Nonek

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.

What is BF4 and whom are DICE? (One assumes they are not the d4 and upwards that we're all familiar with.)

Is it possible that we could have collapsible portions of the pack for each member? I think the original Dungeon Siege did this, but basically you click the inventory button and all the pack pops up, however with the pack being split into individual sections for characters we get the option to collapse sections according to our wishes. Delineates a little more clearly that each members personal possessions and carrying capacity are his alone. Thought it might be a nice little touch for added verisimilitude.

My problem with this mindset is that a cleric's faith in-game either never actually matters besides being roleplaying flavor, or the DM goes overboard and it makes the cleric class completely unplayable. (Whoops, you stepped on a spider without reciting the Three Prayers of Ethallion to send its soul to the afterlife? You lose all your powers forever.) The idea itself that clerics have to bow and scrape before a deity who can arbitrarily take away their powers at any moment is even setting specific: On Eberron, for example, every cleric is an ideocleric in practical terms (people in Eberron can invent, and subsequently become clerics of, new religions). Really, the issue of "What's the exact in-world difference between different spellcaster types?" is a question of worldbuilding, not mechanics. As far as Project Eternity is concerned, Obsidian, if my cleric character ever loses their powers because I made a wrong dialogue choice, I will never forgive you. Personally i'm on the exact opposite side of the fence, I want deep and meaningful choices and consequences, where if I choose to spurn my gods law and disdain his teachings I expect to be cast down for it. Obviously this shouldn't be a small thing, it should be a momentous decision and have both foreshadowing and warnings, but I don't want the game to totally ignore the faith and church I belong to. More reactivity is always better. Now the interesting thing for me is what of those others who have fallen? In church lore they will have been cast down into the pits of hell to writhe in the fires of their own villainy, but in reality there has to be a fair number of failed clerics. Is there an enemy god to their faith, who welcomes fallen clerics? Is their a pariah deity like Woedicca, who accepts the cast outs and the disenfranchised? Or do the clerics seek answers beyond their deity, and realise that their faith is enough, that they need not tradition, stricture and dogma, and how will their old faith respond to such dangerous individuals. Enemies of the faith, might be an interesting role to assume, and perhaps if enough followers start listening to that prophets ideas then a new faith and its instigator might be born. A new kind of church, pioneering a new method of belief, which in a few centuries will be the dominant religion and have become what it arose to challenge.

Why does CND use the rune of Baldur the old norse god? I mean of the Aesir he was probably the nicest and most reasonable, but he still represented a fairly bloodthirsty approach to the world, taking thralls, holmgangs, glorious death in battle, viking raids and all that fun stuff. Seems a bit weird that peacemongers would equate themselves with him.

Fanfare of Obligation: Renaissance Crusade?

Unfortunately I can attest to this, it's gotten to the point where I expect a young native Englishman to be lazy and unmotivated, while an eager immigrant who's travelled far from home on his own initiative will usually work hard and without stint. They oftentimes possess better written English as well as general education. It's saddening, but true. It doesn't help when our daily newspapers (if they can be called that) are whipping up storms of racism and xenophobia. I find this especially galling when directed against the Polish community, who we welcomed in their hundreds when fighting in the Battle of Britain, but now suddenly find undesirable. On the subject of the riots I hope none of our Scandinavian cousins have been too hurt, either physically or financially.

Wait for a stone Monkey to leap out of the egg, and the spirit of this Monkey was irrepressible.

Recently finished a runthrough of Icewind Dale 2, and something felt very off about the UI, I was always pointing my cursor at the wrong place. Then again that was only when I was too lazy to use the shortcuts. Personally I liked Torments UI the most, out of all the Infinity Engine games, though I wish it was collapsible.

Charm of Making as in that used in Excalibur? If so I have no utterance but for, HELL YES!

Are the death in life and life in death couple important enough to be used on the UI, rather than the rather nondescript statue in the alcove? Don't know whether the button layout will feel "right" until played unfortunately. You forgot the add bacon and make breakfast option.

From the limited descriptions we have of Wizards it seems to me that the two are at almost diametrically opposite alignments, a Priest relies on faith and belief, a Wizard uses the scientific methods of cause and effect that are gathered in his grimoires to alter the world to his liking. At least that's my take on the Wizard, he uses metaphysical tools to manipulate reality, and these are his spells. The Priest meanwhile calls upon his beliefs, strengthened by ritual, dogma and tradition rather than observed phenomena.

One of my players back in the day was writhing on the crux of this dilemna, he liked the skillset of the Cleric class but was disdainful of organised religion, deities and faith, his modern sensibilities at war with his roleplaying persona. I advised him to go with a Druid, as my iteration were guardians of life and dealt with healing and the natural world, rather than a deities dogma. I don't know whether Eternities skin shifters will be so inclined to healing, and a less faith intensive approach. My paladin player however (a very ferociously atheistic gentleman) simply roleplayed a believer, hyping himself up through gregorian chant, the beautiful architecture and artistry of the renaissance and the more lyrical and touching passages from the good book, such as 1 Corinthians 13.

Now this I like, clear demarcation, ease of use and also a choice over what we hold dear enough to keep with us at all times, utility versus sentiment. That's personally what I was looking for, I may not be a fan of the stash, but this description of the shared pack sits very well with my personal sensibilities.

Likes: Protagonists involvement with the plot, ingenious. West Harbour, more in essence than implementation, nice to have an origin. Ambiguous nature of the supposed anatgonist, Ammon Jerro. Framing of the protagonist and his trial, makes one wary of ones actions. As mentioned before the stronghold, its management and upkeep. Nolaloth's valley, for some reason this location struck me as enormously evocative. Central concept of the King of Shadows. Returning to West Harbour to unite the Sword of Gith. Daeghun, a disapproving and distant father figure, very original and well rounded character. Lorne Starlings genesis and slow reveal, was hoping to redeem this gentleman. Dislikes: Most of the companions, dry, dull and somewhat cliche. Not as bad as Bioware caricatures, but near. Less choice than i'm used to in an Obsidian game. Too much filler combat, once again not as bad as DA2, but still became a grind. The Forgotten Realms specifically Neverwinter, as generic and overpowered as ever. Never liked this setting. I will add that I do not think the dislikes i've mentioned really need to be stated, as with Mask of the Betrayer Obsidian proved they knew what they had done wrong, and how to improve upon it. Overall I liked the game, it told a well structured story, with surprising depth and numerous twists. I believe it merely needed a little cutting and trimming to bring the high points more into focus and diminish the negative aspects, still better than the modern dull brown alternating combat and conversation simulators which pass for RPG's lately.

Arcanum, found an old save post Isle of Despair, think I was a little enraptured by "Arronax's" appearance. Got to the temple of the Derian Ka and performed the awakening quest for Torian Kel, with many interjections by Geoffrey. What an absolutely fascinating character Torian is, a rich background, a believable motivation and excellent voice acting, really helps bring flavour and depth to the setting.

Hopefully as Osvir states this does not mean that companions and the main character cannot have keepsakes and such. Currently i'm playing through Arcanum and each companion has their alloted role and items they hold dear, for instance my elven mage keeps the Newspapers involving the IFS Zephyr and the Garringsburg robbery upon him at all times. Virgil wears the pilgrims robe found in the Panarii temple in Shrouded Hills, the notes from elder Joachim as well as a Panarii pamphlet. Magnus has Roan's study on dwarven culture, the bracelet unearthed by the Schuylers and a tin of dwarven snuff. Garfield Thelonius Remmington has a pack of Earl Grey tea on hand at all times etcetera, etcetera. Seems such a simple and yet effective tool for roleplaying, rather than a shared pack full of nondescript loot, a collection of items and curios that the companions hold dear that somewhat defines them.

Discourse?

Ah White Dwarf in its heyday, nothing better.