Great to hear, lar!
Well, hard to say. The spells I meant were some kind of "perma-death" spells. That means that you had to decide whether you want to reload the whole encounter (because saving wasn't allowed during combat) or you want to proceed with the respective character staying dead (of course if your main character was hit it was game over). Some people who are friends of perma-death mechanics and hardcore roleplay choose the latter but many others choose the former.
Example: an enemy basilisk casted "turn to stone" on a party member. Now there were two possiblities: either you have a "turn to flesh" spell or scroll available to bring him back to life or you don't. In the worst case some area damage hits the stone statue causing it to burst into pieces which was guaranteed perma-death with no chance to resurrect.
And the basilisk can use this spell multiple times a fight?
I don't know for sure. But point is that you can actually prevent the basilisk from doing so by preventing it from casting or interrupting it. It's very unlikely that it will be able to cast this powerful spell twice during a combat encounter. That's really up to balancing. In D&D video games (let's take BG or ID as examples for its video game implementation again) you had to take care who was probably the most dangerous foe in the enemy party and how to take care of him as fast as possible, preventing him from doing serious damage. Casting times, interrupting mechanics, random elements, buffs, area effects and all sorts of systems played together to make that actually interesting and dynamic.
I'm not a fan of roguelikes and permadeath myself, but I'll set that aside. One of my concerns with that idea is how will it work in co-op?
"oops, the bad guy used a spell and now you are dead. Forever." It's no fun sitting there for an entire fight doing nothing because you don't have/ran out of/were the one carrying the very special and rare magic scrolls that were the only cure for that special status. (It's different than the more general Resurrect scrolls.)
Well, roguelikes are a completely different genre imo. Perma-death is a mechanic to actually make decisions harder and roleplaying more impactful. I'm not a fan of the "hardest" form of it either, perma-death without saving (like in popular ironman modes). With saving before fights and after them available perma-death (aka the inability to revive fallen companions all the time) actually becomes an active roleplaying mechanic, leading to serious decisions, not by forcing them on the player but by giving him the opportunity to either continue and live with the loss or retry the whole thing (that might be a typcial roguelike mechanic, I admit it, but it doesn't make it the same experience here).
As for your question whether it would work in co-op: I don't know tbh. It was one of my biggest fears from the very beginning that mechanics and systems which are implemented to make the co-op experiene better could make the singleplayer experience "inferior" to what would be possible with two seperate experiences. I know that with the fundamental design decision to make the game a co-op/singleplayer cross-over with the basically same content and systems no matter how you play Larian has to make compromises. Compromises that hurt me personally as a singleplayer enthusiast tbh. So forgive me for trying to make the singleplayer component more enjoyable. I don't know if perma-death and stuff would make the co-op more or less enjoyable tbh. But I do think it would be worth to find it out though...
D&D has a DM whose job it is to carefully guide events so that people are having fun. Sometimes that means fudging rolls, giving players little hints, or having critical items show up just when they're needed most. Computer games don't have that. I can't roll up a new Source Hunter mid-adventure and have him meet the party in the tavern. The systems are different and run in different ways, so you have be cautious what to borrow.
Sure, but I was talking about the D&D video game adaptations (namely Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale here).
Of course it's hard to make such systems work if you miss basic requirements. Having a good number of companions or henchmen availalbe is crucial for perma-death mechanics imo to be actually able to replace dead party members. Right now they are missing in the beta but as far as I know there will be much more possible party members added to the final release so that won't be the problem. Nevertheless, D:OS would become in trouble due to its classless system. D&D games were based on classes and "full companions" which made their loss impactful. If you are able to just replace the fallen henchman with the next guy in town with the same talents and skills, the death becomes kind of pointless. So I fully admit that with the current systems planned for D:OS or already implemented many adaptations of D&D and stuff wouldn't work as they are supposed to work.
I disagree with your statement that you need a dungeon master for D&D video games though. That can also be done by clever game design, good writing and well meshed systems. A good game designer has to envisage what might happen in situation X and he has to create systems and mechanics to give the player options how to solve the situation - best by giving him decisive power and in the end, player agency. Bad game design would give the player an easy solution to every upcoming obstacle which actually discourages decision making and player agency. Examples are savegames during combat or even more obvious endless healing and resurrecting abilities. A party RPG without any fear of actual loss is imo wasting an opportunity to involve the player on an emotional level. You know, in Baldur's Gate your companions were that well written you began to really like them. If for example Minsc died in BG2 without the chance to resurrect him it would have meant a direct loading for me because I liked him that much that I wouldn't want to progress without him in my party. Every critique I expressed so far for D:OS is mostly based on my personal feelings. There is too little emtion in D:OS and the mechanics and systems don't add to them. Writing is too bland and short (although it's well written and often offers good humor), companions are too one-dimensional and systems don't encourage me to be emotionally involved. Don't get me wrong, I like D:OS very much, but actually not for being a deep RPG but for exploration. To me D:OS in its current state is more like Skyrim than like BG2 (note: not based on actual systems but based on my feeling and the motivation why to play the game after all!) and imo that's wasted potential...
