Crucis

That doesn't seem like it would scale well.

Meh, if the backer NPCs are distracting you, that's on you. You know which ones they are. Just ignore them. That's what I do. To me, they're just "people" who are filler in the various communities who make those places seem less empty. Thy can't distract you unless YOU let them. And Mechanics is tedious? What do you want? Every trap and lock and hidden object to miraculously be disarmed, opened, or found when you get within 500 feet of them? Traps and locks and hidden objects are as much a part of fantasy RPGs as wizards and magic and magical creatures and so forth. Or do you want there to be no traps or locks or hidden objects in the first place? Jeez. And Stealth tedious? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? There's a reason why dungeon crawls aren't called dungeon sprints!!!! Jeez. It sounds like you want to play a fantasy RPG without a lot of the very elements that are at the core of what makes them what they are.

I realize that it's all personal taste, but Pallegina's my FAVORITE Companion (not for her combat abilities, but for everything else), if for no other reason than her utterly wonderful voice! I absolutely love her wonderfully exotic, richly accented voice! It's exactly what the Companions need more of, not less of! I will admit that I wish that there were more Companions, even if they weren't voice acted, or didn't have personal quests. And were only limited to the occasional banter. At a minimum, it would have been nice to have the other 3 classes, not covered by the first 8 Companions, included (i.e. a rogue, a barbarian, and a monk). And I have hopes that maybe in the expansion, the Devs will add in companions for those 3 classes. (Please? Pretty please????)

This. I found the random loot to be highly satisfying. I think Obsidian found the sweet spot here between static loot tables and random selection of a fixed list. I just wished there was more of it. And that the items would be more powerful. The gloves are nice, make no mistake, but that's about the only worthwhile items that really have a huge impact on your character. I'd love to see more powerful unique items in the game. Especially weapons... currently, a unique weapon is not really more powerful than an ordinary enchanted weapon, except for 1-2 extra enchants that you can not place on them manually (which also sometimes block manual enchants, which makes them even weaker in comparison). Also, they should add more item slots to the game. At least divide the necklace and cloak slots into two. I'd also love to see a tabard slot or something like that. Basicly a vanity-only item slot that can be worn over your traditional armor. And an option to turn helmets off. Seriously, helmets look awful in this game. Zw, I think that most of the "problem" is that of on-screen real estate. There's only so much room on the screen and around the character's paper doll for the little boxes where you put items into. That said, that friggin' useless pet (not AC) box should go (but I bet it won't because it was probably added because it may be a supporter requested thing). I'd like to see shields removed from the weapon sets. It always annoyed me that you had to have multiple shields. Put your shield in a slot where that pet slot is. And then, if a one handed weapon in equipped in the left box of a a weapon pair, it's assumed to be weapon and shield. If a two handed weapon is in the left box of a weapon pair and equipped, the shield is disabled. If a weapon is placed in the right box of the weapon pair, it's in the off hand and the shield is again disabled for that weapon pair. But this way, you only need one shield, even if you have sword in weapon pair one, and a club in weapon pair two. As for unique weapons. There definitely need to be more unique weapons, if only to fill out a number of weapon types that DESPERATELY need unique weapons. IMO, there should be at least 3 unique weapons per type. As for random loot, I don't really like seeing particularly powerful items like the Gloves of Manipulation that I desperately want to get hidden in random loot tables. I'd rather random loot be for fairly generic stuff. Frankly, the Gloves of Manipulation should be removed from the random loot table and moved into the House Doemenel merchant's inventory. One thing that bothers me a little about the hats in the game is that they don't get put over the character's hair. It removes the character's hair. I mean, if I'm playing a female character with nice longish hair, putting on a hat shouldn't cause all that hair to disappear, but it does. Another thing that gets me about helmets is that there's a pretty wide variety of normal helmet styles but darned few of the more interesting ones have an interestingly enchanted equivalent. Like the winged helm or the "frog"? helm that looks so perfect as a match for plate armor. Also, (and I could be wrong about this) there don't seem to be all that many really, really good boots. The Boots of Speed are very good (though at times I wish that I could turn them off, like a modal ability). The Shod-In-Faith boots are very good. There might be some others. After that, the remainder are not memorable (hence my apparent inability to remember any other very good ones, I suppose). I won't say that they're not useful. Hey, I'll use whatever I can get, but there's a difference between "use what I can get" and "being really so good that they're memorable". As for separate slots for necklaces and cloaks, it'd be great but is there enough screen real estate? Ditto for a tabard. And for what it's worth, if a cloak can be enchanted, I see no reason why a tabard couldn't be. (Also, having a "vanity" un-enchantable item like a tabard would seem to put it in the same class as having a slot for a pet.)

I fully agree that it's personal choice, but I have an extremely hard time seeing how anyone could NOT find it useful. I go with Ranged weapon, blunt weapon and edged weapon on just about every melee character I've played thus far. To me, not carrying a ranged weapon or 2 different damage type melee weapons is like trying to fight with one arm tied behind my back, and having to carry my weapon in my off-hand. For me, it's to the point that just like people almost have to find some strange reason to NOT use a wood elf for a ranged combatant character, I have that same problem trying to find a reason for not using an Island Aumaua for melee characters. Not because of their strength, but because if the free Arms Bearer talent. To me, the Arms Bearer talent is soooooooooooooooooooooooo much better and useful on melee characters (not counting monks) than any other racial ability that I have a hard time justifying picking any other race for a melee character. Still, it's a personal choice. == As for Fast Runner, I mostly agree with you. OTOH, IIRC, there are two basic types of movement enhancing items that I recall seeing. The Boots of Speed, which are usually only found late game. And some gauntlets that add +1 to movement speed (same as the Fast Runner feat). The problem I have with those gauntlets is that there are other gauntlets or bracers that are so much better that long term, those "speed gauntlets" are a waste of an item slot once you get one of those better gauntlets. Having said all that, there aren't all that many builds where Fast Runner would be useful or worth the cost. I can see a rogue or a ranger who you want to "kite" (I believe the term is) an enemy with ranged attacks could benefit from Fast Runner. Heck, even a character who you use to take an opening shot at range to draw the enemy back to your party can benefit from the little extra speed, because I've noticed that far to often enemies will run down that character before he can get back behind the party's front lines, if he took his shot too far from the party in the first place. I've heard that Fast Runner gives you just enough speed to stay ahead of most enemies trying to run you down. I agree with you about the spell stuff, though.

I would assume that they stack, given that the Active Abilities list doesn't show either one as suppressed. I have that setup on an Eder with Flail equipped for about 70%-80% graze to hit conversion rate. Regarding 1 handed style, an easy way to make it better would be to apply the bonus to: Graze to Hit Hit to Crit That way you get some type of bonus for higher accuracy characters. View, thanks for at least responding to my simple question. As for the rest, not a bad idea. But to be honest, I think that I like my idea even better. My idea is a lot more radical though. I'd do away with all the weapon focuses, specializations, and masteries. "OMG! What did he say????" Yep, you read right. What I suggest doing is replacing all those constricting weapon groups with an emphasis on the 4 fighting styles instead. (Actually, there might need to be additional ones to handle ranged weapons, but I'll skip that for now and focus only on melee weapons.) Each of the STYLES would have 3 levels of proficiency. I don't like the terms "focus" and "specialization", but mastery is fine. Maybe say that a person with 1 point in a style is "Adept". 2 points in a style is "Journeyman". And 3 points is "Mastery". Something like that. "Weapon Specialization" is wayyyyyy too modern and too techie sounding. Moving on... Each style would give similar bonuses. Bonuses in defense, accuracy, damage, attack speed, since I assume that each style is teaching one how to fight with these things in mind. Each style shouldn't be about only one little thing. An Adept might learn enough to get +2 Accuracy and +2 Defl in their style. And then perhaps a Journeyman might learn enough more to get another +2 Accuracy, +2 Defl, and +10% damage in the style. And the Master might have learned enough to get another +2 Accuracy, +2 Defl, +15% damage, and +20% Attack Speed in the style. On top of this, don't totally limit levels of skill above Adept to the Fighter class only. Perhaps allow Paladins, Barbarians, and Rangers (i.e. the other armed warrior classes) to be able to reach the Journeyman (i.e. 2nd) level of skill, while only true Fighter classes warriors can reach the Mastery level. (Monks are probably a corner case here who should probably gain these skill bonuses in unarmed combat automatically through their progression through the levels.) If one wanted to get a little more detailed (?) or complex (?), one could argue in favor of all other classes being able to reach higher levels of style skill, but perhaps at higher class advancement levels. That is, armed warrior classes might be able to gain Journeyman level in a Style at level 4, whereas maybe it might not be until perhaps level 6-7 before the other classes could reach Journeyman level. And maybe non-Fighter warrior classes could reach Mastery level, but at a little higher class level than for Fighters. For example, if a Fighter could gain Mastery in a style at level 7, maybe Paladins, Barbarians, and Rangers couldn't gain Mastery until level 9 or 10. I see some advantages to this concept. The first is that the groups all go away. You're no longer tied to a bunch of groups that often seem to make no sense and are terribly limiting. Of course, I do realize that in "reality" there are differences between using, say, a Qstaff and a great sword. But it seems to me that with fewer "groups", there's more room for creating your own flavor without being limited by wield, made up combinations of weapons that often make no sense. At least with these style combos, there is some sense (or at least I'd like to think there is). Another advantage of this concept is that it's a considerable departure from the DnD model which focused on specific weapons or the current PoE model which focuses on really artificial groups of weapons that often seem to have little in common and are also very limiting when it comes to creating character concepts. Well, anyways, that's my radical idea that will likely never see the light of day, except in a forum post.

Seriously, will no one answer my question about whether the style's graze to hit bonus stacks with the fighter ability Confident Aim's graze to hit bonus?

Why? This style has a graze to hit bonus, not a hit to crit bonus. What am I missing? (Other than the fact that if you are using a single weapon (with or without the Style talent) you get an accuracy bonus.) The accuracy bonus IS the point. But one doesn't need to pick the style to get the accuracy bonus and increase the number of crits. THAT was my point. Regardless, no one's answered by earlier question about stacking the style's graze to hit bonus with the fighter ability's that also gives a graze to hit bonus. That would be a very interesting thing indeed. More crits from the outside the style talent's accuracy bonus plus a possibly stacked graze-to-hit pair of bonuses?! Seems like that would be a pretty impressive combo.

I don't run in blindly either--as noted, I scout! My stealthiest party member goes in to check things out. Nothing wrong with your strategy and I'm sure it works for whatever class combos are in your party but the question was specifically about a Barbarian, the dude who wants to be in melee range pronto because Carnage doesn't work at range. I'd consider it a waste to spend a precious talent on something he'll be doing 10% of the time or less (plinking with a bow) when I could spend it on something he'll be doing 90% of the time (beat-sticking). OP's Barb also has Fast Running, apparently, which means he'll be able to get into melee range even faster for that sweet Accurate Carnage. Seems a shame to have him hanging back instead of racing in to wreck faces with that combo. Toast, honestly even if I had a Barb, I'd still use a ranged weapon. It's just my combat style. Let them come to me, rather than me go to them. I like dropping a priest Seal spell in front of my party and use that full party volley on the first enemy I see (preferably a spell caster if at all possible). Also, for a frontliner like a barbarian, I'd use a gun, xbow, or arbalest for the maximum damage. As for the cost, I guess that it doesn't bother me, because I feel that it's very well worth it. But others may not see it as I do. Also, I shouldn't have said "blindly" charge into battle. I really meant to say just charge into battle. I honestly and truly believe that the best combat strat in this game as well as the IE games is to force the enemy to come to you and not you going to them, because A) you can get off a good solid ranged volley during the time they're coming to you, and B) you can hold a solid combat formation, rather than allow different movement speeds and other random pathfinding issues to spread your party out into an uncontrollable mess. I like well managed, tightly controlled battle formations, not crazy azz wild-eyes berzerker charges. It's probably why I don't like the barbarian class in general because I see them as something I can't bring myself to role play, an unintelligent, uncontrolled, wild combat style, rather than a well-managed, disciplined, and intelligent style of combat. I see barbarians as the sort of characters who would ignore the orders of their commanders and ARGH!!!!! charge at the enemy for blood and glory, rather than fighting in smart and disciplined manner whose intent was to WIN not seek that blood and glory.

Why? This style has a graze to hit bonus, not a hit to crit bonus. What am I missing? (Other than the fact that if you are using a single weapon (with or without the Style talent) you get an accuracy bonus.)

My mage is using a one-handed sword, no shield. I do this for roleplaying reasons, but I think I read somewhere that using a one-handed weapon without shield offers a higher accuracy (perhaps because of the missing malus from the shield?). As for the question "Why not use a 2H weapon instead?": one-handed weapons tend to be faster than two-handed weapons. If your primary reason for going single handed, no shield is role playing, more power to ya. I prefer giving my mage a shield, though probably a small one (to avoid the accuracy penalty), because the way I look at it for my mages is that if they're in melee, it was against their choice and I'm more concerned with them staying alive than having them getting hits and doing damage. And as such, I use a shield for the extra deflection, I have them bring up their Arcane Shield (or whatever that ability is called), along with other stuff like Fire Shield.

Here's a question related to the Single-Handed style. Does the graze-to-hit bonus from Single Handed Style stack with the Fighter class ability Confident Aim, which also is a graze-to-hit bonus? Curious minds want to know.

Honestly, I have to find a reason to NOT take Arms Bearer rather than a reason TO take it. IMO, it's exceptionally valuable to be able to carry three weapons, even on front liners. Of course, part of this is my personal play style wherein I have EVERY member of the party armed with a ranged weapon, because I never blindly charge into the enemy. I hold my position and have the entire party fire a valley of ranged fire into the enemy as they charge into me. Then my front liners switch to melee weapons, while the back liners do whatever they will be doing. My normal front liners usually carry a ranged weapon (usually a gun or xbow/arbalest ... a slow loading, high damage weapon, since they're only like to take a single shot in most engagements), and two melee weapons covering different damage types. My ranged rogue tends to carry a high damage, slow reloading weapon for the opening salvo, a faster firing warbow for the rest of the battle, and a melee weapon, just to be on the safe side. EDIT: I view Arms Bearer as so valuable that it greatly increases the value of using an Island Aumaua on certain builds, because I see getting Arms Bearer as effectively a free Talent above and beyond the normal 6 that you'll get throughout the game (assuming of course that you reach level 12). Arguably, Wood Elves are somewhat similar to this insofar as their range advantage is like getting the Marksman talent (but on steroids) for free.

There's nothing random about it. There are 3 prerequisites. It's as "random" as the D&D penalty to AB if you wield a medium weapon in your off-hand. Also, if you want to discuss realism instead; sure! It's easier to be accurate when your brain doesn't have to account for the differences between the weapon in your right hand and the weapon in your left hand; size, length, weight, optimal trajectory. It's easier when it's mirrored. Bah. The entire idea of dual wielding a pair of offensive weapons (as opposed to "dual wielding" an offensive weapon and a parrying "weapon") is relatively absurd. It's "easier" to be fighting with only a single offensive weapon, period. Dual wielding is only a thing because people seem to think that it sounds or looks cool, not because it's practical. Personally, it wouldn't bother me if PoE dropped dual wielding entirely. Then hanged weapons slots from being a pair of slots to a single slot each, and a single slot outside of the weapons slots for a shield (sort of like wizard carries a grimoire in a slot outside of the weapon slot pairs currently). One advantage with this that I'd like is that you wouldn't need multiple shields if you wanted to carry multiple 1H weapons to use with shields. Then there would be the issue of what happens if you want to put a 2H weapon in a weapon slot while you have a shield equipped in the single shield slot. Does the presence of the shield in that slot block the equipping of a 2H weapon? Or could you be allowed to equip a 2H weapon in one of the slots, with the proviso that if you switch from a 1H weapon (with the shield equipped and functional) to a 2H weapon, the otherwise equipped shield becomes non-functional (as if it wasn't equipped)? Just some thoughts.

Some points in response. 1. Dual wielding a pair of daggers doesn't seem odd at all to me. Not so sure about stilettos. I'm far from knowledgeable about this, but a dual dagger combo just makes more sense since they'd be more about slashing or jabbing, whereas it seems that trying to dual wield with a pair of jabbing weapons seems just off. 2. Dual wielding some sort of one handed sword and a dagger (and perhaps a stiletto as well) seems entirely acceptable, though this seems like it'd be more of a style where the off-handed weapon is mostly for defense (i.e. parrying, etc.) but with some offensive potential. 3. Dual wielding things like a pair of full sized swords or clubs/maces, etc. may seem stylish in games, but it feels like it wouldn't be practical in the real world. Oh sure, it's just a game and we can go with stuff that might not be exactly practical in the real world. And the idea of dual wielding flails seems really wrong. It seems to me that trying to wield a weapon that's essentially a (spiked) ball on the end of a chain would be hard enough when you're using one. Using two of them just seems unfeasible. And if anything, it seems to me that trying to wield a full sized weapon in your offhand should incur a significant accuracy penalty on the offhanded weapons, and perhaps even a mild one on the primary hand weapon, since you're trying to focus on fighting with both weapons rather than a single weapon, which would seem to me to reduce your effectiveness even with the primary weapon. This is different when you're using a "light weapon" like a dagger or stiletto, since I'd think that the normal use of such a weapon in the off hand would be as a parrying "tool" rather than an offensive weapon. That is, your offensive moves would be with your primary weapon, and your defensive moves would be with both weapons.

A. I have no problem with anyone using stealth. To me, stealth is an exceptionally generic skill. THAT SAID, I don't like how in PoE, the armor you were has no effect on your ability to use stealth effectively. To me, it's utterly ridiculous that characters with equal amounts of stealth skill should be equally stealth when wearing plate as opposed to wearing no armor at all. It seems to me that trying to be stealthy while wearing plate armor is tantamount to be trying to be stealthy while dragging along a bunch of empty cans like those that get strung behind a just married couple's car. Clunkity-clunkity-clunk!!!! It just shouldn't be possible, or not at least without a massive penalty. For that matter, DEX should probably also modify one's Stealth. After all, a graceful, light-footed character is more likely to be a skillfully stealthy person than a heavy-footed, clumsy character. B. It also seems to me that Mechanics skill ought to be modified by DEX when trying to disarm traps and open locks (it's kind of hard to do those things when you're a fat-fingered, clumsy sort of person), and the Searching functions should probably be modified by Perception (obvious reasons). Of course, having attribute based skill modifiers would probably necessitate rebalancing things, so it likely won't happen. But the advantage of having such modifiers is that it would cause the characters who were meant to be seriously capable in certain skills to be built along certain lines. Extremely stealthy characters would be fairly dextrous. Good traps, locks, and hidden searchers would be dextrous and perceptive. Those were true Lore masters would probably be rather intelligent. Athletes would probably have some combination of good Might, Con, and Dex scores. And Survival? Not sure. Perhaps INT, or maybe CON. Yes, maybe CON. I say CON, only because the most functional usage of the Survival skill is in extending potion/food durations, rather than things like tracking or knowledge of the wilderness, which could seem more INT based. CON doesn't have much value, so this would be one way to give it "some" value, even if it's still not much. As for your "wah! it's my niche" rant, well I could say the same thing about Fighters. Why are fighters hogging all the skill in weapons, i.e. weapon specialization and weapon mastery? Hmmm? What's good for the goose is good for the gander. A. While wearing any armour will make stealth harder, plate armour is nowhere near as noisy as you make out. On the contrary, you know all the clanking you hear in films and TV from people wearing plate? Added in by special effects, because they find that people are so attached to the idea of noisy plate that they won't accept it unless they add in the noises. Stealthing in plate is possible, ambushes in plate was done all the time, and actually it's leather armour that makes a lot of noise, it squeaks. B. It might seem like that to you, but it's more modified by quick thinking and understanding. Pillars deliberately avoids basing skills on attributes because in real life your skill at something is modified by a collection of different attributes. Being dextrous is by no means a guarantee that you will be good at being stealthy and being someone who is patient, observant, methodical, and knowing what they are doing is more effective than being nimble at stealth. Pillars deliberately did not want to force people into specific builds to use certain skills, because there is always a different way of justifying it. And as for the 'fighters hogging al the skill in weapons", ahem no they don't and thanks for proving me right! Fighters may specialise in combat but if you read my post you'd have realised that I stated that all classes are traditionally expected to be able to fight to some degree: rogues can still usually wield weapons and even have special backstab and sneak attack skills, wizards can blow stuff up and fall back to knives when necessary, etc. If you had a system where only the Fighters could fight, you'd complain right? So why not the same for other skills? There are many systems where the rogue is the only one who can do these essential skills, but name a system where only the fighters can fight? EDIT: In fact, this brings me to another point: you say fighters hog all the combat skills but they don't. Not only do rogues get combat skills but if I don't want to bring a fighter along there is usually other options, I could take a Barbarian or Paladin for instance. If I don't want a mage I can take a sorcerer. But very rarely do you get an alternative to the rogue: in NWN 2 for instance I realised that I needed to have at least one character with a level in rogue in order to detect the traps, due to the Detect Traps talent only rogues got. In all honesty, Flint, I disagree with just about everything you say above right down the line. I will say that perhaps PoE made a decision to go a certain direction, but frankly I think that that direction was wrong. I think that certain mixes of attributes SHOULD impact skill effectiveness. I think that doing otherwise is silly and nothing more than trying to ram square pegs into round holes with a warhammer. I didn't say that fighters hog all the combat skills. Read more carefully please. I said that they hog the WEAPONS skills. They're not the same thing. I'm not talking about those fighter abilities like knockdown or stances, etc. Just weapons skills. And while I wouldn't be horribly bothered if non warrior classes couldn't reach higher levels of skill in weapons, it bugs me that classes like paladin, rangers, and barbarians can't gain higher levels of skill in weapons. Why shouldn't a paladin be just as skilled with a greatsword as a fighter? Why is it that a Ranger can't have mastery in ranged weapons when they've been constructed to be such supposedly highly skilled ranged combatants? And, OK, maybe barbarians might not be quite as highly skilled as more highly trained fighters. OTOH, couldn't they at least gain "specialization" in their weapons? (Darn, I hate that term "specialization". Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization sound so utterly dorky. Weapon Mastery is fine. But couldn't they have come up with less dorky terms for the first and second level of weapons group skill? Jeez.)

A. I have no problem with anyone using stealth. To me, stealth is an exceptionally generic skill. THAT SAID, I don't like how in PoE, the armor you were has no effect on your ability to use stealth effectively. To me, it's utterly ridiculous that characters with equal amounts of stealth skill should be equally stealth when wearing plate as opposed to wearing no armor at all. It seems to me that trying to be stealthy while wearing plate armor is tantamount to be trying to be stealthy while dragging along a bunch of empty cans like those that get strung behind a just married couple's car. Clunkity-clunkity-clunk!!!! It just shouldn't be possible, or not at least without a massive penalty. For that matter, DEX should probably also modify one's Stealth. After all, a graceful, light-footed character is more likely to be a skillfully stealthy person than a heavy-footed, clumsy character. B. It also seems to me that Mechanics skill ought to be modified by DEX when trying to disarm traps and open locks (it's kind of hard to do those things when you're a fat-fingered, clumsy sort of person), and the Searching functions should probably be modified by Perception (obvious reasons). Of course, having attribute based skill modifiers would probably necessitate rebalancing things, so it likely won't happen. But the advantage of having such modifiers is that it would cause the characters who were meant to be seriously capable in certain skills to be built along certain lines. Extremely stealthy characters would be fairly dextrous. Good traps, locks, and hidden searchers would be dextrous and perceptive. Those were true Lore masters would probably be rather intelligent. Athletes would probably have some combination of good Might, Con, and Dex scores. And Survival? Not sure. Perhaps INT, or maybe CON. Yes, maybe CON. I say CON, only because the most functional usage of the Survival skill is in extending potion/food durations, rather than things like tracking or knowledge of the wilderness, which could seem more INT based. CON doesn't have much value, so this would be one way to give it "some" value, even if it's still not much. As for your "wah! it's my niche" rant, well I could say the same thing about Fighters. Why are fighters hogging all the skill in weapons, i.e. weapon specialization and weapon mastery? Hmmm? What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Odd as it may sound to some, I don't know why going 1 handed wouldn't add to your speed more than dual wielding would. And there are other questions one could pose regarding these various 4 styles. In theory, one could wonder why each style doesn't teach you increased defense (DEFL), increased Accuracy with whatever weapon(s) you're using, and/or increased speed. Of course, I suppose this could make them seem pretty generic if they were all the same. OTOH, let's say for yucks that they were all the same. Each of the 4 gave you +X DEFL, +Y Accuracy, +Z% damage and perhaps +ZZ% attack speed. The thing is that if you picked, for example, two handed weapons, you'd only gain this benefit with 2H weapons. (Well that's obvious. Duh.) You'd be a lot more proficient in one style over the other, but that proficiency would express itself in more than just the current single area (speed, accuracy, damage, or DEFL). Ya know, come to think of it, if these styles were enhanced in this way, you could almost get rid of weapon proficiencies (and spec and mastery) and focus your skill on combat styles rather than individual weapons. Also, there'd probably be a need for a ranged weapons style, though one could argue that Marksman could cover that. OTOH, one could also argue in favor of a bow style and a guns/xbow style. And who knows about magical implements? (A style of their own?) But back to melee styles, an advantage here would be that it would remove any perceived limitations of the current groups. I'll admit that it might create a different set of perceived limitations. For example, if you pick single-handed weapon style, that'd preclude you from using that style for two handed melee weapons. OTOH, it's not like you're stuck with a WF group that seems mismatched for your vision of the character. Of course, I suppose if you have a vision of a character who uses daggers, staffs, and bows proficiently, you'd be in a bit of a bind, style wise, but I'm thinking (perhaps wrongly) that it'd be more flexible than the current system. Another interesting benefit that this idea could be that it'd be a very different take on weapons skill than DnD, at least as I remember it in the BG and IWD games. Rather than focusing on individual weapons or groups of weapons, you'd be focusing on fighting styles. Well, anyways, just a bunch of theory crafting, so take it for what little it's worth.

I'm the opposite. I wish that rogues were more necessary. If I want a serious arcane spellcaster, I pick a wizard. If I want a serious traps and locks guy, that should be a rogue. That's just how I look it it. Is it cliched? Probably, but I don't care. That's how I see the genre of fantasy games. Different classes have different roles. And to me, perhaps the primary role for Rogues in my view is as sort of a combat engineer, i.e. traps and locks, and combat is secondary. As for priests, exactly why do you have a priest wearing nothing more than a robe? Sure, you can do that, but I certainly wouldn't. I guess that I'm stuck in the cliche of the DnD battle cleric who wears fairly heavy armor, and while he may not be a true 110% front liner, he's not unwilling or incapable of helping to hold the line if necessary. Maybe I'm not getting the most of our priest spellcasting by playing this way, but it's the way I'm used to running clerics .... er, priests. So I stick with it. Then again, I'm not one of these all or nothing min-maxers who believes that the front liners should never be in anything less than full plate and everyone else should never wear anything but regular clothes. I try to put characters in what I think they'd want to be wearing if they were thinking rationally. But that's just me.

Damn I'll have to replay that part again then just to hear Eder say it, maybe give him a brofist when he says that Too bad I subbed Durance out for Pallegina just before the tower. Wanted another tank, not dead weight once spells expended. P/S - But seriously its nice to revisit scenes with different characters if only to hear what they have to say. At the animancy hearing, Aloth and Pallegina were fairly vocal, followed by Grieving Mother. The rest not so much. Its nice to see where they stand on things even if it has no real impact in the game. Oh yea Durance didn't say a thing then, but he did make some sarcastic remarks about the Watcher in the aftermath of it. Typical, wouldn't expect any different from him. Trust me. Durance makes up for it later. When you're talking to the various gods in the Council of Stars, Durance can't shut up. It's a wonder that one of the gods didn't send a lightning bolt down his way to shut his pie hole.

Honestly, I think that one needs to take at least one accuracy enhancing talent, whether it's a weapon focus or marksman. I agree and have suggested the same thing, i.e. taking Marksman over a WF for a character that's going to be almost entirely focused on ranged combat, because it wouldn't feel like you've been limited to a single WF group's weapons. And regarding ciphers, since you need to get hits to generate focus points, you need accuracy to get those hits, so IMO picking Marksman or a WF seems rather necessary to me. I also like taking the in-class talent that increases the amount of focus you get from the damage you do, since that increases the speed that you gain focus. You are saying this like marksman and weapon focus don't stack. I see no reason not to pick both. I did say "at least one accuracy enhancing talent", meaning one or more. Of course you can go for both. I certainly do.

OK, I'll bite. Not a real bit fan of Kana because I've never been a big fan of bards/chanters in general. They just don't do it for me. I don't hate Kana. I just don't like him much either. I do appreciate him as an adventurous scholarly type though. Durance? Seriously? It's easy to see why some people don't like him. The guy participated in the Purges. He's not exactly a likeable character. That doesn't mean that he's a bad character, just not exactly likeable. GM? I think that maybe some people were turned off by her personal "quest". Maybe. Pallegina? I can't see why you don't like her. I love her. I love her voice, in particular, because it gives her a much needed foreign/exotic touch that's lacking in, for example, Sagani. I'll admit that in combat, she's nothing special, but as a character, I enjoy having her around. But then again, I like paladin characters in general, so I'm probably biased. Frankly, Pallegina's wonderfully exotic voice almost carries the entire character. As for Sagani, I don't mind her personal quest. It seems interesting enough. My problem with her is that her voice is so freaking bland for an isolated culture. IIRC, isolated cultures tend to produce rather strong accents, and Sagani's accent is totally non-existent. She might as well be a ranger from Dyrwood. Her voice has no character, IMO. Let me be clear. I don't dislike Sagani's character or usefulness in combat. But I seriously dislike her ridiculously bland voice for the reasons I state above. Her voice is the polar opposite of Pallegina's. And IMO, Sagani's voice is the worst of all the companions, by far. Speaking of voices with character, IMO, a voice that was sadly underused was Calisca, the tutorial NPC fighter. Her voice has a nice touch of a backwoodsy accent and real character unlike Sagani's which was as bland as white bread.

I agree with you that it would have been a really good idea for there to be a moment where the party members each had something to say prior to jumping down the hole. It would have been like that point in BG2 where just before you go to confront Irenicus on that tree area, all of your BG2 companions had something to say. I'm undecided about Sagani and whether she'd be willing to take the leap. On one hand, she seems very loyal, but then again all of the Companions do. But on the other hand, maybe she more than any other character seems to have a strong reason (5 years away from her family and village) to leave the party after completing her question. To me, none of the other Companions even seem to come close to having any reason (other than, I suppose, not wanting to die) for wanting to leave the party. I suppose from a game design standpoint, I could see the possibility that a lot of players might be unhappy if Sagani left their party right before jumping into the hole. These players may have invested a lot of time building up Sagani and working her into their plans for the party, and would be ticked off if she bailed on them at the last moment. But from a "realism" PoV, I could easily see Sagani desperately missing her family and wanting to head back to Nassituq immediately after completing her personal quest, though if this was going to happen in the storyline, it might be better if Sagani clearly told the Watcher that she'd be leaving to go home as soon as she found Parsuq (?) to at least it didn't come as a complete, out of the blue shocker. To a much lesser degree, I could see Kana at least having some second thoughts about whether he should head back to Rarutai (?). But frankly, the way I perceive his character, I see Kana as being someone who would be more than happy to stick with the Watcher out of a sense of wanting to keep seeing more of the world and learning new things and so on. He seems like a very adventurous yet scholarly type. Eder's easy. As others have said, he's the broest of bros. He'll stick with the Watcher until the end, no matter what. Aloth will stick with the Watcher to the very end because he wants to put an end to Thaos and his schemes and stop the Leaden Key. Durance will stick with the Watcher to the very end because he feels that he's testing the Watcher. And that Test doesn't end until the very end. I think that GM would stick with the Watcher to the very end because she cares deeply about ending the scourge of the Hollowborn. That seems like reason enough. Pallegina's official mission may be over with the trade deal, but she still seems like a paladin who wants to right wrongs and defend the people of the Dyrwood, even if they're not her own (Vaillian) people, against the evil of Thaos. And for her, that seems like all the reason she needs to stick with the Watcher. As for Hiravias, I don't really know. I haven't played him for any length of time, so I don't have a good handle on his personality.

I don't mind random loot generation for anything except unique items. I find it really annoying that I've played PoE from start to finish 3 times and not once have I gotten the Gloves of Manipulation, nor have I gotten a chance to buy most of the things that Azurro sells when he visits my SH. In fact, I really dislike Azurro for a number of reasons. 1. His visits are too short. You can decide to travel from point A to B on a trip that will take over 25 hours and miss Azurro because he only stays 25 hours. Yes, some will say that you can just reload a save from just before your trip, but to me this is just covering a case of mildly bad design. Azurro should stay at the SH for at least 2, maybe 3 days, just so that you won't miss him. 2. What he sells comes from a random list. The problem here is that when the game selects the next item to sell, it should NOT be allowed to sell any item that you've already purchased from Azurro. And frankly, I wish that it wouldn't offer up any item that you chose not to buy as well. Repeats are annoying. 3. Honestly, I just don't like this entirely visiting merchant selling a single random item model. I can think of a few ways that it could be fixed. A. Have Azurro be like a normal merchant with his full array of items, but keep the visits though increase his layover time to 2-3 days, so that you don't miss him while in transit between places. B. Similar to "A", except have him stay on permanently. C. Have him show up as he currently does, but as long as you've repaired the weapons merchant store in your SH, the item that Azurro has to sell gets added to that merchant's stock after his visit. (Probably a bit too complex, but hey, it's an idea.) Personally, I like either A or B, because I don't like the randomness (which never seems all that random at all) of Azurro's choices. I have yet to see that nice armor (Rebel's Call, IIRC?) or shield he has n his random list. I've only seen Wurmwull armor, the pretty good morning star, and the overpriced set of gloves, in 3 full run throughs. Very annoying.

Honestly, I think that one needs to take at least one accuracy enhancing talent, whether it's a weapon focus or marksman. I agree and have suggested the same thing, i.e. taking Marksman over a WF for a character that's going to be almost entirely focused on ranged combat, because it wouldn't feel like you've been limited to a single WF group's weapons. And regarding ciphers, since you need to get hits to generate focus points, you need accuracy to get those hits, so IMO picking Marksman or a WF seems rather necessary to me. I also like taking the in-class talent that increases the amount of focus you get from the damage you do, since that increases the speed that you gain focus.