b0rsuk

I've been thinking about making skills more interesting and useful. Lore: you need high Lore to craft better scrolls, and place weapon enchantments. Each enchantment has a requirement. Survival: you need high Survival to craft better potions, and place armor enchantments (especially proofing) Stealth: displays the sum of loot value for each enemy. For example a yellow "20" might display next to an ooze, because you only get a body part. A troll dropping a fine club would display "300" or whatever the value of these things is. This would make it easier for players to judge which encounters are completely optional, and this would boost Stealth skill. Athletics: doesn't reduce Fatigue. Constitution does. Athletics is removed, scripted encounters depend on Dex or Might. Does anyone have a better idea ?

I think not. Each scroll costs gold in one way or another, and the spells tend to be weaker than full versions.

You can't go back from Sun in Shadow, yet there is an AUTO-SAVE labeled "PRE-ENDGAME". I don't see why the same method can't be used for other areas. I've been thinking about time-based quests, but scrotiemcb's idea is even better.

No, it's not level6. TALENTS are on even levels, abilities are on odd ones. I just checked to make sure and Sworn Enemy is level 5 (five). So, you could build a paladin like this: 1: Flames of Devotion 2: Fires of Darcozzi Palace 3: Zealous Focus 4: Weapon Focus: XYZ 5: Sworn Enemy 6: Intense Flames, or Deep Faith, or whatever As to what paladins are meant to do, what they're designed to do, it is very clear: TANKY support. I say TANKY, because their recommended attributes at character creation are: Resolve, Perception, Might, Constitution. There's no mention of Intelligence and Dexterity !

Don't forget your Rabbit Fur Gloves !

You would open every fight with Relentless Storm, Sunlance, Conjure Greater Blight, Firebug or Plague of Insects. Then enemy dies. Another fight, identical choice of spells. You'd forget about level1-3 spells completely. You could win the game with a party of 6 druids. Summon blights every single fight (the first is at level2). 6 druids * 4 spells = 24 blights per battle just from level2 spell without Bonus X Spell talents.

Because they do in solo game. In party game every calss can do. But as Kaylon himself wrote above- rangers has good single target damage, but solo game is about AOE nuking/AOE CC, Tanking and healing or tanking and DPS (AOE if possible). Rangers suck becasue they have single target skills. If Rooting was AOE CC then ranger would be quite good. And if his pets were scaling better, because for example Bear can tank some mobs, ok. But put him against CC enemies like Shades, Crystal Spiders or Vithracks and suddenly it is only you and enemies and then ranger suck. Wish Ranger had more skills to build his pets to be super tanks/DPS like Beast Master in World of Warcraft. And if pet choices were better- like drake, big spider etc. If Pets Deflection and, most important, resistance against CC- petrify, domination nad charm were much better- then you could relay on your pet as tank or CC monster and build ranger for pure DPS. Right now pets are more annoyance for me in PotD since they suck as tank, suck against CC and their DPS suck, and if they die- ranger get penalties. My buddy was playing ranger in party in PotD- he was doing great Damage and killing really fast enemy wizards/priests, but solo- no chances, especially in Endless Paths. He is beast on bosses- Blunderbuss DOT stack plus Envenomed Striket DOT stack (both per pellet) and it deals insane damage. But after that- reloaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad...... I see your point. To tell the truth, I think this game has abundance of AoE effects. Ranger's Binding Roots is one of very few (good) single target skills. The thing is, there are very few strong monsters in the game. I mean, Adra Animat is not much stronger than regular Animat. You don't fight something like 2 Battle Horrors in Baldur's Gate. I would enjoy encounters which have an occasional big baddie among them. Alas, PoE's pathfinding is not up to the task The difference isn't big, but Boar is noticably tankier than other animals. High Constitution, 15 resolve (!!), 5 Int. The best mental stats among all animal companions. But still, at level 12 animals have 60 Accuracy and 60 Deflection.

What's the difference between Bull's Will and Mental Fortress ? They seem extremely similar. Last time I checked Mental Fortress gave exactly 10, as much as Bull's Will. Maybe Mental Fortress was just added for the sake of consistency, to have a talent corresponding to Unstoppable and the third one. I believe Unstoppable (or whatever it's called) gives +10 vs prone and other stuff, but there are attacks which cause prone but don't target fortitude. Cipher ? Mind Wave ?

An American RPG is inspired by USA history. What a surprise !

Only if you can't adapt and develop new tactics.

I'm not playing anymore but only until 1.05 comes out and fixes the bug that makes Interrupting Blows work against you. My PC is a monk with Interrupting Blows.

I was also unable to get any effects from that. I've fed it to Sagani within seconds of combat ending. She got minor fatigue once combat ended. Eating it didn't do anything.

1.04 Spiritshift duration is not displayed anywhere in the game!!! I've checked Spiritshift ability description, character screen (active effects - only boar regeneration), hovering mouse over my character's portrait. Nothing. To reproduce: 1. Start a new game 2. Choose Druid 3. In the fight with young wolves, use spiritshift. Try to find any way to display how many seconds remain. In particular, I have no clue if Intelligence affects the duration of Spiritshift or not.

If resting system annoys munchkins to no end but leaves normal players alone, I say it's a GOOD system !

This can't be. "Everyone knows rangers suck".

If you build a party for stun, it's a daft idea to rely on weapons from Act III !!! You have Hours of St. Grimbalt in Dyrford. Greatsword, Accurate 3, +50% damage on crit, prone on crit. Also, Tall Grass. For people who are not close-minded, there's Disciplined Barrage on fighters.

Like so many of sensuki's ideas, it's dumb. There is no dual wielding pistols of that kind any more than there is dual wielding of two-handed battle-axes or dual-wielding polearms. Dual wielding helmets. Like so much that comes from that whiner, it's infantile trash. You can dual wield torches. Weapon Focus: Club. Damage like normal club, no accuracy bonus, 10% fire lash without enchanting. Some day I'm going to make a rogue dual wielding frost-enchanted torches.

That's just not true. There are traps like Malignant Cloud which can deal considerable damage and weaken enemies at the start of a fight. Then they get -20 fortitude or something like that and are easier to knock down or target with spells. There's also Gaze of the Adragan trap. I wonder how strong Death Ring traps are - I've never been able to disarm one.

Can you highlight what was 'good design' in BG exactly? While I like Pillars of Eternity more overall, I have to admit Baldur's Gate 1 had more interesting encounters. You had groups of all ranged enemies (kobolds, especially in Firewine Ruins), some powerful mages, big monsters (PoE has a few groups of ogres and that's it), spiders/slimes whose poison was actually dangerous, battle horrors. Encounters were more diverse.

Mechanics skill gives Accuracy bonus to traps. Also, you can sell poor traps and buy better ones.

Running out of camping supplies is the game's way of telling you: "You are too weak for this area. Come back later.". Most areas have camping supplies here and there, so I rarely buy them. They also add a strategic factor to per-rest abilities. It's resource management. If all abilities were per encounter, every encounter would look very similar. But the way it works now, you can be out of level2 spells or level3 spells. Eder might be wounded so you send him back with a pistol, Kana holds the line. Durance is almost dead after an encounter with shades, you need to protect him at all costs. It would be a shame to rest right now if all your other characters have green health. So you develop a new tactic to deal with that. Or you declare the game is stupid and you must rest after every encounter. The limit of camping supplies is higher on easier difficulties. Custom companions are for people who strongly dislike some particular companions, or like to play around with an unusual party composition. If you are determined to play without spellcasters, you only have 2 companions in the first act. If you side with Durance, you may not want Eder in your party. Some people like to play with a full party of dwarves. They make their own stories. Also, 3 of the game's classes are unavailable on companions. You'd have to play the game 3 times just to try them all out. Pointless stronghold is the only thing I agree about. Enchanting and the item system has many benefits. You can choose what type of weapon you'd like to fight with, there are no arguments that X or Y weapon skills are the best because you find such and such weapons. Imagine that you chose to train Spears in Baldur's Gate. Enjoy your +1 spear ! And even if developers DID place some good spears (some were placed in EE), you may only wander there in late game if there's open world. With enchanting system, you are no longer completely at mercy of developers. You can also modify magic weapons you find to better suit you. Weapons broke all the time in medieval ages, and that was iron and steel, can you imagine wood ? In PoE weapons feel more disposable and I like it. Conan the Barbarian, in fantasy books, kept losing or breaking weapons all the time. They were just tools to him. Weapons in the game Rune are very disposable. You find many copies of them. You can throw them at enemies. Shields break after being hit a dozen times. Better that than to lose an arm. When you enter Expedition Hall, Sagani says: "Mercenaries. All fancy weapons and no skill."

"Charmed" gives -25 ranged Accuracy, and lowers most of resistances by 20. "Dominated" doesn't have this flaw. You might fare better if you equip the potential targets with ranged weapons, as they won't hit anything with them. I had a druid with a blunderbuss, and he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn when charmed. By the way, charmed effects of some creatures (including fampyrs!) currently targets DEFLECTION. Not Will ! Big shields might help. Try to cast some deflection buffs - that is rarely a bad idea, but if it also protects from charms... Sounds like a bug...

If one of your tanks was a Paladin with Righteous Soul, he wouldn't be charmed. And even if, not for long.

On the other hand, the Knights

Ironically, both the Dozens and the Knights are trying to enforce order. Doemenels seem to be motivated by profit and emotions. They would beat someone up not because he did something bad, not even because he messes up their profits(they do that too), but because it feels good. Although the Knights are not as noble as they pretend to be they are the most tolerant. And the least greedy. Even if something shady is going on, they try to keep good reputation. If they were exposed, it would be good leverage to fix them. You could make a good point the Dozens are the most moral of the bunch. They take morality extremely seriously, they are extremely rigid about it and xenophobic. They like money, but their expeditions don't directly harm other people. They show no respect for things outside their point of view. Overall, I'd prefer living under the Knights, then under the Dozens, (intolerant but rules are clear and it's easy to stay out of trouble), then Doemenels. I feel there isn't much choice unless you deliberately want to roleplay someone nasty. I like Dozens' quest rewards the most.