Forum Overview :: Rants :: Re: Shadowrun and Massive Multi

[quote name="Damocles"][quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]Disclosure: I have never played BG2. Because my computer sucks. One day I will, though. [/quote] Oh man. No offense, but wha do you have? Look, my old system was a P2 266, and it (barely but adequately) played BG2. [/quote] Actually, I may rethink it- for some reason I had thought that BG2 required some sort of video horsepower, and the video on this machine I'm using right now is some sort of gay onboard crap. Plus, and I hadn't mentioned this before, but I never got that far into BG1, and I have this perverse need to finish a game before playing its sequel. This even includes Final Fantasy games, despite being completely unrelated. [quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]That's the thing about 1st and 2nd edition D&D, though: the relative power of Wizards vs. Fighters is inversely proportional to level. Wizards suck early on, then become unstoppable killing machines as they gain levels. That's the entire point of magical items... to try to make fighters even remotely competitive. It doesn't work. [/quote] This is what blows about NWN single player, and most phantasy RPGs where you go it alone. Somewhere around the middle of the game it's all good, but early on, your wiz is eating, or later on your fighter is, or some <I>deus ex machina</I> nonsense comes into play. That's why everyone plays as a fighter/mage, or a rogue if you're nasty.[/quote] As you quoted below, 3rd Ed. was an attempt to address that- partially by making fighters more flexible, partially by rebalancing how XP works, partially by making Fighters a hell of a lot deadlier at any given level, and (for really high levels) by adding that weird epic stuff that turns everybody into a demigod past 20th level. Actually, if I were playing 3rd edition right now, I'd be either a Sorcerer or a Monk. Sorcerers because of the sheer glorious perversity of having <i>Charisma</i> as a spellcasting attribute, and Monks because they literally become extraplanar beings after 20th level. [quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]That's also why 3rd edition threw all the feat stuff into it; so that fighters would be competitive, and more fun to play. "I dodge an arrow, jump on a guy, and start whirling around my axes slicing up everybody around me" is a hell of a lot more interesting than "I attack the orc", especially when compared to the laundry list of stuff that a high level mage could pull out. (Personally, I like bards. Mmm mmm FRUITY.)[/quote] Ah, or Bards, yes. Gamers aren't partial to Bards in party-oriented gaming, but if you had to choose one class to try to go it alone with, realistically I'd say Bard.[/quote] Weird, that, because I'd say 3E Bards are useless outside of parties simply because their songs are most useful when supporting other players. (Kind of like D2 paladins and their auras). Honestly I've never been that fond of "jacks of all trades"- either they get overwhelmed by their inability to excel in any one activity, or (especiallyin the case of fighter/mages) lag so far behind in level that they're "versatile" lunchmeat for anything of remotely appropriate level. (Now fighter/clerics... those make sense. Smiting for the Lord has never felt so good.)[/quote]