Dadalama

Kinda like Tharos in this game? Yeah, I agree, but such a character archetype is poorly suited for a companion -- a companion, by their very nature, is a follower, and the only way such a character would put him/herself in such a degrading (from their POV) is if it supported his/her ultimate objectives. And, almost certainly, that would lead to conflict with the PC (for most PC personalities, at least). A companion that CAN betray you might be interesting -- one that inevitably WILL betray you.... Not so much. See poor old Youshi in BG2, for example. Oh I don't know. Being a follower can be useful and during a hallowborn epidemic who is more important? The sloppiest bunch of animancers you can find, or someone who can see and converse with souls? Likely they can chalk the watchers stuff up to the greater good. If their working to stop the hollowborn, then they'd more chance to leave your party than kill you. There is one thing though, if you stop to help too many people out, instead of focusing on the task at hand, you could find a crossbow bolt in the person your trying to help all of a sudden. They wouldn't act against you directly but can betray quests and force you to do as they say, let them go, or kill them. You could even wake up to find them slitting Durance's throat reasoning "There's better priests out there, this one seemed a liability.".

I like the "Machiavellian" archtype. Someone with good intentions but their methods can get downright terrifying when appropriate. Think a sociopath who figures beneficial actions like an equation. Someone who would support terrible people until the "good" that they would do runs out and then dispose of them like they were tending a garden. And then on top of that make them polite, soft spoken, and affable. Like they would give the shirt off their back in the middle of a snowstorm, unless of course you're a detriment to the greater good. And then it's "Oh dear, I like you and all but I don't think we can afford to let you live. You shouldn't fight, if you do I can't promise it'd be painless.". I'm not really a writer but, you know, something to that effect.

Don't get me wrong, I love Dyrwood (and am actually preparing a RQ6 campaign), but I everything I read on the living lands makes it sound like one of the most awesome places in Eora. Rampant lawlessness, oddball characters, valleys with wildly differing climates between them, sounds like a place made for adventure. Or if you ever decide to release a tabletop game, detail that area pretty early on. Really setting info trumps rules anyways, I can always convert by comparing stats. That's actually a good reason for another OGL hack, everyone knows what a 15 str means so you can focus on getting setting material out.

I understand evil, Durance is a terrible person but what makes him Chaotic? He seems to be following a very strict internal structure to a T. He has very specific ideas about how things should be run. If anything, from his conversations, he's LE. Are you using chaotic as "more evil"? I always found that line of thought sort of fascistic.

Said completionists are well aware that they are going to be more powerful by the end of the game. That's part of the deal. Maybe there should be something stronger than the Aedra Dragon but *shrug* I'll leave that to said completionists. I think it's more important to make sure that anyone playing this from a quasi realistic "hero logic" stance should have enough experience to complete the main quest with sane, if hard, difficulty for the difficulty level. In other words, you should be able to complete the game role playing your character, even if it's really difficult. POE does that I think. Maybe a bit inconsistently (the Raedric quest comes to mind, or just the last battle). But I think it works out in that sense. Off Topic though You want a real challenge, roll your scores for ALL of the characters with 3d6 and cheat the scores into the game. Since the game is geared towards a 75 point build it would probably make for a pretty big challenge.

depends on the situation. If I'm using lots of AOE spells I usually do 4.

I'd like that too, in theory, but it's completely impractical, and would result in a terrible CRPG. For several reasons. One is that GURPS looks great on paper, but I've yet to meet a single person capable of running a truly good GURPS game. It's a system that's absolutely hopeless when you only use the basic rules, but no one ever bothers to master the full ruleset because there's a ton of rules and they're dry and not much fun. The second major one is that GURPS is a horrible fit for CRPG combat... because computer games tend to have a lot of it, which in GURPS will get you killed in very short order. GURPS combat is only fun (IMO) when it's rare and you play it smart to use tactics to make it highly survivable for your side - or, in other words, horribly unfair for the opposition. But most people who run GURPS don't get that, and simply throw fights at you like it's %$#@!&* D&D, and then have a stupid/surprised look on their face when 3 out of 4 of the PCs end up crippled halfway through the adventure... because it's just not exciting unless at least one PC gets shot in every fight. Third, if you make it true to the pen and paper rules, it'll either need to be the most open-ended game ever that allows the highest number of possible solutions to every quest, or it will be the most frustrating game ever - because in GURPS, there are 1001 ways to design a character that will be completely useless at "conventional" adventuring. Fourth, let's not even pretend you could implement GURPS advantages / disadvantages in a sane and balanced manner... I've run GURPS many times before. I think I'm quite a good GM. But it's not for everyone. How it would be done in a videogame is you'd cherry pick the right skills, advantages and disadvantages for the game. Or you would use templates to create a "soft class" effect. But regardless, the point wasn't about GURPS itself. It was about having a game where you can't take 50 arrows to the crotch and walk away. That isn't done often in rpgs, I'd like to see it done more. I can go on about how GURPS isn't like you say it is but I'm sure you don't care. Just suffice to say I wasn't necessarily talking about GURPS specifically. I just used it as an example of a game that doesn't have scaling upward scaling HP.

Drakensang and it's prequel use The Dark Eye -rpg system. Which has climbing health (if you mean that you get more health during level ups), although it also has wounding system that allows killing high health character's without need to take characters vitality to zero. I don't remember if Drakensang had some alternations for this system. I am also little confused about OP's message, as PoE don't use D&D, even though it uses lots of similar mechanics. And most of the D&D games that come out after NWN were already in production before it come out or they were add-ons to NWN. Although there were NWN2 and Dungeons & Dragons Online several years later. Now that you mention it, yes Drakensang did get vit boosts per level (though The Dark Eye didn't). Drakensang was otherwise pretty close but it used some of the rules we never got stateside iirc. But the best thing about TDE was the character creation, which Drakensang left out.

I'm kind of partial to 5th edition as far as D&D goes. But at the end of the day I am a GURPS/Runequest player.

Oh please, stop thinking that Pillars will sell "a million" . What means it anyway? If the number of sold copies will raise significantly in the future then because of 60 oer 80% sales. The mayor turnover already happened, the important sale time is over. Obsidian made about 10 Million $, i thinks thats ok for an extremly niche game like Pillars. Relative high sale numbers like LoG 1 or D:OS where exceptionsm, there is a reason why the "cRPG" grenre is dead and crowdfuning was needed. This kind of gamers are now the main clientele for rpg´s : What exactly is the problem with "that kind of gamers?" All I see is a bunch of dudes holding controllers and a judgemental prick. Well the one on the far right looks a little high and they all look slightly bored. Anyways, I think the CRPG genre isn't as big as it once was has to do with the increased cost of doing business. These days, you can't really make money like you used to. So there's less reason to take chances. Also the CRPG genre has always been a bit niche, gaming as a whole expanded. EDIT: Ahhh the big "Casual" vs "Hardcore" false dichotomy I consider myself a casual gamer. I never played pokemon competitively. I don't particularly care about graphics. I like puzzle games. I play games casually. My favorite Elder Scrolls game is Daggerfall. Ultima IV is one of my favorite games of all time. My favorite fighting game is Virtua Fighter 4. I think "Let Us Cling Together" is better than "Final Fantasy Tactics". ROT3K is one of the greatest things to happen to gaming (haven't played any of them after Wall of Fire though). The idea that games are "dumbed down" to appeal to casual gamers is a bit misguided if not outright wrong. Most casuals are smart enough to play many of these games. The reason why skyrim is much simpler is the same reason why BECMI, AD&D, 3.5 and 5th edition are all very different games. Different design teams that think different things are important. I'm not saying there isn't cynicism involved, there most certainly is, but I think it has more to do with how much work they are willing to do to bring back the "climb" skill.

Barbarian, just like the class

I would like to see someone finally make a crpg using GURPS or some other rpg system without climbing HP. Last one I remember was Drakensang and it's prequel.

I don't see this as particularly profitable or necessary. You can make your own though, I was thinking of cutting up and ripping audio on some classic who and making a leela voice set.

I kind of don't like how the Stronghold never really feels like it's mine. Everything is already there, I just pay money to fix it up. I don't have the ability to design the courtyard. Even if you hired the shop keepers directly and just fixed up the buildings that would be better. And also, regarding brighthollow (and a bit of a nitpick), I understand they want the beds opened first but couldn't they atleast remove the fallen columns and tidy up the rubble? That sounds like something I can do with a party of six and a few hours of spare time. I mean just because something is no longer functional, doesn't mean it needs to be dirty as hell. But regardless, I do like the stronghold.

I think the rules of balance are the same in both tabletop and crpgs. The only time it really matters is when one option makes another option completely useless. That's the real problem with quadratic wizards in D&D. Eventually, even skill monkeys become useless as a wizard can just cast "knock" or "fly". But an over reliance on balance creates situations like 4th edition. I think less games should be made with optimizers in mind though. I would rather focus on tactics with characters than spend time tweeking stats.