FlintlockJazz

Ah, Osprey. Most of the experts and people with an actual understanding of history I know will advise against reading Osprey for being factually incorrect, in any of their books. Osprey apparently doesn't care about historical accuracy in their history books, regardless of the culture, so I wouldn't take it as a Western thing there, as they get Western history laughably wrong too.

Dudes! Dudes! Come on now, let's all just...get along! Don't make me break out the man-hugs!

She ain't no virgin! No virgin would dress like that! I call shenanigans and accuse the dwarves, we all know she likes it short and round!

I can sctually see benefits to there not being too much class-specific dialogue. I mean, I'd get quite annoyed when people made assumptions about my character because of their class (which in those other games they often had no reason to know anyway). For instance, my 'rogue' might be more a scout or an assassin and not at all interested in thievery and never do anything to make people think he was a thief, never once committing a single theft, and so for him to be refered to as a thief would be annoying. Basing it on attributes and your previous actions is much better imho, and I prefered the PST method anyway. Do random people come up to you in the street and pub and refer to you by your job title? Well, apart from the cops and soldiers and other appropriate roles of course. "Ah, a receptionist, I've been waiting for one such as you..." EDIT: I mean, I've always prefered it when the attributes are done in a way that enables you to define the person you're playing as, and so being responded to by those things seems a much better way of doing things. A guy with higher might is going to look more like a brute than low might guy is regardless of the class!

And so the deal was struck. The three forumgoers were in accord that narration was indeed a good thing. However, even in the brightest of endeavours the darkest of hearts may lay wait. FlintlockJazz, watching from his cozy bridge, struck! He began by narrating the agreement of the three previous posters, then about how he would strike and then he started narrating about how he narrated the narration and then narrated that too and that, and that, before bursting into terror that he was stuck in an infinite loop narrating his narration including how he was stuck in his narration before realising his escape was via the title of the next chapter which would then appear next. Chapter 3: The Forumgoers Forumate.

Death to all dark elves, just to be sure!!

Ideally the game would know when your characters would know that they are entering a combat situation and allow them to pre-buff in those situations but not allow them in other cases but I'm not sure on the feasibility of such a thing, nor on the potential problems it could cause.

Yep, I have commented in that thread but not voted, since my personal take on it is that if they get extra money and want to try it sure but not bind themselves to definitely doing it when it could end up being better spent elsewhere. I also wouldn't personally up my pledge amount now, spent way too much on it as it is! (More than my actual pledge level shows, I also donated via GameBanshee's one as well).

Yeah, it's opened my eyes too - I now realise I could play a Godlike Cipher too, completely forgot the Godlikes for some bizarre reason.

That actually sounds good. It wouldn't be that much of a drain on the budget too (unless I'm wrong about that). I also realize that someone said earlier that not everyone will play everything. I agree to an extent; when I played through BG2 I never went Druid or Monk, so I never got to see their fortress/stronghold content. Wait a second, while I have not done all the class strongholds either I can usually guess which ones are for which classes (such as the Grove in the wild areas outside Trademeet being for the Druid), yet I have no idea at all what would be the monk one! I never even realised I didn't know this until now, and it's gotten me intrigued as a result. Gonna have to look this up!

Aha, found a mention of it in update 50! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/456460 I'm sure there was a better mention of it somewhere, that specifically mentioned making characters passive use and active use dependent on how much time you want to invest controlling them but there's over 70 updates and I'm but one imp, so it's taking time to find it!!

From what I have heard as a demented imp on these forums, I recall reading somewhere that you can build most classes as either active use or passive use characters. What I mean is that if you don't want to really focus on controlling the fighter in your party then as he levels up you pick the abilities that require little interaction from you, I'm guessing things like passive damage or armour boosts and the like, allowing you to focus instead on characters that you do want to focus on more, by taking more active use abilities for those characters, such as spamable abilities. And you can mix and match on a character, so if you find yourself starting to get overwhelmed by the options you already have you can mix in some passive abilities for active use characters and stay at the level of interaction you find you can handle for that character. This was stuff I read on these forums anyway, will have a look at the updates as I'm sure there was stuff on this in there and will link it if I find it. If I'm right about this, then people complaining about too many abilities in testing will just get told to not swamp themselves with active abilities if they can't handle it.

Why? Making smart decisions and superior knowledge of the game and its mechanics should be essential for that. Because it would be nicer if there's some (marginal) incentive for doing so, other than shooting yourself in the foot and masochism. It doesn't even need to be split into 6 parts. One solution would be to increase XP gain by 15% for each empty party slot, instead of splitting it among party members. Your system could work but I think an easier system would be to do what Baldur's Gate 2 actually did: you still split party xp gained but then some quests awarded each character xp on top of the party xp specific for that character which would not change regardless of how many other characters you had. For instance, completing the Trademeet quest got you 2000xp for completing the quest that was split between the party and then each character in the party got 1000xp each (not the correct numbers, can't remember the exact quest rewards). That way the actual xp award doesn't actually change so the quest log can report '1000xp + 2000xp personal' or something if you are told of the reward beforehand nor have to do math to work it out for your character size. EDIT: Plus the devs could do alter the xp reward based on whether they think a smaller party would find the quest particularly more difficult or larger party would find it a cakewalk, by increasing the party xp reward for the quest while reducing the personal xp award.

This. Pretty much the definition for a ranger has traditionally been wilderness warrior, with the non-combat skills being taking takeable by anyone the things that distinguish the classes now is mainly how they fight. If I want to play a 'ranger' who fights with two handed swords and travels around hunting enemies of the wilderness using martial strength then I'd pick a fighter or quite possibly a rogue or barbarian instead and take the appropriate skills. I have no problem with the way they have done the ranger here and actually I think the animal companion part takes it back to it's roots somewhat.

I'm honestly no longer sure. I was going to choose Human Cipher the first time I played, with Orlan Paladin and Human Wizard for later playthroughs, but now I find myself seriously considering gun-wielding Orlan Ranger with big-ass pet, Elven Cipher, Human Wizard moved up to potentially first as well, Paladin of some sort, maybe even a Druid if they turn out awesome. Not a monk though, somethings can never be forgiven...

I think they are trying to avoid scenarios that involve only one path for success. There is also stealth, a valid path that is neither combat nor diplomacy. Outside of those 3 major options, perhaps specific cases allow you to use particular skills or spells to get by without combat. I am certain all quests will be solvable through combat in some way... Not sure if the other paths will always be viable but an alternative should exist. Sigh. I hate games where stealth/diplomacy is a waste and only works half the time whereas shooting people has a 100% success rate. Look at the trial in NWN2. If you're a fighter, than you just go straight to trial by combat. If you're a rogue who invested points in social skills, then you spend a lot of time faffing about before you end up in the trial by combat anyway, even though the fighter got to skip the stuff he sucked at. Well there are certain advantages to using stealth prior to combat (scouting, backstabbing/flanking opponents, or simply circumventing them altogether if you can). Diplomacy might give you an advantage (gain allies or avoid combat altogether). But at the end of the day, fighting will solve most situations in a typical RPG quest, so it makes sense to make it the lowest common denominator a majority of the time. It isn't exactly a good thing if stealth or diplomacy always gives you a 100% chance to complete a quest. Player skill gets taken into account during stealth, so if you are not careful in your movements, it might be your own fault you fail. And I know they are trying to avoid "one button win" scenarios with diplomacy, though maybe a few of those will still be in the game when it makes sense. I sort of remember the trial example you are referring to, but I don't remember the outcomes. From how you describe it, I am sure they will be avoiding such scenarios in this game, though logical outcomes should always trump player desire; sometimes a fight will break out, no matter how skilled you are at sweet talking or sneaking. It all depends on the context of the situation. The outcomes of that arc were: You fail the trial in under five seconds, and end up having to do trial by combat instead. This is the option for combat monsters. You win the trial after large amounts of investigation and debate, and end up having to do trial by combat instead. This is the option for wizards who put cross-class ranks in diplomacy because they expected better of the man who wrote Planescape: Torment. It also determined which feat you got at the end (Guilty, Wrongfully Accused or Master Orator). They had no mechanical effect but I think they may have altered slightly some conversations later. Not that you're wrong, it should have allowed you to skip the battle at least by doing the social stuff, I suspect that they got worried that most players would feel cheated since the sudden use of social skills in a pretty much just combat focused game was a bit of a curveball for some (since up to that point social skills had barely any influence at all and then all of a sudden they were vital some people would have neglected them quite fairly thinking they were not that important and then feel cheated if the non-violent method gave better stuff), the game really should have had more social-based challenges before the trial to show the importance of the skills to the player. Since Eternity isn't using social skills but rather attributes instead I don't think we need to worry about this though, since the character's social options will be determined by attributes not skills a player who has spent most of the game just fighting will still be able to get good options when engaging in social activities (which is also closer to the PS:T method as well since that didn't use social skills either but attributs).

I've always wanted to play this kind of warden/ranger in tabletop myself actually.

Judging the Ranger class based on a couple of pre-built Bioware NPCs will not give you an accurate picture. Kivan was an archery beast because Archery itself was unusually powerful in BG1. Ironically though, Kivan was good at archery despite the fact that he wasn't optimally built for it. (didn't he only have 16 Dex?) As for Valygar, well, he was a beastmaster. One of the more difficult kits to play in BG2. They're not that great at anything. But Minsc was a good tank. Especially in the second game. 18/93 STR; you get him nice and early so you can fully control his level advancement; He can wear Heavy armor; Favored Enemy is Vampire (very useful in BG2), and he just so happened to start the game with a double proficiency in maces (for the mace of disruption...ahem... vampires) and 2-h swords. But even he wasn't optimally built. The player can build a far better ranger. Actually, Valygar was a Stalker, which is arguable the best Ranger kit, play him as a backstabber and he was damn effective. Kivan had a dex of 17, which was damn good except that he was an elf and could have had a dex of 19 instead but had one of the highest strength scores in the game, meaning that he could wear the heaviest armour as well to compensate somewhat for the fact that he didn't get a constitution bonus to his hit points. Was not the best archer or tank you could get but he could switch between range and melee and inflict lots of damage either way (with the reach of his halberd Kivan could stand behind better AC charaacters and deal a lot of damage still). None of these things were abilities granted by his ranger class however. Rangers have had the problem in the D&D of not really knowing who they were. In 2nd ed they kinda got hijacked by that bastard Drzzt who turned them all into his dual wielding clones, making it awkward to play the more Aragorn sort, and this carried over to 3rd ed too where they were made even less able to tank in 3.5 and made more bits of everything (stealthy like a rogue but without the trap detection feats, a bit of druid with the spells but a normal druid was better for that role, their animal companion feature they had in 2nd edition was not only given to the druid as well in 3rd but the ranger got the weaker version of it too) which, like the bard, made them a jack of all trades which in a party game isn't that great.

If you get the extra money you need for it then go ahead but I wouldn't put it as binding as a stretch goal, as I'd rather you divert that money to something else should you find it impossible to do it right. In other words, if you get the extra money and it all works fine then go ahead, if you get the extra money but it doesn't work out then go ahead and use it to implement some other feature instead. Also, remember, each back you get extra may mean less actual sales as they already get the game. I'll be certain to pressgang friends into buying it but I myself am already getting the collector's boxset, just a thought.

Yeah, it was ages ago when I read it and to be honest not only have I got a bad memory but I probably misunderstood what they said now that I think about it.

Classes will have bonuses to specific skills like Indira mentioned, and they will apparently be quite large bonuses as well that level up with the character (not a flat +1 no matter what level you are then). The skill bonus will be applied even if the character spent no points on it and will, from what I heard about a year ago, be big enough that a character that only has a skill bonus and no spent points in a skill will still rival a character that has no class bonus to the skill but has spent their points in it. Dunno how accurate or true that is or if it's changed now or what, but that's what I recall.

Wizards and Druids, because I want to see how wizards will play out in this considering I like playing them and Druids because I have heard so very little about them but would like to know more. I noticed that Paladins and Monks are not an option there, any particular reason or are they just last on the list (and hasn't the monk already been done actually? Recall reading an update about their powers and how they work, but not one on Paladins).

Whatever I am, I am a lazy bastard!

I was wondering the same thing. I suppose it shows that if you can still get the same xp for killing a dragon in two turns using clever use of spells as you would for actually battling it for 15 minutes or however long it takes most people then why shouldn't you also get the xp for cleverly overcoming the dragon without resorting to combat at all, proving that objective XP is the best for this situation! Whether you spend hours battling something, come up with an ingenious combination of spells, or work out a method of neutralising it without direct conflict then you have still won!

Pantheon? Nah, more like a bestiary!