Upcomming Changes - Spells, Evil, and You

[GodBeastX]

I guess in a long winded way, I was trying to stress how hard it is to balance a game that was primarily made for single player.

I was also trying to make the point that an RP server should be worried about more than uber characters. If you want an uber character and beat everyone, go for it, but if not, then just enjoy your character and the RP value he/she brings.

I agree with you, it's too bad all the players don't I'm happy progressing whenever. I get most XP from events I fall into, which give much easier XP than dungeon crawling. Although when I do go dungeon crawling, I try to enjoy it with RP in mind ^_^

NOw, I have a chart I need to start with gains experienced and such.

[Eternal Serf]

I wish there was a way to eliminate alighnments alltogether. I really hate the idea that some 'score' determines how my character is perceived. Even worse the idea that another person could detect my 'score' just kind of ruins the potential for me to roleplay my PC the way I want to.

In a low magic PW like Sundren spells are the difference between survival and death, sadly this limits non-magical class's a great deal, but that seems to be the way of things in NWN2. It will be interesting to see what difference shortening and changing the effects and durations of protective spells will be, while offensive spells and the abilities of NPC's and monsters are not changed.

[Saulus]

I wish there was a way to eliminate alighnments alltogether. I really hate the idea that some 'score' determines how my character is perceived. Even worse the idea that another person could detect my 'score' just kind of ruins the potential for me to roleplay my PC the way I want to.

Then don't play DnD based games?

[Eternal Serf]

nice answer Saulus. I've been gaming since 78, and have always thought alignments were a load of BS as they pigeon hole people into specific slots; 'he's lawful good! so he won't kill people' 'he's chaotic evil so he's going to kill everyone in town for no reason'. Frankly alignments are limiting to real roleplaying as they don't have any basis on realism or heck even good fantasy writing.

Still as time goes by, and I see 'roleplaying' NWN players becoming rules nazi's and full of themselves, I think; 'why bother anymore?' as a silly idea for miniture armies has been translated into dogma for thousands of roleplayers.

You see; I played chainmail which is the basis for D&D, and we used alignments to allow us to join forces with each other (dwarves with elfs and 'good' humans, against evil folks like orcs and goblins). When D&D came out we were all stunned that they put in alignment rules and we scrapped them after our first game as being silly.

Of course some folks love to be told how to play, and how to react. But is that roleplaying or 'roteplaying?'

Oh well. As to why I play this game, since its the only one in town and I sometimes feel the need to see how others play, I jump in, but then I get fed up with being told how my character is supposed to be played and I usually move on.

[Saulus]

nice answer Saulus. I've been gaming since 78, and have always thought alignments were a load of BS as they pigeon hole people into specific slots; 'he's lawful good! so he won't kill people' 'he's chaotic evil so he's going to kill everyone in town for no reason'. Frankly alignments are limiting to real roleplaying as they don't have any basis on realism or heck even good fantasy writing.

Still as time goes by, and I see 'roleplaying' NWN players becoming rules nazi's and full of themselves, I think; 'why bother anymore?' as a silly idea for miniture armies has been translated into dogma for thousands of roleplayers.

You see; I played chainmail which is the basis for D&D, and we used alignments to allow us to join forces with each other (dwarves with elfs and 'good' humans, against evil folks like orcs and goblins). When D&D came out we were all stunned that they put in alignment rules and we scrapped them after our first game as being silly.

Of course some folks love to be told how to play, and how to react. But is that roleplaying or 'roteplaying?'

Oh well. As to why I play this game, since its the only one in town and I sometimes feel the need to see how others play, I jump in, but then I get fed up with being told how my character is supposed to be played and I usually move on.

Right, I suppose what I'm asking is why is a rant about DnD's alignments, and your viewpoint on the flaws in NWN being posted on a thread about some Sundren updates?

[GodBeastX]

My question is, why do you feel alignments limit you when you can always have your character... ummm... change it's mind and thus alignment?

But also, what's this got to do with updates.

[TheOnlyArman]

I wish there was a way to eliminate alighnments alltogether. I really hate the idea that some 'score' determines how my character is perceived. Even worse the idea that another person could detect my 'score' just kind of ruins the potential for me to roleplay my PC the way I want to.

If you want to roleplay your PC without having your alignment get in the way, go for "True Neutral". It would have to be the least "alignmenty"-alignment. Though, if you really want to go all super-technical and bust out some gigantic D&D Rulebook of years past, I believe "True Neutral" constituted as the generic "No Alignment", as it allowed for even differentiation to either side.

Besides, if you can roleplay well enough, you can make even the evilest of evils a good guy, or even the greatest of goods be a terrible villain. Imagine Mother Theresa selling a sick orphans kidney. That's the kind of transition I'm talking about. Don't confine yourself to a pre-determined choice; it's all about how you play your character with words, rather than re-rolling to get an attributional score.

I'm also strongly doubting that anyone would roleplay the "AAH! EVIL! KILL NOW" type of roleplay, and visa versa with insertion of "Good". You all seem far too literate, mature, and experienced in roleplaying to simple jump someone because of an alignment. Or at least, just to grief another player.

[Eternal Serf]

Sorry Godbeast, I was just mentioning that I didn't like 'know alignment' type spells and such. I didn't mean to hijack your thread, or demean your guys work on the server which after playing with the toolset for about a dozen frustrating hours, I have a great deal of respect for.

As to alignments, I was pointing out how I dislike them as I think they limit roleplay more than they help it. I think alignments are fine as DM aids when making NPC's, but for PC's I'd rather 'observe' them playing. If they are good, law abiding folks or if they are kleptomaniac backstabbers, means more to me than LG or CE or CN, if you get my drift.

[GodBeastX]

Well, I feel you on know alignment spells, but studying into the paladin/blackguard it's kind of hard not to have these functions. Especially for paladin. When one evil act can dictate you losing your powers, having tools to ensure your actions are just are VERY important. We're talking about incurring additional hardship on those who use it. Maybe exp penalty, maybe stat drops for awhile, who knows. We basically want to slap people's wrists who just run around trying to see what alignments everyone is.

[Spider_kiss]

Alignment detection

I think player alignments and detection make it more challenging for RP. I mean certain spells and feats that are used to detect alignment are also to keep PC's with alignment preferences IC. For instance, a paladin has the ability to Detect evil because his god will not allow him/her to be fooled by Evil or Evil intents so easily. Without that ability it gets pretty ridiculous and evil characters can lie/bluff all they want making Paladin's and good aligned clerics far to easy prey.

[undeadsteak]

Meh, invest some points in wisdom? >_>. And yes, running around screaming "DETECT EVIL!" is stupid. I think an xp drain or the such should be neccessary, so they'll only use it when they acutally hear somone saying something that might cause sucpision, or doing something sucpicious.

[Spider_kiss]

Meh, invest some points in wisdom? >_>. And yes, running around screaming "DETECT EVIL!" is stupid. I think an xp drain or the such should be neccessary, so they'll only use it when they acutally hear somone saying something that might cause sucpision, or doing something sucpicious.

well serry, but wisdom points won't really cut it when a bluff modifier can be over +30. Unless every single gud character tries to make Spot their focus skill with an equivalent modifier. Plus, Wisdom is not used to detect Evil, but it MAY BE used to unravel "lies" or "falsehoods" or contradictions in a characters dialogue utilizing IC commonsense. That's why DND makes these two things separate.

Just because you Lie doesn't mean a pc is evil or the level of evil lets say a Devil/Demon in disguise might be at, in which I am sure any paladin or cleric of good would prolly want to know before engaging. If you strip detect Evil/good from the game you should also strip Detect Undead since we seem to have vampires as PCs or DM characters too. Why not give the benefit of the doubt to the players here. Most of them are mature enough to not abuse those things outright and the ones who would are the minority who will prolly get penalized for any perceived abuse. If you disagree, then I question your attitude towards players here and it is kind of disrespectful to "assume" the majority of the player base to be incompetent.

[undeadsteak]

Wis + HD + d20 roll. It can be possible. Atleast im pretty sure thats what they used a while back.. not sure if thats still the same thing. Im not asking for detect evil to be stripped. Im asking for a penalty for using it... And every server w/o bios gets its share of players who mess around. They wont last for long. And not everyone reads the forums, how would people know if they're abusing it or not?

[Spider_kiss]

well honey, if they dun read the forums how are ye gonna explain it to them when they get penalized fer something they didn't know was bad?

[undeadsteak]

Because once they get penalized, they'll learn to read the forums? >_> It needs some warning anyways. Say one person does decide to run around detecting evil with no reason? What happens to the players who get screwed over for no reason? A few seconds later and it'll be "That person is evil, don't travel with them!"