Crucis

I get your point about the size of the the pally's aura. OTOH, the aura shouldn't be so small that you feel like you have to be crawling up the pally's back to be inside the aura. There should be a happy medium so that your front liners don't have to feel bunched up as tight as sardines in a can to get the effect of the pally aura.

I guess that it's really a matter of personal taste. I didn't mind Kana's attitude at all. My problem with him was more of a problem with chanters in general, i.e. how long it takes to get enough chants going to all you to cast an invocation. I've never kept Hiravias around mostly because I've never been able to like druids all that much. I guess that we just don't click. I also don't mind Sagani at all, but I have a soft spot in me for rangers. That said, I haven't used her, except for a very short time, in my current party, because she just doesn't fit with the group. I have Eder and Pallegine as my frontliners, my PC Monk, a custom made ranged Rogue to be the traps and locks specialist, Durance, and Aloth. My custom Rogue is the team's ranged specialist and I don't see the need for a second one, even though I don't mind Sagani at all. I don't mind Aloth either, though I agree that he's not the most assertive of personalities. I might consider replacing him with Grieving Mother, who is the only one of the Companions I haven't picked up to put in my stronghold for various SH missions. I agree about Eder. He really does his job as a hold-the-line front liner. Hard to ask for more, plus he's so laid back and not b!tchy. As for Pallegine, I happen to like having her along. She's a fairly durable second tank, certainly moreso than my monk, even though my monk has been doing crazy damage through out this run. Durance? Well, he is a grumpy pain in the arse. But he's also a priest, so it's rather hard to dump him, short of replacing him with a custom priest, which I won't do this far along into things. Personality wise, I'd have to say that my least liked is Durance, though I have to admit that I haven't played Hiravias nearly enough to get a real feel for his personality. As far as a useful party member in combat, I tend to think that they're all useful in their own way. It's probably more a matter of play style than of actual usefulness. Some people may find some characters more useful than others, and other players may have the reverse opinion, strictly based on their individual play styles.

Is there any point to these pets, other than being collectible? Do they do anything useful?

Meh. Honestly, I like "on all the time" racial abilities better, though the Moon GL's healing ability has nice synergy to it.

For whatever reason, I had much less of a problem with Aasimar and Tieflings in IWD2 than I do with Godlikes in PoE. The Godlikes (which starts off with too much of a hokey name for my taste) go too far over some imaginary line for my taste. How can a Fire godlike sleep without setting the pillow and bed on fire, for example? They're too strange, particularly in terms of their looks. If their outward appearances weren't so bizarre, I could probably find them more playable. Of all the godlikes, Pallegine's avian godlike is by far the least objectionable looking. I personally wish that the devs would tone down their bizarre looks. For example, a fire godlike could simply have a rather reddish appearance, with eyes that appeared to be aflame, and body temps that were quite higher than normal for humans. And moon GL's could have that rather blueish white tint to their skins with eyes that seemed to glow a a pale white like the moon. Death GL's might have a rather distinctive grayish pallor to their skin with eyes of the purest black. (Perhaps sort of an undead appearance, I suppose.) And for a Nature GL, perhaps brown and green tones. A greenish skin with very green eyes, perhaps. And a brown hair, the color of some type of wood. But I realize that tastes vary.

Plate seems a bit much. Regardless, it seems to me the issue here is that the monk class seems to be fairly heavily aimed towards unarmed combat. And from what I've seen thus far, the more you armor up a monk, the less he seems like martial artist and the more he seems like a fighter with a slightly different set of talents. Also, IIRC, isn't the Torment's Reach's "maneuver" a kick? (I could be wrong on this.) The idea of a plate wearing monk kicking an enemy seems wrong. Heck, the idea of a plate wearing monk using fists seems really strange too. Also, given that some of their class abilities are have time based durations, the heavier their armor, the fewer chances they'll have to make attacks. It's a rather delicate balance. You need to take some damage to get "wounds" to power their special abilities, but not too much. At the same time, you want to be able to be as quick as possible to be able to make as many attacks in the limited time you have while those abilities are active. I suppose that one could not bother using the time-based abilities (like swift strikes) and focus on those that would work better for a slower, armed and armored type of monk.

Lol...first of all- I stated in thread title - NOT LEGAL OBTAINED. Got the point before you got here? Second- I wrote that I found robe for ROLE PLAYING purpouse. For some of us this game is still RPG you know? I want to ROLE PLAY my monk. Plate armor do not allow me for enough immersion. This is to be used by those who would like to role play their monk more in game. You can use it but you do not have to. Cheats are here and you can't tell if someone used them or not. It is not MMO... And last this- you have nothing to say how I play my own single player game. I beat TC legal two time, beat game 4 times in total. Now I want to focus more on Role Playing and fun. I though someone who care more about role playing their char in RPG game then stats and numbers may appreciate it. Cheers. Actually, he can "say" whatever he likes about how you play your own game. You can just ignore him as much as you want.

I just wish that the Godlikes weren't so damned ugly, then I might be more tempted to use them.

I'm not so sure that I'd call what he's done is cheating. After all those robes may look like robes, but they have the DR and recovery time of a suit of armor. He could wear robes with the weak stats for the look, or wear the armor for the stats. All he's doing is wearing robes that have the pros and cons of armor. Not seeing this as a significant cheat. Now, if those robes has 10 DR with the recovery time of robes, then you'd have a point. Read his post he didn't find them ingame. I did read his post from start to finish. You're making a big deal over nothing. He's basically wearing armor that's been skinned to look like robes, though the elemental DR's seem a bit much. Regardless, his robe skinned armor has the recovery time and base DR of a Fine Breastplate.

It would be nice if monks were more than being about unarmed combat specialists. OTOH, the more you move away from the unarmed monk paradigm, the more they look like some form of fighter or rogue or whatever, and become less unique. That said, I suppose that monks could be tweaked to remove the strong emphasis on unarmed combat and try to merge the general concept with armed combat. They might have a combat style that favored speed and hitting power over the more balanced approach of the fighter class, but without becoming a clone of barbarians or rogues. Of course, I suppose that there will always be people who like the unarmed martial artist style monk. One thing that I'd suggest would be a weapon focus group that focused on stereotypical asian mink-like weapons, even if PoE's using more European versions of them. Weapons like daggers, sabers (as a replacement for katanas), Qstaffs, spears, and bows. In fact, if one wanted to really drive home that these are monk weapons, perhaps the class could have a penalty for using weapons that aren't in this set of weapons right at level one, with the point being that one reason that monks are special is their intensive training on this specific group of weapons, plus the idea that weapons outside this group don't really work for the class' unique fighting style (particularly the melee weapons). Anyways, just some ideas.

I'm not so sure that I'd call what he's done is cheating. After all those robes may look like robes, but they have the DR and recovery time of a suit of armor. He could wear robes with the weak stats for the look, or wear the armor for the stats. All he's doing is wearing robes that have the pros and cons of armor. Not seeing this as a significant cheat. Now, if those robes has 10 DR with the recovery time of robes, then you'd have a point.

I'm sorry. This is my bad. For some reason I can't explain, I thought that Gramfel was Sly. I guess that I wasn't expecting 2 such relatively similar encounters on the same map, Ooops.

Darqleo, I don't have the dungeon built in my stronghold, so that can't be the trigger.

That's quite a list with a lot of good ideas. I'd love at least one companion in each class for starters. Rogue in particular. Without a companion rogue, you're stuck either having to play a rogue yourself, have a non-rogue companion be a substandard trap and lock miester, or pick up a custom Rogue NPC. All doable, but (other than playing the rogue PC) not as much fun as having a Companion NPC. Of course, more Companions is probably a costly thing, supposedly due to the cost of voice acting, so I don't know how likely this is. Speaking of voice acting, one little gripe I have is the voices available to PC's and custom built NPCs all sound almost the same to me, almost like the same person (one male and one female) was doing them with only a mildly different flavor to match the flavor of the voice. It'd be nice if the voices sounded much more obviously different. Better Ranger class. Yes please. Speaking of cities, one thing that I remember from BG1 (correct me if I'm wrong) was that the time of day mattered. People disappeared (presumably went home) after dark. Some businesses may have closed. And so on. It seemed more real than being able to walk around a city or town and not be able to tell if it was day or night by something other than whether it was light or dark out. More unique ITEMS in general, not just weapons and armor. More areas. Of course. But frankly I'd assume that any expansion would add its own areas, like were seen in the various BG1/2 and IWD1 expansions. Actually, IIRC, only BG1's expansion was merged within the base game of BG1 and accessible without leaving for an entirely new area/"sub-game".

I'd like to see all unique items (as opposed to generic ones) placed at the top of the store's list. It's a bit tedious to have to scroll down through the inventory looking for the unique items, though this would be made less tedious by your suggestion.

I have to say that I don't particularly like the OP's idea in large part because I don't agree with his definition of "fun". I don't think that it's "fun" to have to micromanage each and every single frickin' party member to take advantage of their resource based abilities. Honestly, I find that to be boring, not fun. I like having a decent number of good auto-attack characters. First of all, it lets me focus my attentions on my spellcasters. And secondly, it reduces the amount of constant micromanaging I have to do in battle. If Eder is engaging an enemy and holding his own, I don't feel the need to have to issue a new order for him every couple of seconds. I like that I can let him go about his business. Simply put, constantly micromanaging all 6 characters isn't fun. It's tedious and boring. Occasional MM of the auto-attackers is fine. Constant MM is not.

Dada, yeah, I'm quite sure that the guy in the middle was at least named Sly Cyrdel. That's what the name plate says. For what it's worth, I didn't kill Raedric, so he's still hanging around back at his castle.

^This. At the start, many characters are not particularly well suited to going it solo (unless you're particularly skilled as a player, I suppose). So often the best thing to do is to try to sneak past any possible encounters and get into town to gather up some companions before going back to clear the area.

Yeah but as I mentioned I picked Weapon Focus: Ruffian not Soldier. Even if I try and see if I can change that through IE Mod then I would only have two plus points from that weapon focus. Ruffian is completely useful for a Rogue, ( In my opinion that is. ) while Soldier would only make Arbalest and Arquebus useful for my Hearth Orlan Rogue. Again this is just my personal opinion, so it may not be yours or others. Sorry, I only read the first paragraph of your post. I don't want to be buttonholed into any single WF set with a rogue. It's not too big a deal for melee characters as their choices aren't usually too constricting. But with ranged specialists like ranged rogues and rangers, getting stuck with single WF set forces you to either stick with that WF set's choices or you ignore that oh-so-nice +6 accuracy bonus to use weapons outside of the WF set. Honestly, I haven't picked a WF for my rogue for this reason. It's let me switch from having her use a crossbow to an arquabus, to considering using a warbow as a secondary ranged weapon without having to feel the pain of losing a +6 WF set bonus for doing so. This is a reason why I said in another thread that I'm growing to dislike the existing WF groups as currently constituted. You do have a point there, I might try that with another ranged character in the future. Would solve the dilemma of which weapon to choose, simply use the best weapon you find and like ... nice I will remember that. It just occurred to me that there's a slightly different way to view this point. If you're strictly playing a specialist ranged combatant who wants the freedom to use any ranged weapon without being constricted by a WF, you could take the Marksman talent. Probably would anyways, but stick with me. But by not taking a WF (assuming that you'd take Marksman anyways), you could put the talent you saved by not taking a WF into some other talent that would enhance your character's ranged abilities. Envenom Weapon, Penetrating Shot, Arms Bearer (another weapons slot), or some class specific ones. Just a thought.

If you're playing a Rogue PC, I'd honestly have that character be the traps and locks master. For starters, you get a +2 in Mechanics for being a rogue. And with either a Laborer or Merchant background, you get another +1 in Mechanics. That's not a bad start, one which non-rogues can't match. I'd put as many point in Mechanics as possible, and try to spread some to Stealth, Athletics, and Lore. Having a little stealth is useful. And having about 3 points in Athletics is a near must for all adventurers. (Basically, anything below 3 and your adventurer is out of shape and will get tired more quickly than he or she should.) And some points in Lore doesn't hurt. It's nice to have the option to cast level 1 or even 2 scrolls.

I think that there's something to be said for a arquebus/bow combo. Use the gun for the opening shot for an instant high alpha sneak attack, and then switch to a bow for a faster rate of fire. Or perhaps switch to a crossbow for the slightly higher RoF, but with less of a loss of firepower. Another alternative is the Forgiveness pistol which while "very slow" has a 1.2 speed multiplier. Don't know if this turns a "very slow" into a merely "slow" weapon or not, but assuming it works, it's something. And once a battle is well and truly joined, the shorter range probably isn't a major issue.

But the thing is that the two Sly's and his parties are very different. One Sly appears to be human and wears plate and seems to either be a fighter, while the other Sly is some other race and is definitely wearing something other than plate, and is some sort of spellcaster, I think. (Chanter?) Very odd. The "real" Sly is the human in plate. The "fake" Sly is the other one.

Anyone know why there are 2 Sly Cyrdels (with associated parties)? This is a little confusing. You get the bounty mission and go to the right map. And if you kill the version in the middle of the map, it's not really the one you're looking for ... which I suspect gets people to thinking that there's a bug. After all, you killed a bad guy named Sly Cyrdel, so where's the head you need to collect the bounty ... not realizing that there's a second Sly Cyrdel out there ... the real one (or he'd better be). So, where are there two versions of Sly? Just curious.

A game warden could probably a Hunter; one of the options is simply "I used to spend a lot of time on my own in the wilderness". Funnily enough, Hunter also covers Fisherman. They should probably add some information on what each Background "covers" in terms of roleplaying. Like adding "The hunter background describes anyone that used to hunt or gather for their village, hunted monsters for a living, acted as a game warden or outdoorsman, or simply was a dedicated fisherman" to the Hunter text. "The laborer background can be used to describe someone that did manual labour for a living, such as being a builder, a blacksmith or a cook". I mean, look at Clergyman. If you pick Clergyman, it's probably because you want to be a Clergyman, right? Well, one of the options is actually to tell Calisca that, nu-uh, it's just a lie you tell people so you can manipulate them. So the Clergyman background can also be used for a con-man. ...except, well, the conversation options you'll unlock later all has to do with being an actual clergyman, but w/e. Either way, yeah, I can wish for a lot more. Not really. That's just a lie I tell people so I can manipulate them. On Hunter, maybe it'd be better if it was called "Woodsman", with a slightly more generalized background description that could cover a hunter, game warden, tracker, scout, etc. As for the rest, it's true that one can stretch the backgrounds to cover a wide array of things. That said, if that's the intent of the devs, it'd be best if those stretchable backgrounds were as generalized as possible. (Some are, some aren't so much.) But another reason to wish for more backgrounds beyond simple role playing is to get some additional combinations of skill bonuses. For example, a rogue who has a serious background as a thief, might have +1's in stealth and mechanics, or maybe just a +2 to stealth. But a swashbuckling rogue might be more inclined towards +1's in stealth and athletics. And a scout might have +1's in stealth and survival. (Some of these combos may already exist. I'm just throwing ideas out there for fun.)

I don't think that it's a great idea to enchant a LOT of things, mostly because the ingredients are a limited resource. From my experience, the best things to enchant of unique items that need an upgrade, followed by early on, it's not a bad thing to enchant an occasional weapon to fine. For example, enchanting a regular arqabuss to Fine can be worth it. I just wouldn't do it for every single regular arqabuss you need to fully outfit your party with Fine versions. This can also be true for unique armors and shields, though the upgrades to those items are much more limited. Also, I'm not so sure that it's worth spending a lot of money on generic enchanted weapons from merchants, with the possible exception of guns, if you really have your heart set on getting a blunderbuss and you haven't seen one yet i your travels. Also, I'm not sure that buying Fine items is worth the cost because the cost to enchant in terms of gold and ingredients is fairly low. OTOH, if you want an exceptional item, let's say an exception leather armor, that may be more worth the cost because those items may be rarer to find as loot and the ingredient cost higher as the ingredients required to make them yourself are rarer and harder to come by, whereas at some point in the game, your supply of money isn't nearly as limited. Of course, once you reach a point where your money seems fairly unlimited, you can afford to buy whatever you want in the stores, and rest in the best rooms any inn has to offer (which is actually well worth the price).