Death exp condensed

[MercTroop]

1) None of the reasons you gave have addressed any of the issues I brought up.

2) Off hand remarks can be seen as offensive.

3) If your trying to call me out by questioning how many times my PC dies that's a good way to start a flame war. I'm surprised you even know my PC's name since you don't seem to actually know any thing about him aside from what I may of posted on the forums.

4) Direct implementation from PnP cannot be taken here. We resurrect more often here, every type of resurrection needs to get hit. Debuff on all stats seems like a fair way to compensate by the amount we resurrect.

5) You did it again, perhaps you should stop posting in this thread if your incapable of having a mature discussion. If you are unable to imagine an RPG not using experience as a death penalty then you have missed allot in game development. Gotta say there are allot of fun games out there, you don't know what your missing.

Yet you some how managed to miss the the suggestion is to remove experience penalty and replace it with a temporary stat debuff. Which means players take a better penalty that reflects the nature of death or getting knocked out.

My personal preference is to have no penalty at all and leave it player side but that will never happen.

6) In your quotes it doesn't explain why your character loses experience points or a level. Just saying because you died is not a good reason. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt you took the quote out of context, post the whole thing for me to read. Post the part where it explains why players lose experience points, and how they should RP the experience points lost.

Like I said the rules are dated, allot of different rules have been developed which alter 3.5 to be a better game.

[Simian]

4) Direct implementation from PnP cannot be taken here. We resurrect more often here, every type of resurrection needs to get hit. Debuff on all stats seems like a fair way to compensate by the amount we resurrect.

Continuing from that:

And the reason why our characters get resurrection so much more is simple because we are not playing around a table with people whose faces we can see. It all leads to the following:

A) The DM is not designing encounters just for you. We get chalenges based on some myriad avarage on power builds. And if you are not playing one, things are just downright rotten.

B) Based on the amount of monsters our characters need to kill to go up a level, Forgotten Realm as a whole would have been cleared of all evil races three years ago. Our adventurers have slain monsters in thousands, where as in PnP you start to become rather sick of goblins after the 20th you've killed.

C) Hence by default, we are facing far greater risks on NWN2 servers than we ever do around a PnP table.

I've written these lists before... Ugh... just ugh... Some people understand the above, some people do not.

Why does this scare me??? Just messin!

I believe I've discovered the reason why my post went way over your head. Ah, the silver lining in every dark cloud.

[Catam]

1) None of the reasons you gave have addressed any of the issues I brought up.
2) Off hand remarks can be seen as offensive.
3) If your trying to call me out by questioning how many times my PC dies that's a good way to start a flame war. I'm surprised you even know my PC's name since you don't seem to actually know any thing about him aside from what I may of posted on the forums.
4) Direct implementation from PnP cannot be taken here. We resurrect more often here, every type of resurrection needs to get hit. Debuff on all stats seems like a fair way to compensate by the amount we resurrect.
5) You did it again, perhaps you should stop posting in this thread if your incapable of having a mature discussion. If you are unable to imagine an RPG not using experience as a death penalty then you have missed allot in game development. Gotta say there are allot of fun games out there, you don't know what your missing.
Yet you some how managed to miss the the suggestion is to remove experience penalty and replace it with a temporary stat debuff. Which means players take a better penalty that reflects the nature of death or getting knocked out.
My personal preference is to have no penalty at all and leave it player side but that will never happen.
6) In your quotes it doesn't explain why your character loses experience points or a level. Just saying because you died is not a good reason. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt you took the quote out of context, post the whole thing for me to read. Post the part where it explains why players lose experience points, and how they should RP the experience points lost.
Like I said the rules are dated, allot of different rules have been developed which alter 3.5 to be a better game.

Because I don't see it as an issue, you and the others that think death should be free do. If death was free this would become an action server and RP would die. Period. And as far as mature... seriously, how can I be mature here when it simply seems like you are trying to adjust the game system to meet your ability level... over and over and over again. And when you feel like my comments slap you in the face... Merc, really... welcome to online gaming forums and harsh criticisms. Fine... maybe the "lols" were too much... but I won't apologize for them because they are there to emphasize that I think this whole want of removing the xp penalty is ludicrous.

Play better, die less.. and when you die, suck it up and respawn.

4) Direct implementation from PnP cannot be taken here. We resurrect more often here, every type of resurrection needs to get hit. Debuff on all stats seems like a fair way to compensate by the amount we resurrect.

Continuing from that:
And the reason why our characters get resurrection so much more is simple because we are not playing around a table with people whose faces we can see. It all leads to the following:
A) The DM is not designing encounters just for you. We get chalenges based on some myriad avarage on power builds. And if you are not playing one, things are just downright rotten.
B) Based on the amount of monsters our characters need to kill to go up a level, Forgotten Realm as a whole would have been cleared of all evil races three years ago. Our adventurers have slain monsters in thousands, where as in PnP you start to become rather sick of goblins after the 20th you've killed.
C) Hence by default, we are facing far greater risks on NWN2 servers than we ever do around a PnP table.
I've written these lists before... Ugh... just ugh... Some people understand the above, some people do not.

Why are so many here half reading my posts? Where in that last post did I say "This is the Death System from PnP, WE SHOULD USE IT!" I called it "good info." If you need me to be more precise with my meanings and use more words, I suppose I can do that... oh, wait.. I already did...

Now, in the next section, the "13.33 encounters to level" is based on PnP and in no way is my recommending that the server should consider this. I guess I need to add disclaimers on all my posts.

Well, in the countless topics before I have told my view on this. It is a terrible, terrible idea. I've spend the past hour and half going through my 3000~ posts and quoting each and every instance I could find... I gave up after the 19th. If not one of them got through, why bother writing a new one?

I actually agree with you on this one, Simian... this discussion is pointless and with your experience here... 3500 and rising posts with an average of 5 per day... you probably know more than anyone else that threads like these will only attract forum trolls in the end.

Why does this scare me??? Just messin!

I believe I've discovered the reason why my post went way over your head. Ah, the silver lining in every dark cloud.

Speaking of trolls... Simian... seriously...
But, in fact, I've seen your builds... some are good, most are ok... others are Your advice here Subject: Ranger Build Advice Needed Badly and the AB of the off hands were completely false... eventually he went with us RPing him being trained by Catam... as a dex based ranger. If you want to know how much he enjoyed it, ask him.

As far as the death system, I will say one final time what I think it should be for BG:
No change to the XP penalty, perhaps adding the stat debuff if raise ded or Myrkul are the methods of revival. Anything less would make this more of an action server than it already is and move it completely into the "light RP" that it seems to be heading towards.

[Xanfyrst]

Because I don't see it as an issue, you and the others that think death should be free do. If death was free this would become an action server and RP would die. Period.

Ehh how will 'free death' make people do less RP and turn the server into an action-server? I don't quite follow your logic here... care to elaborate?

[Catam]

It is an opinion based on years of gaming. Much of my experience with MMOs like WoW, LOTRO, SWTOR, etc. as well as being online with the Diablo series, Starcraft, Rainbow 6, Unreal, the BGs, NWNs, etc. have hopefully given me some insight into the realm of an RP gamers mentality. Coupled with my experiences playing and running PnP campaigns for D&D, Shadowrun, Rolemaster, Star Wars and a few others... I've encountered both the hack and slash and the purist RPer many times over. If I come across as an elitist or narcissist... well, I guess those are just more of the arch types one might find during online gaming. But I've experienced personally what happens when death is both easy on a character and hard on a character and what makes it so based on the style of player. If the logic of how a "no death penalty" system would attract more of the action, hack and slash style players is not blatantly apparent, I don't think I can explain it otherwise.

[Blackbird]

Catam, I don't think anyone wants a system with no penalty. What I am getting from this is that people want a system that makes more sense in terms of RP on this server (and not necessarily in terms of PnP). Maybe the options laid out here so far are not the best, but I think this is a good discussion to have.

[Catam]

Of course no penalties would be preferable if RP is truly left to the players to decide.

If you are unable to imagine an RPG not using experience as a death penalty then you have missed allot in game development.

Server should remove experience penalties on death and add a death system based on SteveBarracuda idea. Where you take a temp stat debuff for a few game in game minutes, I'd suggest doing 20 seconds per a level at -4 all stats. Then tweaking after testing to see if that's too short or too long.

[Hoihe]

So, a level 1 dieing would simply need the time it takes to come back to the spot to regain stats, while a level 10 would need ~3 minutes of rest, and a level 30 would need ten minutes.

I think it could become a bit harsher after certain levels, level 1-10, 20 seconds/level. Level 10-20 ~ 30 seconds /level, level 20-30~ 40 seconds /level, so... it will be 1/3 minutes to 20 minutes. It also seems fitting, often, the ways a low level dies are not that debiliating (getting a stone thrown at them, etc), while a high level can : Submerge in acid breath of black dragon, be exposed to the extreme cold(burning) of White Dragon's breath and etc.

[Simian]

Your advice here Subject: Ranger Build Advice Needed Badly and the AB of the off hands were completely false... eventually he went with us RPing him being trained by Catam... as a dex based ranger. If you want to know how much he enjoyed it, ask him.

A level 26 Ranger has the two-weapon AB of X.
His main-hand attacks are: X, X-5, X-10, X-15, X-20, X-25.
His off-hand attacks are: X, X-5, X-10, X-15, X-20, X-25.

1) The bolded green attacks are the ones gained through Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting feat, a feat that is granted at Ranger level 21.
2) On NWN2 PWs it is a common practise to abbreviate all possible Attack Bonuses of a character by simply stating the highest possible AB.
3) Given this context, I would insist that my previous off-hand AB estimations are, in fact, correct.

And I am still great in favour of Strength based Rangers, even more so with the addition of the Brutal Throw feat.

[Xanfyrst]

It is an opinion based on years of gaming. Much of my experience with MMOs like WoW, LOTRO, SWTOR, etc. as well as being online with the Diablo series, Starcraft, Rainbow 6, Unreal, the BGs, NWNs, etc. have hopefully given me some insight into the realm of an RP gamers mentality. Coupled with my experiences playing and running PnP campaigns for D&D, Shadowrun, Rolemaster, Star Wars and a few others... I've encountered both the hack and slash and the purist RPer many times over. If I come across as an elitist or narcissist... well, I guess those are just more of the arch types one might find during online gaming. But I've experienced personally what happens when death is both easy on a character and hard on a character and what makes it so based on the style of player. If the logic of how a "no death penalty" system would attract more of the action, hack and slash style players is not blatantly apparent, I don't think I can explain it otherwise.

I've been online RP'ing since the mid-90s, starting with PBEMs before moving to MMO's like UO and AC1 and so on. From my experience, people don't mind consequences... as long as it's not tedious and pointless. For me it's tedious and pointless to loose 30 minutes of 'work' and then also have to walk all the way back where I died.

Free death wouldn't change RP one bit, nor would it attract more action players than before. In fact, I'd argue that action-players are more true to PnP than hardcore RPers. (D&D is Hack'n'slash after all)

[Blackbird]

Indeed. I don't think anyone needs to pull the "I've been gaming since you were a toddler" out of their hat. I think it's safe to assume most of us have. I too was an Ultima player and I've dabbled in many different online communities whether roleplaying or otherwise, including Second Life in its infancy and a wide variety of MMOs.

I really do think there needs to be a better solution than exp loss though and whatever it is, I really doubt it will magically bring in more action-oriented players. The way I see it, the real community of this server is a bunch of roleplayers; just look at the forum. The action people are just here to sight-see the NWN2 recreation of the Sword Coast and we should focus on helping the core community instead of punishing them so the John Smiths who show up to kill 20 kobolds and jump to another server don't like it too much here.

[Hoihe]

I am sure i am going to be hit for this... Puts ten Tower shields around him like the Tortoise formation would look like


Runescape.

Main article: Items Kept on Death

When a player dies, they will lose all items they were carrying at the time of their death except for the three or four items the player may select whilst in Limbo.

Now, without banks and all the sort, and the amount people carry, it'd surely crash our economy, BUT!

What about, depending on a priority list, we'd lose an item each time we die, or prehaps gold (explained as passerbies looting your body, your weapon falling into a rift, your bag gets cut open and potions spill, etc). Some items, with a certain value or higher, wouldn't be affected.

Now, to avoid random lootbags, the corpse would have a new choice "Loot body", and the random looter would receive the item lost. On what is stopping people from doing this? Their character's morals, for example Hoihe the Honourful would never take off the weapon of a dwarf he doesn't know, out of honour, while Nelene the Liar would quickly take the least nailed down ite and run with it.


Another side effect: Somehow stem the inflation & players becoming dragons in terms of hoarding items/gold.

[MercTroop]

Of course no penalties would be preferable if RP is truly left to the players to decide.

If you are unable to imagine an RPG not using experience as a death penalty then you have missed allot in game development.

Server should remove experience penalties on death and add a death system based on SteveBarracuda idea. Where you take a temp stat debuff for a few game in game minutes, I'd suggest doing 20 seconds per a level at -4 all stats. Then tweaking after testing to see if that's too short or too long.

That is my opinion, but I know the development team will never allow it hence reason I support a stat debuff. Notice how I give reasons as why the current system should be changed, and what it should be changed into. Not just making posts with false information and hoping people take my opinion as the truth. If you don't give legitimate reasons then I can't change my mind or see your point of view.

Since I know you won't actually read my posts, just skim them I'll leave it at that.

Hoihe losing items on death works better if the server was building towards survival game play. Items needing to be maintained, only a few real safe areas, cities only selling most basic of equipment, being inside a city doesn't mean your safe, scavenging or making goods having higher priority, banding together is more of a must to dungeon for better gear.

If item loss was done I can already see the raging, and ooc complaints to Dm staff.

[muffinFBSL]

I don't find it valid to suggest to someone to die less. No one tries to die in this server. If you mean to say they should exert greater self-control as to where and how they play, you're implying that they can't play the game how they'd like to (which should be true for any situation involving an individual's ability to detrimentally affect other players, but that is not the case here unless...)

Unless you agree with Catam:

If death was free this would become an action server and RP would die. Period.

In my opinion, this sounds a bit too absolutely sure for something so bold and objectionable. Catam, to what extent is that true? How and why would that happen, and more importantly, why do you seem to know that would be the case? Do you have prior experience in gaming communities that have done similar things? Can you explain, step-by-step, what a rule change would do to player thought processes and how the resultant actions of those thoughts would make server life so vastly different than it is right now? Only if your prediction were true would I agree with you. If it is not true, the simplest solution is to allow players to choose upon character creation if they want that character to lose experience when they die. Players who opt out of death penalties can play how they'd like to without dealing with what they find to be steep, day-dampening, game-inhibiting repercussions. If you choose to have them in place for your characters, you may continue to afford the luxury of a healthy remorse. There's no reason such a divisive issue needs to be solved with a one-size-fits-all solution.

[Molag__Bal]

If death was free this would become an action server and RP would die. Period.

In my opinion, this sounds a bit too absolutely sure for something so bold and objectionable. Catam, to what extent is that true? How and why would that happen, and more importantly, why do you seem to know that would be the case? Do you have prior experience in gaming communities that have done similar things?

Somewhat related, the old death system used to allow players to respawn at their corpse. Players found ways to exploit this:

- Low level Drow would make a mad dash for the surface (back when the route was a lot shorter). They would run into a high level monster, die, respawn to corpse. They would move forward thirty feet, die, respawn to corpse. Eventually they would make it to the surface and join the zerg groups in cloakwood for easy xp. As it happens, these Drow were also part of the reason that the UD and surface got cut off for around six months, and the new path became much more difficult.

- Players would attempt to get past bosses that were much too difficult for their characters, in order to get to chests. They would die, respawn to corpse, run for the chests. Die, respawn, open a chest. Die, respawn, open another chest. Etc.

Based on the fact that players were finding ways to abuse the respawn to corpse option, I wouldn't be surprised if they find ways to do the same with a death system that no longer costs xp. Some examples I can think of:

- A character acquires his tenth resilient troll hide from up north, but doesn't really feel like making the trip back to CK. He lets a troll kill him, then respawns at the FAI.

- A character is in the Vault of the Dead and finds an epic heavy plate that makes his character heavily encumbered. He doesn't want to leave it behind, so he lets a monster kill his character and respawns at Elfsong tavern, where he puts it on a mule.