Monk Kama build

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

Shia Luck wrote...
Anyway, I got a question for everyone. If I play HotU, for example, and I use console commands to spawn in low level magic items and reduce my ability scores making my character much weaker, have I cheated?

Have fun '>

According to Kail, and if I am interprting his reasoning failry accurately... no. No matter how you change the content is your own affair, for better or worse. You are the master of your own moral NWN SP universe. '>

In some respect a fine line can be drawn between intentional balancing measures (like furnishing suitable items that a player may deem inadvertently omitted by the designer) and intentionally defeating the existing balance just to make the game easier to play.  We see this sort of customization done all the time to achieve some sort of consistency with an interpretation of the ruleset.  Most all custom content does this and we never consider any of the redefinitions cheating even if they fly in direct opposition to the vanilla rules.

So in this respect, I can understand Kail's claim.  You really can't cheat if noone else is engaged in gameplay.  All you really do is change your enironment according to your personal taste.  No harm, no foul.  The puristic hackles may fluff up at the concept but the gaming world continues to spin in perfect balance nontheless.

I counter your question with another, Shia. 

Is it cheating to open up the toolset and examine a module prior to playing it?  I heard some ursines have done this, but sleep very well with clear consciences and for extended periods to boot. :innocent:

Edit: Fun is relative. Boring today could very well become exciting tomorrow especially with suitable medication.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par HipMaestro, 04 mai 2011 - 01:16 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Kail Pendragon]

               

MrZork wrote...

Kail Pendragon wrote...
It's not semantics, it's only logic. It's impossible to cheat in SP mode.

How is this not a semantic issue when the crux of disagreement is what definition one prefers for "cheating"? In one definition, SP cheating is defined out of existence by saying that any breach of the rules is actually a redefinition of the rules. In another definition, the rules don't change until the player makes a conscious decision to play by different rules and, until then, breaking those rules is cheating. And, we could go on, but this is clearly a semantic issue.

There's no rules breaking in SP, cause there's no rules at all. If you need to see rules, see them as dynamically set by the player's actions.

Kail Pendragon wrote...
What you consider it to be is irrelvant and does not change what it is. There is no cheating in SP, It is simply impossible to cheat in SP, period.

I am curious about such absolutist statements.

Let's say that there is one definition wherein, for a person to be said to cheat, he must break rules that he is unable to change and/or he must disadvantage some party other than himself by not following the rules. Sort of a Solo-Rules-Don't-Really-Exist system.

And, there is another definition wherein a person can be said to cheat when he doesn't follow the rules he has agreed to follow, even if the agreement is with himself and no one else is harmed by violating the rules. Along the lines of an I-Cheated-In-My-Diet system.

The moment one decides not to abide by the former rules, those rules are not valid anymore hence there's no rules breaking. Those rules simply cease to exists. And I'm saying rules since everybody seems to be so much entangled in them. Personally, I see no rules, nor constraints. Figures of speech notwithstanding (like to "cheat one self out of fun" which only indicates a bad choice, or "cheat on a diet" which simply means stopping it and assuming a new diet or "cheat codes" which are just ways to alter the game).

(Obviously, in both cases, the person would understand the rules and be able to follow them.)

Now, I have no problem with people who prefer the first definition; we could discuss aspects of the SP game indefinitely without using the term cheating. But, it eludes me why the first definition (or equivalent) is the only one suitable for discussion. Please explain why the second definition logically cannot be used. (Obviously, without circularly insisting that it be compatible with the first definition.)

The second definition is just fallaciously forcing a ruleset in an environment where no rules exists.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Kail Pendragon]

               

HipMaestro wrote...

Shia Luck wrote...
Anyway, I got a question for everyone. If I play HotU, for example, and I use console commands to spawn in low level magic items and reduce my ability scores making my character much weaker, have I cheated?

Have fun '>

According to Kail, and if I am interprting his reasoning failry accurately... no. No matter how you change the content is your own affair, for better or worse. You are the master of your own moral NWN SP universe. '>

In some respect a fine line can be drawn between intentional balancing measures (like furnishing suitable items that a player may deem inadvertently omitted by the designer) and intentionally defeating the existing balance just to make the game easier to play.  We see this sort of customization done all the time to achieve some sort of consistency with an interpretation of the ruleset.  Most all custom content does this and we never consider any of the redefinitions cheating even if they fly in direct opposition to the vanilla rules.

Which, btw, is what I had in mind. Sure you can alter the game the way you want but if you overdo some stuff you are probably not gonna find it too much fun. But who am I to say which way you should have fun?

Kamas are lacking in the OC and the OP really wants to play kamas? Add good kamas to the module (in line with the magic level of other weapons readily available if you don't wanna make the game (a lot) easier). It's that simple. And the same suggestion goes for any module one can play.

That's one good thing of NWN, you can more or less easily alter it to suit your needs.

Consolle commands are readily available on BW's site btw (if not in the manual). That indicates that they are readily available for use (as a lot of other resources) by the game players. So, using consolle commands is just using one of the resources given to the player by the module creators, same as is choosing where to set the difficulty slide, for example. Or which feat to select in game (that might very well make the game easier '> ). Hence, the module creators' rules are not broken by using consolle commands.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               I guess I'll have another go and see if this can be made clearer.

Kail Pendragon wrote...

MrZork wrote...

Kail Pendragon wrote...
It's not semantics, it's only logic. It's impossible to cheat in SP mode.

How is this not a semantic issue when the crux of disagreement is what definition one prefers for "cheating"? In one definition, SP cheating is defined out of existence by saying that any breach of the rules is actually a redefinition of the rules. In another definition, the rules don't change until the player makes a conscious decision to play by different rules and, until then, breaking those rules is cheating. And, we could go on, but this is clearly a semantic issue.

There's no rules breaking in SP, cause there's no rules at all. If you need to see rules, see them as dynamically set by the player's actions.

This is why semantics are involved here. You are defining rules to be something that the player cannot change. Many people use definitions for rules that do not have that requirement and, by those common definitions, NWN has things called "rules". In this thread, there is less of a disagreement about how the game works (the various things one can do) than there is about how to define the terms that describe it ("changing rules", "cheating", "modifying", etc.). Thus, semantics.

Kail Pendragon wrote...
What you consider it to be is irrelvant and does not change what it is. There is no cheating in SP, It is simply impossible to cheat in SP, period.

I am curious about such absolutist statements.

Let's say that there is one definition wherein, for a person to be said to cheat, he must break rules that he is unable to change and/or he must disadvantage some party other than himself by not following the rules. Sort of a Solo-Rules-Don't-Really-Exist system.

And, there is another definition wherein a person can be said to cheat when he doesn't follow the rules he has agreed to follow, even if the agreement is with himself and no one else is harmed by violating the rules. Along the lines of an I-Cheated-In-My-Diet system.

The moment one decides not to abide by the former rules, those rules are not valid anymore hence there's no rules breaking. Those rules simply cease to exists.

Right. You define rules in such a way that people cannot meaningfully say, "I play by these rules" or "There are certain rules I will not break" in a solo context. That's fine, but it doesn't go anywhere in showing that other people using different definitions can't have a meaningful discussion of rules or rule-breaking as they understand the terms. A player might say, "I set a rule for myself that I would play the OC without doing any XP farming. But, I cheated and killed ten mummies." There is no way to demonstrate that his description is wrong in the context of the terms as he defines them. You might claim that he can't set rules because he can change them, but that is only true if one accepts your criterion that a rule must be something a player cannot change.

And I'm saying rules since everybody seems to be so much entangled in them. Personally, I see no rules, nor constraints. Figures of speech notwithstanding (like to "cheat one self out of fun" which only indicates a bad choice, or "cheat on a diet" which simply means stopping it and assuming a new diet or "cheat codes" which are just ways to alter the game).

FWIW, typically that isn't the whole story or the reason the word "cheat" is part of those phrases:
"Cheating oneself out of fun" implies losing some enjoyment of an experience, typically by breaking a rule (generally without being caught) or taking some nonstandard shortcut.
"Cheating on a diet" implies compromising whatever health/aesthetic benefits one was to achieve in sticking to the diet.
"Cheat codes" usually refers to taking advantage of a hidden-during-normal-play game feature in a way that out-of-the-box players wouldn't know about or that the game designers didn't intend normal players to use. The word cheat may be inappropriate in some contexts, though, since not all such activity is intended to gain some advantage or to make the game easier.
BTW, I am not moralizing on any of these issues. I'm just pointing out that the common understanding of words like rules and cheating can be applied to solo experiences. Just not using your definition. And, I have no problem with flexible rules, particularly for gaming, since the goal is having fun. But, that doesn't mean that it's a misuse of language to say that rules exist and can be broken.

(Obviously, in both cases, the person would understand the rules and be able to follow them.)

Now, I have no problem with people who prefer the first definition; we could discuss aspects of the SP game indefinitely without using the term cheating. But, it eludes me why the first definition (or equivalent) is the only one suitable for discussion. Please explain why the second definition logically cannot be used. (Obviously, without circularly insisting that it be compatible with the first definition.)

The second definition is just fallaciously forcing a ruleset in an environment where no rules exists.

Which is still just insisting on compatibility with your choice of definitions. You haven't shown why the second definition isn't sensible. You've only shown that discussions using the second definition won't make sense using your definition. In other words, you define rules out of existence by insisting that they be something the player cannot change and then say someone else's discussion about rules is fallacious because they aren't using terms defined your way. But, they aren't wrong in the context of the terms that they are using; they simply aren't applying your definitions.


BTW, I have no problem if the OP wants to learn how to spawn in some amped-up kamas. I just never got the impression he wanted to do that.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Kail Pendragon]

               I didn't say rules cannot be changed. If you need to use a ruleset environment than rules will be changed, but not broken. Otherwise, there are simply no rules to be broken at all. In both cases there is no cheating.

NWN might come with its rules out of the box, but those are not SP rules. SP rules are either not present at all or decided by the single player. The SP player will always be in agreement with himself and that implies no rules breaking is possible. At most he might realize a certain course of action led to a less satisfying gaming experience, which has nothing to do with cheating.

Regarding the figures of speech: just no. Cheating oneself out of fun, means only that one gets a less satisfying result out of his choices than he could have had with different choices made. Cheating on a diet means changing the diet, possibly for a brief amount of time. And cheat codes are just game control features available to the player to make use of them.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_Lowlander_*]

               

Kail Pendragon wrote...
Cheating codes are not cheats.

I love that line. It's a classic. Like Bill Clinton equivocating over the definition of "is". By the common use of language today (and for decades) Cheating codes and cheats are exactly the same thing and can be used interchangeably in the computer gaming context. As in "I used [Cheating codes/cheats] to get by the very tough battle."

You seem to have settled very pedantically on one definition of the word "cheat" and are trying to stem the evolutionary tide of language with a spoon. Leading you to utter nonsense like the above.

The reality is that English is a very fluid language and is always evolving. Cheating/cheat codes/cheats have all been common in video/computer games for 25+ years now.

All cheating is not required to meet your pedantic narrow definition of the activity, and the context changes the meaning. Cheating at cards, cheating on your wife and cheating at computer games are all different things.

Even the game designers recognize it for what it is and may remind you of it. Like in Portal. Where if you use any cheats, during the game after completion it puts up a big "CHEATED" reminder that you took the easy way out.

http://cheatcodes.co...rtal-pc-cheats/
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Lowlander, 04 mai 2011 - 02:33 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Kail Pendragon wrote...

I didn't say rules cannot be changed. If you need to use a ruleset environment than rules will be changed, but not broken. Otherwise, there are simply no rules to be broken at all. In both cases there is no cheating.

NWN might come with its rules out of the box, but those are not SP rules. SP rules are either not present at all or decided by the single player. The SP player will always be in agreement with himself and that implies no rules breaking is possible. At most he might realize a certain course of action led to a less satisfying gaming experience, which has nothing to do with cheating.

Regarding the figures of speech: just no. Cheating oneself out of fun, means only that one gets a less satisfying result out of his choices than he could have had with different choices made. Cheating on a diet means changing the diet, possibly for a brief amount of time. And cheat codes are just game control features available to the player to make use of them.

Once again, I am certainly not disputing that there is a system of definitions wherein those are sensible descriptions. But, continuing to apply your system of definitions to others' descriptions using other definitions does not show the insensibility of either. To wit, you have never demonstrated what's wrong with a system of definitions in which there are rules and they can be broken; all you have done is repeat that it wouldn't make sense under your system of definitions where you have defined things in such a way that SP rules don't meaningfully exist.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shia Luck]

               

MrZork wrote...

Once again, I am certainly not disputing that there is a system of definitions wherein those are sensible descriptions. But, continuing to apply your system of definitions to others' descriptions using other definitions does not show the insensibility of either.

To be fair, no one is explaining what is so wrong with Kail's logic either. In particular, imho, you need to find something wrong with this bit if you want to begin to prove a fallacious argument

Kail Pendragon wrote...



 The SP
player will always be in agreement with himself and that implies no
rules breaking is possible.

...because I can't find fault with it.

MrZork wrote...
To wit, you have never demonstrated what's wrong with a system of
definitions in which there are rules and they can be broken;

I can't answer that, if people want to apply rules for themselves, np. It's when they force those rules on others that there becomes a problem. I can suggest why the "it is cheating" argument is fallacious when applied to SP games.

Firstly, every other definition and language use of the word "cheating" involves multiple people. Secondly, At least one of them is injured in some way by the cheat. Thirdly, it also involves a breaking of a contract or trust or rules that people have signed up to in one way or another.

With a diet the first condition is not fulfilled, But the second and third are. The third is fulfilled, simply because a diet is rules and to cheat on a diet you need to break those rules. As soon as you do, you lose the effect of the diet, the second condition. The similar rules in a computer game are things like left clicks on an enemy cause an attack. You could also perhaps say rules are also things like fireballs do 1d6/lvl damage. I know we got given a toolset but a change to a spell affects all NPCs in the game and so I think that wouldn't be included in your cheating definition? Perhaps it would?

This is why we feel it is not so bad as cheating on your partner or
cheating someone out of something for example, because they fullfill all three conditions.

In an SP computer game none of those three conditions are fulfilled.

My problem with this discussion is that we are receiving quite a derogatory negative reaction which is appropriate to the third condition, with the meaning of a betrayal of trust. Yet there is no contract or trust broken.

There's also the "you cheat yourself out of an experience" argument which is the 2nd condition. But the person saying this has no idea what the SP player would find a better experience. They only know on a personal level. I often advise people not to "cheat" on certain modules because the combat is a part of the story and they might get a better experience, but it is my opinion which they are free to ignore. I don't go screaming "CHEAT!" at them and claiming they hurt me by ignoring my opinion.

I'd also suggest this is happening because people are mistanenly fulfilling the 1st condition in applying MP rules to an SP environment.

Ultimately, I'd suggest it's because people are confusing the main usage of the word "cheat" with the "cheating" that exists in computer games. It's called a fallacy of equivocation.

I have no problem if anyone wants to play their game that way. It's their game. They make the rules *cheeky grin*

have fun '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shia Luck]

               Or alternatively, maybe Amethyst Dragon has the reason why unarmed even entered a discussion about a kama build.

The Amethyst Dragon wrote...

Not an entirely serious observation here, but am I the only one that keeps seeing the title of this thread as it sounds out loud?

monk, build

LOL... I missed that the first time.

edit: (btw, Gregor, I hate you for creating a new thread after I just spent so long on that post *grin* (yes, yes, my own fault for not looking *grin*)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Shia Luck, 04 mai 2011 - 11:23 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               Kail is unfortunately wrong in his logic.  There are TWO conditions in an SP environment that can then include cheating.

The first condition is that the Player has split personalities (and can therefore cheat on themselves).

The second condition is one where the SP environment uses scores, evaluations, etc that are then compared to other Players scores, evaluations, etc to determine something (examples of this are like the SP games of yore - Defender, PacMan, etc, where High Scores were saved and SPers could compare their results against one another).

I therefore submit the following (which I have submitted long before, in the old forums where this issue of "cheating in SP" was done and dealt with).

Closed SP environment : only one (and only one) Player, who does not in any way, shape, or form compare results of that play with others.  No cheating possible, with the exception of split personality disorder.

Open (competitive) SP environment : where results of SP play are compared with results of other SP play.  Cheating possible.

Kail is incorrect, because he used the absolute statement "there is no cheating in SP play" without further defining what he meant by SP play.

As one can see, with further definements, his statement is logically correct when SP play is defined as a closed SP environment (and excluding a split personality disorder).

Back to the topic at hand.

Assuming that we have a closed SP environment here - and since it is possible to introduce Gloves that are as enchantable as Kamas, which build is then a better build, Unarmed or DW Kamas?

In other words, let us level the ground in regards to the weapons themselves (Gloves vs Kamas).  So which build would be better in the OC if the weapons themselves are equal (Gloves and Kamas) in enchantment?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par WebShaman, 05 mai 2011 - 03:11 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_CBrachyrhynchos]

               In vanilla OC, and SoU, fists are better, while kamas are better for vanilla HotU.  An exception to this are small-sized monks where the breakpoint for kamas vs. fists is lower.

However, practically speaking just about any build is sufficient given smart use of tactics, so console codes and mods are unnecessary.

In an game using console codes or mods to change the rules, we can't make a conclusion as to which is better because anything goes.