Blovski

Yes. Edited. Pretend you saw nothing : )

In my run where I got it I left Icantha's fodder alone because I wasn't dashing around doing good deeds compulsively for no reason. If you are playing that character, then it seems fair to miss it? I mean, I get that a lot of people don't realise there's the third option in the tower then feel like it's a non-choice because of precisely what you've described but it doesn't seem that unreasonable as a design to me.

Pretty much. It's like they just said to themselves "eeeehh, it's a new IP we can make our companions exposition machines." Their builds aren't even useful past normal difficulty, so it renders them obsolete. I wouldn't say they are boring per se, even though they kinda are, just irrelevant (both narratively AND mechanically). And that's the worst the companions can ever be - irrelevant. Already talked about this 3 times in this very thread. I've not had a problem using the default companions on Hard, really, excepting that you've only really got one good tank.

Selective quoting there. The entire quote is: They name dropped Baldur's Gate and Athkatla. If you're going to use those cities as the benchmark as big cities then I expect something similar in size. Well, the whole game obviously doesn't live up to the colossal size of the Baldur's Gate games (Baldur's Gate 1 having much less polish and nuance in a lot of it, Baldur's Gate 2 being much stronger). I didn't feel ripped off by them, though. I suspect BG 2 had a big advantage in the pipeline and engine being worked out already.

Anyone interested in getting a consensus about which levels are worth doing in a non-completionist playthrough. Levels 3 and 10-11 seem the biggest difficulty spikes to me so far with the Ogre Druids and Adragans/Cean Gwylas respectively. Level 4 has a lot of great loot - Persistence (hunting bow), Resolution (Sabre) + some staff the level before. Level 3 has Rundl's Finery which seems like a good gear choice for anyone not aspiring to tanking. So, where do people feel the goodies are, and which levels do people find challenging?

I don't really know what you expect here other than them writing unique dialogue for every single character class? I mean, I agree the reactivity could be a bit better but Eothas honestly appears to get more stuff than most other characters.

Visually excellent, not as memorable in terms of gameplay as Watcher's Keep. Some of the Endless Paths lore is really nice.

1. Penetrating Shot. 2. Vicious Aim. 3. Whatever else tickles your fancy There ya go.

Um, it's not actually that weak because that bonus applies to spells as well. A bit counterintuitive but the use is coming just before a big AOE spell to get a load more hits and crits off it.

There's a few, you get a bevy of options with the Blood Sacrifice Quest and the Gods. So far I've found a +1 Might, 5% Endurance you can get from the machine in Teir Nowneth (Heritage Hill). +1 Perception and Lightning DR from the songbird quest in Twin Elms. The factions each give you a bonus (+2 DR from Knights, +5 Accuracy from Dozens, +0.3 Crit from Doemenals). You can get some bonuses from the Red Fangs in Twin Elms (can't remember, think it's DR and maybe Per again?) and one from either the Glanfathan Hunters (I don't know) or the Mercenaries (+0.1 crit) in a quest in the Northweald.

How on earth would you even roleplay that scenario? There is no good-neutral-evil sort of options on the table. There is no "you can siphon energy from the machine to your benefit," there is no "you can activate it again to wipe out another part of the city," what you're doing is undeniably good. You gain positive karma regardless of what you choose to do there, and you do a good thing regardless of what you do. Deactivating the machine is half-assing it, blowing it up is doing the full job. To destroy the machine, you have to destroy the souls as well. My character wanted the machine destroyed but ultimately wasn't willing to pay that price. Touche on this point. I'd forgotten that when I wrote that. Still, some of my other complaints remain solid: 1) Community reputations do nothing for you beyond making some merchant prices cheaper or help to end a quest one step faster. The only time you'll encounter choice and consequence is the three factions all have a merchant offering different things. That's it. 2) Dialog reputations seemingly do nothing. It's an amazing illusion of uniqueness, but the amount of times a dialog reputation actually changes your outcome can be counted on one hand. Typically dialog reputation amounts to little more than someone commenting on what a great person you are (Benevolent) reputation before offering you the quest they were going to offer you anyways. Prime example? There's a quest where you find a monk who asks you to deliver a sealed message to his order. If you have Honest reputation he thanks the gods you found him, if you're deceptive he comments on it but also says you're sadly his only hope. In both scenarios, you're treated exactly the same. There is no situation where his monk order will be skeptical of what you tell them because you're deceptive or the like, it plays out exactly the same. All scenarios where dialog reputation is recognized, it has no actual impact on the quest and the quest would be obtainable anyways. The only exceptions I can name off the top of my head is it's possible to psyche out some enemy attackers with Aggressive rep and get them to back off. 3) Endings feel meaningless as far as difference goes, at least on the Gods. Helping a God is always universally good; even supporting Woedica does not support in the game feeding you tidbits about the bad it did, but rather only good or neutral aspects of this choice are mentioned. Betraying a God is always bad. I enjoy morally grey, but I also think trying to be as good or as evil as possible should be a thing. As far as the Gods and Companions go, bad endings are achieved by purposefully breaking a pact with a God or by just not bothering with a companion's quest (usually). It just feels a little weak. Unfortunately, Gods and Companions endings make up the majority of the endings. 1. Yeah, I more or less agree. It's kind of silly that you can be hated by the Doemenals, have killed at least one of them and then walk into their mansion full of guards to do a quest peacefully. You can also access all the faction merchants simultaneously. I like the different perks for them, though. 2. Well, kinda, though I feel the alternative is the builds-to-meet-dialogue-requirements problem that's dogged the Fallout games and so on. The few occasions where these are meaningful are really refreshing though. 3. Personally, I think all the gods' results are portrayed as valid, meaningful decisions rather than there being good and bad endings. I dunno, it felt meaningful to me but I get where you're coming from.

Personally I really like the new combat system and given how many games with the I.E. combat system I have I can always play them if I fancy it. My main gripe is that the enemy AI is pretty bad at making tactical decisions that are going to make life hard for you.

My current general loadout: Level 1 - Slicken, Chill Fog, Fan of Flames, Eldritch Aim Level 2 - Infuse with Vital Essence, Paralysing Touch Thingy Level 3 - Fireball, Expose Vulnerabilities, Deleterious Alacrity Level 4 - Confusion Honestly, once you hit confusion using any other spells beyond it seems to be optional.

If you're going to play the realistic ranged weapons card Hunting bows are completely useless in RL warfare even hundreds of years before guns had even been invented, zero draw strength vs metal armour. So 100% historical realism in PoE, a hunting bow designed to kill deer is useless against human beings. Non-longbow European warbows weren't very useful against armored targets in the era where guns were beginning to see use because again, not enough penetration compared to crossbows which penetrate extremely well even though they're slower. Few European forces fielded large units of archers that weren't using crossbows or longbows because crossbows were that much more effective even though they fired slower.Crossbows>everything except Longbows and Composite bows. Basically nobody used longbows and composite bows in Europe, ever. Relatively speaking a few randoms in the British Isles were a tiny minority in historical warfare, and composite bows, although incredibly effective game changing weapons that were far in advance of European archery, just didn't exist in Europe. 100% historical accuracy to Pillars of Eternity. Crossbows and guns co-existed and over time guns replaced Crossbow. The status quo for most of continental Europe in the 1400s and 1500s was well equipped crossbowman=extremely effective, missile weapon of choice for Spain/France/Italian Penninsula/Holy Roman Empire, and eventually guns took over as they became cheaper and cheaper. So just like Pillars of Eternity, where in the early game Guns are both hard to find and the -5 accuracy renders crossbows far more viable, while Not surprising for Josh Sawyer, the Pillars of Eternity setup is coincidentally doesn't make much sense at all from a gameplay perspective, entire weapon types are redundant, but is fastidiously accurate historically speaking. I'm pretty sure people used longbows in Europe, even outside the British Isles. The chief difference was the training regimen and widespread popularity of the longbow in England. The Hundred Years War certainly proved the effectiveness of a properly trained archery force (a few 'randomers' who soundly defeated the best cavalry forces of the day). Composite bows were certainly used by the Ottomans, the Byzantines and the Avars on the fringes of Europe. Europe was not some self-contained box. The reason for the crossbow and early firearms eventually taking over in terms of popularity is not that they were more effective but that they were a damn sight easier to use and required a lot less training. In gameplay terms, a ranger can take both Penetrating Shot and Vicious Aim with a hunting bow and consistently deal moderate-to-high damage to anything that doesn't have really big DR, using Envenomed Strike to get raw damage on anyone that does. If you want to skimp on Penetrating Shot, the Warbow is possibly more valuable.

Sorry HH but I needs me some +1 might, how do you get this option? Talk to the Animancer before you go off to talk to Icantha (or after, at which point he's so degenerated you need to feed him to keep him ready). He promises to show you something about the machine if you send something his way. Then tell the guys from Icantha's house it's safe on top of the tower. I don't know if you can do it with the Valtas child as well (I'd imagine you can, though). Talk to him again once he's had his sacrifice and you know Engwithan from Icantha and you can siphon the souls and get your Gift From The Machine perk.

How on earth would you even roleplay that scenario? There is no good-neutral-evil sort of options on the table. There is no "you can siphon energy from the machine to your benefit," there is no "you can activate it again to wipe out another part of the city," what you're doing is undeniably good. You gain positive karma regardless of what you choose to do there, and you do a good thing regardless of what you do. Deactivating the machine is half-assing it, blowing it up is doing the full job. There most definitely IS a way to siphon energy from the machine for your benefit. You have to feed the animancer first. It gives you a great perk (+1 Might, +5% endurance). It is incredibly tempting, especially in an ironman playthrough where you know those few HPs and that extra damage might be make or break when you take a hubristic or difficult fight. On a basic level the decision is between making a decision to save the souls in front of you or to guarantee for the future at the cost of the souls already in there. With the siphoning you've a third option where you decide that increasing your power to fix problems is more important than the souls there or the safety of this one district. I also like that getting the full information about what the machine is really *for* (i.e. sucking up souls to become power) requires a moral compromise, while taking the better safe than sorry route is all about wrecking things you don't understand.

1. Um, the difference is one of choice and characterisation rather than result? And there's an impact on how that first dungeon plays. 2. Doesn't mean there's no difference, especially if you go back to finish off corpse Raedric. 3. Yeah, the reactivity on this is kinda underdone for the plot point. 4. Um, obviously the option to destroy the machine was there and the machine really doesn't appear to have any function other than the one that was there. I think you're mad that the game DID respond to you rather than that it didn't. 5. It was kind of obvious the Paladins intended to do that with their pet animats, I figured? 6. I'm fine with the plot twist, kinda miffed that your rather great conversation there doesn't convey the nuance of responsiveness I'd like. Maybe it's just that taking muted careful options isn't enough. 7. The world is not one where you magically fix things by being protagonist mcsquarejaw and telling everyone to play nice. It'd be a lousy choice if Pallegina's moral choice was one where the nice option for her was also the nice one for the Dyrwood AND for the Republics. By letting her take a moral compromise you're also taking a geopolitical compromise. 8. Eh, um, this is kind of the point of the game. That getting the answers you wanted isn't going to solve all your problems but you still need to make decisions based on them.

I have my ranger using Penetrating Shot and Vicious Aim active at the same time. His rate of fire is a little slower, but he seems to hit a good deal harder. He also has that ranger talent that allows shots to hit additional targets beyond the first one, though that one's worth taking in the long run. Envenomed Strike is definitely worth taking. You only get 3 uses per rest, but it is a very useful ability against tougher targets because, IIRC, it's raw damage that ignores all DR. But since you only get 3 uses per rest, I'd suggest saving it for critical situations. I'm currently in Act 3 (I suppose) and Eder leads my party with about 50k damage, and my PC is easily #2 at about 45k. And I only have my Ranger PC in melee if there's no other choice. I'd much rather have him raining arrows down on the enemy, since that's where his true talent lies. Pretty much the same. Didn't get Envenomed Strike yet (think I'm level 6) but certainly considering it. There's a great hunting bow (Persistence) in level 4 of The Endless Paths, so I beelined to that. The high accuracy means your crits counteract a lot of DR and the high rate of fire means any other DR busting effect is gravy.

1. Yep 2. Yep 3. Would like as an option. 4. Hm. Probably. 5. Hard to disagree. 6. Eh, I like it. On Hard I've found messing around with kiting is rarely worth the hassle. 7. I don't like it but you're probably right. 8. Don't know if I agree. Personally I'm usually running out of HP before I run out of spells.

Loosely, modern internets and distribution system allows for a lot more feedback and patching. Less lump it or leave it business. I'd note that in BG all of the classes at least had *something* unique (like, Bards getting the fastest level up for a spellcaster, hence a lot of damage) and filled slightly different roles to each other and used different equipment so a lot of the balance was enforced by item restrictions. While I half agree with you, imagine there's two classes called the Protagonist and the Mook. The protagonist has the best of every single thing in the game with no drawbacks. The Mook is the opposite. All the other characters in the game are beautifully arrayed, interesting and balanced. The presence of the Mook and the Protagonist has no impact at all on the other classes or gameplay without them BUT they would, I think, make the game worse by their inclusion. The other classes aren't going to be as fun to experiment with because they can't do anything better than the Protagonist and the Mook is a redundance for the amusement of achievement showoffs. (cf. Alpha Protocol which was kinda buggered by having the pistol be astonishingly powerful and options like the SMGs being ridiculously naff - I mean, I don't get those people who play a spy game and don't want to use pistols but I understand why they were mad to find out the game didn't support the options they took very well) Personally I think the game balance is OK, with a few areas for tweaking. Some classes are easier to enjoy than others but that's fine.

^^ On the ranger discussion - I'm rolling with one right now and he's probably my party's most consistent damage dealer.You really need penetrating shot and the +aim talent to make him pay off, though.

The main plot is not just ending the epidemic but also finding out who you are (and more specifically, making what you can of an answer that doesn't fix everything for you). The companions and their quests are all thematically tied to that. KOTOR 2's best companion, in my opinion, was G0T0, who was not exactly critical to the plot, and I kind of feel like that game was Obsidian doing excellent work within Bioware's Jade Empire/KOTOR/DA:O formula for how to do companions.

I reckon Priest of Eothas has the most early game. Cipher probably has the most throughout.

Lionheart had some really neat reactivity to their races (pure human, sylphy, beasty and demony), of the I.E. games proper I think IWD 2 might have had the most.

1. Int gives you a larger AOE and a larger area of non-friendly-fire (that's the lighter bit on the edge of your cone/circle) within that. If you want to use Fan of Flames you can back up your wizard so the Flames will hit the enemy but not your frontline. 2. Such is AOE. 3. Honestly I'd rather have Arcane Assault. It targets Reflex which is *much* better vs. Shadows. 4. I like that this changes up combat a bit. I believe Shadows only have one Teleport, which won't help you with your two-wizard setup unless you have endure elements kicking around so one of your wizards can tank but it is useful with bigger parties. I took on the temple with three characters in my first run on Normal, which was a pain but doable. On my subsequent two I've had biggish parties for it. 5. Would not say Wizard spells are weak at all unless you want to just have one spell to win a battle... With regards to the Temple - it's a bit of a weird placement with the level 2 being pretty difficult compared to the first level and some tricky enemies like phantoms (one on normal) and especially Shades (on hard and above). General advice is to get a bigger and better party rather than doing it first thing (try Anslog's Compass and the two Gilded Vale Quests and so on if you haven't).