An artist?

[Xanderleo]

Pipboy!! \o/

Thus ends my incredibly insightful and stunningly brilliant commentary.

Edit: Okay, speaking of good art, were the the Pipboy illustrations for the feats not one of the best parts of Fallout? Awesome.

[zkeleton]

Pipboy!! \o/

Thus ends my incredibly insightful and stunningly brilliant commentary.

Edit: Okay, speaking of good art, were the the Pipboy illustrations for the feats not one of the best parts of Fallout? Awesome.

Yes, yes it was. Those were games where thought was put into every detail; even the artwork in the manuals was very cool. Best Game Manuals Ever!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Tildryn]

Not every talent a character possesses needs to be represented by a class, attribute or skill.

[Echelon13]

Pipboy!! \o/

Thus ends my incredibly insightful and stunningly brilliant commentary.

Edit: Okay, speaking of good art, were the the Pipboy illustrations for the feats not one of the best parts of Fallout? Awesome.

It's actually Vault-Tec's 'VaultBoy;' the PipBoy was just the handheld device which featured a similar but different individual that acted as the mascot for RobCo - the maker of the PipBoy series.
Easy to get confused, I know.

Sorry, Fallout lore nazi for a moment there.

And yes, the art in the Fallout games and manuals was dark and humorous, just like the games itself. A shame they don't make games like that anymore.

Now you can return to the actual thread topic.

[Scavar]

Not every talent a character possesses needs to be represented by a class, attribute or skill.

I like his view of the matter.



I understand that being able to draw doesn't instantly mean you're an artist. He isn't an artist yet really, just someone who can sketch and has ideas for sketches.

One is only as good as his material, heh.

[Rhifox]

Perform (Art) would be the proper skill, however, it is not in the game. Bard is not needed for Perform, it's a stupid NWN2 mechanic that forces Perform to be a Bard-only skill, in PnP, Perform is usable by everyone and is separated into multiple categories (like Perform (Acting), Perform (Drawing), etc. Same as Lore, which is Knowledge (Etc) in PnP).

Art is a skill, not a class. The attributes used for it would be A) Dexterity (hand-eye coordination is the most essential for art. It may not make good art, but if you can't put your hand to the page right, you won't be able to draw anything). B) Charisma (creativity, the ability to come up with your own ideas and art), C) Wisdom (the knowledge of how to properly convey the idea on paper without it looking like shit. The best idea (from Charisma) and the best hand to eye coordination (Dex) means nothing if you don't know how to present it), and D) Intelligence (the knowledge of how to properly apply the correct techniques to further enhance an image. Some images require more or less technique than others, but technique is required).

[Scavar]

I knew how it worked in PnP, but thanks for the refresher

Thanks for the details on that though, excellent explanation. If I was level 6 or lower, I'd actually reroll, but now I'm level 8. I don't have the heart for rerolling. I'll just have to hope my Int/Dex and the fact that I usually just draw what's in front of me, rather than come up with stuff will suffice for now.


Or just RP that I'm good at it all.

[deepshades]

I tried writing this out, but its really late and after reading it a few times even I'm going... wtf did I just write there?

So here comes the short n sweet.

We have two people... a professional artist whose talents and skills have been recognized and celebrated.

Then we have the thief who has had to steal all their lives to make ends meat.

Do I think that the thief couldn't become a more famous, inventive/creative artist?
No. That would be silly, of course if the thief commands the untapped talent he could be very good. Does this mean hes going to go off and become a professional artist?

Perhaps, or he might just think his stuff is so crappy (Like most artists) That it could never make a life for him, and so he continues with his EPIC artistic skills without being a shitty bard(See:: Professional artist).

There ya go

I hope... I wrote something relevant.

In short, if you want to sketch me, or play a song. I'm not going to ask for a perform check... if you say you play it lovely then you do. I'll just expect you to have a little RP background prepared to explain it.

This is where PnP/NWN2 engine Bard only perform skill and my RP thoughts split.

Also as it is late and I didn't get to read over everyones helpful posts, I just pray I didn't completely paraphrase someone else's thoughts. If I did, well then we think alike. (And they'll probably have it worded better because its 4am )

[zkeleton]

It really makes no sense to me that they restricted Perform the way they did in NWN2. Since bards are the only ones who get any sort of direct benefit from the skill it was kind of silly of them to restrict it. If they were going to restrict anything it would have made more sense to do it with UMD or Disable Device.

[Machiavelli]

Unless I misunderstood Scavar's post, he was just talking about making sketches. I'd say that anyone can make sketches with some practice. But he was talking about making sketches quickly and accurately... I reckon that's int and dex for sure. I don't think any deep artistic talent or insight is required for what he's talking about.

[lordmaple]

Unless I misunderstood Scavar's post, he was just talking about making sketches. I'd say that anyone can make sketches with some practice. But he was talking about making sketches quickly and accurately... I reckon that's int and dex for sure. I don't think any deep artistic talent or insight is required for what he's talking about.

I think he was also talking, at least in game, about representing certain events that occur in real-time (such as the casting of spells) in an artistic format. I think this is definitely the domain of Charisma and Wisdom, since it's something you "feel out" instead of directly copy.

So, I agree with the order presented earlier by Josephine. Drawing a sketch of an event is part study/skill (Int and Dex), but is also part inspiration to make up for things which cannot be represented in the medium, such as the passage of time (Cha/Wis).

He isn't painting abstract art, but he *is* drawing spells which *may or may not* be "invisible" in the actual game world...

Which brings me to tangential non sequitur: if you've played PnP, ever notice how wildly different spells will be described, based on the DM? I remember some people describing charm person as nearly invisible, while others described it in a "Hypno Toad" fashion.

...Yeah, I got charmed a lot back in the day...now.

[Scavar]

You are both right. Mostly I'm talking about just sketching, there is no painting or coloring or anything like that, and my character has a hard time trying to create things from scratch without an actual basis. For example he did something for Sigrun, but to create the false location used as the background he went off his memory of the Druid Glade, and just looking at the nature around him to try piece something together, and it turned out to mostly look like the druid's glade.


As far as the movement thing goes, I can think of the sketch he has of the Hands of Mundus flinging fireballs at each other. Mostly he just looked up and drew each one at whatever stage of spell casting he saw them in, fireballs are quite visable. Everything else in the picture involves people cowering or diving or something of the sort, which I would personally feel is much more technical, as he isn't doing any stylized art or anything. Also, whenever he brings it up he talks about how ridiculously hard it was for him to do. I even had one conversation about it, that me mention I went back to it after the fact to fix things up in it. /shrug




PS. Also very true about how DMs are describing spells and such. I've only played with two DMs, and we are part of the same group, but their views are entirely different on what spells look like.