Crucis

1. I'm not exactly sure where people place the dividing line between acts 1 and 2. I put it at becoming the Lord or Caed Nua and opening up more of the map, including Defiance Bay. This would mean that you get the "Call to Court" messenger early in Act 2, from my perspective. But whatever... A minor nit to pick. 2. I think that you can put it off as long as you like. However, it appears, though I could be wrong, once you start the "Call to Court" "quest", there does appear (rightly or wrongly) a bit of pressure to move it along. So if you want to delay it, it seems best not to initiate the "call to court" quest at all until you feel you're good to go.

Not really. Nothing is "objectively" evil. What would be evil to one person would be considered kindhearted to another (yes, even the things you listed). And some might argue that the kind of moral relativism you're describing above is in and of itself "evil".

Agreed. I've never played an Orlan PC. Nor did I ever play a halfling PC in the BG or IWD games. Maybe that's a discriminatory attitude, but like you, I have a hard time seeing someone that short being a real leader, unless the rest of the party is made up of Orlans or perhaps Dwarves.

Personally, I don't like any godlikes. I don't like the look. I don't like giving up the item slot. I don't like racial abilities that only trigger when your END goes below certain trigger levels. Visually, I dislike Death GL's the most, and yet I think that their racial ability is among the more useful, if only because it doesn't trigger on your own low END but on an enemy's low END. On a different note, I don't like how they say that GL's not well like in the PoE civilization, and yet you never are the target of this as a PC, not do you witness it during the game. The game SAYS that GL's aren't liked in its civilization, but there's no actual evidence of this dislike.

I would think that Death's Usher would sync well with a Rogue. This racial ability is not unlike other rogue and general talents that do more damage when the target's Endurance is low. Finishing Blow and Bloody Slaughter come to mind. As for other races, Hearth Orlans are generally considered to make good rogues due to their racial ability. Wood elves are an obvious choice for ranged rogues, or ranged anything. Elven attribute bonuses are good for rogues, in general (i.e. +1 to DEX and PER).

I actually didn't say "wherever". And when I said "whenever" it was tied to however much you wanted, by which I was saying that in those old IE games, you could rest 100 consecutive times in a row in the wilderness and the game would let you. You could rest after every single tiny encounter, and the game would let you. You'd never run out of food. And because you could do this, any spellcaster could cast every spell he knew in every battle without any consequences. Beyond that, when the game gets balanced for this model, you end up making the battles so difficult that players who prefer a more role-playing style of combat are increasingly forced to play this powergamey style just to have the firepower to defeat their enemies. I prefer the PoE model a lot more. You can quite easily go into most battles without needing any pre-battle buffs, and if you want to, you can often get through all but the very toughest battles without any significant buffing in battle too. IMO, this is a vast improvement, because it saves a bunch of time and lets me get on with the battles most of the time. And because of this, you aren't emptying your spellcaster's supply of spells nearly as quickly, making it much easier to go for quite a number of encounters without needing to rest for lack of spells. (Needing to rest due to low health is a different story, of course.)

Other than the enormous Endless Paths dungeon, I don't recall any other "dungeon" or area that was so difficult and extensive that I couldn't make due with the 4 sets of camping supplies you get in Normal mode. Having said that, maybe the problem here is that in the harder modes players are too limited in the max number of camping supplies you're allowed. Just a thought...

To me, this is one of the really great things about PoE and its limited camping supplies system. If you have wounded characters after some battle, you can't just willy-nilly rest after each and every battle, unless you charge back to some inn, which most don't want to do. I very much enjoy that the player needs to conserve his health, look after wounded characters when your supplies are low, and generally do what you'd have to do in a p&p rpg with a game master or what would happen in a similar/parallel situations in real life. I find this challenge FAR more enjoyable than constantly resting after every frickin' battle followed by dumping your mage's entire supply of spells, and rinse and repeat as necessary.

Wow. Rage much? I happen to like the camping system, mostly as is. I always thought that the old model in BG/IWD where you could pretty much rest whenever and however much you wanted to was completely bogus and created a rather annoying style of play, along with all those non-combat buffs. It was annoying to constantly have to spend real time minutes buffing up parties prior to just about any battle that was the least bit challenging, only to then ... wait for it ... rest after each of those battles. I'm sorry if you don't like the PoE model (well maybe I'm not), but I think that forcing players to stretch themselves and stop resting after each and every friggin' battle is a truly GREAT THING. There's no challenge in being able to rest after every fricking battle just so you can spam out your wizard's entire supply of spells from his grimoire ... just so you can evade the concept of limited spells. And ya know something, I don't have much of a problem with the Devs deciding what they think is roughly the "right" way to play THEIR game. It *is* their game after all. If you don't like it, no one's forcing you to play it.

I'm currently playing a Rogue PC in a party that's up to level 12 (not far form 13). So I have some perspective on this, though I won't claim to be a true expert. 1. Best melee weapon. IMO, there is no such thing. Over the course of the game, you will face many different monsters with different strengths and weakness in terms of their DR's. Getting too tied to any single weapon type can leave you really limited when you run up against an enemy with strong DR's vs your preferred weapon damage type. I am a player who just about always takes Arms Bearer on most every character, because I strongly favor having a ranged weapon and two melee weapon options (of different damage types). You can get around this to a degree by using weapon types that have dual damage types, like Swords which are Slash/Pierce. But honestly, I enjoy having the options. Sometimes, part of my "options" is to have one 2H melee weapon and one 1H melee weapon with a shield for those times when I feel the need for better defenses. One thing I would strongly suggest watching out for is this. Stilettos may be nice weapons, but they are strictly piercing weapons ... same as all ranged weapons, And if you have only two weapon slots and are using a ranged weapon and stilettos, you will be boned if you run up against monsters with very high Piercing DR or are outright immune to Piercing damage. Of course, if you're 100% melee, you can do stilettos with one weapon set and something else in the other. I prefer a Crushing damage type weapon for my second weapon because it's not that common that you'll see monsters who are immune to both crushing and either slashing or piercing. IMO, a good backup crushing weapon is a quarterstaff, because it's both a crushing weapon and a reach weapon. Moving on... 2. I don't really worry about debuffing an enemy's accuracy. For my rogue, I care more about producing afflictions that will qualify for sneak attacks. Mind you, they may still include accuracy debuffs, but that's not my primary concern. Also note that with the new talent "Apprentice's Sneak Attack" apparently being fairly popular, producing sneak attack qualifying afflictions helps more than just your rogue if you have others who are using this talent. 3. Weapon Style: I'm not using one. Heck, my rogue doesn't even have a weapon focus. The closest I come to a weapon "style" or "focus" is Marksman. Why? Because I really haven't settled on any specific weapons, ranged or melee for my rogue. I've had him changing his weapons relative often, while 4 out of the 5 other Companions are fixed on specific weapon types. Eder and Pallegina using Soldier. Durance doesn't have a specific Focus, but he's using the Magran specific talent that gives him +10 accuracy with swords and arquebusses. And Kana is using the Adventurer focus, Only GM doesn't have a focus, mostly because I've been giving her others stuff to strengthen other areas. She's been using that soulbound shortbow for a while now (she does have Marksman), but like my rogue PC, GM has been flipping around on her melee weapons, which she tends not to use all that often. All that said, if you have your heart set on a weapon focus, go for it. But there's something to be said for not picking one and not feeling tied to one. And being able to try out a bunch of different weapons without feeling that you just had to stick within a given weapon group. Besides, it's also kinda fun to be able to use all sorts of different weapons in my PC Rogue without feeling constrained. 3. What is so special about sabers? As a type, Sabers are a single damage type weapon, with average speed, but have a higher base damage range than swords or battleaxes. And there a fair number of nice ones in the base PoE game, but only 1 new one in WM1. People are drawn to that high base damage, and the fact that the unique sabers are mostly quite solid weapons with pretty good special effects, unlike some weapons in other types. Also, when thinking about sabers and Rogues, the higher base damage when combined with sneak attacks (and perhaps more common crits) means higher damage output per hit than you might get from other weapon types. At least that's my theory. Anyways, that's all I have for now.

I have to disagree with the statements that it's not about length but rather about quality content. IMO, those who have this sort of opinion (and I'm probably one of them, so don't get me wrong here) are already predisposed to being willing to read lengthy text. Probably enjoy reading books (and longer ones, at that) too. But I think that there is a group of people who don't particularly like reading, books, whatever. They're probably the same people who clamor for more voiced content and less pure text. They'd rather listen to someone speak the words or see the TV show or movie than read the book or read the text in games. And for these people I don't think that the quality of content means a damn because they largely don't like reading in the first place. And the more they have to read, the worse they'll like it. Of course, in the case of books, they can just not bother to read them and "wait for the movie" (if one is ever made of the book). But in the case of a cRPG, they have to decide whether or not they'll try to plow through the text to "get to the good stuff", i.e. the game play. Anyways.... I'm personally glad that PoE stuck with the old BG/IWD style of being primarily text based with limited voice overs. From everything I've read, voice work is VERY expensive and IMO any resources spent on it detracts from the game itself, i.e. its content, game play, storylines, and so on, which IMO should be the entire point of producing the game. Put another way, I'd MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, rather have a game with 10 hours of game play with limited voice work as opposed to only 2-3 hours of game play that was fully voiced. To me, it's all about the game, not listening to lots of voice over. (IMO, if you want to watch a story and listen to people talk, that's what TV and movies are for.)

I'd say that a lot depends on how PoE2 is intended to be. For starters, is it a continuation of the PoE1's player character's story or is it centered around a new PC, starting fresh at level 1. Secondly, while the idea of a "stronghold" as a ship is interesting, it would require an overall story that caused the player to travel the seas a LOT. Oh, I suppose in theory, you could have a ship as stronghold that never left port. But I'd foresee a lot of people complaining about that, saying "if it's on a ship, why isn't the story letting the ship travel around?", etc., etc. As for pocket planes or floating castles, I hope not. I prefer environments that aren't so hokey. I realize that this is a fantasy environment, but that doesn't mean that it has to be outrageously so. PoE seems to have been built around a somewhat more realistic fantasy environment. I'd rather that PoE2 avoided any over the top, outrageously fantasical fantasy elements to its environment. But I'll freely admit that that's my personal preference.

Ineth, there were manual resolve attacks in the court yard prior to WM1. I'm 100% certain about that. What I think would have been cool is if the devs created 2-3 small areas that were outside of Caed Nua where the player would fight these manual resolve battles. The areas would be quite small (think "small" as in similar in small size to the random encounter battles in BG1).

Unfortunately, they're just a random drop item. It's beyond me why they're not in the Doemenels' store. Nah, that's make too much sense.

^10000% This. Battles against Ogres and Ogre Druids are (IMO) best handled with mental spells. Confusion, Domination, and so on. These fights are a LOT harder to win when you're trying to take down every single ogres with just your own weapons and damaging spells. It's just so much easier when you get an ogre or 2 fighting FOR you rather than against you. Tip: If you're going to use a single target Domination spell, target the healthiest Ogre, not the least healthy. The low HP Ogres you can finish off yourself, or let the Ogre you dominate do it. And if you do dominate a low HP Ogre, they'll die too easily. In theory, it's best if your dominated Ogre isn't killed during the duration of the spell so that you can get the most value for the casting, though it doesn't hurt if he gets hurt a lot.

Doesn't sound sad to me at all, though if I was going to do it, I'd use alternate spellings just to make it look a little more like a fantasy setting. For example, my current PC Rogue is named Alastyr (i.e. Alastair). (I just like the way it sounded.)

I also like Sagani's quest, mostly because it's not a one (encounter) and done thing. Eder's also requires at least a little effort. OTOH, I don't like the personal "quests" that are nothing but dialogs. Gawd, they're boring, particularly GM's. I swear, when I have her in my party (like I do right now), I want to tell her to go see a pshrink!!! And as much as I love Pallegina, there's just not enough "meat" on her quest, so to speak.

Honestly, having a keep like this does NOTHING for me. Not a thing. I'd rather be a pure adventurer, roaming free through the land, exploring and looking for treasures and doing quests and so on, rather than having to administer some boring old castle. I will say that what I've seen thus far does seem to be what I suspect some will see as an improvement, and that's ok. My gripe is with the major challenge "quest" for ownership of Caed Nua. It seems to come far too soon after you've taken Caed Nua and I'm constantly wondering how long I can put this quest off, because the first 3-4 times I tried to fight the big battle, I got stomped because my party wasn't of a high enough level and/or perhaps I didn't have enough allies, or whatever. I guess I wish that this particular "quest" didn't get triggered until after a fair bit further into the main story line so that you're certain to be in a better position to deal with the situation. I understand that you'd rather be a pure adventurer, even if it was in the center of the main story, more involved in everything etc maybe you just don't like castle stuff or that its being boring. About the quest, yeah it seemed to come too early. Maybe I could just put it on hold I don't know. I had only one ally in the field, there seemed to be 2 more that could be allies but I have no idea who those factions should be; maybe a faction from twin elms and one more from WM I don't know. I've done it towards the end of act 2 when I haven't even went to WM. Tho the battle was very nice experience. Quillon, I won't argue that the concluding battle of the stronghold struggle (trying to avoid spoilers here, it's hard) is quite interesting, though my experience with it thus far was that you do (and can) need to put it off as long as possible. First, to get yourself to a higher level. And, second, only guessing at this point since I haven't tried fighting it again since I've been avoiding it to gain allies and level up, that if you have gained allies, the battle will become more manageable, maybe even easier. (I don't know yet.) As for my preference for a "stronghold", like I've said in previous posts (some, many months ago), I'd prefer a "stronghold" that was more of a place to hang my cloak from time to time. A farm house in Dyrford or a townhouse in Defiance Bay. Or maybe just a room in one of the faction headquarters, possibly with some privileges from having done so. Nothing that requires actually running/managing anything. Just a place to rest. And in the example of a room in a faction HQ, maybe some occasional missions/bounties to do for one's patron. Mind you, I love the big dungeon under Caed Nua, but there's no real reason that the two had to be tied other than for the SH's story. The dungeon could have stood alone, like the large dungeons in the IWD1 free expansion (dang, I loved the Trials of the Luremaster expansion!!!) or the BG1 or BG2 expansions. Anyways, it's all good discussion fodder.

I actually rather liked the fatigue mechanic. I liked the idea that you couldn't go on endlessly (whether fighting or just traveling) without resting every so often. I'd like to see Fatigue tied it to each character's Constitution with the higher one's CON, the longer they can go on without rest. Of course, this would effectively tend to mean that the party would only be as "strong" in this regard as its weakest (lowest CON) member. OTOH, tying this to CON would also serve as a significant inhibitor against overly low CON scores, since characters with very low CON scores would end up requiring the party to rest more often. I suppose how it would work in theory is that one would be assumed to have a base period of time at 100% effectiveness (i.e. no fatigue, fully rested), based on a CON of 10. And as with other attributes, each point of CON above or below 10 would increase or decrease that base period by X%. Beyond that, for every hour since your last rest, you'd lose X (points or percent) off of your base time while in non-combat conditions, i.e. just moving around an area or traveling between areas, etc. Or if you're in combat, you'd lose a significantly greater amount of X (points or percent) off of your base time. And once your base time reaches certain levels, you'd start hitting fatigue thresholds, similar to those previously in the game, which reduce your combat effectiveness. Anyways, just a thought....

Well, any sort of retaliation item would be a big help. I don't see barbs being all that good as abduction victims, because their forte isn't 1v1 combat. OTOH, 1v1 is where monks shine. However all this is kinda moot since the biggest problem facing any wraith abduction victim is being dazed (and possibly daze-locked) by the wraith, thus allowing the wraith to pummel the victim freely (barring the aforementioned retaliation items).

They are kinda ... always dead, you know Well, yeah true. But you know what I mean.

Well, yes, ranged rogues do heavily depend on team mates to create the afflictions that sneak attacks require. IMO, that's called team work. Honestly, it's never seemed like a big deal for my rogues, since I usually saw their primary reason for being in the party was as the party's trapmiester, and combat second.

Cute. Hadn't thought of the fists part. Still, Indy does seem more like a rogue at heart. Still, I suppose that one could play a rogue-ish monk, like strong on the Lore and Mechanics, using fists and pistols. One thing that would help here would be a set of "armor" that might be classified as "robes", but effectively looked more like a heavy coat. Something that made the character not look like they were wearing a glorified bathrobe and more like they were wearing a semi-realistic, stylish "armored" coat. It might not be Indy's brown leather bomber jacket, but it'd still be an interesting change of pace.

Honestly, having a keep like this does NOTHING for me. Not a thing. I'd rather be a pure adventurer, roaming free through the land, exploring and looking for treasures and doing quests and so on, rather than having to administer some boring old castle. I will say that what I've seen thus far does seem to be what I suspect some will see as an improvement, and that's ok. My gripe is with the major challenge "quest" for ownership of Caed Nua. It seems to come far too soon after you've taken Caed Nua and I'm constantly wondering how long I can put this quest off, because the first 3-4 times I tried to fight the big battle, I got stomped because my party wasn't of a high enough level and/or perhaps I didn't have enough allies, or whatever. I guess I wish that this particular "quest" didn't get triggered until after a fair bit further into the main story line so that you're certain to be in a better position to deal with the situation.

This is an interesting question. First thing is, how far are you prepared to go on this Indy themed rogue? Scholar is an obvious and playable choice, given that it gives you +2 bonus to Lore to start. OTOH, I'm not exactly sure that I'd 100% agree that Indy was a "scholar" in the truest sense of the word. Sure, he's technically a professor, but he has FAR more real world experience and knowledge than his father or his friend, Marcus. And I'd argue that Indy might be more accurately represented by a background that gave +1 in Lore and +1 in Mechanics, since he obviously knows how to deal with the traps that have been set in the tombs he's robbing ..., er, exploring. And the only two background that give +1 to Lore and +1 to Mechanics are Merchant or Scientist. And in a way, you could say that he's a bit of a "merchant" since he does what he does for pay. Moving on... I know that guns are an obvious choice, given that Indy is armed with a pistol (and a whip) in the films. However, IMO, pistols in PoE are horrible. Why? Because their range is terrible and very limiting. (It's a damned shame because there are so many interesting pistols in the game.) I realize that this sort of breaks with the Indy theme, but I'd suggest maybe going with crossbows. Crossbows are gun-like, but have a completely useful and playable range. There aren't as many good crossbows in the game, but the ones that do exist are pretty decent, plus one of the WM2 soul bound weapons is a crossbow (that looks quite good). If you want to press on with pistols, good luck. I tried to play a swashbuckler (fighter) using ruffian weapons, including pistols and blunderbusses. But I ended up using other ranged weapons because the range was just too dang limiting for my playstyle. (I like starting every battle with a long range volley from all of my characters using bows, crossbows, arbalests, and arquebusses. Then my front liners switch to their melee weapons while the enemy is sill running towards my position. But that's MY playstyle. Other players do things differently.)