Njall

You do realize this isn't table top DnD right? Sorry but when I click an ability called "knock down" and the dragon falls down after my fighter walks up and takes a single melee swing at them I can't somehow interpret that as some sort of three stooges running around antics where Moe accidentally gets knocked out by running into Curly and headbutting him. Meanwhile what kind of dragon would be so stupid and incompetent he can't handle someone running between his legs? You talk like dragons are autistic 3 year olds. Also maybe I gear my guys different, but my fighter is wearing magically enchanted armor and shield and has all sorts of magical protection spells cast on him. I tend to think those things are why he doesn't die instantly. Lastly do some research. This is in Obsidian's own words a low to mid level campaign. So no, as a 12th level fighter you in fact are not one of the best fighters in the world. What happens is that your trained high level fighter can still teach the dragon, who's not necessarily trained all of his life as a fighter, a thing or two. Even if it's not D&D, it's still an rpg, and the way fighting is depicted in PoE should be seen as a rough approssimation of what your characters are actually doing, at best. Or do you really believe your fighters just stand there and swing a sword every 3 seconds or so, while being pummeled on the face at regular intervals, without even trying to move around?That when you hit the "knockdown" button your next weapon swing will automagically knock something down despite carrying the exact same force as the previous one? And that after you've knocked an opponent down twice in a battle your fighter suddenly forgets how to knock people down until the next battle starts? Because that's far more unrealistic than a dragon getting outmaneuvered by a smaller opponent, and that's definitely not how fighting looks like in real life. It's not that the dragon is stupid or incompetent, it's that you're a freaking weapon master. You're so good that you can outmaneuver and unbalance a dragon. Especially a dragon who's framed, and statted, as an appropriate level challenge by the game's mechanics. Since plenty of competent fighters around the world get knocked down by people that are simply better than them at fighting (or, really, by somewhat competent fighters who either catch them by surprise or land a lucky hit ), I don't see what the problem is in this case: since the dragon is an appropriate challenge for your level 12-14 hero despite being way bigger and way stronger, it follows that fighting experience, technique and equipment are likely compensating for your size and strength (which is exactly what your level bonus to accuracy and defenses represents), or you wouldn't stand on comparable grounds and the game wouldn't deem him an appropriate challenge in the first place. Also, a mid-level fighter is still one of the best fighters in the whole world. He might not be the top dog or even one of the top 10, but he's still insanely good: he can handle bears, lions, ogres, and pretty much hordes of average joe's with just a pointy stick, he's not just a guy with a sword...

You're also able to poke the aforementioned 30 feet tall dragon to death with daggers. Also, you're somehow avoiding being flattened by his claws, which are likely heavier than your tank is. In addition, you also seem to be able to survive after he breathes fire directly on your face. Alternatively, you're such a good fighter that you can dance between his legs so well that the dragon missteps and ends up out of balance ( which, as a level 12-14 fighter is entirely believable. You're probably one of the top fighters in the whole world ), your rogue is so good that he can find and exploit a gap between the dragon's scales and actually damage him, and when the dragon tries to hit you with his claws or tail, you dodge out of the way at the last second and survive. "Crap" is subjective. Just because you dislike something and can't be bothered to find a believable explanation, it doesn't mean it makes no sense. PoE is a fantasy rpg, half the stuff that happens in combat could be labeled as "crap", by your standards. Have obsidian documented anywhere what immunities they have implemented? My understanding of it is you can no longer blind enemies with one eyes or charm enemies without brains. If this is the case I don't see the problem with it. These changes will effect spell casters the most obvisouly. It's called change people. Get used to it because this game changes more then I change my pants Nope, the spellcasters have all the tools they need to play around immunities.Adding immunities actually makes the spellcaster's playstyle more engaging, because while they're forced to find a different way to handle an opponent that's immune to, say, knockdown, they still have a plethora of debuffs at ther disposal, and can easily find another spell to cast. It will likely be less effective, but most debuffs are still worth it (and, more importantly, you're still playing and choosing instead of just staying there ) and still impact the encounter in a significant way. Martials are the ones who're more likely to see their tactical options reduced, simply because they have fewer options.When you're a fighter and your opponent is immune to knockdown, what do you do instead? Nothing, you stand there and auto-attack him to death. In the end, games revolve around making the right choice ( and getting rewarded by the game's mechanics ). The kind of gameplay that this change enforces makes the spellcasters' playstyle more tactical, and the martials' more dull. Well the spell casters obvisouly afflict the most afflictions...................am I missing something here? Perhaps they are considerably affected? Knockdown sucked anyway, int is a dump stat for fighters so it's duration made it. Not worth using. Dude, knockdown is functionally equivalent to stun in PoE. "Stunned" (as in "unable to act") is pretty much the second best condition you can inflict on your opponent, right after "dead". And not just in PoE, but in pretty much each and every game featuring tactical battles out there. Nope, it doesn't suck, far from it. Sure, if you're dumping int it's not as effective. The obvious answer is "don't dump intellect, it affects a bunch of fighter buffs and abilities ( Constant recovery, disciplined barrage, vigorous defense, unbroken, unbending, clear out just to name a few )".

You're also able to poke the aforementioned 30 feet tall dragon to death with daggers. Also, you're somehow avoiding being flattened by his claws, which are likely heavier than your tank is. In addition, you also seem to be able to survive after he breathes fire directly on your face. Alternatively, you're such a good fighter that you can dance between his legs so well that the dragon missteps and ends up out of balance ( which, as a level 12-14 fighter is entirely believable. You're probably one of the top fighters in the whole world ), your rogue is so good that he can find and exploit a gap between the dragon's scales and actually damage him, and when the dragon tries to hit you with his claws or tail, you dodge out of the way at the last second and survive. "Crap" is subjective. Just because you dislike something and can't be bothered to find a believable explanation, it doesn't mean it makes no sense. PoE is a fantasy rpg, half the stuff that happens in combat could be labeled as "crap", by your standards. Have obsidian documented anywhere what immunities they have implemented? My understanding of it is you can no longer blind enemies with one eyes or charm enemies without brains. If this is the case I don't see the problem with it. These changes will effect spell casters the most obvisouly. It's called change people. Get used to it because this game changes more then I change my pants Nope, the spellcasters have all the tools they need to play around immunities. Adding immunities actually makes the spellcaster's playstyle more engaging, because while they're forced to find a different way to handle an opponent that's immune to, say, knockdown, they still have a plethora of debuffs at ther disposal, and can easily find another spell to cast. It will likely be less effective, but most debuffs are still worth it (and, more importantly, you're still playing and choosing instead of just staying there ) and still impact the encounter in a significant way. Martials are the ones who're more likely to see their tactical options reduced, simply because they have fewer options.When you're a fighter and your opponent is immune to knockdown, what do you do instead? Nothing, you stand there and auto-attack him to death. In the end, games revolve around making the right choice ( and getting rewarded by the game's mechanics ). The kind of gameplay that this change enforces makes the spellcasters' playstyle more tactical, and the martials' more dull.

You're also able to poke the aforementioned 30 feet tall dragon to death with daggers. Also, you're somehow avoiding being flattened by his claws, which are likely heavier than your tank is. In addition, you also seem to be able to survive after he breathes fire directly on your face. Alternatively, you're such a good fighter that you can dance between his legs so well that the dragon missteps and ends up out of balance ( which, as a level 12-14 fighter is entirely believable. You're probably one of the top fighters in the whole world ), your rogue is so good that he can find and exploit a gap between the dragon's scales and actually damage him, and when the dragon tries to hit you with his claws or tail, you dodge out of the way at the last second and survive. "Crap" is subjective. Just because you dislike something and can't be bothered to find a believable explanation, it doesn't mean it makes no sense. PoE is a fantasy rpg, half the stuff that happens in combat could be labeled as "crap", by your standards.

It depends on how you build the aforementioned meatbag. Intellect affects Constant Recovery, Unbroken's buff duration, Unbending, Knockdown, Vigorous Defense, Disciplined Barrage, Clear Out's duration, aside from any debuffs you might get from MC feats and/or items. It's actually a pretty decent stat for a defensively-oriented fighter (if I were building a pure tank, I'd dump dexterity instead. Might affects healing, perception helps landing those knockdowns and hitting with your draining weapon, so you at the very least want to avoid a penalty, constitution increases your endurance, resolve boosts your deflection and intellect affects pretty much all of your battlefield control abilities and the duration of your defensive and offensive buffs). But if you're building an auto-attacking dps machine, sure, dump away.

Just game balance, really. Hatchets are tools, not weapons, I suppose the devs needed to add some kind of benefit to make them appealing and diverse.

Eh...? I never said it was 3.5/level, I said that in 2.0 it was definitely 3/level since I tested it ( and haven't checked again since then ).

Well, you know... 20% additive damage is 20% additive damage no matter how you frame it. Whenever you're fighting something that's immune to knockdown ( and there's plenty of opponents who are... dragons, oozes, blights, drakes, spirits... just to name a few... ) that's all the ability amounts to ( except it's twice per battle instead of being always up ). Regardless, I'm not suggesting the two are even remotely comparable, I was addressing the point that the ability is still useful even when you're fighting something that's immune to knockdown because it got a damage upgrade (which is minimal, really ).

Unless something changed since 2.0, that was definitely not the case... my paladin was 11 points ahead of my custom fighter in 2.0, even at level 14. If he'd gotten 3.5 points of deflection/level, he'd have been 17 points ahead instead. I ran the math (and tested it in game) when defender was nerfed, so I'm pretty sure it wasn' t the case back then. Did you try rolling a new paladin? Maybe, just as the buff to the fighter's deflection isn't applying to existing characters, the nerf doesn't kick in until you roll a new character...

Uh, no? Knockdown was supposed to provide an option for those who like the archetype of fighters but want to spice it up a bit and do more than auto-attack. Now that option is gone. Less variety=bad. Also "well, you can still rock without it" isn't a great counterpoint. My point isn't that fighters aren't viable now, it's that a class which was severly lacking in variety to begin with just lost another option.

Well, aside from the fact that what a Paladin should be is purely a matter of preference, in PoE they still have great defenses, when Faith and Convinction is maxxed out (slightly better deflection than a fighter, way better fort, ref and will);also, they have a bunch of defensive utilities, a party-wide defensive aura, insane healing, can revive a downed ally and get a sick 13th level class ability which provides both damage and party wide healing...they're still defensive powerhouses, frankly.

The basic version of faith and convinction always applied to companions, provided they were in combat. Did something change?

Nah, that's +20% additive damage, twice per battle. It's strictly inferior to, say, savage attack, a generic talent that's always on. It amounts to like 10 damage/encounter if you're using a two hander. That's hardly "good". Knocking down stuff was the only option they got in combat. Without it, they're stuck auto attacking 'till they're blue in the face.

Meh. Immunities make sense and add a layer of tactical depth when you have to play around them. When, depending on your party of choice, the answer might well be "just stand there and auto-attack some more" they have virtually no value. In PoE, they feel tacked on. The system was neither conceived nor balanced with immunities in mind, and it shows. The answer to, say, "my fighter's knockdown doesn't work on half the enemies in the game!" should be "then play or build him differently", not "just choose another class, one which comes with actual options". Such changes, IMHO, should only be introduced as options ( maybe tying them to an achievement, like second-wave options in x-com ). Want to play with immunities? Cool, toggle them on, get a cool achievement when you finish the game and knock yourself out failing to trip stuff. Me, I'd rather keep using the few options my martials can get.

Also, if you're assuming magic items, both characters will probably sport a second chance item. Unfortunately for the rogue, this means that the monk gets a chance to retaliate ( and knock the rogue on his ass with FoA ) pretty much every time, regardless of how hard the rogue hits. Still, PoE isn't really tuned for PvP. If I had to duel, though, I'd choose a tank (likely a paladin). That 130-140 deflection is pretty hard to hit without party buffs.

I disagree. The gap between casters and non-casters in terms of CC capabilities is already disproportionately big to the point that a small tip either way won't make much a difference, and this is by design—it is not melee classes' job to CC; it is casters' job. It is only fair that casters are better at it than non-casters. That melee classes in PoE are offered a small array of CC abilities to enable for more varied tactics than just auto-attack is gravy, but in no way implies that melee classes should rely heavily on CC to win a fight. Their thing is still to win fights by withstanding more punishment than their foes and dealing out damage faster. * * That Wizards can be better than Fighters or Monks at melee through a number of incredibly powerful spells, on the other hand, contributes greatly to the gap between casters and non-casters. Basically casters can become as good at melee as non-casters, but the opposite isn't true. CC immunities are going to hurt more those classes that more heavily rely on CC—casters. Suddenly, Slicken-spam won't be an insta-win move in all fights (though it will likely stay so in most; only a specific subset of enemies is going to be immune to Prone) and you'll have to do something differently. But when my Fighter can hit for 50 damage per swing with a recovery time of 15 frames, I don't really care if my Knock Down doesn't render my enemy Prone. Besides, in 2.03 Knock Down is getting a 20% damage bonus that lands regardless of whether the enemy is immune to Prone, so it will remain a relevant ability even in those fights; Slicken won't really do much if the Prone affliction doesn't work (the same is true for a Monk's Force of Anguish, for example; I'm talking Fighter because it's the melee class I know best.) The last thing we need right now is an even easier game. More like, if only enemy A.I. could be as smart as the player... While this is true, it is also true that melee classes in PoE are generally more varied and complex than their AD&D or 3rd Ed. D&D counterparts (haven't really played 4th or 5th Ed.) AD&D yes, but then (high level) fighters in AD&D could still be all kinds of powerful due to the way saving throws worked. This was no longer true in 3e, where saving throws DCs scaled better than low saves, and so being able to target the opponent's worst saving throw often became a winning tactic. TBH, I think martial classes (especially fighters) could become pretty complex in 3e, depending on how you built them and as long as you allowed enough splatbooks ( see karmic-strike uberchargers, for example ), it's just that high level spells were just way too good. Anyway, in PoE the martials range from "dirty simple" ( fighters and barbarians) to "moderately complex" ( monks ), IMHO. They're in no way comparable to casters in terms of complexity, tho, and it's a pity, I'd love to play a martial class with some kind of resource management and an arsenal of tricks.

Well, the lesson is not really that casters will always be more powerful, rather that, generally, a class with a higher level of complexity will outperform a relatively simple class because, if it has enough good options, it will likely be able to adapt its tactics to just about any conceivable situation. Incidentally, D&D, and thus the IE engine and its derivatives, PoE included, equate "martial" with "simple" and "spellcaster" with "complex".

Yeah, but BG ( and BG 2 ) do give you all you need to, say, eyeball your damage/round once you know the rules (which may or may not be explained well in game, I honestly can't remember now ). Also, once you know both systems, AD&D's way of handling things is still way faster than PoE's ( which, as you say,is obvious to an extent ), simply because there are fewer steps involved (no DR, a fixed amount of attacks/round instead of attack speed, no interrupts, just to name a few ). Conversely, PoE doesn't tell you a lot of stuff ( how do you resolve interrupts? How do attack speed and recovery interact? Which bonuses are additive and which are multiplicative? What stacks and what doesn't? ) and, even when you understand how it works, it's still more complex than its AD&D counterpart. Sure, it tells you more than BG does, but that's simply because there's a lot more going on. It also keeps a lot more information hidden than the infinity engine games do, tho. Again, to me, that's not a problem. But I can understand how it could put off some people.

That's certainly a possibility, but it doesn't seem quite that easy to me. In AD&D ( and, by the way, the version of AD&D we saw in BG was only slightly different than the pnp version, and the difference came mainly from kits and the way weapon specialization could progress over the second rank ) you have 6 second rounds, a fixed number of attacks/round, and, mostly, a slew of static bonuses that you get to add to your damage. So, in order to calculate how much damage/round you deal, you just need your to-hit chance vs the specific opponent you're fighting, and just multiply it by your average damage ( which is just the sum of your weapon's average damage and your static damage bonuses ) and by your attacks/round. Easy enough, right? Let's see how PoE (whose system I prefer to the BG version of AD&D, if we're talking crpgs ) handles the same thing: first, you have to understand how many "attacks/round" you have, or, in other words, how often you attack. There's really no easy way to do it, you just have to either test it yourself or go look for it on the internet. Then, after you've understood how often your greatsword-wielding fighter attacks, you have to factor in dexterity (for both attack speed and recovery ) and how much your armor, which only affects your recovery, impacts how often you will land a blow. After that, you need to estimate how much damage each blow deals; since all damage bonuses are additive and expressed in percentages in PoE, you need to extract the weapon's base damage, scroll your character sheet looking for each and any additive bonus you might possess, convert those % values into static values and then add them up; that alone is much more complex (or, at least, takes much more time )than just looking at your character sheet and looking up how much damage each swing deals. Then you'd need to factor in the way defense and the combat table interact: instead of just multiplying your average damage by your chance to hit, you need to multiply it by your chance to hit + half your chance to graze and + 1 1/2 your chance to crit. After that, you factor in the opponent's DR and add any lash damage you might possess. Dunno, maybe I'm biased, but PoE's maths seems way more complex than BG's, to me. Also, let me be perfectly clear on this point: I don't thing it's a bad thing, and I do prefer PoE's way of handling combat. Also, I'd love replaying the BGs and IWD redone with PoE's system: it's an engine that, to me, looks loosely based on a mix-and-match of D&D 4e ( the four static defenses, the way health replenishes endurance after a fight, the damage-to-endurance ratio, the way engagement works...), strongly influenced by the concept of bounded accuracy brought forth by D&D 5e ( the way the combat engine is designed seems to try very hard to keep bonuses and penalties relevant across the levels ) and a magic system that's very reminiscent of AD&D-BECMI-3.x (at least as far as wizards and clerics are concerned ), designed to be run by a CPU rather than a group of players who might or might not be able to handle the complexities of the engine. It's designed from the grounds up for this purpose, rather than being a clumsy port. Still, eyeballing things like damage/second does look like it takes considerably more effort than it did in BG or BG2, to me; YMMV, obviously.

Just grab hold the line and savage attack. It's only -1 engagement limit and you get +20% damage to all of your attacks rather than once in a blue moon. Also, the CC immunity has nothing to do with fighters... it's some monsters that are getting the immunities come the patch.

That's not an easy question, especially because it's based on a false premise: pretty much every spell that doesn't do damage, or heal, or add defense in the form of DR scales quite well with level. It might not be comparable to a higher level spell, but every spell that adds a static bonus to either accuracy or defense, that increases your speed, reduces or increases a duration or debuffs or takes out of the fight an opponent using your own ( scaling ) accuracy is generally every bit as good at high level as it used to be at low level. As Kdubya says, you'd have to redesign the whole thing from scratch if you wanted to come up with something balanced. That, or you just accept that the game can only be balanced to an extent and just wing it.

Well, yeah, but that's actually the kind of (tricky) balance games like D&D have being promoting for ages ( and PoE is intentionaly based around that same model ). Resource management is a form of challenge in itself, and one that can be fun to boot, it's just that balancing a class with a finite number of resources against one that can go on all day is hard at best, impossible at worst, especially when you're trying to balance a game where, aside from having a different resource management model, the classes also come in varying degrees of complexity, and, since you can't predict which kind of party the player will be putting together, estimating what would make for a good challenge becomes pretty hard.

Well, ideally, all of them. The game is balanced around the assumption that you'll face n fights before needing to rest; thus, there's no specific encounter that's a suitable challenge by itself, but all of them are supposed to represent a suitable challenge across the adventuring day. You could nova during the first fight and be completely drained by the time the second encounter comes by, or you could save your daily resources and slog through the first fights of the day while obliterating the more challenging fights; in the end, what matters is that, provided you face the n combat encounters you're assumed to face over the course of the day, you've expended a significant chunk of your daily resources (how significant is up to the dev's idea of "challenge").

Ive never seen a game where the mooks weren't at full power when you encounter them. Youre saying that in PoE you will encounter half wounded parties and casters who have already blown their spells for the day? The game some how scans your health, endurance and current spells/abilities and scales the game accordingly on the fly? Uhm, nope, to my understanding, he's just saying that, despite the fact that you can just backtrack to the nearest tavern and rest before every fight, thus starting each and every fight at full resources, the game still assumes (and is still balanced around the fact that) you won't be using your per-rest abilities every fight, and that you'll only rest from time to time. IOW, such mechanics are in place for a reason, whether or not they're appropriately enforced, and the fact that they can't be enforced despite being assumed makes balancing the game harder.

Apparently you shouldn't underestimate a developer's willingness to take the player's shiny things away. In case Something Awful acts up again, here is the quote : ...ok, this is starting to feel ridiculous. I'm all for balance, but the game is starting to feel like an extended beta at this point. Worse yet, rather then bringing the worst options up to par, they nerf the more exciting stuff. Don't get me wrong, I think per encounter spells were a bit (or way )over the top, in terms of balance ( yeah, I know you can just rest before each encounter and make encounter and per-rest powers roughly equivalent, but regardless, it's pretty clear that the devs intended for rests to be fairly rare and thus act as a balancing mechanism... whether they succedeed in that regard is open to debate, but the intent was pretty clear ), but still, the game's been out for like 6 months, a major patch just introduced a bunch of new features and the game is still rife with bugs atm... How about focusing on making the classes that lag behind better instead of the MVPs (which people spent time and effort leveling up ) less fun?