Lamppost in Winter

One thing I liked about the PoE critical path was the lack of plot-related fighting. Apart from the final boss, combat in levels was always incidental, and had nothing to do with what you wanted to achieve, so the Watcher's importance was never due to being a combat powerhouse, while all the legendary boss battles were optional side content. I hope this is also the case in PoE II, though that is dampened somewhat by The White March being more action-packed than the vanilla game.

The Fig update refers to Paladin orders and Priest deities as "required subclasses". I just wonder if they're similar to the PoE deities/orders, and have the extra two subclasses, or if they preclude further subclassing but are more varied than PoE.

"We've extended our reputation system to include reputations that our companions have with the player and with each other. Their opinions change over time, progressing toward deeper relationships or simmering conflicts that can eventually boil over. The system is quite dynamic and should add a lot of depth and reactivity to companions in the story." This sounds really promising. I like approval systems, but they can feel limited in reactivity. Something with more axes and based around the existing reputation system might work well.

You could take the Untroubled Faith talent for both that negated reputation penalties.

I really enjoyed the Sneak Attack focused rogue, so I hope there isn't too much reliance on damage abilities now.

Cheers, L4wlight. With death still in, I'm fine with either system, though the old one has more room for granularity.

Grimoire bonuses sound nice. Not huge on the removal of inscribing since it's tied into the lore of how Wizards work, but I'm nitpicking at this point since the new one sounds basically fine to me anyway. Looks like Something Awful is the most reliable way for Josh to see our extremely good ideas on how the game should work, eh?

Edit: nevermind, think I read the post wrong

I was kind of thinking of something similar; what if all spells just consumed the same, per-rest resource, with higher level spells taking more? Wouldn’t that make it a mana system? And while I do prefer mana-based systems I haven’t really seen that many pro-mana people in D&D crowds outside of XPH lovers. Basically, just not regenerating like most modern mana systems. Just throwing ideas out there in any case, and I do like Ganrich's idea for Empower better. As for spamming, Vancian allows you to spam (relatively speaking) anyway, just limited by the number of times you can cast a spell/level. This would just consolidate all of them into consuming one resource.

I was kind of thinking of something similar; what if all spells just consumed the same, per-rest resource, with higher level spells taking more?

Hang on, if there's only injuries and no (non-regenerating) health, is perma-death still in? Would be a shame if not. How would death work without Health - accumulation of injuries, perhaps? Edit: should clarify I'm aware that they're just "experimenting" with injuries, not confirmed whether Health/Endurance is out yet

If the Empower system does just add a little oomph to spells without meaningfully changing them, I'd rather stick to the Vancian casting. As it stands, it sounds like Empower is basically a per-rest Accuracy/Damage buff spell, which we already have that presents more challenge in using; taking up a slot in your Grimoire and draining uses from whatever spell level it was. So, thinking about this a bit more. IF, and it's a big if, almost all spells are damage or debuff (MAYBE soft CCs like slow), and in order to disable (knockdown, stun, root, etc) you have to apply empower, then this system might work ok. That way the best spells (hard CC's) are limited by rest, and may stop too much repetitive spell casting. Using Slicken as the example again. By itself, it doesn't knock down, it it slows the enemy and reduces something like dex and reflex. However, when Empowered, it has a knockdown added to it. Since Empowering stuff is limited per rest then you still have some tactics required in managing that resource. While simultaneously you are avoiding casters having a limited subset of things to do when they are tapped for spells. Combine this with more enemy diversity, with different immunities and the like. You might swing this and still keep a decent tactical element. I asked Feargus about last night about enemies. Particularly, since we repeat from level one if they've added new monsters, and he said they have added new monsters, and that they have more types of reoccurring monsters. So we will have new ones, plus more Xaurip types, more beetle types, more Fampyr types, more blight types, etc. I am liking this idea, though I can see it being a nightmare to implement since you're basically designing double the number of spells. Powerful effects still have to be conserved for tough fights, while Wizards/Priests/Druids still have plenty to do during an easier fight.

The quote in question: I think that means that their unique equipment has that consistent look, but not if you give them generic equipment, and that it's Aloth's robe that's restricted, not any robe. At least I hope so.

Have to see more, but I don't like the sound of this. Just hope these aren't universally applicable "this attack does a lot of damage" abilities. I liked the PoE rogue model of applying debuffs then getting sneak attack damage off those.

scales terrible. for spell casters, per-rest is a major concern at low levels and a non factor at mid-high levels. is not well designed. there is good reasons it has become anachronistic. doesn't make much sense to use per-rest save for the fact the ie games used. HA! Good Fun! Would you rather a rebalance of the system, or do away with it entirely? What would you want to replace it with?

Per-rest was something that intimidated me about PoE at first, not being an IE veteran, but I really came around on them, and would hate to see them replaced by cooldowns. Still, there's one issue I have with per-rest, and it's that while players have to worry about budgeting their spells for the next encounter, AI foes have no such compunction. Ideally, the enemy wizards/priests and such using their per-rests should create enough difficulty that warrants players also casting their per-rests, but most of the time I could get by anyway without spending any spell uses.

More non-combat skills is welcome news.

Agreed that some spells seemed to be foe-only arbitrarily, probably just to make things easier for the player. On the other hand, I've never found a game where enemies managed to avoid hitting their allies with friendly fire, so perhaps some spells they can use with abandon are necessary. Disagreed on the extra AOE; the foe-only extra AOE rewards high Int, whereas if the whole thing caused friendly fire and was made larger, it would make the spells harder to control.

I honestly wanted an option to do this. My first characters, and many others, are usually more explorers and drifters than the type to have a permanent home, much less be Lady of a castle.

I'm guessing this is a more in-depth scripting feature, like tactics in Dragon Age: Origins.

Feargus' comments on the 5 member party from the Fig comments (courtesy of this Reddit post): "This was a design decision though not a funding one. We really feel that reducing the party size by one lets us make the combat aspect of Pillars more enjoyable. With Pillars one we tried to stick as closely to the Infinitey Engine (BG, IWD) formula as possible, but we want to see (slowly) how we can evolve that formula into 2018 and beyond." and "Yes the party is going to be at five characters. We talked a lot about this, and felt it reduced some of the chaos a RTwP system can create with too many PCs and too many creatures - it helps combat readability quite a bit. Now the limit does not include summons and pets - they still push beyond the five limit." Readability is all well and good; a calmer, less chaotic experience is one of the reasons I've recently come around on turn-based combat, but "evolving into 2018" rankles me a bit. Reminds me a little too much of BioWare marketing for DAII/Inquisition combat.

One thing I want to see more of is companion-initiated dialogue, or rather, Watcher-centric dialogue with companions. A lot of the time, talking with your companions felt one-sided, with you asking short questions and then listening to them go on. Dragon Age did this to varying degrees of success, like Alistair pulling you aside to gossip about the party, or Wynne asking about your origin and how you were coping being away from home. Maybe a few options to further define your character's background, like the starting dialogue with Calisca, thoughts on the progress of your quest and discussions about decisions made.

Eothas: [smashes Caed Nua to bits, level drains the Watcher] Eothasian priest Watcher: -[Lore 2 requirement not met] -"Who's Eothas?"

Deus in statuam. The nearly literal deus ex machina does tickle me. I'm also in favour of a return to level 1, and I don't actually hate this particular level drain, but I am wary of a more epic, "save the world" plot that a living, angry God might herald. I liked that the PoE main quest felt personal, with no real boss fights, or even any plot-related combat apart from Thaos himself.

This sounds great, but I hope that non-elemental magic is still very prevalent.