Argus

Put them in armor and they are fine. Monks are pretty fun, imo. You have a point there. By now we know that Obsidian did not have the time on work on everything as much as they would have liked. Well, "no-handholding" is a good thing in my book. I missed that messenger on my 1st playthrough as well, but I don't mind. It was my punishment for not paying enough attention, so to speak. And it made my next playthrough all the sweeter. Anyway, I don't have a strong opinion on this specific messenger. I don't agree here. There are plenty of groups and folks that are OK. Yes, there are a lot of scumbags too, but why not? Isn't the real world like this in a way? Agreed. I didn't like the end of Act II either. You already knew that this machine had been extensively studied with little success. What did you expect? Anyway, I find this point unfair, because you HAVE the option to destroy it, you just didn't take it. See above. You don't have to want to save the Dyrwood. It is an option but not a necessity. But as Eder comes to realize, sometimes you defend a place just for the few people that you actually like. Also, the reason I didn't put monks in armor is because from reading the dev-posts, I thought that that would cut down on the amount of Wounds I got, and I realized from the encumbrance they'd slow down in their attacks. Your other points are pretty good though, and I agree with most of them. ...Except the Raedric thing. For whatever reason, an undead army never attacked my keep. I mean, undead attacked me ALL THE TIME, but not a SPECIAL undead army. Probably just a bug.

Zahua is your NPC monk, he is in White March. Couldn't afford White March, I'm afraid. This is my review of the base game.

Alright, so I backed Pillars on Kickstarter, watched in joy as it was developed and run, enjoyed the dev commentary, appreciated the race and class previews, and I thought it all looked great. And I started playing and noticed few problems (aside from the bloody Kickstarter NPCs whom I ignored), but more and more built up as the game progressed. Finally, I came to a terrible conclusion as I attempted a second playthrough: This writing is dreadful. Not the dialogue, no, that's fine. Purple sometimes, but generally pretty good. What sucks is the epilogue and the player 'choices' made in-game, as well as the marginalization of classes in gameplay/story integration. For starters, I played a Monk. Yeah, I remembered Monks being lame in DnD, but I assumed that in Pillars, based on the previews, it'd be fun. And it was fun, until every encounter became slogging it out with broad-sword wielding thugs in plate or Elder High Mega Dragons, or Invisible Deathtouch Demons or what have you. Monks lack the durability, dodging power and damage to be fantastic PCs... but what annoyed me the most was the supposition that every class would have something interesting to contribute to the story. For example, if I were say, a follower of Eothas, I could go to the temple or talk to Edir or do all sorts of things and get a little snippet in relation to the plot at large or just giving more insight into the characters and the world around them. Priests, Paladins, Cyphers, Wizards, all of them get little extra options and such they can choose. Oh, except the Monk. The class that doesn't even get an NPC partymember. The only five Monks in the game outside of the waves of cannonfodder I carved through are one dying messenger who was mauled to death by a mountain lion, and his four brothers who waited patiently in a tavern while their companion was mauled to death by a mountain lion. Speaking of that tavern, I have words for that as well. There's no real plot important reason to go into that place. You can just saunter past it accidentally, as I did three times. I did the Monk Scroll quest and then left, assuming nothing more. SPOILER ALERT: If you don't talk to one ordinary looking man named "Frightened Man", the entire city of Gilded Vale is exterminated in the epilogue. Whoopsy. The village I went on a long, epic quest to save, defeating an entire castle of badasses over is now dead. Oh well. Sometimes a random NPC just spontaneously returns to life and invalidates all your work. If they'd wanted to live they'd have given a messenger five gold to actually deliver the message instead of relying on gossip, right? Well, then there's the other problem of the people of the Dyrwood. They're all horribly monstrous, evil scumbags barring maybe ten individuals and the Glanfathans. Cultists of Skaen, Cultists of Woedica, the Volunteer Anti-Cypher Nazis, the Knights, one cruel, decadent, evil group after another. And then, then, after you bend over backwards and ensure that everything is perfect to make sure the Soul Arts get a fair trial? DIDN'T MATTER! An evil reincarnating wizard jumps into the body of the defendant lightnings to death the entire city aristocracy, causing a mass riot to break out and destroy everything, including murdering all the Soul Doctors. If you switch off the evil machine in the Northwest of the city instead of blowing it up? OOPS! NO ONE STUDIED IT! SOMEONE SWITCHED IT ON AGAIN AND IT KILLED EVERYONE! So you understand why I think the "Choice" system is overhyped and doesn't really matter. It's either "Do what the lead writer wants or 100% of the population dies" or it doesn't matter at all because Woedica Ninjas jump out of a closet and murder 100% of the population. Why would I want to play in this setting? Hell, why would I want to save the Dyrwood? Apparently EVERYONE is evil and stupid! So yeah. It's a game with POTENTIAL for a good series, but it has little to no replay value. ...Also I played it when it first came out so it was pretty dang buggy too, but honestly they weren't really that bad for me. If pressed for a rating I'd say Pillars was an above average game, but it could have been excellent with more writing and polish and... well, MORE in general.

Dang. This would have been great to know before I made a character. Oh well. I guess I'll just wait till someone makes a character editor. Obsidian games are always the most fun when you have eighteens in every stat except for intelligence, which is 1.

Alright, so, first off, I backed the kickstarter and I've been following it since the beginning, I love the setting and the story so far, the plot's great, and aside from being unable to get through the doors in the mad lord's keep I've not run into anything particularly glitchy. The problem is, I'm playing a monk, and I have no idea how. The game told me to put a lot of points in Dexterity and Constitution, which I did, then suggested Might. So I put those points in, and the problem I've run into is that a standard combat is thus: Walk into room Get seen by Xaurip Skirmisher Get hit by single, unbuffed arrow Take 102 points of damage, fall over and die Rest of party wipes the floor with the encounter Rinse and repeat, replacing "Xaurip Skirmisher" with any archer, mage or priest. What am I doing wrong? If I use the fighters to aggro the enemies, I don't take any damage, meaning I don't take wounds, meaning I can't deal damage. If I charge in ahead, every enemy in the room gangbangs me to death or an archer/gunner blows me away before I even reach combat. I'm level six at this point, so I'd really appreciate the help.

Alright, so, I went into Raedric's Keep and massacred everyone, and I mean everyone. I slaughter ever priest, sellsword and archer in the place, then get stuck at the first locked door. So I leave, level up and pick the lock on the high priest's door, free his friend from the dungeons and come back. He gives me a key he tells me will unlock any door in the place. Great, right? Only I used it once and now it's gone. This isn't exactly game-breaking, since I can once again leave, level up, come back and pick the locks again, but it's really, really inconvenient. Are keys supposed to self-destruct upon using them once? That would explain why half the doors in this place are locked.