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

[quote name="Damocles"][quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]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. [/quote] It's funny you say that, because I thought for a few months that BG2 was out of my league, too, and then I read the box. I guess it just <I>seems</I> like it would be system hog, with all that goes on in it. [quote name="Damocles"]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] Your OCD matches mine. BG1 blows, though. When there was nothing else, and I mean <I>nothing</I>, it was alright. Now, though...but you could blow through BG1 in a fair amount of time, if you care to ignore all the pointless wooded areas and plow through the main story. Still, the IE engine in its infancy is pretty bad.[/quote] Wow, we've got so much in common! (A/S/L?) Actually, that conflicts with my OTHER game OCD, which is to conquer absolutely everything in a game instead of just playing it through. To put this in perspective, I've been slowly playing through the original DMC. Why "slowly"? Because I'm insisting on <b>getting all S ranks with all the blue orbs and every secret mission the <i>first</i> time through</b>. I'm actually pulling it off, and in the meantime I've become a DMC ninja, but it makes an already-tricky game an intense ordeal. On the other hand, you get mad orbs. [quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]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] Funny you say that. I've just started IWD2 (bought it with Dungeon Siege - hey, you get PACK MULES - and Morrowind because Monty told me to) and I've got 2 Sorcs and a Monk in my party. Monk is the wiz killer, and one sorc is the town leader (with all those commerce/interpesonal feats and such). [/quote] Sorcs get pissed on constantly by the PnP crowd, mostly because they have far, far fewer learnable spells per level than equivalent Wizards. (They can cast a lot more per day, but it's out of a much smaller pool.) Not a big deal in computer versions where it's largely about combat stuff, but one of the reasons wizards are powerful is because they can pull you out of weird and dangerous non-combat situations with the appropriate spell. Sorcs, on the other hand, are largely played as walking talking fireball launchers. <b>HOTT</b> fireball launchers, that is. [quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="Damocles"]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] Yeah. As my gay review attests, I championed the bard for IWD, but even as a party member, his usefulness has paled in the 3Ed rules system. A rogue level here, a ranger level there, it's all taken care of. 3Ed is for making overbearing badasses, it seems, so who needs Uncle Larry anymore? [/quote] Yeah, that about sums it up- in AD&D 2E you were making competent adventurers, whereas in D&D 3E you're making capital "H" Heroes. Thing is, they also rebalanced the monsters. I still get a kick out of the Usenet threads when 3E came out saying "sure, characters are more powerful, but have you seen the MONSTERS? A single fucking orc can be a killing machine!" Monsters with class levels are a very frightening prospect, especially considering the DMG practically orders DMs to keep track of monster XP and levels, so that those kobolds that get away during first level can become <b>KOBOLD BARBARIAN/SORCERERS OF DOOM</b> later on. Personally, I still prefer Shadowrun. Or, when I'm feeling particularly gay, Mage: the Ascension.[/quote]