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| A lovely art style... |
Early in the week, I had a go with Invisible Inc. This is a
game that’s very difficult to fit in to my usual form of punctuation! It is a turn-based
strategy game with an emphasis on stealth and hacking, rather like the game I
imagined Shadowrun to be. It looks gorgeous and I’ve enjoyed it so far, I’ve
beaten the first two levels and I’m looking forward to finding the time to do
the rest. The stealth element forces you to think about what you’re doing, rather
than rushing in for a full-frontal attack, and the game has as a pretty good risk/reward
element: You’re rewarded with exploring the levels for money that can be spent on
upgrades and equipment, but this increases the level of alarm which potentially
means more enemies. I’ve put it on the easiest difficulty setting for now
because it’s a whole new system I’ve got to learn – XCOM it most certainly is not!
But I can see myself getting a lot out of this game.
Yesterday I got together with my regular monthly
role-playing group and had a go with the new edition of Pathfinder. Pathfinder
was my first RPG, and while I often describe it as Dungeons and Dragons with
the rules turned up to 11, I have fond memories of both running and playing it.
The real draw, for me, was the quality of the published adventures, which provides
an in-depth experience for groups that want it or a dungeon bash for those who
prefer that style of game. They have engaging plots, fleshed out characters and
a whole lot of detail for people to explore. Therefore, were you to ask me, I
would suggest that Pathfinder provides a richer overall RPG experience than the
current edition of Dungeons and Dragons – if only barely.
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| And lovely art. |
With the new edition, I haven’t got the rule book yet. I
created a Halfling Rogue out of an app for it, and while I didn’t always know
how the stats and skills etc were calculated, it was certainly an easier task
than anything I could have generated from the rules at this point! When I buy the
rules, I will look in to it and see the ways in which what’s happening on the app
matches up to what’s written in the rules. There are a few changes to the rules
that I came across in the one-shot game we were playing, some that I liked more
than others:
Initiative:
Instead of having an initiative statistic calculated from your dexterity modifier,
it’s now based on skill. You can use skills to affect your initiative rolls, I’m
not sure yet how it is decided what skill to use but I would imagine it’s
situational. I like this, as it makes a lot more sense to decide initiative
based on how your character handles certain situations and means some characters
may react at different times depending on their own capabilities that aren’t
necessarily tied up in dexterity.
Actions: This was
the most obvious change; you get three actions per turn which could be anything
from a move to an attack to almost anything else you can think of. There are limitations
– there are penalties for trying to attack more than once, and if you want to
use a shield you have to use an action to raise it before it will affect your
armour class, but it’s more representational of what happens when you fight.
Mage Armour: This
was a funny one because it’s changed for better and for worse. When you cast
it, it lasts until you next prepare your spells. But the difference it makes to
your AC is +1 rather than +4. On the one hand, the more long-term affect will
stop situations where you use a valuable spell slot to cast it, get in to one
fight and not use it again for the rest of the day. On the other hand, the
effect is nowhere near as good.
Overall, I enjoyed the game, and I’m looking forward to
seeing what else it’s got to offer. That rule book is enormous, though. It
might require a bit of trial and error as we’re going along!
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