scenario,
7. Shared recounting of the adventure at its conclusion.
8. A conclusion that opens the portal to yet more exciting possibilities for play.

Those who reject the dungeon crawl are like painters who refuse to use red pigment in their work. This leaves their palette lacking in a primary color.

As for a story, that’s an adjunct to the “adventure” the PCs experience. the players and the GM do create something than might be a story dull or exciting, dramatic or comedic….if it were written or told after the fact. that isn’t the aim of the game though. An RPG is to enterain and amuse the participants through play.

Every complication demands more rules and explanations, more time spent resolving combat, that’s fine for a military or dueling simulation, but not in an RPG where there are so many other things to do besides killing things ;-)

The ultimate aim of the game is to gain sufficient esteem as a good player to retire your character -- he becomes a kind of mythical, historical figure, someone for others to look up to and admire.

 

[Lilura]

Please, NWP is non-Core and not well-designed at all. You are grasping at straws.

It is more trouble than it's worth to work around A/D&D's combat-based nature. If you want non-combat options, you play a proper system like Ars Magica (and look down your nose at so-called adults who try to role-play under a combat system published by a TOY company and owned by an even bigger TOY company).

Given the choice of partaking of a session DM'd by Gygax or you, ... yeah. No need to finish that sentence!

BG replicated a party of adventurers (not too intrusive = good); BG2 went full retard on relationship sim/romances. And from there, it just got worse for the genre. That PoE cut back on that shit is definite incline.

 

[Infinitron]

it was more b/c BioWare was sick with dealing with Black Isle

I don't think BioWare wanted to do a 3rd game with them

Apparently, even the negotiations for BG2 were pretty... strained

Also, I think BioWare wasn't happy when Black Isle

And yet, the Biodocs allegedly helped Obsidian get its initial contracts for KOTOR2 and NWN2. Maybe not an exaggeration to say that they literally started up start up Feargus' company. Not the actions of somebody with a grudge!

FYI, no, I didn't mean to imply that there was no BG3 because BG2 didn't sell well, but at the end of the day, the effect is much the same.

 

[Lilura]

competant DM

Talk is cheap. We don't look at what a person says, but rather what they do: Gygax DM'd dungeon crawls.

 

[Fairfax]

Fairfax
That goodness his word isn't law, right?

I like Gygax's style.

competant DM

It's from the man himself, part of a Q&A with ENWorld users:

In as few words as possible:

Absolute authority of the DM, rules lawyers given the boot
Rule books seldom used by a competant DM
Action and adventure in play

Swords & sorcery, not comic book superhero genre material

Group co-operation paramount for success

Freedom to extemporize and innovate for all participants

Reliance on architypical models for characters

Fellowship of those participating

Cheers,
Gary

With a competant DM only that which he declares beyond the pale is illegal

As a matter of fact campaigns were there is al talk and no action are well outside the spirit of the game. Nonetheless, not a few folks really enjoy
that sort of play, so it is right for them.

Cheerio,
Gary

Talk is cheap. We don't look at what a person says, but rather what they do: Gygax DM'd dungeon crawls.

Where did you get the impression he said otherwise? I believe his primary colour analogy made that clear. The point is that he didn't focus on combat alone.

 

[Lilura]

Nothing there goes against what I've said in this thread... I have to wonder why you went and dug it up?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Please, NWP is non-Core and not well-designed at all. You are grasping at straws.

It is more trouble than it's worth to work around A/D&D's combat-based nature. If you want non-combat options, you play a proper system like Ars Magica (and look down your nose at so-called adults who try to role-play under a combat system published by a TOY company and owned by an even bigger TOY company).

Who is arguing that AD&D is a better non combat system than Ars Magica (does anyone even still play 2nd edition these days?)? For a long time D&D was the only role playing system with any following; the idea that it’s designed entirely around combat is patently false and it’s not like you could go play Ars Magica in 1985. D&D was meant to be flexible. It is flexible! It was meant to NOT be a pure wargame. The way you describe it, D&D might as well be Chainmail without the figurines. Have you ever actually played any edition of D&D with other people (not NWN)?

 

[Parabalus]

No, she’s just full of shit on this point. The idea that AD&D is 100% combat is a ridiculous exaggeration.

And strategic resource management stemming from rest/healing restrictions and limited itemization.

Under what rest restriction rules are your games played?

I looked at your IWD write up pages 1 and 2 and found no mentions of your imposed rest limitations.

 

[Fairfax]

Nothing there goes against what I've said in this thread... I have to wonder why you went and dug it up?

You rated the post fake news and then bad spelling, so I was just clarifying. You also suggested he said something against running dungeon crawls.

 

[Lilura]

For a long time D&D was the only role playing system with any following

I'm not lumping in original D&D with A/D&D. By A/D&D I mean 2nd and 3.x onwards (XP-based progression rather than treasure-based).

Really, though. Go and read some transcripts: the meaning of Gygaxian is plain. As is what Greyhawk is about.

And no, D&D is not flexible in comparison to something like GURPS.

Lastly, please stop tiresomely misrepresenting my view as "100%"/"only". I used a qualifier.

Fairfax, fake news in that you just picked out of a mound of comments. The way he DM'd is more telling than what he says here in 2005 and there in 1985... many of the citations are pro-combat, too. It's pretty obvious what "Gygaxian" means.

I looked at your IWD write up pages 1 and 2 and found no mentions of your imposed rest limitations.

I don't self-impose such. That's the DM/designer's job, not the player's. I was referring to RPGs that impose rest restrictions by design.[/QUOTE]

 

[Tacgnol]

I'm not lumping in original D&D with A/D&D. By A/D&D I mean 2nd and 3.x onwards (XP-based progression rather than treasure-based).

Really, though. Go and read some transcripts: the meaning of Gygaxian is plain. As is what Greyhawk is about.

And no, D&D is not flexible in comparison to something like GURPS.

Lastly, please stop tiresomely misrepresenting my view as "100%"/"only". I used a qualifier.

Fairfax, fake news in that you just picked out of a mound of comments. The way he DM'd is more telling than what he says here in 2005 and there in 1985... many of the citations are pro-combat, too. It's pretty obvious what "Gygaxian" means.

I notice you didn't answer Kyl's question.

 

[Parabalus]

I looked at your IWD write up pages 1 and 2 and found no mentions of your imposed rest limitations.

I don't self-impose such. That's the DM/designer's job, not the player's. I was referring to RPGs that impose rest restrictions by design.

So why do you rail against rest until healed?

• Rest Until Healed has been added as an option. This degenerate, newbie feature reduces the need for clerics & consumable use.

If you don't have rest restrictions you adhere to, the above is just convenience feature - it doesn't introduce any new degeneracy.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Random fact - on Royal Deadfire Company ships, homosexuality is apparently punished by putting the perpetrator on a diet of laxatives and water.

 

[Lilura]

So why do you rail against rest until healed?

If you don't have rest restrictions you adhere to, the above is just convenience feature - it doesn't introduce any new degeneracy.

The one heals 1 HP per 8 hour rest (or 41 HPs with 20 Con in BG); the other heals an infinite amount of HPs over weeks/months and cures disease and poison, even if you're about to die from it (BG2).

With the one, you quaff healing potions or rest once to replenish your clerical spells (under threat of ambush); then use those spells to heal your party. With the other, you don't need potions or clerical spells (and there is no threat of ambush in 90% of cases).

With the one, you therefore try not to take damage (as there are itemization/spell slot concerns); with the other, you can throw yourself into the fray and take damage knowing it's easy to get back to full HPs.

Don't know why I needed to spell that out...

 

[Lacrymas]

Random fact - on Royal Deadfire Company ships, homosexuality is apparently punished by putting the perpetrator on a diet of laxatives and water.

Why?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

And no, D&D is not flexible in comparison to something like GURPS.

I picked 1985 for my hypothetical for a reason; you could play AD&D in ‘85, but you could not play GURPS unless you were personal friends with Steve Jackson. I wouldn’t argue with you if you said combat was the most important element of AD&D, but when you claim it’s “basically” all about combat and then describe what sounds like the gold box games or Icewind Dale, it just rings very false. Even a P&P session that’s 100% dungeon crawling is not “basically” all combat. The social aspect is huge. If you hate how intrusive BG2’s companions are, I can’t imagine you loving a tabletop session. So much talking to other people—it really gets in the way of killin’ stuff! And god forbid you find an enchanted item with few class restrictions; when your whole party is made of teenagers, the wrangling over muh precious can last forever.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Random fact - on Royal Deadfire Company ships, homosexuality is apparently punished by putting the perpetrator on a diet of laxatives and water.

Why?

It's not explained. And homosexuality isn't mentioned explicitly. The wording is "Feeding the depraved or the cowardly a diet of raw flintseed and water will remind them that law is life, and the captain holds mastery over every spoonful." It's in the guidebook.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Random fact - on Royal Deadfire Company ships, homosexuality is apparently punished by putting the perpetrator on a diet of laxatives and water.

Why?

I guess they’re very fastidious about the rectums they play with. I’m just as puzzled as you are. Like the great ethicist de Sade, I agree that half the fun is knowing it’s dirty.