33 réponses à ce sujet

[dunniteowl]

I'm with you on most of that TheFred. I would like to be clear, though and for others out there who may see it similarly as I: Shapeshifting is not Polymorphing. Polymorphing is not Shapeshifting.

I know, I know, many may see this as Po-Tay-Tos to Po-Tah-Tos, and they are synonymous with changing a shape.



Shapeshifting is always a person changing themselves at will to the form of some creature.

Polymorphing is not always a person changing themselves, not always into an animal, and usually not at will.

And this is an really important difference. While a caster can gain pretty much the same benefits of an animal form polymorphed as someone could shapeshifted, they are different ways to achieve a similar result. That said, a Shapeshifter cannot confer their form to someone else even if they wished to do so. (And I really understand this is a small difference overall as regards the magic system or the PnP rules in general, however, it is seminal.)

I would love to see Shapeshifting given it's proper due (and wonder how possible that is in a cRPG in the first place) and have it separated (as painofdungeoneternal intimated) into it's own "sub-category" of Nature magic, where it truly belongs (along with all Druidic, Bardic, Elemental and Plant Magic categories.)

I also realize that while different from Polymorphing the game engine doesn't necessarily see it that way.

In PnP I love playing Druids. In cRPGs, not so much. So little in fact that I think the last time I played a Druid character was in Baldur's Gate, where even then, I found they were so poorly represented that I just couldn't enjoy it.

If Shapeshifting could be tweaked to represent more closely what a Druid in Animal Form should be able to do, then I think I would revisit playing Druids. If not, then if you were to cut them entirely wholesale from your module efforts, it wouldn't be a big deal, I think. There are plenty of other fun classes to play, even without all these "splashes" "dips" and "grabs" of a level of something to powergame the rules. So whatever you manage, I am sure I'll be fine with. I'm willing to bet many others out there would probably feel similarly.

Good luck, either way.

dunniteowl

[The Fred]

dunniteowl wrote...
I also realize that while different from Polymorphing the game engine doesn't necessarily see it that way.

This is one of my annoyances with the polymorphing system. Everyone is shoe-horned through these engine limitations which make everything kinda messy. As I was saying before, polymorphing into a humanoid shape gives you all the disadvantages of being an animal, when it really shouldn't. This doesn't really apply to wildshaping, but it does to more general shapechanging.

I'm going to look into using appearance changes for humanoid forms, which might be messy, but is hopefully possible. Right now I'm just brainstorming about Druid forms, however.

For the record, I never really had any intention of cutting the Druid. Replacing them with the Spirit Shaman would make sense in my campaign, but I hope to use both. Rather, I was thinking of removing just wildshape, and possibly alllowing other bonuses instead. As it stands, low-level druids are more than capable, but at higher levels they lose out to Clerics to some extent, and can't multiclass as freely, so I don't want to cut wildshape without giving them something back.

Modifié par The Fred, 20 février 2011 - 05:49 .

[manageri]

This is slightly off topic but since you're looking into making druids more fun I'd suggest making animal companions directly controllable like familiars if possible. Having what's essentially part of the character run around doing moronic things in combat is one of the biggest reasons I don't like druids.

[dunniteowl]

Well I have this whole Thesis Length paper on Magic which deals with pretty much every kind of magic normally expected to be found in a semi-medieval gameworld. I still haven't finished it, because I haven't completed some areas. That said, it's pretty complete for the most part. I think I'll post it at the Citadel (it's going to have to be in like 3 or 4 parts) and see how folks react to it. For the most part, it was designed to be a sort of Discourse by a Famous Mage Sagacious in my game world. Even so, I designed it as a (hopefully) readable paper on different types of magic, how they interact and possibly ways to provide folks with ideas for creating magical systems that could incorporate the concepts espoused.

I'll have it posted at the Citadel in the next 24 hours or so (recognizing that it's not a mechanics concept paper, rather it is a concepts of magic paper that might help to derive a stable mechanics root to cover magic of a wide variety of types.)

UPDATE:
And here it is: A Discourse On Magic and it's companion thread: Discussion on: A Discourse of Magic you know, in case anyone really wants to discuss what's in there.
[edit, some goofy link breaking.  Hopefully cured.]
dunniteowl

Modifié par dunniteowl, 27 février 2011 - 06:36 .

[Rex Radar]

Sweet. Thanks Dunniteowl.



BTW if MoMF or the arcane counterpart from 3.5 or a 3.0 Shifter import is added I will be missing out on more of the imortant real life events in my area as my mind is held in shifty wonderlust.

[The Fred]

Cool. It's always good to have some light bedtime reading. ;-)

[I_Raps]

dunniteowl wrote...

UPDATE:
And here it is: A Discourse on Magic and it's companion thread: Discussion on: A Discourse of Magic  you know, in case anyone really wants to discuss what's in there.

[edited with proper linkage. dno  Oculara Reparo!]

I'm getting the dreaded 404 on both those links.  I hope the new site fixes didn't break something.

Modifié par dunniteowl, 27 février 2011 - 06:48 .

[dunniteowl]

Thanks, I_Raps, me fix quick quick!

Yup, fixed now.  Chalk up another in the Win (NOT!) column for BSN autoformatting.  I had to manually input the links and had to fight with the auto formatting to keep the post window from turning them into links without me hand repairing them WHILE I WAS HAND REPAIRING THEM, because their forum fix that fixed the double slashes and adding an extra line in the Quick Reply, broke the previously autoformatted links that I checked and made sure worked the first time I posted them.

It's just another day in the neighbor hood, won'tcha be my, won'tcha be my, won'tcha be my neighbor?

dno

Modifié par dunniteowl, 27 février 2011 - 06:54 .

[foil-]

dunniteowl wrote...

Thanks, I_Raps, me fix quick quick!

Yup, fixed now.  Chalk up another in the Win (NOT!) column for BSN autoformatting.  I had to manually input the links and had to fight with the auto formatting to keep the post window from turning them into links without me hand repairing them WHILE I WAS HAND REPAIRING THEM, because their forum fix that fixed the double slashes and adding an extra line in the Quick Reply, broke the previously autoformatted links that I checked and made sure worked the first time I posted them.

It's just another day in the neighbor hood, won'tcha be my, won'tcha be my, won'tcha be my neighbor?

dno

I think my head just exploded.  But my dog assures you that chasing your own tail can be fun.