That's about it. I know there's a tiny, bitty file, that can't even be considered a hak-pak, that makes the line black and not visible.

It'd donate to players with a puny level 5 naked halfling scaring a level 2 half orc with a fullplate.

Possible? worth it?

When I first saw your POV, I agreed whole-heartedly. I'm a relative newb to online gaming, so I realized I'd been using that feature to get an idea of relative strengths of characters.

Nothing worse than forming a party with newbs in it that can't take a quest, then you spend another 10-20 minutes real time trying to figure out WTF you are going to do now.

But from a RP perspective, it's very hard for a computer screen to convey subtleties like power, toughness, confidence and personal auras in general. If a guy is in full plate, draws a flaming greatsword on you after he just slayed a stone giant singlehandedly, you know he's a bad man. But other than something like that, or actually having someone whip your ass, you have no idea how strong they are. I think IC, that a character would have a general clue as to the relative strength of another character.

In the real world, you can just look at people and see that they are people of imporance, confidence, strength, or whatever. Using the "rating system" conveys to your character that so-and-so has some qualities that would seem to indicate their general level of experience.

A mage might radiate confidence and a powerful gaze, a cleric may seem to have a strong charisma about them, a fighter type may ripple with strength or may have very obviously smooth and efficient movements, and a thief may seem extraordinarly quick or nimble in their motions.

True, it does make it hard to deceive others if that is your intent. Disguises and such. Perhaps it could be tied to "Hide" and "Hide in plain sight" abilities? If you want to turn off your Challenge Indicator, you have to roll a successful check that is progressively harder the weaker or stronger you wish to appear. It seems more likely that a rogue would "act like a servant or simple villager to get close to their target then to somehow amazingly stroll across a well-lit room to stab the warrior that is on guard and knows an enemy is in the room?

Some cool RP possibilities could be connected to this. Rogue type stuff, spying, political intrigue etc. Even cooler if you could change the name above your character at will using this skill....prolly tough on DMs though, eh?

$0.02

Outside of the IC and IG practical pros and cons, I'm not keen on any kind of hak, and I'm not convinced it would do the server any good.

Thought they'd be doing this in 1.67? Or was that only for monsters?

Only for monsters

No hakpaks.

Fish Only for monsters

I like that, actually.

As Gwydion said, there are both ups and downs of being able to see other PC's CR. Not being able to would greatly increase the amount of "what lvl are you?" questions asked, since running from the Rock to the mine, just to find out that half of the party can't even enter the quest (and a new player would have no idea about this) because of level requirements, really isn't that entertaining.

Of course, a new character would still have to ask both new and old characters to help with some work (consistency-wise - since they don't know any people), but a higher level character would probably rather seek out a few known faces to venture with, both because that character is known IC, but also because the hassle with finding fitting quests is greatly diminished, if not entirely gone.

In a normal P&P game a DM is ALWAYS around to watch the party, and will normally adjust encounters according to their power, unless they're reckless/stupid or the DM's mean. But on a PW we're more ofthen than not "on our own", means we can be as cautious as we want and -still- run into encounters we're totally not up against. So, in my opinion, to work against this, we need the CR. Keep it please. It's what differs a good RP'er from a less good one to not abuse it. Face it, if people really want they still can log off/on to check levels in the server list. So what's the point really.

Linelle In a normal P&P game a DM is ALWAYS around to watch the party, and will normally adjust encounters according to their power, unless they're reckless/stupid or the DM's mean. But on a PW we're more ofthen than not "on our own", means we can be as cautious as we want and -still- run into encounters we're totally not up against. So, in my opinion, to work against this, we need the CR. Keep it please. It's what differs a good RP'er from a less good one to not abuse it. Face it, if people really want they still can log off/on to check levels in the server list. So what's the point really.

I think it's fun to look at it right before PvP starts and go, "Wow! This guy's gonna clobber me!"

Alright, I'm failing to see the justification for this. If it's wrong to ICly know how strong a monster is, how is it any better to see how strong a PC is?

I think it needs to either be all one way, or all the other, not footsy middle ground.

We're not doing haks, but I imagine we will remove the CR for monsters when the patch rolls around. Here's the thing -- CR is in many cases completely useless in determining the difficulty of a monster.

Model, description, and (most importantly) prior experience and what other characters tell you is the best method. CR simply is not accurate in many situations.

Removing CR for players would require a hak (which we won't do), but we would likely keep it in any case -- this is largely because we have a rule that says "don't mug/target level 2-3 PCs," and CR is the best way to determine that.

Also for the players one, it saves the "come join us on the quest" "damn..you're too high level" situation a little too often since you can check/guestimate as far as inviting people to come with you.

Monsters-only it is, then. I see the point in saving players the checking of levels, though it might still be funny to see a huge half orc with a fullplate avoiding an innocent-looking halfling that is barely armed.

Luckily, it seems not to happen much.

Snowy Monsters-only it is, then. I see the point in saving players the checking of levels, though it might still be funny to see a huge half orc with a fullplate avoiding an innocent-looking halfling that is barely armed.

Luckily, it seems not to happen much.

I am amused by descriptions that tell me how terrified I am of the meer shadow of their character, but the challenge is 'moderate'.

I want to crush them on principle.. but refrain.

As far as the half-orc being afraid of the little halfling, it relies mainly on roleplaying. The halfling should act afraid of the half-orc, unless he's very confident of his skills, whereas the half-orc would act confident. Of course, if it came down to a fight, the half-orc would be in for a surprise.

I've had excellent experiences where higher-level chars have deferred to or been intimidated by my weaker character based on size or weaponry. Luckily in those cases I was never called upon to back it up :wink:

Hah, aah well, that is true, CRs on monsters are misleading since they usually take at least a wee bit of magical gear into consideration which we simply don't have..

I.e., a gargoyle is NOT CR.. whatever it is when you just don't have a magical weapon and it's like 15/+1 DR..

And be considerate with "powerful-description" character, maybe they made it for a higher level, knowing that you have no means of changing a description after it was made :wink:

Linelle ...

And be considerate with "powerful-description" character, maybe they made it for a higher level, knowing that you have no means of changing a description after it was made :wink:

I used to play a MUD that was militant about ONLY a physical description in the desc field, not allowing any actions (ie: He gives you a wink and a smile) feelings (ie:you can sense his power blah blah blah), clothing desc (ie: her colorful robes catch in the slightest breeze) and definately no background info or skill check requirements to notice something. I agree with it in principle, but thought it was tight-assed, just the same.

I personally dislike having how I feel about them shoved down my throat, and will go out of my way to rebel against desc's like that whenever I can. If somebody can't RP intimidate me, and can't call a skill check to do so, I sure as shinola am not going to RP a reaction I don't feel they earned... And that was my virtual soap box moment of the week. :)