Putting gems in the orb

One of the things I miss, is the personal interaction. You can't do much of that in a preset, scripted computer game. The human element just isn't there. A Paladin, by their nature would come over as arrogant to a lot of people. Arrogant people aren't generally very popular. Powerful people tend to be arrogant and sometimes they need a reminder. Power clerics and wizards are the same way. You can't show/do/express that sort of stuff in a crpg game. If you could, say in an on-line game, it would be tedious and boring for most people. The dialouge for that would take forever.

 

I've made...

...no shortage of errors in my experience as a DM. Sure, all this sounds like fun, but game balance is the key to any successfully run campaign. That is, if one expects it to have any life beyond a few weekends. Holy Swords made from the sun and swords that let one beam into the belly of dragons are examples of what not to let into one's game...predators not withstanding!

 

i agree Lord Spike, i thought i was kicking ass when my 10th level ranger got his hands on a +1 flame tounge. for us anything over +3 was very rare and reserved for the big boys lol.

 

Thats an advantage of playing a CRPG. You can properly roleplay a power hungrey character (ie, min max the hell out of it... because common, wouldnt YOU pick and choose and optimize the magics you use if you really went to mage school?) without someone beating you down as "overpowered". Everything is preset. This is kind of like in real life, the rules are not changing, so you can do pretty amazing things once you really start tweaking them... like making giant flying metal contraption or a car sized bomb that can literaly vaporize an island, etc etc.

 

Completing the orb is good because ...

The advantage of putting the elemental power gems into the orb is that it means you can give the orb to one character to use and keep. This has two advantages: a) the power gems take up more inventory spaces when separated from the orb (orb =one inventory space, each gem = another four inventory spaces, total of 5 inventory spaces spread across the party) where as when the gems are all put into the orb only one inventory space is used for the orb plus all the gems together. This might not seem important but as the game progresses every free inventory space can become a luxury as characters get loaded down with loot; and b) the orb and the gems are magic items, so not every character should be able to use them separately. Doesn't a character require a skill check in Use Magic Device to use them ? My experience is that not every party member has a high enough skill rating in this skill to use the gems. So spreading out the four power gems and also the orb requires five characters all capable of using these items, either having the right class, or the a high appropriate skill. This is a big ask.

There is a problem with the gems and the orb: the gems on their own can teleport the party to their respective node, but when installed on the orb this function disappears. I think this is a design error and should be fixed. Regardless of this one solution is to keep each gem separate until the party is finished with its elemental node and then put it into the orb. Another solution is to put all the gems into the orb but then get duplicate power gems by summoning demons with the orb and killing them off in some way and getting the power gems on their bodies. This second way enables the party to have the orb filled and still have an additional set of gems separate to teleport, or whatever. You can use your gems separately and yet have your orb completed at the same time. A completed orb in the hands of a capable PC can do wonders. It makes the uncompleted orb look puny by comparison. So get the orb completed, that is how I see things. Others may differ.

 

I find on the contrary that the more you advance in the game, the less you need to carry items. In the elemental nodes there is hardly anything to loot.
Besides in my team averyone was capable of using the gems including fighters with no special magical ability.

 

Everytime I summon a demon with the Orb the demon always has a gem on it when it eventually dies and gets looted. As for having less need for inventory space as you progress I find that this is not so, at least not for me. By the middle of the game many of my characters have most of their inventory sheets full, with weapons of many kinds (including magic or masterwork), shields, magic items, potions, scrolls, things they have looted and are carrying off to dispose of, back at Hommlet or Nulb, odd things they find but don't need to get rid of (because their might be a use for them) and so on. Perhaps this reflects my personality, but I don't like storing everything in chests and leaving characters with only the minimum. I had a bad experience once when I had one of my characters die on me and my cleric reached for his 'Raise Dead' scroll only to discover that it had been stored away back at base in a chest. So space is sometimes for me at a premium.

As for all characters being able to use the gems I have not tried this, but have assumed that because the gems are all magic items and other magic items require either a certain class or a reasonable skill in Use Magic Device to operate successfully that the same restrictions would apply to the gems. This is a reasonable assumption I think.

 

The extra gem thing...

...was also fixed some time ago, in the same application that fixed the demons staying around forever. As for who can use them it is true that any character can, but your assumption was not unreasonable. I myself left them in the possession of the characters who needed the extra firepower the gems bestowed; which tended to be spellcasters.