Luckmann

I wish I could do that, but I just can't. I'd really prefer it, for the same reasons as you, but not knowing whether an option is threatening or joking when I pick it is infuriating. I think the automated display of the dispositions in dialogues became a crutch from the developers side, not putting out the appropriate cues such as [Lying] or [Threaten] and so on; instead we got the option to either display or not display dispositions, and if you don't want to see the Dispositions and the qualifiers, well, you're SOL.

Well-known issue that is not technically a bug, and have been discussed at length. For what it's worth, I agree that it's a problem, since agreeing to do something isn't the same as actually doing something, and a lot of games allows you to actually betray the party you've agreed to help; I certainly could've ended up in the same situation as you during a playthrough, thinking I could double-cross someone I don't actually like, thinking "I'll accept it and see if I can work against them in favour of <other faction>". The wording is hazy for something that is such a dead-stop adamant hardline, a completely binary choice, and the questline(s) underwhelming in complexity, far from what one would expect from a game such as this, certainly.

As a Wizard, I wouldn't take Arcane Veil/Hardened Veil, but I also wouldn't take the Bonus Level 1 and 2 Spells. There's a lot of good Talents to take, and none of those are actually that good. Your wizard just shouldn't get into the thick of it often enough for benefit from Arcane Veil that much. Even Grimoire Slam is better, if the objective is to run away, should you get tied up in melee. Scion of Flame is an excellent Talent, and there are plenty of really good Burn-based damage-dealing spells to be had. I don't think any of the other Elemental Talents can really compete, at least not for a wizard - unfortunately. That's not to say that the others are bad, it's just that just from memory, I think that Burn damage is represented on every (or near-every) Spell Rank, whereas the others have a handful total, even if some of those can be really good (Noxious Burst comes to mind, Blast of Frost, Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, Chain Lightning, etc). Scion of Flame is doubly better from the fact that a lot of enemies use fire against you, whereas the rest is not as common (or at least not as severe when present), and the Elemental Talents gives +5 DR.

Why would a pacifist want a soulbound weapon? Soulbound Healing Shiv? [...] Just reminds me of Borderlands, which I'm playing with my girlfriend at the moment, and the act of shooting someone in the head to heal them. "I'M HEALING YOU, I'M HEALING YOU! BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!". Wasn't it also in IWD2 where you could summon a healing staff that you whacked people with to heal them? Good times. We definitely need a Eldoth's Benevolent Shiv +4, stabbing the hell out of someone, blood everywhere, healing them. "I'll be fine. The doctor said all the bleeding was internal. That's where the blood's supposed to be!"

Afaik, you start accruing penalties the second you actually get a Disposition that goes against your Order. Note, however, that you don't get a point of Disposition as soon as you've taken just a single dialogue choice in the vein of a Disposition. I'm not sure if different answers have different weights in regards to dispositions (which I doubt, but which would be cool and make the most sense) or if it's something more simple like "Answer Aggressively five times, get a point of Aggressive" (which I believe it is, but I'm not sure at all). I highly advise turning on the Disposition answers in the Options, because otherwise, dialogue choices are all over the place without any indication. Yes, it is frustrating as hell, and I think that they should've been clearer on the Dispositions and clearer when it comes to dialogue choices, rather than rely on a spoilerish automated system, but you will often have no idea what way you are phrasing something unless it's turned on and it will lead to frustration, because you have no idea if you're saying something threateningly or benevolently without it.

I agree, but I don't think it should be reflected in any way in the narrative. A simple no-questions-asked popup upon loading a pre-2.0 save would be enough, and probably the least grating and jarring thing possible under the circumstances. Dex increases speed but more (faster) armor recovery would be really nice for constitution. I always kinda liked that idea for Constitution, but I'm not sure how it'd play, which is why I was always hesitant to add it to my suggested attribute bonuses. Making it another attribute that effects DPS could be good, because DPS always trumps Soak, but at the same time, the real issue with Constitution is that not even tanks really want it, and that those that really could benefit from more health gets the least benefit out of it, and those that get good benefit from it, has no need for extra health. And making it another attribute whose bonuses revolve around increased DPS (or less of a penalty to DPS, as it were) might just incentivize further dumping of the attribute for tanks, because of how the armour system works, they won't be stellar damage-dealers anyway.

Why would a pacifist want a soulbound weapon?

I would be fine with both approaches being valid for different weapons, or giving different bonuses, but think that I'd be less satisfied with the Disposition approach simply because Dispositions in the game is so goddamn wonky. Without tags, you'd never know if something is Aggressive or Cruel, what is Rational (because derp), and forget about Passionate being anything other than Chaotic Stupid or Benevolent. There definitely should be a dialogue/dispositions pass of the main game and some strictly defined rules regarding what is what and how it should be represented in dialogue. Right now it's extremely arbitrary and each writer seems to have had it's own ideas here and there.

Well, I don't really consider it special treatment. Lots of things have fixed values, and lots of things shouldn't have fixed values. And a lot of things should. It really isn't stranger than the fact that we get +Accuracy on each level, and in this case, Duelists would get +1 more in order to keep up and have less of a downward curve, while the fixed value of +12 Accuracy gets reduced to +8 or +6.

It's a matter of semantics, really, which is a common hangup amongst both trolls and autists. I thought "Dump below 10" was clear enough, really, and couldn't be misinterpreted no matter the interpretation of the word "dump". Feel free to replace it with "lower" or "reduce" if it makes you feel better, because it in no way changes the statement, nor does it become any more or any less clear what I meant. I could deconstruct the sentence for you and explain it in detail to you, but honestly, semantics doesn't really interest me, nor is it relevant to the conversation unless you insist on making it so. Nothing I said could be reasonably misunderstood, nor was any malice implied, nor was my response clarifying that I know what I said intended to be belligerent. But if you're looking for some kind of apology, you're not going to get one. This one's on you.

It's not that the +12 Accuracy is bad, it's actually quite good, and utterly crazy right in the beginning. It's that even with that, dualists are sub-par, and even though +12 is still good by the end of the game, it's not good enough. It doesn't adequately compensate for the trade-offs, especially since the One-Handed Style Talent is so very bad for actual duelists. If you bake the +12 Accuracy into the One-Handed Style Talent, all you've done is make duelists utterly worthless in the early game, before they can pick the Talent up, something no other style suffers from. It's likely precisely why it's not baked into the Style Talent. I think the bonus should be 8+(1*LVL) or 6+(1*LVL), so that it actually scales, rather than to have this huge ooomph in the beginning and then become increasingly meh-by-comparison as the games go on, that the One-Handed Style should be increased from 30% to 40% Graze-to-Hit, get a 20% Hit-to-Crit conversion, and a defensive 20% Hit-to-Graze conversion on incoming attacks. And if you have anything in your off-hand, it shouldn't apply at all. Note that Grazes that have been converted into Hits cannot be converted again into Crits. It's important to remember when considering making something have both Graze-to-Hit and Hit-to-Crit.

I think it was discussed way back, and that it was theoretically possible, but that it wouldn't make it into the game, unfortunately. Personally, I hope it's patched in at some point, perhaps after a sequel, because I'm a sucker for weather effects. But before then, I'd like a lot more wilderness areas to be added.

While true as per the default changes described, this might not turn out to be entirely true in the end. At the very least, it opens up for the possibility to have Abilities that takes you back into Stealth during combat, simply because it's possible for it to happen now, which is a pretty sweet prospect. OP can forget about the mobility, though. The restrictions to mobility of any kind isn't a rogue issue, it's an issue that permeates the system and it's a concious design decision. It would be technically possible yes, but shadowing beyond is a similar mechanic anyway, and anything else that would allow to stealth on per encounter basis is potentially OP. As for mobility, with escape and coordinated positioning buffs (I'm thinking cast speed and range buffs), rogue would be a pretty mobile class compared to many others. I'm actually hoping that Shadowing Beyond would be turned into an Ability that makes you invisible for just a few 3-4 seconds, but takes you into Stealth. Would be a lot more interesting than just a blanket 10 seconds invisibility.

Hopefully many. There's always another patch. Always another expansion.

No idea, and I don't think you'll get an answer to that. But I sure as hell hope so.

Yes, they should.

Ah, yeah, you probably confused it with the +12 Accuracy you get for simply one-handing stuff, not the Style Talent. The +12 Accuracy ranges from crazy good (early-game) to meh-ish (late-game). It should've been 8+(1*LVL). And it's the very thing that makes the One-Handed Weapon Style useless for duelists, since they'll just not get as many grazes as anyone else, while tanks with their penalty to Accuracy will have lots and lots more.

I was talking in the context of the OP, which speaks of adding Abilities and Talents from one class to another, presumably through the console, such as adding the Rogue Sneak Attack (Rogue base Ability) and Backstab (Rogue Talent). Yeah, it's mechanically possible to create spellbinding items and such, but not via the console, afaik, and no way to transplant from one character onto another.

All of my needs in a basket and sent to Satan, that's awesome.

Wel-l-l... the added crits are welcome for duelists also, especially as one-handed weapons do less damage to start with (also DR etc.). I haven't done the numbers but I'm p. sure it's not easy to get your Acc so high you're critting all the time, even with the talent. The added crits? One-Handed Style only converts Grazes into Hits. Grazes that have been converted into Hits cannot Crit, and are not subject to Hit-to-Crit conversions (afaik, unless something's changed at some point, which is possible). Also, in order for the Talent to do anything at all, you first have to Graze, and a duelist is going to be grazing markedly less than virtually anyone else. That being said, alright, it's not completely wasted, I mean, it has an effect. It's just that there's a lot of potentially good talents for a Duelist (especially for a Deathlike, actually; you can really stack up those bonuses to low-health opponents and on crits). I'd argue that One-Handed Style shouldn't even apply when shields are equipped, if only for conceptual reasons, but even if it does, it absolutely shouldn't be as useless as it is for actual duelists, to the point where it's infinitely more useful for a completely different style.

While true as per the default changes described, this might not turn out to be entirely true in the end. At the very least, it opens up for the possibility to have Abilities that takes you back into Stealth during combat, simply because it's possible for it to happen now, which is a pretty sweet prospect. OP can forget about the mobility, though. The restrictions to mobility of any kind isn't a rogue issue, it's an issue that permeates the system and it's a concious design decision.

Oddly enough, yes, it applies. It's been covered in a number of threads, whenever Styles come up, more or less. Strangely, this means that One-Weapon Style is more useful for Tanks than it is for Duelists. It's been assumed to be a bug, because of the conceptual divide between the four available styles and the corresponding styles, but at this point, I'd expect it to be fixed if it was. On the other hand, they're finally starting to take a look at the Attributes, despite them being known to be lopsided and broken since before release, so you never know when they suddenly decide that this is a bug after all. Tanks have a tendency to run out of good feats to take, and taking One-Handed Style should be more or less a given. Tanks graze a lot, so the Graze-to-Hit conversion is really useful. Meanwhile, Duelists aren't going to be grazing much at all, so the talent is completely wasted on them. Extremely unintuitive.

Class Abilities are easy to add, but Class Features is - as far as I'm aware - impossible to add. This means that although it'd be easy to add Mental Binding to a Rogue, without Focus, it wouldn't work. The same goes for spells. You can give any character access to, say, Magic Missiles, but without a spellbook, that won't do you any good, afaik.

double-post

Yes, it cheapens the decisions regarding character advancement and the interaction between the characters as characters in their own right, and the mechanical representation thereof. Strawnir, I love that you keep bringing up old threads where you make a fool of yourself as an example of me not understanding strawmen, when you're the one that just cannot stop yourself from constantly strawmanning. At first it was funny, then it was annoying, and now it's just crossed into the realm of sad. Get help, Strawnir. Well I really haven't seen any arguments like that in the threads I've been in, that's for sure. :|