konst3d

I believe the whole idea is that the build-range is broader with a given character, rather than having to make a new one and pick a different class in order to experience that breadth. It's not really all that strange of a thing to say. They're not comparing quantities of builds. They're comparing breadth of a given character's build options at any given point in time. Yep, I realize this. But... Compare how many races, feats and skills D&D have - you can create wide range of builds even within the single class. And you should also realize that D&D character development usually involves few classes. Multiclassing is very strong tool to create your own unique and vital character. And currently I feel (that is based on PoE role-system info that was given us so far) that PoE classes will not be that flexible. Hope I'm wrong here. Ok, lets stop comparing PoE role-system with anything else, it's not yet ready finally.

Definitely D&D barbarians are STR\DEX oriented classes and they benefit from high INT less then other melee classes. But I believe it's not enough to say that D&D class customization is not high enough. And by the way, there are a lot of low (10-12) WIS monks that are using DEX as its primiry stat. Especially two-weapon kama oriented monks, monks-assasins and so on. High level DEX-dependent feats are to good - self concealment, expose weakness, epic dodge, etc... After all, I'm not sure that PoE barbs will benefit from INT more then D&D barbs.

That is quite... strong statement.http://nwn2db.com/builds - here are 24,901 builds in total at the moment. And it's only public available builds. And I don't know how many builds are already deleted due to it's age. And finally, NWN2 is just one of the D&D games and there are a lot of classes, feats and other features aren't implemented. I've been browsing barbarian builds, I have yet to come across a high intelligence (14 on a heavily multiclassed barbarian was the max)proving my point. Nope. That proves nothing. You can't find high INT barbs just because of there are other classes that suite the high INT builds better then barbs - warriors, swashbucklers, rangers, thugs (it's just base classes, and there are a lot of prestige classes). So there is no point to build high INT character on the barbarian basis. However you still are able do this. P.S. Well, it's kinda strange to claim that game with 12 classes and even without multi-classing confirmed will provide "much broader range of charater builds" then a game with about hundred classes, rich multi-classing abilities, more then a dozen races and more then few hundred feats and spells.

That is quite... strong statement. http://nwn2db.com/builds - here are 24,901 builds in total at the moment. And it's only public available builds. And I don't know how many builds are already deleted due to it's age. And finally, NWN2 is just one of the D&D games and there are a lot of classes, feats and other features aren't implemented.

How could a merchant selling few non-magical weapons and some level 1 spells and small healing potions afford to have a bad ass golem that could wipe your entire party? What is the point to pay adventurers to kill some rats, ghouls, protect the village from goblins, do other low-level tasks if there are such golems and guards that are much stronger and could do this for free? This way you just replace one inconsistency with few another.

I don't mind to provide each merchant with a pair of powerful bodyguards, adamantium safes and golems, arrays of traps, hellhounds, guardian dragons and beholders, and any other anti- thieving measures you could imagine, but I believe it will not help. Any game that allows stealing from merchants ends up being exploited. Arcanum, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim - I believe that developers have spent a lot of work trying to create interesting thieving system that hoverer would be balanced. And finally, anybody could enter a shop, set up a bucket on merchant head and have all its gear for free. You don't even have to bother with thieving skills. There is no simple and elegant solution that will work. Personally I would prefer developers just declare that merchants have "magic bags of holding and anti- thieving” and spent their time working on quests, role system, characters and other RPG stuff. Just my opinion however.

I believe the problem is to keep the game balanced. Imagine you could kill such merchant at the very beginning of the game and have all his money and stuff. There is no more point in looking for good equipment drops, collecting money to buy it or explore the world to find it. Having powerful items so early your party will easily kill monsters that possibly was designed to provide a challenge to you. I have seen something like this in Fallout 2 - you could visit Navarro just few hours after you started the game and take your hands on quite powerful armor and weapon but doing so is like entering "God Mode" cheat - no more tough battles and enemies first half of the game and no point in upgrading your equipment until late game. P.S. Do you remember things like "Bags of Holding" (IWD, BG, NWN games)? It's a magic bag, that is bigger inside then outside and also it reduces (drastically) the weight of the things you put into. You can think merchant have few of them with some additional magic that for example destroys the bag on owner death.

Personally I would prefer BG - like premade NPC with stories, characters and dialogues, but yeah, their stats sometimes... disappointing. So I would like to see an ability to reset them - something like you was able to do with Khelgar in NWN2 when he finally became a monk. There is also was a very rare book in Dragon Age that allows player to reset its character, if I don't mix the games. But, I believe this should be very limited - possibly once a game for each character, or it should have some price, high enough to prevent overuse of this feature.

The question is not about could you equip your wizard with heavy armor and sword and put him frontline - I believe you could, almost any game having wizards allows you to do this. The question is - could you make your wizard efficient in this role, or in any other role different then casting damaging\controlling spells staying outside of the battle? Let's take D&D games again - stone skin, (improved) mage armor, mirror image, (greater) heroism, intuitive strike, blades of fire, displacement, tenser's transformation, iron body, a-lot-of-other-spells, feats, prestige classes... I can keep counting for ages, these things allow your mage to be very good in melee and even outtank your fighter, sure you have to cast these spells each time melee engagement starts, but you can make melee mage if you wish and he will not be completely underpowered to fighters\barbarians.And I would like to know the degree of PoE's character classes flexibility. Their ability to be efficient in different roles, not only in most straightforward one: fighter - tank, barbarian - melee aoe damage, rogues - melee single target burst damage and so on.

Hello everybody (my first posting here)! At the moment we finally have all of the class updates published. And reading these updates I feel that each character class is somewhat specialized. Fighters are "tanks"; Barbarians are melee damage dealers and so on... I love D&D\AD&D games and mostly I love it for its reach character customization abilities, you can take a single class and create thousands of different characters that could take different party positions (tank, healer, melee damage dealer, buffer\debuffer, etc) out of it. I realize that PoE isn't a D&D\AD&D but... The question is - how much could you customize your character within its class in PoE? Will there be anything like D&D feats, or MMORPG-like skill-trees, or something that will allow you build different characters within the same class?