Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Ideas and suggestions for game mechanics and rules.
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Adanu
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by Adanu »

Death spells were mainly designed around the tabletop type of thing where progression can be quicker and if you die, that person can be replaced pretty quickly via NPC shoehorning, so they've never really sit well with me in ALFA. That being said, I can agree to the principle of "all magic, no exceptions" within reason, and I'd say death magic would fall within that barely, so I have to concede that.

I've always been more of a fan of retirement, either way.
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Zelknolf
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by Zelknolf »

Eh... I suppose I can't support my necessity goods model with data, because we don't record reasoning for raises in any orderly way. All I have is anecdote, wherein even blackhearted evil bastards who eat babies and nail innocent farmboys to tastefully-appointed ottomans before releasing the wolves still respond to the death of a friend with "We'll pay what it takes to have him back" when a raise is on the table. Sometimes it's not, yeah, and they just split up the poor bastard's stuff and get on with it. I'd not be able to provide an example of a dead guy whose friends wouldn't bring back because the money just wasn't there; in such circumstances, I see people selling their stuff to get the money-- of course that's anecdote which is roughly as valid as anyone else's, if they've observed differently. I would not be surprised to learn that I am more likely to interact with people who share my values and regard some of them as universal, and thus applying to all their PCs.

Though I am somewhat curious in that context if ALFA's ever had a raise resulting from a clone spell, with that being brought up. 2d4 months is a pretty long wait to grow a body, and feels eerily like an invitation if completed (potentially seeing content scale with the expectation of killing the character, with the knowledge that a raise is instant and assumed on account of the completed clone spell). It's certainly one of the cheaper ways to come back if folk are doing it(500 gold focus; 1000 gold components-- only slightly worse than a reincarnation, and you don't have do deal with potentially coming back as a goblin of the opposite sex).
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oldgrayrogue
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by oldgrayrogue »

Just ditch the -6 floor. Simplest solution. Character turnover is healthy for the project. Especially now with 2 PCs playable, players need not risk their "treasured" high level PC if they want to play it in perpetuity. We claim to be hardcore, lets actually be hardcore.

If you want to preserve a "less lethal" "hardcore" ALFA then leave the floor in place for levels 1 to 3. This gives new characters more of chance to develop with a decreased risk of death. Higher level characters don't need this crutch. As Ronan points out, rezzes are easily attainable and pursued often.
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by thinkpig »

oldgrayrogue wrote:Just ditch the -6 floor. Simplest solution. Character turnover is healthy for the project. Especially now with 2 PCs playable, players need not risk their "treasured" high level PC if they want to play it in perpetuity. We claim to be hardcore, lets actually be hardcore.

If you want to preserve a "less lethal" "hardcore" ALFA then leave the floor in place for levels 1 to 3. This gives new characters more of chance to develop with a decreased risk of death. Higher level characters don't need this crutch. As Ronan points out, rezzes are easily attainable and pursued often.
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by MaskedIllusion »

thinkpig wrote:
oldgrayrogue wrote:Just ditch the -6 floor. Simplest solution. Character turnover is healthy for the project. Especially now with 2 PCs playable, players need not risk their "treasured" high level PC if they want to play it in perpetuity. We claim to be hardcore, lets actually be hardcore.

If you want to preserve a "less lethal" "hardcore" ALFA then leave the floor in place for levels 1 to 3. This gives new characters more of chance to develop with a decreased risk of death. Higher level characters don't need this crutch. As Ronan points out, rezzes are easily attainable and pursued often.
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Ithildur
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by Ithildur »

Looks like I'm late to the party by a long margin. :) Feel free to ignore, didn't realize it'd end up being kind of a thread necro and that someone else suggested something similar already.

Code: Select all

Remove the -6 floor/cap for PC's above lvl (3, 4, 5, or 6). 

This will help nudge the lvl curve to the 'sweet spot' for ALFA in a number of ways without necessarily having to pump lower lvl PCs with 1000xp per session or such, though obviously it synergizes with such approaches/has a similar effect.

It keeps survival less brutally harsh for the lowest levels (which it seems most folks have come to believe is desirable), while making reaching legendary levels of power/skill much more rare (which I believe most folks also see as desirable). 

It also reduces the occurance of the silly rubber banding/floor to consciousness/whatever it's called effect that people have seen from time to time in extremely deadly combat. My guess is this is more likely to happen once PCs reach high enough lvls that you can heal someone that's down multiple times. I can't provide evidence/numbers for this (perhaps zelk can) but intuitively it seems like this would be the case. The partial elimination of the floor/cap would mean lowbies who probably don't have enough healing resources to bounce up and down still get the benefit of the cushion.


BTW I have a highish level PC currently, and I'd be willing to promote and accept deleveling of PCs if people's main protest against such an idea is that of 'grandfathered' PCs that reached high levels before such a change went into effect.
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by HEEGZ »

I think the biggest problem now is the time it would take for a tech fix. I think we might rather have that time spent on making more content for servers, instead of changing something that has been around for years. I'd love to see the floor removed entirely, but it's not worth it at this point (unless the fix is very simple and not time consuming).
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by Zelknolf »

NWN2 expects a respawn button or a load game button; we don't have that. Anything we do anywhere in any capacity with the events around character death is going to be dangerous work that challenges the assumptions of the Aurora engine. There are no simple solutions; the 'off' switch of the death system means a respawn button.

There was a proposed change back in February, which the DMA killed. I'm not going to restart this conversation; it was an enormous waste of time and a source of equally-enormous stress last time, and I'm certain it will be again this time.
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Arianna
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by Arianna »

oldgrayrogue wrote:Just ditch the -6 floor. Simplest solution. Character turnover is healthy for the project. Especially now with 2 PCs playable, players need not risk their "treasured" high level PC if they want to play it in perpetuity. We claim to be hardcore, lets actually be hardcore.

If you want to preserve a "less lethal" "hardcore" ALFA then leave the floor in place for levels 1 to 3. This gives new characters more of chance to develop with a decreased risk of death. Higher level characters don't need this crutch. As Ronan points out, rezzes are easily attainable and pursued often.

the -6 floor is pretty pointless if your being silly and soloing or even if your not and your companion gets killed too since the critters just stand over you waiting for you to get back up so they can knock you down again
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Re: Thoughts of death (Where is thy sting?)

Post by HEEGZ »

My current cleric Rhone has survived some encounters like this, by casting lesser vigor, charging in, going down, hopping up, getting a whack, kill, going down, getting up and kill for the win (on two occasions). It is a bit weird, but I view it as the power of Haela giving her those last bits of strength to overcome her foes.
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