Dungeons & Dragons Online Forum News (Feb. 13, 05)

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Here are today's Dungeons & Dragons Online forum highlights, collected from Dungeons & Dragons Online forums. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Xundau, Community Relations

starting stats

We're heading into beta with 28 points -- we announced this a month or two ago, and there's been lots of discussion on this if you dig through some of the older threads.

For the record, the DMG (page 169) recommends 15 points for a low-powered campaign, 22 points for a challenging campaign, 25 points for a standard campaign, 28 for a tougher campaign, and 32 points for a high-powered campaign. I'm not sure why "challenging" gets fewer points than "standard," but in any event 28 points is certainly not intended for low-magic, low-adventure campaigns.

I should also note that the RPGA Eberron campaign (Mark of Heroes) is using the standard 25 point buy.

Magic Specialities....Wild Magic?

This isn't quite accurate, particularly with regards to the Monster Manual. There are about 400 creatures (including variants) in the Monster Manual, and as much as we'd like to include all or even most of them, it's not going to happen. Rest assured though that there will be plenty of classic, recognizable D&D monsters (as well as a few new ones) in DDO.

The second part of your statement is correct -- if it's not in the PHB, DMG, MM, or ECS, it's probably not in DDO. There's more than enough material in those four books for us to draw from, and we're doing our best to get as much of it as possible in the game.

Since Wild Magic isn't a part of these core rules, it follows that it won't be in DDO either.

Charisma,Intelligence,and Wisdom?

As many have pointed out here, there are plenty of reasons for most characters, even non-spellcasters, to have a decent score in one or more of Int, Wis, and Cha -- this is true in PnP D&D, and it'll be true in DDO as well. One thing that I didn't see mentioned is that a lot of the more finesse-oriented feats like Combat Expertise require an Int of 13, so if you want to play the thinking man's (or woman's) fighter, your fighter better be, well, a thinking man (or woman).

As far as roleplaying your character's Int and other mental stats -- this is really going to be up to the the individual player. I've played in many D&D campaigns over the years, and I've seen smart players playing not-so-bright characters do it both ways: some played their characters as they would any other, and others intentionally had their characters do very stupid things that reflected their Int score. Personally, I see benefits and drawbacks to both methods -- the former is less realistic but probably makes for smoother adventures, while the later is great for roleplaying but might end up getting the character (or even the whole party) killed.

For the record, we very much want people to roleplay in our game -- this is an MMORPG after all -- but it will not be a requirement. In most of these games, the dedicated roleplayers tend to find each other fairly easily. We are considering doing some things to facilitate this -- roleplay flags, roleplaying servers, etc. -- but we aren't commiting to any of these features yet.

One more thought: isn't Charisma being the dump stat for Fighters, Barbarians, Wizards, Rangers, and sometimes Rogues just as much a part of D&D as Magic Missile and Cure Light Wounds?

starting stats

If I can hijack this thread for a sec ...

When I logged into today's playday (in case you don't know, the whole team has a playtest every Friday afternoon/evening so we can keep up to date and give feedback on recent changes and additions), I was pleasantly surprised to see that the pointbuy is now implemented -- previously, your stats were automatically assigned to you based on your starting class.

I was feeling a little, er, bard-ish, so I created a human bard. I started assigning my stats without paying attention to the points remaining, and ended up with the following:

Str 14
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 12
Wis 8
Cha 14

These were better stats than I had hoped for, and I still had two points left, so I ended up assigning them to Con. Pretty good character overall - +2 to hit, damage, AC, hit dice, and spell-related stuff, +1 skill point/level, and -1 to Will saves. Bards tend to be one of those classes that rely upon lots of different stats, but I was perfectly happy with these.

Not quite sure what my point is here -- I guess the moral of the story is that I think 28 points is plenty

Blowguns and Poisons?

Blowguns aren't going to be a weapon in DDO. As a general rule, if it's not in the 3.5 Player's Handbook or Eberron Campaign Setting, it almost definitely won't be in DDO.

I'm not sure if players will be able to poison their own weapons, but I can tell you that some monsters can poison players (I speak from experience!)

keepin it fresh!!

Nik and I would really, really like some new stuff to give you guys. We bug the dev team about this on a daily basus, but the bottom line is that the dev team's first (and arguably only) priority right now is making the game good in general, and good enough to start beta in particular. It's hard to argue with that.

Still, we're agitating for you guys, and please believe us when we tell you that there's some very cool stuff in the pipeline -- it's just taking longer than we'd like. We know it's tough to remain dedicated to a community when not a lot of new information's coming out, but good things are coming very soon.

While we wait for the good stuff, Nik and I are also working on some features of our own. With any luck, you should see the first of these go up on Friday. And of course, we'll continue to be active on the boards. If you have any other suggestions or ideas for things you'd like to see, feel free to post them here or send us a PM.

Baraquel, the game's release is currently scheduled and on track for late 2005 (no specific date yet), so it's going to be a little longer than five months from now.

gametime?

Yes, there will be day and night.

I'm going to have to punt on the other two questions for now (How long will the day/night cycles last? Will certain quests will be dependent on the time of day?) -- sorry.

Nik Davidson, Administrator

New info on the horizon?

I hate saying "soon" more than a couple times, and I realize "soon" has got to be wearing thin. That being said, "soon."

multiclass xp penalty

This is currently planned, yes. Races will get their appropriate favored classes, and lopsided multiclassing will carry the appropriate XP penalty.

2 handed weapon damage

Yes.

Probably not.

Idea: PnP D&D mini-game INSIDE ddo

PnP D&D isn't exactly a mini-game. We actually tossed this idea around at one point, but it's a no-go for ship.

Rogues, and the art behind them.

If that's your stance, we're unlikely to sway you. No PvP, and no PvP pickpocketing. We have an extremely robust implementation of rogues, with better stealth, tricks and traps than any MMP to date. But if you're just looking to grief other players via pickpocketing, that's not this game.

Attributes exceeding 18

Yep.

Twinking, Powerleveling, and Ebaying

Just going to warn everyone here to keep things on topic, and watch the personal attacks. This is a good discussion, and I'd rather not close it, but I most certainly will if it doesn't stay civil.

Without going into detail on the "how" of it, first level characters will not be running around with +5 vorpal longswords. We do feel that the fun of the game is tied to the challenge of it, so while we're not going to take an unduly rigid stance on the subject, there will be some limitations in place.

Skill Synergy bonuses

Yep.

The two groups of gamers and how to co-exist

First, there's WAY more than two classifications of gamers.

Second, we're only making one game. We can't just say we'll balance the game twice in the same amount of time.

"Seperate but equal" isn't going to be our answer to this problem.

OK Here is the Gore Post and Poll

1) You people are scary.
2) We're going for a T rating.
3) No, seriously scary.

Atari's Q3 impacting DDO at all?

From our perspective, nothing has changed. If there are ramifications from this that come to light in the future, we'll let you know. However, in the meantime I'm going to close this thread - speculation in a vaccuum does no one any good.

We as Devs have decided to strengthen the role-playing like this…

We're going to create a rich world, with engaging storylines, compelling characters, and interesting choices. We're going to allow players a wide range of character choices, customization and personalization.

Then, it's up to you. A DM can't force his players to roleplay, short of closing his books and going home. Roleplaying is, and has always been, the responsibility of players. A DM, in this case us, can do no more than give players the tools to make it a rewarding experience.

Grumpy Friday

I love my job. At the same time, to the outside world, I think I have perhaps the least interesting job here. And yet, I often get people asking what I think about things. And I'll tell you what I think: I am grumpy.

Not about anything in particular. Just grumpy.

So "Grumpy Friday" will be an irregular article series, which I would like to focus on player mail and fun D&D stories in the future. I've got some fun contests and promotions planned too, and you know what? When the guy who has the beta list on his hard drive offers contests, people tend to enjoy them.

Enjoy the first installation of Grumpy Friday, and have a great weekend!

http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=34

Owlbear, Owl Bear

starting stats

Interesting idea, but I don't think it's going to happen. The point buy system doesn't work quite the way you described it -- it's not a strict 1 pointbuy point to 1 ability score point ratio.

The pointbuy table looks like this:

Code:

Ability Score    Point Cost
 8                0
 9                1
10                2
11                3
12                4
13                5
14                6
15                8
16               10
17               13
18               16

When you reach 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, or 20th level, you can increase any ability score by 1 -- the table above is irrelavant. So if you start out with a 16 Str, and increase it to 17 when you reach 4th level, you're actually making a change that would have cost 3 pointbuy points during character creation. You can also increase your stats above 18 in this manner, which is something the pointbuy system doesn't allow you to do.

[ February 15, 2005, 21:56: Message edited by: chevalier ]