FlintlockJazz

Nice! Now I have more studying to do Yeah, I can't now create a character without first checking through that to see which background fits best. :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWz0qVvBZ0

I'm considering that after my ranger playthrough of either doing a Nature Godlike Kind Wayfarer Paladin or a Cat Druid of some sort, which of course means I'll be in the same boat as you in re-rolling over the next few weeks. But onto your issue: Where do you envision your character coming from and what profession? I feel this to help immensely in choosing as it helps me to choose the type of 'person' I am playing, and then go from there. For instance, a cook or fisherman from Old Vailia is going to be quite different to a pirate from the Deadfire Islands. I find the following thread to be quite helpful to see what backgrounds are available in the game via the dialogue choices you get with Calista: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78795-i-explored-all-character-backgrounds-so-you-dont-have-to/

Are you asking if you can change your attributes when respeccing? If so, then the answer is that you can change your main character's attributes and those of player-made hirelings but you cannot change them on the story companions you can pick up.

I really like the wands, sceptres and rods, though think they could develop them somewhat more. I also think the appearance of rods is a bit sucky, I mean what are they meant to be? I was actually expecting something more like metal 'half-staffs' or canes, but they currently look a bit naff. Sceptres came out better looking than I expected, and wands I like the looks of the best but they just don't seem to be able to compete, being a bit like magical implement equivalent of the hunting bow imho.

I played and completed my first playthrough as Wizard when Pillars came out, it was never a garbage class. It starts off a bit weaker due to only having a couple of spells first level per rest but no more than any other caster class and still has per encounter abilities and it soon ramps up rather rapidly. My badly optimised first playthrough Wizard still ended up one of the best characters in my party and that was before he got to level 9 and 11 and got the per encounter spells. Love the grimoire system personally, really makes it feel like the Wizard is using a spell book imho.

I don't think you understand what deflection represents. It's your character's ability to deflect blows, generally through your shield or armor. Unless your point is that we should be able to create our own weapon groups, I do not understand your argument, no. A system with specializations for each weapon would still require you to spend two talents to create your concept. They're not artificial. They have an in-world logic as to what the people the group they're named after would fight with. A. Read the suggestion I made earlier about how to change to a more rational and less limiting model. B. They damned well ARE artificial. The so-called adventurer's group is pure, unadulterated BS. The noble group is as well. Any so-called noble that was going to be a combatant would be a knight. You people have no friggin' imaginations if you can't see how limiting and how artificial these weapons groups are. They may be the single worst thing about this otherwise pretty darned good game. How can you not see that even if the 6 (?) weapons groups were perfect (and they're not) for the types of characters they're linked to, that's only 6 (?) different character types!!!! THAT IS THE LIMITATION!!!! If you're not an "adventurer", a noble, a knight, a soldier, a ruffian, or a peasant, then too bad for you. No weapon groups that fit the concept of your character. You're not allowed to think outside of those 6 little boxes. Nope. No imagination allowed here. Quite literally no outside the box character concepts allowed in this game. Calm down and stop attacking people for not agreeing with you, it makes people less likely to take your words with any degree of value. Your less limiting model is actually worse as people have pointed out, it forces people into even more limited roles, and in history did learn similar combination of weapons as that used in Pillars weapon groups. For instance, Medieval Knights (and I'm probably focusing on French and English knights here as the weapons varied from nation to nation as did the concept of knighthood vary drastically) were usually trained in swords, lances, axes, and maces, quite a wide range of weapons, and used them all interchangeably as the need warranted. Those trained in the German Longsword (which by the way isn't the D&D one-handed sword, that was actually what is called an arming sword, a real longsword was usually a hand and a half sword) fighting techniques included the use of daggers so that they could pull them out and stab their opponents in grapples. Basing weapon groups on what damage type they make as per your suggestion would not mirror this and in fact makes even less sense realistically speaking. Just because a weapon does a similar damage type as another or both are swords does not mean they are used in any similar fashion and in actual fact most of them in your 'groups' have zero in common have less in common with each other use-wise than the current weapon groups. This is before you consider the gameplay issues others have mentioned. I'd like to also point out that your system pidgeon-holes people into the 'Sword and shield guy' or the 'shooter guy', which I find boring. Anyway, I'm heading off to a field today, so won't be back till Monday, have fun everybody and don't destroy the forums till I get back!

The problem with that is what would a highly militarised society need with adventurers? There would be other ways to have adventures, such as working for the military or rebel forces but it would have a very different taste and freedom of choice from normal adventures.

Gods no. The weapons group model is HORRIBLE. Absolutely horrible! I like coming up with concept characters, and the weapons group model keeps making it nearly impossible to develop any concept that isn't a perfect fit for one of the existing weaps groups. And the number of character concepts that are perfect fits a exceedingly small. Right now, I'd like to play another character, but I can't come up with a good one because the weapon groups are a damned straight jacket!!! That's your opinion, my opinion is that it's good. I don't see how they are a strait jacket, at least no more than specialising in a single weapon (which by the way IS limiting), if you really can't choose then don't pick one, or just go with whatever one has the weapon you want to use and consider the others a bonus your character can use. I'm not seeing your issue...

I've been thinking about this too, suggest this whenever mention of potential pirate RPG comes up but would work for a lot of RPGs I think. Making it a ship prevents it from just falling to the wayside when the characters move on and improving it can improve adventuring stuff.

1. Keep weapon groups. I like them, better than only having one weapon, keeps options open and lets you adapt to what you find better. Also means that less 'popular' weapons end up being used and may lead to them being more embraced. I would say actually expand on the weapon group system, dunno how as I ain't a designer but I feel there is more potential there for developing them as fencing schools and the like (fencing schools actually taught the use of many different weapons originally, and the famed zweihander wielders needed to have a certificate showing that they had been trained in the use of longswords for instance, which included the use of daggers...). 2. Emphasise firearms and crossbows more. In fact, emphasise all the late medieval/early renaissance aspects more and I think not having the printing press in the setting was a bad idea. Emphasising this would lead to a more 'bladepunk' or picaro type setting and help differentiate it more. Fencing school students fighting each other in the street for their honour, banks and Churches taking the role megacorps would have in a cyberpunk setting, etc. 3. This bit involves the main plotline and is huge spoilerific so will be spoiler tagged.

This is what I was thinking. Rauatai and the Deadfire area. Lots of gunpowder, pirates, ships and high seas! Would love to see sailing incorporated with fishing and sea monsters. A pirate theme I guess, like they did with the Neverwinter Nights DLC Pirates of the Sword Coast. I'd like to see the Republics as well, but it's reminding me of Val Royeaux with the big city and politics. Just did that with DAI. I like pirates. But the more I read and look into the Deadfire Archipelago the more I realise it is NOT a pirate setting: the biggest "nation" there is apparently Nausitaaq, Sagani's people, who are clearly not pirates. Rauatai seems more China than pirate, Vailian Republics I realise is the nation most likely to have privateers and 'gentlemen of fortune'.

A bit of a false dichotomy there: you seem to be working from the premise that having one excludes the other or that you can only care about simulationism or functional game mechanics, not both. You can care about and want both, like I do, or be willing to accept a degree of abstraction in regards to rules to make things simpler but still care about simulating as closely as possible. I do not find Might to violate either excessively, though I agree with Katarack that the flavour text doesn't reflect what it's supposed to be quite right.

I like the grimoire system. /end thread.

Actually, the more powerful the crossbow the more strength required. This is because the more powerful the crossbow the more strength the operator would need to be able to load and **** the bolt, a weakling could fire it but he would not be able to reload it again. There were devices used to make it easier for crossbowmen to load more powerful crossbows such as the crow's foot but they tended to lengthen the time needed to load the crossbow.

Yep, if I recall Athkatla was mentioned a lot in Baldur's Gate 1 before becoming the setting in BG2, and was even the main 'rival' in BG1 to Baldur's Gate itself and throwing a ruckus due to the iron crisis, so it fits with how both the Vailian Republics (who try to screw the Dyrwood over during Pallegina's questline tradewise) and Readceras (who attempted to invade the Dyrwood prior to the game start and still have it's impact felt) was portrayed in the game. Could see a game set in Readceras dealing with Eothas easily.

I do think the Vailian Republics would be a good way to go. I second this, as I think the gunpowder weapons and later medieval/early renaissance aspects of Pillars help to differentiate it and interest people, and so should be emphasised more. I also find the idea of working for a condottier company picking up quests and expanding the company a la Storm of Zehir and the company in that interesting and a good way to bring more quests to the player's attention without having to resort to the "And then some random guy on the street asks you for help". You get told instead "We have a client asking for help" with possibilities to imply different style of quests such as saying "We have a client who needs someone discreet, go speak to them if that interests you, but if not we also have a client looking for someone good at smashing skulls and intimidation".

Your fighter should have two knockdowns per encounter actually, and there is a talent to increase it to three. There are also weapons that can cause knockdowns such as knockdown on crit.

It is relevant, because in our game same gun deals a different damage in hands of different characters. That is just nonsense. Whole point of a handgun is that a weak person as dangerous with it as a strong person. Actually even modern guns require more strength the higher the calibre. Some handguns like certain magnums require a great deal of strength to handle the recoil and to not break your wrist.

While I am more accepting of respeccing than I was early on (the IE games got away with it because in 2nd ed D&D there wasn't much choice to begin with, Pillars has a lot of character choice and a system that most players have very little experience comparative to ones like D&D), I'm still not enamoured with how freely available it is and the amount you can respect. Not being able to respect the attributes of the companions is acceptable to me and I find being able to completely respect my own a bit offputting, I like the idea that attributes help define your character and liked that the stat system they used wasn't like Diablo with constantly inflating stats but rather stats that felt like they meant something in real terms and that characters could react to them, so changing them seems too much. I do see the need to let players change attributes, as they changed how some of the attributes worked so it would have messed up some people's builds etc, and if I was running a tabletop RPG I would be willing to let my players change things about their characters if they found it was just not working or edition changes or some other reason I found valid. I can see that allowing the 'player approaching GM and asking if they can change a couple of things' is needed in cRPGs and that it's hard if not possible to do it right, so I won't throw baby out with bathwater, I'm just saying that I find being able to revamp something I consider fundamental to the character to be rather disconcerting and think that maybe there should have been more restrictions/cost on the respeccing. YMMV.

You know what, that's what I'm gonna tell myself, that he's name after caffeine and is on the adventure purely because he just wants a decent cup of tea... Actually, I believe according to the in-game pronunciation guide of Aedyr/Dyrwood names..."w" is pronounced like "u" and "y" is pronounced like an "ee" sound. So, Cafwyn could be pronounced like "Cafueen," which sounds even MORE like "Caffeine", especially if you gloss over the "u" sound. Cool, I'll have to look up and pay attention to the pronunciation guide to avoid further... entanglements. In the meantime, Caffeine the Mighty Ranger will continue his epic quest to find a decent cup of tea! :D I think I did look up Saxon names before finding the personal names on the wiki, Aedyrans in particular do seem to be heavily inspired by Saxon stuff.

Or Kevin... Is that really better? He could be Richard. Just saying. Kevin the Lumberjack... it does kinda work....

Hey, I make my names by ripping off other names, at least yours is unique! You know what, that's what I'm gonna tell myself, that he's name after caffeine and is on the adventure purely because he just wants a decent cup of tea...

I think I may have done goofed. I created a human male ranger for a new playthrough with White March, and using the personal names page from the Pillars wiki, concocted a name by merging two separate names together, in this case Aldwyn and Cafden to make Cafwyn. All was fine until I thought harder on the name I had chosen... and realised that I may have named my male ranger the fantasy equivalent of Kathryn! Dear god, someone tell me I'm wrong, I have already pretty much finished Act 1 but every time I look at my character I see them in drag (doesn't help that they have a lumberjack's beard)...

I just hope this time round you can make a male character that doesn't look like he's overdosed on steroids...