Luckmann

Not sure about the others, but drow are black because of a divine curse. Also, you could argue that they'd be black to hide better, but that's kinda dodgy.

Depends what build you want to make, but for most, yes. No, you won't be able to turn someone off from a fight with Interruption. The odds of that happening are so small that it's not worth discussing. That said, a monk can benefit from it if built for tanking, stacking Deflection.

No dark elves in Eora, yet. Thank god.

****, you're right. I could've sworn I read that they used Unity. I apologize. Ah, fair enough. I still don't think it makes any difference, though, as much of this will be completely "under the hood", but it shouldn't be discounted.

YOUR THREATS MEAN NOTHING TO US! YOU'RE SWEDISH! WE DON'T HAVE WATER CANNONS! RIOT! RIOT! RIOT!

Except as I said, unless you build for tankyness, it doesn't really contribute in a meaningful way at all, the PER Alone is an abysmal contribution to his potential survivability. Also, as a Wizard (with a CON of 10 no less) he's got the Endurance/Health pool of a snowflake. Slap heavy armour on him and take Talents to support his tankyness, he's going to up his survivability and make at least some use of that PER, but at that point he'll be a terrible, terrible Wizard due to the enormous action recovery he's going to suffer. Nevermind the fact that this feels extremely contrived and counter-intuitive to what (little) we know of Aloth, that is, a pretty standard wizard kind of character. I doubt he'll be fluffed to be some kind of battlemage, especially with those Attributes. Perception isn't just dead weight, it's also too little to even matter on it's own. And he doesn't have the Resolve or Constitution to back up mild support tanking. I also want to clarify that I don't think that Aloth should be changed. I think that the Attributes should be fixed.

Can't watch it right now but I'll watch it later, lookin' forward to this.

Pretty much.

It is not worthless, it is actually one most useful attributes to boost in character creation for many builds. This is because high deflection means that enemies have harder time to hit and crit your character. Perception works also for some cipher builds, like mind control focused support-tank. Who specializes in debuffs, mind control spells and their ability stand in front line hacking enemies to generate focus (of course this is not most efficient build for cipher, but it is quite fun). In my opinion people should test more fun builds (builds that try to do strange gimmicks) instead of focusing ability to end fights fast as possible, because then they could find new funner (at least it has been such for me) aspect of PoE's fights. The problem (in so far that it's actually a problem at least) is that the system favours specialization. Unless you are specifically stacking, for example, Deflection, it's effect will be relatively small as the Accuracy of the opponents increases. I enjoy gimmick-y builds, myself, I really do, but in some cases (such as Aloth's) it's really not about gimmicky builds. It's that, using this case as an example, it really isn't all that gimmick-y. Gimmick-y builds would be feasible if the Attributes supported it, like having specialized builds that doesn't do things necessarily worse, just differently than someone else. Such as if Perception still added Range and Accuracy (which isn't something I necessarily support) or if Intellect wasn't such a consolidated caster stat, you'd maybe actually end up with a Wizard that could strike hard, far, and accurate (Max MIG and PER) but actually had terrible duration on their abilities (shallow INT). As it currently is, PER isn't gimmicky for a Wizard, it's bad. Utterly worthless. It's still possible to play the game, it's not like Aloth is complete and utterly worthless because he's sub-optimal. But the issue with Attributes can't be excused with "Eh, the game can still be completed with ****ty stats". I want to have balanced attributes because I want to be able to build wacky things, including the low-PER Ranger and the high-INT Barbarian.

One note, considering Torment will use the same engine, I wonder what the possibility of a turn-based mod is in the future. "The same engine" doesn't matter as much as you seem to think. Lots of different games that are nothing alike is using Unity as a framework. D:OS is Unity, PoE is Unity, Wasteland 2 is Unity. I mean, look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unity_Engine_games#2015 I'm not saying that it would be impossible to make a turn-based mod, although I would be incredibly surprised if it was reasonably possible, I'm just saying that "the same engine" means nothing. I mean, Angry Birds Epic is apparently Unity.

I think that in some arguments, Sensuki (and others) make the mistake of bringing up the IE games, because it makes it seem like that's the argument, like "It's not IE" is the issue. But even though there's some merit to that ("It doesn't feel right"), it doesn't tend to be the actual problem, and most criticism levied against certain mechanics is warranted in it's own right. The IE games were really good, but they were far from perfect. There are definitely exploits that, if not hard-plugged, could've at least been discouraged. Rest Spam is one of them, and I don't think there's much wrong with the approach of PoE in terms of fixing it (although I'm also increasingly getting the feeling that Per-Encounter Abilities might as well have been cooldowns, even as I hate cooldown gameplay, just to avoid all these goddamn issues relating to Combat State and whatnot). As someone that initially supported the idea of Engagement... One of us! One of us! One of us! One of us! One of us!

I don't think I've ever had it described quite that well and fitting before. But yeah, the legality aspect is all kinds of dodgy, but I didn't really have anyone to argue with. I could've reported them somewhere but honestly, it wouldn't have done jack **** in the long run. If you call the KotOR2 ending "relatively weak", that just highlights the level of "quality" you're talking about here. The KotOR2 ending was an unfinished travesty. KotOR2 had other qualities, but the fact that it was so blatantly unfinished is the sole reason it's not the greatest thing since baked bread.

A quick rundown: Might affects everyone equally, and is pretty alright for anything that wants to do damage. So, pretty much everything and everyone except tanks. Dexterity is garbage for everything wearing heavy armour (arguably any armour, but that's a pretty long discussion). Perception is utterly terrible for anyone that isn't specifically a tank-focused frontliner, and even then it's more or less outpaced in utility by other Attributes. Intellect is a consolidated caster stat that is also good for pretty much everyone. Hilariously and nonsensically powerful for Barbarians. It is king. Resolve is really bad for anyone that isn't also specifically a tank, and equally hilariously as Intellect, utter garbage for Paladins that aren't tanks (which I will never stop harping on). Currently, the information available here should be correct. This is as of v480 and supposedly the review release, and it could change before final release (although incredibly doubtful). Ignore that, it's wrong. In some cases the in-game descriptions are also odd as hell and based on old information, what matters are the modifiers.

Last I checked, it was correct: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Character_creation#Attributes But I'm basing that entirely form memory, I can't go into the beta and check right now.

From a balance perspective, not discussing the merits or lack thereof of certain classes vs. other classes, Kana Rua actually seems like the most powerful one. Most of his Attributes play to the strengths of the class (Chanter), as opposed to for example Edér (He was turned into a run-of-the-mill Tank, but.. Might?) and Aloth (Perception? Ahahaha, oh wow.) Durance has a good spread but no focus, which I don't actually mind that much at all. It is much better to have a good spread than to be overfocused in something bad. Perception gives Interrupt and Deflection. Interrupt isn't very powerful (doesn't happen often enough), Wizards never really increase their base Accuracy, and Deflection is beyond useless unless you're playing something that can take advantage of it (and stacks it, a lot). Perception hasn't affected Range or Accuracy since v384 or whatever. I think it was v384, I might get my numbers up. Whatever came before v435. Perception and Constitution are largely considered the worst stats, but can be useful for specific builds (Tanks, basically).

Alright, so, I don't care that much, but I actually entered the topic by accident, and this should probably be marked as being spoiler-ish. I'm not upset, it's just mechanics, and yes it mentions it in the topic, but I also first read that as this being a discussion on the possible Attributes, not actually the straight-up information. Colour me dumb, whatever, but I still think the topic should be marked. Anyway, yeah. I think there'll be a lot of that, honestly. At first I didn't actually care, but every good wizard also being The Hulk is actually annoying me more and more. Aloth has high Per/Int, and I'm, like.. Per? Bah. All of my bahs. I think it really highlights the issue with the current Attributes being wonky as all hell. I don't think anyone expects that, and I don't think anyone has inferred that they do. I think the issue has a lot to do with the fact that the Attributes are very far from balanced (going by v480), meaning that while a high Per/Int Wizard would simply be a "unique" Wizard that favours a certain playstyle in, say, v384, in post-v435 Per is dead weight to them. That is not to say that v384 was balanced or anything, I'm just using it as an example (it had completely broken Accuracy, for example). And had it entirely been about the narrative vision for the characters, I would've expected Edér to have high Dexterity because he was originally conceived as a rogue. I'm a bit sad that they didn't just stick to that concept but modeled him as a Fighter. Could've been interesting to have an atypically built Fighter to showcase the system's strengths.. 'cept it's not really much of a Strength now (Dexterity, with Heavy Armour? Haaahahahahahaha.) Edit: The quick, dirty and easy fix would've been to give him light armour instead, but then the noobs would've been incredibly confused, especially since he was most likely made into a Fighter because noobs needed an obvious tank to pick. I think I'm going to mod him into being a high-Dex/Con character once I've balanced the Attributes. I don't need the hand-holding.

They certainly have their fans still but yeah, they moved on from us hardcore RPG fans and we feel sad. That's no joke. Bioware was literally my very favorite game company; they made my favorite games. I loved everything they did--it was like a treasure trove of awesome every time they made a game. Until EAl. When EA ripped out everything decent in Bioware and left a soulless husk, it felt like a direct betrayal. I loved the "Dragon Age and Mass Effect will remain separate franchises aimed at different people, don't worry"-pitch. Hahahahaha, oh wow. And then there was EA, ME2, and DA2. There's a reason I got banned there and was locked out of all my EA content I had (DA:O CE, ME2 CE, and all the DLC at the time).

Some people are all about the Achievements.

I don't know...I think I saw a huge version of Eder flying around. That one might have been a little too big to enjoy. On a side note though, I actually intended to post my portraits a little bigger than this. :/ There's some big-ish versions of some floating around, but nothing consistent, I think. But I asked Polina what resolution they actually worked at before the portraits were resized and if there was any chance we could get our hands on them to study them or work with them to make our own portraits, and the resolution is a crazy 4800 x 7540 pixels 200 dpi. She asked, but the answer was "very unlikely". I'm pretty sure Photoshop would murder my computer if I opened that up and worked on it, but it'd be so worth it. Your strawman is so enormous it's piercing straight through the upper exosphere and is being set ablaze by solar radiation alone, there is nothing for us to do here. That's impossible, it's night time. Even were it sticking up through the exosphere, it wouldn't be exposed to direct solar radiation for another hour or so. ... I don't know how to break it to you, but.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_the_Earth D:

I don't know...I think I saw a huge version of Eder flying around. That one might have been a little too big to enjoy. On a side note though, I actually intended to post my portraits a little bigger than this. :/ There's some big-ish versions of some floating around, but nothing consistent, I think. But I asked Polina what resolution they actually worked at before the portraits were resized and if there was any chance we could get our hands on them to study them or work with them to make our own portraits, and the resolution is a crazy 4800 x 7540 pixels 200 dpi. She asked, but the answer was "very unlikely". I'm pretty sure Photoshop would murder my computer if I opened that up and worked on it, but it'd be so worth it. Your strawman is so enormous it's piercing straight through the upper exosphere and is being set ablaze by solar radiation alone, there is nothing for us to do here.

yes, we have no rogues today. We have no rogues but Eder went from a fighter to a rogue and back to fighter during the development cycle and he is also supposed to be relevant to the plot line so I am hoping he retained enough of his roguish ways to suffice as a lock/trap man... (or that one of the other CNPCs has rogue tendencies) That said I am pretty much planning to have my character prepared to take on the rogue abilities whether he is a rogue or not. I would be a bit surprised, though. Edér is a farmer, and I guess that there's nothing expressly that he can't be good with mechanics, too, but I would be a bit surprised. On the other hand, I'm not sure who else it would fit, to be good at Mechanics. Kana Rua, maybe, Aloth? Maybe arguably. Can't really imagine any of the others being mechanically inclined, so it might've defaulted to Edér.

I thought that one was "It's not racism when we do it"? Or was it "I'm black so it's OK to make fun of blacks"? I always get it wrong.

This is where I will randomly interject that I'm sad that Obsidian won't supply us with the PoE portraits in their original size. *cries a little on the inside*

...am I the only one thinking that the project name for a PoE sequel should be Project Infinity? No? Nevermind.

Seriously though, hah, no. The whole watermelons thing is evocative of certain characteristics, sure, but the point here was the degenerate watermelonist champion, not race. I would not say that aumauans overall look black, for example, it's just that Kana Rua looks like that particular type of buffoon I cannot describe in any other way than I did. With the mouth aghast like that, I cannot possibly think of anything other that would be fitting. The whole thing reminds me of the "we president now"-guy. For example, I would not say that Pellagina looks like she's hunting for watermelons just because she's black, because she looks like a classy (albeit possibly arrogant and narcissistic) lady, but Kana Rua looks like an utterly stoned murderhobo and this wouldn't change no matter his race or the colour of his skin, I think.