jsaving

Um... I'm pretty sure you are automatically enrolled in the despot's faction in Tyranny whether you want to be or not. Though like Pillars, you will presumably be free over the course of the game to disregard the faction's tenets...

Nedmar thinks Eothas-worship needs to be obliterated and replaced with Berath if the Dyrwood is to overcome the Hollowing. He puts up with Raedric's brutality against non-Eothasians in order to advance this goal. Kolsc is indifferent to the Eothas-Berath issue but combines questionable competence with somewhat greater benevolence, which taken as a whole isn't an improvement over Raedric in Nedmar's eyes. However, Nedmar is uneasy with Raedric's dark side and is willing to provide a small amount of assistance to you -- without fully switching sides -- if you free one of his former disciples. You are absolutely right not to see the choice of Nedmar versus Osyra as a clear-cut issue, especially since Osyra combines despicable methods with a correct diagnosis of what is happening in the Dyrwood. My solution was to oppose both of them, but YMMV...

This is the first time I can remember someone complaining that an IE-type game was too nonlinear.

Binding them to the forge boosts your in-game power but reduces the forge's ability to repel enemy invaders, the consequences of which are made clear in the endgame slides.

He threw the torch, yes, but there were a number of mitigating factors that could be taken to lessen his culpability. That's why none of the responses to DoC are listed as being a lie -- you can either say he threw the torch, a technically correct answer that lacks necessary context and evades the question of whether he is responsible, or you can say he wasn't responsible, a value judgment that lacks necessary context and evades the question of whether he threw the torch.

The original idea was to separate the combat and noncombat "silos" so you wouldn't feel compelled to sacrifice combat effectiveness to be a better explorer/talker/sneaker -- climbing would be handled by athletics rather than might, sneaking would be handled by stealth rather than dexterity, knowledge would be handled by lore rather than intelligence, and foraging would be handled by survival rather than wisdom. But the implementation was highly incomplete. Skills like diplomacy/intimidation/persuasion, for example, aren't present, forcing you to sacrifice combat effectiveness to bolster your resolve score (or vice versa, sacrifice your dialogue success rate by dump-statting it). So the skill system isn't perfect -- and you are right to separately point out how weird it is that your companions' skills often can't be used for dialogue checks even though they do frequently make interjections, sometimes in the same conversations where you can't tap them for checks.

Doesn't the next game deal with Eothas' mortal progeny and the chaos that will be sown from their passing?

Well, look -- nearly every CRPG has situations where you have to choose between good and evil and then live with the consequences. Many CRPGs have situations where you have to choose between the lesser of two evils and then live with the consequences. Some even have situations where, if you choose not to do enough in-game investigation, you can mistakenly elevate a greater evil and must then live with the consequences. All of those are fine, even if they sometimes evoke a negative reaction from certain players. But they share something important in common -- players were able to get enough information that they could make an informed moral choice with which they then have to live. It's a different category entirely to provide little to no information about a choice, like dealing with the Defiance Bay machine, and then pretend the player's decision is choices-and-consequences at its best. Any reasonable protagonist would have ensured the machine would be well-guarded if it were deactivated rather than destroyed, yet the endgame slide assumes you left it unguarded and no one else in the city -- many of whom now knew about the machine's functionality -- picked up the slack. Don't get me wrong here, it is perfectly fine to deliver a deliberate endgame sucker-punch to the player in the best tradition of Fallout 1, provided the devs carefully think through character motivations and are able to deliver a twist that makes sense. But in this particular case, the twist comes about because PoE assumes away common sense on the part of the player and then blocks you from any dialogue options that would explicitly address the issue (for example convincing your faction to guard the tower) just so there can be an endgame slide saying you took no precautions and the machine was therefore restarted.

I enjoyed PoE quite a bit but agree with one point made by a couple of people in this thread. It's fine, and even desirable, for your in-game choices to have consequences. It's fine, and even desirable, for those choices to sometimes be made without being absolutely sure what effect your actions will have. But it is very problematic for you to make choices in situations where the game doesn't even *attempt* to lay out what the consequences of those actions might be. And it compounds the problem when, upon bringing this to people's attention, you're greeted with a shoulder shrug and an aside that you just don't like having to live with the consequences of your choices. The Defiance Bay machine in Act 2 is a great example. If anything, you're led to believe destroying the device would irresponsibly put the residents of Defiance Bay at risk. Moreover, any reasonable protagonist would ensure his companions or his faction or someone else he trusts would constantly watch over the machine to make sure it would never be reactivated. Yet you're inexplicably told at the end of the game that because you deactivated it, you implicitly chose to leave it unguarded and are then told that because you made this implicit choice, someone else was able to walk up and turn it back on. In general, I think PoE did a great job with choices and consequences, but there are a few instances where they fell short, that being one of them.

Fixed that for you...

The presentation nicely summarizes Josh's belief that a good rules system should prevent players from creating gimped characters. Not everyone agrees it is a desirable goal, but I do think PoE largely achieved it -- as evidenced in part by the number of people who've completed PotD with the suboptimal in-game NPCs. But there is one part of the presentation I find slightly problematic. Josh first says the game's attributes are abstract/unrealistic by design and reflect neither the way characters look/think nor the traditional D&D definitions -- might isn't strength, resolve isn't charisma, etc. Yet elsewhere in the presentation we're told that the devs don't want NPC attributes to change because the current values reflect how those characters look/think, specifically calling out Pallegina's weak physical strength as a reason to give her a suboptimal might score. This kind of thing is also seen in the many in-game scripted interactions that equate PoE's attributes with D&D's -- resolve is invariably used for charisma checks, perception is used for wisdom checks, might is used for strength checks, etc. But if PoE's attributes really are thinly disguised synonyms for D&D's instead of being abstract, then we're once again faced with the questions the PoE team was trying to avoid by delinking them, like why charisma would physically deflect arrows from hitting you or why being muscular would power-up your fireballs. But these are nitpicks, really. The PoE team did something really innovative with how they handled attributes and they should be applauded for it. And if there are imperfections to be worked out, what better place to do that than PoE2?

If you play as an Eothasian priest, there are a couple of conversations over the course of the game in which you voice your belief that Eothas is alive and well. I don't recall any particular interaction with Eder in which this was done, though -- perhaps because you might then be able to talk him out of his personal quest?

Eothas' absence from Teir Evron was likely a very specific design decision rather than an oversight. Like many other "facts" learned over the course of the game, the apparently permanent demise of Eothas isn't quite as clear cut as it might seem, with a small minority believing he never died at all and others speculating he may have been renewed or reborn following the Godhammer incident -- which actually isn't quite as odd as it might sound since renewal/rebirth is his portfolio and the Forgotten Realms deity on which he was based, Lathander, has similarly returned from apparent death after a well-intentioned but ill-fated attempt to reshape world events. Including an altar to Eothas would likely have given players more answers than the devs wanted to provide, hence the decision to exclude him from Teir Evron.

They seem to have decided early on that they didn't want ranged characters to dual-wield and didn't want them to have a shield's deflection bonus. Making those decisions effectively made all ranged weapons into two-handers.

Josh has said there won't be any further expansions/DLC but indicated last week that they'd like to do a sequel and already have ideas on how to proceed if a sequel were to occur. Obsidian has a couple of unnamed projects in the pipeline and some hope that PoE2 is among them, but we have no official confirmation of that (and really, no evidence to believe it might be true at this point).

I actually don't see that he meshes well with any classes in D&D, especially given that Middle-Earth is such a low-magic campaign setting. But sure, he can call himself what he likes!

To the OP: what makes you think Gandalf is a wizard? From what I've seen, he seems to be more commonly statted as a bard by people who care about such things. After all, he can't levitate or cast many offensive spells but has bardic knowledge, some healing abilities, decent hand-to-hand prowess and the ability to inspire people. But your general point about not typecasting PoE's classes is right on the money. As someone who's completed the game with a tank chanter and melee cipher, I say people should play their characters as they see fit rather than worrying that their playstyle doesn't mesh what people think a class "should" be.

I'm having trouble understanding the realism argument for camping supplies in PoE, as our Scout troop occasionally camps for multiple weeks without needing to resupply (tents aren't consumed after each use!). I also don't see how PoE's implementation of limited camping supplies is realistic, as the protagonist can hold 4/2/1 supplies if journeying alone but additional party members somehow find themselves unable to carry any. Don't get me wrong -- I like how PoE handled limited camping supplies and hope PoE2 will do something similar. But it works *despite* its lack of realism, not because it is realistic. It is a compromise, in other words, between game balance, ease of use and realism. I see the stash in similar terms. It isn't especially realistic to let people carry an unlimited number of +0 weapons and armor -- the main purpose of the stash -- but there are few to no balance implications from letting this happen and it's certainly a lot more convenient than making players trudge back to an inn every time their inventory fills up. It's unrealistic, to be sure, but realism isn't the only or even main consideration in these kinds of decisions.

The stronghold "dilemmas" (as the devs call them) are a nice callback to Nalia's keep in BG2, where you were also called upon to resolve various disputes. As I understand it, the particular dilemma or attack you get at any given point is mainly impacted by prestige, so you certainly want that high. On the other hand, if your security is too low then people can perish or flee before reaching your keep, so ignoring security probably isn't a great idea either.

I don't get the argument that NPC attributes have to be set in stone because it somehow wouldn't be realistic to let you alter them, in a game with an unlimited stash and a fixed capacity of 4 camping supplies no matter how many or few people are in your party. Just to be clear, I like the idea of an unlimited stash and a camping-supply cap, but it seems odd that these highly unrealistic design decisions are deemed acceptable but attribute alterations are not, especially when attribute respecs would simply bring the in-game NPCs up to par with inn-created hirelings. Perhaps the weirdest thing about this is that, on at least a couple of occasions, the devs have talked about designing the game in such a way that players wouldn't have to choose between combat power and noncombat utility (for example by separating skills from attributes). Yet without full respec, players are currently required to make exactly that choice -- either keep subpar NPCs for their out-of-combat banter/stories or else generate hirelings who are stronger in battle but mute outside of it.

You have to be really careful when reading undated guide information because what makes sense in this game has changed a lot with each successive patch. At one time, a tank fighter could accumulate so much deflection that they were essentially invulnerable on normal/hard difficulty, and enemies were so unwilling to disengage that defender was a great talent choice for most fighters. With 2.0's enemies being much more willing to break engagement, defender no longer helped fighters block enemies from reaching the back-line, plus the -5 to deflection was very noticeable given the general deflection nerfs in 2.0. If anything I'd say the case for defender + wary defender is even weaker in 3.0 as a couple of the multiclassing feats were buffed to the point where they'd be reasonable additions to a fighter's repertoire.

Depends on the kind of player you are. If you like to have an optimized party, it will always be better to hire adventurers ASAP because the freely recruitable NPCs like Eder and Aloth don't have great attribute allocations, nor do they have unique abilities like BG1/2 NPCs did (Minsc's berserk rage being one of many examples). On the other hand, the game is quite forgiving of mistakes on normal or even hard difficulty so there isn't a need for optimal characters unless you're planning to do a PotD Trial of Iron run. You'll also miss out on some amusing party banter and personal-story quests if you fill out your party with hirelings.

The devs seem to have made a conscious decision not to provide clear-cut answers to these and other questions. To my way of thinking, #2 and #4 are the most interesting and most ambiguous of the lot. On #2, I'd say Thaos probably has a lawful neutral to lawful evil alignment, doing what needs to be done to preserve 2000 year old customs and not caring much who gets harmed in so doing -- though he also doesn't actively go out of his way to hurt people simply because he can (as a thoroughly lawful evil person would). On #4, the game basically turns people's understanding on its head as you proceed through the game. At the beginning, just about everyone agrees that Waidwen's lust for power overcame what might initially have been good intentions, which leaves room for those who trust Eothas' goodness to infer Waidwen must not really have been Eothas. By the end, though, it's revealed that Waidwen tromped about the Dyrwood with an army not because he was evil but because a robust ground force was the only way to block Thaos from achieving his objectives, which has the ironic effect of undermining the nobody-that-evil-could-be-Eothas argument. and cementing in at least some of their minds that Eothas really is gone. And yet -- it's worth pointing out that Eothas' main portfolio is renewal/rebirth and he is a thinly disguised analogue of the Forgotten Realms' Lathander, who has on more than one occasion been renewed after having apparently been destroyed. The other deities believe Eothas will never return, but are they right? Only time will tell.

As an alternative, you can simply refrain from hitting the level-up button until you feel it is appropriate for your party to reach a new level.

When you find yourself consistently losing battles, you're right to think it is time to reassess your tactics. PrimeJunta gave some great tips which I hope you will follow. The main thing I would add is to change up your spell selection. Many of PoE's best low level spells -- repulsing seal (2) for priests, slicken (1) and Kalakoth's minor blights (3) for wizards, call lightning (3) for druids -- are weak in Baldur's Gate and some Infinity Engine vets mistakenly think the same must be true in PoE. Or on the other side of the coin, action-RPG types who try PoE often don't think to try zero-damage spells like slicken and repulsing seal because they don't realize how valuable prone/immobilize effects are in PoE. Good luck!