Monte Carlo

Yup. A paladin is basically a warrior or knight that can cast a few divine spells and also has auras, etc. They are quite different. A Paladin is a very good fighter too. Clerics/priests are not. Hey! A yo momma D&D class / combat powa comparison. A 3E Fighter / Cleric trumps a paladin of an equivalent level every time.

Paladins are somewhat superseded by combat-capable priests, and anyhow there's no alignment in this game. So I can live without them (although I'm OK with them as a class). Bards.. hmmm. Maybe it's the way I play but the Ultimate Support Guy isn't how I like to play heroic fantasy personally. If they made the bard more of a combat capable character then perhaps. But not "stand about at the back singing" dude.

Is it another 500 for a new dungeon level?

I am already planning a vile, overweight, splenetic Priest called Cartman.

I try an alternative method when pulling a gaming all-nighter and drink heavily in the real-world instead.

I've been a lich for the past five hundred years. It's OK, I like watching the passage of time and being hilariously OP, but TBH it's overrated. Bits of me fall off nowadays, and the villagers tend to cringe when I go to the shop for some glue to put my fingers back on. And the relentless sucking out of souls / general nastiness has got more like work than a hobby. Prozac and booze simply doesn't work on my cadaverous exoskeleton so I have to take solace in souls / blood / suffering. It gets to you after a while. Hey, give it a go if you want, I'm all for choice, just don't build your lair / crypt whatever anyplace near mine. The last thing I need right now is competition or another lich war *sighs*

Different artists, that's all. They've gone for sinuous, inuit-looking dwarves, which is cool.

With respect, you fall into the trap that many of us fall into here. That's the trap of viewing your personal POV of what constitutes 'high fantasy' as fact. I am as guilty as the next guy of doing this, so I can spot it when another person does it. To me, for example, a classic Kung-Fu monk doesn't feel remotely out of place --- the fantasy I like is eclectic, eccentric, odd, even gonzo. Well, that depends. Does it mean that you want something that fits a different monk archetype? Or maybe it doesn't actually need addressing. I like the idea of a beer-brewing, bee-keeping class too. But OTOH the warrior-monk you describe is, really, a sort of paladin. Hmmm. You've couched the debate in deliberately perogative terms there. Am I in favour of a melee class that has a suite of powers based on extraordinary willpower and self-discipline? Yes I am. Does that automatically mean that I want a Bruce Lee style character? Not really. I direct you towards Diablo 3 and Icewind Dale 2. Both games had cool monk archetypes that showed how you could play around with the class (the Tibetan-Germanic mountain monks of IWD2 were really cool). Personally, I'd like to see a weapons-monk as much as an unarmed combat monk. With some unique, setting specific weapons. I'm also cool with the notion that the monks are wanderers from a faraway land, or live in combat academy / monasteries in the core game world. Cheers MC

Awwww. Diddums. LOL Really happy, thanks for asking.

Right I'm off to bed. Am looking forward to seeing if any devs have piled in overnight, but Update Fifteen really is going to take some beating.

Can I just say that atheist priests are a great idea, basically they have no powers and hang about shouting about how the gods don't exist.

Cthulu is summoning some sort of portal at the base of his tentacles... see it?

The guy is covered in TNO style tattoos and he's an old geezer to boot. I suspect much spiritual... stuff in amongst the ass-kicking. Do you see that black vapour swirling around the undead.... are those their vile, diseased souls.....

Yeah gentle bump is in order perhaps.

^ Hats off to Diablo 3, the monks are Russian for some reason.

Devs... I love the monk class but is there any chance we could have a weapon-orientated monk as well as the vanilla fist-of-fury variety? It's just that being a twink I feel like I'm missing out on all the cool items when I play a monk.

Monks are in.

They should read Update 15 and get their credit cards out.

Unleashing these folks without crappy publishers is great --- look at all the diverse content. Hall of Heroes is like IWD, Ciphers remind me of weird planescape funkiness, the NPCs are already evocative of BG and there are giant bloody dungeons. Could we *really* be seeing something for everyone?

The D is silent. And the 'Y' has a slight 'b' sound in front of it. So it sounds like 'Beerwood.' (I also do bah-mitzvahs and weddings)

Most games allow for 'melee wizard' and 'arcane howitzer' One uses combat magic to allow him to go toe to toe, the other stays at a distance and unleashes hell. The drawback for melee wizard is usually that (a) he has to develop combat skills that might be used to get more magic (b) he's never really as good an all-rounder as a pure fighter.... i.e. his strength is situational (maybe configured for crowd control over powerful single monsters for example). Of course, this system is new, but I'd imagine I'm not that far off the mark.

I think Cadegun is a priestess --- she's turning those undead with an amulet. I've commented on this stuff on the other general discussion forum but will reiterate how great all of this content is. Congratulations.

That picture of the adventuring party is really quite brilliant. It's old-skool with a twist (guns, fur-clad dwarves, wizards in leather armour). Do you think the musket-wielding character is a priest? am looking at the paladin-like feel to her armour and she's clutching some sort of symbol or pendant. A gun-toting heavily armoured priestess is cool. They are also locked in mortal combat with an undead legion, in a dungeon, whilst threatened by a mauve tentacled beastie. Seriously, forgive my fanboy tendencies but it really doesn't get much better than this. Indeed, I am pleased Obsidian. You may proceed.

I am obliged.

Would you be so kind as provide a link to what you are referring to please? Thanks.