Voss

Of course you don't. You don't have to obsessed to be knowledgable, nor do you need encyclopedic knowledge of every last creature to know what works best in the general case or what not to use in specific cases. Do you go put on plate mail to walk around golf courses in a lightning storm? No? You must be obsessed.

It is a numbers game from start to finish. All RPGs are, and holding the illusion that they aren't is pretty baffling to me. Pure math on the mechanical end. Well, except for crap like Dragon Age Inquisition, where you just plug talents in at level up and the game won't let you see the back end, but its easy mode start to finish so whatever. But then DAI is an interactive story that forces you along a couple 'Choose Our Own Adventure' paths, rather than an RPG, so doesn't really count for much. Most decent RPGs have complex character creation systems that are very easy to screw up. PoE has the additional burden of being counter-intuitive and actively working against common assumptions for the genre. The attributes, for example, aren't. They're increments for various percentage modifiers. You don't really have intellect, you have a duration/AoE increment counter. The game concept is entirely separate from the natural language idea. Which leads to results like improving Con at all for squishy characters is actively stupid, because you gain very little from it. In most RPGs, the opposite is true, since a Con increase improves their survivability immensely. Look, if I'm right, I'll enjoy it more because my character will be effective. If you're right it doesn't matter anyway because the game is hugbox that won't let you fail at character creation. If we're both wrong, we'll both have to start of from scratch with new characters built off a better understanding of the system. Which requires analysis of the numbers game, which I am already doing. I literally can't lose here, and you lose most of the time, except with a very unlikely premise being true. And your assumptions of what I will enjoy have no basis in reality whatsoever. Being competent or skilled will never spoil my experience of anything. Being ignorant? Does.

for you perhaps. Personally I find dying repeatedly because of poorly explained mechanics a lot less fun. I want my character to be effective, not a bumbling buffoon, and from an RP perspective, I'd expect the character wants to survive, not take up a calling they are particularly bad at, with fatal results. But then understanding how things work doesn't strike me as spoiling the story in any way whatsoever.

aside here- I've never understood why this is supposed to be a disconnect. These characters are risking their lives repeatedly- knowing how things work and what can save their lives is good role playing, unless the character is an inbred simpleton. They won't express it in terms of metagame numbers, but they'll know that spiders poison and plate is bad against the Lightning bug, and so on. Ignoring the system because of Real Roleplaying is absolute nonsense.

It just happens too late. No point in a damage bonus if one or two more hits will kill the thing anyway. Simple because of the way damage works (the random factors), you'll almost never hit the threshold exactly and then follow up with exactly the amount of strikes to get the most use of it. Odds are you'll put the critter decently under the limit and then kill it off regardless of the bonus. In a normal sized party, since combat often turns into a dogpile (focus fire is generally superior to spreading damage), it is entirely reasonable to expect that the godlike often won't even benefit from the damage bonus at all- the other party memebers will get the hits, rendering it entirely moot. Then on top of *that*, it benefits slow weapons significantly more than quicker weapons, which means you're even more unlikely to get the strikes, unless you're purposefully holding back the other party members from finishing the critter off (which is just plain dumb). With fast weapons the low base damage isn't significantly multiplied by the bonus. It is pretty much self-defeating in every way possible.

I disagree with this. It isn't a scam, it gives the majority exactly what they ask for: shiny with no depth. They don't want to understand the math under the hood or have complex stories that might make them uncomfortable, just easy victories and a simple interface.

So weird. I take it this was a model clipping issue? It certainly isn't a balance issue, and if I were a mutant freak (and honestly, just that ugly) that people tend to stone to death, the first thing I'd do is hide my face.

That would honestly make some classes completely worthless (or in the ranger's case, more worthless) and others crazy good. The monk particularly does not function if his base health/endurance is on par with everyone else, and the barbarian has similar problems. Paladin would be absolutely eclipsed by the casters (all the casters) and all sorts of defensive abilities would go completely off the rails.

BG2 playthrough... again. Now I just need to plow through spellhold and the underdark (worst parts of the game, personally), then tidy up some dragons and finish it. Maybe even finish throne of boring for once. I did pick up sid meier's Starships, but I'm less than an hour in and I've already broken it. (almost maxed out lasers by the end of game turn 2) Game has zero depth- don't come out from behind cover combat turn 1, vaporize enemies turn 2. Wait longer if they aren't in reach on turn 2.

Welcome to over a decade ago, when it died. Grasping tightly to the decade-old corpse of the genre won't bring it back, especially not obsessing over the pinkie toe being slightly out of alignment for your liking. If the genre is going to come back, it needs more than nostalgia or buggy, worthless messes like Wasteland2. It needs to have good games, first and foremost.

Here the racial bonus play to literally nothing because a 14 CON Human is just as likely as a 14 CON Dwarf, given they cost the exact same thing to make. It sounds more like your objection isn't to racial bonuses but that the point buy is 1 to 1. That is a fish of a different color. @Namutree- the problem with that approach is it quickly degenerates into a talent tax, and the talent system is already carrying too many burdens (and far too much dead weight). Too many junk talents, and too many (virtual) feat trees, since hyper-specialization grants more rewards than thematic or even 'ooo, that sounds interesting' talent choices (not that many of those exist, as most talents are about stacking multipliers and bonuses). Adding defining features of dwarfishness or elvinity to an already overstressed system seems like a bad idea. Especially since the upshot is with multiple racial talents you can't epitomize your race at all at low level, and most characters won't even bother unless the racial talents are better than general or class talents [the latter of which should be on a different resource schedule altogether].

True, moon is an easy buff. I forgot about that one. But I dislike it for being too easy to cheese. Moon Monk for extra benefits!

Only one? They are almost all entirely bad, circumstantial bonuses against very specific things and shoddy bonuses for losing fights. Hearth orlan is one of the best, and island aumaua is useful if you're trying to do very specific things. The rest might as well be garbage. I'd rather just have more stat bonuses, since those objectively matter all the time. So other: racial stat bonus like now, culture stat bonuses like now, but more stat bonuses to replace the largely worthless side bonuses But if I have to pick a race... death godlike, as it is exactly backwards. Damage bonus should be against high health enemies (though probably smaller), as a bonus against a critter almost defeated already doesn't have much value.

Barring histrionics over the unassailable purity of IE games, it seems pretty obvious that this will be the case. Sorry, Luckmann, but 'minor quality of life improves inevitably leads to the end of 'true' gaming forever' is not a chain of logic. It is a chain of reactionary hysteria.

The fact that Con is a percentage increase rather than a multiplicative bonus makes it difficult to be beneficial for most classes. Barbarians benefit a lot, fighters monks and paladins can get decent mileage out of it, but it falls off pretty quickly. And other stats are better at boosting your health indirectly, by killing enemies faster or making the character harder to hit.

Mmm. The Obsidian Burger. now with 50% extra bug-meat.

No. As a general rule critters don't repopulate out of the magic creature box mere days after you slaughter every living thing on the map so you can farm them. That said, I doubt funds will be an issue simply because not!Kobolds and bears don't respawn to slaughter over and over again.

Plus the 'highlight objects/containers' hotkey does more to make pixelhunting unnecessary than area loot possibly can.

Ah, my mistake. I thought the various numbers were different. Old information, probably.

Ah. That makes more sense. The 73 +12 for elder/61/64 numbers you tossed up before made monster level a completely meaningless concept. So effectively bears are attacking (in terms of accuracy) as if they were level 10 creatures. Sounds like a bug to me.

It isn't a solution at all. The OP is making a request for information, not deciding the likability of the power.

No, no it does not. There is no correlation between what people decide to get worked up about and a lack of real problems.

Entirely disagree. 2 had a few problems (particularly the lame boss fights, and in chapter 3, the never-ending tide of abominations), but I find it to be the best game of the series, with a focused story that moves along at a decent pace. Origins was a hot mess of generic fantasy cliches (yay, the orc expies get a darker-than-tolkien backstory. What an achievement), terrible UI, pointles sidequesting, tiresome characters and very tedious gameplay. As much as Inquisition disappointed me, I thought it better than Origins; though for some reason it forgot the good elements of 2, focusing even more on the obsessive grind than Origins and favoring even more empty content.

Well, no. You can get accuracy up to average with the god-favored weapon talents. And up to high with the general weapon talent on top (though the classes that start high can take that one too)

Actually that was the result of really _bad_ design in the AD&D ruleset. Demi-humans could multiclass in first edition because they had level limits. That you could exploit the living hell out of it in BG2 is completely unrelated to the original purpose of the design.