swils

I don't actually have anything written down, heh, but I'm sure I could find a little time to recap any strengths and weaknesses that I didn't touch on in the QM thread. If you see a PM from me any time in the next week or two, that's what it'll most likely be. Haha And I actually probably worded that poorly. I didn't mean getting into their characters in a roleplaying sense, but more about the rules and mechanics. Anyone who reaches level 30 will have put significant time into the game, and will be more capable of handling changes in mechanics, deviations from the simple ruleset that got them to where they are. Hypothetical: up until Lv30, any class could be at the top of the list and take that hit, but knights have special abilities that mark them as the defenders, while rogues have abilities that mark them as killers. All of a sudden, at 30, knight classes have a significantly larger health pool, and quests designed with Lv30+ in mind have enemies that can hit straight through a rogue-class's now relatively lower health pool. To a Lv1-10 player, this might be discouraging, turning them off from the game, especially if it happens a lot. But with a dedicated group of questers who have all reached 30+, and who aren't likely to start stop there, we can see a mix of new-player friendly quests, and more advanced, challenging quests for the veterans. Edit: typo, struck-out.

*cough* Edit: If I were playing a Rogue or Ranger, I would *so* go with a green Assassin--would love a chance to show off my green ninja hoods! haha

Oh, well in that case, let me get out my little notebook of C&C from Q4... Opens up a book as thick as the Webster dictionary And that's a very good point. I always feel bad critiquing the game, as I know Sandy puts a lot of time into its design and maintenance, and all I do is sit here and reap the benefits, heh. Even offering suggestions, I feel like I'm overstepping my bounds a bit. I really hope I don't offend at all. Sandy has said, over and over, that Heroica is meant to be simple, easy to get into. And maybe you're right, Doc, maybe the third tier of classes will be where we see the line between wheat and chaff. It's taken us a few months to get our first Lv15s, it'll take at least that long before we see 30's. By that time, some are sure to have lost interest, but I'm sure even more will have taken an interest. Lv1-30 could be the introductory period, and then Lv30 could be where you really start getting into a role, things get a bit more advanced, etc. Sandy, I really, *really* hope you don't see me as a nuisance, haha! You could tell us that all our characters are now, and forever will be changed to Living Mannequins, and that our stats will all be the same, barring level scaling, and honestly, I'd still play--I love having another outlet to satisfy my P'n'P thirst.

Meh, don't put a restriction on it. That limits creativity. In this case, the QM's discretion will truly be the balancing factor between making the skill useless, overpowered, or just right. Good QMs will use it when it's needed, or when it will add just enough challenge. Bad QM's will use it when they really want their well designed monster to not be susceptible to a OHKO just because they want it to stay alive. And they'll use it again and again. And the feedback will, I'm sure, tell them so. And those QMs will either learn, or not asked to be QMs again

I hope I didn't come off as though I was picking on your quest, heh. While I think that QM experience will play a part in it, I also think that the problem stems from flat HP scaling across classes. In keeping the game simple, it might be *too* simple. A level 1 knight will have X more health than a level 1 rogue. A level 14.5 knight will still have X more health than a level 14.5 rogue. At level 1, that's a huge difference. At level 14, it's still a noticeable difference. In the future, though? That flat difference is going to taper off into obscurity, and (using universal terms here), DPS classes will be able to take a hit just as well as Tanks. That said, I think the Warden is a huge step in the right direction, and love the design behind it

I just re-read everything with the goal of comparing them rather than just absorbing the new stats... I've got a few concerns, I guess? Questions? Eh, concerns. Health: Aside from the flat health bonuses, there isn't much differentiation. At, say, level 20, the health difference between a Paladin (tankier) and an Assassin (archetypically glass-cannon) likely won't be more than a single hit from any enemy that the party is likely to face at that time. Any consideration for retroactive +HP/level benefits while playing a class that is designed to be more of a damage soak? From all the quests so far, it hasn't seemed like class has been as important to survival as level has. Heck, in Q4, Tomas could have done all the "tanking" at the top of the turn-order almost as well as Leo or I could have, due to his HP pool. Maybe I'm touching on more of a game-wide pattern, than just the class: Healing in-battle hasn't seemed to have much of a use so far. *Someone* is going to take the damage, and it'll get healed up after the battle. I think giving classes that are designed towards being at the top of the turn order a significantly expanded health pool would enable QMs to design more challenging encounters where healing will actually matter and be important, and you can't just put the LX+1 (archetypically squishy class) up front anymore. Doesn't seem right that an Assassin, with a 1/6 chance to kill most enemies, can take almost as many hits as a class designed to absorb damage and support the team. Damage or Survivability, not both. That brings me to my next point: Assassins' usefulness will be made-or-broken by QM encounter design. Get lucky rolls and everything falls over dead at your feet. But just slap "Immunity to Sudden Death" on a creature, and Assassins lose a lot of their flavor. This is one that I think only time will tell. I'm sure I had other thoughts, but I've forgotten them at the moment. Ah well, *I* look forward to hitting 15 eventually, and training Thormanil in the ways of the Raider

Advanced classes look great, Sandy! Quite a significant step up in power from the Basic 6, though, so future QM's will have to give special consideration to that. Looking forward to see how these play out

Don't we all? No worries, and take your time!

Hm, I was having trouble loading the forums when I wrote that, and it wasn't showing the emoticon in my first post, though apparently I did put one in there afterall. Go figure. And hey, De'kra can take as much time as he needs. Poor little guy is obviously carrying a bunch of baggage, probably more than he knows/remembers at least, and like you said, he had that episode in the middle of spurring a war. And on top of all that, he's got a little slug thingy to take care of! That's a ton more responsibility than I'd care for @Bricksandparts, I think it'd be a nice way to pass the time, for sure. The only problem is that either the forum would get cluttered with threads, or a single thread would get cluttered with all the games going on (assuming it caught on)

There's a reasonable level of character development in not waffling between allegiances, and Sandy did mention he has plans for reputations to really mean something, sometime down the road. Personally, I wanted to get in on a quest with a smaller group of players, as I think that was a large factor in dragging out Q4 (though I loved having that much time to get invested in it, don't get me wrong). Plus, frees up a spot for someone else to enjoy one of Doc's quests. Why be selfish? Edit: Also, @Tanma, my post near the top of the page was *definitely* meant to have a smiley of some sort in it, as I intended it to be lighthearted. I hope I didn't come off as saying "Bah, De'kra has it all wrong and that's final"

Oh, come now. He didn't cause the war. The Shadeaux caused it. De'kra (and the rest of us) were just the vessels through which the Shadeaux caused the war!

Cinna's words echo in his head. Though still quite enamored, he manages to direct a little attention towards the boy. Thormanil keeps grinning stupidly at Siren(Green) from the back row, while keeping an eye on the boy.

"You sure you don't want one of us actin' ahead of you, Cinna? Docken and I can take at least a bit more of a thrashing than either of you, if you should miss... Besides, I wouldn't mind being a bit closer to those two.. Hehehe..." Thormanil will grin stupidly at the Siren(Green) from the back row.

"Love? Haha! Cinna, yer being ridi--*cough*" His throat begining to itch, Thornanil's voice changes from a shout to a raspy tone "Err.. Like I was saying.. *cough* ..Ridiculous..." He finds it difficult to focus on talking to Cinna. His attention is being forcefully pulled towards the figures on the cliff. "Love.. No.. That's... Silly. I.. I can fight. ... But who would want to fight those beauties, and risk marring their lovely faces..?" He can tell that he isn't the only one in his own head, anymore. He was in control for now, but this was a threat he hadn't encountered before. He wondered how long he would remain himself.

"I say we just stand here and smile at 'em!" Thormanil shouts, "Squidraken did say romantic feelings... I've got a weakness for the ladyfolk, alright, but it sure ain't in my heart! Ha ha!" "Anyone got a rope? Times like these, I really wish I had a rope... Just enough to tie myself to the mast or somethin' as a last resort! Hah! Full speed ahead, Cinna!"

Thormanil tears two small strips of cloth from his clothes and begins to ball them up. Stuffing one in each ear, he addresses the party, Aw, come on now, this just ain't fair! Puttin' me in a position like this. Ay, one of you, sing a bit, lemme see how these work!

"I'm not usually one to turn tail or hide, and I hate the thought of leaving ya up here, Cinna, but yer plenty strong, I've seen it. There's few things I love more than a strong drink and a good fight, but those sirens've got a pretty solid idea of what it is. I'd need a damn good pair of earplugs to stand a chance against 'em. Maybe a pair of blinders, too. Hah! I'll be right below deck, you just holler real loud if ya need me!"

"The man ... err, the squid..man..." Thormanil pauses for a moment "Right, the captain said we'd be there in no time at all, Thothy! Relax and enjoy the voyage!" Looking towards Squidraken, Thormanil asks in a slightly nervous tone, "We, uh, can relax, can't we, Cap'n? I've heard rumors back in the Hall that the waters around the Free Islands aren't the friendliest.. But we're on a magical ship, so we'll be fine and well and back on land without any sort of incidents... right..?" He looks around the craft, admiring its beauty and exquisite design, while at the same time harboring some apprehension. As a child, his father had always taught him to use bright, colorful lures when fishing..

"Seems times a little shorter than I thought. Alright then! Unless Chesterine has any useful information she can share with us, I'm fine with heading straight to Salmanda."

"Well, I don't wanna go assumin' time isn't of the essence, but you said Zelda's been like this awhile, right? Do ya think we'd be wastin' too much time if we went and at least asked the Guild if they could help us? I mean, if yer cap'n has a schedule to keep, then we should probably head straight to the docks... but if he's on our time, I think we should at least *try* to seek local help. Though, if we'd be missin' something big over in Salmanda by not heading directly there, like, say, a rodeo that only comes 'round once every hundred years or so, where demons ride around on undead unicorns, tryin' to rope a golden scorpion.... Then yeah, we should probably hustle on to Salmanda... Ha!"

Gorgeous! The lava effect is really nice*1*. Must be a really magical land, what with the snow not melting merely feet from the magma flow! I like that you included some variation in the snow terrain's colors, the gray-white fade, that is. Works really well. Might be nice to see some dark grey/bley or dark brown mixed in with the black terrain, just to give it a little more character. Or perhaps incorporate it into the tower. Maybe even just at the base of the spire, to distinguish between the land and the structure. But even if you don't change anything, I love it! *1* Do you, by any chance, live in Minnesota? I had to spend a night there in August as a result of a flight delay, and checked out the Mall of America the next day while waiting for my flight. I checked out the PaB wall in the LEGO store there, and just *had* to take a picture of this, because, well, come on: Cheddar Cheese! Wanted to grab a cup of them, but my luggage was already well past the point of being over-packed. Now, seeing your MOC, I really wish I'd bought a cup and found a way to fit it. Seriously, lovely terrain! haha

"Right then, Schuester is it? Let's see if we can't help ya out. Lead on!"

Wardancer - 2 Darkblane - 1 Bah, I wish I'd realized that the vignettes were going to be the pictures featured in the thread. I would have used a picture that at least prominently featured Serrus in all his armor, heh. Oh well, that's what the links to the threads are there for, for those who take more than a cursory glance Good luck everyone, all the entries really do look great!

Thanks for the comments, folks. Am I going crazy, or has Brickshelf been on the fritz the last couple of days? I haven't been able to load any images from there (or the site itself) for a day or two. Neither craft is a replica (as far as I am aware) of anything in the films, shows, or EU. The "R-wing" was definitely an odd one going into it, and now that I think about it, it does have a striking similarity in asymmetricality (not a word, but it should be!) to the Twilight. But that comes with designing around an asymmetric letter for the Alphabet contest, heh. The second ship, or the wing of it right now, heh, doesn't have much in the way of features, moving parts, etc. I'm no MOC-master yet, so getting the wing to sit at the angle I want was a chore, and the connection between the wing and the engine casing isn't very strong. I'd like to improve upon that, and give the wings the ability to fold upwards, at the very least, but that's something I probably won't be able to toy with for another few months, when I have a chance to get back to the physical models and can give proper concern to the connection strength. I've started building both in LDD, and will update the thread when I've got them in there (and then again when I have time to start expanding upon them, heh). Edit: Huh, strange. I post this, comment on Brickshelf seemingly being down, and *poof*, it's working again.

Thanks for the executive ruling, Sandy