DDOCast 429 - DDO Debates: Is DDO Enough Like PnP?

[pjstechie]

Thanks to our guests Samius Gurobo, Draculetta, and Hafeal for joining us to debate DDO and its PnP roots! We also look at some game news and strategy for unlocking epic destinies!

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DDO Debates - 1:37
Is DDO enough like PnP? - 4:33
What non-existent PnP class or racial ability should be added to DDO? - 21:42
What 1 monster should be added to a quest? - 36:49
What Monster should be added to the Monster Manual - 49:29
What is the most annoying DDO monster? - 54:04
Pitch a crafting revamp - 1:00:29
Game News - 1:09:17
Community News - 1:12:58
Lightning Post - 1:30:57
Closing - 1:44:54

DDO Chronicle 189
U31 Preview Video
Players News 82: I Make Dungeons
Grimorde: Too Many Things to Do
Tactilicious & Craftilicious: Something New/Old
Monster Finder

Watch Live at twitch.tv/ddocast

[FuzzyDuck81]

A few thoughts, written out in a vague kind of order as they appeared

I think it's about as good an adaptation of PnP to MMO format as you could get, due to the change in the medium. I think the best ways they can help make it feel more PnP-like are the places where you find the tricks like a climbable wall, or a secret door to bypass areas, interesting mob mechanics such as certain enemies being hostile to everything (the new umberhulks), the drow necromancers which raise zombies, the harpies which use complementary spell abilities, rust monsters having a prediliction for targeting the warforged who's made of tasty noms & that kind of thing - essentially, the bits where it's like the DM is throwing some curveballs at you & rewarding a little out-of-the-box thinking.

To add...well not an ability but as an actual race: playable tieflings. Because Annah.

The familiar idea.. kind of could be done with some adaptation of the favoured soul's lantern archon? Just have it as a class feature or enhancement (maybe universal enhancement tree like harper agent? those universal ones could be implemented for a number of things & as bonus trees, wouldn't necessarily need to be even as big as the racial ones), then selectable stances for which specific spell or damage type to apply from a selection of half a dozen total maybe? Having the scripting part of it to respond to specific situations would be the trickier bit.

Darkvision... possibly an overlay as an environmental effect for specific dungeons, with a feat that negates it (included on certain races, selectable for any character plus is present on selected items for the darkvision goggle thing) to limit view beyond a certain distance?

Monster type, i'd say an Aboleth, then integrate that into a new quest or raid that includes the underwater mechanic from Into The Deep - probably make it an optional, or part of a selection of ways to complete the quest since that way it could fit personal preference & that whole multi-path approach would reinforce the PnP link.

For the Tarrasque.. IMO the best way would be rather than a single encounter, make it the focus of an entire puzzle quest, much the same way as creeping death was done, where you have to hit certain objectives - maybe even make it a legendary raid, where you're working with a lesser god or other higher power, storyline fluff being that you need to do all the prep stuff because they're busy slowing it down to buy you time to make it vulnerable for them to enact the plan to re-contain it.

I like the monster manual/raid integration idea - make the reward for a set number of kills of each boss (probably higher number than the usual 20 counter, say 50?) give a version of the raider's reward box but for that specific raid, which can then be cashed in on any character - since account-wide rewards are only once per server, it'll ensure that every player gets at least 1 item that they want from each of the raids, without flooding things as happened with the original raider's reward box that went to each individual character.

...ok that turned out a few more than i expected

[Marshal_Lannes]

For the person on the podcast who could not get over the soot issue from torches in Ancient Egypt, go watch The Mummy (with Rachael Weiz and Brandon Fraser), they demonstrate how to light tombs without torch light. In short, they used sunlight reflected from brass or bronze mirrors.

[FuzzyDuck81]

For the person on the podcast who could not get over the soot issue from torches in Ancient Egypt, go watch The Mummy (with Rachael Weiz and Brandon Fraser), they demonstrate how to light tombs without torch light. In short, they used sunlight reflected from brass or bronze mirrors.

Mythbusters covered that one It was a good episode. Makes more sense in eberron that there would just be magical torches & why? well, why maybe Raiyum just has a sense of style?

[Marshal_Lannes]

Mythbusters covered that one It was a good episode. Makes more sense in eberron that there would just be magical torches & why? well, why maybe Raiyum just has a sense of style?

I don't watch Mythibusters, physics can prove everything they ever tried to debunk. No one scrubbed walls in the dark. It wasn't aliens.

In my world Effie lights tombs with mirrors, how else would they ever be lit? Makes total sense. I mean which is the more logical explanation:

1. Mirrors lit the pyramids
2. Aliens dropped them down
3. Soot was scrapped off in the dark