If roleplaying, would you....?

[shamrock_uk]

It just occured to me whilst discussing spells with Userunfriendly that even when I'm playing in what I consider a 'proper' roleplaying fashion, I would still throw in a fireball to weaken multiple lowHP enemies even though my fighters are caught in it as well.

With hindsight, it seems obvious that in 'real life' this wouldn't happen. Think of the burns for a start!

But in practice, do roleplayers restrict their battle tactics like this? Am I the only forgetful roleplayer here, or does roleplaying BG2 for most people just involve playing the proper alignment and restricting actions in quests etc

Answers on a postcard please [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Jerr Conner]

I throw in fireball only when no one is there to get hurt, other than the monsters.

[Harkoliar]

well i havent dont any roleplaying before. but if your a chaotic mage. surely other players must know your attitude when roleplaying

[Nerull]

I make it a point of never intentionally hurting my party members, just for roleplaying purposes. In PnP, if you cast a fireball on your tank, your tank would turn around and kick your butt (i.e. turn hostile like your summons do in BG). Besides, they are supposed to be my friends. However, in evil parties, all bets are off, especially if I intend to "off" the poor sod.

[Dundee Slaytern]

I do not use a single non-party-friendly spell when I play with a party... ...

[Olorin]

I coordinate my party so that the tanks hang back when fireballs are flying in--even if I miss a few of the enemies that rush my tanks, well, the tanks will take care of them--most of my artillery spells are meant to drop enemy spellcasters faster.

Exception: When my main character was cleric/mage with 110% fire resist. The whole strategy that game was for him to attract a crowd, and then drop a fireball or sunfire on himself, with Jan and Edwin adding fireballs, and Jaheira firestorms...

[Q'alooaith]

Depend's how I'm roleplaying..


If I'm being a little bit crazy and such, yea I'll throw a fireball right into the fray, but only if my fighter's look like they might not win without the help.. why waste a spell I say..

If I'm more sane, I cast at the hord that's futher away, or target an area outside of the melee and hope I got the range right so I don't hit anyone..


if it where p'n'p I'd fire a magic missile at each of the attackers..

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by shamrock_uk: But in practice, do roleplayers restrict their battle tactics like this? Am I the only forgetful roleplayer here, or does roleplaying BG2 for most people just involve playing the proper alignment and restricting actions in quests etc.

Roleplaying involves playing the character, and from the character's actions you lump him into a particular alignment. I don't know what you mean by "restricting actions in quests."

As for blasting party members, I usually play under the assumption that I want my party to continue as-is; i.e. they are not out to kill each other (or if they are, they will not succeed until I deem it appropriate). Thus, I tend not to use spells that will harm friendlies. However, it's certainly valid RPing to have a mage throw fireballs at his party if he has no concern for them. (Or you could have a neophyte mage who constantly makes "mistakes" in casting.) But it is not invalid RPing for such a mage to not throw fireballs at his party. Thus: In practice, handling battle scenarios is up to the roleplayer.

-Lem

[Armen]

it depends what you imagine hit points to mean i guess - when i played pnp a long time ago then there was lots of chat about what losing very high (especially warrior) HPs actually meant - the way it worked then a fighter with 120 HP could jump off a 200 foot (65M!) cliff and reasonably expect to bounce and walk away from a pure HP damage perspective for example

so we were encouraged to think of HPs as a combination of bulk, conditioning, toughness, deternination, luck, avoidance and so on rather than just wounds

so if a 120HP fighter takes 30HP of fireball damage it doesn't necessarily mean that 25% of his body is burned but that, say, he had to fall to the ground and was winded, he took some burning, inhaled some smoke, was generally a bit rattled and so on

so in those terms it'd be fine

[shamrock_uk]

Originally posted by Lemmy: I don't know what you mean by "restricting actions in quests."

That was my clumsy english. I just meant restricting yourself to actions that are compatible with your alignment.

Originally posted by Armen it depends what you imagine hit points to mean i guess - when i played pnp a long time ago then there was lots of chat about what losing very high (especially warrior) HPs actually meant - the way it worked then a fighter with 120 HP could jump off a 200 foot (65M!) cliff and reasonably expect to bounce and walk away from a pure HP damage perspective for example so we were encouraged to think of HPs as a combination of bulk, conditioning, toughness, deternination, luck, avoidance and so on rather than just wounds so if a 120HP fighter takes 30HP of fireball damage it doesn't necessarily mean that 25% of his body is burned but that, say, he had to fall to the ground and was winded, he took some burning, inhaled some smoke, was generally a bit rattled and so on

Now that's very interesting, I've often wondered about that because it does seem extremely unrealistic to consider it in terms of pure damage. Are there any kind of penalties in PnP for characters that are almost dead (for example like we saw in Deus Ex..limping, only being able to use one hand etc etc) because I always thought it seemed ridiculous that a character with 2 or 3 HP could function unimpeded. Then I thought that a Level 1 mage in BG1 probably didn't have many more HP, so maybe it's how many hitpoints they have as a proportion of the total that would affect a character.

[ 03-12-2004, 05:43 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]