blotter

Per https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/: So there's one more subclass confirmed, and one that I was actually interested in as well. Huzzah for that. I'm rather disappointed that they didn't go for an actual psychically generated weapon ala the D&D soulknife class, but maybe there's still room for a cipher modal ability or power that allows them to generate something along those lines.

When you get Nans to repair the Engwithan Scepter at the end of the Clandestine cargo quest, she mentions a fiend's blood reagent or something along those lines. I'm curious to see how demons and the like would work within the setting: would they be malevolent entities that encroach into Eora from the Beyond, or are they identified as demonic for other reasons, such as religious stigma? Another thing I'm interested in is seeing more sentient spirits/vessels from Engwithan times (though not necessarily Engwithans themselves) that you can communicate or even negotiate with. It's not a distinct monster type, obviously, but I think there's still more room for interesting revelations concerning that period, especially if related from the perspectives of rivals or victims of Engwithan conquest. Doppelganger-type wilders would be neat too, or perhaps a breed of spectre/shade that possesses others: the broader concept that interests me here is that of natural predators of kith that insinuate themselves into the heart of the civilized world out of necessity or convenience rather than languishing in forgotten dungeons or the wilderness waiting for random adventurers to stumble across them. I guess Fampyrs could fit the bill too (even if they mostly aren't used that way in Pillars 1), but I'd prefer something that's both fundamentally more distant from kith in terms of origin/nature and more adept at blending in among kith when it suits them.

I understand that the devs have stated the macuahuitl's off the table, but if you're still interested in weapons that are good matches for the area where Huana culture's concerned, an obsidian axe or hatchet would line up pretty well with the stone axe heads that turn up among Hawaiian/Polynesian artifacts (http://www.academia.edu/11042949/A_Note_on_Hawaiian_Stone_Axes). A mokomokai trinket, as seen here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokomokai) or here (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/09/20/preserving-tattoos-of-the-dead-is-a-little-macabre-but-not-new/#1f72c94074cf), might also be interesting. Alternatively, it could work as an amulet pretty easily since they only require inventory icons. I'm not voting since I haven't contributed to the BIB item fundraiser yet, but I thought the ideas might have a place here.

I wonder about that. Per https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=256#updates, Huana society is stratified based on a caste system that its members appear to be born into and there's no particular emphasis on or celebration of equality for its citizens. Depending on how visible these traditions are, siding with the Huana may raise serious questions as to whether you're helping a blameless underdog with their valiant struggles or disrupting changes that may actually benefit the lower-caste Huana overall. Even if they mostly ignore this particular aspect of the culture, there's still plenty of room for grey areas in regards to the compromises Queen Onekaza II makes to further her intrigues and/or the extremes Prince Aruihi will go to in his efforts to get rid of the colonizing forces. It'd be pretty lame if they didn't address any of these areas of concern, but even setting them all aside, there's still the question of whether the Watcher will truly have the power/influence to permanently banish any of the factions from the Deadfire Archipelago. If not, then whatever harm or setbacks you end up causing these groups could result in them oppressing the Huana more harshly. If the Watcher can somehow permanently force the groups out, there are still bound to be other groups that are interested in cornering the market on luminous ardra (unless you somehow wreck all of it to deter colonizing interests in the area, which could have all sorts of dire implications for the region and possibly the world at large). As for my choice among the factions, my dissident watcher's currently leaning towards the Principi or no faction commitment. His contributions to revolutionary efforts via his background left him pretty burnt out on the political idealism front, realizing that he hates commoners about as much as he hates nobles, so the Prinicipi's focus on exploiting any and all parties would make the most sense to him. He could be persuaded to favor the Vailian Republics depending on the extent to which animancy research/experimentation is associated with them to the exclusion of other factions, though. If they're the primary hub for animancy, then what remains of his dissident instincts could lead him to promote their interests insofar as it enables animancy research and thus defiance of the gods, who he was never particularly fond of, especially after learning what he did about them at the end of Pillars 1.

I also have a 50% off coupon for Tyranny that I don't need since I preordered it. My Paradox Interactive Store Key is below: TYRANNY-LFRTHPRIBMBW-50

Another thing that I'd like to see in the game is general movement animations that vary overall based on race and Dexterity as well as conditionally based on certain status effects like blindness, intoxication, and so forth. In addition to this, fighting animations would vary based on class/subclass, indirectly by race insofar as size differentials come into play, weapon proficiency level as well as the weapons themselves/the use of particular modals and, optionally, a disposition set by the developers for companions/sidekicks or by the player of recruits/the Watcher (Clever/Shady animations would be more oriented towards surprise and misdirection, Aggressive would directly contrast with though two through its emphasis on directness and brute force, Cruel would focus on intimidation and gruesome kill animations, Rational and Stoic would be based on pragmatism and economy of motion, Benevolent would be more defensive in its focus and characterized by "clean" kill animations involving mercifully swift deaths and minimal disfigurement to the body, etc.)

Besides that, the antagonist probably prefers forms that stand out less given his interest avoiding the notice of the world at large. In regards to the broader subject, there may or may not be godlikes for every god out there. Like you said, it may not thematically fit some of them and others may find that it doesn't serve their interests, though the latter assumes that the emergence of associated godlike "breeds" is something that occurs through the gods' volition. Someone (GreenDragon, I think, but I don't remember the numeric combination at the end of the name and don't feel like slogging through whichever thread the original post was in, sorry) presented a counter-theory which posits that godlike may occur as gods "shed" bits of themselves over time and those bits of divine energy merge with the unborn souls of kith. Still, it's not difficult to imagine that the nature of gods could cause their influence, voluntary or otherwise, to manifest in other ways than the birth of strange creatures. Perhaps the closest thing that Abydon has to goldike are the rare, inspired constructs of his followers, or perhaps even his followers themselves after they remake themselves in his image. Similarly, Skaen and his followers already have the Effigy.

Same here. I already own Tyranny and wouldn't mind passing the coupon on to someone who has more use for it.

Presumably because they didn't consider restrictions on the basis of any of the above to be worthwhile. Attributes and race could make sense in that you wouldn't expect someone with 3 Might to be twirling around a pollaxe and a stiletto used by an orlan assassin probably shouldn't be usable by the Aumaua who killed him (though this is probably worth overlooking for the sake of simplicity since the same reasoning applies to almost every type of wearable equipment out there), but disposition restrictions on weapons wouldn't really add anything beyond arbitrary and highly debatable characterizations of particular weapon types. Why would you have to be stoic or passionate (or diplomatic) to use a particular weapon, for example? Maybe cruelty or deceptiveness is more what you had in mind for assassin's weapons like daggers/stilettos, but it'd be completely absurd for the game to mandate that anyone using these weapons would have to be some sort of sadist or con-artist. It's best to leave the weapon and disposition relationship to how weapons are used, not what types of weapons they are.

I just randomly remembered this guy from that prehistoric SNES Shadowrun game And found myself thinking that a Magranite priest/Nalpazca monk who periodically sets his hair on fire might not be so bad. Perhaps he'd be a cautionary tale from Bonteru's past about the dangers of poorly mixed concoctions: a knock-out drug gone wrong, perhaps, or brain damage from a not quite fatal enough dose of poison during a previous encounter. I still can't believe they named him Vivyan, though.

In Q&A 4, Sawyer said we *might* be able to switch the Watcher's race when importing a save but it'd be based primarily on "whatever seems to feel best". Hard to say exactly what that means, but it could have something to do with whether it allows for interesting reactivity without requiring a lot of work that'd be better directed elsewhere. My guess is that it's probably more trouble than it's worth if they feel obligated to have companions and NPCs actually acknowledge the change, but who knows. As for whether switching races makes sense, it depends how it happens. It could possibly be explained by the Watcher losing their original body and finding their way into the flesh of someone in Caed Nua who barely survived Eothas' awakening/departure; I'm not entirely certain whether the lore would require that the Watcher become a Vessel in a cases like this (which would strongly tip this toward "too much work"), but being at site of the rebirth of a dead god (of rebirth, no less) does seem like it'd provide a certain amount of room for exceptions. More generally, here's a pertinent blurb from the first guidebook: So apparently, mucking around in Engwithan ruins can pose the risk of physical transformation (or possession, to relate this back to the body swapping scenario above), and the Watcher is basically sitting on top of a pretty epic Engwithan site that could easily go haywire when Eothas decides to take up residence in the statue. I agree that changing backgrounds doesn't make a lot of sense, but even that could be explained in terms of Awakening shenanigans if having your soul partially devoured by Eothas shook loose memories from other past lives. That said, Sawyer has been pretty clear that they plan to lock in story states from imported saves, so there's at last one thing that won't be changeable.

And we already prominent examples of more flexible interpretations of condemned behaviors within the game's lore. St. Waidwen became obsessed with rooting out corruption and heresy within the ranks of his people, not only persecuting those who had the temerity to worship other gods but only those who shared his own faith "for mere perceptions of heresy" (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/The_Saint%27s_War,_Part_1:_Overthrow). And then there's Readceras itself, which by all indications in Pillars 1 has a thriving slave trade. Granted, we don't know that Waidwen was a priest himself, but we know that he was the mortal host for a god and even then he was able to initiate pogroms that had vast numbers of Readcerans fleeing the nation become refugees in other areas, Dyrwood in particular. Similarly, while Readceras is obviously not 100% populated by priests, it is governed by Eothasian priests, who apparently don't have a problem with the nation's practice of keeping slaves and trading them elsewhere. Arguably, the Woedican faith provides an another example via the Leaden Key, which practices animancy on a scale that's probably unrivaled by anyone but the Engwithans despite considering it blasphemy, regularly violates the laws of nations in which it is present, and probably has members who broke more than their fair share of oaths to others in the process in furthering their goddess' aims. Obviously, you won't find a case among the above where the people in question didn't adopt some line of reasoning that made this okay despite the abundant potential for conflict between their actions and their beliefs, and that's precisely the point: it's the followers who set the terms of their belief here, not the churches they identify with or the gods they profess to worship. No one "grants" priests their power and only they can strip themselves of it. So what if the ways in which they justify themselves amount to "mental acrobatics"? Religious orders and practitioners alike in our world have long and storied histories of engaging in just that to spin mortal sins as acts of worship. Why should it be any different in Eora?

He probably should give them up, but that's a matter of volition rather than necessity. A frequent and powerful theme of redemption tales is the temptation to relapse, but that only works if relapse is actually possible. Conversely, if the player wanted their character to make a clean and decisive break from their past, then maybe they can by respeccing the character (I'm honestly not sure how completely we'll be able to clean the slate, but if nothing else, they could skew the balance well in favor of whatever other class they've adopted). However, I'm of the mind that it should be the player's choice. People will come up with character concepts that may or may not pass your/my/a developer's smell test, but they shouldn't have to in order to have the right to play their character. Honestly, I'd like to see apostasy/conversion routes for priests and paladins to reflect the sort of transformation FlintlockJazz was talking about. But it's obvious that the developers can't afford to sink that much time and resources into those classes. Well, there may be some space for disposition checks that highlight the conflict between traditional beliefs and the character's behavior, and I say the more of that, the better. I also have no personal interest in making a redeemed Skaenite or a corrupted Kind Wayfarer (for the time being anyway), but given the preexisting potential for contradiction (with or without role-playing intent on the player's part) through dispositions, backgrounds (e.g., how does an orlan aristocrat with royal blood from Aedyr come close to making sense?), or the inevitable possibility of other contradictory in-game behaviors that won't tracked by factions, reputations, or companions, drawing the line at weird priest/paladin multiclass options seems pointless and misguided to me.

You do begin fights with a certain amount of Focus, however. This could potentially allow you to anchor yourself to a target with a lesser power in order to hasten the process. And the reduce rate of independent Focus gain was only one of the possible tradeoffs I considered, the other being that the cipher's focus would dwindle over time unless they were using their powers to feed on others. That depends entirely on the rate at which they gain Focus through the subclass' benefits and the durability of the cipher's thralls. Remember that this subclass is supposed to make abilities like Psychovampiric Shield (that is, hostile powers to drain an enemy to augment the cipher) more debilitating, which means that there's a risk of the power doing its job too well by making the thrall too vulnerable to serve as a long-term meal. As for the Focus gain through thralls, I see a few ways to help keep it from getting out of hand: limiting the number of thralls who you can gain Focus at any given time, limiting the amount of Focus that you can gain through them, potentially attracting unwanted hostility from your targets, and/or making the Focus through thralls bit available as a class ability or talent, competing with other abilities/talents at appropriate levels rather than making it an inherent perk of the subclass (which would still have the augmentation of hostile bond-type powers at its core).

I hadn't gone into detailed mechanics, but I thought that mentioning the ability to form *more* debilitating links through existing powers and the tradeoff with impeded focus gain or dwindling focus rather clearly differentiated it from mere power selection. If not, it's hard to see how it suffers from that problem any more than the rogue's assassin subclass, which basically sneak attacks harder at the cost of lower personal defense.

Which they won't be doing. In the same Q&A I linked earlier, Sawyer stated that they have no intention of prohibiting people from player characters who are both Honest and Deceptive (or Shady, now), for example, and presumably the same applies for other conflicting dispositions. And to reiterate, there are no plans to keep you from playing your Kind Wayfarer as the most vicious depraved bastard in Eora regardless of what god he follows, or your priest of Wael as a paragon of rational thought and forthright honesty irrespective paladin order. For munchkins who suck at being munchkins, maybe. Munchkins generally want to use their resources to increase their power, not to offset penalties they wouldn't have to deal with at all if they had simply chosen another build to begin with.

It's less about the tenets of the religion and more about how the priest interprets them, otherwise the Untroubled Faith talent wouldn't be possible. Even in the absence of veneration, a former Skaenite who fully recants may still fear that for all their efforts to change, at their core, they are still the same murderous insurrectionist that they were before their change of heart. This fear can amount to a conviction of sorts regarding who they are and what they capable of, accounting for their continued access to their priestly abilities (which aren't dependent on adherence to formal religious decrees or even the will of the god you claim to worship in PoE). The inherent conflicts between the beliefs that the character holds would also be accounted for by any loss in power in regards to Faith and Conviction/Divine Radiance unless the character takes the aforementioned talent. I don't see the need for the developers to enforce anything beyond that, least of all when they have no plans to prevent these characters from actually behaving in ways that violate the tenets of their order or deity.

The OP probably didn't mention them since you can't play as a priest of Abydon and the developers have no plans to add any new deities to choose from in Pillars 2. The only parts of Abydon's portfolio (Industry, Machines, Golems, Smiths, Skilled Trades, Apprenticeship, Strength, Mining and Metals, Hope, Aspiration) that specifically coincide with the Goldpact Knights overall are Skilled Trades (if mercenaries are considered to fall within this category) and Strength, though they probably have their own smiths would align more closely with the broader portfolio as well. Magran seems like the most thematically appropriate choice given their status as inveterate mercenaries, but I suppose it could be argued that with their slavish devotion to contracts, the Goldpact Knights might see themselves more as their employers' weapons than as warriors per se (which might be another point in favor of Abydon).

Sawyer specifically says they'll be useable as clubs, which suggests that they'll have the same stats as clubs while the modal is activated. You might still be right if the enchantments on pistols are inapplicable at melee range, which could be the case for stuff like increased reload speed. That being said, the enchantment features for pistols from Pillars 1 are easily applicable to melee weapons as well and I wouldn't expect that to change in Pillars 2 overall. I'm all for pistol whipping myself and think the option's missing from entirely too many games, but if each weapon gets only one modal, then this seems a bit overly niche compared to stuff like the Savage Blows modal for great swords and Vulnerable Strikes modal for estocs, both of which make you better at using those weapons in ways you probably intended to use them in the first place. If any firearm got a modal based around quicker reloads I'd expect it to be the pistol, but alas... Nice catch, but they might fall a bit outside of the intended technological period, since a lot of those are 17th or 18th century and the ones that aren't look like they'd be unique daggers or swords rather than pistols. What's more problematic from a design perspective, I suspect, is that a lot of those look like they'd require unique handling and/or attack animations whatever weapon type they're associated with.

Well, Sawyer does mention the restriction in relation to the orders/deities having two opposed dispositions, but unless I'm missing any other pairs, that would mean that the only priest/paladin restriction that exists is for priests of Skaen who are trying to become Kind Wayfarers or vice versa. I'd have trouble making sense of the Kind Wayfarer/Skaen combination outside of a redemption or corruption scenario, but I'm not willing to state that it's absolutely impossible to come up with some other coherent explanation for it. Cruelty is condemned by the Eothasian faith, but they don't have a problem with aggression, so that would allow Bleak Walkers of Eothas to exist alongside Shieldbearers of Magran and Skaenite Darcozzi Paladins (which actually could make some sense if their reverence for Old Vailian culture led them to scheme to undermine and supplant the Republics to allow for its resurgence). (Edit: The above only applies if the requirement is that both of one order/deity's favored dispositions fall under the other's condemned dispositions. Thinking about it further, it occurs to me that this is certainly not the only way for these combinations to have multiple clashing dispositions.)

There are. Or at least, the current plan is to restrict multiclassing in regards to paladin order and priest deity choices that involve conflicting favored/condemned dispositions. Sawyer's reasoning in Q&A 4 (https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/5vsoiy/pillars_of_eternity_ii_deadfire_qa_4_transcript/) was primarily that it sabotages the character and secondarily that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. In regards to the former, the Untroubled Faith talent takes care of that. In regards to the latter, it's debatable. Like eselle28 mentioned, there are those characters who turn over a new leaf for themselves, and for others, there can be potential intersections in dogma and themes between even ostensibly opposed belief sets; considering the violence of Eothasians on the warpath during the Saint's War, it doesn't seem like it should be impossible for a priest of Eothas to multiclass as a Bleak Walker. Similarly, the Magranite doctrine laid out in Excerpts from the Sermon of Struggle, particularly the part about not yearning for conflict but having the determination to thrive amidst it and to resolve it quickly, doesn't sound like it'd be fatally out of line with what the Shieldbearers of St Elcga practice.

Actually, maybe one this sort of focus and spell synergy could work is via a cipher subclass. Not specifically tied to spells since it'd be weird for a subclass to mandate multiclassing, but allowing the cipher to gain Focus through AoE effects and resources like scrolls, explosives, and other class' spells if you choose to multiclass. One possible tradeoff could be a significantly lowered rate of Focus gain in relation to the damage caused by standard attacks. What I'd really like to see for a cipher subclass is a parasite of sorts who establishes more debilitating links to enemies through powers like Psychovampiric Shield and can gain Focus through damage that is inflicted by or upon enemies that they've charmed. My original thought for a tradeoff was a diminished capacity for independent Focus gain, but their parasitic abilities could be thematically and mechanically tied to difficulties in retaining Focus instead, causing Focus to steadily bleed away from them if they aren't actively leeching off of someone else.

Your initial suggestion doesn't require Soul Whip to be more powerful at all; it only requires that you gain Focus from spells. I was only clarifying that Soul Whip wouldn't be working like it did in Pillars 1 since KaineParker raised the concern of Soul Whip automatically adding 20% to spell damage. If the rate of Focus gain through damage is also tied to the Soul Whip itself becoming more powerful, it's probably possible to create a talent to increase Focus gain independent of Soul Whip advancement: there's the Brîshalgwin Mindmarker from Pillars 1, which demonstrates that they can fiddle with that already. Whether it'd be worth the balancing headache is a question I can't answer, but for my part, I do like the idea of talents that allow you to boost certain aspects of multiclass combinations (not unlike the Practiced Spellcaster feats that were available in d&d 3.5e for various classes). The current lynchpin of multiclass balance is Power Sources dictating the progression of class abilities. I believe that Might will still influence how much damage spells and other abilities do, but for Power Source to be meaningful as a way to balance multiclassing, then I would imagine that many (or even most) class abilities will have an inherent scaling mechanism tied to the power source. This is also how Empowering abilities (a per-rest resource that increases the effective power level for a given use of an ability by +3) is supposed to make these abilities more damaging/effective. Sawyer goes into more detail about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpKyazh8mUI Not necessarily, as the synergies with certain spell options could still make up for the lack of Focus from the spells themselves. There are also class abilities for spellcasting classes that aren't limited to spells and may be of interest to ciphers. If Blast and Penetrating Blast remain wizard-exclusive instead of being folded into proficiency options for Wands/Scepters/Rods, that may be appealing to ciphers who are interested in using implements. There are also spells that can indirectly boost Focus gain regardless of whether spell damage allows for it or not. For example, Merciless Gaze increases critical hit chance, and the more critical hits you land, the more damage you deal (and the more Focus you gain as a result).

On which part? In regards to the link, Rope Kid (Sawyer) stated that "Soul Whip, like Carnage and Sneak Attack, are all going to start small, be based off of base weapon damage, and increase with their associated Power Source." The point being that Soul Whip won't work like it did in Pillars 1: having only a few cipher levels won't automatically net you a 20% boost to damage, but the extent of the damage bonus will increase as you advance the cipher's Power Source (by taking more cipher levels). However, doing so comes at the cost of advancing the other spellcasting class' Power Source. As a result, having a stronger Soul Whip means having weaker spells (edit: from another class).

I believe that Soul Whip was specifically identified along with Carnage as class abilities that would be subject to scaling with the class power source (source: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3807509&pagenumber=52&perpage=40#post469029383).To the extent that you focus on boosting the perks related to Soul Whip, your spells through another class would be comparatively weaker. Also, unless Soul Whip changes, the damage bonus will vanish more quickly if Focus gain is allowed through the spells of other classes (though that obviously raises some concerns of its own).