Orillion

I like this news about Paladins getting all of their modals as a group. Honestly, that's how I'd love to see them built for most of their abilities in PoE2. For example, getting Lay on Hands AND Flame of Devotion at level 1, but only being able to use one of them per encounter (or, two uses of both, total? Depends on how the LOH would be rebalanced for it). Sure, it'd remove pretty much all of the interesting options in building them (beyond talents--they'd become a caster with relatively few spells, in a way) but I feel like it'd make for some much more interesting tactical decisions, and nearly every pair of abilities they get a choice between includes one aggressive ability and one support one. Failing that, though, being able to swap auras as needed (without sacrificing two other, more valuable class abilities) is a good step in the direction of giving Paladins more to do each fight that isn't strictly reactionary.

Chanters are one class that could really use some more options to make it a more active class to play with. I heartily recommend to anyone who wants to main a Chanter in PoE 1 that you download IEMod (recently updated to support 3.05) and check the option having to do with Chanters in the menu (I don't recall what it's called, but it's the only option mentioning chants, phrases or chanters so it should be self-explanatory). It does significantly reduce the difficulty, since you can summon in a phantom, pair of ogres or even the freaking drake in the first few seconds of combat, but it actually enables you to do something with your character in most fights, which is more than you can say for the current design. Balancing them in Pillars 2 to start with a few chants or creating a more active subclass would definitely help to alleviate some of the problems with their design when they're your main character. For a companion I can definitely see the appeal of "fire and forget," but I don't think anyone wants to make one thing and then spend all their time fiddling with the casters every battle.

Is there a ranger subclass that doesn't get a pet? Josh was talking about a ranger whose pet died, but he still gets the pet--as a spirit he can temporarily summon (so it's probably a bit stronger and you can deploy it behind enemies without needing to position ahead of time).

That would depend on the math of it. There's this gray area between being able to wear the heaviest armor and wearing no armor at all you know, and 10 Might should fall within that gray area. The character with 5 or less Might would be the one that is unable to wear any armor due to being so weak. The idea is not to force you to invest in Might, the idea is to punish you for dumping it and rewarding you for investing in it. Also, pulling one or two points away from somewhere isn't going to kill your ability to buff, you don't need to maximize any attribute to be viable. And furthermore that would end up completely in line with classical clerics: they wear medium armour like mail most often, not heavy armour like full plate.

That's why you also implement medical kits, for taking care of a single injury without needing to rest. Makes sense that you would patch up the serious wounds before moving on anyway, no? As I said in another topic, Dragon Age figured this out in 2009, and I don't remember people having any serious complaints about that system; you just need to balance fights around "player needs to ensure one character remains standing at the end of combat, but ideally keep all of them up" rather than "player needs to minimize injuries entirely, or at least keep them in line with daily resource expenditure."

I'm hoping for a replacement armour system, myself. Ideally this would look something like D&D or Pathfinder: Three weight classes of armour, each with its own tradeoffs and a straightforward hierarchy, but then build in reasons to equip an "inferior" piece in a way that D&D and PF don't (example: metal armours have a weakness to lightning, so you can give a nonmetal option at each weight class). I would also like someone at Obsidian to put on a suit of brigandine and continue to tell us it's "heavy" armour, on the level of full plate. (hint, it's less restrictive than the leather armour they show in the game, and far, far lighter than chain mail.) I do like the idea of improving passive abilities with Resolve. I'm hoping the classes end up a lot less passive-oriented in Deadfire (lookin' at you, Paladin) but being able to significantly improve those abilities which ARE passives could lead to some interesting opportunities. My own opinion on crafting is that it's often not good enough to warrant investment in a skill; such a mechanic worked in tabletop games because you could just go out and buy materials as you need them (and most DMs are only going to restrict special materials, and even then probably just to within a reasonable quantity) whereas in PC RPGs you need to find them, either on enemies, in the wilds, or in shops. I can see it working, I'd just personally rather not have to ration skill points for it, especially since you never really know how worthwhile crafting actually is until you find a weapon stronger than the one you just made, five minutes after you crafted it.

I would think that more available permutations of acceptable priest and paladin behaviour would be a bit better than "insignificant." For example, as it stands you can't be a Paladin who is both aggressive or cruel and diplomatic, without taking a hit to your combat effectiveness. That pretty much nixes any attempt to roleplay a lawful evil-style paladin (you can still pick "honest" answers, but those tend to be very dry and fairly infrequent. Priests have it even worse, because their god also determines the only two weapons they can be reasonably accurate with. Ideally THAT will be nixed and priests will have better options for fighting in melee, but I'd rather err on the side of caution.

It's a bit of an awkward thread title, I admit. But regardless, I'm wondering if our main character/any adventurers we hire will be allowed character options which were unavailable in POE, such as origins from too-near countries. For example, you couldn't be from the Vailian Republics, probably so that Pallegina could serve as a logical introduction to them, or from the Dyrwood itself (obviously because your story demanded that you be travelling to Dyrwood for the first time). Because POE2 is a continuation of our character from the first game, I wouldn't be surprised if they cut the concept of backgrounds entirely (since our recent history is all the same--de facto Roadwarden of Caed Nua), but there were some other potential choices which felt conspicuously absent, namely deity choices for clerics. We could worship Eothas, Magran, Berath, Wael, or Skaen. We could not worship Abydon, Woedica, Hylea, Galawain, Ondra, or Rymrgand Some of these made sense from a story perspective (I won't mention which, since they and the reasons are arguably spoilers), but others seem arbitrary, likely left out simply due to lacking in time and resources. For that reason I have to wonder if we'll get more choices this time around. On the one hand, it'd be a bit odd for a priest to change their subject of worship, but on the other hand it'd kind of suck to be locked into the choices we had in the first game, for priests. Likewise with paladin orders. We don't know how many there are, total, but it makes sense to expect more than six (the five we could choose from and the one that was unique to Pallegina) Thoughts?

I hated the health mechanic, when playing on Hard difficulty. One battle going poorly (most often due to poor positioning at the start of it) meant that I'd have to rest with most of my spells and other per-day resources left, and nothing felt worse, other than perhaps the stronghold hirelings payment reminding me that I didn't get enough done that week. As far as I'm concerned, Dragon Age "solved" the health mechanic problem eight years ago: One pool of fairly generous HP resource, which when it drains the character falls unconscious and receives a wound which can be eliminated by either "resting" (returning to camp in DAO or your manor/shack in DA2) or using an injury kit. The challenge became at least keeping one person standing at the end of combat, and ideally keeping everyone up so you're not wasting time or money. Health/Endurance just meant that the monk was inevitably going to drag everyone else down, every single day.

Countdown mechanics add absolutely needless stress to the game, regardless of whether or not they are likely to be reached in normal play.

More importantly, it WAS a player option in the past, and now it's not. Removing options, especially purely cosmetic ones, sets a very bad precedent.

Any word on if they're going to undo that ridiculous removal of facial hair from pale elves?

Might allows wizards to be intimidating. Do not ruin a good thing here.

Sorry if this has been mentioned here, but engagement wasn't implemented necessarily to combat kiting. Play Baldur's Gate again. Engagement is meant to stop that thing that ALL melee enemies do where they push past your melee fighters to go after the cleric or druid who's minding her own business, or the wizard you were intentionally keeping out of the fight altogether.

That's a really, really terrible reason to do anything. BGEE has zooming, anyway, and it's the only thing really making those games worth buying (but damn is it important on today's 1960×1080+ resolutions)