Alternative rule systems in NWN2.

Been playing Mass Effect 3 lately. Before that there was Kingdoms of Amalur Demo, Battlefield 3, Dragon Age series, and other games. In May there will be Diablo 3.

So, I am quite divorced from the D&D world and happily so. It's not to say that I can't have fun in a D&D game. But, lets be honest. It's very hard to play true D&D on a computer, and not entirely neccessary for funz sakez.

What we have now is an adaptation with a tilt towards a compressed time frame. We rarely if ever play with the classic rest restrictions. We have more encounters and more shorter rest. Magic items abound.

Yet, we are hobbled by ghosts of D&D, namely, some adaptation of the 6 second round without complete animation, Vancian spell casting, rest, etc.

I understand that the purpose of some of the D&D rules is to contain the sense of fantasy so that commoners still make some sense and the party does not appear to be a troupe of gods on the rampage. But, that always falls apart. People simply don't make those kinds of modules very often if at all. And, it's not entirely neccessary for funz sakez.

So, in light of that, I propose other game rules be incorporated into NWN2. Diablo 3 Game Guide has some interesting ideas. They can be incorporated in whole or in part. Many of us have wanted a revamped Barbarian, Monk, Wizard, Spirit Shaman, or Ranger for quite some time. I think Diablo 3 has some good ideas for either adaptation or faithful reproduction.

I've thought of doing this my self, but, I frequently think that yet produce infrequently. So, I put this idea out there for people to use as they please.

While I could write many, many pages of an OpEd about this let me boil it down to this: I agree with you completely in principle but the practical reality is that the ship has probably sailed for using NWN2. There are far too many missing pieces to try building from the ground up again (server hardware, area builders, scripters for area/conversations/DM events, DMs, someone to help with the ruleset building (and more people to design/decide what it is), NWN2X familiarity, server management familiarity, etc) today. Fewer and fewer servers even want new stuff from me because they don't want to do any work (many, many servers are in 95% maintenance mode with only rare and minor updates).

Wow, I did not know PW land had plateaued so badly. I thought you were entering maintenance mode because you had picked apart D&D enough and had found all you were interested in or that is feasible.

What about SP? There are new modules coming out. Slowdive fan finished IWD Remake about a week ago. He hosted a co-op test play through. Co-op shows a lot of promise. If SP modders would make their modules MP friendly we could have PWs built on fav SP mods. The news gets better when you see what Reider has done with The Wizard's Apprentice 2. I'm actually playing a wizard.

Maybe I am being overly critical, it's hard to gauge. I do know that RoT no longer wants content updates from me. KoW and SoI do (SoI adds the new stuff immediately). Dalelands is about 9 months behind on using my next to last update so I'm not sure when they will update. I believe DEX still uses my updates. BG is the server I do not want getting the source code. I just found out Gray Isles added some of my content (no clue just how much of it) so I'll keep them on the radar now.

Some SP modules have added support for my pack but I understand their issue with it (it's very hard to balance a module with the core stuff let alone with my stuff and unexpected conflicts can easily arise).

As far as maintenance vs new stuff I'm interested in doing new base classes (knight and marshal for sure, maybe the alchemist and feral shifter) and a handful of prcs for Dalelands and the other servers that want my content.

I may be underestimating how much it is used though. Just since I released the C version the bitly link (not using the NWVault page) has gathered nearly 800 hits in less than a month. Some people may be downloading more than once so it's hard to tell how many are actually unique but it's more than I expected.

Bundled NWN2 series has gone on sale this year through steam and other outlets. So, we are getting some new players. But, a lot of people tend to lurk forums so it's easy to see the player base as smaller than it is. Steam has an NWN2 forum so you can probably pick up some new downloaders from there if you make an announcement or answer a few questions.

I'm playing The Wizard's Apprentice 2 with a wizard of 9th starting level. Four is the recommended starting level. And, I feel fine. I don't play wizards. So, for the sake of enjoying the module for what it really has to offer, I've set aside the usual expectations. I'm not going to let a good module go to waste because of arbitrary opinions if I can help it. I wouldn't do this with something more familiar because I wouldn't feel the need to. So, that gives an indication of what I think about balance.

I think you should give TWA2 a try(assuming you haven't). It, Path of Evil, The Maimed God's Sage, et. al., are how I think modules should really be made. And, if Sp modders can make hem MP playable, so much the better.

I haven't played NWN2 in years. Not MP, not SP. I just develop content for it.

Once I get 1.42 ironed out (hopefully with the d update) I'll post it to the Nexus and make a forum post on the steam forums.

I've wanted to do a ground up PW ruleset for a PW (still set in Faerun, just ditching the "stock" stuff) for a long time but I haven't wanted to try putting one together (knowing part of what it takes) nor have any up and coming (over the years) PWs ever asked me to join. I've had to ask the two servers that I've been a part of to join them.

*shrugs* Dunno, maybe it's me.