evilcat

Melee has inherently highter base weapon DPS, allowing for more focus than ranged. This is interesting. How often other people go for melee cipher? For me pistol Cipher does enought dmg to power up, and cool power are anyway ranged so there is little reason to go melee.

Better explain what you mean by each name tag, since not everyone have background with DnD. There is also issue that some of present classes could be expanded with new talents or abilities to fill some other archetypes (2 builds for one class). For example: Edricht Knight is popular archetype, but Paladins could have set of all out offensive tallents to be eldrich knight. Spellduelist, potencially Cipher could use melee weapons and cast close range powers, however there is not much reason to go frontline over range on cipher, so there could be made a reason. Chanter could potenciall be build for "Summoner", maybe with ability to summon at the begininin of the combat, or have 2 summons, or be able to bind summons for longer. Are we going for gameplay gimmicks or fluff? In some other topic there was suggestions for: Gameplay gimmicks: Health as Mana - using abilities gives character "strain" small dot of row dmg on ourselves. Keeping casting stacks DoTs and prolonges them So there is a choice to either go all out nova and literally burn ourselves or wait for dots to fade before casting again. Fresh Corpses - being able to animate corpses, but only after they die in battle. From fluff themes: Animancy - creatin vessels of various kind, and interacting with enemy vessels (stuning, harming, banishing, controling) Fleshbending - like druid shapeshift but in monsterous form, like hentai tentacles to graple, tail to trip, wings to jump, venom galnds, carpace armor and spikes. Artificer - someone who makes little devils of caroc or suspisious soul machine. Potencially using runes or power words

The problem with Twin Elms for me is that at this point i am finale ready. There was enought questing and side questing and it is time for main plot could come to conclusion. It is more about pace of the game. I really like the construction of KotOR: 1. Begining 2. Several "Open" Locations 3. End chapter.

I think that part of problem with Dragon Age and Mass Effect is EA disease, which results in rash of DLC. That is so true. Everybody have own vision of "ideal game" and sometimes this are different games. And sticking to dev vision is the way to at least keep consistency.

Well it depends how we define main theme of class. Manipulatin pure soul is a cipher thing. So Animaniac would be manipulation of soul and flesh. As far as we noticed in game Animaniac are proficient in: Binding souls to flesh golems, and flesh golems are not just ordinary corpses. Binding souls to armour knights. turning themselves in the throne statues. Keeping themselves alive even then the time pass. If Animaniac could form a various form of golems of many shapes then they new how to manipulate flesh. So doing for themselves what they do for constructs is not so far. One way to look at this is: Animaniac have just to specs, two specializations (with different choices of abilities/talents): 1) Shapebending - turns himself into monstrous flesh golem with various secondary powers, more frontline aproach 2) Summoner - summons constructs or other corpsy things (bone walls, pervy hands grabing from the ground stuff like that). And is good with vessel interaction (stun, harm, smite, control) More backline aproach. Or player could go for mix of these two. And having 2 viable specialization on class is generally good.

Generally giving Paladins a set of talents/abilities to be very offensive is nice idea. There is some need of Arcane Knight class, and Paladin could have such spec if their abilities wasnt so weak and so focused on helping others. There could be 2 paladin builds (offensive and defensive) and nothing bad will happen.

Sudden realisation: Offensive Eldricht Knight should be doable from Paladin. The problem is that right now Paladin is soso, and more suited for defense/supporting/holding stick. But there could be few talents for Paladins that would make them offensive arcane warrior, like: Aura of Fire = burn constantly everything around us Explosion = when slaying enemies they explode Flame of Devotion = deal dmg worth mentioning Ignition = Modal which constantly adds bonus fire/acid dmg to our attacks (not only twice per combat). As for Animaniac there could be several themes combined to define a class, especially when we come with something new not just copying well known archetype. Combination of: Fleshbending + vessel manipulation + corpse using + self harm; is enought to define the class as something new and different from just fancy wizard.

As for Animaniac: Fleshbending - being able to change own body, grow tentacles or big razor sharp claws or wings to fly. Gimmick : using powers also drains own endurance over time. So we can use several powers, but after some level there will be too much dot on us to hold it. Anmaniac will literally burn himself. That would be caster with high health pool. Gimmick 2: To summon constructs/undead some enemies need to die in encounter. Theme 3: Vessels, Hurt/Stun/Banish/Control vessels. Vessels are popular enought to such power be cool.

At some point there will be more classes with new lore, mechanic. It is general rule of universe expanding. IMO it is better to add classes which are more or less new as idea, rather than some small variation like "swashbucker". PoE already has firearms and magic technology, so it is a bit steampunk. Runesmith would not require special equipmant outside runebook (similar to grimore of wizzard), signs and recipies. They will use normal weapon and armors. Making eldricht knight from wizard has a problem that you could make melee from wizard, but cant do spellcaster from barbarian. Balance issue. So there is a place for some melee caster as separete class. Ilusionist is a bit of Cipher (they have phantoms) Control focus should be avaiable for warriors with talents/abilities (to be announced). Animancer/Fleshbender/Blood mage is cool enought. Good idea.

OMG this is actually good. That is also problem, that Chanter theme is "summon a bigger fish" but to summon anything need to wait 12/16/20 sec, and combat could be over by that. Free summon at the begining could be enought OP to matter.

Battlemage would be different class than Chanter. It would be more "channel spells through our weapons". The best attempt to battlemage is something like Pathfinder Magus: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus but perception may vary. The problem with Chanter is: 1. Has no talents connected to abilities. So it feels "neutral". 2. As game progress Invocation are more and more restiction. Casting 3rd tier Invocation after 20sec of combat is a bit too late for a party. 3. His auras are not so strong. If we pair low level +5 defence chants then... it is almost as good as circle of protection from spells (far inferior), and Priests could do more things than just this effect. If we go for high level chants we can forget about invocations. Chanter could hold the stick as everyone else, but... maybe everyone else is also better at holdin stick. For example Druid with Returning storm could be a better Battlemage. Most classes as levels progress are better and better (with casters skyrocking) but chanter... is always the same. Very good at low levels thou.

I agree that Chanters need something. Their martial abilities are like everyone else, and spellcasting... if you combine 2 spells of Priest you preatty much outclassed Chanter. Some more class specific talents would be good. Examples: Trance - when chanting chanter gets bonus DR Crescendo - each chant during combat gets you stack of might and AS. The longer you sing, the more angrier you hit. Encore! - usable after casting invocation. Chanter instantly recovers recently used stacks and can invocata again. Fudge - Chanter sing so horribly that enemies will do everything to stop him, +1 egnagement Song of freedom - allies under Chanter effect also benefit from bonus against mind control Everlasting song - You songs linger longer than usual Broadcast - aoe of you song is larger Binding spirits (neutral talent) - summons last twice as long.

Just a random idea for new class: Runesmith Premise: Eldricht Knight class, mix of casting, melee and armors. Primary close combat. Casting: 1. Use Runes. 2. Runes consist of Signs. Yeach Rune consists of several Signs (3). Rune is a spell. Sign is a keyworld or feature (like shape, size, power, dmg type, extra effects). Similar to Paradox game Magica. 3. Signs are physical objects. We need to find them in the world. Sometimes buy, sometimes get as reward. Gonna catch them all. Each object could be use only in one Rune. But there may be multiply coppies of sign in the world. 4. Runes are crafted out of combat, there is limited number of Runes we can prepare. 5. Runes alwas center on Runemaster, either attacks (weapon runes) or self (armor runes). Cant craft runes on others (they are not attuned). 6. Each Rune could be use only once per combat (then it faids). With talent it regenerates after 30sec. 7. (Optional) Runes are not one time effect but more like stances. Like "Your crits now burn enemies" or "Get resistance to cold, and deal cold around you". Runesmith can switch them off and on, but can only few have active at once. 8. (optional) To unlock bonus effects Runesmith need to collect 3 signs and seal them to craft master rune. This consumes signs. And masterful rune is pernament. Could erase it from inventory but will not get signs back (need to find a new one). 9. (optional) Temporary Runes: at the very high levels Runesmith learns to conjure Runes over allies for short period of time. Small effect. 10. Recipies: Exploring the world runesmith could find recipies with instruction how to mix signs to craft MasterRunes. List of signs: 4 Elements Life - heal or life steal Soul Matter Space - area of effect Time - slows and dots Protect Harm There are Rune slots for armour and weapon. Each sign have small effect for being either weapon or armour. Combining signs of same time amplify the effect. Combining different signs have bonus effects some are possitive, other not really, or mixed. (you harm others, and yourself). Not all combos have special effects. Example: Ice Ice TIme on Weapon = our AS and deals a lot of Ice dmg and chills target. Ice Time Fire - deals bonus Ice and Fire and increase AS, but there are no bonus effects. Progression: Even levels=bonus talent as normal 1. Runesmith could keep 1 weapon rune and 1 armour rune active at the same time. Runes consists of 1 sign. 3. Runes now can hold 2 signs. 5. Tunes now hold 3 signs, and could craft masterful rune for special effect. 7. Get bonus weapon and armor rune so Runesmith could switch during combat 9. Get bonus weapon and armor rune to switch during combat. 11. Temporary Rune: Protection (single target ally defensive temporar buff) 13. Temporary Rune: Furry (single target all offensive temporary buff) Basicly i wanted something "new". And arcane knight is new enought, and some people like this archetype. I also wanted magic system which would be different, outside spellbook, or chanter magic, or cipher build up. Finding signs could potencially be fun (looking for Pokemons). This will probably aint gonna happen, since a lot of coding but little reward. From the other side... avarage caster class is 45 spells and some talents. Runesmith is 15 base signs and 30 special combinacions of masterful runes. So it is similar.

Some idea: - remove free per encounter cast after level 9 - Add talents (for Priest/Druid/Wizard) "Spell Like Ability 1...2...3..." (set of talent from level 1 to 7 and beyond) Each this talent allows to pick spell from our class and have extra cast of it per encounter (on top of what we get from levels/items or other talents) 1st SLA talent is avaiable at level 3 for spells for level 1, the next unlocks at level 5 and ever odd level. Reason for that is character needs time to master each spell level (role play reason) and player needs time to see which spell is the coolest or fit the style/concept. Such aproach would have several benefits: - Would buff casters at low levels, and most important would remove annoying "Should i use now my limitet spell resources or maybe wait for next encounter" (always waiting, never use) - Would balance casters at high levels ( being able to cast 20 spells from level 1-4 per encounter is quite strong) - Would remove doubts if it is ok to give casters spells per encounter. Since every class have talents "some effect" 1/encounter. - Would provide talent sink for caster, some people complain that casters have no useful talents. It could be even run futher, and make this SLA talents avaiable for all. So everyone can pick his favorite spell as 1/encounter. So for example rogue could take "Blades Fan" and stuff like that. That is pushing immersion to the limits, but could results with some fun builds.

Best interup i use is death. Solves all the problems. There is also variety of interups like mass knockdown or stuck from spells. Interupts just are here, and sometimes the are nice. Like having this dual wielding fast beating ogre and stucking him out of action. But it is not something i build for, since there is no interrupt build. Stacking percepcion does not count. One thing to do would be to add talent: Everlasting Interrupt - Your interupts last twice as long. Lockdown - when you interupt, you actually stun target (useful for rogues) Pet peeve (ranger only) - your companion attacks have higher chance for interupting and interupts last longer Still probably nobody will take that, but some maybe would mess with the idea for lols which is good enought, if someone have fun it is ok.

Most important things for me: 1. Recognition, fact that we are Lord/Lady of Cuad Nua and we restored glory of stronghold should have more impact. At least some of NPC should hear about us. 2. Stronghold quests - cook had cookbook stolen by quirps from dungeons, maisters need materials to rebuild halls (PC need to go for them) and so on, or fellow noble come with visit and we can either kick him out or do something nice for him. There are rumours that something like that is planned. 3. Common ingreediens and supplies. After upgrade Stronghold trader should offer all common goods, supplies, potions, ingredience, crafting materials. Everything which is common and which is easy to buy in big cities. Traders restock every week. Traveling from town to town in search of ingreediens is boring. Things like peasants or servants with who PC can talk are also ok. But they do not add as much as big 3.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vancian What? That: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Spells+of+Dungeons+%26+Dragons

I like Ranger. It is class with enought talents/abilities which at least look useful. It is great that you can pick your pet, and there are two modals either for bows or firearms. Performance with accuracy buffs, Stormcaller, split arrow, penetration and stuns is hiliarious. Just zapping multiply enemies with a bow is fun effect. And big part of it not to reproduce on other classes (penetracion and stuns and insane accuracy) As for caster vs no-caster balance it is a bit weird. PoE is SP game so balance dosnt matter, player just pick classes which look fun and rush to the end. I do not care if ranger is optimal dps or not. However, no caster can hit one enemy and sometimes apply some debuff or CC. But casters could hit many enemies at once with more powerfull effect, and their base number of uses is 4/encounter (not just 1or2). At higher levels casters could spam spells more freely, even more after level 9. No-caster abilities are often overbalanced. They add something, but it is not impressive. Just a small buff. Like one extra use of knockdown, or 25% dmg buff to flame of devotion (which we can use twice per encounter, yay i suppose). Or comparison of Aura of Protection vs Armor of Faith. Casters at some point get epic spells, but not many melee abilities deserve tag "epic". A lot of no-caster power comes from general talents and good weapon with all enchantments. So yeah, caster could be very close to what melee and still cast spells. However, i am against limiting weapon selection for classes, since every player have some imaginary vision what each class should do. It is too easy to cut off someones favorite archetype. LIke "ranger use only bows, but some want to play ranger with dual scimitars". Martial class specific abilities/talents could generally be made more powerful. There could always be more talents/abilities. Not only for high levels. Also something good to pick early. Too often only decent early talent is weapon focus. Rule that each odd level martial class gains one more ability to choose from is not fun. Since some of them are crappy and decent things come in last levels. Better would be tier system. A bunch of talents/abilities unlocks at level 1/4/8/12.

For Paladin i would vote for 2 handed since it is better against high dr targets, and high dr target are generally worse. They may however be build counting on proc effects like Sword of the Shepard, or maybe some special weapons with lighting strike.

And not only that. The whole adventure can have a more renaissance feel, travel to different cities instead of villages (or parts of cities), you know, be more urban, have a side naval adventure and maybe return for a wile to the Dyrwood or Eir Glanfath (like for a smal/medium quest chain) 'cause I don't feel I got enough of them in PoE Anyway, Republics first, rest of the world afterwards And instead of stronghold PC gets own ship (also use it for fast travel) . And can sail with goods. )

I do not like Vancian system since in 1st playthough i never know if its right time to use my limited resourses, and ended using just arcane blast. I like much more "rage" mechanic of Ciphers, You get mana from hitting things. Chanter and Monk mechanic is also ok. It gets better when you have per encounter spells, since you can plan each encounter and just burn out of spells each time. All "per rest" abilities seems to be inferior for me. Vancian system generally is hard to balance in caster vs melee. Spell must be valuable as per rest and as per encounter. And PoE generall fails in that, spells are better than what melee can do. Hitting one of the enemies is good, but hitting all of them at once is better. I could live what we have, i ended with using 1/4 of spells in each big encounter. And rest once per 4 big encounters. The placement of rest kits suits that. Game is designed around Vancian system so it is not a bid deal. I wish wizards could take talent "Magic Missiles 3/encounter" So at low level i can spam something without worrying if i will need spells laiter. I wish melee (no caster, and to some degree chanters) talents/abilities ware better, to match end game caster power. Like instead of "Bonus knockdown" get "Improved Knockdown - 1 more use, and knockdown deals full dmg with +5acc" Some alternative to magic system would be expendable mana pool with slow regeneration over time (and after encounter), where low level spells cost less. So we can spam flame fun or cast one big nuke. That would even allow some meta magic - modals which increase mana burn for extra effects.

Stronghold - awesome. Knockout Injuries - awesome. Rise immersion. Self healing - interesting, considering that we can always have stack of healing potions, so having some free just make things more accesseble. From the other side I could miss some of buff potion duration or food. Rest bonuses - hard to say Difficulty scaling - probably good Caster change - needed if we want to keep things balanced.

With minimal experience with other tactical games then hard is ok. Normal could get too easy. You can always start hard, and if it gets too hard lower. Depends if your class/craft have mechanic bonus. Otherwise Endurance has Mechanic bonus.

I hope there will be PoE 2 (and other). And would be suprised if there wasnt. Devs sink a lot of time into development of engine and world. Trashing it now would be total waste. Aedyr, Old Vailia and Living Lands looks like good location for sequels.

This. I really dig the way ethics/reputations are mechanically tied to priest/paladin class features, and I found it a big let-down that it only applies to the PC. Having the reputations affect everyone would add another dimension to party-building: you'd want paladin and priest companions compatible with your outlook. I understand that they didn't do this so they wouldn't discourage players from taking on Durance or Pallegina, but with more companions from WM1 and another one coming in WM2, I think this could be safely changed. After all, if you don't like it, you can always roll your own, or give Pallegina or Durance the talent that neutralises negative faith effects. Other option would be NPC-only talent which builds devotion per level. It is hard to value Pallegina utility is she Paladin without class feature. It is like playling rogue with weaker sneak attack. Even better if story companions will have some free devotion buff. Just to represent more or less sticking to the code even with PC actions. There is also idea of story companions getting "something" from doing loylat quests. Like small stat boost or unique talent (unique to what custom/PC can have) to offset companions balanced builds or just make a bit more special, and making companion quests more valuable.