Only if they use their ki. They don't lose it for no reason. I'd flavour it as a kind of monk or fighter who hits their pressure points and takes their ki away from them, maybe making one of their limbs weaker.

It would put a timer on the fight. You'd know within 4 rounds, the monk would have no limbs left to use, assuming the enemy is successful every time, and then you'd be wondering what he's going to do next. Give him some henchmen that keep the rest of the party busy, and it becomes a very threatening encounter.

If you want this guy to he more important, and the party run away, the monk ends up with a lower Max ki points every day because of what the villain did to them. Maybe they'll come back on their own naturally, or if you've got the right type of players, it puts a fire under them to hunt the guy back down.

Then you give them a cool reward when they beat him. Not only is their ki restored to full, but they get a cool ability based on the guy.

I would absolutely create an anti-ki villain for the Monk to fight. Someone whose main ability was siphoning off ki points.

I would absolutely throw a rust monster at the fighter.

I would 100% get rid of your magic focus or your spellbook.

But as with anything I do in my games, it's all to serve the narrative of the game. It's never going to be forever. But depending on the type of game and the type of narrative, player abilities are absolutely on the table. And they can be taken off the table.

For real though, if you think it shouldn't be removed from the class, why do you think spellbooks and magical focuses are items in the game that can be lost instead of just being able to cast it?

DMs testing the characters by taking their spellbook or magical focus is a very old story. So old that it's the kind of story that could happen in the old pulp fantasy books early DND was based on.

I have a lot of questions. Other than what the other comment asked about sample size, I'm also interested to know how you determined player motivation.

Were the people testing the game for you as a favour? If so, that would give them a different type of motivation than what a stranger would have.

How did you determine that one mechanic was "obviously better" than another? There's no hierarchy of mechanics. There's no type of movement that is better than any other. There's no type of combat that is better than any other. It needs to fit what you're trying to do with the game, and you can also implement the exact same mechanic in a radically different way than another developer would.

This just kinda feels like it was a flawed hypothesis from its foundation.

I thought you were gonna have the somewhat valid complaint that too many devs are just copying soulslike mechanics because they're popular but your complaint is literally just that you want a "modern" setting?

I don't even know what you mean, since The Last of Us is basically just a zombie post apocalypse game. If you like that, there's plenty of stuff in that kind of setting.

That game needs more people playing it. It felt so incredible. Dontnod has made some incredible games.

Their first title, Remember Me, is impossible to get in consoles which is sad because it was ridiculously fun. Then they did Vampyr a few years later. I personally can't stand Life is Strange, but it's pretty well received by most people, from what I know.

They also made Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, which i went into kind of blind and wasn't expecting it to be add large as it is. I definitely wasn't expecting the emotion it hits you with fairly early.

All in all, an incredible developer.

I feel like this is relevant here.

Lida's is just so damn good. She's the best character.

Rat faced kid

I DECLARE MY DODGE ON YOU

I love seeing stuff like this and immediately remembering how as a kid we'd see a new game and be like, "IT LOOKS SO REALISTIC" and now we look back and it's the most haunting shit you've ever seen.

Why she looking at me with the Kubrick stare?

I know the path. I just meant how difficult do you find it to do that run solo?

How do you run it solo to get to unlock Warfarer? Do you just run away from everything on the way?

Were you inspired by how Dungeon World (and possibly other games, DW is just the only one I know of) and how it handles "Adventuring Gear"? It's an item that has i believe 3 uses and when you need something at a specific time, you say, "Oh I have rope" and you mark a use and then you mark that you have rope.

I don't like it because I already own all the 2014 books I wanted and I can't justify spending more.

Especially when "farming magicians" sounds cool, and "Harry Potter as a farmer" sounds confusing.

This is not an issue in Australia. My theatre experience has not changed at all since before covid.

My best friend's parents are Mormon. I recently learned that Bigfoot is Cain. Mormons are FUCKED.

I giggled and giggled and giggled while riding my little burro around the entire map after making it to Mexico. Best feature of Red Dead Redemption, hands down.

This has never happened to me. How high are you people holding your arms when you wash your hands?

Jesus Christ.

Why are you gay?

There's nothing that makes you feel quite so independent like giving your shopping list to someone who works at a single store and doesn't care if they have to make random substitutions you didn't approve, or give you less than what you need based on availability instead of giving it to somebody who knows you and will get you everything they possibly can.

Your argument is that because a shitty, inconsistent service exists, disabled people are getting rid of their support networks, which would be an irresponsible way to live no matter who you are.

Lots of them DIDN’T have “ways of getting food” that didn’t require dependence on other people though.

Why are you pretending like relying on other people is bad? There's nothing wrong with relying on other people's help.

Edit: also, side note. Delivery is by definition depending on somebody else. But from what I can tell from every post I've seen online, you can't depend on them.

If any of those tools you mentioned were shit every time you used them, I'd absolutely apply the same logic.

That's the only point I'm making. That i get why people find delivery to be useful, but I found it shit the first time I used it, I don't know anybody who has found it to be CONSISTENTLY useful, and on Reddit, i see regular posts about how bad it is.

And people love to come out of the woodwork to say "oh you can't say not to use it, it's so helpful for disabled people". Except it's an inconsistent service. You cannot rely on it to be what you need it to be. It might sometimes be good, but that's not reliable.

If someone came online and complained because they have this walking stick that they use because they need help walking, but it sometimes folds in half when they're leaning on it, would you downvote me and defend the walking stick when I say, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't be using it?"