Longknife

*****Turn back now if you don't want to be spoiled, I'm jumping right into this and spoiling things asap*** I've yet to see this pointed out, maybe I missed it though: Is Eothas the one true God? Think about it. Eothas supposedly wanted to march on the Dyrwood and was killed. (or rather his human incarnation was) Eder and others will mention this seemed highly out of character for Eothas, thus they believed him a false prophet. Given the game's storyline and plot, I think Eothas functions as the fallback for religious players who don't like some of the more atheist implications of the plot question. AKA, was Eothas the one true God? Eothas marching on the Dyrwood makes sense: assume he's an actual God (not the fake kind) and therefore is aware of what's going on in Dyrwood. He wants to conquer the area not out of needless warfare, but to show the people that all other gods are false and to destroy the Engwithian machines. The Engwithian Gods however are sentient, even if they are more or less AI programs, and thus they don't want this to happen, thus they conspire against him. Magran and Woedica in particular take offense and see to it that Eothas is removed. This is supported by the fact that Eothas is absolutely nowhere to be found amongst the list of Gods in Twin Elms and thus is not an Engwithian construct. There's no broken altar to him that suggests he existed and was later removed, he was just never amongst them to begin with. He is not an Engwithian God. This also manages to tie in with the Legacy so that you COULD in some ways interpret Eothas still holds sway, because while you can have the logical conclusion that you are the one to stop the Legacy, you can also make the faith-based conclusion Eothas was ultimately responsible in some ways and was appeased to when you stopped the false Gods. Yes yes, I realize this is illogical in the sense you HAVE the logic neccesary to conclude you did it, but if you're faith-inclined, you could argue Eothas has a hand in it too and of course you cannot be disproven. Thoughts on this?

Show me a trans person offended by this limerick and I can show you a trans person who doesn't give a **** (or even one who is mad that this outrage is giving trans people a bad name). This is not about trans people. If it were, then that would imply trans people are a hive mind who all think and feel the same, which is absurd. This is the same as any type of humor: some people laugh, some people get their knickers in a twist. It's been pointed out before that it's debateable that the limerick is even at the expense of the trans community. Would the joke have been different were the guy so drunk he slept with a gay guy for example without really fully realizing it or caring as much as he normally would due to alcohol? I see no reason to waste this much time and effort into this topic. Someone got butthurt after they read it, people get butthurt every day, sad day for them. If you want to talk potential controversy within the game and it's content? I think the plot twist (not really a twist) provided by the main quest and the main game itself is MUCH more likely to legitimately offend people, but that does not mean it shouldn't be allowed to exist. Same thing here.

When you sleep, sometimes a companion wakes you saying you're acting crazy. Over time this seems to get worse, with them acting as if it's growing more and more dire. Is this merely flavor? Or is this actually meant to tell you "hurry up or game over?"

Go through with all of them. All of them have multiple ways to be solved and all have very specific ways the Gods ACTUALLY want you to solve them. Actually open up the books about the gods and try to understand the text and understand what they like and what their motivations are; the answer may not be what you'd initially expect. Berath is kind of the freebie because I don't see how you could fail it other than refusing to do it. The other three, it's possible to "complete" the quest only to discover you've failed it when you return to pray, because you did not take actions the Gods approved of. But yeah, give all of them a try and just solve them the way you think the god would like. As said, Berath is the only one that seemed to me to be a case of "just don't do it if you disagree with this task."

Just finished, here are my thoughts: 1) Check all the little ash corpses as you approach the Thaos fight. One contains three rings specifically designed to protect you from movement impairing effects. HINT HINT. 2) Eder and Fighters are awesome. I was playing Trial of Iron, and the end of the fight? Yeah, every character went down except Eder. I think a glitch with my barb contributed though as Thaos constantly got hit with the Sicken effect from the Barb's passive from when he stands still; his corpse was still triggering the effect. I was watching that final fight between Eder and Thaos thinking "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu I'm gonna lose at the very end omggggggggggg." NOPE, Eder ****ing did it. Slow, but he did it. My next playthrough will DEFINITELY be a Fighter after that amazing performance. 3) I don't think the ending narrative is lacking. It was perhaps a tad unoriginal in that it tackled questions that've been explored a dozen times over and holy hell I'm not looking forward to the religious debates we can expect to see on these forums when more people finish, but the narrative itself was perfectly solid. The narrative wasn't disappointing. Having said that.... 4) I think what people are disappointed in is the length of the game itself. It's much shorter than expected, and the scope of areas you have influence over is limited aswell. Compare how this ending was done to New Vegas. Both are identical in style, showing slides that tell you what became of different people and communities based on your actions. But while New Vegas had 29 slides that referred to 8 companions, 5 communities and multiple factions/groups, Pillars is much smaller, with your journey basically effecting three towns and any companions you traveled with. Maybe I just did a really sucky job of making any changes and thus my ending was short, but yeah....the impact you had felt quite small and forgettable. Overall, there is a degree of disappointment I have, but I believe that disappointment has more to do with the realization that the game is smaller than I expected it to be, not with the ending not delivering. I think if there had actually been more content as filler (yes I'm actually asking for filler content, go figure), the game would've felt more satisfying at the end, both cause there'd be more towns to cover and cause the content just feels limited in scope. It's solid content, don't get me wrong, it's just kinda....compact. :D

Consider her a member of the Kind Wayfarers. That's all I'm saying and no I won't explain why I say that cuz spoilers.

I've got a barb. I think what probably drives people away is that barb is such garbage at the start. Squishy as hell, can't hit worth a darn, easily hit and interrupted, and the AOE damage does next to nothing. The thing is though that ALL of those stats improve until the barb is nothing but free damage. They get so much raw endurance that even though they're taking craptons of damage and constant hits, it never seems to take off more than half of their total endurance, and even then you can heal up easy. Even deflection goes up. My barb has never EVER hit the ground and been KO'ed, nor has his health ever dropped below 50%. I don't think that's going to change. It's also really easy to spec them for damage and accuracy for crits, so their damage output just keeps going up. In that sense they kinda feel like a wizard with more consistent damage rather than every-other-battle spike damage. The only thing I consider "lacking" with barb is that it still feels less damaging than a Rogue or Ranger or other such damage dealer, it's just the barb develops into a class where you don't EVER have to worry about them going down and getting KO'ed while they still deal pretty good damage. Good tradeoff, but personally I will admit the crits you get from a Rogue or Ranger are immensely satisfying. I've also grown to like Wizard a bit more. If you run into a tough battle, there's two classes you expect to pull you out of it: Priest and Wizard. Just kinda unfortunate that Wizard does feel VERY lackluster for any encounter where a per rest ability isn't utilized.

Ah, yes. The typical "it's all the PIGS' fault!" excuse. http://www.dw.de/frances-flailing-economy-endangering-the-eurozone/a-18072388 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11101137/Sick-Frances-economy-is-stricken-by-unemployment-fever.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/germany-jobs-idUSL5E8D738E20120208 http://www.dw.de/poverty-in-germany-at-its-highest-since-reunification/a-18268757 May I suggest that the reason why you aren't "even noticing any problems" is that, perhaps, you rely on Google a bit too much? I recommend Startpage. And don't bother "yelling" so much. No one is listening, anyway. I do not understand your post. I do not understand how you perceived me as "yelling," I do not understand how the implication seems to be that you think Greece is actually in great condition (surely you don't think this...?), I do not understand why you reference France as if I ever claimed France was picture perfect or even said France's name, nor do I understand what's with this hipster Google vs. Startpage thing going here, firstly because it immediately assumes I googled for news about Greece (though I guess you could've gotten that from my talk about how you can google euro, ruble, Greece or anything related to clearly see how the sanctions have affected things or how bad Greece news aligns with euro value), secondly because I just find the idea that one search engine will blatantly lie to you while another won't to be nothing short of ridiculous. Where I live, the public transit buses have news displayed on screens for all to read as you ride the bus, not to mention every bakery has newspapers on display regularly, not to mention I have to touch on economics while studying law. That's where I got Greece and PIGS from: from the news and from my own education. It's constantly in the news both because it's warranted and because some of the....how can I put it...more nationalistic (not as in their nazis, but rather they exhibit that "MY COUNTRY BEST COUNTRY EVER" attitude you can find in any country) newspapers just love to rant about Greece and remind of it's problems. Furthermore, you linked one article referencing Germany, and sadly it's again somewhat misinformed. Oby's implication is that our economy is suffering, at least that's how I took it. While the article you linked is still very much relevant news that's interesting to everyone, it doesn't say a whole lot about the health of the economy, but rather expresses concern for the fact that the lower class within Germany is growing; it's a concern for Germany's income equality, which used to be a point of pride. Is it a concern for the economy? Long term it could be, but if you want to talk about the economy suffering, then we're talking about unacceptable inflation rates, high levels of unemployment, a poor GDP and various other factors. Germany exhibits none of these and has a very healthy GDP. If you personally are more concerned with the well-being of German citizens and they're satisfaction of living, given the article? The average monthly income in Germany is €2,000 a month (this I did google, for obvious reasons), 60% less than that is €800 a month. While it's obvious no one would want to earn as little as €800 a month, that's far from a life of suffering and poverty. And again, even IF you wish to remain critical of those things, I'm STILL confused by your post seeing as how this topic is within the context of who gets hurt worse by economic sanctions, in which the clear answer is Russia. It's essentially a different discussion in which you would wish to be critical of Germany's problems as no state is perfect and there's always room for improvement (on a personal level I AM troubled by the article you linked, not so much because the reprocussions affect me now but because sometimes I fear Germany tries to be more like the USA when it shouldn't, and income inequality is an all too common truth within the US), but if we were to compare Germany to Russia, then Germany's problems are practically "problems." It's peanuts by comparison; a "poor" German is still earning more than the average Russian.

They have to start the game up before they get the achievement, so people who registered their key but are waiting for the first patch aren't counting. Regardless, this showcases that ~385,000 people have bought and registered the game. EDIT: Wait no I'm a derp lol. :C

I can't really decide myself, though I highly suspect Cipher is going to win most popular seeing how comparatively simplistic and powerful it is. Other classes need to be understood correctly or need time before being powerful, Cipher is just a winner from the get-go.

Wow only 20% of the people playing are backers. Wouldn't that mean about 385,000 people own copies of this game?

Are we talking about the same Germany and Russia....? Germany is an economic powerhouse, in some ways moreso than the USA when you simply factor in the relative size of Germany's economy given how much smaller it is population-wise; smaller economy, sure, but it never ceases to amaze me that Germany exported more goods than any other nation (including China) until like 2009. There's a reason Germany specifically comes up in such discussions. I'm just glad Greece is so lazy cause it keeps the Euro value in check so that when I need to convert my cash, it's not annoying as hell. Russia? Your ruble is crashing and burning. Why do you conclude from here that Germany is the one suffering for the sanctions? Lol. So much brainwashed. Euro fail and become equal to US dollar. http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/03/12/business-bites-euro-down-chinas-reason-to-frown-banks-go-to-ground/ European bonds reach historical minimum. http://news.yahoo.com/german-italian-spanish-government-bond-yields-hit-lows-110355235.html Most powerful German corporations suffer loses - stock down and jobs cutting. http://seekingalpha.com/news/2351086-sap-to-cut-2200-in-new-round-of-layoffs http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2015-03-25/german-companies-suffer-losses-russia Economical crisis coming into Europe, but naive Europeans think their economics can stay untouched. Dude, in modern world of global economics such exceptions just impossible, this crisis hurt to anyone. Actually only one reaction to Russian actions in Crimea can be - military intervention, but Murica (and Obama personally) so weak for this. For masking of own weakness they impose sanctions against Russia... but economic crisis in Russia certainly cause economic crisis in EU and global economic crisis. In result even US will suffer so much from this, it's a price of Murican elites stupidity. Dude I watch that exchange weekly. I use that exchange. Dollar-to-euro was like .80 cents, after sanctions it went up to .92, briefly hit .96 when Greece was screwing up AGAIN, now it's back down at .92. That does not equate with "Germany is suffering economically." It's a combination of multiple things. It means that in Russia's efforts to combat the dying ruble, they probably tried to get the dollar moreso than the euro, AKA demand for the dollar went up. It's also a simple matter of Greece. Google "euro" ffs and you'll find countless stories over the past few months about Greece. Greece is a huge economic liability. YOUR argument makes no sense because you're arguing a software company was forced into some lay-offs because of sanctions with Russia. You also seem to have not even read your second article regarding stocks down and job cutting. That article isn't saying "German companies are suffering due to sanctions," that article is saying "German companies underestimated the sanction and the severity of issues with the Russian economy and they lost some money over it. Many of them are now pulling out of Russia entirely in a belief the Russian economy will only get worse and will not be worth the effort." The article is about how you are royally screwed. You cannot imagine how bewildered I am right now. Germany is an economic powerhouse. One of the three largest economies in the world while having only a fraction of the population of the other two. The euro is not falling because of German struggles, the euro is falling because the euro encompasses the economies of multiple european states, amongst them Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, who all have rather lackluster economies with Greece being the worst of the lot. You are interpreting "the euro took some hits" as "ECONOMIC CRISIS" when googling "euro" or "greece" would make it clear what's going on. You are also failing to google the god damned ruble and see that the damned thing is dead in the water. I didn't know it was possible for a person to project their economic problems onto another country.... Listen, have fun sitting there with your smug belief things are better in Russia than they are in Germany. We'll be over here not even noticing any problems and yelling at Greece to get off their asses.

Is there any premade companion that isn't considered to have terriawful optimization?

She's my waifu. Just thought I'd let you all know so you know to back off. Thanks.

It's not THAT bad. I think what initially happens is that paradox of wanting to conserve on consumables. Yknow how it is: you have consumables that give buffs, but you think "I should save these for a tougher fight," but then when the tough fight comes you're practically forgetting they exist and the potential is wasted. After some time playing you get a feel for when to use their potential, (typically a case of "if you feel they'd be helpful now, then use it") and then they're plenty helpful. Though yeah I'll admit that in fights where you don't use them, they're the most useless **** ever. Another issue is that Ciphers just seem universally easier, while Rangers seem to be better for the fights where the Wizard's spells aren't used since Rangers tend to crit a lot.

How do you not like dramatic music wtf? I actually hate anime cause it's plots are so melodramatic and over-the-top, but I consistently find myself browsing anime music cause I think drama suits music well, and sure enough the music used is often dramatic....or that crappy Jpop stuff.

Hearing someone say your art isn't good is ALWAYS hard to hear, because I think there's this sense of "art cannot fully be taught" (not to say studying art isn't helpful, just I don't expect someone with no talent to suddenly become Beethoven, Picasso or Shakespeare through mere education alone) so you either have it or you don't, to a degree. That's not to say good musicians/writers/artists aren't without their failures. I know a painter living in Austria who got absolutely zero recognition in the US, but now they love him in Austria and he's got his own art studio in Vienna iirc. It's just that when someone criticizes your art, of course you second-guess if you're just not cut out for it or if it's a matter of improving. I actually played an MMO with one of the writers for Dishonored, and he was announcing to us when the game came out and asking us to go buy it. He even said he'd be interested in my opinion since I'd often raved about New Vegas' writing and ranted about Skyrim's. PURPOSEFULLY avoided buying that game because I'm terrible at lying, but also know how painful it can be to hear one's art criticized. To this day I haven't played it or looked up the story for the level he did. So yeah when I heard some of the songs it was kind of like a mental note to make this post cause I had a feeling it was hard to hear. I think I mentioned before that this song really set the mood of hearing the initiation speech to the Companions in Skyrim (in German, which as it so turns out is better voice acted and more dramatic) and made that moment memorable. The two songs of yours I linked in my first post had the exact same effect.

We are all upset we would go to jail if we threw a loud baby from an airplane in real life, but here? Here we can make such dreams come true.

The reload time on guns is like:

Are we talking about the same Germany and Russia....? Germany is an economic powerhouse, in some ways moreso than the USA when you simply factor in the relative size of Germany's economy given how much smaller it is population-wise; smaller economy, sure, but it never ceases to amaze me that Germany exported more goods than any other nation (including China) until like 2009. There's a reason Germany specifically comes up in such discussions. I'm just glad Greece is so lazy cause it keeps the Euro value in check so that when I need to convert my cash, it's not annoying as hell. Russia? Your ruble is crashing and burning. Why do you conclude from here that Germany is the one suffering for the sanctions?

BTW am I the only one that finds it hilarious that the backer who wrote that little poem eulogy is probably reading this thread quietly trying to decide if he wants to be known or not, seeing as how he's both somewhat infamous around the internet with the social justice crowd but without a doubt -THE- most famous and legendary Chanter of all time in Pillars of Eternity history?

How do I get my name in the credits too Do I buy you a beer

I remember during the Backer Beta a lot of us said the music was "meh" and did it's job but was otherwise nothing special. The guy that did the music came in the thread and was pretty chill considering we were sitting there calling his work mediocre. During the Backer Beta we saw Dryford Village, and admittedly the music there still isn't my favorite (though it's definitely been touched up some, I noticed), but was happy to see that it seemed like it was just bad luck we were showcased the area with the most mediocre music of the game, with the other songs all doing pretty excellent. Just felt like posting my appreciation for the music since wtf we still sat there and said "YA IT MEDIOCRE" and I'm happy to be wrong. Especially fond of these two gems, which both match their setting beautifully: Also yes I am aware those uploaders probably don't have permission to upload the songs, but also I gotta be real and say good luck Obsidian if you have any interest in keeping the songs off youtube. :c Mods feel free to remove the vids though and punch me in the groin if you want to.

How is this anti-trans? Seriously: How is it so hard to understand that a person who's completely straight might feel very conflicted and confused if they somehow wound up sleeping with a trans person? It's not insinuating that trans people are disgusting human beings that need to die or something outrageous like that, it's insinuating that waking up having realized you slept with the wrong gender is a pretty shocking experience for some people. As for the degree of the guy killing himself upon learning this fact? It's ****ing comedy - the twin brother of Tragedy in the family of Drama. It exaggerates. Either it's funny to you or it's not. Either is fine, but to take it serious as if the author of that poem is legitimately implying anyone would kill themselves over such a thing would be a grave mistake on your part. It's not saying trans people are disgusting. It's not saying the act itself is shameful. It's saying that if you're straight and accidently find yourself involved with someone your gender (and whether you like it or not, some people will consider you their gender; it's THEIR standards they're free to make for themselves), that's a pretty awkward and embarassing situation that calls a lot of things into question. (sexuality, intelligence....eyesight) If your response is that this is anti-trans because it offends you to know that not all straight men would be interested in sleeping with a trans person, welcome to reality.

Anyone mind explaining what exactly this bug is for those of us who don't know yet?