Crucis

Oh please. Good and evil is just a meta-concept or a social construct? That sounds like moral relativism to me.

Yep, this should be true, as long as the spells you're casting are damage producing or healing. Might isn't going to do squat for spells that charm or confuse, at least not that I can see.

This isn't a "unique mage robe", but the Dyrwoodan Garb that you run into early in the game looks excellent on any female character. It looks like a knee length coat, rather than an actual robe. But for some reason, if you put it on a male character, it looks more like a tunic than a coat. Anyways, what you can do then is enchant this Dyrwoodan "coat" to create a good-looking custom outfit for a female character.

Oh man, the Orlan he just posted is fantastic. Nnnn, need more male Orlan portraits! Damn, the Orlan pic on that link is amazingly good. The godlike pics don't do much for me, but to be fair, the entire godlike concept doesn't do much for me in the first place. Different strokes and all that.

"paladins is most effective when using killing blows, we must needs always be aware o' what enemies is unhealthy enough to make them attractive targets o' opportunity. move 'round the battlefield to get the right target takes some consideration." All non-caster classes have few active abilities, of which this few a significant portion is situational. Those abilities also tend to be usable more frequently, on an encounter-by-encounter basis, than the per-rest spells of versatile casters. At least, that was the presumed intention behind limiting spells to per rest. Is a quirk of poor implementation that caster spells are effectively per encounter, if the user is so inclined. There do exist certain snowflake classes which possess alternative methods o' action economy, but they is in the distinct minority. I think that you're being a bit contrarian here. With a little bit of micromanagement teamwork, a party's spellcasters can create situations for a rogue to get sneak attack chances, by simply casting certain known spells. OTOH, trying to set up killing blows can be hard because you don't really know how many END an enemy has left. The best you can do is try go get them to "near death" without accidentally delivering the killing blow and then ignoring that target. That seems like a LOT more work than having a wizard cast a simple blinding spell to get up a target for rogue sneak attacks.

I didn't find it boring in the least. I found it a real challenge to try to figure out solid logical reason for who to choose. Of course, if thinking is boring to you, then I can see why you found it boring.

Heck, nothing says that one has to choose any of the Order specific talents.

Many people probably feel the same way. On the other hand, lots of people have complained on the forums that Paladin is a "boring, low maintenance auto attack class," implying those people want more opportunities to micromanage. Working with the rest of the party to set up carefully timed last hits is an alternative, more active way to play the class. it's still a boring class. you have an extreme limited number o' potential activated abilities by the time you hit level 6 or even 8, which is a significant portion o' the game. priests have dozens o' spells to choose from, so is no contest between priests and paladins regarding which is more versatile and requires more player involvement. chanters gets increasing number o' chants (that can be combined creatively and programmed for up to four variations) and invocations. if we take lay on hands and flames of devotion, we might have one other paladin ability to be activating by the mid levels o' the game. boring. try and make sure you get a kill-shot approx every 15 seconds? that's it? particular compared to the other support characters, the paladin is low-maintenance and potential boring. hell, compared to the other tanky characters, paladins is boring. paladins is boring. am not saying that poe paladin boredom is a bad thing as many folks don't like micromanagement and paladins make for a nice alternative to the obsessive pause spamming Gromnir needs for priests and most casters. even so, try and convince us that paladins is less boring 'cause o' the per kill triggers on defensive or heal abilities is not convincing us that we have been all wrong about paladins. HA! Good Fun! Gromnir, Is not matter of not likin' micromanagement. Is a matter of likin' to have at least 1 or 2 buddies as don't require constant attention so dat me can pay babysit spellchuckers, who be requirin' most attention. Me likes bein' able to just point Eder in direction of enemy and leavin' him to do his business without having to tell him what needs doing ever few seconds. Same be goin' for noble birdie paladin Pallegine. As long as Eder or Pallgine be swingin' weapon at enemy and not a charmed buddy, me is happy. Me be havin' more time to tell whining priest of flaming whore or bipolar mage or ever-grieving cipher to be doin' what me wants dem to be doin'. Ha! Dis talkin' like Gromnir be tricky, but good fun! ... you pretty much announced how you don't like micromanagement after saying it ain't a matter o' you disliking micromanagement. weird. HA! Good Fun! Methinks you missed my point. I don't mind some micromanagement. But I don't really want to have to micromanage all 6 characters every second of every battle. I like having one or two characters who will generally function capably without needing a babysitter every couple of seconds. This allows me to pay more attention to the spellcasters who are almost by definition micromanagement hogs. For example, I won't say that a wizard has to be casting spells at every possible opportunity. Their magical implements with that minor AoE are a nice way for them to do something useful while saving spells. But it is important to keep a close eye on the situation to decide when you do need to get the wizard chucking his spells, or any of the other spellcasters. And this seems easier to do without having to tell Eder what to do every other second. In theory, I "could" micromanage all 6 characters 100% of the time. But I'd personally find that a bit tedious. I guess that I like being able to let some of the characters go with the flow, as long as they're not being stupid, rather than micromanage their every little move. I guess that it's just a matter of taste and style.

Many people probably feel the same way. On the other hand, lots of people have complained on the forums that Paladin is a "boring, low maintenance auto attack class," implying those people want more opportunities to micromanage. Working with the rest of the party to set up carefully timed last hits is an alternative, more active way to play the class. it's still a boring class. you have an extreme limited number o' potential activated abilities by the time you hit level 6 or even 8, which is a significant portion o' the game. priests have dozens o' spells to choose from, so is no contest between priests and paladins regarding which is more versatile and requires more player involvement. chanters gets increasing number o' chants (that can be combined creatively and programmed for up to four variations) and invocations. if we take lay on hands and flames of devotion, we might have one other paladin ability to be activating by the mid levels o' the game. boring. try and make sure you get a kill-shot approx every 15 seconds? that's it? particular compared to the other support characters, the paladin is low-maintenance and potential boring. hell, compared to the other tanky characters, paladins is boring. paladins is boring. am not saying that poe paladin boredom is a bad thing as many folks don't like micromanagement and paladins make for a nice alternative to the obsessive pause spamming Gromnir needs for priests and most casters. even so, try and convince us that paladins is less boring 'cause o' the per kill triggers on defensive or heal abilities is not convincing us that we have been all wrong about paladins. HA! Good Fun! Gromnir, Is not matter of not likin' micromanagement. Is a matter of likin' to have at least 1 or 2 buddies as don't require constant attention so dat me can babysit spellchuckers, who be requirin' most attention. Me likes bein' able to just point Eder in direction of enemy and leavin' him to do his business without having to tell him what needs doing ever few seconds. Same be goin' for noble birdie paladin Pallegine. As long as Eder or Pallgine be swingin' weapon at enemy and not a charmed buddy, me is happy. Me be havin' more time to tell whining priest of flaming whore or bipolar mage or ever-grieving cipher to be doin' what me wants dem to be doin'. Ha! Dis talkin' like Gromnir be tricky, but good fun!

This may be a little OT, but I'm not bothered that every single character needs an extreme level of micro management to avid boredom. With a full party of 6, there's more than enough going on that I don't mind if I have one or two characters who I can generally allow to operate without constant micromanagement. IMO, this lets me pay more attention to the other characters, such as the spellcasters, so that I can decide how best to use their spells. Another example of a hands-off, limited micro-management class is the Ranger. Just give'em their ranged weapon, and let'em get on with the sniping. Of course, when you're up against an enemy that's charming party members, you have to take a more active hand because the darned AI isn't smart enough to NOT target charmed members of your party. But oh well.

Not protection from one of the major factions. Just a pissed off target or customer. And for protection, it's not so much that she'd be looking for body guards as feeling safer in the company of a bunch of adventurers, so that she doesn't get caught out alone with no one to help her. But yes, she'd be on the run. You'd probably first find her in Gilded Vale in a room on the second floor of the Black Hound Inn (hiding from those who were hunting her). This has the benefit of making her available early on. As for blending in, to a degree, her cover is partially blown since she had to go on the run in the first place. As a human or an elf, she can blend into Defiance Bay to the degree that she would belong to a common racial group. But obviously, if she's had to run, that part f the equation is not particularly relevant any longer. It was more about choosing her initial race for a logical reason. Everyone other than most humans or wood elves would be uncommon and to some degree or other a little exotic, and stand out more in a crowd than your garden variety human or wood elf. But once she's on the run or after she joins your party, that's no longer an issue. And really isn't anything that needs to be part of her background, since after all, she could hardly choose her own race. In terms of a background, I was thinking in terms of either an artist or a merchant. Merchant is more of a powergaming choice since it would give her a point in Mechanics to start. But an artist could make for a possible cover for a covert assassin in a city like Defiance Bay. As could a merchant. A regular worker could as well, though being able to get away from your "day job" to take time to carry out a contract might make being a "regular worker" not work so well. I suppose that one might be able to make aristocrat work as well.

You can return from Twin Elms if you want to go back to the stronghold and switch out NPCs. It's only really late in the plot that reach the point of no return (and there is definitely a point of no return), though by the time you first go to Twin Elms, you are a lot closer to the end than the beginning, let's say. Honestly though, I don't think that any of the pre-mades are critical to the main plot itself. If they have a reason for going to Twin Elms, it's for their personal quests and not anything linked to the main story line.

Au contraire. Others in the party set up the kill, then your Pally swoops in and claims the prize. Re: Gina, she already has ZFocus, which is good, so probably best to just use that since another Aura would cost a talent slot. For certain types of parties that run risky melee characters, ZCharge is pretty good, at double the radius of other Auras, a ton of movespeed and +15 Disengage. Combo with a cape of Withdrawal for +30 vs Disengage and suddenly dudes can move around the fight. Out of the talents you listed, pick Reviving Exhort. This sounds like too much micromanagement to me. You have to get the target nearly dead, then stop attacking said target and wait for the paladin to get the killing blow. And heaven forbid that your paladin misses a few times before getting that killing blow. Sorry, it seems to me that tying on-kill abilities to on-crits instead makes this a lot less of a hassle.

1. I agree. Triggering On Kill abilities is so random. Well, everything is random to a degree, but you have no control over who gets the killing blow on an enemy if you're trying to focus multiple characters' attacks on a single target. At least if it triggers on crits, this problem goes away. Frankly, on-kill abilities seem to be more useful if you're playing solo (assuming that the ability in question isn't meant to help allies) since you'd be the only one to get kills. 2. Yeah, it'd be nice if Flame of Devotion attacks were expended after the next hit, rather the next attack, since a miss on that attack means that the ability was wasted. Alternatively, they'd also be nice if instead of being for a single attack, if the ability was time based and affected every attack for the next, say, 10 or 20 seconds. This way, misses would be less painful, if you got a chance for multiple attacks for a single use of the ability.

I disagree with the stance that there's no good or evil. There is no alignment system, but that's not the same thing as saying that there's no good and evil. I do agree that the PC's motivation isn't as crystal clear as it was in BG2. After all, in BG2, Irenicus kidnaps and tortures you. Even though you don't know why, that's enough for the PC to have a really, really strong motivation to want to hunt Irenicus down. But with Thaos, you don't even know his name at the start. You can't be certain that he was responsible for what happens to you, though it seems like that he was, but only by accident rather than intent. Sure, this person looks to be a bad guy, but there's nothing that tells you that he's the Big Bad Guy that you need to hunt down and kill. All you have is a mystery to be solved. And not everyone is going to see solving a mystery as a strong motivation.

I don't see anything obvious about either of these. Orlan? Really? Dwarf seems like the obvious choice to me. And I don't see why there's anything obvious about any particular class when it comes to whom Durance might want to romance. Besides which, it makes things a lot more limiting. After reading the next paragraph, I agree that from the plotting PoV, having a priestess of Eothas would be useful for trying to get Durance to make a conversion. OTOH, if a modder was really ambitious, why couldn't it be a priestess of any of the available faiths? That way, there'd be the possibility of converting him to a bunch of different faiths. That said, it would seem to me that this could be a real pain because so many of Durance's existing dialogs are related to him being a priest of Magran. And yet, even if one went in the opposite direction and said that the romance could be with a female from any class except priest, wouldn't a Durance who's involved in a romance become a calmer, angry and frustrated person, thus making many of his angry anti-Magran rants seem out of place? Anyways, just some things to consider.

I wouldn't say that weapon quality is insignificant because it improves accuracy as well as damage, and the difference between a superb weapon and a normal weapon is quite large. I would say that since you can enchant weapons up to exceptional without too much difficulty, finding a good special on a weapon is more important than using the first Superb weapon you can find. As far as Might goes, that's something of a point of contention in the Combat Mechanics thread, especially regarding its importance vs. Dexterity. One the one hand, it's true that as you pile up more damage bonuses from weapon qualities and your class that Might becomes a proportionally smaller part of your DPS and Dexterity becomes more important. On the other hand, the hardest part of the game is often the early game, and Might is very significant there for helping you do good damage past enemy DR, and some classes will never have a lot of reliable damage bonuses. On the gripping hand, there are very few DPS builds where you don't have the points to max Might and Dex anyway, so you might as well. Nice sci-fi reference. Kudos. I agree with the first paragraph. When it comes to how "good" a weapon is, at least in the longer term, the unique ones with special abilities that you cannot add yourself are more valuable than a generic Exceptional or Superb weapon, since you CAN do an enchantment to add those enhancements. Short term however, if you have a unique weapon with a good special ability but it doesn't have any Fine, Exceptional, or Superb enhancement, and a generic Exceptional or Superb weapon, the latter generic weapon may be more useful in combat for you until you have time and/or the ingredients to perform an enchantment to upgrade the unique weapon. After all, a special ability isn't so special if you can't get any hits because your weapon doesn't have enough of an accuracy bonus to get those hits to use that special ability. As for Might, a higher Might score may also enhance a Fighter's Endurance regeneration ability (don't remember its name). So that could be one point in favor of some additional points in Might, at least depending on how one sees said Fighter character. OTOH, if one wants to play a swashbuckler style of Fighter who isn't going to be wearing heavy armor, and wants to be quicker and more nimble in battle than your average full plate wearing fighter, then more DEX might be preferable to increase the character's action speed and Reflex save. Honestly though, it's strange to me that DEX isn't a part of the mix for determining a character's deflection rating. Or for that matter, his accuracy.

I chose the bear over the lioness, and here's why. There was a room not from from the front door where there was a table and one of the Maw's leaders who was sitting there pondering what to do. On that table was a book of Galawain that talked about how when an old leader was charged with being too old, the leader should go out in the woods to prove himself worthy, yada-yada-yada. So I took this lesson to heart and went back to speak to the lioness' human go-between. I picked whatever dialog options fit this philosophy, and the lioness' person had a change of heart and decided that the lioness needed to fight her own battles if she wanted to prove that she continued to be worthy of her position, and promptly left the room, leaving my part alone with the lioness. Unfortunately the lioness attacked me. I was sort of hoping that she was going to leave her lair and fight the bear, but since she attacked the party, I had to defend myself and slay her. Problem solved. But I actually wish that situation had been scripted to have her leave the lair and fight the bear challenger, so that it didn't appear that the PC had picked a side in the fight so much as I had resolved the issue that was preventing the challenge fight from occurring in the first place. Thats really cool. I don't remember having any dialogue options besides "you're right, i'll go kill the other guy" or "you're wrong[attack]" Guess I need to read the book? I didn't know there was this kind of mechanic in the game.... The PC may not exactly care about the issues in the Maw's internal struggle, I can agree with that. But since Galawain essentially charged the PC with resolving those issues as the way to earn his favor, that seems like reason enough for the PC to get in there and do it. (Plus it moves the main plot forward.) When does Galawain ever talk to regarding this quest? 0.o Rev, I don't think that there was any underlying mechanic tied to reading the book, though I could be wrong. I just chose the dialog options that best fit the book's philosophy. And in this situation, that philosophy told me that an older challenged leader (i.e. the Lioness) shouldn't be hiding away in her lair but should be going out to face her challenger. But there was some dialog option that gave the lioness's humans a reason to change their minds. I just don't remember what the content of that dialog option was any longer. Sorry. As for when does Galawain talk to you, it's in the chamber of stars or whatever it's called. (Pardon any potential spoilers) IIRC it comes after you choose to seek Galawain's favor. He gives you this obtuse watcher vision that included a bear and a lion that wouldn't fight, and that somehow this was a problem that the PC had to figure out. There may have been something in there as well about the problem being at Galawain's temple, i.e. the Maw.

I wouldn't say an evil psycho. Just plain evil would be more what I think people are looking for. For example, if there was a Rogue NPC, maybe the person was an outright assassin and/or thief. Such a person wouldn't have to be a "psycho". In fact, the person could be a stone cold killer rather than a raving lunatic. But I don't think that many would quibble over whether said person was "evil". Here's an example that I've made up on the fly. The Stone Cold Assassin Rogue evil NPC In fact, one reason why an assassin NPC might join your party is that maybe he/she managed to pi$$ off the wrong person and he's seeking your protection (even if he doesn't tell you this right away). In fact, this might be part of his personal quest. The assassin might not be honest and up front about his reasons for joining the party in the first place. He may pass himself off as an adventuring rogue when he really isn't. He might be "adventuring" out in the boonies as a way to get out of Defiance Bay and away from those who are after him. And when he's in your party, when you're in Defiance Bay, the party may be set upon by assassins seeking to kill him, and your party by extension, since you're seen as protecting him. At some point, maybe your party is approached by a party from the aggrieved other person and the PC ends up in a dialog that starts revealing what's going on here. Of course, the party has to fight and kill these enemies, but afterwards the PC has to have a long talk with the assassin, who has to explain the charges made against him, and you learn more about his problems. Actually, I could see there being an option where you might turn over the assassin to the other party without a fight, though you'd be doing it only based on their charges without having heard his side of the story. The whole thing could be made even more complex by having this stone cold assassin appear to be a very nice, pleasant person, perhaps a beautiful woman. Maybe human,elf, pale elf, or Orlan. Someone who uses her good looks to manipulate you into seeing her as anything BUT a stone cold killer and assassin. At this point, it could go two different ways. Her appearance as a nice, pleasant person may be entirely honest or just a facade. Oh, I suppose that one might say that if she truly was a stone cold killer then it's obviously a facade, and that might be true. But it might be a permanent facade and how she appears all the time. Or the facade could be that her nice pleasant nature was only a ruse to fool the party into liking her and accepting her into the party. And that in reality, her "public" personal nature more in keeping with that of the evil female assassin. And that after the facade is revealed, she may revert to her normal personality, if she stayed in the party. I actually sort of favor the evil assassin who has a nice personality. For one thing, it seems to make her more acceptable to keep in the party, because she seems to likeable. And if you dealt with her "problem", I could see her feeling a fair amount of loyalty towards the PC and be willing to stay on. OTOH, an interesting "evil" twist could be that once you've resolved her "problem" and there's some question over whether she should stay on with the party, perhaps she requires some "incentive" to stay on, i.e. she wants some money. "After all, I don't do this for free." But after paying her price, she stays on and is 100% loyal. She might not even quibble if the PC seems too goody-goody for her taste. Or at least not enough to leave the party. She might make an occasional remark, yet remain absolutely loyal. You paid her fee and she's good to her word, in addition to a possible sense of loyalty. Or maybe she's just loyal to your money. EDIT: After thinking about the choice of race a little longer, I'm not sure that pale elf would be a good one. My reasoning is that I get the strong impression that pale elves are a fairly rare sight outside of their homeland. And as such, would stand out in the Dyrwood in general and Defiance Bay specifically. It seems that either a regular elf or a meadow folk human would blend into the background and seem "invisible" in a crowd, as opposed to orlans or a pale elf, which for an assassin who is trying to hide in plain sight would seem to be necessary. The same might be sort of true for any orlan or dwarf as well. Anyways, that's an example of an evil NPC that's not a raving psychotic (assuming that one agrees that a person who makes her living as a paid assassin is "evil").

The PC may not exactly care about the issues in the Maw's internal struggle, I can agree with that. But since Galawain essentially charged the PC with resolving those issues as the way to earn his favor, that seems like reason enough for the PC to get in there and do it. (Plus it moves the main plot forward.) It's sort of like how a 3rd party arbitrator in the real world may not care about the issues between the parties in a case he's assigned (and legally speaking, probably shouldn't). But if he's assigned to the case, it's his job to handle the arbitration, whether he cares about the issues or not. In this case, Galawain basically made the PC an arbitrator in the Maw's problems and it was your job to deal with it, regardless of whether it mattered to the PC or not.

I chose the bear over the lioness, and here's why. There was a room not from from the front door where there was a table and one of the Maw's leaders who was sitting there pondering what to do. On that table was a book of Galawain that talked about how when an old leader was charged with being too old, the leader should go out in the woods to prove himself worthy, yada-yada-yada. So I took this lesson to heart and went back to speak to the lioness' human go-between. I picked whatever dialog options fit this philosophy, and the lioness' person had a change of heart and decided that the lioness needed to fight her own battles if she wanted to prove that she continued to be worthy of her position, and promptly left the room, leaving my part alone with the lioness. Unfortunately the lioness attacked me. I was sort of hoping that she was going to leave her lair and fight the bear, but since she attacked the party, I had to defend myself and slay her. Problem solved. But I actually wish that situation had been scripted to have her leave the lair and fight the bear challenger, so that it didn't appear that the PC had picked a side in the fight so much as I had resolved the issue that was preventing the challenge fight from occurring in the first place.

Why? O_O It's +6 Accuracy to a bunch of weapons. There may be better choices depending on what you want to do, but if you intend to use your weapons a lot, it's a great boost. Agreed. The only way that I can view a weapon focus as a "trap" is in the sense that one might feel trapped into using the weapons within that WF set when your vision of the NPC includes weapons that are from multiple WF sets. But frankly, I think that the +6 Acc boost is worth putting up with a little bit of discomfort with the sometimes odd weapons mixes in the WF sets. In my first party, I had 4 of the 6 (maybe even 5 of 6) characters have a WF set, and left at least one character without a set just so that that NPC could pick up the leftovers of good weapons without being constrained by the WF. There are more than enough really good weapons that if you have at least 4 out of 6 characters with a WF and no duplicate ones (maybe one duplicate), it shouldn't be difficult at all to get a top notch weapon from each WF set used into the hands of each of those characters.

Frankly, the character you're describing here isn't a joiner, or sure doesn't seem like one. There's a difference between your fully evil psychopath and just being plain ol' greedy, for example. The kind of character you're describing is probably someone even a lot of "evil" PC's wouldn't want around. He sounds like a perpetual loose cannon or a rabid dog that needs to be put down, rather than anyone you'd actually be willing to risk letting into your party. I think that it's entirely possible to create an "evil" NPC that's nowhere near that extreme and still be what most people would see as evil.

WebShaman, I completely agree with you on this point. Some can complain that the FR DnD setting is cliched, but the fact remains that a great many players are extremely familiar with the setting. And any game in that setting doesn't have to spend a lot of effort in getting people invested in it. It's all set up in their minds, and the game's story only has to be "plugged" into the setting to get things started. And if one is or was a DnD player, one's probably fairly familiar with the underlying rules set, even if how the game presets those rules may require a little time to adapt to. In fact, a lot of me wishes that the game had been set back in the FR so that we'd have that familiar setting to jump back into once again. Of course, setting the game in FT would have required licensing it with the owners of DnD (whoever that is these days), might have cost an arm and a leg, if they'd even been willing to agree to doing a game that wasn't strictly 3D in the first place. So in all honesty, I can understand why placing PoE in a completely new setting was probably necessary. Regardless, as far as I'm concerned, it's impossible to compare the depth and breadth of the FR setting which was built up over more than a couple of decades or more to a setting that was only created fairly recently. Mind you, I happen to think that the devs did a pretty good job creating the PoE setting, given the limited time. But it takes time for a new setting to seep into the consciousness of the players, and if the setting is strictly within cRPG's, it would take a few games, years, and more development of said environment for that to happen. It seems to me that it's something that doesn't happen all at once. As for the Stronghold, I don't care that it had no impact on the region around it. All I want out of a "stronghold" is a place to rest for free. A place to hang my helmet and kick up my boots after a long week's adventuring. I don't care about playing lord of the manor borne (or rather, conquered).

Why is that at all clear? The talent says it works when using a single one-handed weapon. It says nothing about ONLY using a single one-handed weapon. Why shouldn't it work with a shield? Because there's a sword&board talent? That's not a good enough reason. Because anyone with any experience with the old IE games and DnD understand that single one-hand weapon style and weapon/shield style are two mutually exclusive thing. That said, if the game doesn't make this clear, it's the fault of the game's designers not the players for knowing this.