18 Question Routine

Gamer goes big by firing off 18 questions and Cord answers:

1- Dual weapons… when dual weilding there are penalties of course but according to my trusty phb by taking the right feats and weilding the appropriate weapons that should eliminate the primary weapon penalty and nearly eliminate the secondary one as well… but according to chart in the phb it doesn’t eliminate the primary penalty… my question to you dear BW is how you implemented this (i.e. does the primary penalty get eliminated). Of course in order to fully understand I will tell you how the penalties and the reductions add up (for the sake of completeness)

normal penalties -6 primary -10 secondary
ambidextrous reduce penalties 4 each
two weapon fighting reduce 2 each
second weapon smaller than first reduce 2each

that would be an 8 point total reduction on the penalties to dual wielding completely cancelling out the primary hand and leaving the secondary with a 2 point penalty…?

2- How easy will it be to switch fighting stances during combat… from say full attack to defensive fighting between rounds?

3- What about switching weapons… from say a longsword to carve up some gobbo’s to a mace to deal with a few boneheads…?

4- Can weapons (specifically swords and daggers) have gemlike blades?

5- Armor… it is seperate from say belts boots helms and gloves right?

6- Will it be possible to import sound files for NPC’s and whatnot?

7- Are the enviroments destructible at all (I believe this one is a no but hey here’s to hoping)?

8- Would the creation Wild magic zones (areas where spels effects are often not what was intended) and dead zones (areas where no magic at all works) be possible through scripting?

9- I understand that game can auto scale encounters but does it take into account class at all? ( I don’t see a 3rd level wizard facing 3 cr1 critters having the same chance as a 3rd level Barbarian… but then I could be wrong)

10- Will it be possible to rename or even create new critters?

11- Will it be possible to make an area (for instance a graveyard) a random monster spewer…( every so often an undead or 30 pop up at random in th area)?

12- Are Intelligent weapons in? If so how do you handle the weapons personality and take over ability?

13- Are ioun stones really in? ( oh I hope so!) What is the limit to the number of stones one can equip?

14- Is initiative a one time roll per combat? If it is can we DM’s change that to a by the round roll?

15- How exactly would me DM’ing an adventure for a group of freinds work? Would it be a direct computer to computer link or would I have to find a willing someplace online to host it? (I only intend to DM for my friends a every so often) Will I be able to accomplish even this much on a 56k modem?

16- Can characters own more than they can carry? (will there be a way to script storage or something for them?) If so, how would this work for vault characters…?

17- For my little group I would prefer a 28 point method that will be possible right? They just couldn’t be vault characters right?

18- As a DM I have often rewarded players for ingame activities that didn’t involve leveling or experience with new skills or an increase in the ones they have (example; a group of PC’s went on a long ocean voyage of several months to get to an island for an adventure a couple of PC’s didn’t have the funds to pay {and their comrades wouldn’t lend it to ’em} so they decided to work for the ship as crewmen instead. at the end of the voyage I awarded them with seamanship for free.) will that be possible? If so what effects would that have on Vault characters?

1) Like the book says.

2) Click and select, no worries.

3)Possible but switching weapons and equipment will take time and leave you more prone to attack.

4) I don’t believe so but you can attach all sorts of cool lighting and color effects to the blades though.

5) Yes.

6) No directly supported, but it will be possible.

7) For the most part no, but placeable objects like furniture can be destroyed.

8) Possible through heavy scripting I’m sure, not certain if it’ll be a built in selection though.

9)Yes, auto scaling can indeed take class into account.

10) No, not directly in the tools, but you can swap around all the stats and abilities of any creature.

11) Absolutely.

12) Intelligent weapons can be done.

13) Don’t recall seeing them confirm those.

14)I believe they are using the default once per combat rule.

15) Based on early estimates a good 56k connection should let you host around 6 players comfortably, stay tuned for further testing.

16) You can make whatever arrangements you like on your own server, but they’ve indicated that there wouldn’t be a “bank” at the Vault due to space considerations, if everyone has 5 PCs stored there that buys the game it could it ugly if they could store tons of equipment items too.

17) Outside of Vault PCs you can build and edit them however you please.

18)You can do as you please own your own server, if you edit a Vault PC though it will be “corrected” to meet the Vault limits when they check back in at the end of the playing session though.

Cord Grimwinder-8d
Interplaygames.com Moderator