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One of the things I hated about the original system was the dual use of might to cover both physical and mental damage. Equally hate Barbarians wnting high INT. But I agree having a dump stat is irritating. There could perhaps be threshold-related penalties on all stats as well as the graded increases / reductions. E.g. if you drop a stat below 7, you get penalty x (x being some condition-like penalty). If you drop below 5, you get penalty x and y, that sort of thing. Or just use the D&D standard array solution - nothing below 8 except through racial modifications.

Will I have a nice shiny badge when I post this then? edit: yay! another edit: I signed up for investment but never received anything from Fig or Obsidian concerning this - I kind of assume something went to junk mail or got lost and I've missed out, but maybe other investors can confirm the process has started?

I only survived PotD by having a Paladin PC. So in my experience, anything NOT Paladin is unplayable At lower difficulties maybe it's not so vital.

I bought the 5e stuff about 18 months ago and have been having a blast DMing one of the adventure paths (Princes of the Apocalypse). In my opinion i's hands down the best iteration of D&D. I originally played 1e and the red box versions. 2e was Baldur's Gate. 3e looked like far too many options. 4e looked like an attempt to replicate MMOs and I hated and grieved at the sight of it. 5e takes the feel of 1e but fills in a lot of rules gaps, makes things more balanced without feeling bland, and makes it harder to die in one hit....

I totally agree that crafting has no place in adventure and story driven RPGs. "Oh look, I just instantly combined some ingredients to give me a more accurate and damaging weapon onthe spot". However there is no way Obsidian are going to remove such a massive feature from the game! The best that can be hoped for is changes (for it to take a long time, perhaps?!) and/or a 'no PC crafting' mode. edit: And as for cooking, if a meat pie gives +2 might or whatever, why aren't all the characters obese! Better to have penalties if you don't eat once a day, muahahaha.

Never mind that - I've bought all the D&D 5th edition books and tonight I'm DMing 5 people in the first session I've done for 20 years!! Thats cool ....i bought all the 4th edition books cuz my son wanted to play but i just couldnt get into it like i did when i was younger with my brother back when it was 2nd edition. 4th edition never interested me - people said it was influenced by MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, and started using terms like 'Tank' and 'Glass Cannon' and I switched off. 5th edition is back to the roots to some extent, but with many inconsistencies ironed out. I recommend you give it a look! The books are beautifully done, for a start.

Never mind that - I've bought all the D&D 5th edition books and tonight I'm DMing 5 people in the first session I've done for 20 years!!

Sorry for the delay I've been offline for a while. No I'm afraid my closest save would mean playing through about 10 minutes to get to the encounter in question - it's still in the Glanfathan ruins in the cliff, just before that. However, if that will still be useful let me know and I will look up how to upload it.

Does this count? http://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-diary-playing-as-a-party-of-bears/

I'm playing exactly the same as you - RP monk on hard, no stat below 10, fine robes and some bonus items for DR and deflection. No major problems at all, and great fun. I suspect the rest of your party composition may be a problem? I built a couple of companions as soon as possible (1 x rogue, 1 x cipher) and it's a cakewalk. Apart from the Ogre Mage bounty quest which pwned me about 4 times over (is Swarm of Insects bugged? I got like 200+ damage off it on every char I'm sure). But I got through it.

Addendum - the game seems to think I'm partially still in combat. I cannot save. Other chars got their endurance back however, and combat only spells etc are not active.

I had Aloth dominated by a swamp spore and suffer a knockout due to friendly fire whilst in the dominated state. When the battle ended, he never revived although he has plenty of health (in the yellow). The swamp spores were still alive in the first instance. Combat ended and I then went back, began another combat and killed them, but even after that Aloth stayed down. I am also unable to heal him with Field Triage - although he shows as 'green' the icon is not lit up when hovering over his portrait. Have to go back and reload - annoying.

Dump Stats are a killer for me in any RPG system. I deliberately don't do it - but the doubt sown into my mind by the posts of others giving themselves 3 constitution or 3 might or whatever definitely impact my opinion of a game and likelihood of playing it. Why not just make bonuses and penalties less uniform. I mean, not a set +3% per point or whatever, but +1% at 11, +3% at 12, +6% 13, +10% 14, +15% 15 etc you get the picture and the same in reverse. So a score of 3 gives a huge penalty and 20 a huge gain. Straight away that makes any extreme ability choice more interesting. Of course, you can play a slightly above average character rather than take any extremes, which some may say is dull. But closing minmaxing stat exploits must be worth it. Or maybe they/you already thought of this and came up with some drawback?

The thing I currently find most irritating is the need to individually click 4 or 5 party members after each melee to change back to missile weapon ready for the next encounter. Is there a means to change my entire party from weaponset I to II and cycle through the weaponsets in that way?? If not I beg the powers that be to consider adding this in a future patch, surely it's not a tricky one to add since the behaviours are all already there.

I feel genuine pity for people with this opinion. Genuine. Pity. There's nothing wrong with BG2 mind.