Pillars of Eternity

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Pillars of Eternity

fuck off Batman: Oct 14, 2013; Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah!

Wingless posted:

netcat posted:
No, just make them all wizards. Fight Wizard, Punch Wizard, Sneak Wizard...

This is actually my ideal RPG and really want someone to make it.

Magicka was something similar and a really fun game.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 09:32

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 05:55

AXE COP: Apr 16, 2010; i always feel like

somebody's watching me

FRINGE posted:

Training to fight semi-ambidexterously is difficult and extremely time-consuming.

So is learning magic but that doesn't stop anyone. At least dual-wielding axes means you can chop down multiple trees at once and look sick as hell while doing it!

(p.s. stop your stupid TG persecution complex poo poo, thanks)

# ? Feb 4, 2014 12:35

Masonity: Dec 31, 2007; What, I wonder, does this hidden face of madness reveal of the makers? These K'Chain Che'Malle?

In some particularly dense forests, it's rather important to be able to cut equally well with either hand. An amateur who can only slice away branches and vines with his dominant hand can find it takes two or three times as long for him to make the same trip as a skilled woodsman who can slice and dice his way through the thick scrub from two directions at once.

My woodsman was a hunter in one such forest. He spent his days setting traps, slicing through the forest with a blade in each hand, and silently lying in wait ready to pounce on a passing deer. As a result he's an ambidextrous, trap setting, back stabbing woodsman. Or a "Rogue", as adventure parties like to name them.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 12:58

Wingless: Mar 3, 2009

rope kid posted:

I have advocated coarser skill advancement, especially in games with a lot of characters, for several games. I think it usually works better and the investment feels more meaningful in a lot of CRPG environments.

I love this. I would much rather chunkier, noticeable changes in my character's abilities over a seamless +0.5% power creep every level. If I find a magic sword that is +2% to hit I get annoyed. I really feel like a magic sword should do something more dramatic than give me a two percent variation. Frequent, tiny increases make me feel like nothing is really changing at all.

Going from "Can't set enemies on fire" to "Can now set enemies on fire" after five levels is way more interesting than going from "Does 93 fire damage" to "Now does 95 fire damage" every level.

quote:

My woodsman was a hunter in one such forest. He spent his days setting traps, slicing through the forest with a blade in each hand, and silently lying in wait ready to pounce on a passing deer. As a result he's an ambidextrous, trap setting, back stabbing woodsman. Or a "Rogue", as adventure parties like to name them.

I like to keep the word rogue related to its original roots as a personality description. Sneaky, devious, brash, and under-handed - though frequently charming and capable.

Wingless fucked around with this message at 14:27 on Feb 4, 2014

# ? Feb 4, 2014 14:25

Mordaedil: Oct 25, 2007; Oh wow, cool. Good job.
So?; Grimey Drawer

Wingless posted:

I love this. I would much rather chunkier, noticeable changes in my character's abilities over a seamless +0.5% power creep every level. If I find a magic sword that is +2% to hit I get annoyed. I really feel like a magic sword should do something more dramatic than give me a two percent variation. Frequent, tiny increases make me feel like nothing is really changing at all.

Going from "Can't set enemies on fire" to "Can now set enemies on fire" after five levels is way more interesting than going from "Does 93 fire damage" to "Now does 95 fire damage" every level.

I used to be rather dismayed with D&D's progression this way. Finding a +1 or +2 sword just seemed like a tiny increment and it took until several years later for me to realize every +1 was essentially a 5% increment, which would be a rather huge deal when it comes to something like a +5 weapon.

It falls apart with hit points however, since it still adds one or two points to the amount of damage dealt and eventually your going to outscore the damage your actual weapon deals. When you have such high ability scores that you can get 10 points from strength, 4 from feats, 5 and more from magical enchantments in weapon and more bonuses from magical sources, that piddly 1-8 damage a longsword deals as its standard seem so insignificant it kinda becomes a question of "why did I bother with this weapon over any other?"

Damage types become more important, and there are some weapons that can hit several types at once(at your option in some cases), so you suddenly start to go for these and then it just gets really weird and stupid.

So, I hope we do keep some of that, but obviously I hope choice of weapon becomes scaling rather than something that ends up making no difference.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 14:44

Demiurge4: Aug 10, 2011

Mordaedil posted:

I used to be rather dismayed with D&D's progression this way. Finding a +1 or +2 sword just seemed like a tiny increment and it took until several years later for me to realize every +1 was essentially a 5% increment, which would be a rather huge deal when it comes to something like a +5 weapon.

It falls apart with hit points however, since it still adds one or two points to the amount of damage dealt and eventually your going to outscore the damage your actual weapon deals. When you have such high ability scores that you can get 10 points from strength, 4 from feats, 5 and more from magical enchantments in weapon and more bonuses from magical sources, that piddly 1-8 damage a longsword deals as its standard seem so insignificant it kinda becomes a question of "why did I bother with this weapon over any other?"

Damage types become more important, and there are some weapons that can hit several types at once(at your option in some cases), so you suddenly start to go for these and then it just gets really weird and stupid.

So, I hope we do keep some of that, but obviously I hope choice of weapon becomes scaling rather than something that ends up making no difference.

The + weapon score wasn't really there for the damage bonus, but to determine what they could damage. Demons require at least +2 or +3 (I forget which) and a lot of lesser golems are immune to normal weapons and need +1 weapons that signify they are magic in some way.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 14:53

marshmallow creep: Dec 10, 2008; I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Demiurge4 posted:

The + weapon score wasn't really there for the damage bonus, but to determine what they could damage. Demons require at least +2 or +3 (I forget which) and a lot of lesser golems are immune to normal weapons and need +1 weapons that signify they are magic in some way.

While this is true, I must admit I never really liked it. When I first played BG last year, I was doing fine when suddenly I came face to face with a pack of dogs. "Oh, they're just dogs," I thought. No, they were vampire wolves, which meant 3/4s of my party couldn't even do damage and the rest were swiftly paralyzed. I don't mind overwhelming encounters, but not even having the opportunity to fight back because of a number on my equipment feels arbitrary and unfun. I'm glad there's no sign of that in PoE.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 15:19

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Wingless posted:

Going from "Can't set enemies on fire" to "Can now set enemies on fire" after five levels is way more interesting than going from "Does 93 fire damage" to "Now does 95 fire damage" every level.

I dont totally agree with the rest (for a variety of boring reasons), but I definitely agree with this.

AXE COP posted:

At least dual-wielding axes means you can chop down multiple trees at once and look sick as hell while doing it!

That was quick.

FRINGE posted:

If you are running a narrative game (as opposed to a video-game on paper) there needs to be some kind of story-sense or there is no story.

If you are running a super stylized game of POWAR VS POWAR then: "of course" to basically whatever. Dual wield live cows to harvest mountains to make soup out of for your herd of moons.

If you are running something more like a communal novel then there is a different type of believability/consensus that matters.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 15:21

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

idonotlikepeas posted:

Plenty of games have used systems like that. Arcanum, for instance, where having a persuasion of 5 was pretty hefty. I remember a fairly impassioned essay on this topic from one of the developers of Ultima 9, of all things.

It's interesting that the Arcanum devs completely overhauled the system in that game mid-development from something that vaguely resembled Fallout 2 (you'd get 5 character points when you levelled up, basic stats and skills had sliding point costs depending on how many points you already had in that stat/skill, spells cost multiple points, etc) to what Arcanum's system is now (you get five character points at the game start, one point per normal level up, an extra point if the level is a multiple of five, and everything from increasing a stat by one to increasing a skill by one costs one point. Internally, skill points are a 0-20 scale, and each external 'rank' you buy translates to 4 internal points, etc). Here are details of the transition cobbled from some interviews:

"The Terra Arcanum FAQ posted:

Q6) Why did you change the leveling system, and how does the new system work?

Sharon Shellman [9/17/2000]:You no longer get 5 character points each time you level up. About 6 weeks ago we took a long, hard look at our entire point distribution system. What we saw was a lot of confusion. Allow me to explain.

With that system, you got 5 points per level to spend, but different levels of things cost different amounts of points, and the higher the level you achieved, the more you were having to "save" your points in order to get the next level of whatever you wanted. I am not sure of what the precise numbers were off the top of my head, but the example below is close to accurate.

As an example, melee could advance through 20 levels. Levels 1-10 cost 1 point each, levels 11-20 cost 2 points each. EXCEPT that you could not raise a skill higher than the stat it depended upon. Stat costs went according to the following point costs: levels 1-2 cost 1 point each, levels 5 - 9 cost 3 points each, levels 10-13 cost 6 points each, levels 14-17 cost 9 points each and levels 18-20 cost 12 points each.

Melee depends upon dex. The average (human) starts with a dex of 8, melee of 0. So if you wanted to achieve a 20 in melee, it would cost you all of the points you earned up through level 22, with you putting nothing into any other stat, skill, magick or tech.

Also, you would have to "save up" points to advance. To get from a level 17 to a level 18 in melee, you would have to save up the 12 CP to raise your DX to 18, plus 2 more to raise your Melee to 18. And you would have to repeat that pattern to achieve 19 and 20 as well. This made the game seem very difficult and un-rewarding the higher level you became. Our old system was nice in the beginning, but got very tedious from the mid-point on up through the game, and it was also very, very complicated as we discovered when trying to explain it to people. So.... we revamped the system.

The new system is much easier to understand and does not require you to look up a chart or remember how many more levels you have to advance before you can raise that skill or buy that spell you want. You now get three character points to spend when you start the game, instead of 5. Skills have been changed to a graphical bar displaying 5 levels, rather than a 1-20 number range. Your skills are still tied to a particular stat, and to reach each of the 5 levels, you must have a 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 in that stat. Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) costs 1 point - spells, tech disciplines, stats and skills. And finally, you only get 1 point each time you level, instead of 5.

This system has proven very successful with the testing we've put it through. It is effective, easily understandable, and makes it a lot simpler to plan how you are going to spend your points. With both systems, your character advances at roughly the same overall rate. However with the new one, it is consistent throughout the entire game and, most importantly, you can advance your characters skills each time you level up... You are not required to save up points like you were in the old system.

The old skill system is still in place under the new system. So when you spend one point and move 1/5th of the way through the new skill system, you are at a point that is equal to putting 4 points into the old system. Also, as you raise your skills, the change that happens as you spend each point will be very noticeable, where it was not in the old system. (a 1 in melee was not much different from a 4 in melee before)

The focus on where to put the points is pretty much the same, its just more straightforward. Now, if I want and average starting character to get to Level 2 of Melee, I put 1 point into DX, and 2 into Melee. Before I put 3 into DX and 8 into Melee. Either way took me 3 levels to achieve. And the old way would cost me more as I became higher level.

Our biggest problem with the old system was that we had tried to create a combined level based and point based system. This was confusing. It also took us a while to realize that it didn't work right, since everything was fine in the early levels. It didn't get screwed up until you were a high level character. Early on, you leveled, you got points, you spent them... woohoo. Later, you leveled, you got points, you couldn't spend them on anything... what the? Now, each time you level you can improve your character, or you can save your points (if your not sure where you want to spend it), whichever you choose.

The old system would have been fine if every quest gave you a point or two, and from the beginning you realized that you had to save points up to buy things. But the way it was working, it felt like a level based system early on, where each level rewarded you with enough points to advance, and then switched to a point based system later in the game, requiring you to save up points through multiple levels before you could improve your character.

Q7) Are characterist advancements more expensive in the new system?

Sharon Shellman [9/19/00]: Actually, in the old system characteristics (or Stats) were even MORE expensive to acquire than they are now.

In the old system, it would take you to level 26 to max out one stat and one skill. 77% of your points (or 98 of them) were needed to raise a stat to 20, and 23% of your points (or 30 of them) were needed to raise a skill to 20.

Using the new system, it will take you to level 15 to max out one stat and one skill. 71% of your points (or 12 of them) will be needed to raise a stat to 20, and 29% of your points (or 5 of them) will be needed to raise a skill to 5.

So in reality, skills cost more now than they used to, and stats are cheaper.

Q8) In Fallout, the number of skill points that you got each level depended on you intelligence. Is that true in Arcanum?

Tim Cain [5/10/2000]: In Arcanum, you get a set number of character points when you go up a level. It does not depend on any stat.

Q9) Along with character points, does the PC get anything else, like more hit points when he levels up?

Sharon Shellman [9/17/2000]: For each level you go up, you now automatically get 2 each of HP/Fat. You can also put points into them directly - for each point you add to HP, it will increase by 4.

There are also other ways to increase HP/Fat - For every point you put into Willpower you gain 1 each of HP/Fat. For every point you put into Constitution you gain 2 Fat. For every point you put into Strength you gain 2 HP. We thought this made a lot more sense than the old "static" system.

Q10) How many fatigue points (currently) will a character point buy?

Sharon Shellman [9/17/2000]: One character point will buy 4 fatigue points.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 15:23

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

Berk Berkly posted:

As a GM I've had to deal with players wanting to have a heavy full plate wearer specialize in sneaking and acrobatic tricks. And backstab with fireballs. And some point you have to think about the logical coherence of what the character claims to be and what they try to do and how they try to do it. Not all character concepts are equally viable or even logically coherent. What practical reason would a Woodsman ever have for dual wielding for instance? I know its to grognardy point to make but sometimes for the sake of gameplay sacrifices must be made.

Is dual wielding (or fighting melee) somehow less practical than taming a wild beast to tank for you while you shoot around it with a bow? Is the WoW Hunter archetype somehow more authentically "ranger" than the D&D Ranger class?

Anyway, that's what it comes down to for me. If - in 2014 - the ranger class for your spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate is a World of Warcraft Hunter ripoff then that's really sad and lazy.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 15:53

frajaq: Jan 30, 2009; #acolyte GM of 2014

On the other hand, the WoW Hunter owns and is very fun to play

# ? Feb 4, 2014 15:56

Gyshall: Feb 24, 2009; Had a couple of drinks.
Saw a couple of things.

rope kid posted:

When you highlight an ability or spell icon in PoE, you get a brief text description of what it does + the numbers to go with it.

You have no idea how freaking excited this makes me.

rope kid posted:

I have advocated coarser skill advancement, especially in games with a lot of characters, for several games. I think it usually works better and the investment feels more meaningful in a lot of CRPG environments.

This too. I know it isn't an ~~~~~~~ official patch ~~~~~ but I love the jsawyer mod for New Vegas, simply because everything feels so much more cohesive in the Ultimate Edition of that game. Hoping PoE has similar rewarding progression.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:08

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

frajaq posted:

On the other hand, the WoW Hunter owns and is very fun to play

Cool. I hear you can already play the WoW Hunter in this game right here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/

Don't get me wrong, I also like the Hunter and I've wasted a lot of my life on WoW. But there are no raids requiring precision tuning in Pillars of Eternity -- As long as we're talking single player RPGs, I'll always take the messy flexibility of 2nd ed. Dungeons & Dragons over an overly prescriptive WoW clone.

I certainly hope PoE won't require me to build a party of archetypes with every niche covered. My BG2 party was far from optimal but it still muddled through and I enjoyed it all the more for having the characters in my party that I wanted, and not the ones that I needed.

unlimited shrimp fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Feb 4, 2014

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:12

pun pundit: Nov 11, 2008; I feel the same way about the company bearing the same name.

bathroom sounds posted:

Anyway, that's what it comes down to for me. If - in 2014 - the ranger class for your spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate is a World of Warcraft Hunter ripoff then that's really sad and lazy.

I'm pretty certain DnD 3.0 was released years before World of Warcraft. In it, rangers had access to an animal companion and ranged combat was one of their favoured fighting styles. Baldur's Gate rangers were also pretty good at shooting bows.

Anyway, I'm sure someone will release a mod for Pillars of Eternity where the rogue's favoured skills are changed to "survival" and "being drizzt", has its name changed to "ranger", and changes the ranger class's name to "hunter lol". That should satisfy you.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:16

Furism: Feb 21, 2006; Live long and headbang

Let's not get into which High Heroic Fantasy class is more 'realistic' than the other, please.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:17

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

pun pundit posted:

I'm pretty certain DnD 3.0 was released years before World of Warcraft. In it, rangers had access to an animal companion and ranged combat was one of their favoured fighting styles. Baldur's Gate rangers were also pretty good at shooting bows.

Archery and animal companions were available to rangers in 3.0 but they were far from class defining or obligatory, as opposed to a Hunter clone which absolutely needs those things to survive.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:18

SageNytell: Sep 28, 2008; <REDACT> THIS!

FRINGE posted:

If you are running a narrative game (as opposed to a video-game on paper) there needs to be some kind of story-sense or there is no story.

You do recall that we're discussing a video game, right? :frogout:

The entire point of this genre and game is escapism - if a concept is feasible in the design space, evocative, and doesn't break balance of play, then it should be allowed. If everyone's having fun I don't give a poo poo about realism. Two-weapon fighting, magic, and psychic powers aren't effective ways to fight in the real world but this isn't the real world and they are fun as hell in games.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:23

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

A true spiritual successor to a melee-oriented IE/2nd Ed. ranger would be a sub-par fighter. And yes, 3E/3.5 rangers both gain animal companions as a standard part of the class at 4th level.

In any case, most of the PoE ranger's abilities could also easily be modified to be used with melee weapons, which is what we're likely to do. Some of their abilities will likely stay ranged-only because they only make sense that way (like some of the fighter's only make sense as melee-only).

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:23

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

bathroom sounds posted:

the messy flexibility of 2nd ed. Dungeons & Dragons

I've been playing A/D&D for 28 years, 2nd Ed. for 11 of those, and this is the first time I've seen someone describe 2nd Ed. as flexible.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:28

pun pundit: Nov 11, 2008; I feel the same way about the company bearing the same name.

rope kid posted:

A true spiritual successor to a melee-oriented IE/2nd Ed. ranger would be a sub-par fighter.

There's nothing sub-par about Minsc, you take that back! (Also he had an animal companion)

bathroom sounds, going on the NPCs they have revealed, one of which is a rogue who is not a sneaky thief but rather a soldier, I don't think your class will shoehorn you into a specific personality or subplot, I think it's most likely that the reputation system or skills will do that if anything does. Rope kid, maybe you can comfirm/deny?

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:40

unlimited shrimp: Aug 30, 2008

rope kid posted:

I've been playing A/D&D for 28 years, 2nd Ed. for 11 of those, and this is the first time I've seen someone describe 2nd Ed. as flexible.

I've never played the tabletop version, was mostly referring to BG2 where a wizard had spells to compensate for a subpar rogue, a ranger had options to utilize some rogue skills, clerics & druids were largely redundant except for flavor, and bards were pretty much useless and doubly redundant but still a viable option if you were so inclined. They weren't rigid archetypes like you have in an MMORPG and they didn't have to be.

However, I did play a hell of a lot of 3E and I never relied on an animal companion as an integral part of the ranger. Certainly not in the vein of WoW where the companion tanked while I plunked away from range -- 3E animal companions could be that, but they could also be utility animals that would extend your senses or whatever similar to a familiar.

Mostly I just hate the concept of using an animal to do your fighting for you, and I don't see why abusing your pet bear is intrinsic to being a ranger, so :shrug:

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:40

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

pun pundit posted:

I don't think your class will shoehorn you into a specific personality or subplot, I think it's most likely that the reputation system or skills will do that if anything does. Rope kid, maybe you can comfirm/deny?

Class is one of the less frequent conditions for dialogue replies and it usually has to do with something very specific to how the class actually operates. For something having to do with the wilderness, hunting, etc., we typically check the Survival skill. Rangers get an inherent bonus in Survival but other classes are not restricted from taking points in it at all.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:52

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

bathroom sounds posted:

Mostly I just hate the concept of using an animal to do your fighting for you, and I don't see why abusing your pet bear is intrinsic to being a ranger, so

Abusing your animal companion = abusing the ranger in PoE. Animal companions have high DT, but damage they suffer is directly taken by the ranger as well. If it goes down, the ranger goes down. If it dies, the ranger dies. The animal companion does help hold targets in position while the ranger is fighting, but the larger advantage comes from the damage they can do when they are both targeting the same enemy. If you send the animal companion to hold off an ogre while the ranger takes out some scrubs on the other side of the screen, neither the AC or the ranger gain any advantage and they will both probably go down in short order.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 16:59

verybad: Apr 23, 2010; Now with 100% less DoTA crotchshots

Do rangers get their ranged bonuses when they're using weapons with long reach (ie. long spears and such) or just with actual ranged weapons? Are there reach weapons in the game anyway?

# ? Feb 4, 2014 17:10

rope kid: Feb 3, 2001; Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

Currently only with actual ranged weapons. The pike does have reach and is currently the only melee weapon with reach.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 17:17

verybad: Apr 23, 2010; Now with 100% less DoTA crotchshots

May I ask why? If you included the pike as well, it seems to me that all the traditional hunting weapons would be included in the ranger's arsenal. At a glance, it doesn't seem like it would be much of a balance problem or anything, and would keep the class flavor intact.

Are pikes penalized in melee range vs regular melee weapons, except by having suboptimal stats in exchange for extra range?

bathroom sounds posted:

Is dual wielding (or fighting melee) somehow less practical than taming a wild beast to tank for you while you shoot around it with a bow? Is the WoW Hunter archetype somehow more authentically "ranger" than the D&D Ranger class?

Anyway, that's what it comes down to for me. If - in 2014 - the ranger class for your spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate is a World of Warcraft Hunter ripoff then that's really sad and lazy.

Woodsman/expert dual-wielder (weapon style probably mostly associated with dueling) is a rather confused archetype in comparison to a hunter with a bow and a pet.

verybad fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Feb 4, 2014

# ? Feb 4, 2014 17:33

Furism: Feb 21, 2006; Live long and headbang

Do melee characters automatically stay at the maximum reach of their weapon? I assume reach is for calculating range for PBAoE spells and abilities and using a higher reach helps you avoid some of the damage?

# ? Feb 4, 2014 17:38

DatonKallandor: Aug 21, 2009; "I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

bathroom sounds posted:

Archery and animal companions were available to rangers in 3.0 but they were far from class defining or obligatory, as opposed to a Hunter clone which absolutely needs those things to survive.

Animal Companion was mandatory and your choices of fighting style were Ranged (something specific to the ranger) or Be-Drizzt (which is even more derivative and boring than WoW Hunter). Note that WoW Hunter is a ridiculous oversimplification and the shared health pool is nothing like that. Oh and it turns out Ranged+Pet is an awesome class - as evidence you can take the fact it's used a lot, including in 4E (the best Edition) DnD.

Edit: Also the whole dual wield Drizzt thing isn't even because he's a Ranger. He was dual-wield because he was a Drow - they subsequently changed Ranger to be capable of Dual-wielding because of Drizzt.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 17:49

coffeetable: Feb 5, 2006; TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY

verybad posted:

May I ask why? If you included the pike as well, it seems to me that all the traditional hunting weapons would be included in the ranger's arsenal.

Pikes were about 15 feet long. Traditional hunting weapon?

# ? Feb 4, 2014 17:57

citybeatnik: Mar 1, 2013; You Are All
WEIRDOS

Random question dealing with the ranger - are they fluffed as having trained their animal companion, or does their Soul-Stuff that everyone else throw around forge a bond with a particular fuzzy animal?

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:01

verybad: Apr 23, 2010; Now with 100% less DoTA crotchshots

coffeetable posted:

Pikes were about 15 feet long. Traditional hunting weapon?

According to wikipedia, pikes were anything from 10-25' long. Here's a hunting spear, courtesy of wikipedia:

Seems quite long.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:17

Tricky Dick Nixon: Jul 26, 2010; by Nyc_Tattoo

citybeatnik posted:

Random question dealing with the ranger - are they fluffed as having trained their animal companion, or does their Soul-Stuff that everyone else throw around forge a bond with a particular fuzzy animal?

Considering that you share damage with your animal companion, a soul bond makes the most amount of sense as to why that is in a game world context.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:19

A MIRACLE: Sep 17, 2007; All right. It's Saturday night; I have no date, a two-liter bottle of Shasta and my all-Rush mix-tape... Let's rock.

Wait, what's the difference between a pike and a halberd? I always thought pikes were like normal spear-length, like 8' ish

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:20

Mr.Pibbleton: Feb 3, 2006; Aleuts rock, chummer.

verybad posted:

May I ask why? If you included the pike as well, it seems to me that all the traditional hunting weapons would be included in the ranger's arsenal. At a glance, it doesn't seem like it would be much of a balance problem or anything, and would keep the class flavor intact.

Are pikes penalized in melee range vs regular melee weapons, except by having suboptimal stats in exchange for extra range?

Woodsman/expert dual-wielder (weapon style probably mostly associated with dueling) is a rather confused archetype in comparison to a hunter with a bow and a pet.

Throwing in my two cents as an Alaskan from a subsistence hunting family(hunting/gathering for food but yes we did have a grocery store in our village) I found a lot of hunters get good at doing stuff with both hands in case the other one gets injured, so developing a bit of ambi-dexterity is definitely a good thing. However I don't know of anyone who uses two knives in a fight, two machettes to clear out brush yeah, but fighting bears it's always been two handed stuff if it's available. One guy managed to take out two with a wood axe and no injuries to himself. As for animal companions, one sixty year old lady was walking her two dogs and got attacked by a bear, she did have a spear with her and managed to shove her coat down the bear's throat with it choking it to death, one of her dogs did die from its injuries later on. That happened over forty years ago, now in the 1930's there was a doctor who shot a massive bear while hunting and it turned out to be a sow with a cub. He raised that bear cub into a massive grizzly and used it to carry supplies up through the mountains and in rough terrain. He'd also ride it to get his picture taken but I don't think he ever rode it any real distance. So what I'm saying is that a lot of the ranger arch types are somewhat based in reality, but this is a FANTASY game so let's not sweat the stuff.

tldr: Some random Alaskan thinks rangers are ok.

edit:

A MIRACLE posted:

Wait, what's the difference between a pike and a halberd? I always thought pikes were like normal spear-length, like 8' ish

Pike is an extra long reinforced spear for unhorsing calvary, halberd is the same thing but with an axe attached on the end and used in mass battle formations against infantry as well. Halberd square battles were slow and gruesome as poo poo as people would get slowly impaled as the masses of halberders crowded into each other.

Mr.Pibbleton fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Feb 4, 2014

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:24

DatonKallandor: Aug 21, 2009; "I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

A MIRACLE posted:

Wait, what's the difference between a pike and a halberd? I always thought pikes were like normal spear-length, like 8' ish

A spear is a like a sword on a stick. A halberd is a like an axe on a stick. A pike is like a sword on a really long stick.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:27

verybad: Apr 23, 2010; Now with 100% less DoTA crotchshots

Halberds are about 6' long and have spike on the end, an axehead and a hook. That said, 'polearms with weird heads' is a big confusing mess of weird nomenclature you do not want to wander into.

Mr.Pibbleton posted:

tldr: Some random Alaskan thinks rangers are ok.

I don't know anyone who doesn't use two hands in a fight. Except maybe people who have only one hand, but I don't know anyone like that so hey.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:27

Mr.Pibbleton: Feb 3, 2006; Aleuts rock, chummer.

verybad posted:

Halberds are about 6' long and have spike on the end, an axehead and a hook. That said, 'polearms with weird heads' is a big confusing mess of weird nomenclature you do not want to wander into.

I don't know anyone who doesn't use two hands in a fight. Except maybe people who have only one hand, but I don't know anyone like that so hey.

I never said anything about two hands, just two weapons at the same time. Grabbing someone and hitting them with something is a time honored tradition of all peoples everywhere.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:29

verybad: Apr 23, 2010; Now with 100% less DoTA crotchshots

Mr.Pibbleton posted:

I never said anything about two hands, just two weapons at the same time. Grabbing someone and hitting them with something is a time honored tradition of all peoples everywhere.

Pray tell, do these alaskan rangers dual wield pistols or do they prefer large caliber rifles, for fighting bears? Actually, re-reading your post (over and over again), I'm not actually sure what you're even saying about using two weapons at the same time.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:37

glomkettle: Sep 24, 2013

Pretty sure he said that while Alaskan rangers are often (at least partially) ambidextrous, he doesn't know of any actual instances of dual-wielding.

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:40

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# ? Apr 18, 2024 05:55

LogicNinja: Jan 21, 2011; ...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...

DatonKallandor posted:

A spear is a like a sword on a stick. A halberd is a like an axe on a stick. A pike is like a sword on a really long stick.

Correction: a pike is a spear on a stick. Meta-stickweaponry!

# ? Feb 4, 2014 18:41

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