Chris Parker Interview

GameSpy has conducted an interview with Black Isle’s Chris Parker about their upcoming RPG, Lionheart. Here’s a little of what you can expect:

Q: The random generator allows thousands of different weapons. What types are available, and are they open to any species? Has this created any nightmares with balancing?

A: The different races of playable characters offer different role-playing options but aren’t significantly different when it comes to weapon use, so yes, they are available to all of the races. Weapons come in a lot of different types, from a basic sword to ranged weapons like a bow. These are all broken out into the skill categories: one-handed melee, two-handed melee, and ranged. I imagine we might have a magic weapon or two that might be race specific, like a sword that favors demokin for some reason, but I don’t recall seeing any. No promises though.

The random weapon generators look at the power level of the character, compare this to a “goodness” level that they are supposed to be producing, and then uses weighted tables to produce a weapon of appropriate power. It hasn’t seemed to cause any balancing headaches so far, but we’ll see.