So often in RPGs, people min/max when they create characters. To show that a comfy bed in an inn is more restful than your bedroll in a dungeon, characters that rent a room gain ability bonuses that last one day, which is a far more appetizing approach than penalizing characters for sleeping on a cold stone dungeon floor. Resting restores all health and endurance, and while that’s not realistic, it works very well in a game. If endurance hits zero, she falls unconscious and receives a maim effect such as “concussion” or “wrenched shoulder,” which also carries a temporary ability penalty. Healing spells will replenish endurance, but not health. Any time the character takes damage, that damage applies to both endurance and health. If a character’s endurance is 25, her health might be 120. Endurance functions exactly like hit points do in most games.īut in addition to endurance, characters have a health score, which is a far higher number than endurance. Your character has an endurance score and a health score. Pillars of Eternity does this a bit differently. While there are outliers such as James Bond RPG‘s lettered wound levels, most games have your character taking points of damage, and increasing maximum hit points along with character levels. My hope is that even if you have no intention of ever playing the game, you may find a discussion of its mechanics interesting if you enjoy RPGs. I just want to focus on the way they’ve designed the game’s RPG mechanics without getting too into the weeds, and examine the new ideas they’ve introduced, which I personally find fascinating. I’m not interested in going into any of the plot or setting of Pillars of Eternity. That said, I recently played Pillars of Eternity, and its mechanics opened my eyes to the fact that these systems can always be improved. But my point here is that I’ve always been a bit of an RPG system aficionado, and good game mechanics catch my attention. Armor class and hit points are a tried and true RPG trope. After some trial and error, my group found that Pathfinder, and later, 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, was scratching the right itch. I’ve always enjoyed reading up on new and innovative mechanics in RPG systems, such as “Aspects” in Spirit of the Century or “Stunts” in Dragon Age RPG, even if I’ve never played those games. In pursuit of that realism, I played GURPS for a time, and discovered that realism doesn’t necessarily make for the best game system-it’s too complex, and when you’re playing realistically, characters die very easily. Back in 2nd Edition D&D, I designed custom sorcerer classes, and made some ill-fated attempts to improve D&D‘s armor class system and make it more realistic. I later played computer RPGs like Pool of Radiance, Wasteland, and the Bards Tale and Ultima series. Many of the early quests have to do with learning new magic to improve these conjuration skills.I’ve been a fan of RPGs since I picked up my D&D red box set when I was 12 years old. You will occasionally pick up an NPC follower, but most of your backup comes in the form of conjured beings. This can affect how the NPCs deal with you, and what they tell you. When the Bard is engaging in conversation, you can choose if you want to make polite or snide responses. This is a real honest-to-goodness RPG.Īs you encounter the mass of quirky NPCs you will accumulate quests, which can always be reviewed in your quest log. As you gain experience from slaying monsters and completing quests, you will level up and get more talents and skill points. There is also a talent system that lets you add various perks, like dual wielding or critical hit multipliers. You can crank up strength to be a melee brawler, or dump points into dexterity to master the bow. You get to customize the skill points the Bard has. Before The Bard's Tale even got underway, I was impressed with the serious RPG aspects of the game.
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