[[Ending Spoilers, sequel speculations] Are the gods...]

Aside from Woedica, I don't think they are.  Also if they are eating souls, then which one ate Eothas's soul?  You'd think there would have been a war over that amount of power but it would have had to been finished by the time the game started.  I'm actually thinking that any sequel is going to be very nihilistic probably about athiests vs the fake gods and ending with the athiests becoming just as evil as the religions before them.  It could also be about the tribal people, having lost a sense of purpose since those ruins they guard lack the meaning they thought they did, face upheaval of their own and might want a war to drive out the Dyrwood people who caused them to loose their purpose.  I mean that people was basically created by the leaden key to act as gaurds for the soul stealing machines.

 

I'm also open to the possibilty that the elder gods did exist but the Enwithians basically covered them up over time as a prelude to them rolling out their own gods.  Iovara could have been fed wrong information.

 

One thing I don't get is why did the gods wait for a random hero to show up if they knew woedica was bad?  Eothis was hinted at trying to intervene but I'm not taking that as the whole truth. Why did Thaos wait so long to start harvesting souls since he had what... hundreds of years or more?  Why was the hollowborn such a new thing?  He could have been taking souls for generations.

 

There aren't really atheists in this game, just people (led by Iovara's philosophy) that don't consider manufactured entities, which are little more than very powerful Shades, as things worth worshipping. Iovara's whole point is that the existence of the pantheon stifles both individual freedom of thought and any meaningful search for real gods in the universe.

 

If you want to ascribe a name to them, call them misotheists, people who are against the gods.

[Eothas and the whole Godhammer thing]

Additionally, the gods themselves were soul-forged using (at the low order) thousands of sacrificial Engwithan souls. It's something of an interesting question whether the death of one would cause it to splinter back into its many constituent parts, or if (having been fused and held together for so many thousands of years) it was now only one gigantic soul which would have then gone back into the Wheel.

 

Very interesting ideas, indeed.

[Council of Stars- no Eothas?]

I, too, was a bit puzzled that none of the other gods even mentioned Eothas in Teir Evron. Seems a bit suspicious.

But then again, Magran's behavior when you interact with her via Galawain is pretty shifty and duplicitous throughout. She should definitely be the next deity on the chopping block, IMO.

[So...the End...a bit anticlimactic, isnt it ?]

Lamest part about Iovara is that she knows the gods aren't real because she put her ear on the door and listened in on a private conversation.  The writing at that part is so weak, too: 'I put my ear on the stone door, but it was thin stone so I could hear'.    C'mon.

 

I think what she actually said was that "the door [presumably wood] was thin, and the room was stone." I.e. there was a very noticeable echo chamber effect in the room, so much so she heard some of what they were saying outside.

[[Ending Spoilers, sequel speculations] Are the gods...]

One little problem with this: the Wheel actually predates the existence of the (artificial) gods the Engwithans created. IIRC, Iovara states that the Engwithans searched for generations in the hopes of finding the creators of the universe, but only found the Wheel (which they presumably already knew about) and empty silence.

That's not to say the gods can't interact with the Wheel, however. Berath may in fact have seized some measure of control over it, given his portfolio, or he's just a charlatan pretending to be in control of a machine beyond his understanding.

[Lore Questions]

Another possibility is that it didn't have to do with the big secret, per se, but merely that Magran felt Eothas had 'crossed a line' in incarnating himself and in making war (which is her portfolio). She 'overreacted' a little and ended up killing Eothas, which nearly blew their cover, then tried to cover up her mistake by killing the 12 priests who worked on the Godhammer.

It's remarkably petty if true, but then again we don't really have a very glowing report of Magran's character, either.

[Council of Stars- no Eothas?]

Zohar makes an excellent point, and his post is probably as close as we can get to a sort of fan-concensus. Considering that Eothas hasn't been answering his own faithful for 15 years, and that his symbol isn't even present in Teir Evron while Woedica's is, it seems likely that he was indeed fully destroyed by the Godhammer bomb.

Which makes sense, when you get a little further into the game and find out some interesting truths about the pantheon.

 

It's just a real shame, though, because he's by far my favorite of the Eoran deities.

[So...the End...a bit anticlimactic, isnt it ?]

I'm pretty sure Thaos was just that far gone. You won't have to go very far to find humans in real history who were willing to commit horrific atrocities in the perpetuation of a lie. When you go that far down the rabbit hole, and pursue something so single-mindedly for at least 2,000 years, your psychology literally does not have any room for doubt, self-reflection, or logical consistency. I'm sure watching/helping his fellow Engwithans commit mass-suicide to create the gods they so desperately wanted really screwed him up psychologically, too.

In that regard, Thaos is well-written as a supremely broken man. Very much a "Utopia Justifies The Means" villain.

[final battle (minor spoilers, potentially)]

Signed up just to comment on this. Been playing this today and I found there is a difference between pre and post patch.  Before the patch paralyze just wouldn't stick on Thaos. Made the battle a lot harder. Post patch it works like a charm and quite frankly the battle is a doddle.

 

You mean post-1.03? That's what I was talking about earlier. I just beat him on Saturday, and I had to cheat in order to do so, because his Deflection was so sky-high nothing could hit him and he effortlessly wiped my party over and over.

[So, the plot.]

The plan of empowering Woedica: I think this was a new development, triggered by the saint's war. The saint's war showed to Thaos just how flawed the plan was. It just doesn't work. So, instead of admitting that and giving up, he and Woedica decide that their previous solution was too soft. So the plan was: Restore the Queen that Was to the Throne (that she probably never held). Usher in an age of absolute peace and justice. They realised they couldn't change the people the way they wanted just by preaching about the gods, so take a more active position and force them to become what they wanted.

 

IIRC, the plan was already in motion at this point and the first Hollowborn appeared almost immediately after Waidwen's death, if not before the end of the Saint's War.

 

There's a number of us who speculate that the Saint's War was caused because Eothas found out about Thaos' plans to restore Woedica in the first place. Whether or not he knew (or if he knew, cared) that he was a construct is irrelevant; if you consider that Woedica and Eothas have diametrically opposing portfolios and personalities the Saint's War suddenly makes a lot of sense. Why would the all-around nicest of the artificial Eoran pantheon suddenly act so wildly out of character and go berserk? Well, the prospect of the whole world being subjugated under the extreme Lawful Evil tyranny of Woedica might definitely explain it.

 

Sure, it could've just been Waidwen's megalomania, but what are the odds Eothas just happened to appear next door to and intervened in the region housing the Engwithan soul-machines that would soon be siphoning souls away to empower Woedica? Even St. Waidwen's seemingly out-of-character actions, such as persecuting the other faiths, suddenly make sense... if one considers the secret Magran-Woedica alliance.

[Eothas and the whole Godhammer thing]

It's not explicitely mentioned in the game, albeit you can bring it up as a theory in a conversation with Durance later on. But it's something that seems to make sense once you complete the game and have an understanding of the bigger picture, as well as the respective portfolios of Eothas and Woedica. 

 

It also explains the seemingly out-of-character (for Eothas) behavior on St. Waidwen's part, such as persecuting the other faiths when he's supposed to be a Neutral Good good of hope and light. I've no doubt being possessed by a god turned Waidwen into a gibbering megalomaniac, of course, but if Eothas really was trying to stop Thaos' plans, it makes sense to attack the other gods for being part of 'the system' as well.

[What was your ending and how did you get it?]

I think what god you decided to favor might indeed have some impact on what happens to animacy, but it might also have to do with the faction you sided with in Defiance Bay.

Personally, I got "stuck" with the Dozens (like many others on this board) as I didn't realize that accepting their second quest would lock me out of progression with the other factions. Although I tried my best to present a reasoned defense of animancy in the hearing, I suspect the Dozens being on top largely influenced the outcome after the Duc's assassination.

 

In my ending slides, the Dozens ended up ruling Defiance Bay with grim authority, driving out the Crucible Knights. Animancers fled into the wilderness.

Also, in my case, Sagani completed her quest and went home to live a long life before dying surrounded by multiple generations of family.

 

I got the same ending with Grieving Mother as the OP, despite never finishing her quest.

And yes, looks like we're seeing a lot of variance in Eder's outcomes.

 

I wonder what's necessary for Aloth to decide to dismantle the Leaden Key, as opposed to carrying on Thaos' work? And how exactly do we disable the machine in Heritage Hill?

[final battle (minor spoilers, potentially)]

Good point. Very well, what's the best way to 'debuff' his Deflection, then, so you can actually disable him?

I'm not too used to debuffing since PoE in general places a considerably de-emphasized role on buffs and debuffs, especially compared to D&D and the old IE games. Wizards and clerics in this game generally go down easy and you don't even need to worry about stripping their defenses, as they generally have none to speak of. I pretty much ignored scrolls throughout my game as well, as I had no problems dealing with 90% of what the game threw at me.

[Eothas and the whole Godhammer thing]

I don't believe this interpretation of events is mentioned much in the game, but a lot of us fans speculate that Eothas got wind of Thaos' plans to feed Woedica thousands of mortal souls so she could usurp the pantheon once again. It's based on a line of dialogue you -might- get with Durance when you reveal to him that Magran conspired with Woedica and meant to kill him.

Given that Eothas and Woedica have pretty much diametrically opposing 'portfolios' (in D&D terms), it's not difficult to see why he felt motivated to act. So he crossed a line, incarnated himself in the form of St. Waidwen, and (the theory goes) led the invasion of the Dyrwood intending to physically dismantle the machines Thaos was using for his plans. This led Magran and the other gods to overreact and cross a line themselves, leading up to the Godhammer (in which Magran conspired with Woedica to kill Eothas) and another minor crisis, revealing that the gods could be killed.

 

This was bad news, but it actually ended up working quite well for Thaos, as he was able to (eventually) pin the blame for the Hollowborn epidemic squarely on animancy and further advance his plans.

 

Unfortunately, the game doesn't give us a lot of hope that Eothas is still alive. Whereas Woedica can definitely be seen 'on the roads' at the end of the game, I'm pretty sure Eothas is gone for good. Too bad, as I quite liked the guy, and if this interpretation is correct, he went out trying to be a Big Damn Hero.

[What was your ending and how did you get it?]

I originally posted this in another topic, but I'll just repost it here:

 

For some reason I kept thinking that the Endless Maze was something akin to 'optional content' I could do whenever I wanted, and even though I hit level 12 right before facing down Thaos I just never bothered to go back and do it. So this meant Kana Rua had a fairly dismal ending where he goes home broken-hearted and solemn.

For that reason (and probably because I didn't have enough time to buy *every* single keep upgrade) I got a bad ending slide for the stronghold, where it 'fell back into disrepair' despite me sinking thousands of gold into it. Was a little annoyed at that, and with the stronghold mechanic in general, which is surprisingly inferior to the one back in NWN2.

 

Likewise, my companions were a mixed bag: while I tried to get everyone the happy endings I thought they deserved, I wasn't entirely successful in large part because there were some characters I just never used.

For example, Aloth got benched fairly early in my game since I was already a Wizard, and while I did finish his personal quest and talked with him about being with the Leaden Key, I apparently didn't talk to him enough to dissuade him from taking up Thaos' robes after the end and continuing the Leaden Key's work.

 

Likewise, despite really liking her character I just never bothered to keep Grieving Mother around, so I never go to see the end of her personal quest.

 

Pallegina's story ended in sadness and exile because I urged her to do the right thing, and sabotaged the trade agreements.

 

At least I got happy endings for Eder, Sagani, Hiravias, and Greiving Mother (despite not finishing her quest).

 

Durance had an arguably happy ending in that he didn't kill himself and swore vengeance against Magran and Woedica, so I guess that's something.

 

Eder went on to become mayor of Dyrford and turned it into an echo of what Gilded Vale used to be in his younger years.

 

Also, I didn't realize you could actually deactivate the Engwithan tower in Heritage Hill and got another depressing ending slide... and I foolishly reneged on my pact with Rymrgand (I was expecting him to punish me, not the innocents of the Dyrwood).

 

So originally, I went against Rymrgand and instead scattered the souls to places unknown, as Wael wanted. So in retaliation Rymrgand punished the Dyrwood with the worst winter in history and Ondra wreaked economic havoc by sinking many ships sailing to and from the country. What complete jerks.

 

Later, I reloaded to a save made just before activating the machine and decided to go along with Rymrgand's plan, so that led to a happier ending for the Dyrwood at least.

 

Hits me right in the feels, Obsidian! You definitely subverted my expectations there. Sometimes trying to do the right thing doesn't always end well.

[final battle (minor spoilers, potentially)]

Use the Cipher's knockdown ability that targets an ally at the beginning of the fight. Follow it up by using paralyze scrolls on the giants, and Thaos too if you can avoid hitting your own party. You should be able to craft a lot fairly easily.

 

I don't know how you've built your paladins, but Pallegina didn't really do much for me here. Drink eldricht aim and other accuracy boosting potions like crazy with your front line damage dealers. Have your priest do the same. 

 

Or, if you're level 11, just have your wizard cast Gaze of Adragan and win.

 

That's the thing, I DID cast Gaze of the Adragon. Twice. In a row. It did absolutely nothing.

 

Personally, I found this battle outright impossible and had to cheat via the console to get through it.

 

For one thing, Thaos seems completely immune to stun and paralysis. I don't know what everyone else is talking about, but I cast Gaze of the Adragon on him twice consecutively and it did zilch. Had no observable effect whatsoever. Likewise, Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring didn't actually freeze him and only did pitiful freeze damage, etc. The only thing that actually worked was, of course, Slicken, but given that this was post-1.03 nerf it didn't last very long.

[Just finished]

Well I just wrapped up the main quest, and overall I would say it is a good game. I really enjoyed it most of the time. Would probably give it 8/10.

 

Just a few observations, mainly about the story and general game, staying away from the combat, as I can just accept it for what it is.

 

1. I didn't realise the game was going to end. I still had about 20 side quests/tasks left to do!...There was still the whole situation in Defiance Bay I had to sort out after the Duc being assassinated, the rivalry between the Knights and the Dozens which was quite interesting, surely something was going to happen with the Keep I had built up?...No, the game just ended with a slideshow I have to say I found it quite disappointing. Tbh, I was fully expecting to come out of the last dungeon and continue with my side quest as the story steers towards it's end.

 

I had a similar problem, though not as bad. For some reason I kept thinking that the Endless Maze was something akin to 'optional content' I could do whenever I wanted, and even though I hit level 12 right before facing down Thaos I just never bothered to go back and do it. So this meant Kana Rua had a fairly dismal ending where he goes home broken-hearted and solemn.

 

For that reason (and probably because I didn't have enough time to buy *every* single keep upgrade) I got a bad ending slide for the stronghold, where it 'fell back into disrepair' despite me sinking thousands of gold into it. Was a little annoyed at that, and with the stronghold mechanic in general, which is surprisingly inferior to the one back in NWN2.

 

Likewise, my companions were a mixed bag: while I tried to get everyone the happy endings I thought they deserved, I wasn't entirely successful in large part because there were some characters I just never used.

 

For example, Aloth got benched fairly early in my game since I was already a Wizard, and while I did finish his personal quest and talked with him about being with the Leaden Key, I apparently didn't talk to him enough to dissuade him from taking up Thaos' robes after the end and continuing the Leaden Key's work. Is having him in the party the only way to stop him from doing so? The Thaos battle was hard enough (almost impossibly hard, given that he seemed to be immune to paralysis) without another squishy Wizard in the party.

 

Likewise, despite really liking her character I just never bothered to keep Grieving Mother around, so I never go to see the end of her personal quest. And Pallegina's story ended in tragedy and exile because I urged her to do the right thing.

 

At least I got happy endings for Eder, Sagani, Hiravias, and Greiving Mother (despite not finishing her quest). Durance had an arguably happy ending in that he didn't kill himself and swore vengeance against Magran and Woedica, so I guess that's something.

 

Also, I didn't realize you could actually deactivate the Engwithan tower in Heritage Hill and got another depressing ending slide... and I foolishly reneged on my pact with Rymrgand (I was expecting him to punish me, not the innocents of the Dyrwood). Hits me right in the feels, Obsidian! You definitely subverted my expectations there. Sometimes trying to do the right thing doesn't always end well.

 

But really, the storytelling, world-building and lore in Pillars has just been top-rate so far, exactly as I expected from the company that gave us New Vegas and Mask of the Betrayer. Act III and IV did feel a little rushed, I must say, but I have every hope we'll be seeing more in future expansions.

[Wizards Get Better?]

 

I find druid to have a much better version of all their dmg/aoe spells.   But while Wizard has crazy CC, Druid has healing and okay CC.  

 

 

That's been my general experience as well. Druids start out very strong and remain viable throughout pretty much the entire game. Wizards, especially after the nerfs to Slicken and Chill Fog, have a VERY difficult start and only start getting good quite a bit later in the game, and most of that is pure CC--aside from the Gaseous Cloud and Circle of Death equivalents, you're well advised to stay away from 'nuking' spells with the class entirely. The Druid does just about everything better in that regard.

 

Sure, their CC abilities aren't *as good* as the Wizard's, but they still have fairly decent CC options coupled with amazing AOE spells, healing, and the somewhat middling quality that is Shapeshifting. Honestly, they seem a lot more fun and balanced to play.

[Please Don't Nerf Spells with Patch]

I'd like to see the damage-dealing spells pumped up some - they're pretty weak overall.

 

Me too, on that point. Fireball could use a bit of a buff--at the very least you hopefully won't have to cast it at point-blank range anymore. I guess that's something.

[Spells you used too often because they are just too good.]

 

They buffed Curse of Blackened Sight and nerfed Mind Blades, so its not all bad.

 

On the other hand, Druids are completely untouched. I'd say they want everyone to play as Druids =/

 

 

 

I'd say that's... a fair assessment. Druids are losing nothing in this upcoming patch and there soon isn't going to be much reason to choose a Wizard over a Druid (either as a PC class or a party member).

[Please Don't Nerf Spells with Patch]

It's like everyone collectively took a look at wizards in early DND and then said. "Yea, I'm gonna nerf the **** out of you until the only advantage you have lies in specialized lore, a few places to hang out with other wizards, and nostalgia." By this point the Cipher is better at CC (not reliant on rest), paralyze can be used with emergency scrolls, and the druid has better aoe.

 

 

I think it's a little of column A, a little of column B. The devs didn't like how arcane spellcasters dominated BG2, so they set out right from the beginning to stop that train before it could get going. Then they saw widespread reports that Slicken was OP (and it was, indeed) so they decided that needed nerfing as well. To be honest, I can't argue with them that much--a 1st level spell shouldn't be dominating the entire game to that degree, especially after the 1st level spells become per-encounter at level 9.

 

The problem is that right now the Druid will soon be doing literally everything better than the Wizard. Sure, the Wizard still has Confusion and the like, but it's not nearly as spammable as the Druid's very nice level 1 spells (which lost no utility in this upcoming patch). Sure, you can say that it doesn't matter as this is a party game, but my contention is there will soon be precious little reason to choose the Wizard either as your PC or as a party member (Aloth or hirelings) when the Cipher and Druid can do just about everything better.

[Please Don't Nerf Spells with Patch]

I've posted about the Wizard balancing issue in a number of threads, and this is a poor 'balancing' decision, IMO.

 

Yes, Slicken was OP, but the wise solution would have been to nerf it and then either buff some other spells or change some core features of the class to make it more enjoyable to play. Instead, Slicken and Chill Fog were straight up nerfed and the only thing Wizard players got in compensation was... increased spell ranges. Now Wizards will be even more excruciating to play at low levels and the payoff will be even worse at level 9.

Meanwhile, the Druid is completely untouched. It still has amazing AOE foe-only damage spells, amazing CC spells, summoning spells, healing spells, and shapeshifting (though that may or may not be so amazing).

[!SPOILER! Wizard is not viable but extremely cheesy]

I feel that you have a point. In terms of options, AOE, crowd control, direct DPS, the Druid is flat out superior to the Wizard in every possible way.

I refer to this post by Stun from another topic:

 

 

 

Are we seriously having a discussion about which of the two classes has the better CC spells? Have you looked at even the lower level druid spell list? Druids have AoE paralyze spells. They have Mass Charm spells. If you're using your spell casters for CC, none will be more effective than a druid.

And druids have the best Ally friendly AoE nuke in the game: Returning Storm. Not only does it do huge damage every second, but it stuns every second.


So lets sum up: Summon Spells, Charm Spells, healing spells, the best CC spells. They can shape shift, and augment their shapeshifts with wild strikes. They have party buffs, and AoE enemy debuffs.

They're what Wizards should have been, and would be, had someone other than Josh "I-hate-IE-wizards" Sawyer been in charge of class design for this game.

 

 

 

The only thing Wizards have going for them is spamming some extremely cheesy spells, mainly Slicken, at higher levels, because that's really all you can do and because even the adra dragon apparently can't resist them. In D&D, this would be no problem--higher level enemies should save against these spells easily, forcing you to use other options.

 

Meanwhile, the Druid's offensive AOE absolutely laughs at Fireball or Corrosive Cloud or any other direct damage spells you can use as a Wizard. Not to mention they get summons, healing, great CC, shapeshifting, and etc. The list just goes on.

[Thinking of buying, worried about Wizards though]

 

 

Wait... Is it spells per level per rest, OR is it spells per grimoire per level per rest? In other words if you have 3 grimoires, is that effectively 12 spells per level per rest or just the option to choose 4 out of 12 spells before needing to take nap? Or put even simpler, is it the grimoires need to recharge during rest or is it the wizards themselves?

Also, how many grimoires and spells does the average wizard get access to during most of the game?

It's spells per rest. You find as many grimoires as you defeat enemy Wizards (I think I have something like 5 extra ones right now), but they do not allow you to cast extra spells. In other words, a level 4 Wizard will always be able to cast exactly 4 level 1 spells no matter how many times you switch grimoires. Also, switching grimoires incurs a rather long cooldown during which you can't cast any spells at all. On the other hand, finding all of those grimoires does allow you to learn new spells from them (at the cost of 100 gold per spell level).

Wow. The devs don't love wizards I guess. Oh well. Guess I'll stick with Divinity and Magicka. A cipher sounds like something from the Matrix, not fantasy, and I have no interest in that. A druid sounds like the only viable alternative, but I see they get spells per rest as well. And I'm not into the resting "mini-game" genre. I'm glad someone is keeping the D&D flame alive, I just hope they don't snuff it out by sticking to PnP spellcasting quite so religiously.

 

 

I strongly suspect that several highly placed people at Obsidian were really put off by the fact that the Mage/Sorcerer was pretty much the "GG class" of BG2 and set out to nerf the power of Wizards and prevent that legacy from carrying over into PoE.

 

As Stun says, CC isn't nearly as important by level 9 when the Druid is throwing around some amazing AOE damage spells. Trust me, I just got to level 9 on my Wizard and now spamming Slicken and Chill Fog is pretty much all I do. I'm still hoarding all the higher level spells and pretty much refusing to use them, except now I have a very tiny bit more I can do in most battles aside from auto-attack. Meanwhile, Hivervias is just becoming a god of destruction. (And I'm still wearing Fine Robes; are there any good unique robes around?)

[Thinking of buying, worried about Wizards though]

Wizards come with a class trait that allows them to have 2 per encounter aoe attacks that can daze, which allows them to conserve spells and apply both damage and afflictions. 

 

They use ranged magical weapons and their spells are extremely versatile and effective. 

 

I personally think they are one of the most enjoyable classes in the game. 

The issue I, and a lot of others, are having is rather that Druids and Ciphers are completely superior to Wizards in just about every possible way. Sure, you can have fun playing a Wizard, but I bet you could have more fun playing a Druid, and that needs addressing, IMO.

 

Druids get some amazing AOE and direct-damage spells, while the 'ultimate' tools in the Wizard's repertoire (Fireball) are pretty much completely anemic by comparison. Yes, crowd control and all that, but Druids get plenty of that too (and much more varieties of it, plus healing/regeneration and shapeshifting). Also, I may go against the D&D grain here but I see no fundamental problem with trying to use (and enjoy) the Wizard as a nuker.

 

Not to mention the fact that most Wizard spells are fairly short ranged. Just to cast the underwhelming Fireball you practically have to get right into something's face. Hivervias' (sp?) awesome lighting and Sunstrike spells have pulled me out of the fire on numerous occasions thus far; I can't say that spamming Slicken has been nearly as satisfying.

 

Conceptually, it just doesn't make sense that the Druid should be the ultimate blaster in the game, IMO.