Crucis

I can understand that there may have been some limitations on how many backgrounds were possible. But a guy can wish for more, a lot more. Maybe it's me, but I don't recall a lot of use of one's background in dialogs throughout the game. While I suppose that it'd be nice if there was more, it's not a huge deal for me. I'd probably rather just have a lot more backgrounds, if only because it helps those of us who enjoy role playing out characters immerse ourselves that much more into the role. It's interesting, Luckmann, that you brought up "highwayman", as that could be one possible background. But regarding the most memorable background/dialog interaction, in the prologue with Calisca where she asks you about your background, I could see characters with certain backgrounds not wanting said background known. I mean, if you were a raider or a highwayman or some other sort of criminal and running away from your past life, would you tell people what you used to do? Would you tell a caravan leader that you used to rob people on the road and expect to get a spot in his caravan? I think that most can see that some backgrounds you'd keep to yourselves or even come up with a lie about your background. Hey, you'd be selling stuff if you were a thief, right? You just wouldn't tell some people where you happened to get the stuff you were selling, or that you were selling to fences. I'd love to see things like soldier, and game warden (a reasonable background for a ranger or maybe a druid who didn't want to think of himself as a hunter). And I'm sure that it wouldn't take much to come up with a dozen more possible backgrounds that were reasonable.

It does in a way. The Wood Elf racial and the talent Marksman don't work in melee and seeing how most melee weapons are good at interrupting while most ranged weapons are vulnerable to interrupts, there is a sort of built-in drawback to having a gun in your hand when someones flails at you violently in close range Removing a conditional bonus is not the same thing as imposing a penalty. The conditionals imposed to Woodie racials and the Marksman Talent are balancing factors, not circumstantial penalties. Also, this still means that there is no difference between shooting someone at point-blank range and to get out your melee weapons. Once engaged, you have lost those bonuses, anyway (and, indeed, did so as soon as the opponent was within 4 metres) and you gain nothing by switching to melee weapons - which was the point I was making. If you are specialized for ranged combat, the idea that you will switch to melee weapons for added Interrupt appears positively pathetic, judging by trade-offs. Interrupts are rare and ****ty, either way, and it won't make a difference to you in the end. Then you might as well switch to an Arbalest instead and it's 0,75 sec Interrupt, if that's what you're after. This seems like semantics to me. If you're playing a Wood Elf ranged specialist (whether rogue or ranger) and you're predicating your build on the Wood Elf's range bonuses, losing those bonuses because the enemy gets in your face seems rather like a penalty to me, whether it's called one or not. Also, IIRC, the Marksman talent gives its acc bonus vs distant targets, so that's another bonus that would be lost if an enemy gets in your face when you're a ranged combatant. Whether it's an outright penalty or the loss of a bonus, the result is the same, a loss of accuracy due to being at close range when you're a ranged combatant intending to fight at a distance. As for whether you have "nothing to gain" by switching to melee weapons, arguably you very well could have something to gain. If you switch to a one-handed weapon with nothing in the off-hand, you'll get an accuracy bonus. Or you could choose to use a shield with that 1H weapon to get a greater deflection bonus. Or you could switch to a pair of weapons. Or you could switch to a 2H weapon, though I'm not sure that you'd gain much there. It seems to me that there are plenty of advantages to be had, not even factoring in the possibility that your melee weapon of choice may have some nice effects that make it more worth using than your ranged weapon. Except it's not semantics, it's a very important difference, especially in a case like this. You've lost that bonus whether you switch weapons or not; it has no bearing. As for the switching to melee weapons, out of what you listed, only one stands out as having any actual benefit - Shields. If you are just about to die, and you desperately do not want to die, then the abysmal gain you will get from switching to a shield might keep you alive for another swing, maybe two. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the gain from a shield, unless you specialize for it, is not really worth it. It is one of the reasons the tank-vs-non-tank dichotomy is so strong in this game - you need to pump the Deflection high to make it really worth it. But it *could* still help you avoid a blow that could kill you. It's unlikely, but it's still something worth considering. "Except it's not semantics, it's a very important difference, especially in a case like this. You've lost that bonus whether you switch weapons or not; it has no bearing." See to me, it's the second sentence that has no bearing. It's the first sentence that matters more to me. Words means things, and meanings matter. So to me, the loss of a bonus on which a character is predicated is a penalty, whether called one or not. This is a matter of principle to me regarding the use of language, not a matter of whether the bonus is lost whether you switch to melee weapons or not. The latter is of little concern to me in the face of the question about the use of language. So sue me. I'm picky that way. As for the value of a shield being worth it, I agree that on a dedicated ranged character, the use of a shield may not matter much in the end, because the chances are pretty good that said character isn't wearing particularly heavy armor and may not have a particularly high base deflection rating, even before equipping the shield. It probably points to one of the problems I have with the way that PoE's stat system works. And that is that one's DEX has no bearing on one's ability to avoid being hit, i.e. your deflection. And yet your "Resolve" does? Makes no sense to me. I can see Perception having a bearing insofar as you're reading what the other guy is doing and acting to avoid that action. Also, high DEX characters have spent a pretty fair number of stat points to get that DEX and will fairly clearly have fewer to spend on PER and RES to get a high DEFL. I guess is just seems wrong to me that high DEX characters don't gain any direct defensive value from having that high DEX. Ranged combatants, but particularly faster firing archers, can fire faster by having a higher DEX and wearing lighter armor. But in doing so, they make themselves easier targets to hit because they have both a lower DEFL as well as a lower DR. The lower DR is fair enough, but not the lower DEFL, at least to me. Of course, I also tend to think that DEX should be providing an accuracy bonus as well.

"RP fanatics"? Seriously? This is a ROLE PLAYING GAME, for crying out loud! Why shouldn't people take their role playing seriously? And frankly, I don't think that it's clear at all when you've supposedly been committed to a particular faction. I certainly made no conscious choice to do so. Mind you, I'm on my second significant play-thru. First time, I sided with the Knights. This time, I've been committed to the Dozen pretty much against my will. This seems particularly a problem with the Dozens, since they're supposed to be this group that sends out adventuring parties. Why should someone think that taking a Dozens sponsored adventure constitutes formally aligning your party with them? IMO, it ought to be possible to do a couple of missions (quests, whatever) for each faction without being formally committed to them. And when it comes to formally aligning with a faction, it should be absolutely 1000% obvious that that's what's occurring. With the crime family, formal alignment might mean becoming "part of the family business", so to speak. And with the other two groups, something similar and very obvious should occur, whether it's becoming a member of their "inner circle" or whatever.

It does in a way. The Wood Elf racial and the talent Marksman don't work in melee and seeing how most melee weapons are good at interrupting while most ranged weapons are vulnerable to interrupts, there is a sort of built-in drawback to having a gun in your hand when someones flails at you violently in close range Removing a conditional bonus is not the same thing as imposing a penalty. The conditionals imposed to Woodie racials and the Marksman Talent are balancing factors, not circumstantial penalties. Also, this still means that there is no difference between shooting someone at point-blank range and to get out your melee weapons. Once engaged, you have lost those bonuses, anyway (and, indeed, did so as soon as the opponent was within 4 metres) and you gain nothing by switching to melee weapons - which was the point I was making. If you are specialized for ranged combat, the idea that you will switch to melee weapons for added Interrupt appears positively pathetic, judging by trade-offs. Interrupts are rare and ****ty, either way, and it won't make a difference to you in the end. Then you might as well switch to an Arbalest instead and it's 0,75 sec Interrupt, if that's what you're after. This seems like semantics to me. If you're playing a Wood Elf ranged specialist (whether rogue or ranger) and you're predicating your build on the Wood Elf's range bonuses, losing those bonuses because the enemy gets in your face seems rather like a penalty to me, whether it's called one or not. Also, IIRC, the Marksman talent gives its acc bonus vs distant targets, so that's another bonus that would be lost if an enemy gets in your face when you're a ranged combatant. Whether it's an outright penalty or the loss of a bonus, the result is the same, a loss of accuracy due to being at close range when you're a ranged combatant intending to fight at a distance. As for whether you have "nothing to gain" by switching to melee weapons, arguably you very well could have something to gain. If you switch to a one-handed weapon with nothing in the off-hand, you'll get an accuracy bonus. Or you could choose to use a shield with that 1H weapon to get a greater deflection bonus. Or you could switch to a pair of weapons. Or you could switch to a 2H weapon, though I'm not sure that you'd gain much there. It seems to me that there are plenty of advantages to be had, not even factoring in the possibility that your melee weapon of choice may have some nice effects that make it more worth using than your ranged weapon.

I had this issue too. You need to trigger some event before Eder will join, but it's been long enough since I was in Gilded Vale that I don't recall what that event was.

It's a matter of perspective and definition. In my view, any heavily armored, balanced fighter is a tank. What you call a tank is what I call cheese. (EDIT) Or an "aggro-magnet".

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.

Luckmann, the problem with the WF groups as they are now is that there are 6 WF groups to cover all different weapon types with no overlap. What you suggest could be an entirely acceptable solution. Right now, the problem with the existing groups *IS* that they try to cover all weapon types. But if the devs stepped back, and created some reasonable WF groups that accepted the likelihood of overlaps, this could work. For example, a swashbuckler WF might include pistols, rapiers, sabers, daggers, stilettos, and maybe blunderbusses and clubs (if they were separate from maces and morningstars, which I wish they weren't, but moving on). This would seem to cover a fairly sterotypical set of swashbuckler weapons. A wizard's WF set might be wands, rods, scepters, quarterstaffs, and daggers. The peasant WF set actually seems pretty decent as is, though I think that it could include simple clubs as well. Peasant weapons should be simple weapons that you'd see simple peasants use. Quarterstaffs, clubs, spears, hatchets, fists. One might argue that a hunting bow isn't exactly simple, but it does seem to fit better than anything else in the game, unless one was going to include slings, which might make more sense from a "simple weapon" perspective. An assassin's WF set might include things like daggers, stilettos, arbalests, and arquabusses. (Anything else?) I think that one could argue that there could be a more generic "thief" WF set, though that might roughly equate to a ruffian set, which I wouldn't say is a perfect match for the existing version. I'm thinking that a Knight's WF set should include Greatsword, Estoc, Sword, Crossbow, and possibly Mace and Morning star and/or Flail. OTOH, a Soldier's WF set should probably be more like Pike, Poleaxe, Crossbow, Arbalest, Battleaxe, and perhaps warhammer. I put both crossbow and arbalest but not bows or guns into this set because I think that it'd be likely that those would be the ranged weapons of most actual soldiers. Guns would seem to be to expensive to be mass produced for soldiers at this tech level. And traditionally, IIRC, crossbows and arbalests are easier to learn to use than bows, making them better for soldiers. A Ranger's set might include Hunting Bows, Warbows, and possibly arquabusses (aka rifles). Pistols and blunderbusses (aka shotguns) don't seem very ranger-y, though I admit that that's a matter of opinion and perspective. I'd probably suggest about 3 other melee weapons to include here to fill it out. Perhaps spears. Maybe sabers and swords. I don't have an "adventurer's" WF set because "adventurers" are far too diverse IMO for there to be any reasonable mix out of the existing weapons that would make any sense, at least to me. A monk's weapon set might be interesting. Obviously, fists. But after this, a lot depends on one's view of what a "monk" is. If one is thinking of a more eastern, martial artsy monk, then things like Qstaffs and daggers/stilettos make sense. Bows can make sense too, though monks in this game aren't really into being ranged warriors. One might also argue that Sabers (as a substitute for katanas) are viable for an "eastern" style of monk. OTOH, if you're looking at more european style monks, then perhaps you're looking at more priests/cleric/soldier/knight weaponry, which perhaps could be covered by a priestly WF (or just use the above knight or soldier WF's). Anyways, that's all I've got for now. Interesting discussion.

There are some points where I may agree with you, and yet overall I have to disagree. I loved this game, even with its flaws. 1. Names of gods are forgetful: I think that you're looking at it from the wrong direction. The BG1/2 and IWD1/2's FR setting had been around for more than a decade IIRC prior to their release. Plus there'd been the old SSI gold and solver box D&D cRPGs. I think that many, many players were so familiar with the FR setting that they probably knew its gods before even playing BG1, etc. OTOH, PoE is starting from scratch, and those of us who only heard about PoE recently don't have all this background in our minds. So, is it any surprise that we don't know the names of the PoE gods like the backs of our hands? 2. Again, this isn't D&D. And PoE doesn't have access to the vast array of pre-existing monsters to use, and they didn't have the decade or more that D&D's FR setting had to build up a vast monster manual. OTOH, I do agree that there's a lack of memorable fights. I wish that the PoE devs and designers had taken some of the lessons from BG2 and IWD2 where there were a number of very interesting battle scenarios where it wasn't just a simple case of "find enemies, fight enemies". IWD2 had at least a couple of memorable battles. One at the bridge at the end of chapter 1 (2?), where the area was really just one long running battle to save the bridge. The second that comes to mind was just after the white dragon in a cave where your party was constantly getting attacked from both the front and rear by some sort of monster whose name I've long forgotten. PoE really needs some more challenging and interesting battle situations that aren't made more challenging merely be more and tougher bad guys but interesting scenarios. 3. Gold. Personally, I'd rather have too much than too little gold in the game. That said, there does seem to be a bit of a lack of unique items. For example, there are some interesting hats (not helms) in the game, but IIRC, none of them are enchanted nor can they be. I love having my rogue wear the duelist's hat (a nice touch for a rogue who's more of a "swashbuckling rogue" than a hardcore thief). But it'd be nice if there were some items that fit this sort of idea. A stylish, but enchanted rogue's hat (like the duelist's hat). Maybe some Gloves that looked more stylish that warrior's gloves aimed for the rogue-ish character. Another example of something interesting is the Dyrwooden clothes that look like a waistcoat when worn by a woman. It'd be nice if there was a nice unique item that looked similar to that and was treated like a "robe" or "padded armor", but was also very stylish. Anyways, those are just some thoughts. 4. The warden's house was the most obvious, though the botanical garden has its use as a way to get some of the enchantment components "free" (yeah, I know they're really not). And Brighthollow isn't useless, since it's a free place to rest, but it sure would have been a LOT nicer and more useful/valuable, if all of the various bonuses from all that various buildings you had at any given moment stacked. Regardless, I'm of the opinion that this form of stronghold was a real waste. The bounties could have been given out elsewhere. By someone associated with the Dozens? By a warden based in Dyrwood Village? The Endless Paths could have been standalone. And the "stronghold" could have been a simple townhouse in Defiance Bay. Or like in BG2, there could have been a different SH for each class. Like wizards getting the wizard tower in the Gift. Or maybe a paladin getting a room in the Crucible Knight's HQ. And so on. Or instead of having the plot require you to kill Maerwald, perhaps you free him from whatever possessed him, and he reclaimed his lordship over Cad Nua and it was just another place on the map, where every few "turns" or once a week, a new repair occurred, and the various places were repaired. And he asked for your help in clearing out the Endless Paths. (Plus you got to stay in Brighthollow for free.) 5. Companions: I guess that it's a matter of taste. I wasn't particularly attached to any of the BG1/2 companions either. But I did find the lack of a rogue particularly annoying. Hell, I found it annoying that in BG2, your pure rogue/thief gets axed long before the end of the story, so you're boned unless you played a thief as a player character. Does this group of devs have something against thieves/rogues as NPCs? Jeez. 6. Side quests boring? Different strokes and all that. 7. You reach your max level long before the end of the storyline. A. Only if you play a lot of the side quests, etc. and B. So what? I hate reaching the max level just before the final battle!!! I want to have a chance to play with my maxed out abilities for a while. Reaching the max level only just before the final battle is annoying and boring as hell!!!

Disagree. Because then you'd have to have a scale that went into negative numbers to cover animals/creatures, some of which might be even less intelligent that the most mentally challenged human. Thus the reason for suggesting 8 as the floor, so that there's room below it to cover all the rest of the animals/creatures in the game.

Honestly, I don't like the WF talents. I was going to talk about my dislike of them in my previous post but decided to skip it to stay more closely on topic. But seeing as you've brought it up ... I personally wish that the devs would dump these WF groups. I honestly don't like them. Some of them aren't entirely stupid, but in all honestly, the adventurers one is ridiculous. Furthermore, they're very limited to good roleplaying of your character's weapon choices. Want to play a rapier and pistol wielding swashbuckler? 2 different WF's. You're a ranger or perhaps a ranged rogue. Either way, you're essentially a ranged weapon specialist. And yet you'd have to take a bunch of different WF's to cover the weapons you're really skilled in, and get stuck with a bunch of weapons that you're not. You're a wizard. Why are wands and rods/scepters spread across two different WFs? Why not have wands/rods/scepters and quarter staffs and daggers in a single wizard focused WF? Frankly, these WF groups are too constricting IMO, and punish people who want to role play their characters outside of these little WF boxes. But sad to say, it's probably too late to do anything about it at this point.

Actually, I'm not so sure that this is true. Sure it doesn't hit as hard as an arbalest or guns, or fire as fast as a warbow (or hunting bow). OTOH, it has higher damage than a warbow, meaning that it gets less hurt by DR. And it doesn't suffer the crit damage or accuracy penalties of arbalests or guns. It seems to me that the crossbow is a very viable alternative for a ranged weapon.

Yes, crossbows do seem to fit into a nice sweet spot. Slightly faster reload than an arbalest or guns, without their crit damage or accuracy penalties. I won't say that they're better or worse than arbalests or guns. Just different. And they seem like a very viable alternative.

1. I agree that it would have been nice to have at least one companion in each of the 11 classes. But I imagine that that would have hiked up the production costs, perhaps more than they could have afforded. 2. I'm with you on min stats. I also believe that there should be min floor stats, probably 8, for regular people, aka "Kith". Below 8 should be for various animals and other creatures. OTOH, it'd be amusing as hell if all dialog options had a minimum requirement of 8 INT. And if the character was below 8 INT, the only 2 dialog options were "uhhhhh" and "[Leave]". And perhaps the person you were talking to would have some snarky remark about your lack of intelligence.

Or you could use a second, faster firing ranged weapon for after you've fired your slow loader. That way you could keep up a high rate of fire.

Pistol vs Blunderbuss? Neither. Arquabus or Arbalest. Why? Greater range means that if you manage things correctly, you can take the first shot of a battle (which should automatically be a sneak attack) from BEHIND your primary tank, thus causing the enemy to attack him and not your rogue. Also, I'd go for high single shot damage so that your sneak attacks (and regular attacks) only have to pen the target's DR once, rather than multiple times as the blunderbuss does (I think). Of course, after you've fired your opening shot, you're facing a long reload. But if you're carefully micromanaging your spellcasters to create the afflictions which all for easy sneak attack opportunities, you should have such a shot fairly often. OTOH, if you're willing to carry a couple of ranged weapons, one thing to consider is maybe having your second ranged weapons fire faster than a "very slow" one, whether that's a warbow or plain ol' crossbow or whatever, just to keep up a higher rate of fire. Of course, rate of fire is a trade off between high damage and ability to punch thru DR, vs a faster rate of fire and ability to pour in damage more quickly, and change targets more quickly. OTOOH, you could carry a second arquabus and get a second shot fairly quickly, but then you're starting with that long reload cycle. There are a lot of permutations here, and a lot to think about.

Honestly, I think that the way that PoE handles clubs, maces, and morning stars is all wrong. They're basically the same type of weapon, a "club" of sorts. How they differ doesn't really change how they're used in combat. It only changes the amount and perhaps type of damage. In theory, they could be one or two handed, mostly depending on the size and weight of the weapon in question. And I get the impression that clubs tend to simpler and more primitive, whereas maces and morning stars are manufactured. From a game perspective, I see three things. One, morning stars, essentially being spiked maces probably should be one of those dual damage weapons, i.e. crushing or piercing damage. Two, I see no reason where there couldn't be one and two handed versions of all 3 sub types (clubs, maces, morning stars). Three, all three should be covered by the same talent, because the skill to use one is the same, with perhaps one exception. One might argue that there's a slightly different skill for using 1H versions vs. 2H versions.

Arqabuses can be particularly nasty when used by Rogues. Think of the Sneak Attack damage. That said, since they fire much more slowly than bows, you need to be more careful of your timing when casting disabling spells to set up sneak attack coniditions. There's no point in casting such a spell too soon after a rogue fires an arqabus. Also, unless the spell's duration is particularly long, the rogue might not get more than 1 or 2 chances to fire while it's active.

I hesitate to say that bows are gimped. But then again, I'm picky about the use of language. Rather I'd say that the DR mechanism hurts faster firing, lower damage weapons more than slower firing, higher damage weapons, simply because each hit gets dinged by DR. Put into numbers, if a bow hits for four times for 10 damage each against a target with 5 DR, it will lose 20 points of damage to DR, whereas a arqabus that does 40 damage in a single hit against the same target loses only 5 points of damage to DR. Thus, high damage weapons have a significant advantage in this regard. Of course, guns come with base accuracy penalties which cause them to lose some damage if you factor this in over a larger number of shots (i.e. more misses means lost damage), though I'm not sure that this is a major penalty if the user of the gun is a ranged specialist like a ranger or a rogue and has taken various talents that offset those penalties. And yes, "overshooting" (I prefer overkill. Overshooting sounds like missing.) is definitely an issue. The problem is though that you have no real idea (that I know of) how many actual END any target has left. An enemy that's "near death" may still have a pretty fair number of END left, so it's probably still well worth shooting it even if there is the potential for overkill.

It's a matter of perspective as to whether the ending you'd prefer is a "good" ending. For that matter, I'm not entirely certain that the information that Iovana (?) gave you is absolute fact. It may only be her opinion. I think that at least the ending I had, Galawain's ending, was a "good" ending. From most of the post-ending blurbs, it sounded like the Dyrwood was much better off after the ending. Waidwen's Legacy was ended. The Hollowborn births stopped. All sorts of good things happened in the region. IMO, that was a much more immediate concern than whether or not the gods may or may not be real. Additionally, one could argue that a storyline based on seeking out hard proof that the gods are false could be the basis for a PoE sequel. (Probably not an expansion, though, unless it was a larger expansion like BG2-TOB.)

Right, but who looks at names of autosaves? I didn't even know I had a save labeled "endgame" until I read your post. Of course, I knew that an IE-style game with ending slides and all would end with the main quest, so I did everything before jumping in the pit. That said, I think story-wise Pillars is well-suited for an open ending. Act 3 puts a lot of pressure on you, stopping Thaos should be the priority, but instead you do everything but chasing him: insignificant Twin Elms side quests, a bunch of bounties and a whole expedition to a giant dungeon. Uhm, the Master Below has been there for years, isn't it just a tad more important to save thousands of souls about to be sacrificed? I can go on an adventure when more pressing issues are taken care of. Admittedly, doing that would interfere with the ending slides. Maybe the proper question is why don't you? I sure do.

IIRC, there was only one major city in BG1. And, unless my memory fails me, BG2 only had a single major city. PoE has 2, though I suppose that one could say that neither is of the same scale as the major cities in BG1&2. And IWD1&2 didn't have a single major city between them. So I have a hard time judging the size or quality of a game based on the number of major cities within.

Same here, Crimson. But if there's one thing I sorely miss, it's the ability to tell a character to hold position on a specific spot. It bugs me when I have a front line tank at a choke point whom I want staying right there in that position, but when he kills whomever he's facing decides to go run from the spot to the next enemy. This drives me batty! GIVE ME MY HOLD POSITION BUTTON!!!!!

I don't even know what "and legion" means and what is "embrace the PoE concept" supposed to mean? What about my criticisms suggests I'm not "embracing the PoE concept?" Might help to criticize my criticisms directly instead of making vague ambiguous statements like that. *facepalm* To say that your complaints were "legion" in the context above is to say that your complaints were many. Jeez. There's nothing ambiguous about saying that one's complaints are legion. As for embracing the PoE concept, you're on your own on that one. I don't exactly know what the "PoE concept" is, or at least what Gromnir thinks it is.

I also think that extended reach weapons would be preferable to other 2H melee weapons, simply because you can use them while standing behind one of your party's front liners.