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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.

Once I played expert mode I could never, ever consider changing it back!

Well, I let him DIE at Anslogs Compass and he was right back at the Statue where he started, when I next went past there

I find my bows missing more at point blank - but that could be coincidence

I agree there should be some sort of rush/push action that a massed group of intelligent or frenzied enemies could use to force through a doorway. Shouldn't be hard to add as there are already spell and other effects for pushing. Dumb enemies should keep getting hacked to pieces at the doorway however. It's only right and proper.

Since I'm a serial replayer (not even finished act II with any party yet) I'm ideally placed to notice that there seem to be some interesting AI improvements in 1.04. In one area a load of beetles marched round several corners to come and attack my party from behind whilst they were attacking some spiders. Never expected that! Also a bandit/looter crossbowman in the same map ran away at 'Near Death' and healed himself, so even after I killed his pals and ended combat, he was waiting around the corner at full strength for a new combat. Personally, I'd have run away completely since he lasted about three seconds...but still, small tweaks like this are definite improvements (if indeed this is down to patch 1.04, which I'm not sure, it's just the first time I've seen such things)

You certainly don't need Heoden at the start on PotD as any weaponless Monk who doesn't conicidentally equip a weaopn just in case he needs to throw it (!) will attest. In fact you get more XP without him I was using PotD and Trial of Iron but it is too easy to cheat Trial of Iron, rendering it pointless. Are you going to start again 30 hours in? I don't think so. Maybe it makes sense on subsequent 'full' playthroughs. And PotD just gets boring as the difficulty just means more of everything in combat, *yawn* 3 bears and 6 boars instead of 2 bears and 4 boars. I found 'Expert Mode' more interesting, and now play on Hard, Expert Mode.

Think yourself lucky you're not playing BG1. My last character took an hour to roll the obligatory 97.

Coffee and stimulants are not the answer. Chilling out and taking your time ought to do it. That suggests a different substance, but I haven't tried that myself with PoE. I prefer a nice cup of tea.

Also - play on Expert mode. I find that great, and switched back from PotD to Hard with Expert mode. PotD is just more of everything, which adds nothing to my game experience and just bugs me tbh. Unless I've missed something, it only changes number of combat enemies and makes them a little stronger. That is only one facet of 'difficulty'.

There was another thread on this not long ago. It ain't D&D. The idea is that the classes are more flexible. Of course, you may still want to cast Cipher spells AND Druid spells, or something. I doubt it will ever be officially added but there will be Mods, I expect.