Hynkel

Added 15 bucks to the booty !

I don't mind if the finesse/dex fighter stays squishier than his tin can counterpart. Actually, I wish it stays that way : I don't want to have a high speed/high crit/high evade character that makes tanks look useless. Spending talents is ok though since it comes at the opportunity cost of not taking something else (e.g : Sexy Macarena : gives you +10 to deviation when not wearing shield, heavy armor or 2H weapons) Also, shieldless 1 handed style could use some specific talents. A modal talent giving you a significant deviation and precision buff in this style only would be hella cool. In a nutshell : yeah for finesse fighters involving build tradeoffs, nay for rogues becoming stronger tanks than fighters for free.

It's true that 3.5 is full of unnecessary complexity, and I can totally understand why one would want a more efficient ruleset. Still, it's heresy to me that in 2017 Wizards would want players to stick with old-fashioned classes, even with some amount of specialization. It sounds like the opposite of modernity.

Well then, congratulations !

Not sure about that. PoE belongs to a genre that's expected to have side quests. If some people want to skip them... well they simply walk by, that's the entire point of side quests. In Tyranny, since the main questline is very choice-heavy, the side quests are much more unconsequential ; but in PoE removing all these quests will make the world look empty. It's a design choice regarding the core of the game, not something that can be set by a menu option.

In Tyranny you get to see the characters' 3D model in a small window, striking a pose depending on how the conversation goes. It's a nice touch, especially for the various named NPCs. For the most important characters however, I'd rather stick with the much more gorgeous and unique portraits.

In 3.5 and pathfinder, aside from saves and unique class stuff, leveling up gave you base attack bonus (bonus to hit with weapons) and spellcaster level of the according class. So you could take 3 fighter levels (+3 to BAB), 4 wizards level (+4 wiz spellcaster level, +2 to BAB stackable with the fighter BAB), and then pick a prestige class with a requirement of 5 BAB and 4 spellcaster level. Said prestige class would give you spellcaster levels, decent BAB and cool unique stuff. This system allowed a lot of creativity, especially since they released hundreds of prestige class in various books. It also compensated the games' balance issues, since in the base game non-spellcasters were weak. It's a shame if the game doesn't give you any incentive to try new combinations. You end up playing the same boring-ass half-orc barbarian or elven ranger again and again.

Sorry if my answer isn't really constructive but : wat

I just loved that the first thing we heard in the Deadfire trailer was Matthew as Eder. Not much to say since he's been confirmed and all, just showing my apreciation.

How is multiclassing in this game ? DnD 4 looked like the death of creativity and I wonder if they made 5 more open to this regard.

Well, I think the writers tried to put more humanity and less stereotypes into their work. It's a generational thing, Harry Potter and Adventure Time are bigger references now than Tolkien and Conan the barbarian. I perfectly understand the nostaligia. Clichés are fun and gave us our dear Minsc. But I can't blame writers for going a different way.

It's been said many times that Obsidian can't make a new Baldur's Gate since this requires an agreement with Hasbro-Wizards. However, Obsidian did release an officially licensed Pathfinder card game. Pathfinder is based off DnD 3.5, a much better ruleset than the old clunky DnD 2 ruleset used for most infinity engine games. Sorry if this has been asked before, but has there been discussions about the opportunity of making a pathfinder C-RPG ?

Lack of modding support will certainly not make me regret my pledge as it's something that was never promised to begin with. That being said, I really really hope we get something like the Tutu mod at some point to inject multiclassing and other mods into PoE 1. I have a strong feeling that modding will determine whether PoE will be remembered as a good game, or as a legendary one.

Reading the feedback here makes me glad that, despite a few minor issues, Pillars of Eternity feels like a finished game. It's easy after such a big kickstarter success with high expectations to have a very unfocused development, and ambitions that go way beyond what the budget allows you to accomplish. So kudos to Obsidian I guess.

Damned Ondrite crooks !

Yup, any given DoT effect should also never stack with itself, to prevent multiple Dragon Thrashed silliness.

I wouldn't say stoic or rational are related to being good/evil either. True, not good/evil but mostly "lawful" in the dnd sense.

It's true that the first half hour feels a bit clunky and unapealing but Underrail is a game that grows on you, especially once you get access to other cities.

Clever is the most fun disposition (duh), Darcozzi Paladini 4Eva. I especially like that unlike others dispositions, it's unrelated to being good/evil.

By the way from a narrative perspective White Marsh 2 is pretty cool and doesn't have the same "pointless adventure" vibe as Tales of the Sword Coast. It's still unrelated to the main quest though. Also, about difficulty : the Baldur's Gate series had an old school style of game design where things like fairness and balance didn't matter that much (for the record, I once got killed in BG by the weather. Just like that, stormy weather, struck by lightning, bang you're dead). You could die from a bad roll, but you could also cheese like crazy with stuff like offscreen fireballs, summons or pre battle buffs. PoE doesn't have that. In PoE, the better you understand the game system, the less you die, with much less randomness and wackiness.

Thanks for the info, the developers' point of view is really interesting. I think the game already has a way to discriminate "masters" from "non-masters", which is difficulty settings. That's why the difficulty curves of each mode should not be parallel but behave differently, tackling the fact that PoTD players will have both better strategies and character builds.

I don't know about Obsidian's plans but from your description you really should try a recent indie game called Underrail.

Actually White Marsh 1 & 2 were a staple for PoTD players, since the core game doesn't have much to offer to players looking for a challenge, besides the Endless Path. I think the issue is that normal mode is balanced in such a way that anything related to the main storyline must not be too challenging ; but it's ok if the dragons are somewhat difficult even on normal. Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to be the case in act 1 where they force you to level up a little before Caed Nua. The issue here if that the way difficulty is spread throughout the game basically remains the same in PoTD. Dragons are fine, but I would have liked a better upscaling of difficulty in Defiant's Bay and Twi Elms.

Well, the Engwith undead lord from the endless path does imply that animancy is just a fancy new name for magic. Anyway, if people don't like it, too bad. I just thought it could be cool to go Frankenstein when it blends so well with the existing world.

Animancers are an important part of the PoE lore, and I always thought they should get their own class with their own abilities; it just feel weird that the mind controled animancer from WM2 is just a generic wizard. Now that subclasses have been officialized, I think it's time for the soul scientists to take their place into the game system. Animancers could be weaker wizards (e.g whose spellbook is limited to 2 spells/level. Could need some tweaking depending on how wizards evolved in Deadfire). In exchange, they'd get a flesh construct pet. For better flavor, arcane assault coumd be replaced by a per encounter pet buff ("soul overcharge" or something similar) and arcane veil by something redirecting damage from the wizard to the pet ("soul empathy"). Anyway, just my two cents !