Hi, I know it's a very old topic, but I figured it wouldn' hurt to revive it, as there are only 3 short entries so far.
I came to the "Blue Apex" document again in my current PT, and with all the knowledge from previous PT's (coloured by my personal imterpretations of course) , it occurred to me that taking Blue Apex seriously might resolve some problems that bugged me up to now.
Spoilers ahead:
As a refresher, this is the document:
When the party confronts the netherbrain in the morphic pool, it explains that it had in fact planned the entire scenario all along, and manipulated the dead three chosen so they would "enslave" it, so that it could break free with your help and set the grand design in motion.
But what if behind the netherbrain there was another power who laid the plan and manipulated the brain ? The illithid Lich (Alhoon) called Blue Apex ?
It woul explain this couple of loose ends to me.
The netherbrain was originally just an elder brain controlling an illithid colony under Moonrise towers. Where did it get all the resources from to execute its plan ? Specifically, the fleet of Nautiloids coming to its aid in the end, whereas Omeluum tells us that they are very rare relics that can't be made again and are rarely, if ever, seen. An ancient Illithid Lich residing in some other plane since the Netherese epoch, or before that, might still command such a fleet.
Omeluum tells us how the normal illithid hives dislike arcanists, because they are wont to break free from hive control. And these arcanists are exactly what the illithid liches like Blue Apex are. Then when we come to fight the netherbrain, its final guardians are actually mindlayer arcanists, using arcane magic like shield and magic missiles. This also seems contrary to how an elder brain would plan its moves. However it would fit perfectly when an alhoon was behind all of this.
( I realize it doesn't pass "Occam's razor test", but I like the way these few blocks seem to fall in place.)
Good point, there would still be limits like obtaining spell components and learning the rituals (from someone conveniently out of town for the duration of the crisis), but I also keep forgetting that clerics get more than seven spell levels in later editions. You could have left out or limited the really game-breaking ones, but we see 2e-7th level cleric Resurrection (Withers), a group version of Succor (Return to Camp) and Wind Walk in the game. In 2e, Bards and Sorcerers are using wizard/arcane spells, while Druids, Rangers, Paladins and Warlocks/Shamans use (mostly) clerical spells. Bards tend to have a longer learning curve than "proper" wizards, and I guess 2e-sorcerers are a different animal, as they technically work mostly like wizards, except that they're not using spellbooks and sometimes dangerously improvise things to unexpected consequences. They'd still have to spend time to learn the rituals.
As a necromancer, a nice lab with a smattering of bones, pickled tentacles, brains in a jar and a bunch of quest items spread untidily on the table were a must. At the Dockland Camp this may have escalated a bit, but it was a funny mini-game!
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That said, there's also the whole thing in the lore about how the characters have been "Deleveled" by the tadpole.
Maybe it's like just doing a number of levels as a "True Soul [class]", like in 3e, while losing access to your original class(es) and levels. It depends on your head canon, I guess. Sava was a lab potato occasionally venturing into the wild to keep her operation going, so starting as level 1 made sense, with practical experience turning theoretical knowledge into skill, but we know that Gale, probably Wyll and likely Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Karlach, must have previously held a (much) higher level to explain their backstories.
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Withers doesn't strike me as the sort who's really big into the whole "Manual labour" aspect of camp maintenance...
This reminds me of a player completely misunderstanding the "shady mystic on the edge of town"-NPC who was helping the player's slouch solve a case of missing squatters in a Shadowrun game as part of his own fight against dark forces. Maybe because he was new to Shadowrun or RPGs in general, the player didn't pick up on any of the horror elements surrounding the NPC or his hut in the woods and thought he'd found some sort of deputy/assistant. "...and make 50 copies of these posters, will ya? See you tonight!" (door slams shut, car starts with tires screeching)
On PS5, I have a custom compaign with singlesave at the Lower City in Act 3, which was saved before Patch 7. I loaded it with no issues, exited to the main menu (the game auto-saved), and then reloaded it — everything was perfectly fine.
I've never installed any mods (not even downloaded them) and have barely encountered any crashes. So I’m wondering if the crash issue you mentioned might be related to mods, even when they’re disabled?
I don't really understand your remark about realism though. In what way is it unrealistic? I don't see people walking around with health bars in real life?
I'm asking in terms of feasibility and difficulty.
Can someone make a mod that would allow me to play as Shovel? I mean chose Shovel in character creation and level him/her (not sure if Shovel even has a sex) up like a normal character. I can see Shovel being a bad ass monk. Or can you imagine a raging Shovel! Lol. That would be awesome. Probably give him/her/it some sort of default "weapon" item in each hand to represent the claws. I can't really see Shovel using "big people" weapons so giving him/her/it "claw" items so they can be enchanted would be nice. Other "big people" items like armor would be questionable too but rings and amulets would certainly be a thing. Monks and spellcasters don't wear a lot of armor so maybe lean toward those classes when playing Shovel? Give him/her/it some mage armor "scales" for free since armor would be out. I'd just like to be able to level him/her/it up and gain better stats and HPs, while allowing for use of rings, necklaces, potions, grenades, scrolls, etc. I really like the idea of a monk and hitting level 6 to grab the necrotic aura for attacks.
Hello Larian studio 👋 i really love your games and i am looking forward to Divinity i hope i can play it with Arabic Localization text and Subtitles this will help the Arab players to enjoy the game
I was just thinking about how Dead by Daylight already has a dungeons & dragons chapter, one thing I’ve always wanted for it was Baldur’s gate 3 origins legendaries for the bard survivors in that chapter. Could you imagine doing generators as the Dark Urge?! (Who would be the first like fully non-human survivor not counting the elf)
Or healing survivors as Astarion!
I feel like a LOT of people would pick up the legendaries, I know I’d buy all of them!
Okay thanks for looking at my post made with copium, I just reached prestige 100 with the bards and god do I wanna play the dark urge in dead by daylight as a survivor.
... Though, it did always seem somewhat lore friendly to have a camp steward. Someone who travels with the group to set up the camp, gather firewood, prepare meals, dabble in potion making and the like. Affording the adventuring party more time to focus on adventuring and less time on all these mundane tasks.
Withers doesn't strike me as the sort who's really big into the whole "Manual labour" aspect of camp maintenance...
You could get a hireling from Withers to assign to that task.
What realistically limits higher spells is a from my DM-PoV is the time frame of BG3 which is not even a month. Yes, in the game scrolls just poof into your spell list when you learn them and you can pick new spells out of thin air when levelling up, but at least in earlier AD&D-rules learning a 6th level spell would have meant booking lots of lab and library time.
To be fair, that's only the case for Wizards.
Sorcerers, Clerics, Druids, Bards and Warlocks don't need to actively "Learn" a spell. At best you can consider Clerics, Warlocks and Druids needing to attune to their spell lists. Maybe Bards need time to write their songs (Sorcs are kind of just weird and abruptly develop spells based on their bloodline)
That said, there's also the whole thing in the lore about how the characters have been "Deleveled" by the tadpole. It being outright mentioned by Wyll and thus presumed to be the case for others (Especially Gale. His whole backstory was that he mastered all of the Weave mortals had available and that he wanted to go into the forbidden areas of the Weave to explore more of it... Which suggests he knows more than just a handful of cantrips and level 1 spells...)
So potentially you can factor in characters recalling or regaining access to prior abilities from leveling up. This can include Wizards too, as their spellbook would still contain all the spells they've written down. They just need to get back their mastery of the Weave in order to channel it into those spells. Whereby "Instantly writing a scroll into the spellbook" could be considered just eating reading the scroll to quickly refresh the memory of how to manipulate the Weave for that spell that was already in their spellbook.
Originally Posted by Tav'ith'sava
And while the game technically allows you to do it in your backpack while walking, I also avoided creating potions unless camped or at least in a discovered lab and always collected lab gear to have a lab corner at the camp.
I did that too. Though to be fair, it was less about the lore factor of things and more because I had a dedicated potion maker as a camp attendant (1 Rogue/2 Transmutation Wizard) for Medicine Expertise and Experimental Alchemy class feature. Sometimes I also multiclassed them into Cleric for some of those extra buffs (Light, Aid, Protection from Poison, Deathward, Freedom of Movement)
Though, it did always seem somewhat lore friendly to have a camp steward. Someone who travels with the group to set up the camp, gather firewood, prepare meals, dabble in potion making and the like. Affording the adventuring party more time to focus on adventuring and less time on all these mundane tasks.
Withers doesn't strike me as the sort who's really big into the whole "Manual labour" aspect of camp maintenance...
When I learned about the level cap, I think I was late in Act 2 or early Act 3 already. Yes, I would have liked my gith necromancer Tav, Sava, to be able to create Death Shepherds for even more thralls, but there was enough going on that the character could grow in other ways than sheer level numbers. As a necromancer, getting Danse Macabre or Shadow Entangle was awesome. There were numerous items that supercharged the character, being able to just jump off buildings, turn into flying animals and bunches of others. I admit that this neatly fit my niche without previous knowledge, so I'm not sure how cool that selection is when you have different classes. So far, I had only a single, but I think pretty thorough journey.
As for including more spells, that would indeed have been difficult to implement. I thought maybe they'd allow higher spells at certain points in the game where there is some control over what you're able to do with them. Like, having a dialogue scene where use of a certain spell is suggested, maybe after a successful Arcana check. What realistically limits higher spells is a from my DM-PoV is the time frame of BG3 which is not even a month. Yes, in the game scrolls just poof into your spell list when you learn them and you can pick new spells out of thin air when levelling up, but at least in earlier AD&D-rules learning a 6th level spell would have meant booking lots of lab and library time. And while the game technically allows you to do it in your backpack while walking, I also avoided creating potions unless camped or at least in a discovered lab and always collected lab gear to have a lab corner at the camp.
But apparently we play different games. I see the D&D5 races as deeply impactful on my gameplay.
Perhaps.
I've played all the races in BG3 (Besides Dragonborn) and I rarely even noticed any difference between races.
Especially when factoring in stat scaling for various things (Elf cantrips using INT. Tiefling spells using CHR.). Whereby if I'm able to actually use the darn thing, I have other stuff from my class instead...
There's a couple of racials that are nifty. Like Duergar's invisibility (Made more useful by being once per battle not once per long rest like other racial spells), Gith's very overloaded racial toolkit (Bunches of weapon proficiencies, proficiency with all skills of a chosen stat and their 3 Psionics spells), Halfling's Lucky etc.
But these hardly change gameplay. You still play the game the exact same, you just have a little bonus on top of your class skills. Of which the impact gets watered down throughout the game as you pick up magical items that provide anyone with bunches of skills to access. (Like, just in the Underdark you get access to items that provide Invisibility, Misty Step, bonus action Sprint, Magic Missiles and Featherfall. That's ONE area providing tons of utility skills)
It's nowhere close to how Undead literally changes how you interact with the game in Divinity. You have to obtain completely different health potions, you have to utilize completely different spells to heal up (Using poison based spells) and if you're using healing spells because your party isn't exclusively Undead (I.e. You're not playing Solo or Lone Wolf with Fane) you have to make sure to position away from AoE healing spells and effects (Including Blessed surfaces).
This is on top of the whole thing about needing to either use a Faceripper to disguise yourself or be completely covered in armour so NPC's don't just attack you on sight (Which also changes how you do the initial prologue before you make the Faceripper)
Being Undead isn't simply having a few extra things added on top of normal character. But a completely different way of engaging with the game.
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
How much impact Race should have on your gameplay is a good question. Basically as much as the developer can afford.
It's honestly a difficult question.
On the one hand, making races unique makes them more interesting to play and makes replaying the game have more variety.
On the other hand, there's always the issue of blatently more powerful races or locking certain classes or features to a particular race, causing people to feel forced to play a race they find less interesting.
The issues with racial diversity is why humans got nerfed in 5e (And BG3 further watered things down by making racial stats player determined rather than tied to race). Humans having that bonus feat meant they were just so much better than every other race outside some very niche builds that could capitalize on another racial bonus in some way enough to compete with the bonus feat (Even then, such builds only competed, they never really outclassed just playing Human and having 1 more feat)
It is something that also sparks a lot of discussion in MMO's that have classes locked to races (And sometimes gender. I recall Warhammer Online's Witch Elf class was female only... And their armour was exclusively bikinis)
In the end, I think the best compromise tends to be to provide racial diversity through writing than builds.
Having more comprehensive dialogue differences based on how a race is perceived, having unique prologues to set up a character's background culture and potentially even a slightly different story arc to reflect the standing of that race (For example, in Divinity, Imps aren't well liked. So a playable imp might follow a different route to get to the "Saving the world" part of a story than a more socially accepted one)
Of course, the issue with this is the whole "Blank Slate" vs "Origin" debate. Where Larian often writes PC's as being nothingburgers so that people can headcanon whatever they want so racial interactions are pushed aside to not offend headcanons (Though the simple solution would to have a specific "Blank Slate" character, while having "Origin" versions of each race - Not to the extent of being an established companion character, but just enough to be "You are a member of this race from this race's territory and have a history in the race's culture")
Well I havent played Divinity, only watched a couple general videos about it, so I wouldnt know how important race is in these games.
But apparently we play different games. I see the D&D5 races as deeply impactful on my gameplay.
Invisibilty as a cantrip for example, one of the strongest spells in the game, is huge.
Mage Hand is also uber helpful in the really tough battles.
Or shield proficiency in a version of D&D where you dont ever want to melee if you can avoid it and armor class is king.
And dont even get me started on the Halfling racial. In a game where skills are so important on the protagonist, and there is always that pesky chance to lose a roll, Halflings are just uber. Also makes certain builds which hit all the time, like Tavern Brawler builds, even better.
Wild Half-Elf and Drow are also very interesting packages.
How much impact Race should have on your gameplay is a good question. Basically as much as the developer can afford. I've played Lineage 2 where each race has its own unique set of classes. Has its limits, obviously, because why can only Orks play Monk again ? Still, interesting.
Though all of the races are pretty cool, I'd rather take a shorter list of playable races if it means that choosing your race has some real interesting impact in the game and feels like setting a unique experience and playstyle.
An elf that is just a human with darkvision and one basic spell is mostly just a superficial and cosmetic difference.
level is exceptionally important and hard to do without.
It is not.
In many cases, level is completely redundant and easily done away with.
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
The point of leveling is that you have a measurement of the power of the character.
Which is not unique to "Levels".
There's plenty of methods to measure character power without levels. Such as equipment quality (Gearscore), stat points, skill points and basically everything that is normally acquired alongside a "Level" without the actual "Level" itself.
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
In an open game world, its even less desireable to not have level. It basically means you cannot have progress at all.
That is so laughably untrue.
There are and have been many ways to have progress without levels.
In the DLC for Elden Ring, Shadow of the Erdtree, they created progression by way of having your character collect "Scadutree Fragments" something independent of levels that provided progression (Which was implemented as they wanted to create a form of progression irrespective of player levels. So even a "Max Level" character would have to progress through the DLC like a non-max level character). This is on top of the base mechanic of the entire Soulsborne series where "Level" simply means how expensive it is to gain stat points (As well as online matchmaking)
In GTA you progress by acquiring new homes and opening up new locations on the map to be able to acquire better weapons and vehicles.
Many open world games feature some sort of skill points or other forms of character progression from doing certain side activities, which are independent of levels. (For example, Cyberpunk 2077's DLC Phantom Liberty has the Relic points from interacting with Relic Point nodes. It also has Cyberware Capacity which can be obtained through Cyberware Capacity Shards)
Heck, we can even look at something like GW2, where you have Hero Points as a non-level based progression system. In an MMO. As well as Elder Scrolls Online and its Skyshards to gain skill points (ESO also has its Champion Point system. Whereby after Level 50 CP 160 you stop "Levelling" meaning gear, stat and enemy scaling ceases. Your only progression is then through acquiring Champion Points and investing them into the Champion Skill Trees)
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
It by the way also helps the player. If I can see the level of the opponent, I can know if I should avoid them for now.
Which is again, independent of levels. It's plenty possible to convey enemy threat level without levels. Heck, even with levels you still often have the basic quantifier of colour (Grey = Trivial. White = Equal. Yellow = Slightly tougher. Orange = Fairly strong. Red = Tough. SKULLS = DANGER). Which is again, not reliant on levels.
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
And games that keep the level of your opponents the same as your own are really bad. They remove all meaning from level.
Which is literally all games.
Either they dynamically scale with you. Or your natural progression means you are constantly facing equally strong enemies. Which is the point as to why levels are redundant when all "Progression" from them is rendered moot when enemies simply scale equally with you.
The only exception is static enemy levels means you can sequence break to encounter easier or tougher enemies. (Or in the case of things like JRPG's, you can grind to artificially inflate your level). Which is usually a minor aspect of the game and not generally the intended way of playing (With again, exceptions. In this case, based on poorly balanced level curves. Such as in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning where you very quickly and easily outlevel zones by just doing their story)
- Lizard(men/kind/folk) which apparently Larian just calls Lizards which makes absolutely no sense to me because lizard is already the word for a type of animal. So whats bad about using an artificial word that does NOT clash with a well established real world word, like in TES Argonian ?
Transparency and ease. Making up new terms takes some more effort and isn't always clear what is meant by it. So often existing terminology is used for clarity (For example, many settings have "Earth" magic despite their planet not being called "Earth" thus there is no reason for the term "Earth" to exist)
Especially back when Larian were first making Divinity games and wrote the established lore, it was less common to come up with new terminology for things.
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
Also, speculative, these races could also be playable, or appear as companions:
Halflings are also possible. They are in the lore, but have yet to be seen.
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
- Eternals which are a part of the lore as the precursors to all races
Technically, Eternal is not a race. Much in the same way "Wizard" isn't a race.
Races were created in the image of Eternals - Meaning that they would in fact be the 6 main races from the Seven Gods (The 7th "Race" being the aforementioned "Wizard" which isn't a race - There are Wizards among all the main races)
Originally Posted by Halycon Styxland
All in all I'm under the impression this is a surprisingly short list of races that are playable, and a surprisingly low number of race differences as well.
For comparison, in BG3 there are a total of 11 races and a total of 31 subraces. Not all of them have much differences (Lightfoot vs Strongheart Halfling barely matters 99% of the time), but overall theres a substantial difference in gameplay from picking your race.
Divinity races have more impact than BG3's races.
BG3 races don't really affect gameplay outside of maybe a minor buff or a crappy spell.
With Divinity, you have things like Undead that completely change gameplay by way of being harmed by healing effects and healed by poison effects as well as having Elves who can consume pieces of corpses to gain new skills and see memories of the person they eat.
Original Sin 2's races had also more impact in dialogue (While BG3 basically has very little besides Drow)
This is on top of the minor buffs and crappy spells.
Prior editions of D&D had more substantial effects from race than BG3 (I.e. Human master race due to their free bonus feat. As well as racial stat modifiers), with 5e and BG3 especially, races have been watered down a lot.
Hello! I am looking to work with a modder(s) for getting a homebrew subclass I created added into the game and for a custom makeup/facial scar option to be added.
I'm new to the forums overall, but here are the details for my requests;
Anyway, theres a link with some speculation about what races are available.
So from this video, the races more or less known from the available game footage, which according to a statement by a Larian employee will give you a good idea, are:
- Humans - Elves - Dwarves - Lizard(men/kind/folk) which apparently Larian just calls Lizards which makes absolutely no sense to me because lizard is already the word for a type of animal. So whats bad about using an artificial word that does NOT clash with a well established real world word, like in TES Argonian ? - Orks, or Half-Orks, or something that looks very much like D&D Half-Orcs
Also, speculative, these races could also be playable, or appear as companions:
- Undead which have been playable in Original Sin 2 and who can use magic to make themselves appear as any race - Imps which have not been in Original Sin 2 and have never been playable, but are part of the lore as a sentient race - Eternals which are a part of the lore as the precursors to all races - Demons, from the plane of Tartarus (Hell), interesting for more evil content / gameplay, as it is known from Larian - Renar / Renari, from the plane of Nemesis, part of Beyond Divinity content, which could make a return
All in all I'm under the impression this is a surprisingly short list of races that are playable, and a surprisingly low number of race differences as well.
For comparison, in BG3 there are a total of 11 races and a total of 31 subraces. Not all of them have much differences (Lightfoot vs Strongheart Halfling barely matters 99% of the time), but overall theres a substantial difference in gameplay from picking your race.
There is also speculation about classes but the video author merely lists the classes from the previous game. If nothing else, there are definitely a lot of classes, with all kinds of multiclassing possibilities.
Of course you can question level, like you can question all kinds of other popular gaming concepts, like for example hitpoints. But there is always a reason why these concepts are popular, and level is exceptionally important and hard to do without.
The point of leveling is that you have a measurement of the power of the character. This is necessary so you can always have a challenge, and keep the challenge in the sweet spot where the game is not too easy and thus boring but also not too difficult and thus frustrating. So level is supposed to give an easy way to approximate the power of your character.
Games without leveling exists, like one of my favorite games ever, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004) by Troika Games (R.I.P.). But here we follow a very strict game in regards of control over where you can go when. Also, the improvements that you could have for your character have been strictly regulated as well.
Even so when I started playing VtMB, I made many errors, and some combat became impossible. Not having level is tough.
Namely in VtMB you should not undervalue defense, as you can do in other games. Defense really is essential when you face large groups of opponents. High or low defense is then the difference between a manageable fight and an impossible one. This of course only happends on some vampire clans. A Ventrue or Gangrel can rely on Fortitude instead.
Another important rule in VtMB is that ranged starts of really weak, but becomes very strong later, so on a Nosferatu its a must to have, and other clans can definitely benefit as well.
In an open game world, its even less desireable to not have level. It basically means you cannot have progress at all.
It by the way also helps the player. If I can see the level of the opponent, I can know if I should avoid them for now.
And games that keep the level of your opponents the same as your own are really bad. They remove all meaning from level.
Worst offender in this category was The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Not only did your opponents strictly level with your character, but level didnt even represent a specific level of power. So you could easily make your character underpowered and end up with an unplayable game. Oblvion literally forced you into powergaming.
To a lesser degree many games do this. Which is fine. As long as you dont do this too severely. BG3 by the way also does this. If you create not one but two characters, you face four Imps with Laezel instead of the usual three.
I think the original cap , during the early access development, was planned at Lvl 10, because lvl 6 spells were considered overpowered for the game. But Larian then raised it at some point to 12 and included a number of 6 spells. So I guess they did weigh all options and made a decision, not simpy based on ease of development, but taking player desires into account also.
Visible shield mod fix? Must I ask every god damn time?
Hahah lol.
Apparently you really have to ?
I can get over such details though, so that doesnt bother me too much. The vast majority of my games dont use mods at all anyway.
Astarion suddenly no longer having the inventory tab in the overview bothers me a lot more.
The bugs of the current hotfix are a bit much though, so I reverted to the one between the official hotfix 35 and 36 (GoG called it Patch 8 Hotfix 7). Of course unless you keep past versions, you wont have access to it anymore.
Character buffs from level progression, even in a diminished capacity such as no more feats, skills or massively increasing level thresholds after lvl 12, at least rewards players for completing the quests. Unfortunately I cant use a calculator to get more health or do more damage.
I mean... Are you even actually progressing with those restrictions in place?
All leveling up gives is a singular die of health based on class (From d6 to d10) plus Con modifier.
That's it.
No damage increase, no extra skills. Just like 8-13 health (Maybe you get a bit more if you're a Barb with 20 Con... For a whole 15 health!)
Power from leveling in DnD comes from getting feats, proficiency bonuses and class features. If you don't get them (Either they're not implemented or leveling is so diminished you don't get enough to reach the thresholds) then your power doesn't change.
Originally Posted by Gorpmilk
With that restraint, it'd be nice if enemies had a modifier based on your level at the start of the encounter after level 12. Unless you think that'd get too complicated?
I've still got a lot to learn with the 5e's system so I didnt realize the disparity between wizard and monk in this case. The level 20 for both players and monsters would be ideal but I understand that wouldve taken a lot more work and they already spent 6 years on it. Maybe they just figured mods could be made after the fact to address this.
Well, Larian themselves were set on making the cap level 12. They simply didn't want to have to deal with higher level class features (Though they did bring some classes level 14 features down to level 11 so they can be used. Such as Draconic Sorcerer's flight). They then balanced their campaign around this.
Modders have addressed this though. Not so much the mod.io ones which simply raise the cap but don't do much in regards to experience or class features. But some of the ones on Nexus fully intergrate level 20, including rebalancing experience gains across the campaign (Though I think they still cap out around the same time mid-Act 3 but I can't say for sure as I haven't really used such mods much) as well as adding support for enemies to also utilize later level features (As well as scaling appropriately)
Originally Posted by Gorpmilk
To me, its not so much as 'making numbers go up' as it is, getting more stats (even if diminished) to improve for future encounters.
Which is an interesting thought process, when also wanting enemies to scale up too.
It's actually one of the comical fallacies in regards to dynamic level scaling in video games. The whole idea of "I want to level up to get stronger" but also "I want enemies to level up with me" which leads to the situation where... You're not actually moving anywhere. Your numbers increase in size, but your relative power remains static.
I've also noted it in non-dynamic level games such as MMO's. I start off as a no name pleb doing 1 damage to a boar's 10 health (So it takes me 10 hits to kill it) and end up as a super strong world saving hero doing 100,000 damage to a 1,000,000 health Hellboar (So it still takes me 10 hits to kill it)
Which is the situation that lead me to seriously questioning the whole "Leveling" mechanic in games. With the conclusion that in many cases, leveling is just pointless. Since any increase in power is mitigated by enemies getting equally more powerful.
So I tend to have a more critical eye about what exactly a character's progression actually is (Even more so with my history in JRPG's... Especially the Disgaea series where a maxxed character is one that has reached level 9999 and then reset back to 1 at least 100 times in order to inherit bonus base stats - The process of doing that with 12+ characters in 7+ titles in the series really makes you aware of just how meaningless an individual level can be...)
For example, in Cyberpunk 2077, enemies scale with you as you level (With certain level breakpoints where all items upgrade to the next level, which often provides a spike in enemy difficulty as their weapons upgrade while you need to wait to loot a new one or get resources to upgrade your existing stuff). However, you do become more powerful over time thanks to an increase in Cyberware Capacity allowing you to equip more stuff. Thus, it's not really the levels that are providing you with power, it's just the cyberware capacity. So theoretically, all levels could be removed from the game and you simply gain cyberware capacity (Plus perk points) when you get enough experience and the game would perform identically as that's the only form of actual power scaling of the character.
As a result, I don't have any major hang ups about gaining experience or levels.
In fact, I have qualms about both.
- Levels for the sake of levels is redundant and pointless. If enemies are simply going to get equally more powerful, then there is no point to such things. Progression should be tied to meaningful power increases, not just "Here's more stats so you can remain equally as strong as the new stronger enemies you face"
- Experience systems are kind of trash, especially for RPG's. This is something that is addressed in a lot of Table Top game groups, where they eschew getting experience for individual actions and instead the entire party levels up as they reach milestones in their campaign. This means that the players aren't having to micromanage where to get experience (And who to give it to) or feeling forced to do every little side quest just to get that experience, they just play the game how they want and get progression in line with the campaign.
The way experience is handled also leads to more issues with "Level caps". Since a developer has to either balance around completionists who do every little quest and every single skill check so experience requirements are put high (Meaning that role-players will be underleveled). Or they balance around role-players who only do things that make sense for their character to do (Meaning that completionists will be overleveled). Meanwhile, main story progression would always be the same regardless of player.
In addition to railroading player choices. Take for example the Abandoned Village in Act 1. You can either do a dialogue check with the Goblins to pass through safely or you can kill them all. Both reward the same experience (Ignoring the ability to pass the dialogue check and then ALSO murder them). But what if someone just sneaks past them? No experience. Goes an alternate route to not encounter them? No experience. Causes other NPC's to engage with them (Such as summoning Lump and co)? No experience.
Of course, the premise would rely on having some factor other than experience to motivate players to do side quests (Though this is nothing new. Games have done things like use currency, items, faction reputation and even special character boosts as alternate incentives for side quests for yonks)
@Taril Thanks for responding duder. I alluded to appreciation of the story in my poll options of which I can definitely respect. Getting slightly upgraded gear is something to consider but not sure it makes up for the lack of progression, at least to me. Character buffs from level progression, even in a diminished capacity such as no more feats, skills or massively increasing level thresholds after lvl 12, at least rewards players for completing the quests. Unfortunately I cant use a calculator to get more health or do more damage. Perhaps I have a larger lesson to learn about enjoying the ride though.
You mentioned the 2 sides of level capping too early and too late, of which I agree!
I agreed with the omission of high level spells and limiting the single class level, as included by the current mod. With that restraint, it'd be nice if enemies had a modifier based on your level at the start of the encounter after level 12. Unless you think that'd get too complicated?
I've still got a lot to learn with the 5e's system so I didnt realize the disparity between wizard and monk in this case. The level 20 for both players and monsters would be ideal but I understand that wouldve taken a lot more work and they already spent 6 years on it. Maybe they just figured mods could be made after the fact to address this.
To me, its not so much as 'making numbers go up' as it is, getting more stats (even if diminished) to improve for future encounters. Going on quests, enjoying both the story and adventure while getting better.
Thanks! I had heard about mod.io but didnt know it was accessible from within the game. Will check out
And thats a good point about only having the last boss to use finished builds on.
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