darqleo

This feels like a missed opportunity to be able to put him in jail. Played the game all the way through 3 times and only had one person in my jail in two of those (one of the Dyrwood bounties and the Orlan hiding out in the White March village's pub. I need more prisoners!

I had Pallegina do it, not knowing the game was actually going to let her DIE die, ha. Took 3 of the soul-bound items with her.

White March 1 & 2 reminded me of Icewind Dale crossed with the Baldur's Gate II expansion. Sure there were frustrating fights, for me particularly the army around Crägholdt and the boss battle at The Abbey. But you just walk away from the game for awhile, try new battle tactics, and you usually beat them soon enough. You don't cry for mommy and daddy. Kids lack discipline these days.

I'm surprised then you didn't have a problem killing the "looters" aka poor people that ran up the cliff path and attacked you near the beginning of the game at the broken bridge? It's self defense even for a benevolent paladin (which I'm also playing). As the above poster explained, this particular dragon is crazy/mad so it's not going to listen to you about handing over it's favorite thing in the world no matter how high your stats are. Might as well try to separate Gollum from his ring.

I don't know, I had two epic long battles in White March II were Aloth was last member standing.

Heya, Heya................. heya.................... heya..................

Great analysis. I remember the BG1 companions more for their funny/interesting soundbites than their deep and layered character story/arc. BG2 was more of the latter though. PoE companions are more in-line with BG2, especially Grieving Mother, Eder and Durance... but I enjoyed Kana, Sangani and Pallegina as well. What really makes PoE better though are the inter-companion dialogs. It seemed to escalate more in the latter part of the game for me, but the developers need to do more of that, maybe even have conflicts come up where the player character has to be the deciding factor. Amp up the party dynamics, interactions with the storyline/quests. Kind of like the very beginning with your temporary fighter and thief companions, going through the very first ruins. You had to make decisions where the fighter could potential leave the party or the thief would be at half-power.

Love the cannons the ogres are using as if they were pellet guns, although I would imagine it would be instant death getting hit by a cannonball, I don't care if you are Level 14 and have the most magical armor of all. I love the little touch of seeing your party's cold breath when you enter the area. Finally a NPC Rogue... although I don't know how much sneaking around a metal construct can do without making a lot of noise. But I'm sure her Mechanics skill is above and beyond. Love all of the added tactical information (reload time clock above head, radius of your weapon's reach). Beetles. Why'd it have to be beetles?

I've come out of battles where I was down to 1 character left standing, never mind 1/2 the party charmed. You just have to change up your tactics. Get some summoning spells or items to add more fodder for battle. Ranged weapons are your friend. Confusion is a great spell to kind of reset the chessboard if you are getting overwhelmed. Petrifaction is another good one.

And they did. Man, what an echo chamber of whine this forum has become since everyone who was happy with the end product went away to play the game... And the long essays about their expectations not being met to provide some kind of catharsis before leaving the forums.

Boxed games are over. I got the WASTELAND 2 one and it sits in a drawer somewhere. I have PoE coming at some point, but I don't even care about it. From now on it's digital only.

These forums exaggerate problems. The animal companion is fine, you just have to play it correctly. I'm playing a Ranger with a lion companion and it's been pretty fun. Yeah he died a lot early on, but then again so did some of my human companions. It gets easier, like with anything, when you are a higher level. I'm now at level 11 and my lion has almost as many hit points as Eder. I use Takedown a lot because the lion's fast and I'll have him hit someone hard first and then have other party characters pile on after. You just have to be a little more aware and protective of your animal companion, don't get it surrounded by enemies, it's not a tank. I usually send him out and around the battle to hit people from the sides or the back if there's room to flank an enemy. Or hold him back with my ranger to protect him while he's firing off arrows. I also have a lot of the skills that combine with your animal so I usually target an enemy with both ranger and lion if possible. (sometimes I just have my ranger pick off any enemy that's near death to start putting down enemies quickly to free up my front line to bash something else).

Definitely. I mean this is tactical combat, why would you want the computer to just do the thinking for you?

It's also what keeps me up until 2:30am playing this, well that and trying to level up if my experience points are close.

Nope. Also I hated it when they got rid of the "empty areas" from BG1 to BG2 because of a vocal minority complaining about it. I loved exploring a giant forest map and only finding a few things. It's better than having all of these major encounters/NPCs/notable areas practically sitting on top of each other. If it's tedious for you then just hit the Fast Speed button to have your party speed across the areas.

something that's 5.9 GB is currently downloading ...

And for OS X users, cloaks are an incomplete feature. *insert rimshot*

cool story, bro.

based only on that info I would say "No".

"Sly Cyrdel" is in the SW section of the Magran's Fork map. There is a dude and his party in the middle of the map who's name is "Gramrfel the Wayfarer". who I thought was Syl Cyrdel, but he's not. I think he's generated once you get a dungeon in your stronghold because when you defeat him you get the choice of whether to take him prisoner or not. When you defeat Syl Cyrdel, you get to collect his head for the bounty.

If those are considered old games, I'm even older. I've been playing party based CRPGs since I was a kid in the 80's: Bard's Tale, Ultima IV, gold box DnD games, etc. Since I stopped playing party based CRPGs in the early 2000's because they started dying off (Temple of Elemental Evil/Pool of Radiance 2 were the last hurrah) in favor of First Person/MMORPG or Diablo clones, Pillars of Eternity (and Wasteland 2) has revitalized me. PoE is very much like playing Baldur's Gate 1 but with a lot of evolution. All I know is I've spent a few nights playing until 2am when I really shouldn't have. I don't know if the game is slow-paced, it isn't slower or faster than any of the Infinity Engine games.

AWESOME. I was going to do the same thing, but also make Athelstan (Cleric) to go with him.

love my Wayfarer Paladin.

you could use some torches to light the way