rogueknight333 wrote...
So are you saying we should have a singe one-size-fits-all spell that we cast all the time? In the nature of things, more depth and complexity in the tactical system means more opportunites to mess up one's tactical approach. If you have multiple spells of any kind at all, obviously some are going to be better in some situations than others (unless the differences are purely cosmetic, or some are always inferior, and thus in either case rather pointless), whether that be because they can better deal with a particular immunity or some other reason, and thus the potential for a problem such as you describe will exist.
Ah, I think I've found part of the problem - you're not used to games that require you to do anything beyond "spam the best spell until you run out of them" for the bulk of gameplay. Which essentially means all of DnD (except maybe 4th ed from how much people complain about it, never played any DnD so can't really say).
Going to try to explain this so you understand where I am coming from without going into too much detail if I can.
In WoW, my main character is a priest. Priests have Discipline (shielding and smiting), Holy (pure healing), and Shadow (sort of like negative energy in DnD) as specializations. I mainly play Shadow - which means every single one of my spells deals Shadow damage (in fact, one of my abilities is called Shadowform - which gives my shadow spells a bonus and makes me take less damage but I literally cannot cast healing spells while it is active).
As Shadow, my main combat spells are Shadow Word: Pain (deals heavy damage over time, SW:P), Vampiric Touch (deals moderate damage over time and restore my mana, VP), Mind Flay (deals damage and slows the target, MF), Mind Blast (deals heavy damage with a cooldown, generates a Shadow Orb, MB), Shadow Word: Death (deals heavy damage with a cooldown, generates a Shadow Orb, can only be used if enemy is <20% health, SW:D), and Devouring Plague (Consumes up to three Shadow Orbs to do extreme damage over time, DP). Those six spells are the "core" spells and make up about 80-90% of my casting time.
When I am playing, every second this is the decision tree/priority listing I have to constantly evaluate:
1, do I have three orbs? If so, DP
2, is MB ready? If so, use it
3, is SW:D ready and the enemy under 20%? If so, use it
4, is SW:P on the target? If it expired, put it back up
5, is VT on the targe? if it expired, put it back up
6, If none of the above are true, use a Mind Flay
On top of that, I have several other spells used as cooldowns (like increase damage by 25% for 20 seconds, cooldown of 120 seconds or summon a shadow to attack my target).
The ability to use these effectively means that if you tried to play a shadow priest with my exact same level and gear and such, I would probably double or triple your damage. I (at the risk of sounding arrogant) am probably in something like the top 0.1% of shadow priests in the world. Even someone who's played a shadow priest for a while is probably going to be doing at least 25% less damage simply because I am better at playing the character.
That's not even getting into things like using defensive abilities or avoiding boss attacks and such.
So right there I've outlined a system that makes this statement false:
"If you have multiple spells of any kind at all, obviously some are going
to be better in some situations than others (unless the differences
are purely cosmetic, or some are always inferior, and thus in either
case rather pointless)"
I use at least core six spells in all situations and all are important - skipping any one of them would be a drastic performance decrease (like 15% or more lost from not using a spell). The key is that the six spells are differentiated and each has a specific purpose. To a some degree, you could say that NWN is about building a character while WoW is about playing a character. Give a novice a good NWN fighter build and he'll probably do all right. Give a novice a WoW character and the results would be disastrous.
Which leads us to the following...
rogueknight333 wrote...
I do not really see the problem with the kind of thing I suggested for the hypothetical Fire Adept: give him a mix of spells, some based more generally on an ability to control fire in a variety of ways rather than simply fling fire at enemies. That works with the lore without rendering him helpless against fire-immune foes, if there are such, and adds more variety and depth to the game's spell system. Works all around, as far as I can see.
So let's say there was a Shadow damage immune foe - which would be problematic because all of my spells do Shadow damage. This means you'd have to create new spells that are only used against shadow immune foes - which widens the skill gap even FURTHER (and it is already huge) and effectively creates two rotations that the player has to know.
You'd effectively be like doubling the learning curve for everyone and it is already massive. Or you'd be making one spell for a shadow priest to spam versus a shadow immune foe and they'll think "So we went from an engaging and interesting playstyle where I had to juggle six core spells plus another half dozen peripheral ones to spamming one spell against this enemy? This is stupid."
Now perhaps you're arguging that because the NWN system is so simplistic, making people spam a different spell versus different foes is the only way to make things interesting (to prevent a wizard from never doing anything but spamming IGMS). While that is still somewhat true, that still brings up problems like having to memorize a set number of each type of spell (unless you're a superior sorcerer) and needing multiple weapons/ammo types for different foes. Simply saying "Okay, going to use fire arrows instead of cold arrows here" is not exactly a thrilling or deep combat mechanic. Now if fire arrows left the foe more vulnerable to damage while cold arrows slowed them or something then we might be getting somewhere...
rogueknight333 wrote...
E.g. a warrior fighting with a battleaxe will be at a disadvantage against skeletons (other things being equal) than one fighting with a warhammer, but that need not mean he could not still win.
True, but that's because most combat is stupidly easy and not tuned tightly whatsoever. For example, let's say you gave a person 5 full heals per day. Because you're not trying to tune things too tightly, you decide to make a skeleton boss that will require 4 full heals for the warhammer guy. This means that even if his stats are a bit worse than they should be or he isn't using appropriate consumables or whatever, he'll still be able to win,
...However, the fighter with the battleaxe (since he does 50% damage) is going to need 8 heals. And he only has 5.
But if we tune the skeleton to be doable with 4 heals with a battleaxe, then the warhammer only needs 2 and it seems really easy and not threatening.
So what if we tune it for 4 heals for the warhammer but assume Mr. Battleaxe will swap to a warhammer? All right, but he loses 3 AB, and thus loses something like 25-30% damage - which means he'll need more than 5 heals, which means he still can't win.
Houston, we have a problem.
rogueknight333 wrote...
One thing to keep in mind though is that in an RPG, particularly, plot reasons are important reasons.
Oh, absolutely. My point that was usually it is "Well, we're going to fight fire elementals, so let me buy a ring of fire immunity from the vendor" instead of "You'll never survive against the lord of fire without protection! Let me give you a bunch of quests to assemble an artifact that will give you some immunity to his fire attacks!"
In other words, it rarely (if ever) has anything to do with the plot and instead is simply a gameplay mechanic.
rogueknight333 wrote...
I think feats like Weapon Focus are partly there for RP reasons, i.e. having a character specialize in a particular weapon is one way to make him distinctive (e.g. Drizzt's iconic scimitars). At least for that reason, I would be sad to see such things removed entirely, though a good case can be made for reducing the importance of choosing a particular weapon.
Well, part of the problem is that Drizzt doesn't run around upgrading his scimitars constantly throughout a campaign
'> Or find an enemy that requires a +5 weapon to beat but he only has +3 scimitars. You can choose to use a certain style without needing feats to reinforce it - and if you do include the feats, then in effect you need to constantly provide every single weapon type for every single weapon upgrade. Or else you might have someone not use the better item because they don't have (Epic) Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, and (Epic) Weapon Specialiation for it. Laying aside damage reduction, a fighter using a +3 standard Longsword that he has those feats for is better off than a fighter using a +6 Keen Longsword without those feats (he gains +3 AB, +6 damage, and effectively the Keen property).
rogueknight333 wrote...
If we were talking about non-magical weapons or low-magic weapons with very modest bonuses than a higher base damage could well be preferable. It is only when one gets weapons with the kind of bonuses typically handed out to mid-to-high level characters that the ability to generate crits becomes all important.
Somewhat true. Assuming crit vulnerable foes, a level 1 fighter with 16 strength comparing a scimitar and longsword would get...
Scimitar: 7.48 damage per hit ((3.5 + 3) * 1.15)
Longsword: 8.25 damage per hit ((4.5 + 3) * 1.1)
But let's look at level 8 fighter with +2 weapons, +2 strength from gear/buffs (+2 is guaranteed from a Bull's Strength potion), and Improved Critical/Weapon Specialization...
Scimitar: 16.25 damage per hit ((3.5 + 5 + 2 + 2) * 1.3)
Longsword: 16.2 ((4.5 + 5 + 2 + 2) * 1.2)
So all you need for a scimitar to become better versus crit vulnerable foes is a level 8 fighter with a +2 weapon and +2 strength from a Bull's Strength (guaranteed).
