Pool of Radiance: RoMD Recent News

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(Originally posted by Nazgul)

07/24/00

The following messages were posted by Chuck Yager:

What areas of the game will be explored:
There are a total of 8 above ground levels, with building to explore, ruins to seek out, and superficial tombs to delve into. There are a plethora of underground catacombs, dungeons, and caverns to explore as well. However, there are no conventional towns so to speak, but there will be people to interact with, buy/sell/trade items with, and receive healing from in the game's above ground areas.

Armor. One size fits all:
Armor will fit anyone when you find it, "magically resizing" to fit the desired character. However, the halfling will be restricted on some types of weapon use, and some normally one-handed weapons for say humans might requie two hands for the halfling.

07/19/00

The following messages were posted by Chuck Yager:

1) Will there be a bandage option, which was implemented in the gold box games?
You can use the Heal skill to stop the bleeding on characters that are wounded in battle.

2) If a character goes into negative hp's will a cleric be able to heal them and get that character back into battle?
Yes

3) Will Monks be able to use their open hand fighting skill to get the 1d8 damage plus their bonus's for level advancement?
Yes and Monk's hand to hand damage goes up with their levels too.

4) Will the read magic spell and comprehend languages be used in the game?
No...there won't be a need. All magic will be able to be read by sorcerers as needed.

5) Will cantrips be used?
Yes

6) Will magical armor not be as cumbersome an heavy as non-magical armor?
Yes, it will not weigh as much as normal suits of armor.

7) What different types of armor will be used in the game? Will it be the basic armor with plate mail being the best or will there be half plate, full plate...etc?
Right now we are supporting leather, chain, scale, and plate.

8) On ability scores, will the option to do 1 for 1 be implemented?
You will get to assign points to all socres to create your scores in the beginning of the game using the 3E rules for point based character gen.

9) I believe I read somewhere that upon going up levels you will be able to raise ability scores, will this be used in the game?
Yes

07/18/00

The following messages were posted by Jon Kromrey:

on special class related attacking abilities being combined:
Yes.

on special Monk weapons:
Monks are a recent addition to the game and we're outfitting them currently.

on a multiclassing XP penalty for a Human Ranger/Roque/Fighter/Monk:
Humans can choose any class to be multiclass, and his highest class does not get penalized for XP. Your 4-class human character would have a -60% XP penalty (20% per each after the Favored Class).

07/17/00

The following messages were posted by Jon Kromrey:

1) Will the game be fully turn based, or mixed realtime when not in combat, and turn based when hostiles are present (like JA2 and the Fallout games)?
It's mixed so that when your characters are not in combat it's real-time. When you see an enemy (or the enemy attacks you), the entire party goes into combat mode... the "action-based initiative" combat where each character gets an amount of time (scalable by player) to react and commit an action.

2) If our characters cast a spell like "Monster Summoning", will we be able to control the actions of the monsters we summon, or will they operate independantly?
When you Command a monster it fights for the party on its own.

3) Will we be able to save in any place, at any time? How about during combat?
You can save at any place or time, but not during combat.

4) Will we be able to sort our savegames (for example, by save name, or date)? What will be the default order our games are listed in (I prefer them ordered by date as a default, but that's just me)?
The savegames are listed in order of most recently saved. We have just added an autosave feature as well. The autosave will save the game when the player enters a level.

5) How many save games can we have?
Approximately 30 or so.

6) Will there be a quick save/load feature?
Not at this time.

7) Will we know what area our area effect spells will cover (like in the Darksun games) or will it be more like Baldur's Gate and the original Gold Box games (only learn from experience)?
Targets of area effect spells turn red. As you move the cursor to select targets, the radius of the spell changes appropriately.

8) If a foe is invisible, will that foe be truely invisible to the player, or will we see a translucent image (like we would see for our own invisible characters)?
We're currently playbalancing this.

9) How are traps going to be handled? Will we have a Search mode like in the original Gold Box games, a Find Traps mode like in BG, or something different (if so, can you explain a little bit about it)?
In the new 3E rules, the Search skill needs be used first, then if a trap is found, then a Disarm Trap skill is needed. Rogues, and only Rogues, can disarm magical traps. The tougher traps (difficulty skill 20 +) can only be detected by Rogues.

10) Will there be special cursors (or something) which tell us whether our character's attack will be treated as coming from the front, side or back (this is most important for attacks from the rear, since that does have some special strategic significance)? If not, will there be any way to know for sure that our character's attack will be treated as an attack from the rear?
This was something we ran into while testing the paper version of 3E. WotC had the same problems we had and removed Facing from the rules. Flanking is supported (so that if there are 3 opponants on a character (Right, Left, and Front), then the Front opponenant gets a bonus.

11) On a related note, how will we control our character's facing during combat? Will we be able to move them to a particular location and then have them turn in place so they are facing a particular direction?
We're using a bit-based location system, so wherever you click the character turns to face that point.

12) Will there be keyboard shortcuts for various common actions? If so, will we be able to customize them?
Yes, and yes.

13) When we create our characters, will it be clear to us what size they will be (eg Small or Medium)? This is important because (as you know) in many cases this affects how many hands a character needs to wield a particular weapon, and to some extent what weapons a character can wield (a Small character couldn't wield a Large weapon, for example). Will there be situations in the game where it will be preferable to have a Small sized character rather than a Medium sized one?
Size is shown in the character creation process, but does not affect the gameplay. There are weapons that only smaller characters can use (but not weapons like a claymore), and size affects the kind of damage opponants can do to you. (example, as the halfling is a Small size, and thus gets +1 to attack, AC, and a +4 to hide rolls).

14) How will item identification be accomplished (especially magical items)?
Cast the spell, then select the item to identify. Right-click on the item to read its description.

15) How will we be able to tell each character's status (ok, HP remaining, charmed, held, poisoned etc)? Will a simple mouse over reveal any problems with one of our PC's, or will we need to access the character sheet etc?
An on-screen graphic will appear on the chacarater model showing positive or negative spell effects. HP is shown by concentric circles at the character's feet.

When our character are off screen will there be location markers like BG or will it be search until you find them?
During combat all characters are all in the combat... perhaps far away (a screen or two) and needing to run to the aid of others, but it's all for one and one for all. To go to a character that's off screen, simply left-click on the character's bar in the lower-right corner, and the screen centers in on that character.

Will you be able to play a CD of your own music in the background while disabling or turning down the in-game music?
The Pool CD must be in the drive when you play the game. We are not currenlty supporting CD-ROM switching.

Will we be able to type in a short description with our save games, and/or will there be a picture displayed with the save game (like in the BG style games)?
Typing in a short description with our save games is TBD (to be decided).

In turn based mode, will we be able to nominate the place we want our character to go (allowing the character to chose the path) or will we need to specify each step? If the former, will we see the path the character will take (like in the Heroes of Might and Magic games)?
Movement path tracking... This is not supported ala Might and Magic. The cursor changes per the placement (okay to move, not-okay to move). Once committed to an action, the model then moves to the designated point.