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Baldur's Gate 3 will be a turn based, co-op rpg with environmental puzzles, ham-fisted writing and trying too hard to be funny?

@Phenomenum: Wait, before I vote: I thought the duration that SoT adds is not affected by neither INT nor Power Level? Has that changed? I don't think so... If not: why nerf it in the first place? The SoT+Brilliant cheese is not caused by SoT, it's caused by Brilliant. Next you'd have to nerf Wall of Draining... If you want to nerf something it's Brilliant. Just make it a bit slower for spell replenishment (12 secs instead of 6) so that you can't chain SoT anymore. Remember that Brilliant replenishes only 1 resource (like Discipline) per 6 seconds but 1 spell use for ALL spell levels. This is not fair at all AND is the problem that causes the SoT/WoD/Brilliant cheese.

The Onion tends to get it right: https://www.theonion.com/world-populace-actually-fine-with-rich-people-dying-on-1835075562

Microsoft makes a promise to release their games at launch on steam: https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-games-on-steam-announced/ Really happy about that as they purchased multiple studios I am interested in. There is also this bit: Let’s hope that means we might see Obsidian and inXile stuff on GOG. Either way good news.

Some random thoughts about trinkets from this thread - some weeks ago. Maybe already forgotten. Those would be additional ones that could complement the special-subclass-trinkets we discussed above. Just to make some themed builds that are not tied to subclasses too rigidly.

I did. If you make a dedicated trinket for every Priest subclass and not make it swappable this will lead to a situation where a Priest of Magran always stays with this trinket. Wasn't our motivation to invent trinkets that the Priest (and Druid) always picks the same spells and doesn't have the flexibility that a Wizard has? He will then again not use Prayers/Litanies and otehr spells which are more situational and so on. I thought giving several (different) trinkets that provide some bonus spells that you can cast and which are swappable would solve this exact problem. Why complicated? If the bonus spells just get added to your spell portfolio (like Grimoirs do it) you don't get access to those spells unless you have the right Power Level. So if there's a PL 8 spell on the trinket but you are PL 6 you can't cast it (yet). I don't want to add the spells as 1/encounter abilites because it causes problems. I'd like them to be like grimoires "light" with fewer spells (because priests (and druid) already get bonus spells at level up) and other nice bonuses like we write above.. Yes, but those are a) crap and b) not class specific. The intentional idea with trinkets was that every class gets special ones. As I said I would keep it smiple and maybe only do ones that alter passives or so. Like +10% to Sneak Attack or stuff like that. Obviously this has very low priority... Concerning auto-casts: ok. I find the idea nice but it may be a bit too good.

My thought about Priest's trinkets: It should be 1 trinket per God (e.g. Magranite Prayerbook, Eothasian Prayerbook and so on), consist of 2-3 bonus per encounter spells, which fits the God, and a special ability/bonus which can be activated only corresponding Priest's subclass. For example, Magran trinket adds 2-3 damaging fire spells, 1 per encounter, which can be used by anyone, and +2 Fire abilities PL and, maybe, some special ability, which can be used only by Priest of Magran - if we follows Boeroer's suggestion, then it should be a second Spiritual Weapon. Magran Bonus spells: Divine Mark, Searing Seal, Cleansing Flame (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Magran Priest): Spiritual Weapon - Arquebus, + 2 PL with Fire abilities, auto-casts Flame Shield on self when Critically Hit (1 per encounter) Berath Bonus spells: Interdiction, Lithany for the Body, Barring Death's Door (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Berath Priest): Spiritual Weapon - 2 Maces, + 2 PL with Decay abilities, auto-casts Barring Death's Door on self when Health < 15% (1 per encounter) Skaen Bonus spells: Interdiction, Desponent Blows, Divine Terror (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Skaen Priest): Spiritual Weapon - 2 Daggers, + 2 PL with Condemnation abilities, auto-casts Revenge of Skaen (10 sec. base duration) on self when downed in fight (1 per encounter) Eothas Bonus spells: Suppress Afflictions, Lithany for the Spirit, Triumph of the Crusaders (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Eothas Priest): Spiritual Weapon - Morningstar, + 2 PL with Protection abilities, auto-casts Minor Intercession when ally is downed in fight (1 per encounter) Wael Bonus spells: Blessing, Dire Blessing, Spiritual Ally (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Wael Priest): Spiritual Weapon - Quarterstaff, + 2 PL with Illusions and Mind abilities, auto-casts Shadowing Beyond when Health < 15% (1 per encounter) Woedica Bonus spells: Barbs of Condemnation, Pillar of Faith, Warding Seal (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Woedica Priest): Spiritual Weapon - Pollaxe???, + 2 PL with Punishment abilities, auto-casts ??? Gaun (Xoti Lantern) Bonus spells: Blessing, Restore, Consecrated Ground (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Gaun Priest): Spiritual Weapon - 2 Hatchets??? , + 2 PL with Restoration and Inspiration abilities, auto-casts ??? Rymrgand Bonus spells: Iconic Projection, ???, ??? (1 per encounter) Bonus spells/abilities (for Rymrgand Priest): Spiritual Weapon - Pike???, + 2 PL with Frost abilities, auto-casts special version of Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar when downed in fight (4 m. radius, 30-40 Freeze Damage, Freeze (Paralyze) for 5 sec.) Let it be a start. Because we disscussing about trinkets for a month, but don't have even a preliminary concept. It's better to do something, than doing nothing.

Facts don't lie and i think its important to admit one's own ignorance and mistakes when faced with them, it seperates us from the stubborn racism, sexism etc. Also it's important to set the right example, especially since certain gaming communities moba, shooters etc have a rather toxic attitude and atmosphere.

The following is a dramatic reenactment of me watching the Death Stranding trailer:

When I was but a tween, addicted to the original Neverwinter Nights on our crappy family computer that could hardly run it, I refused to play anything but the Shifter prestige class. The idea of shapeshifting into different creatures to face my enemies was too exciting to even consider abandoning. Now that I’m much older and only very slightly less single-minded (sadly my computer can run Deadfire only slightly better than the old junker could run NWN), I’ve imported my love of shapeshifting to this game, resolving from the beginning to make the most of the Shifter Druid subclass. At this time, I believe I have some insights that are worth sharing for others who may be interested in this subclass. This post will be a bit long and unusual, because I will provide a brief analysis of the strengths of Shifters in general as well as my favourite class build to illustrate my points (it’s a Tempest build, so Barbarian fans, stick around). I hope that the post encourages others to give the Shifter subclass a shot, whether in the form of my Tempest build or otherwise. Let’s jump in. First Principles The biggest pitfall one may succumb to when planning a Shifter build is to think of the Shifter as an entirely martial subclass. Spiritshift has the benefit of two strong single-handed weapons in combination with armour as strong as superb Heavy Armor (when fully scaled) without any recovery penalty, and with no vulnerabilities (i.e. the armour has the same rating for all damage types unlike regular armours, which have weaknesses). This is a solid foundation to build on, but it is not equivalent to the martial benefits of an entire martial subclass like Fighter or Rogue. Shifters are still Druids, and Druids are spellcasters. Now let’s take a step back and ask what makes Druids special. What is their niche? I would provide two answers to this: healing and versatility. If there is one single thing a Druid can do better than any other class, it’s keeping a team healed. But that’s far from the whole story. Druids can also do significant damage, valuable crowd control, have some good summons, and a few very useful party buffs. And, of course, they have bursts of martial power from Spiritshift. No other class packs such diverse value in a single team slot, even though other classes will be better at most specific aspects. Druid subclasses leverage this versatility by offering specialization in one of the dimensions of the Druid kit, usually compromising another. This might lead one to think that a Druid subclass should be built to focus on that one specialist dimension and no other, but this is simply the general form of the pitfall that I mentioned at the beginning of this section. Versatility remains a core strength of the Druid class in each of its subclasses. The subclasses emphasize a dimension of the class – they do not invalidate all others. Your Lifegiver can still drop strong damage spells. Your Fury can still summon and do plant/beast DPS. Forgoing such versatility will always just make your Druid worse than they could be. This class is not supposed to just do one thing. Our first principle of building a Shifter follows easily: spellcasting must be respected as a core part of the character. Shifters are Druids, not furry warriors. And because Shifters lose their spellcasting when they shift, each battle must be divided between casting and martial phases if we want to benefit from all the character’s strengths. These are the parameters within which we will be thinking in what follows. Single Class vs. Multiclass I admit that I’ve never played a SC Shifter (I’ve had 3 Shifter playthroughs; a man only has so much time) but theorycrafting it is pretty straightforward. It would be decent. The main Shifter-specific benefits from SC would be Avenging Storm and Wildstrike Frenzy. Shifters will have good melee attack speed (especially cat form) and relatively low deflection, so AS is liable to put in some decent work (though nothing at the level of what can be metagamed with hand mortars, blunderbusses, Frostseeker, etc.). The Wildstrike Frenzy passives ought to be the #1 draw, but they are unfortunately lacklustre. Their effects only proc on kill with a shifted animal-weapon attack, not on spell kills (thanks to Boeroer for testing this). As we established in our first principle, good Shifter will be doing a lot of damage with spells, and Shifters will emphasize spells that do continuous damage while they are transformed. This means Wildstrike Frenzy will do nothing when the final blow comes from Avenging Storm, Nature’s Terror, Plague of Insects, Relentless Storm, or several other DPS spells you may have cast. Now, ‘on kill’ is an inherently weak trigger condition: the goal of combat is to kill enemies, therefore on-kill effects reward you for having already been successful and can’t help when you are struggling to get kills. On kill effects can still be very good for momentum (see the build below), but they need to be reliable with a trigger with such an inherent drawback. SC Shifters will be doing most of their damage from spells since they lack martial passives to help with melee, get higher level spells, and benefit from high power level (shifting doesn’t benefit from PL). That Frenzy doesn’t work with spell kills is therefore a major disappointment. A great thing about SC Shifter is that Shifters don’t lose access to any Druid spells (before they shift), meaning that you can enjoy the complete Druid spell list with the added benefit of sustained martial abilities. I would recommend SC Shifter to a player who primarily wants to play a caster but likes the idea of having a respectable melee presence without much fuss (i.e. no relying on buff chains or specific gear). Multiclassing is where we can get a bit more creative in drawing out a Shifter’s strengths, most obviously by giving our Shifter access to martial passives that will help their melee power. But if there is one thing you take from this post, let it be this: try to pick a second class that synergizes with the Shifter’s spellcasting as well as its melee ability. You’re going to be spending a significant amount of time casting spells and relying on spell damage so, ideally, you don’t want your second class to be irrelevant to that dynamic. A shifter has two major dimensions, two combat “phases” – you want to build for both. The class build below demonstrates what this looks like. Beast Tempest Shifter/Fury Shaper Dive into your enemies’ midst and thrash them to pieces with spells, claws, and teeth. Game version: 5.0 Difficulty: POTD (upscaled) Solo: Untested Overview: Perhaps most importantly from a synergistic point of view, Barbarians are most effective in melee when going after groups of weakened enemies. That’s because they get damage spikes against low-health enemies and massive action speed benefits on kill (see writeup on Blood Thirst below). This means that their damage per second increases significantly when they can crush multiple low-health enemies, back-to-back. Accordingly, compared to other possible martial multiclasses, you get significantly more value out of your Druid spell damage-over-time effects that you will have casted earlier in the fight. Making every enemy weaker before you start your melee phase therefore has a direct and noticeable effect on Barbarian power. This alleviates the inherent martial-caster action time tension whereby spell damage and melee damage compete with each other since time spent doing one is time not spent doing the other. With a Tempest, time spent casting damage feeds into your melee power directly. Note well that, unlike Wildstrike Frenzy, Barbarian on-kill buffs (Bloodlust and Blood Thirst) do indeed trigger on spell kills, so no need to worry about what gets the final blow (except for when a spell steals your Barbaric Smash kill and you lose resources), and you’ll find that when you have multiple spells going on against a large group of enemies, these buffs will pop up regularly when you didn’t even notice you got a kill. Finally, the action speed and Might benefits from Frenzy obviously help in your spellcasting phase. Furthermore, Barbarians have some tension in their design: with very low deflection, very high health, an armour passive, and more, they are meant to take hits. This screams, “get the highest armour value possible!” They also have multiple ways to increase action speed, so you want to build them them to swing fast. Unfortunately, heavy armour comes with a hefty recovery speed penalty, so if you try to maximize your armour, you action speed bonuses get eaten up compensating for it. You’ll recall, though, that Spiritshift armour has a high rating and no action speed penalty whatsoever. Therefore, while shifted you will fully leverage a Barbarian’s tankiness and action speed perhaps unlike any other context in the game. You can see that though Barbarian is traditionally a “martial” subclass, it benefits from the characteristically Druid form of spell casting (damage over time across a wide area) and it powers up spell casting as well. Add this to Spiritshift’s inherent speed and armour benefits and you’ve got yourself a beautiful set of synergies. I chose Fury Shaper because access to Fear Ward is worth the Will penalty, especially on a caster Barbarian because you can leverage Captain’s Banquet, which gives you immunity to most of the most dangerous stuff that targets Will. No subclass would work fine too, as the wards aren’t essential to the build. Mage Slayer is out because you’ll resist your own Druid stuff, and I find Corpse-Eaters looks pretty bad, but do your thing if you really want to be a man-eating werewolf. Berserker could do a lot of damage but Confused is particularly bad for a Druid with their dependence on Intellect and powerful foe-only AOEs, so you’ll have to constantly make sure you’re managing that. Also, this build uses high Might, which increases Berserker self-damage, making you significantly squishier. Attributes: I’m not going to give numbers because they depend on whether there are Berath’s Blessings, the player’s comfort with stat dumping, role-playing, and so on. Instead, I’ll give priorities. MGT: High DEX: Medium CON: Medium PER: High INT: High RES: Low Druids rely on a lot of damage and healing over time, so MGT is better than DEX for both (DEX helps you move through your casting phase faster, but it’s not going to make your spells tick faster; this is unlike burst damage/healing or buffs where getting a spell off a little faster can significantly change the flow of the fight). In addition, you’re getting a lot of action speed buffs as a Barb, so it’s better to give more weight to each swing than try to be the Flash. PER is a priority for anything that needs to hit enemies, and Barbarians have some nice on-crit benefits. INT is critical for all your many AOE radii and (de)buff durations (including Spiritshift). You want as much of this as possible. DEX and CON are good but should only be invested into when the priority three are maxed out. Having some RES can be nice so hostile effects don’t keep you down, and you don’t get crit against deflection to a ridiculous degree (crits give bonus penetration, potentially bypassing your high AR), but if you want to dump a stat this should be it (as per usual). Skills: I like a split between Athletics and Stealth. Athletics for some heals and Stealth so you can more reliably get a cast off while sneaking for the reduced recovery. Not super important. For non-active skills pick what you want. Abilities: I’m going to give brief writeups on key abilities so the reader can get a good sense of how this plays. The “no brainer” passives are Combat Focus, Blooded, Two Weapon Style, Wildstrike and upgrade, Thick Skinned, Unflinching, One Stands Alone, and Brute Force. Along with what is detailed below you will have a couple free points. Use them where you like. Frenzy: Blood or Spirit? – The Spirit line has great synergy here: spell hits cause Staggered as well as melee hits, and Might afflictions are valuable for lowering Fortitude, which synergizes with Brute Force and many strong spells. The AOE terrify can also be clutch in buying yourself casting time when surrounded. However, you may be using lots of Might Afflictions elsewhere on your team (I nearly always run Serafen spamming Dazing Shout) and find that you’re not getting much mileage out of Staggered, and would prefer the resource-saving Blood Storm over Spirit Tornado’s short terrify (especially if you’re packing Fear Ward anyway), in which case the Blood line works just fine. I personally find the Spirit line generally better because of the reliable Staggered, and Terrified lasts for about 10secs, which can save your skin and help you to cast in a pinch. I don’t think you’ll usually benefit that much from Blood Frenzy’s extra crit damage because melee targets don’t usually last long enough to experience all the DoT. Barbaric Roar: Your only command interrupt; always good to have. Especially nice as a quick-cast, foe-only, ranged attack. More valuable than the alternative upgrade – you’re not a main tank. Leap: Jump right in. Just do it, you'll be fine (usually). My playstyle usually involves tanks taking the initiative and diving at enemies to start combat, which effectively takes a lot of pressure away from the backline. This character isn't a main tank, but can and should certainly be right up in the thick of things with the tank. You want Leap to get around with no fuss and Daze enemies while you cast. You can take Wild Sprint as well as sometimes that's all you need and it's cheaper, but it's no replacement for Leap. Barbaric Smash + Bloody Slaughter: You can get some big damage numbers with these. A bunch of crit conversion, up to +100% crit damage, and increased base damage can save you a few attack resolutions (plus your animal form gives a little roar with each swing that sounds cool). Depending on the enemy, casting this around 40-30% usually reliably picks up the kill for no Rage cost, allowing you to continue your rampage. Don’t overlook the bonus penetration. Blood Thirst: better than I originally thought. Turns out not only does this cancel the recovery of your killing blow, but it also cancels the recovery of the next action you make within the buff’s duration. That means that after you kill an enemy, not only do you not have to recover, but your first attack against the next enemy doesn’t impose recovery either. I kept wondering why I seemed to be getting random Full Attacks in combat until I realized this. Remember, it triggers whenever spell damage gets a kill, too. Moonwell/Garden of Life: This character can be a primary healer. Insect Swarm/Plague of Insects/Infestation of Maggots: Core spell damage, and you get two for free! Stack these on enemies and watch them wither away. Do note that Plague does not affect Poison-immune enemies (and there are quite a few), but Swarm and Infestation do. Plague of Insects is absolute gold because apart from its good damage and stripping Concentration, the Sickened affliction increases your accuracy via Brute Force and lowers enemies’ max health (all the better for smashing). Nature’s Terror: A fantastic spell for this build. You want to be standing in the middle of enemies anyway. Having damage from this constantly wearing them away along with Carnage is great, and the Frightened affliction can block dangerous abilities and make them easier to hit (if you’re using Spirit Frenzy, it debuffs both Deflection and Fortitude). It’s friend-or-foe, so watch your step, but don’t let that make you afraid to use it. Having teammates with resolve affliction resistance can help (Wild Orlans like Serafen come with it, Fighters have a perk, etc.). This spell also seems bugged in that randomly it will sometimes do like 5 ticks of damage to a single enemy instantly. Not sure what causes it. Most important of all, the spell looks really cool (Tempest indeed). Relentless Storm: Of course. Depending on your needs for the fight you can and should cast any two of this, Plague, and Nature’s Terror. Cast all three if you get resources back. Venombloom: Must-have for any Druid, in my opinion. Does nothing against Poison-immune enemies but is devastating to anything else. And with Brute Force it will hit the lower of Deflection and Fortitude. Gear: Weapon: Spine of Thicket Green - unfortunately, your damage bonus on Beast/Plant spells will go away when you shift, but the duration and initial accuracy bonuses from power level are done deals at the time of casting. There's very little reason to use any other weapon. The crush damage and extra effectiveness against Vessels (who are often pierce immune or resistant and tend to be more vulnerable to crush damage) also means this is very occasionally worth using over shifting. Head: Helm of the White Void or Survivor’s Tusks – HotWV gives +10 to every attack roll involved in affliction-causing attacks (i.e. not just the roll for applying the affliction but also for dealing damage, etc.). For this build that means Barbaric Roar, Spirit Tornado, Plague of Insects, Nature’s Terror, Relentless Storm, and Venombloom (Fear Ward, being its own “creature” does not benefit). If you want to use this on another character, Survivor’s Tusks can give you survivability, though the Spiritshift upgrade is less valuable on this build because you will usually have Strong from Frenzy anyway. Neck: Strand of Favor – more INT and beneficial effect duration means longer shifts, etc. Armour: Garari Cuirass – any light armour can work here but I like this one because it gives you as much AR as light armour can so you can take hits before you shift. See also Miscreant’s Leather for the recovery bonus and Cabalist’s Gambeson for the extra effect durations, but remember your normal armour gets replaced when you shift. Feet: Rakhan Field Boots – always nice to dash around and get another interrupt. Footsteps of the Beast can be nice too since you tend to run around a bit. Cloak: Greater Protection Hands: Woedica’s Strangling Grasp – extra Might and AR Rings: Kuaru’s Prize + whatever you like Pet: Giftwrapper or Abraham – Abraham speeds your casting up but Giftwrapper gives you free AR when you get her. Both offer a bit of healing. Food: Captain’s Banquet – Immunity to half of the affliction types, including those which most often target your debuffed Will, is huge in itself. Extra spell damage is fantastic on top. Unfortunately, the action speed buff gets overridden by Frenzy, but with this you don’t need to cast Frenzy at the beginning of your casting phase just for the speed. Being able to wait without much drawback let’s you use Spirit Tornado when it’s most impactful. Closing comments: Embrace a Shifter’s versatility and you’ll be rewarded for it, in both power and fun. The build I’ve detailed has been my favourite to play in the game and is no slouch in power. I hope this post encourages more people to consider playing a Shifter and to play around with getting the most from the subclass. I can confirm that Ascetic builds are great, and I bet interesting things could be done with Wizard, Priest, or Paladin. Thanks for reading.

Yes they are, but that game is contracted out to some other studio. This game is what they've been touting as their next new game, codenamed Project Gustav.

Yeah, no detailed ideas yet. And sure, I will help you if I can.

I think it would be nice to add ~4 trinkets to priest, and ~4 to druid. And instead of making a trinket for each subclass, I would rather look in the direction that strengthens some specific roles, or opens up new builds. For example priests: something that improves the support role. And is thematically close to a prayer book. E.g, the already suggested: Dyrwooden Prayerbook. something that improves the fire or punishment aspect. Like the already suggested Sermon of Punishment and Redemption. something that opens a new way to play. For example I like that the suggested Finger of Death comes with a trade-off like - 5 CON, +5 RES + Come Sweet Winds of Death. Although dunno how will this play out with a 3-CON character. An alternative approach could be: has -5 accuracy malus; but passively drains +4 accuracy from each afflicted enemy nearby. Dunno, but something to accentuate the ghastly touch theme. something that would either capitalize on anti-vessel/anti-evil aspect. E.g: takes -25% damage from vessels; Halt spell when used against vessels also applies paralyze. something something shadow priest? Heal party for a percentage of damage dealt with corrode spells? Although dunno how to do it. And for druids: I like the "Corrupting Roots: +1 PEN with all Decay abilites (like Spirit of Decay, stacks), -20% healing done" from Shrunken Head of the Pŵgra. something to boost Healing role. something to boost Melee/Spiritshift damage something to boost the duration/aoe of storm/ground stuff, at the cost of beast stuff or corrode damage P.S. I can help adding them to vendors or locations across Deadfire, and also implement a few. But am not sure if I will have time to implement all of them in the nearby few weeks; thus would require cooperation^^

Technically the SoT + Brilliant is caused by their combination And uhm, I don't think that Brilliant is OP if used without SoT, in a 5-man party, in fights that don't have to deal with HP bloat. Also there are not so many sources of it: Ancestor's Memory: 70 focus for +1 resource/6s, over base 12s. Brilliant Tactician: flank all enemies, and make sure no friendly units are flanked Shroud of the Phantasm (1% chance on taking damage: +1 resource/6s), over base 6s If anything, I would just make sure that: Mind Over Matter (Shroud of the Phantasm) and Blade Cascade (Scordeo's Edge) don't trigger out of combat, and when there are no enemies in 12m. Wizard's Walls can't be cast out of combat. Damage that would kill the character, but was prevented by Barring Death's Door, has a 25% chance to apply an injury.

Yes, it seems they will start with (part of) the New Spring novella. One scene of that book would be particularly good in explaining Moirane's motivations and what is about to happen in the world. Not to mention showing a very interesting moment of a certain war. They should start with Book 1's prologue anyway, it is fantastic. I can actually accept most changes, as long as they don't remove main characters or merge them. The LotR adaptation should be pretty easy to do right. They have $ 500 million and the movies as an example of how it should look. But they will have to create the story from nothing. Or did Tolkien leave anything of sufficient size about Numenor? I agree with you, I doubt any of them will surpass GoT 1-4.

It is, although quite rare in my experience.

Yep, anything about the game that does not honor the legacy of the BG franchise would seriously piss me off. The game being turn-based would especially push me over the edge. In other words, to be good it needs to be pretty much everything that the D:OS games were not. But there is room for optimism for two reasons. One, Tuque Games has already announced it is developing a D&D game that will be a co-op action RPG. I can't see WotC agreeing to two new D&D games that will be essentially the same thing. Two, Swen Vincke in a recent interview was very emphatic in saying that he wanted to move away from the things he'd already done with the two D:OS games into new, uncharted territory for Larian, because making the same type of games was boring and uncreative and he wanted to be challenged and try new and different things.

No. I never min-max, and I don't exploit the very obvious flaws. I'm not trying to sound like a saint here, mind you. But you said it yourself: it drains from the fun. I like to have fun. And challenges are a big part of the fun. So, no min-maxing, no exploits. They're way too easy. Overcoming challenges leads to a sense of accomplishment, which is great fun. Cheating doesn't give you that.

no. we woulda' agreed with you at the time o' the election, but the past two years has proven us wrong. the mueller report is far worse than gd believes. am recalling your but for kinda statements regarding those in trump's orbit protecting him from obstruction, but that ain't the law. trump attempts to obstruct justice were crimes and failure o' subordinates to carry out orders only impacted evidentiary strength rather than existence o' criminal activity. mueller also described a systematic pattern o' lies and misrepresentation which we is surprised the media outlets never bothered to compare direct to Nixon, 'cause trump administration lies were far more numerous and arguable worse. trump has attempted to politicize the military and he has used pardon power to help more than one bad actor. numerous senior cabinet member has described trump as stoopid, and a few has pointed out how they necessarily had to step in to prevent him from doing overt illegal. mattis and kelly… why did they leave the administration? knowing what you know o' these military men, do you see such persons leaving the administration over disagreement on issues? is hard to imagine these folks leaving over differences in policy. conscience. similar, mcmaster were effective fired 'cause he insisted on doing his job and advising the President honest. short after all three men left, honorable men who served best possible in jobs trump made difficult, the President criticized all three for either lack o' intelligence or character. admiral mcraven said trump's attacks on the press is the greatest threat to democracy in his lifetime. no President has so active attacked the legitimacy o' the press. why? 'cause the press has been mean to him. clinton, who no doubt woulda' received bad press, mighta' attacked individual reporters and stories, but am not able to imagine her using "enemy of the people" language. evar. is the kinda stuff we previous thought were reserverved for autocrats and internet hoaxers. alternative facts and outright lies. claim sound from windmills cause cancer and when confronted with abject stoopidity o' such statements he doubles-down on such. crowd size. mit global warming studies. payoffs to porn stars. authorship o' press releases. could spend tens o' pages discussing trump admin lies... and when he is caught in an obvious lie, he tends to make lie bigger rather than retracting. ignores the unanimous advice o' intelligence chiefs in favor o' tucker carlson and sean hannity? why? 'cause the fox guys says what trump wants to hear. attacks on McCain even after the senator's death, and why? 'cause mccain, who were in favor o' obamacare repeal, were having too much integrity to go along with the slapped together replacement plan which were forced through committee w/o debate. (can ff to ~7:00-9:45ish if just wanna hear reasons for voting 'gainst obamacare repeal.) faked medical condition to avoid military service while ridiculing mccain's efforts in service to his country. lies. pettiness. willful stoopidity. oh, and as bad as were hillary emails and the potential damage such coulda' done to US intelligence and diplomatic efforts, within month o' being in office trump spilled israeli secrets to the russians in the oval office and he forced security clearances to be given to family members he were told were in danger o' being compromised. clinton woulda' been bad, but trump daily lies and character breaches has made gd and others numb to how terrible he is. we honest could not imagine how terrible trump character as President has been. had assumed pu$$y grab before being elected woulda' been low water mark, but have been proven wrong almost daily. your gas station guy is perpetual safe from making good on offer, eh? oh, and mexico tariffs? HA! Good Fun!

4) Don't do it. #1 is also good and pretty logical.

Larian has never done a RTwP game before, right? So yeah, that's a worry right there. That and, well, BG3, after all this time it's just bound to disappoint, no matter who makes it. As bummed as I am about that cliffhanger Valve probably has the right idea with HL3.

I hope they're working on something about Shadowrun...

we need trinkets for every classes!!!

Sanderson shouldn't care too much, since he only wrote the last two (three?) books based on Robert Jordan's notes and his wife's input rather than wrote the whole thing. He isn't going to say that the changes are stupid and the show sucks though, even if it does. Sapkowski would be a better bet for that given his rather dismissive comments on the games, and even he seems keen enough on money to swallow his pride when he hasn't been stupid enough to accept a one off payment. The one strong rumour I've seen is that Moiraine is the 'PoV' character in the early episode(s), and that seems pretty sensible to me as she's a far better introduction to the world as a whole than any Two Rivers character. Since it's Current Year diversity casting is inevitable, but that's only an actual problem when it goes against verisimilitude. I'm not expecting much of anything from the WoT, LotR or Twitcher adaptions though to be honest. Kind of like how the quality of the fantasy movie renaissance peaked with FotR (ie the very first movie in the renaissance) I'm expecting GoT 1-4 to be by far the best of the TV fantasy series renaissance.

You two have definately given me a huge update and a lot to read to confront my own ignorance perhaps. Thank you to the both of you for enlightening me on this subject. I will definately look into the matter more closely.

Jumping into this thread to say thanks for the work, and I am really interested in the trinkets for Priest and Druid. It might take some added design work, but I really think it would be cool if each trinket had a small bonus that is great for most and then a stronger bonus that has to be built around but could be used by several subclasses (e.g. Psalter of Bodily Discipline: grants Prayer and Litany for the Body; deal 10% bonus melee weapon DMG against targets with a Body affliction). Ideally these could open up new build options, rather than just making existing ones better (though making existing ones better is cool, too). Boeroer had some great ideas, but I'm sure we can think of some others. Do you have an idea of roughly how many we want to add?

Eh, I'm fairly optimistic. That's just the Divinity franchise in general. I imagine with a different established franchise like Baldur's Gate, they'll rein in the humor. Especially since it's not really their IP to begin with, and the bulk of the writing will probably be handled by the DnD people in turn. As for it being TB VS RTwP, that's up in the air. If they want to call it a sequel, it has to be RTwP. That said, they also clearly have the resources to pull a PoEII and have both TB and RTwP in the same game.

Larian studios teasing something with 'III' in the title. http://larian.com/ Datamining indicates that it is most likely Baldur's Gate 3. https://www.resetera.com/threads/larian-studios-teasing-something-new-on-their-site-logo-metadata-contains-reference-to-baldurs-gate-3-see-threadmark.119852/page-3#post-21264147

Agreed, it's a good idea. In this case, we can make it. We must create "unique and interesting" trinkets to make Druids and Priest more unique and versatile (closer to Wizards with their grimoires), not just expand spell arsenal at the cost of ability points. As for trinkets, we must settle up The Main Question: Should be trinkets (both for Druids and Priests) specialized for each subclass or they should simply add some bonuses and spells? In case of specialized trinkets, should be the ones restricted to each subclass? My vote is for specializing, to make each subclass gameplay experience more unique and distinctive. Especially for priests, because of very little difference between subclasses.

Afaik DID is just the newer, more accurate and scientific term for what was once named Multiple Personality Disorder.

Sat down and finished Spellforce 3. The bad: After a certain point the RTS part has endless waves of enemies attacking you. It feels like a cheap trick to make maps last longer, when you need to explore to figure out the quest but rush back every 60 seconds to defend against yet another attack. Partly as a result it is easy to miss loot and the odd side quest on the huge maps. At least in German the voice acting has mistakes. Some lines are read by the wrong voice actor, so the mercenary leader for example replies with the player's voice at some point. Sometimes the wrong sound file plays and the text being spoken is not the text written, but a repeat of a previous line. The Good: The game is gorgeous. I feel guilty building bases in the maps and ruining the environment. The story is fine, and while not having any real surprises, provides a good fantasy ride with stuff to do. Though for fans of the series it is awesome once you realize what the story really is all about. A good variety of party members and loot to equip them with. Actually a neat real time RPG dressed up as an RTS.

some photos i tried watercoloring edward kenway ragnar lothbrok Corvo some random dude

Take all his games so the list becomes shorter.

After bouncing from game to game for around a month, I've decided to go back to Dark Souls 2 and finally finish it. Got the 4th Great Soul, and reached the castle. Hopefully that means I am at least at the halfway point of the game.

Why oh why do game developers decide to make your character feel less effective the more you level up because of buffed up enemies? Playing through The Division 2 and I'm at Level 25 now, but I feel less powerful than I was at around Level 10 because now it seems all missions include a bunch of "tank" enemies who throw fire bombs or shoot grenade launchers, which easily trump anything I have in my arsenal. At least when I was lower level, it would be rare for a tank to appear and usually only 1 "purple" enemy. As you level up, enemy TACTICS should be the difficult part you have to deal with when you're facing the "bosses", but not just because they decided the boss has twenty layers of shields/armor and a weapon that saps you of health with one hit.

I'm sure there are plenty of kids not being "ruined" by this new age of media, but I can't help but feel those who are left to fall into this stuff (either being lonely latchkeys or otherwise) are probably suffering for it more-so than previous generations. In the entertainment world, it often seems like the route to a persons wallet is through their kid. And anything that can be done to encourage a youth culture that entices spending will be marketed to the fullest. That's not necessarily new, but it's very aggressive these days, and all within an economy that is far less mobile than in the past.

Hi all, we put some changes up that should increase the length now by days instead of hours. Let us know if you're still seeing the sign-in form too often! Thanks, everyone!

If anyone has the time, could they do this guy? His name is Tiddles von Katapus. He is a cat who thinks he's an orlan, and nobody has the heart to tell him otherwise, so everyone just plays along.