jmlzemaggo wrote...
What you're looking for seems to be a module where the power would only lie within the character itself, not his "temporary, perishable" gear.
That's idea, although I am not really a purist about it. I (and probably many of us) get a fair amount of NWN enjoyment out of thinking about character builds. But, it really changes things when equivalent feats, skills, abilities, etc. that we design into a build are available at a merchant or even in fairly reliable loot drops. To further the example above, if the quest to kill the mummy king always rewards with a necklace that has +6 AC and immunity to crits and paralysis, then one might have to seriously rethink taking those ten levels of pale master. (Obviously, that's not the whole benefit of those PM levels, but I think the issue is clear.)
I'll admit that one of the first things I do when exploring a new module is to see what the stores have in order to get some idea of how the module designer anticipates the character will eventually be equipped. Now, of course, it may be that even in cases where there is uber gear around, the module doesn't give out enough money to buy all of it, which can be interesting when a PC has to save his coppers in order that some day he can afford a 20,000 GP pair of boots of speed or instead he might buy three lesser weapons or armor instead. It can be fun to make those decisions. And, it's also possible that the only good gear drops from bosses or quest completion. Either case would be a contrast to the Bioware campaigns where (with the possible exception of SoU) by the end, a PC can pretty easily buy or find so much gear that he seldom has to worry about saving up to get something nice.
But, in this case, the idea struck that it might be fun to play the characters more-or-less as they leave the CBC design. For one thing, it would just be fun to see how they do "naked". And, it also might provide some insight into potential strengths or weaknesses of the builds. I.e., I might learn something if it turns out that some tank build I have been playing and thinking is pretty tough is actually very dependent on getting some plush AC gear (for instance) and I never knew it before because such gear was easy to get.
I would trade any überweapon for 100 xps.
Is that the concept you're talking about?
And what class are you thinking of... Would you extend your minimalist principle to a fighter even, but fighting with what, cigarettes?
No!!! I can't believe I just said that!
And for PWs only, no Single players?
I guess the gear versus XP choice might depend on the situation. Usually, my priority is seeing how the character can advance in innate ability. But, it can be a tough call because gear also lets a character perform better.
It would actually be sort of an interesting idea to pit XP advancement against gear and see what people choose. What if each opponent killed had the XP award multiplied by some factor that went down as the PC's equipped inventory value increased? Leaving aside the implementation details (there is a potential lag issue lurking in running an inventory loop for each OnDeath event), what if the module assumes that the PC will typically have 50,00GP of gear equipped and will have at most 100,000 GP worth of equipped gear in a given chapter of the module series and PCs should get reduced credit for kills if they have that much gear equipped. So, he writes the XP award so that the nominal XP is multiplied by (150,000-GearValue)/100,000. That way, a "naked" character gets a 50% bonus for the kill and an "overdressed" character get's a 50% penalty.
I will admit that I seldom play pure melee builds. And, what little experience I have reminds me that such PCs, who often don't have much in the way of exotic powers as part of the class, can be much more fun when the gear provides variety. I don't know if a low-magic module would be as fun without some exotic character abilities to spice things up.
As to the last question, I wasn't thinking of PWs, though I know some are said to be low- or mid-magic. In this case, I was thinking of a low-magic SP module, though a low-magic MP module where SP is an option would be fun, too, as I can get a playing partner for MP games. Maybe I should post in the PW forum as well, to see what people recommend for low-magic PWs...
