Krajzen

I don't have anything against 'morality' of murdering all npcs but I am not sure if it isn't seriously harming roleplay values of a game...

Are there any weapon types being particularly inefficient, or one on of weapon talents (noble, peasant etc) particularly weak? Are weapons specialization talents good at all? Personally I don't trust hunting bows. Sure, they are fast but still, their damage is rather sad... And I never trust stilettos and knives, in any game.

Defender active talent gives - among other things - increased Engagement Limit to Fighter, allowing him to fight 'three enemies at once'. Hold the Line talent increases Engagement Limit by 1. If I take both of them, does it mean Fighter can engage 4 enemies?

Dump INT and max CON, the AoE of TR is low to begin with, and doesn't get much smaller by low IN. I have a feeling that many people while building monk forget that he is SUPPOSED to be hit and get Wounds to use his abilities. This is why IMHO packing all points into defensive attributes and skills is retarded. This is going to be DPS, not tank (for monk the best way is to build Eder as full tank) and with as high Constituion as you recommend this monk will barely got any Wounds due to avoiding hits. I am playing on Hard difficulty with Monk: Strenght 19 Constitution 15 Dexterity 13 (fists are already fast weapon type) Perception 8 Resolve 8? Intellect 15? something like that -------- This monk deals by far the best dmg in team - 1.5x more than second most damaging character - while soaking stupid amounts of damage and together with Eder engaging 80% of any enemy that wants to come closer to ranged characters. MY monk girl is OP as crazy and this is despite the fact I care more about roleplay than about optimal stats. As for skills I gave my monk girl maxed Lore and secondly Athletics. Why? My reasoning was, i have many spellcasters dealing magic dmg/buffing/debuffing from distance but many spells require close range, or in some fights my monk and ranged guys get separated. So here we go. It works brilliantly with stuff like Fan of Flames or Eldritch's Aim.

2 gals, 4 boys. However one of these two gals, my main character, is monk with strenght 19 intellect 15 and an ability to kill a dragon with barefists + I roleplay her as awesomely crazy character so I guess it's more like 4 gals 4 boys :D

My alternate solution would be very unorthodox - I am thinking about abandoning Sagani and having BOTH Hiravias and Aloth in team :D Sagani has imho by far the most boring personality of all companions (hunter from village seeking for a ghost, had children, fight for honour, yawn...) while both Aloth and Hiravias have cool personalities. Of course this would mean I lose ranger and get two mages but I am not sure if it is that big loss. I gave Grieving Mother firearms and she is doing as well as Sagani in ranged combat while dwarf woman doesn't offer anything beyond her bow (theoretically she can fight melee but she has low HP and I have enough melee fighters). She isn't elf so doesn't have 'innate' bonuses to ranged combat and other characters can be similarly good at stealth skill (which has questionable power anyway). Meanwhile I would get cool spells. EDIT Jesus, I have just discovered Aloth is a Wood Elf and gets that cool ranged combat bonus. Okay I have decided, bye Sagani. I am going to enjoy a team of awkward elf with mental issues, completely crazy priest, middle-finger hobbit, telepathic nurse, Bruce Willis and my childish boxing supergirl.

I have also very big dilemma between their characters... Hiravias is funny while Aloth seems to be more interesting. Damn.

At first I wanted to create my character in PoE as dull as in all RPGs I have played - similar to real-life me: tall human non beard slim spellcaster with retarded dexterity Then I realized this is boring and I wanna try something different. So I created Hazelnut and I have to admit I feel bigger connection with her than with all my 'typical men' combined despite the fact she is almost my polar opposite in many aspects. Girl Monk, Ixamitl Plains, background Philosopher , full DPS, smashes everything with bare fists, honest, passionate, emotional and crazy, with alcoholic problems (I give her all alcohol I can find in the game) but golden heart. And I know her custom portrait collides with 'baldur's gate style' or 'poe style' but I don't care, I love it.

As I am trying to optimize my team composition I have a little dilemma between them. My team: *Hazelnut, girl dps monk, I love this class. Works fine. *Eder, full tank. Works fine. Itumaak, Sagani's pet, additional distraction for first line. Works fine. *Durance, priest who can fight melee if really needed. Works fine. *Sagani, ranger DPS + stealth. Works fine. *Grieving Mother, cipher, works fine. And I wanna play with full 6 members team so I wanna one additional character, some spellcaster. Sidenote: High difficulty. *Hiravias - I am not sure if he satisfies me. Maybe I manage him wrong but from far range he deals mediocre dmg with weapons, I don't need his spiritshift or high HP... I just wanna strong spellcaster. Who is better in Pure Ranged Spellcaster role, Hiravias or Aloth? Or if they are balanced, what are the key differences between them? There is also a dilemma between their story and character where I like them both so far...

Yeah but on the other hand Durance has very high Concentration which means he can cast his spells more uninterrupted and he is more resistant (Will) on frontline mental attacks like Frightened. Also I felt Priests have spells with lower range... I have totally no idea who should I choose :/

I am planning the future of my dream team. And no, I am not going to use my customized companions, I want only original ones. So far my team build looks like that: *my main heroine, DPS monk girl *Eder, tank with shield focus *Sagani with ranged combat focus *Grieving Mother with secondary ranged combat focus *Hiravias *Durance The problem is, I want to make either Hiravias or Durance more into frontline warrior (to have 3 melee and 3 ranged people, or in the emergency 4 melee and 2 ranged). Both Hiravias and Durance have exact same Might and Constitution, they have very similar statistics. Hiravias has better Reflex and Interruption while Durance has better Will and Concentration. Additional factor is, this one of them who will end on the frontline should remain able to cast spells decently. So... Should I put Durance or Hiravias in melee fight? Is my overall team build decent?

Whatever you want but original portraits focus on face of a character (it takes always more than 40% of a picture) so it's a bit inconsistent. On the other hand my character's portrait doesn't fit PoE graphic style at all :D

Well, everything is included in the title. Will savegames done on steam edition of a game work on GOG edition?

Thanks for such detailed help. I guess I will spend some time on character creation. However my past experiences showed me that games where I have to spend much time to preapre characters for tend to be amazing ^^

NWN2 is objectively better. And I am not talking about the campaigns, even when I believe that MOtB and SoZ>>>>> PoE. NWN2 simply has better mechanics, which when used judiciously can give us amazing modules like the Conan Saga. As I see it, PoE is totally hampered by its combat design where the attributes have little to insignificant effects and the entire engagement mechanics. Add to that the inability to multiclass and you have a repetitive and shallow gameplay. I don't know what 'objectively better' means and I am sceptical about the impact elistist rating of 'objectively shallow' games has on the world. Pillars of Eternity has very good overall ratings both from critics and from grand majority of player base. If I won't like it I'll say 'well this is not the game for me' instead of playing with the magical words 'objective quality' and 'overrated' and further diving in unsolvable dispute over whose subjective objectivism better describes a computer game enjoyment.

Hi. I have just bought with Pillars of Eternity and seeing how main menu is enough to make me cry of epicness I guess it will be cool adventure. Anyway, obviously I am new player here. I have played BG2 (finished once) as well as many more or less sophisticated RPGs, anyway I am new in PoE. This is a bit problematic because I really, really wanna to play as Monk class which as far as I know is the weirdest class possible. <if this is wrong thread I'm sorry, please put it in more appropriate subforum> Usually I tend to create boring vanilla characters for RPG similar to me from real life, brown hair horrible dexterity wizard nerd guy but I have decided it's lame and I need to do something different. And my new fantasy alter ego will be crazy. My character is going to be a young cheerful tall muscular girl from Ixamilt Plains, monk class, Philosopher background and hidden genius level intellect, absurd Might and Intellect, barefist combat, badass cowboy one liners, problems with alcohol, anger managment and self acceptation, explosive character, crazy ass sense of humor, obsession over prime numbers, rampant bisexuality but mainly heart of gold and great love for all living beings and deep will to improve the world. Half of those characteristics are impossible to reflect in this computer game but whatever, I really care about roleplay :D My point is, this insane character needs to be Monk and it will be damn unorthodox Monk despite it being difficult class and me not knowing anything about game's mechanics. Anyway, besides the facts it HAS to be a monk, crazy girl and philosopher background (despite other proffesions would profit more - it needs to be intellectual at heart. As I said, this girl is crazy.) I am open at advices from (wiser) people about how exactly to build DPS monk because I am completely lost at nuances of PoE mechanics - from what I see there are really many ways to build characters and even main attributes are pretty flexible. 1) What attributes are the most important for monk? Like, really the most important, not what the character creation screen suggests (I am suspicious about that ). 2) Any crucial advices at how to manage monk class, for a complele newbie like me? 3) I don't know anything about the game's mechanics besides some overview of classes and NPC companions (party is very important for me in RPGs I play and I always try to plan it before beginning new game). What team would fit the monk main character the best? I am asking about premade characters because I want to play with NPCs having their story and dialogue, not some silent companions made by me. I think my dream team would have *My little beloved girl monk being main DPS *Ered fighter as tank *Sagani ranger as ranged DPS and stealth *Durance priest as support healer but I am not sure about last two companions (I aim at 6 guy team). Who would fit this composition the best: Grieving Mother/Kana Rua/Aloth/Hiravias? From what I know all these characters use magic to CC enemies/buff team and I am completely lost as what are the difference between them. My Monk Badass Girl character thanks in advance for all advices. http://goo.gl/DBWuLA