GamePhil

Re: Order of the Stick

I think she could be draft enough. Aside from bringing the three-Hell-Guys onto the scene' date=' there is little she did in the area of "corrupting" and cunningness the entire series.[/quote']

 

That we know of. She could just be that cunning.

 

Plus, it's not her fault that her assignment is to support Nale, who came pre-corrupted.

Re: Order of the Stick

There's a local eye doctor shop here called Wright Eye. Must be a fan.

Re: Champions Online - Revelation Coming In March

They've now publicly set the precedent that 'enough bitching gets you your way.' They've opened the flood gates to petitions, rants, screams and squeaky wheels.

This is my concern. That, and Revelations now really needs to be so good that the naysayers will go, "Yeah, I would have paid for that", in order to fix the bad will. If this was meant as a true "apology", then he should have left out the part about how it was of the quality of a paid expansion unless it is very true.

It's already started, people out there patting themselves on the back and insulting anyone that disagreed with their attitude. Unfortunate.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

Respectfully' date=' pure pixels per screen are not arguable. CO's kinda cell shading, kinda not - is a detriment to performance. Also, in CoX you have almost every creation option with one exception - an in depth weapon customization in comparison. CoX has the power aura creator though and so it evens out imo. In the end CoX runs on a superior engine and the game is almost five years older than CO. It should not only not be that way, it shouldn't even be close.[/quote']

 

No, it's not arguable, but who cares? I like the look in CO. I detest the look in WoW. Guess which I'll pick?

 

I don't have almost every creation option in CoX, I am constrained by the antiquated character class idea. It's true that I have every costume creation option, however, but that's not the only thing that I want from the game. I'd actually prefer a game that was even more freeform than CO, but it's a step in the right direction, so I'm going to go with it, thanks.

 

But, whatever. The things you want out of a game are clearly different from what I want out of a game, and that's just fine by me. I just don't get why there is the need to try to prove someone that doesn't agree with your wall of text wrong. But that's just fine, I'll bow out now, since while you started with "respectfully", I'm not feeling it.

Re: Impact of Figured Characteristics

GamePhil' date=' wouldn't it be easier to use a template requiring the purchase of "secondary" characteristics to be at least what they would have been using the math for Figured Characteristics rather than dropping the ammount of points allotted and actually handing them out for free again? The result should be similar in most cases and certainly much, much easier...[/font']

First, I am simply adding my input for anyone that wants them back. I am not advocating bringing them back for anyone that doesn't want them, simply offering my opinions of how to do it should it be desirable to the individual player. Obviously, anyone that truly wants them in their old form finds advantage to them that is worth the cost of what you perceive as more complexity. I don't find any particular advantage to them, but that doesn't mean I won't try to help someone that does.

Emphasis on "try", really.

Second, I was disputing that there is some kind of "extensive rebalancing" that prevents their use in 6th, and providing one way of doing it that should cause no headaches once it's done. Three steps that should be dead simple to anyone that played 5th or before extensively and you're done. Even if you didn't want to bring back the old Characteristic block, it should be possible to fiddle with the new one to make it work. Really, DEX is the only problematic Characteristic, since its total cost went up by so much, and even that could be waived if you didn't have any problems with it in the old days (in fact, I have to assume that anyone that liked it before would find it overpriced by quite a lot now, while Ego and the other physical Characteristics took a comparitively smaller hit).

Third, you find it much easier to use the template as you say. Some people would find it to be using the old formulas and then also having to calculate the costs of each secondary stat's base as well, an extra step, so harder than just making a single change to the rules at the start. Some people liked the cost breaks and want them back, whether or not they also think the method you propose would be easier. And so on. So whether it is easier or not, or desirable or not, depends largely on our own points of view.

My personal preference, if I were to want to bring back Figured Characteristics with the attendant cost breaks, as opposed to using them as guidelines, would be to create packages for the Characteristics I wanted to have more abilities based on and then set the cost to what I want it to be, similarly to how you re-create Detective Work (Skill Combinations, 6E1 p54) and let people buy those. I would then create more such packages for everyone so that EGO and INT and PRE based characters could get in on the fun. So, STR +5 PD +1 REC +1 STUN +2 is a 5 point Characteristic Combination. EGO +3 EMCV +1 DMCV +1 is a 6 pointer, +5 INT and +1 OCV w/Ranged Attacks for 5 pts (as a random example), and so on. But that requires more work and is really beside the point, since my original intent was only to dispute that it couldn't be done without unbalancing the game.

Re: Impact of Figured Characteristics

It would not be a good idea to go back to Figured Characteristics without also re-introducing Elemental Controls.

 

Of course, I don't think it was a great idea to nix Figured Characteristics while retaining /any/ frameworks. Elemental Controls were the power-oriented cost break most comparable to Figureds, though.

 

It would probably be easier to stick with 5th (or 4th, they're not that different) than try to add figured characteristics back into 6th. If you're committed to 6th, I'd definitely advise you to leave Figureds out of it, it's been extensively re-balanced to work without them.

Hmm? Why are Multipowers and VPP's a problem without Figured's? EC's and Figured Characteristics go together because really they have a similar effect, but the other two frameworks work nothing like those two, so why dump them at all? They do actually restrict the powers that are placed in them rather than allowing you to use them all at once.

As for extensive balancing in 6th to be rid of figureds, all I can see that you'd want to do to bring back the older Hero/Champions Characteristic block is reduce the total character points to the older levels and bring back EC's. Everything else is balanced in just about the same way as it always was, for better or for worse.

Re: Regeneration Costs

There's long been a simple way to cost regeneration that's consistent with the normal healing rules and doesn't give you too strange a cost structure.

Quite right, and it's the one that was adopted almost exactly as you describe into 6th Ed, so I'm not sure what your point was, there. The only difference is that you buy the REC up the time chart on individual points of REC rather than REC as a whole.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

Why? To put it bluntly CO is graphically inferior to ALL of the above mentioned games, and its not even a close race. CoX has an amazing character creator as well(Arguably far superior), and it has another advantage over CO, multiple servers. This, of course, helps with resource allocation and allows for smoother combat in non instanced zones. So already CO has two strikes against it when compared to its direct competition, but that's not all by a long shot.

Interesting that I disagree with all of these points. Think it's a matter of taste. I can't see the graphics of WoW to be superior, and certainly don't find the character creator in CoX to be even arguably superior. As for multiple servers, they may help in some areas but they split up your player base, so it's a give and take kind of thing. So, we shall see.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

I don't see the art style changing either (at least by the previews I've seen) Most of the new stuff sounded cool' date=' but I don't know if my system will be able to handle them. We'll see.[/quote']

 

If it does what it sounds like it's going to, I'll buy it just to be able to play Professor Scarab as a hero.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

Well' date=' perhaps, at least until Going Rogue comes out. It will be their first upgrade of the graphics engine which should put it on par with CO, if not beyond.[/quote']

 

Possibly, though actually I rather doubt it. I still enjoy CoH, though, so it doesn't matter much, I'll get it and see. But for my personal tastes it will certainly not put it on par with CO or beyond, simply because I prefer the art style in CO, and that's very unlikely to change.

Re: Thoughts about Vibora bay

On a personal level, I will likely buy the zone and enjoy it if they charge a reasonable price for it. The game doesn't seem light to me as it does to others, I'm enjoying it and will likely continue to, and I have all but one of my character slots already filled and even enjoy the same stories from another point of view. This is, I admit, a potentially slippery slope.

What I'm not qualified to judge is whether this decision is somehow "right". I see lots of people shouting about how WoW and CoH don't do this kind of thing, but not only is that not entirely true, but the companies that run these games are juggernauts that can pay for these improvements without much trouble. WoW in particular has so many subscribers that they can keep a staff on improving the game at all times without ever having to charge for expansions, and yet they still do so for major updates. NCSoft is gigantic, and can not only keep multiple MMO's going with large player bases but can easily field games that are free to subscribe, only charging for major updates. That base allows these companies great flexibility, flexibility I'm not sure Cryptic is capable of at this time. But I'd have to see the books to be sure that analysis is true, and that's not likely to happen. There are likely counter examples out there that are more like Cryptic's size, I'd like to know how they're doing and how they do it, but that's not likely to happen either.

I just don't know. Without knowing the internal workings of these companies, and for preference another company putting out an MMO that is around Cryptic's size and customer base, but manages to charge less, I can't judge. They feel like very different situations to me, something like WotC against, well, most of the gaming market. People that are used to the original D&D 3rd Edition prices were often shocked by the prices of books from small press companies, who would not have survived charging similar prices for similar quality books.

I'm not saying that this excuses them, necessarily, just that I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that their pricing is what they have to do rather than being motivated by greed, so as long as I'm enjoying myself I'm willing to put out a little more for certain things. I've purchased both WoW expansions and all the little costume things in CoH, and gained far less enjoyment from them than I am from the game as it is right now. They proved entertaining enough for the price, so we'll see. $5 for a zone the size of MC is not something I will bat an eye at, and for all we know that's the kind of price we're talking about.

Re: What do you really think of Champions Online?

I, on the other hand, find the game to be in almost every particular superior to CoX except the polish. I have considerably greater control over what my character's powers are, have more fun with the crafting (not a lot more fun, mind, but more, and I don't have to scrounge for interesting recipes), like the graphics better, feel more like I'm teaming up with the world's established heroes rather than just doing jobs for them (that gets better in CoH in the later stages, though). The control scheme is slightly better.

None of which is really anything other than personal preference. CoX is the more polished game by far, and it shows. I simply think that should CO survive, I will find it an utterly superior game by the time it gets to an equivalent point in its life cycle that CoX is at now. At which point, if it is also still around, CoX will have progressed beyond that. So it goes, as he said, second-itis.

Re: Math

People simply don't get that somewhat involved mathematics during character creation (which, honestly, can be bypassed for simple characters) is not as bad as having to go through such the above formula on every single roll. Probably easy enough for us, but still.

Re: Poison Gas Cloud

Don't get me wrong, DOT is a great Advantage with a number of applications, it just seems like a bit much for this, especially if most of the characters in the game have fairly similar Speeds.

Re: Poison Gas Cloud

Well, in 5th Edition, you'd likely have to either do as Hugh says and design a custom Advantage/Limitation to cover this situation, and I'd recommend that in 6th also. Otherwise, you get into the weirdness of buying up your SPD and putting a Limitation on it to only work to have your Constant AoE attack work on your target's Phases, which seems excessive to me (although I would give that a -2 Limitation and allow you to burn Phases defensively on those Segments).

I haven't been able to get it yet, but did the APG have a Change Environment that covered suffocation? If so, it might be usable for what you need, too.

In 6e you would use Damage over time. 6e1 pg 328. You can then choose the interval as every segment, every other seg, every 3 segs, etc.

While likely the perfect answer rules-wise, assuming 6E is being used, I would hesitate to do this because of the cost. Without fudging, that would be a +4 1/2 Advantage for it to last one Turn and go off every Segment, after which you'd possibly put it on a Limitation: Only Affects Target On His Own Phases, or Only Affects Target On Segments He Uses END.

With fudging, I might be inclined to use the average SPD of probable targets and buy up the DOT to a level that would work, so if typically characters have a SPD of 4, go every 3 segments with four attacks, which would make the Advantage +2 3/4, which is a bit better but still pretty high just to change from my SPD to the target's SPD, when Constant is only +1/2. It does mean I only have to spend END once, and it is effectively also Uncontrolled, but that's still only a +1 1/2 Advantage for that method.

Beast's Trigger might also work at a high enough level but again seems too expensive just to make it the target's SPD rather than yours. Damage Shield should not be necessary, Constant AoE's already work that way in both 5th and 6th.

2) An AoE works as written -- if you're in the AOE, you're subject to the AOE. In this sense, Constant doesn't really "do" anything, because ... well, because it's an AOE. A Constant AoE means that you're always targeting... the hex, and that isn't strictly necessary, except in specific circumstances (like a flamethrower).

I'm not sure I'm understanding: if I don't have Constant, I have to use an attack action every phase to hit the hex again, with it I don't, so it does something. Whether that's worth a +1/2 or +1 Advantage is another question.

Re: Open Followup to Steve Long's answer about being sleep deprived

I also hear that insufficient sleep - long term - can be implicated in exacerbating Psychological disorders such as Schizophrenia.

Oh, it can, generally making them worse, though, rather than causing them (the penalty to EGO with a pre-existing Complication may cover that adequately). Sleep deprivation for long enough can cause hallucinations and other short-term problems (cured by sleep), it seems, so some Mental Illusions or a Transform may be warranted.

Re: Open Followup to Steve Long's answer about being sleep deprived

As far as I know, no normal human has ever died directly from lack of sleep. We probably do need sleep before we need food (that is, we can go without food longer than it takes the body to force most of us to sleep, but we won't die from it earlier). There is a thankfully exceedingly rare condition called fatal familial insomnia (WikiPedia actually matches what I have heard of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia) that eventually results in a complete lack of sleep that lasts for three months, followed by dementia and eventual death. Whether the fatality is directly because of lack of sleep or because of something else, or even if the victim truly was completely without sleep (I haven't heard of any of these poor people wearing an EEG to check for the entire length of the disease, but it could have happened), I'm not entirely sure.

Bright light, especially natural light, does help people stay awake, as does social interaction, so being able to stay up throughout a convention is pretty typical (I can't do it any more, but still). So, you could get bonuses from such things. Also, the body trying to force you to sleep tends to come in waves: if you resist it for that period by whatever means, it will eventually go away for a while and try again (presumably, the body simply "concludes" that what you are doing is more important than sleep and gives up, such as in a survival situation).

Rebounding from sleep deprivation is remarkably easy, considering how much the body insists on us getting it: a good night's sleep and you're all set, usually. There are a number of ways that you won't get a good night's sleep, of course, but once those are fixed the tendency is to have sleep or REM rebound, prolonged periods of sleep or REM sleep, and be awake and fit in short order.

Which is not to say that any of this is a good idea, of course. It's better to stop for a nap if you can.

There are long term physical problems that have become associated with disturbed sleep over long periods of time (and those may be other effects of what's causing the disturbed sleep), but as that's not what's being discussed here, that's enough said about that.

See what you started by a little joke?

Re: List Your CO Heroes!

The Sorcerer, who wields the magic of the Valdorian Age to summon various creatures to battle evil.

Enigma, an adventurer from the closing days of World War I, now tainted and warped by ancient technology left on Earth from the time of the war against the Elder Worm and driven to oppose them and their still more alien masters.

Refuse, who has cobbled together a suit of armor from remains of the Battle of Detroit to do his part to ensure such a tragedy will never happen again.

Re: Cryptic to develop Neverwinter Nights MMO?

The post to the Turbine thread, which is in the post I was responding to. I have no idea about the validity of the case or the evil of Atari, though it wouldn't surprise me.

Re: Cryptic to develop Neverwinter Nights MMO?

Yep, seems I've been wrong about Turbine.

Not to defend Atari, but the link you provided can hardly be considered unbiased.

Re: Cryptic to develop Neverwinter Nights MMO?

Maybe if Turbine got off it's ass and didn't cack up DDO so badly from the start they wouldn't need to sue some other company for trying to put out a D&D MMO to replace the utter failure that is Turbine.

 

And that's not to say I 'hate' DDO. It's a fantastic game, it's the most accurate D&D pnp ruleset to MMO to date. The problem is the people behind it, not the game itself.

 

It suffered from what the MMO community likes to now call FATAL Star Wars Galaxies Syndrome.

So, they're suing over discontinued support? Wonder if they have a case.

I might have to give it a try, actually, if it's true that Cryptic is working on it. I've liked their stuff so far, broadly, and my impression is they're learning as they go, so hopefully things will get even better.

Re: HERO System 6th Edition Core Book Character Pack

Any snag this that could tell me what it includes? Is it just characters? Or are there size categories and the templates as well?

Characters and every sample Power I found, but not the normal equipment or the size templates, the size templates just didn't occur to me but maybe something can be arranged.

Re: Striking Voices

It's hard (not impossible' date=' but hard) to use Presence without speaking, and Striking Appearance modifies presence checks. "Only if they can hear me" does not seem more limiting than "Only if they can see me".[/quote']

 

As always, depends on the game. I'm not inclined to restrict SA to only have an effect with a spoken Presence Attack. If someone else is, then it certainly isn't worth a Limitation.

Re: Striking Voices

Striking Voice is really just Striking Appearance (Sound Group)' date=' and should be the same cost.[/quote']

 

You actually have to speak to make Striking Voice work, though, while you don't need to do anything for the regular version. I would agree with you if it was Striking Odor, for example, though that might have Limited Range.

Re: Nice to see you, Mr Irons, to see you nice...

Hey, Harold Potter was the first man the aliens turned into a Scotsman, this should come as no surprise.