Nonek

Yes his rather loud firebrand personality is somewhat embarassing, especially when interacting with typical English reserve. Edit: Mr Jones that is.

Just watched an interview with an american gentleman called Alex Jones on this very subject, personally I want somebody watching this man, nuttier than a bag of dry roasted.

Yes I found that system in TOEE a trifle invasive myself, mostly because there was no arguing with the mechanic. These are people, therefore they can be reasoned with or even manipulated. One also assumes that they'll have some personal stake in the protagonist affairs, thus mitigating the usual price for securing their allegiance. Edit: Of course when personal matters rear their ugly heads how satisfying would it be to demand payment for your aid, or sitting back, giving them a superior smirk and proclaiming breezily. "I would not dream of charging such a close friend."

Obsidian are quite good at providing a logical reason for the protagonist attracting followers, but what of more traditional forms of cohesion, that of financial renumeration? It may be more appropriate for some followers than others, the more mercenary of personalities, but even the most personally involved and charitable fellows will need a little pocket money. These will presumably be potent, skilled individuals whose services are in the world of Eternity quite highly valued, so their aid should logically be recompensed. Indeed if ones adventures become increasingly fraught with danger might the price of their assistance increase? Infiltrating the dreaded Onyx Citadel, infamous stronghold of the immortal Plague that Walks, should be judged as a little more risky than storming a back alley thumpers flophouse. Wouldn't a smart companion demand a few more pennies for this task? Indeed while recieving the quest ones followers could chip in to the conversation and demand better compensation, they are after all putting their lives on the line. Could you fall into debt with your companions, or knowingly decieve them and withold their pittance, thus affecting influence. Or might you have such a golden tongue as to persuade great loyalty, for the most meagre of purses. What of companions who have no control over their purse-strings, might they draw on their leaders credit, maybe even dip their fingers into the parties assets when no one is looking. Could this add another layer of personality and role playing in to the party dynamic? What say you gentles all, yay, nay or piffle?

If a priests belief has empowered him so much that he can call forth divine powers, then surely his faith in his chosen god is almost faultless, and if such faith should falter might not also his powers? Might be an interesting dynamic, to have ones power determined by ones belief and adherence to church doctrine. Of course the downside is that if the priest should ever lose faith, then his powers and focus will similarly be scattered and directionless. After all one cannot easily replace an entire lifetime of zealotry and obedience.

And you think that people made couples becouse sex of teen romances from entire time ? You think that 2 people can't be in "love" or deep relationship witch sexual desire with not going to "bawdy house". If you think so then i deeply sorry for you ... and let me have this irrational illusion ... you got fire ball i got romance Pardon old boy, not understanding your banter.

Personally i've always found deeper interactions and immersion comes from realistic depictions of characters, not the teen romances we are usually subjected to, i've certainly never thought thought of a character as lacking because they have no romantic feelings for my protagonist. If the only method of getting to know characters is through romance/sex then i'll be majorly disappointed with the game, your colleagues may simply not be attracted to your character, and that's fine I certainly wouldn't hold it against them. If requiring stress relief through sex, simply visit a bawdy house, one assumes the bigger cities will have them in abundance.

Kreia was attractive, to me at least, strong, intelligent and motivated. The fact that she remains cloaked and hooded throughout is obviously a thematic element, she is in a sense hiding. Personally one suspects that she would regard revealing clothing and such as rather childish, a blunt and obvious form of manipulation and pandering.

In many ways I don't want to change the NPC's. Take Boone in New Vegas, nothing you say or do will change the essence of who he is. The man is forever looking through his scope at the women and children streaming out of Bitter Springs and his pregnant wife, nothing the player says or does can change that. All you can do is show him a different way of coping with it, and make him aware that he is not so alone as he thought.

So long as it's not blatantly stupid, or has some thematic reasoning, then i'm not particularly against highlighting the beauty of the female form. Far more important to me is their actual character, motivation and depth. Lets look at Isabella from Dragon Age 2 as a low point, she's not smart enough to realise that in a temperate port city she'll contract hypothermia if only wearing a shirt, especially stupid as she's a native of a much warmer climate. Not only this but she hasn't the intellect to don at least a gambeson to avoid scarring, injury and mutilation from the melee that erupts every few yards in Kirkwall, so she doesn't mind scars, missing teeth, limbs and debilitating injuries. As with all the companions she has no initiative, comes and goes at the bidding of others for years at a time and has no purpose other than to spout pathetic juvenile one liners. There's really no justifying making such a crude caricature. But then again we have Kreia, who needs no such pandering or stupidity. No pathetic witticisms pass her lips, in an attempt to curry favour with the protagonist. No blatant stupidities are indulged. This woman is focused, terrifying in her strength and conviction, deeply flawed in her arrogance and speciesism, but motivated by a moral goal. A goal that sees her abandon either side of a binary tyranny to champion free will, and she should have won, she was the true hero of the Sith Lords. About time we got rid of the former and aped the latter a lot more, in my humble opinion. Kreia was far more attractive to me as a woman and concept than the functionally retarded pirate stripper. Even more impressively she didn't fall back on the clumsy and blatant empowerment of mass slaughter, she manipulated and misdirected, rather than just accruing an ever larger body count. Utterly refreshing.

You do have a point. Unless faith powers are not granted by deities, merely through belief itself. I agree that seems a touch too Torment like however. This subject of faith (and the loss of it) is a most puzzling conundrum to be sure.

One wonders whether it might be feasible to implement faith powers based on heresy and pariah-hood, a specific set of skills and powers based around a "fallen" priest, possibly even make it a faction in the game. One can imagine society at large would not be too welcoming for the unfortunate godless individuals however, varying in effect from disdain to trying to collect a bounty, all under the auspices of doing the gods work of course.

Danger Monk erm I prefer a Dangermouse, because he's terrific, he's magnific. He's the greatest superhero in the world. Dangermouse, powerhouse. He's the fastest, he's the quickest, he's the best. Dangermouse.

Always thought the appelation Belly Shaker was rather fetching, you could always make him a Sturlusson in honour of the wordsmith, or give him a kenning name like Woundweaver or Woundwulf meaning sword and axe, Bluthrafn (blood raven) if he's fond of the battlefield, or maybe even use one of the mythical names like Nidhoggr (corpse tearer) the dragon chewing at Yggdrasils roots. Ironically you could name his house something unflattering like Nithling (cursed) or Skraeling (wretches.) Classically you could go with Volsung, Scylding, Fafnirsbane or suclike. Know it's a touch risky, but I always liked Hardrada (Hard ruler) personally.

A long time ago in a university far, far away me and the chaps were playing in a Kislev campaign, the GM mixed roleplay with battle rules and had us overseeing (read banished by the Ice Queen) a small keep on the border with troll country known as Grimwall. Finally our bloodletting gained the notice of a champion of chaos, who promptly gathered his warband, rode up to our walls and challenged us to mortal combat. We obligingly shot the dastard full of crossbow bolts, they didn't do the trick, his armour blessed by Khorne made him invulnerable to all weapons forged by man. So laughing boy rides back north and we breathed a sigh of relief, until a massive horde of beastmen arrive with our friend Morngrang the Destroyer (yes rather cliche but he's Khornish, not known for originality) and his warband at their head. Siege, very gritty and barbaric ensued. Well long story short, with the Oblast empty of reinforcements, rats growing scarce and the taste of our own urine growing a touch galling we resorted to desperate measures. Set our dwarven sapper to making a tunnel we could escape through, and sod the enlisted men. He found something. In the dark of the catacombs under the keep slumbered an ancient bane, a long slumbering evil, which awoke and offered us power in exchange for freedom from its tomb. Don't know exactly what the thing was, but our Bright Wizard told us that there were symbols of binding specific to Malal, the mad chaos god who hates and opposes all his brethren. We weighed up our options and were informed that the dwarf had found an old escape passage that he could clear in a day, we scarpered, bidding goodbye to our colleagues and the bound thing in the crypt. Back in Praag, scraping a living as mercenaries and keeping our heads down we are intrigued by a glorious entry to the city. The brave men of Grimwall keep are riding into the city in triumph, having thrown back a massive chaos horde, at their head a lowly sargeant who strangled Morngrang the Destroyer to death with his bare hands, a man whose eyes gibber with madness and search the crowd. The GM had simply had the men go looking for us and finding the thing (and not knowing of the secret passage,) succumb to its temptations. We were in the crux of a most thorny dilemna, admitting our guilt would place our heads on the block, keeping quiet would let this abomination enjoy promotion and be empowered in its search for us. It ended back at Grimwall, but there were many machinations and pleasing turns before we finally burnt that keep to the ground, with the aid of a most zealous Witch Hunter named Pursuivant and the sacrifice of our Bright Wizard Helmut von Bomm. Always thought this was a great little campaign idea, pleasingly fluid, wish it had had a touch more of those slavic influences however. Good luck anyway.

Heartily agree old chap, very good ideas. Wizards - The whispered rumours of dread grimoires, weilded by the greatest of their brethren throughout the ages. Tomes that hold dread powers and cunning snares for he who tries to decipher their secrets. Priest - As you say adherence to church doctrine, faultless faith and righteous zeal in the face of heresy and temptation. Gained through prayer and devotion. Chanters - Love the idea of the Chanter being a Mnemonikos, maybe hearing purer or alternate translations of the old saga poems and recitals. Learned from old Shaman and village wise women. Ciphers - Not sure, maybe self knowledge opens new doors in their minds, and in knowing themsleves they grow stronger. Or you could have foci, trinkets from childhood or from long dead Ciphers that still hold a portion of their mighty will.

I'd prefer if the weak blood of the godlikes mortal half was an almost negligible portion of their physical make-up, so that in essence a godlike will appear as his divine half mandates (the mandate of heaven?) rather than the flesh dictates. Saying that I wouldn't mind a Satyr appearance, l'apres midi d'un faun.

So can I call myself a Necromancer yet?

As varied as the rest of humanity, probably dressed in their cultures attire. They should all have hypnotic eyes however, and perhaps a certain disturbing aura.

Specialisation, he's neither as well trained in swordsmanship as the fighter or as well honed in the arcane arts as the wizard. Yes he can mix the two to achieve victory, but individually his skillset will suffer from not pursuing one path to the exclusion of all others. I'm not insisting the theoretical gentleman be gimped, the opposite in fact, i'm arguing that a character should have a limited skillset and either be a jack of all trades, or a master of one. A matter of equilibrium if you will. Edit: Please lord no Jedi, Star Wars isn't exactly something that should be used as inspiration.

Far prefer a mix of good prose and fine artwork to an animated cutsecene you simply watch, prose can convey complex images and emotions far more effectively than even the latest top of the line graphics. Pour an evocative soundtrack over the top, to glue it all together and personally i'll be more than content.

Fine to have such a balanced character, but his utility should also come with some serious downsides. If he crosses blades with a professional swordsman he should be embarassed by his lack of skill in comparison, and similarly his arcane might will pale beside a true wizards potency. Otherwise why have a fighter or wizard at all.

Legend of Zelda pornography?

Well, let me make something clear: I'm perfectly fine with different stuff happening story-wise with regard to a priest PC who defies their faith. I completely agree that there's a lot of interesting stuff that could be done with that, and it's a direction I think Project Eternity should explore. What I'm against, strictly, is this consequence being felt mechanically in the form of "You are now a walking bag of meat capable of accomplishing nothing but wasting space in the party." In D&D a Cleric who gets rejected by their god gets reduced to an Aristocrat with fewer skill points, a worse class skill list, worse proficiencies, and a better fortitude save. As a player, if you get stuck with this your best option is to just retire that character and roll up a new one. And since you probably won't be able to do that in Eternity it means you'll be stuck with that forever. Reload an earlier save. (Have fun with that in Ironman mode!) This is not having "deep and meaningful" consequences for your actions. This is having a great big "NO" painted over a portion of your presented options (potentially, a very large portion). It doesn't encourage roleplaying, it restricts it. Plus, not to mention this type of heavy-handed approach locks out several interesting character archetypes, depending on how restrictive you are. For example once I played a cleric who received her powers against her will, and she hates her patron diety. So she sets out to try to kill him, not realizing this will set her on the path the god intended for her (unfortunately the game fell apart before it could be finished due to out-of-game issues). It's a cool concept I had a lot of fun with, and I'd like to maybe be able to try to play something similar to her in Eternity, if I wanted. Carte-blanche shutting it out because it's "not roleplaying" would be pretty bone-headed. To be honest only an extremely poor GM or player would create such a situation as demonstrated in your second paragraph, but to lose your powers for a while and be cast adrift sounds positively thrilling to me. It's basically the story of the Exile from the Sith Lords where, as Kreia rightly points out, a true grasp of the binary nature of the conflict wracking that setting is gained. A good GM will give you a hard time for abandoning your faith, and then slowly introduce powers befitting the new role you are embracing. If you can just flit around with no consequences to your every action, never challenged by the game or your own choices, that makes for a dull character and a reactivity free setting. It's also why I for one am glad Obsidian are not using D&D, but still I expect if you choose to shackle yourself to a gods will, there will be consequences for trying to break those chains. I don't want to play the usual armed and armoured generic healbot, with no faith or religion except for what's agreeable to modern sensibilities. I'd like to play Kaelyn the Dove or Kreia, casting aside their roles through principles and suffering indignities because of it, but enduring and thus becoming strong. After all if the game is apathetic to your actions then we all suffer, because apathy is death.

To be, or not to be. That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler, in the merchants to suffer the slings and arrows of outrages prices. Or to take arms against them, and by obsessive hoarding end them.