Incursion.

[buzzkill]

I stumbles across this game called Incursion. A search of oook revealed a few posts that referenced it, but it seems largely unknown.

It's a RL that seems to be a hard core port of something very similar to AD&D. I just started playing it (ahem, steep learning curve, very deep). It's unfinished (but playable, and polished), and it seems really neat. It's a d20 game and you actually get to see your rolls, modifiers, and target (needed to hit) so you know what's going on. From what I could tell, it incorporates (or plans to) just about every aspect of AD&D, every obscure crap like tight rope walking.

Just throwing open the door for discussion and alerting those may have never heard of it before, like me.

[Arendil]

To put it simple - it's a great game implementing 3.0 or so version of Dungeons & Dragons - but definitely NOT the AD&D. I'd suggest everyone to try it, but be careful, inventory system is completely broken, and can be a real pain. Think of Omega, but far worse.
Also, there are bugs, like crash to desktop, sometimes random, sometimes determined, meaning game save can get permanently corrupted or something. Still, a lot of fun when it works properly.
Just my 2c.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

If you like this one, try Knight of the Chalice too. Not a roguelike, but a tough tactical CRPG that implements D&D 3.5 rules.

[buzzkill]

OK, It seems that much like real life, or perhaps like playing with an unforgiving DM, encounters are either a cakewalk of inescapably deadly. I either encounter nothing, or encounter groups of creatures which seem rather unfair given that I'm still in or near the starting chamber. I was relieved last game, which ended quite suddenly, to be attacked by something fairly normal, a group of zombies (which I defeated, yea!), but died shortly thereafter to a bad-ass piranha bird. Still learning much, but I think I've finally got a handle on the inventory system.

[getter77]

The game is super promising, but the next version is likely still a few years away as current technology wasn't up to snuff for the dev to truly reckon d20 as meant to be----so he set about writing his own programming language to rewrite the game in entirely.

Yeah. Scary thing is, that part has been pretty well successful...just a long slog to get to a new public release. If you do lots of digging back on the site and mainly the Google Group for it you can seem glimpses of the saga unfolding.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Does D&D 3rd edition really work as a single-player game? The rules are designed for a party.

Mages need companions to protect them. If the game has NPCs for that, cool!

Without tweaks to the system, access to cure spells is necessary. Everybody would need to have at least a level in a class that can zap a wand of Cure Light Wounds. Or an NPC to heal you.

Even in the normal party-based game, 3rd edition clerics are overpowered. On purpose, because no-one would want to play a healer otherwise. In a single-player game, clerics would be at least twice as good as any other class.

[getter77]

It all sort of works due to ludicrous things being possible as is on top of the pantheon implementation. The setup possible for people to use Spiked Chains that people contorted to manage are a thing of sheer wonder---it has never been done before or since in any other project.

[buzzkill]

Does D&D 3rd edition really work as a single-player game? The rules are designed for a party.

Although I yet to manage it, it seems that assembling a group of (NPC type) allies is possible. I know for a fact that druids and rangers can summon companion animals, and command them.

[getter77]

Also, come to think of it, the game was probably waaaay out in front when it came in large part on how to deal with and reward Stealth characters and whatnot---Sil being among the only recent ones that come to mind that also made use of some of the general ideas sort of.

I suppose that's the Gestalt of Incursions----a host of disparate, wonky, and often still quite broken parts that came together as a glimpse of a fevered dream as to the level of sophistication and outright manifestation of madness that we SHOULD have had by then, at the very least in the D&D rulespace, considering how many years worth of games there had been building on up to that point.

As with so many things though, progress has not really move all that much past the plateaus of the 80's and 90's---hell, some stuff has lost steps outright due to projects not getting their critical due and recognition for those that came after to learn from as the scene was just too immature alongside the means of communication, promotion, and archival.

[buzzkill]

I just finished my first mildly successful games (CL3), with a stealth/ranger build and it does appear possible to assemble a party of adventurers. At one point I befriended a well armed monk and had two animal companions.

This game does a lot of things well. Allies, neutral NPC's, and NPC vs. NPC comabt, and NPC AI. It's also got good dungeon generation that builds a plausible dungeon out of a myriad of terrains and 'locations' and populates the various areas with appropriate monsters.

It got a hierarchy of ability's that one can learn and enhance that would make Sid Meier weep. You really have to know your character's strengths and weaknesses in order to survive.

I still coming to grips with the controls. There are so many thing you can do, it's hard to learn how to do (and remember) everything.

[Zireael]

I love Incursion - but it runs very slowly on my machine. Any tips?