suggestions - some balance changes and things

[devinv]

Apologies in advance if this stuff has already been mentioned:

skills could be balanced a bit: for example putting 5 points in mercantile gives a modest discount, maybe 10% on purchases, not enough to make that much of a difference except on the most expensive items. 5 points invested in hide in shadows, on the other hand makes you invulnerable to most creatures anytime you can find a shadow, which is almost anywhere. And moving silently: could this be made to allow a backstab attack or some other useful thing? As it is, moving silently only seems to help you sneak past monsters to avoid a fight. Not that fun.

The special weapons you get as a reward for quests ( sword, bow) were at about the same level as what I was already using, so it was a bit of a letdown. The reward could be adjusted depending on your current level maybe? I figure this is already being done when it comes to the difficulty of monsters being encountered.

Early game: a bit hard for my taste: as a ranger or magic user, you are constantly burning through mana/ arrows to kill monsters; monster that leave behind no loot. Consequently I was constantly struggling to get enough money to cover potions/arrows/beds in the hotel ( a little to much like real life for my tastes) Later on when you start killing bigger creatures and get loot things are a bit easier. Maybe starting off with just a bit more money would do the trick? Recovering a portion of used arrows as loot from the creatures as someone earlier suggested?

Camping: This is problematic because of the high probability of random monster encounters. If you are camping, it's probably because you're in bad shape and don't have any health potions. Especially as a lower level character, this is the cheap way ( and only way when you're broke ) to recover health and mana and so the last thing you need is a bunch of monsters showing up. I took to camping near a village so if monsters showed up I could run into town and get the townspeople to defend me. I respect the reasoning and tradition behind the random encounters, I'm just saying make them a bit less likely. Also, it may be worth nothing that once I got up to level 10 or so the only time I used camping was to get the sun to go down so I could resume my hiding in shadows, and it would take about 36 hours to gain my health back this way anyway. This reinforces the idea that camping is mainly a refuge of the lower classes ( not in the karl marx kind of way).

items: in the description of an item, you can note what attributes are required to use it, rather than making the person buy it and then find out they can't use it until skill X is up to lvl Y. Also, it isn't clear why you would want to become proficient at stabbing weapons vs. cleaving weapons vs. swords, etc. If there is no difference, maybe some should be added, for example small stabbing weapons allow faster attack, higher chance of damage, but do less damage? If these differences are already in place, an allusion to them would be helpful. You don't have to give everything away, just guide our understanding a bit.

creatures attacking each other: I was happy to notice this happening. It only seems to happen if I skip over a map boundary when a mixed group is following me. I go back, and they're attacking each other. Any possibility it could happen some other way in the future? maybe if they lose track of you there would be a slim chance that they turn on each other?

Holding too heavy of an item while casting: This made me a little crazy, I'd have to de-equip my character every time I had to cast a spell. Maybe instead there could be a strength requirement for an item which could be posted in the description ( yes, like diablo.) Again, it's just a case of having no warning that this could happen. I'm happily going along, killing things, buying things, finding things, and all of a sudden I can't cast spells anymore. If there was an warning of some kind I could have planned for it and not bought that weapon or held onto my old one until I got my strength up. Maybe this is a traditional rule and I'm not a D+D expert but no RPG I've ever played had this kind of requirement.

Thanks for a great game and I look forward to book 2.

Devin

[Evnissyen]

I agree with all of those, but I just have to mention:

When I first noticed the encumbrance issues with spellcasting (which I found rather annoying, myself), I alternate-equipped myself with a light mace. This served a double purpose: I switched weapons whenever I wanted to bash something or whenever I wanted to cast a spell. A little annoying in the spellcasting dept., but it sure as hell beats unequiping a character.

[devinv]

Yes, that's a good idea. If I had read the player manual I would have noticed the strength spellcasting issue but there really didn't seem to be a need to otherwise. I definitely appreciated the alternate-weapon swap feature for ranged attack.

I agree with all of those, but I just have to mention:

When I first noticed the encumbrance issues with spellcasting (which I found rather annoying, myself), I alternate-equipped myself with a light mace. This served a double purpose: I switched weapons whenever I wanted to bash something or whenever I wanted to cast a spell. A little annoying in the spellcasting dept., but it sure as hell beats unequiping a character.