Luckmann

The membership of the Knights like you! They really do. They think you're - as the kids are saying it these days - "pretty fly for a Dozens guy." That doesn't mean the leadership doesn't view you as a Dozens supporter, though. This reminds me of a time when I played a character in a Warhammer 40k RPG called Rogue Trader. My character had Good Reputation [imperial Navy], and Enemy [imperial Navy]. This was completely legit, no GM-imposed mumbo-jumbo or anything, I actually started the game with both of those. And the backstory was that he was an Admiral, and had served admirably for many decades (centuries?), but was involved in a major incident, the loss of an entire Battlefleet, and essentially defected afterwards, as a rather broken man. He later managed to get away through a loophole, in a way, becoming a rogue trader, and basically exempt from the laws of the Imperium. So yeah, being a hero and not being a member of something or even being chased by someone isn't all that weird. It's what leads to the situation "I really like you, but...", which is actually something games should capitalize more on, narratively. If you are a hero to the Knights of the Crucible but work with the Doemenels, that's a fantastic opening for them trying to win you over, use you as a plant... or vice versa. "We have the deepest respect for you, despite your dealings with the dreg of society; would you consider... helping us with something?" said the Knight. "Hey, you know the Knights, right? They respect you. We should use that." said the Doemenel.

Update: Settled the grain dispute in Gilded Vale. Was a goody-two-shoe of course, and all diplomatic-like got them to not mess with the miller anymore, and turned down the reward, of course. Took a shortcut through Esternwood and into Black Meadow, took back the Gilded Vale Smith's supplies, and went onward to Caed Nua. Just picked up Kana Rua and I'm about to head in. Nothing really worth mentioning at all, but also nothing that's felt odd or wrong. I suspect this log is going to mellow out quite a bit, we'll see. It's meant to be nit-picky. It's my experiences as a Priestess of Eothas and commentary to where I feel it's specifically weird that it doesn't call up on that at all. The entire game should be "designed 100% around the fluff I choosed for my cleric-build". And it should be designed 100% around any other build or character, too. I'd expect a druid to get unique dialogues with Hiravias, or a dwarf to get unique stuff when talking to Sagani, or a pale elf to illict a response from Aloth. Comparing it to a wizard setting houses on fire is ridiculous.. unless there's actually a quest related to doing something along those lines; then, yeah, I'd want wizards to be able to use magic to do it. After all, wizards *do* get the ability to send bolts of energy to help Heoden during the prologue. And Firelikes can light the beacons with his head in Cilant Lis. Everyone should have options as appropriate to their character. It is not unreasonable to expect reactivity in a CRPG, or that if you have a great degree of overlap with circumstances or characters or concepts in the game, that that would be represented. Take the example of Durance. He was personally involved in the supposed murder of my literal god. And furthermore, he's clearly not going to hold back when it comes to insulting women. Oh, and he hates Eothas and Eothans. And he was sent to meet you in a vision, knowing you are a Watcher from the get-go. Is it not noteworthy that he was sent to assist or guide an Eothan priestess? Would it not be appropriate if he'd mention some degree of hesitation regarding the fact that I'm a weak-willed woman and therefore extra dangerous? Does it not warrant some degree of discussion that, to the best of his knowledge, Magran herself sent him to meet me, of all people, when Magranites and Eothans are supposed to be mortal enemies divided by faith as well as culture (Raedceras banned the worship of Magran; Dyrwood performed pogroms against Eothans; both are sprung from Aedyran roots)? Would it not warrant mention in the prologue that, hey, you should keep this stuff to yourself, Eothas is not popular around here? When, when this has not been explained to me at all, it is explained to me that the Temple has been torn down, shouldn't a reaction from a Priestess of Eothas be at least possible? Should I not have problems cooperating with The Dozen? This is not me trying to fish or push for more stuff for Eothas specifically, I'm just using a Priestess of Eothas as an example, because I switched to it specifically because I thought there'd be some good stuff to dig into, and I wanted reactions with Durance, and bromancy with Edér. I could've done the same thing for an Orlan Druid, and I'd comment on where I think things are missing or when it's good, or a Naturelike Barbarian; because if there's one thing I want to do, it's shout down a wall. The game really could use some more reactivity, and for the moment, I'm examining the game from the perspective of an Eothanian Priestess. Well the nitpicking is intentional. I realize I'm being a bit unreasonable in some ways, but I'd rather point at something small and be like "Hey, this could be improved, maybe like this" than to notice it and not say anything at all, because then you can be assured it'll never be improved. I mean, yeah, it'd be cool to have total and full coverage of everything, and I'd be able to bless the Miller and his family and say a prayer over the harvest or something, but at that point, I'd feel like I was inventing situations. Which isn't bad, but it'd feel silly. I agree with the "If you can't do it right, don't do it at all", but at the same time, I don't really think that Priests of Eothas should have more stuff than anyone else. It's already quite lopsided in these regards. Ciphers, for example, get like 11 specific dialogue choices... which.. honestly, is pathetically low, but also supposedly the most any class gets. Your line of thinking is probably the reason we can't play Priests of Woedica. I mean, imagine that can of worms in terms of character reactivity. And it's the reason we can't choose many kinds of Cultures that CNPC:s get (Dyrwood, Vailian Republics). We're meant to be foreigners coming into Dyrwood, not established characters with pre-existing connections to the game world, obviously. And that's fine. That's perfect. But even so, every single Class (and Culture/Background) could use a major character reactivity pass. Now I want to play a Max-Survival Pale Elf Ranger, to see if I can track something, or comment on something in a hunting-related regard, or look at something and be like "These flowers aren't right". To see if my bear and Sagani's fox smell eachother's butts. All that fun stuff.

I think the suggested table is still too sharp, and in some regards it's even worse from a balance, for example, you actually end up even crazier than now (with 2/e of 3rd Rank spells). But the idea of it starting earlier is good, I just think it should be much, much slower, and certainly not at the point of having two full spell ranks at level 12 at 4/e (and definitely not three and a half spell ranks). I also want it to work differently between the spellcasting classes, where their "extra progressions" work differently. Per-Encounter spell slots for wizards, Deity-specific spells for Priests, and added Spiritshifts/Wildshapes or similar for Druids. This isn't just because there's a marked difference between Wizards and Priests/Druids (Wizards can only fit 4 spells in their Grimoires; when Priests and Druids get to level 9, entire spell ranks gets unlocked), but because spellcasters are just too same-y. Given how long combat lasts, or doesn't, I'm not sure there's a significant difference between having 2 spells of a level be per encounter and having all the spells of that level be per encounter, particularly if you also have spells of another level as per encounter. I think there's a huge difference between having two free spells and having four free spells, especially because of how long combat (doesn't) last. 2 casts is considerable. 4 casts will probably carry you through the entire battle. Also, I think it's a lot about what you can cast. I don't want the full blanket spell ranks unlocked. There needs to be progression there, too. A wizard could start with 1 use of 1 spell per encounter, and then gradually (slowly) unlock more uses of more spells.

Dude, I'm, like, saying it right there that I'm not getting into it because of spoilers. You're basically spelling out key parts of the plot in the General Forum. Not cool.

Overkill, yes. But cool. Everything should come with an easy-to-use dictionary. It would save a lot of headaches.

This. This is it. Let there be no confusion here. G2Revelation is right, everyone that says otherwise is factually wrong. Also, one small note: the differences in DR between the base DR of the armour and the specific DR is actually a percentage, "under the hood". So let's say that an Armour has DR 6. But it only has Slash 3. And Corrode 12. That means that, mechanically, it actually has DR 6, and Slash 50%. But Corrode 200%. Why is this relevant to know? Because the numbers you see are deceptive, and the game actually does calculate everything with fractions and decimals. It is just that everything that is reported in the combat log and on the sheets (well, most of it) are rounded numbers. If you increase the DR of the Armour through any means, that Slash and Corrode resistance goes with it. You increased the DR to 7 (from 6)? Well the SlashiDR is now actually 3.5 (but will probably show 4), and the Corrode DR is 14. And then when it calculates damage.. if you are hit by Slash Damage, it's not going to use 4. It's going to use 3.5. Unless I've misunderstood it or if they've changed it, but w/e.

Well damn, I guess I should test a ranger out. Pets could still use some more beefing up, and IMO the Ranger modals should be moved to the general talent pool. Personally, I think that the very strong, "hard" Even Level/Odd Level and Ability/Talent system needs to be broken up somehow. You feel that the modals should be made into Talents, well I feel that the sea of passives the Ranger can take are the most boring-ass Abilities there are (and those just happen to be the ones that boosts the Animal Companion). And it's not just the ranger, but other classes too. Too many boring passives amongst the Abilities, but I also don't feel like I want to make them into Talents, because we're already extremely Talent-starved. Abilities every Odd Level, Feats every Even Level, and Talents every level? Introducing Feats as Class-specific Abilities that aren't.. Abilities? I don't know, I haven't got a clue, I'm just throwing ideas around.

Oh god, what is this, the fourth thread you make on the fact that you have trouble reading? I came into the thread with the intent to make a joke, but it's just another thread about you whining about unvoiced content. At this point I'm having a hard time not just telling you "**** off you ignorant twit." I "bring myself to read" by not being spoonfed ready-to-eat mass-produced nonsense every day, and I learned this mystifying skill by attending grades 1 through 2.

Eeeeh.. I never really felt that at all. But.. I'm not going to get into it, because it's pretty blatant spoiler territory. All I'll say is that by the time I got to Defiance Bay, I no longer had any idea why I was doing this or why I should care. But when it comes to "evil friendly", oh god, Planescape: Torment. That treatment of Dak'kon.

Yep. Along with all the other things that people always take for granted 1) Fighters, Barbarians and Rangers have a lot more health than Wizards, Priests, Ciphers and Chanters 2) Sometimes you'll find equipment that the melee classes can wear that grant castable spells. And those are a lot more common than, for example, equipment that spell casters can wear that grant them melee talents, like knockdown, backstab, carnage etc. 3) In the IE games, you often had to deal with creatures who were immune to magic outright. And of course, in those situations, the "magic can do it, force of arms can't" scenario was literally reversed. 4) This is a party based game. Lets think about that for a moment...... this is a party based game. does it matter if some people in your party are less effective on occasion than others? #4 right there. It's like the #1 rule of PnP GM:ing. You're a group of people, and everyone should be allowed to shine. When everyone is special, no-one is. Everyone should do things no-one else can. Everyone shouldn't be necessary at every turn, but everyone should have those moments when they truly shine, when they feel indispensable, when they manage to do that thing or add that something that no-one else can. So you present the group with the scenario of the locked castle, where the rogue-like player has to scale the walls or sneak inside. And you drop the wounded lord in front of them so the Paladin can go all "I heal him with my Lay on Hands!". And you make them travel through a forest, guided by the Ranger that scores so well on his whateverwildernessloreorsomething test that they find something nifty. I realize that such granular design is hard in a CRPG, but when we're talking about combat here, it should in general be easier, rather than harder. It doesn't matter if your Wizard has specialized in frost spells and you meet ice elementals that are immune. Yes, you're useless, but just wait until you come to the Temple of Fire. Just wait until you get to drop that Blizzard, Critically Hit them all with Chill Fog, and bounce shards of ice off their ass. And it doesn't matter if the Priest feels all buffy for a while. Because when you get to the graveyard, it is on. Oh, you people keep taking dumps on me because I'm a Morninglord of Lathander? Well have you SEEEEEEEN THE LIIIIIIIIIIIGHT OF DAWN!? and then all the skeletons were ash and you go like "Boooyaaaaah!". I'm not getting that feeling in PoE at all, and it's, like.. I got the impression that pretty much everyone at Obsidian plays PnP:s. How did they miss this? ^ There's emotional arguments and factual arguments. No matter which way we cut it, the game would be better off with Immunities and both hard and soft counters. Whether it's a feeling or about making combat less static, doesn't matter. There's many reasons.

There's some really despicable things you can do in the game but.. I also don't think that there's enough. I guess there's an argument that someone can easily be "bad enough" with some choices, but I'm not really seeing that many options to be a self-serving asshat. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Edit: Wait, ****, I misunderstood. I thought for some reason you were talking about making a despicable rogue PC. But you're talking about an added CNPC. Which I fully support. Some truly assholeish man or woman, preferably written by Avellone. I wonder what Avellone would write if you give him the guidelines of "Rogue", "Despicable" and "Down to Earth". His characters are often almost outlandish, and if you tell him to make someone with simple motivations, I'm sure he'd come up with something that's actually grounded yet eight kinds of interesting. A rogue that's been working for Lord Readric, introduced either at Raedric's Hold or in Defiance Bay. Brutish enforcer, bounty hunter-esque, rather than the usual cloak-and-dagger or assassin. Worked with tracking down dissidents. Contacts with The Dozen. Enjoys clubs (the weapon) and crippling people that owes him debts. Sent to find animancers for Lord Raedric, leading a small group of deadbeat ruffians.. ...I think I'm going to need a CNPC thread...

Do what I did, post it in the General Forum.

I don't think Fine/Exceptional/Superb should be enchants at all, but rather base qualities of the items; essentially a Fine Rapier is a different weapon from a simple Rapier, with inherent bonuses. I also feel that there should be more weapons (and armours) like that in the game, that are actually different because they're different, not just because they have this or that enchant. But if they are Enchants.. then you should of course be able to remove or upgrade enchants, especially if they are progressive (...which is also boooo-riiiiing, but that's beside the point).

nvm Nope. I wonder if anyone is seeing the same enemy A.I I'm seeing with enemies not going around objects. Here's a video I just did of enemies not going around coffins to my back line and seem to have 'blinkers' on with trying to go after my tank. Could be a pathfinding issue for the enemies as well, especially when they get stuck behind each other after Sagani's fox goes down. Playing on hard. Enemies waiting in line to take turns at Eder after Sagani's fox goes down around 36 sec mark. I did kill the Fampyr earlier as it couldn't get past the darguls and wouldn't go around the objects. Durance is to the right of Eder just standing there doing nothing and being ignored by the enemy and eventually move him away near the end. The YouTube imbed is broken. The forum isn't all too fond of this stuff, for some reason. Here's a link for everyone that can't see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe6ZtNVDNcU

Not only do I not think it's necessary, but I also feel that it would damage the class flavours. Classes should be diverse in their own right, and I question how multi-classing would even work within the current system. But.. the rating is already Mature.

Let's just be clear on the fact that SCS has some truly BS aspects to it, though. Freely teleporting Illithids and mass-dimension-door-casting Liches comes to mind. The point that yeah, they could still drain your Intelligence even if you have Chaotic Commands, is a good one, but SCS messes a lot with design and is far from "clean", imo, in the interest of making things harder.

Alright, so, we're at the Temple! Some wimp is apparently dying in my hallway and they've really let it go. He talks a bit and mentions that Eothas is dead and scattered. What nonsense. Luckily, as a Priestess of Eothas, I can tell him off! Praise be to Eothas! But for whatever reason, it's... Passionate? I dunno, I mean, it seems like something anyone praying to Eothas would say as a matter-of-fact kind of thing, but alright, the Clergyman thing before was missing Benevolent, and this one has Passionate for some reason, but let's not get picky, this is a win. It is funny, because by now I've heard things about Eothas being dead several times, but this is the first time I can correct someone. Edér backs me up. Wow, thanks, Edér. Wirtan proceeds to tell me to shut up about the whole thing so we don't get hanged. Well, like, whatever, you won't silence me. During the entire conversation, even though I could say that Eothas is still alive, I couldn't actually say that I'm a Priestess of Eothas. I'm getting Eothan (Eothosian?) bones of the priesthood. Come. On. Proceeding into the Temple, we dispatched a few spiders, found a couple of secrets, and opened a secret door - obviously standard in all Temples of Eothas - and made our way to the library. In the Library, we found a hollowed-out book. It contained a key and some scribblings about Wirtan. I went back to Wirtan to talk to him about this, but on the way there, sudden amnesia struck and I was unable to bring it up with him. Al.. right. I also think I found his sword that he lost, but it's just a Fine Sword and I can't mention that either. Never. Mind. Then. My name is Ascly, by the way. I enjoy: Long walks on the beach, comparative logistics analysis, preaching the good word, and Eothas (and Edér-Chan (=^・^=)) I dislike: Fat people with no self-control, guns and The Patriarchy. Further into the temple, I kill a Skuldr King and have a religious experience about bells, seeing another Spirit. Can't really do jack ****. Fine. Le Sigh. I find the bells. Alright! Bells! Ritual! Priestess of Eothas, I should be able to do this! Let's ignore the fact that I have the key, and let's ignore the fact that I was stupid enough to pick it up when I could've used Lockpicking, for sweet, juicy experience. Let's do the puzzle we've been getting hints to. Except.. you know.. it's a Temple of Eothas. I.. my character should know the sacraments and rituals and stuff, right? So.. uhm.. Wrong! Thankfully, through the power of metagaming, I already know. Right, Middle, Left, Right. ..wait, isn't that a cheat code? Nevermind. Door opens. The adventures of the amnesiac Priestess of Eothas with a selective sense of religious morality and dogma continues! We reach the lower level. Edér mentions growing up here and stuff. Not a real convo, can't comment. Understandable. We're hushing.. sneaking.. not sure why.. we could sleep here, so we should be fine, right? I mean, if it was dangerous, why didn't the monsters eat us while we slept? I mean.. oh snap ghosts! We killed the ghosts. Went south, found a mausoleum-crypt-looking-thing, killed the shades and shadows. Woosh, woosh. Decided to rob the graves and oh, look, a Phantom showed up the second I picked up the... Cloak of an Eothasian Priest. Woo! It's terrible, but I'm going to wear it forever. Priest? Why not Priestess? I should lodge a formal complaint that they're not using gender-neutral pronouns. Did anyone ask the priestoid about h.. their preferred gender? Of course not! Blatant miso-trans-duplo-andry/gyny for sure. Would've been cool to not be attacked, since I'm doing Eothas's work down here 'n' all but 'is cool, cool, I'm not feeling unwanted or anything. Why is the cloak... green? I'd expect Eothasian Priests to be all about the White and Yellow or Gold. Not sure where I got that from, but it felt appropriate. Edér's cloak is red.. brown.. ish. Have I been getting it wrong? ...would still have preferred white and Gold. Q_Q Killed more ghosts, opened a door, pulled a thingy, went down to the bath house, found a key (A-Hah! This time I remembered to unlock the door with Mechanics before I picked up the insidious key!). I found the hiding-place of the dead priests, and the perfectly out-in-the-open blue-tinted lever. It's a wonder the soldiers that sacked this place didn't find it. This is a terrible place to hide. I have a vision. Darkness. Priests eating priests. Prayer. Aaaaand.. Eothas! Strangely, again not [benevolent], despite the fact that I find it hard to believe that it wouldn't be under any other circumstance. It would also make sense, because Eothas favours Benevolent/Honest. Alright. Still. Feels appropriate. Rest well, my brothers and sisters and vehicular-gender-of-your-choice-s. You will be missed. ;_; Do I gather the remains? Do I leave them where they are? Is it religious to move them? I mean, it is their temple.. but after all, I mean, it's a horrible place in that temple and they died horribly.. I wonder what would be the appropriate thing to do as an Eothasian. You'd think that'd be something I'd know, but those seminars I attended were so boring. Apparently. I gather the remains and start to head upwards, after taking everything and finding another secret. I also found Gaun's Share and a prybar. Woo. I have the feeling that there's a helmet or something nearby. ...I've never had any use for a prybar. Killed another two Skuldr Kings, and found The Pilgrim's Last Vigil for Edér. Noice. Went upstairs. Found candles. There's an option to pray. I've done this before. In other lives. This is where I have a nice conversation about Eothas and the Temple with Edér. This is going to be awesome. But first, I'm going to pray. It's the appropriate thing, right? I mean, the candles are still lit. So let's just... What. The. ****. That's it? I do the priestly thing, I get an Eothanian choice and I pray, and nothing? Nothing at all? I can't even talk to Edér now? He doesn't interrupt, after I'm done praying? Just.. nothing? The whole Edér ending to this quest is just lost? His little quips along the way amounts to THIS?! ... I leave. I return to Wirtan, and tell him the honest thing. That he lied to me. He denies it, of course, so I argue a bit with him, Edér gets a bit pissy at him, but then.. I can do the Eothian thing. The thing. Redemption. Except.. well.. it's redemption, right? Not forgiveness? Because sometimes people mix it up and.. oh wait, nevermind, there's no difference here, apparently. Aaaaand that was the Temple of Eothas. ... and why the hell was that last option [Passionate]? I'm getting the feeling that Eothas was first conceived as Benevolent/Passionate and this is to support that, but.. it's not passionate, and Eothas is Benevolent/Honest. What the hell? And I think that encapsulates my experiences here so far. "What the hell?". That's.. pretty much what we would expect, yes. I'm sorry, are you new here? And so far I don't think Eothas seems to get more than most at all. Like mentioned earlier, a Priest of Eothas doesn't even get dialogue with Durance, apparently, and not even with Edér. But if you're a Priest of Magran, you get both. Like what?

Small nit-pick; the Ranger doesn't have ranged combat as one of it's gimmicks. Actually, most of it's Abilities (all?) work with melee weapons as well. I do agree with the sentiment that if a class has a gimmick that is supposed to be part of it's core concept (so, in essence, a major ability or class feature that is considered integral to the class) then the class should be focused upon that, and gameplay revolve around that in some major capacity. Otherwise, it's just going to be "something something plus". In essence, the Ranger is a combatant like the Fighter or the Rogue... plus the pet. And with the pet as a tacked-on feature, not the focus of the class, it will be judged in relation to those other classes, the pet notwithstanding. It becomes very hard to balance and the class becomes unfocused, the choices unintuitive. Aren't the modals ranged exclusive? Admittedly I've only used Sagani(respecd for War Bow), but I was under the impression that they are ranged exclusive. Swift Aim explicitly works for both Ranged and Melee weapons, while Vicious Aim only gives bonuses to Ranged weapons... for some reason. Would've expected some Hit-to-Crit conversion and +Crit.Dmg or something. While it won't have the flavour, rogues essentially fulfil that function. Hopefully Fighters too, one day. Fighters could probably make a decent archery build even today, but could use some more support, I think. Disciplined Barrage and Confident Aim is probably good for it. But I'd like to have some more stuff. Way too much of the Fighter's ability is focused on defence.

It's not always true that you'll find better ones at all. Unique weapons sometimes have enchants you can't get, and you'll probably end up making it so that you can't upgrade them at all. I don't think it should be possible at all, at any point, but.. no, it's often not possible, no.

I could swear that I've seen Interrupts break Engagement, just that it's not nearly enough to matter. It disappears for a split second, so I've never been able to actually even try to take advantage of it. Maybe it's an animation error? Could be. Hard to tell. Either way it'd be a small nit-pick at best - if Interrupts break Engagement, it doesn't really matter anyway. I could swear that I've seen Interrupts break Engagement, just that it's not nearly enough to matter. It disappears for a split second, so I've never been able to actually even try to take advantage of it. I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually do it even if it appears so by the visuals. You'd see "Foozle engages Hero in melee" in the combat log pretty much after every interrupt, since they would re-engage almost immediately. Fair point. I'm not keeping track of the combat log at all. There's unfortunately no point in doing so. Not really. For example: The thing with that example is that if I'm honest, I'd have problems pulling it off in a truly reliable fashion. It's a good recipe, but you get wing-buffeted repeatedly, enjoy playing catch-up or wasting spells, or if your wizards are fireballed. I'm sure that it is entirely possible to actually do it all reliably, and master the encounter, but that's really no different than mastering *any* encounter in *any* game, at that point. But even so, I think we all know that hard Save-or-Lose spells suck ass as a game mechanic in general. The IE games main problem was always that they were the adaptation of a PnP TB system, arbitrated by a GM and subject to muh immurshun. The thing is, what constitutes a "cheesy tactic"? It's not a cheesy tactic, it is how you fight Illithids. If you want to fight Illithids, how do you intend to fight them? What would be "not cheesy"? They're meant to be weak and rely on their psionics, and you're intended to come up with creative solutions as to how to deal with it. You see it as cheesing, because it makes the encounter easy, but in reality, it's really just about thinking and strategy. You have to engineer a solution to a problem. When you have, the problem is solved. On tactic I like is to actually open a door, throw stinking cloud, cloudkill and acid fog in there, close and bar the door. Cheesy? I don't care; it's a way to solve the encounter that doesn't rely on a rote formula. Another person starts making undead and golems. A third person does something else. Fighting Illithids isn't really about straight-up fighting, it's about abusing the **** out of their weaknesses, more of a puzzle than a trite combat encounter, and even so, can still be challenging until you've reached a level of mastery that makes this entire discussion moot, because at that point, we're talking about people that have memorized entire games and knows every encounter and every mechanic by heart. And even if there are Illithid-like encounters where you can "trivialize" part of the content if you, heavens forbid, adapt your strategy to the situation in front of you (instead of using the same one-size-fits-all-encounters-everywhere formula), it is entirely possible to break up encounters so that they're both. PoE isn't bound to the D&D universe at all, and if you feel that figuring out how to deal with illithids makes the entire thing boring once you have, you can add additional things to those encounters so that, even if you have broken the secrets of winning and applied strategic thinking, you still have to deal with their other minions, or still have to fight them in a more regular fashion, and so on and so forth. Let's not fall into the whole BG2-Way-or-No-Way idiocy again.

I could swear that I've seen Interrupts break Engagement, just that it's not nearly enough to matter. It disappears for a split second, so I've never been able to actually even try to take advantage of it.

It's not a bug. It's been like that since forever and the issue has been mentioned countless times.

I loved that aspect of the Titan Quest games. They dropped everything, but you pretty quickly learned that it wasn't all meant to be picked up. But you could, if you wanted to, and you never felt it was odd or out of place that X didn't drop Y and so on. Now, for whatever reason, I think animals still dropped gold and potions and such, which was.. odd. Of course, in Titan Quest, you could just sort all the grey/white loot away and ignore it, and prioritizing what to take and what not to take has always been a part of limited-space inventory systems. Which is of course ridiculous. It's an inherent balance problem of many of these types of games in that they scale upwards way too quickly. It happens in PoE, too, and in an expansion, I can't see how someone human is going to challenge you unless they're just "human plus" with inflated numbers, or decked out in just as epic gear, which makes all this "epic" stuff decidingly less epic. This, thanks to the stash you shouldn´t worry, and it´s a big income...maybe even too much considering you will swim in gold by the end of the game. Also no one is forcing you to pick up the stuff. If i would criticise anything about the items, than it would be the lack of at last a few "epic/memorable" weapons, which the game seems to lack. The "you don't need to"-argument holds no water. It's about forcing choice on the player. It would be utterly nonsensical for someone to choose to cripple themselves for no reason, when the game is made with the assumption that you'd not going to be. As an extreme example, it's like having a game in which you can't die. You say, hey, this is pretty damn boring, and a pretty poor design decision. And then it gets defended with "Well you can choose to die". Like what. Restrictions and hassle are as much part of gameplay as anything else, and it's there to make your choices meaningful, no matter how small.

Compared to cipher, fighter, priest, wizard (mid to late game), rogue, or chanter? Yeah they're underpowered. Compared to Cipher and Chanter, maybe. To rogues? Very arguably. To Fighters? No. Mid-Game Priests/Wizards/Druids? Of course, but what isn't, with the ridiculous Bizarro-jumps in power at lvl 9 and 11? And it's sad, too, because the game actually does build variety very well, and all the pieces are there, since the system is very modular.

For some reason, most games use the Technical Support Forum for reporting bugs. We could do with having an actual bug report forum, but for now, we still have the Beta Bug Forum hanging around.