abaris

So they're obviously casting the wrong spells or you're simply playing them wrong. How does it even happen that they run into the fight? Either you tell them to or you don't look at the spell icon showing you running feet, which means that they hve to close some distance to cast that particular spell. I can't count the times when Durance kept my party alive and buffed or Aloth took care of a horde of enemies. You just have to know which spell to cast in which situation. They're everything but useless.

My player Cypher fills in for the rogue. There's no other talent to max out than mechanics and Cyphers start with a bonus to that skill. Add merchant as profession and there's another point added from the beginning. There's practically no need for a full fletched rogue in this game. But to answer the OP, building henchmen takes a lot from the story. I always build one or two to have someone for special assignments, but I usually go with the premade party members.

It's also not about better or worse gamers. I wouldn't even know what that means when talking about recreational fun. But it's certainly about preferences and tastes. Bioware for example, especially after the EA takeover, caters to a totally different audience now. Their core medium is the console and PC has become an afterthough. Again, that's not about better or worse, but it's about different audiences. Console players are usually younger and more action based. Also shiny graphics and voice acting trump content in most of todays games.They're not designed to have a long shelf life and they have to have action based multiplayer. The idea is to sell as many copies as possible in as short a period of time. EA has become a master of that art. They're voted again and again to be the worst gaming company, but they not only stay in business, they obviously make enough of a revenue to buy up smaller companies. Hopefully, and the last year points in that direction, other companies fill the void left by the so called AAA titles. With D:OS and POE there have been two ambitious old school RPGs on the market within a year.

Wow, voice acting. The most important thing these days, since it takes absolutely nothing from story development and dialogue options. The result is the dialogue wheel with two or three options we all love so much.

Speak for yourself. I'm playing these games to escape from real life pressure and don't need another race against the clock in my fantasy world. And what you call fooling around I call exploring the game world and getting the full experience of the game I paid for. That's not a job to be done in the shortest and most efficient way possible.

Since I played the game with pen and paper in the 80ies and 90ies, I will give it a try. I didn't play the BG series when it first came out, but bought BGII enhanced when it was on sale on steam. If I'm not mistaken, NWNII used the same ruleset.

Why do so many people want class A or B being superman. I never even thought about chanters being useless or too slow in their invocations. Yeah, it takes some time to get phrases out, but that doesn't mean they don't have an influence. As has been said, the secret lies in how to set up individual chants.

Yeah, it is. Not that it takes away too much from the overall experience, but the AI and foremost the pathfinding isn't top notch. On a side note, since there has been some talk about NWNII, which I haven't played for quite some time. Does that elven wizard you can recruit in the capital remind anyone else of Aloth? I mean, right down to the voice.

Yeah, but that's rather a big one. Your character doesn't do it because he or she feels like it, but because there's something expected in return. Binding to the own person or the castle is vastly different from setting the soul free. The first two options are very egotistical in hopes of getting some incentive for it. And since this is a watcher, the character should know what the choices mean because otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to go down that road in any case.

No, my Cypher fills in for the rogue, since the mechanics skill is pretty easy to max out with that class and there's really no point in getting any other talents, except for a bit of stealth and athletics.

In any case, it seems to be better balanced as of patch 1.05, since I left Defiance Bay at level 9 and not, as with previous characters scraping at the cap.

At transitions the game tells you repeatedly they get used up when actually using them. But that never happened in my game, regardless of the patch level. I'm virtually drowning in tools by now. Absolutely no biggie, but a curious contradiction between game description and reality.

Well, yeah. That's why I don't touch any game labeled Bioware anymore. I say labeled Bioware, since it's an EA division and not an independent studio and EA caters to the lowest common denominator to sell as many copies in as short a period of time possible, since they believe (maybe rightly) their shareholders ask for that approach. Therefore they cater mainly to consoles in the first place and that's a fundamental problem, since the limited controls of consoles simply don't allow for tactical depth in the same way as keyboard and mouse do. The ensuing problem are pisspoor ports which make PC players simply an afterthough to rake in some of them too, if possible.

Well, to tell the truth, I never gave a sh.. about my keeps prestige. I let the dice fall as they will and hire the ones who provide the most boost in security, even if it means losing some of my crowns.

I'm not talking about knowing it beforehand. I'm talking about it being revealed at some point other than constantly observing your stats. Although after the first playthrough you know at any case.

Which is kind of interesting, since the game sites all chimed in in saying you only should select cypher as an experienced player. Which made me refrain from playing one in the beginning andf ultimately made me lose even more trust in the validity of jusgment of game sites.

There's also an argument to be made for the wizard to stay mobile, since some of their strongest spells require a free line of sight. There's that flamethrower spell on the second level that's quite deadly even against heavily armed opponents, but equally deadly to the own group if cought in the blaze. There's also the crackling bolt on level 4, which is way more effective than the fireball.

Well, then they should have been designed differently, without AOE abilities. And it stands to reason that people indeed use them in an optimal way, since using their AOE abilities is more beneficial to the party than restricting themselves to the single target faculties. Don't get me wrong, the Cypher is still a kickass character. I've got the stats to prove it in my current game. Highest overall damage output of the group and responsible for one third of all killed opponents. So I really don't get why some people complain about the nerf, since the only thing that changed is that you have to land one or two conventional hits on the first level before you can cast a spell. After that, your focus is still more than sufficient for most encouters.

All well and good, but reality makes a stronger argument than theory in this case. It's what people make of these characters that matters, not the creator's intent.

Are they? They have quite a bunch of AOEs that are arguably more powerful than some in the wizards arsenal. And don't forget mindblades, dead cheap, since it's a second level spell, but quite deadly to vessels and kith.

But let's be honest here. Only doing the main quest, you're done in 10 to 20 hours tops. There aren't that many mandatory quests following that line. And they had the balance absolutely right with NWNII. I can only repeat what I said earlier, a cap two or three levels higher would have taken care of all playstyles.

Well, with the release of the beta I rolled a Cypher that is anything but yours and still a kickass character. Has the highest damage output and the highest individual kill rate. Knocked out only once, although she's wearing simply cloth, and that because of the crappy path finding. I haven't all the stats present right now, but I dumped resolve totally. It's down to 3. The loss in will is more than made up by other stats and by some gear that can be easily found or purchased early on. I also dumped perception just a little bit, since there are other interrupt guys in my party. Instead the important skills are maxed. Might, Dexterity for speed and Intelligence for effect. She's mostly a ranged character, first with a bow then with one of the better pistols you are awarded during the game. So I have chosen the gunner skill early on. I also use mind blades as an opener in most cases, since it's a good spell to soften hordes of enemies at once. I guess, there are many builds for personal tastes that do the job nicely and not the perfect build that conquers them all.

As far as I see it, the communication of the consequences is the issue here other than checking if some stats have changed. I always wondered what the three choices actually did. They seemed pretty important after all. Chaining a soul to a castle or to the own person instead of setting it free seems consequential after all. So no. I didn't expect some fancy reward for choosing either option, but I expected some dialogue choices, with the steward for example, to tell me what I had done.

Which isn't much use. A simple pistol does the job nicely. Hell, even one of the better bows provides enough focus to keep going.

"Dissapointed because the developers made place for level 7-10 spells in spell book but there are no such spells in game. I feel a bit cheated and that really broke the spell I was under for this game. It is still very good game." They probably made room for them with having extensions in mind. They system has to be already in place for higher levels, if you plan to go there. That said, I think, given the amount of side quests and exploration available, a level cap of something between 14 and 15 would have been more balanced. Edit: somehow it didn't take the quote correctly this time.