Getting rid of Weapon and Armor Proficiency the Demon's Souls Way

Pretty much as soon as the announcement that Dark Souls was going to be coming out, I got out my copy of Demon's Souls that I had put away since picking it up at Christmas and decided to give it the play through that it deserved.  I'm going for 100% trophy completion.  That is not going to be an easy task, but it should sure be a fun one.  Right now I'm about Soul Level 100 and about to finish my first run through of the game (that is only about 25 Hours of actual play time - I'm a quick one).  The other challenge I set for myself was that I was going to play the entire game offline - nobody will be helping me on this solo path towards greatness.  I will probably end up jumping online to PvP with people, but only because I'm a griefer who enjoys hunting and killing other collectors of souls.  ;P

My current character, Azmodeous (gotta love him) is a bucket of fun for several reasons.  One of those being that I decided I wasn't going to be taking him down a particular special road through the leveling process.  Instead, I decided to keep him pretty well balanced and try to make him have as much options accessible as possible.  He is turning out to be very mage-like, but he can swing one of the above big bad cloud swords like the best of them.

One of the reasons that is actually very easy in Demon's Souls is through the way that they deal with equipment and proficiency.  In order to use a particular weapon, all you need is the requisite minimum statistics.  There aren't any Feats you have to deal with, or any skills you have to train if you want to use something like a wand or a big huge sword.  All you need is a bit of magic power or a bit of strength or faith and you're good to go.  I love that. 

In the course of leveling this character up, I have tried to stay very general in the advancement process, though I have been putting a few more points into some statistics than into other.  I have tried to give him the ability to have as many magic spells as he can, as well as cast as many miracles as allowed (this game's equivalent of divine magic).  Right now, I am almost maxed out in both of these areas.  I can remember 5 of 6 possible magic spells and 3 of 4 miracles.  This gives my character a lot of flexibility as to what spells or miracles he can cast when.  Also, having both spells and miracles means that he has a pretty good balance of defense and offense making him a reasonably good PVE solo character.

But, spells and miracles are only half of it; there are also all the weapons.  There are actually suprisingly more magic weapons in the game than I remembered.  The reason for that is probably due to the fact that my first time playing through the game took me well over 200 hours.  I got beaten down badly all the time.  But, once you figure out the game, and get better at it, you learn to remember where things are difficult and where the bad things are going to come out of the darkness and the game's difficulty level becomes a bit more manageable.  Because the game took me soooooooo long to play, I remember using the same basic gear for a much longer period of time.

But now, that is a very different story.  I am going through weapons pretty quickly - I have gotten a bunch of new magical gear which keeps me entertained.  And, since I'm kind of middle of the road when it comes to stats, I almost never worry about not being able to use something - being a generalist certainly has its perks.

Maybe the simulationist has a perfectly reasonable explanation for why certain weapons may require proficiency to use well, or why some weapons are harder to use than others, or why a certain weapon might require special training to be able to actually hit someone with, but in the end, that all just feels like a lot of dead weight to me.  I don't want to have to tie myself down to using only Fullblades for the rest of my fighters career, when I pick up that Exotic Weapon Prof Feat at level 1.  Retraining aside, I think it is much more fun to simply allow people, within reason of course, to use whatever weapon they want whenever they want to use it.

The way that Demon's Souls does this is pretty clean and simple.  Every weapon has an associated set of abilities; maybe that is strength, or dexterity, or maybe it is faith, magic, or luck.  If you don't have the requisite ability score, you can't use that weapon to its full power.  You suffer some damage when wielding the weapon in question.  Most of the time though, weapons that are in the same category all pretty much use the same ability scores as a baseline.  If you're going to be hitting someone over the head with a big sword, you will likely need a high strength; the same can be said for medium sized swords, and other two handed weapons as well.  By doing this, the game allows you to pick from a lot of different weapons, keeping the game fun, and also keeping you from getting bored.  Variety is the spice of life and this system keeps life very spicy.

You could easily make whatever pen and paper RPG you are playing work the same way.  D&D 4e is particularly easy in this respect.  For example, you could simply rule that anyone with a strength of 18 can use a two-handed weapon and gain the proficiency bonus for it.  You could also say that 16 is required for things like axes; maybe 14 for stuff like one-handed swords, etc.  House ruling like this will let your players experiment with different types of weapons and will allow them the flexibility to pick up something new once in a while and try it out.

Design & Development: Demon's Souls Pen and Paper Clone - Leveling and Gear P.1



It is going to take a LONG time before you're ready to
take on one of those big fellas- I should know...

 In my continuing quest to build a Demon’s Souls-esq. D&D 4e module (mod) I have been examining more closely the way that Demon’s Souls deals with things like leveling up and equipment. And I think I have come to some interesting conclusions about how I would make it work.

First of all, the leveling system in Demon’s Souls is freeform and is much more like a point-buy system than the traditional D&D style leveling system. There is no level cap in the game (that you are going to reach quickly at least – I spent more than 300 hours playing the game, but I only got to like level 150 or so, the max level cap is around 990). Leveling up consists of spending soul points on a new attribute. The number of times you have done this is called your soul level – so, if I spent 50 points on leveling up my strength, my Soul Level would be 50. There are about 10ish attributes (going off the top of my head right now) which cover things ranging from your ability to dodge, carry more weight, take damage/block, and of course your power in casting spells, using bows, and hitting with big blunt/sharp objects.

In terms of Equipment, Demon’s Souls takes a very, very basic and primordial approach to gear. What you get in your starting package (i.e. the class you pick at character generation which amount merely to your starting stats, spells, and items) is going to be with you for a long, long time. You don’t find magical items of any kind until well into the game. I was often very happy just finding a new piece of better armor in a level. Collecting armor sets becomes one of the main attractions of the playing through various levels, but these armor sets aren’t really magical so much – they are just more efficient types of armor. Finding a set of full plate is a major pain. Finding good sets of leather is also very problematic. Also, finding weapons that have particularly good properties can be very difficult. I remembered that I was super pumped to get a Katana as a rare drop because it’s a fairly fast and high damage sword. The spear, which is one of the better weapons in the game (in my opinion) was also a pain in the butt to get my hands on.

Although you don’t find many magic items in the game, there are some that you get toward the end. You can also pick up a few magical trinkets which add to some of your abilities or do certain special things. The Rings that you pick up possess the most value to your character – they provide a myriad of bonuses to things such as your mana regeneration and your carrying capacity and the like. However, one of the larger elements to the game is in crafting and forging better more powerful versions of the weapons you start with. You can level a weapon up to level 10 (I believe), but that is going to take a LONG time; there are only very limited quantities of every type of material in the game and it takes a lot of skill and timing to get these precious resources. One of the big cruxes of this system though is once your weapon gets a particular type of enhancement, you can’t give it a different one. You are stuck with that one and can only level up the weapon, adding to its damage or efficiency. You could compare this system fairly effectively with 4e D&D’s magic weapon system. You won’t find these weapons anywhere in the world, but you can make them if you put in the time and effort to find what you need to do so.

One of the ways that I want to go about making this module for Demon’s Souls D&D is through experimenting with the Inherent Bonus system that D&D sets up for games in which you have a very low magic level. Instead of letting the players simply gain these bonuses as they level up, I’m going to use a system where they have to buy them individually as they harvest Souls from their fallen demon enemies (think of residuum and its usefulness in crafting magic weapons in 4e). By doing this, you essentially turn the leveling up process into something akin to a point-buy system. Also, by using a method like this, you let your players gain those bonuses through a level, instead of only when they level up. I like that system a whole lot better than simply having to wait until you pick up your next level to get a benefit.

In creating this Demon’s Souls mod, I am also going to be very, very strict with what weapons and gear I allow my characters to either take at character creation or pick up through the game. In all honesty, I very well might do away with all of the Superior weapons all-together in the beginning of the game. When players do actually find a Superior weapon, they won’t need the feat to gain the proficiency bonus with it. They will be able to use it outright, which might give them some incentive to do some hunting.

Also, magic weapons are not going to be something that you can just pick up through adventuring. Players are going to have to explore certain areas and collect the needed resources to put a certain property on a weapon they are carrying. They will be able to do this through either personal crafting or the use of some named, godly forge-master who is their to aid them, given the proper souls and funding.

I’ll have more to talk about again soon in my Design & Development of this Pen and Paper Demon’s Souls clone. Hope you stay tuned to check it out.

Shadows of thier Former Selves - Ghost PC's ala Demon's Souls



This week, I mentioned that the Sequel to Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, would be coming out in 2011 and I may have mentioned in a comment that I am working on something of a Demon’s Souls Pen-and-Paper based clone. That is one of the many side-projects for a campaign on my current to-do list (which just keeps getting longer and longer).



The Blue Dude is Dead... Ghost Form FTW



One of the core ideas behind Demon’s Souls video game is the idea that death is not an end, but simply an obstacle to your character. When you die, your spirit leaves your body, you lose some of your max health and you get to go into the dungeon again as a ghost in order to retrieve your body and all of your lost exp.

I like that idea a lot. One of the cool things about ghosts, at least in mythology, is the idea that the spirit refuses to pass on as long if it is leaving its work unfulfilled; I find that this would make a great hook for the players and provide a reason for you as the DM to turn your players into ghosts after they die, instead of simply killing them off. Let’s face it, your players are the center of whatever world you are playing in. They have some epic destiny that they are all headed for right from the get-go. So, why should they be allowed to die off?

Resurrection has been in RPG’s and video games for a long, long time, but playing ghost characters doesn’t seem to be nearly as popular. There are all kinds of mechanical problems that you have to deal with, especially with D&D 4e when you want to run a ghost as a PC, but, why not just ignore most of that?? I like what Demon’s Souls does with their ghost modes. You lose a bunch of maximum health and have penalties when you die in ghost mode, but those penalties are much less than those you would face by actually losing your real body and dying that way. If you dye while in any of the game worlds, you face a host of penalties including shifting the alignment of the world in a particular direction; if you get killed by another player, you might even lose stats because of that death, but dying in ghost form is just a speed bump. You simply need to go retrieve your body and reclaim the exp that is still hooked up to your corpse.

I think thematically, this fits really well with D&D characters. You have your destiny, it needs to be fulfilled, and not even death is going to stop you. 4e also makes it easy to implement something like the Demon’s Souls system – if your player dies, one round after he drops, let him rise up as a ghost. Make his or her max health equal to his or her bloodied value and maybe restrict them only to at-will powers instead of letting them use dailies and encounters and action points (hey, they did die); but, other than that, let them play as normal. Don’t let them walk through walls like Casper, and don’t let them possess people, but let them keep on keeping on. When the fight ends, a little spiritual jolt is enough to implant them into their body again and function, once again, as normal.

Try this method out and see how it goes. I think it might need some play-testing to make it fair (and balanced) but I think thematically, it could work fine.

Dark Souls - The Sequel to Demon's Souls Announced... YES!!!

Well, you know how I have talked about this one particular PS3 game for a long time on this blog... yea, I'm talking about Demon's Souls - my favorite PS3 game, and among my top favorite games of all time.  Well, the day that we have all been patiently waiting for has finally come.  From in conjunction with Namco-Bandai has announced the upcoming sequel to Demon's Souls - Dark Souls.  It looks awesome.  I want to bring you the game trailer so you can bask in all of its awesome splendor.  This deserves several cauldrons and a giant swimming pool full of WIN!



I have almost nothing bad to say about the original game.  Sure, it was a bit grindy, but who cares.  It was amazing.  Give it a try and you will most certainly not be disappointed.  I could write a guide to that game based on how much I have played it and exploited all the games secrets (yea I did the thing on 4-2 sooo many times that it made my bow and arrows scream and pain - if you played the game you know what I mean). 

I can't wait for this to hit shelves.  Usually, I don't pay premium price for video games.  I tend to wait a year or two and pick them up for about 1/3 of the original price, but this one is going to be a buy-on-sight.  Some people are complaining that they wish it was an exclusive like the first one was, but honestly, if it becomes a non-exclusive and through that this brand gets more attention and they make a 3rd/4th/5th game in the series I will spill tears of joy in such large quantities that rainclouds will get performance anxiety.

Video Game to Pen and Paper - Demon's Souls

If you aren't a big video game player, most of this post may be lost on you. If you have a Playstation 3 and don't know about the game I am about to talk about, you really need to get educated.

With that, let's talk about Demon's Souls.

Last year, while I was on a blogging hiatus, I spent most of my time working on my Senior Thesis (a massive project which detailed The concept of Identity in Mecha based Anime that ran almost over 100 pages in length). When I wasn't cramped in a library, I spent most of my time sleeping on my friends' futon, playing an occasional game of League of Legends (LOL), but for the most part, played Demon's Souls.

This game has one numerous awards and is now a Greatest Hits title for the PS3. If you haven't bought it yet, now is the time. I just picked it up on Amazon and will hopefully be giving it another run through in 2011.

There were a lot of things that made this game incredibly unique. First of all, it was brutally difficult and unforgiving. It had an amazing leveling system and the difficulty of the game scaled indefinitely, so you can literally play the game almost forever.

You start out as one over several classes, but, these classes are all essentially a simple starting package of stats and gear. As you level, you have the opportunity to literally change anything and everything about your character. It really makes character customization a fantastic experience. Gear in the game is simple. You don't really pick up a lot of different magic items throughout, but are more focused on getting yourself into some good armor.

However, probably the thing that made the game extremely entertaining to me was the death system. In some games the death system may be a simple time waster (aka WoW) or it may be incredibly brutal, causing you to start over from some save point that you forgot about an hour or 2 ago. In Demon's Souls, when you die, you are forced to restart the level as essentially a ghost; you must fight back towards your body and try to reclaim all the experience points that are attached to your corpse. If you can't, say goodbye to all your XP.

This system was unique, fun, and exciting.

I would really like to see Demon's Souls adapted into a Pen and Paper RPG. I think the leveling, gear mechanics, and the death system would all make for a very entertaining game. If you combine that with the way Demon' Souls is essentially a bunch of individual dungeon crawls, you have yourself a very, very interesting combat based RPG.

If someone doesn't come up with this sooner or later, I may just have to try and get the company to let me work on it myself.