FlintlockJazz

They were there before, I was using them on my first ever playthrough (was playing a wizard but didn't want to move him from first position in party due to OCD reasons, so custom created a formation that put him in the middle and put all the tough guys in front).

What you are describing is not a psycho, it is a sociopath. A sociopath is a person who simply has no moral values or conscious. They can walk up to a guy selling hot dogs on the street with no money, ask for a hot dog, then pull a knife and kill the hot dog vendor when they refuse to sell them one, or just wait tell he isn't looking and steal one more likely. Either way they won't feel bad, they didn't have money sure, but they wanted a hot dog anyway. Durance is very much a sociopath, you ask him why he killed tons of women, children, etc etc just because he "thought" they were Eothasians he will spew some might makes right, the ends justify the means, Eothas caused the stillborn (he knows this is highly unlikely) BS. Sociopaths need to justify their actions, Durance repeatedly tries to justify his. He isn't a Wicht, he knows exactly what he is doing. Also I would scale back the liberal agenda CEO nonsense. Or do you think Obama is a sociopath because he has ordered actions that has caused the deaths of hundreds yet can still sleep at night? Also for all the smelling like roses comments high powered corporate america executives on the grass roots level are hated and distrusted by most people so yeah. Just don't confuse "I made a cost benefit analysis that cost 5 thousand people their jobs but improved company productivity and long term viability/health" with "I knifed a guy in an alley because I wanted to make a play for his girlfriend" They REALLY aren't the same thing. I would scale back the strawmanning mate, I made no political stance there just stated a fact that many people in power are quantifiably sociopaths (or psychopaths as they are called over here, terms used are different depending on country). This is a fact, it does not make a statement about liberal agendas or suchlike, so please don't bring politics into this. I'm getting a bit bored of the strawmanning and false dichotomy so I'm ducking out of this debate about computer games that is turning towards something else. Have fun everybody.

Makes me think it was a change in the narrative of the main plotline. That the sisters would reveal it instead of Iovara maybe or talking with the gods in Teir Evron would somehow make it clear. If that's the case I'm intrigued as to what the original plotline would have been like and why they changed it.

There's quite a few things at the end there that kinda come out of left field. Durance's conclusion to his questline after Teir Evron and talking with the gods assumes some huge leaps of logic in my opinion.

There will be further patching to fix bugs and balance tweaks, but 3.0 is the last big overhaul from my impression, and they will be moving onto the next game now.

You assume that everyone is doing what they believe in. Do people work jobs because they believe in the company? Or because they need the money? Do people only rob others because they need to? Or do some just not care about their victims? If someone is doing something because they genuinely believe it needs to be done then that's one thing, if they are doing it because they got paid to do it then that's another. People do things every day that they know is wrong, yet they do it anyway. Regarding sociopaths (or psychopaths, I always get those two mixed up, think it depends on the country you are in as to which is which), they are capable of coherent thought unless they have other compulsions or issues (which is the case with most serial killers, they are usually sociopaths with compulsions that drive them to kill over their own deeply ingrained sense of self-preservation), they just don't care about anyone other than themselves. They are the closest thing to evil in real life, because they can sit there, know what they are doing is wrong and still do it anyway (and cover up after themselves) or not depending solely on a cost-benefit analysis. There is a reason why so many CEOs and politicians are sociopaths, and there is a reason why you should be afraid of them. And unfortunately, most of them are good at covering it up, passing the blame onto others, and come out smelling of roses. If Durance was a sociopath, you wouldn't know it, you'd think he was The Best Guy Around, he'd be like Eder (they are good at pretending to be what they are not because they don't care about lying to and manipulating people), and everyone would consider him a bro right up until he slit your thought in your sleep because he decided your continued existence was a burden.

Right, got control back. The keep, or donjon as it was actually called during the time period, was a fortification. While many castles had the lord's residence in the donjon in England after 1066, this was mainly due to it essentially being an occupied country. Most castles of the time elsewhere had another building that was the lord's home, looked after by the wife often, with the donjon being mainly used for barracks and fortifications. I mean, think about it: living in a fortification means not having any windows more than an arrow slit, rooms built more for defense than comfort, etc. You're a lord, you demand to live in comfort dagnammit! No fountains or stained glass windows for you if you live in the donjon.

That's news to me. I've never seen it done in any fantasy setting. Furthermore, it would be an inefficient waste of resources to not have the master's quarters inside of the main keep. I mean, why build and staff 2 structures when you can simply just build and staff 1? In many cases we would see something like the barracks or the prison in a separate structure, but I've rarely seen the master's actual room being a total separate structure. Meh, maybe I'm missing something. I'm sure there's a good reason for it that I'm not thinking about. Thanks for the reply anyhow Fantasy settings do many things that are historically incorrect. In fact, the vast majority of fantasy settings have very little in common with reality. And I'm not talking about things like dragons but the actual human society, armour, weapons, etc, the stuff you think is real. Would write more but my cat has lost my mouse while trying to climb on my keyboard so need to find it.

Bit of a strawman, I never said you get to shrug and say sorry. In fact, I think my entire post made it clear that was not the case.

I am still waiting to hear the part where you guys explain how this makes it so his actions aren't reprehensible, he is somehow not morally bankrupt, and is redeemable in some way. In fact the way you guys phrase it he is basically a dog with rabies and the only option now is to put the poor bugger down. Oh gods no. I hope no one does say that like certain other boards do with characters like these. His actions are reprehensible, it's just a question of whether he does it because he is Evil or because he is insane. And yes, it may be the only option is to put the guy down for his own good, except that the chances are his soul will stay broken and will reincarnate into some other poor sod. My characters tend to keep him around partly because he is useful and they can at least try to get some good out of him but also because they can keep an eye on him and keep him on a leash while they figure out what they should do with him. In Eora the options there do seem limited.

Okay Dr. Phil. Unfortunately that place that was supposed to be your in game version of a psych ward was shown clearly to be sloppy science that achieved little to no results or at best vegged people in his condition. Likewise "a damaged soul" is just a symptom, technically the watcher has a "damaged soul". Yet you probably didn't go around killing people for thin reasons just because you enjoyed it. You also have no clue what he was like before the bomb, there is no evidence he was any less of a looney tune, and like I said, even if he was, he is judged based on what he does now not 5 years ago. Everyones soul also takes damage over time, yet no one is trying to say we shouldn't blame Raedric it is just his damaged soul!!!! No, Durance isn't a snowflake, he is no less disreputable, misguided, and worthy of revulsion that any of the other villains in the game. The only difference is he decides to fight on your team and bitch really loudly whenever you aren't a jerk to everyone. Um, I believe I covered that the sanitariums in the game were inadequate with my last sentence. According to the lore of the game, mental illness is caused by damage to the soul. Why do you think so many Watchers go insane? Maerwald attacks you because of it. Durance doesn't go around killing people because he enjoys it either, he kills Hollowborn because he considers it his duty. And regarding having no clue what he was like before the godhammer bomb (which was more than five years ago, closer to twenty by the sounds of things actually since the Hollowborn appeared after it and the first ones have reached adolescence in order to become Wichts), that was my point! We have no idea what he was like before so we cannot know what is insanity and what is actually his real beliefs. He may have always been a evil sod, we don't know. All we know is that he is a incoherent madman now and Eora lacks support for those with mental illness. Nothing snowflakey about it.

Doesn't matter what he was like before, he is in my party now not 5 years ago. Also lots of evil people in this world thought they were doing the "right thing". There isn't a saying "The road to hell is paved in good intentions" because doing what you think is right is always a good idea or morally sound. Matters quite a bit, as it means we don't know how much of his actions is due to the fact that he is, quite literally, insane. How much of his actions is due to being evil and how much is due to his state would be partly answered by knowing what kind of person he was before. He is not a psychopath, he is not working for his own benefit, on the contrary he is actually damaging his own goals due to the fact that he doesn't really know his own goals. As a Watcher, we get to see that his souls is damaged in horrendous ways, in one description it is described as sheared in half, and many of his actions are those of a schizophrenic, as soul damage is the cause of insanity in Eora. He talks about breaking a man's souls so it's like a bag of glass, but really he's talking of his own soul, which is why he switches personality so much. He calls Magran a whore, expresses anger towards her, and says that begging for her favour is pathetic, yet he is also desperate to try to regain her favour and is angry and upset that she seems to ignore him and is desperately trying to please her in any way he can. He claims he was sent to judge you, yet I suspect that it was more that one part of him deep down realised that he actually needs you and is desperate for help, he's literally pleading for help but in a completely bat**** crazy way and I suspect the previous Watchers he burnt was due to them being frauds or being unable to help him. The guy is not evil. He needs to be locked in a padded room, pumped full of drugs, and subjected to a series of therapy sessions. Unfortunately, playing the game we find out just what the sanitariums in Eora are like...

Not really. Eder was not a clergyman, he was not some officer of the faith, he was just some guy that happened to worship Eothas and felt Waidwen was a a false prophet. If anything he remained true to his faith at the time because again, he thought Waidwen was a false prophet. PS: There is still no REAL evidence to suggest he wasn't either. Durance and Devil are very much evil characters. It isn't even because of their actions it is because of their attitudes. Durance for example hates people, he thinks violence is a reasonable way to get what he wants in basically any situation, he seems no problem with insulting and belittling anyone and everyone, he even hates his own allies and consistently tries to undermine members of his own faith. If he could he would pretty much destroy society and be happy about it because he thinks that is what people deserve. He is self centered, arrogant, has no empathy, and potentially no moral compass. Those are all real life descriptors of sociopaths by the way. He is evil as hell. This regarding Eder. I would say more but it's a No Spoilers forum, but if anything when you meet him he's actually still loyal to Eothas. Regarding Durance: I would say it's more complicated. We don't know what he was like Before Godhammer (henceforth referred to as BG), he did what he had to in order to stop a rampaging god-thing, and when you meet him he is thoroughly broken due to certain things that I don't think he is capable of coherent thought. He seems to genuinely believe he is helping by engaging in the purges and 'dealing' with Hollowborn. He is crazy and in Eora that is due to Soul issues...

No... you couldn't...

Yep, this is how I feel. Trying to work out if there is any reason to do ruins first or not.

Still think the next stronghold they do, if any, should be either a ship, a stronghold with portals, or a pocket plane, to accommodate the modern adventurer on the go. I'd prefer the first two over the last one (since it was already done in Throne of Bhaal, though a floating tower in a sea of nothingness could be interesting). If it's still a stronghold I think I would prefer a renaissance manor house or chateau over another castle, making it a place of residence over a fortification owned by ruling lords. You could then choose whether you started to lay claim to towns nearby (after completing their quests which you would do anyway so as not to lock out those who don't want to claim territory from doing the quests) or not, to perhaps set up caravans which then unlocks merchants, build a wizard's tower that lets you research spells by hiring on apprentices, etc. Just random thoughts and splurging.

He breaks the fourth wall quite a bit, especially in the first one, and was kinda like a commentary on certain types of tabletop roleplayers (and in fact was one of the developers' tabletop characters from a Spelljammer campaign I believe). His unpredictability and over the top behaviour all stems from that, including his attacking other players' characters.

I believe that happens if you don't have a positive reputation, dunno what other requirements are needed.

I'm liking the changes to the stronghold, very interesting plotlines, dunno how it plays out later but it seems better at the moment. I do think in the next game they should go for something like a ship instead, that you can sail around to other ports so that you can keep it near you as you explore (becoming a mobile base of operations, better for adventurers). Or make the stronghold either a pocket plane you can access like in Throne of Bhaal or give it a giant portal you can use to travel between specific points on your journey. Ooooo! Or how about a giant floating castle that sails the seven skies raiding villages and towns by landing on them! :D

Way to cherry pick from the 11 Companions one of those whose voice acting is excellent. Let's ignore that Sagani is bland as vanilla. Or Maneha sounds like a petite girl, not a big burly Aumaua barbarian. Or Aloth, who while not horrible, could use some more edginess both to his character and voice. Zahau, Durance, Pallegina, Kana, and Eder are fine as is. Devil of Caroc, while the Devs did a good thing (I suppose) by making her voice sound like it's in a tin can or something, her underlying voice (echo-iness aside) also seems rather bland, though I suppose that since she's from the Dyrwood, a neutral-ish American accent isn't all that far wrong. Maybe a little more rustic flavor to her voice would have been nice, since she does supposedly come from an out of the way place. I suppose that GM's voice is ok, but given that I don't particularly like her character, her voice does little for me. And I'll give Hiravias a pass, given that I almost never have him in my party, because I just don't know how to play druids well, and find that they take the slot of a character type I'm more comfortable playing (i.e. a priest or wizard, or even a cipher). And how many characters were there in BG1? And how many of them were memorable? People tend to quote the same four or five characters out of the 20+ characters there were in that game, usually the comedy characters, with Minsc usually being the one way out in front who, love him or loath him, is a character whose success as comic relief in gaming even his creators have failed to replicate satisfactory.

Once you do the quest that gets you into the sanctum beneath Woedica's church you are given three quests to do: investigate Heritage Hill, investigate the Sanitarium, and investigate the ruins near Dyrwood. My question is, lore-wise, do you feel that it kinda makes sense to do them in a specific order? I kinda feel that, since you are in Defiance Bay anyway and it's the one that requires the least effort to get into (it isn't in a locked up district full of undead), that there is no logical reason not to do the Sanitarium first. This is just looking at it in a 'what I know ingame' kind of thing, knowing how these play out as a player it makes sense to do Dyrford first to pick up Hiravias on the way and GM once you get there if you want to get all the companions as soon as you can, but your character wouldn't know that. Do people have different views on this and how do you justify it ingame?

Since there are no whips and the other weapon Indy uses is pistols I would go with the Ruffian Weapon Focus, and use sabres as his melee weapon (pretty sure he uses a sabre or scimitar in Temple of Doom, if so it fits). As you said, Intelligence should be buffed for roleplay purposes, and it benefits some of the rogue abilities so I would focus on them when leveling up. Remember: to be a Scholar you need to be from either Rauatai or Ixamitle Plains, as you can't choose it with other cultures. I would say Dexterity since Indy is quite light on his feet and has to outrun boulders, Perception since he needs an eye for detail as an archaeologist, Might not as much but he is pretty tough and punches people a lot, so maybe some though he seems to win by endurance in many of those fist fights rather than by overwhelming them, getting beaten up quite a bit so maybe Constitution. I would actually consider a Fighter for Indy since he does go toe to toe quite a lot, but he also wins them by utilising dirty tricks quite a bit so it's a hard one.

Um, I wasn't seriously getting into 'capitalism bad' thing, I was just pointing out that invoking "that's capitalism" as justification for letting people die for profits makes capitalism look bad as opposed to justifying the miller's actions. Don't make me send Obama over to your house, now! The situation is a morally iffy area, that's why I was asking it. Both sides are being an ass, both sides are justified, this usually means that someone somewhere will have come up with some bizarre perception of the whole thing that somehow puts all the blame on Aloth's mum or something, and was curious. Cutting off the Miller would require all the farmers working together and since he's not giving bad prices to all of them (just the unlikeable ones, which might be why he's chosen them in particular) not all of them will want to cut him off, and setting up a new Miller in this situation is not feasible, as they can barely produce enough food let alone set up a new windmill and train up people to operate it.

And that's a good argument for why capitalism sucks: it justifies letting people die for profit as 'rights'. The farmers can't not sell it to him, he is the only miller in town and they can't just sit on their crops otherwise they will rot. They need the food and they need the seeds to plant another crop. Trumbel knows this and could be said to be blackmailing the town into accepting his authority. There IS something the farmers can do: they can take a club to Trumbel's face, which is what they are essentially threatening to do when you come across the confrontation.

There are some checks to find out the whole truth I believe, not sure if you need them to find out the whole truth though. I passed a resolve check of 14 to demand that he 'stop lying to me and tell me the whole truth' and I think there's also a perception check that I did with a ranger to catch him out. The questions then becomes for me: is he right to do this? Is he just making sure the vulnerable stay healthy and the potential troublemakers are kept in line? Would he actually let Sweynur and his friends die when there is food available? Or is he basing his decisions on whether he likes people or not and then making up justifications for himself? While Sweynur and co seem to have always been troublemakers the trouble they made was more drunken behaviour than anything that would warrant being left to die, and Trumbel even brings up the soul lineage of one of Sweynur's cohorts, saying that it is bad and therefore she is bad just because of her lineage. And should he really be the one making these decisions by himself? Then again, he is trying to save it for people like Aufra who are pregnant and in need, and if they don't have enough food to go around then choices do need to be made, and Sweynur doesn't seem the sort to sacrifice his needs for others...