Stun

First, 14 years later, I would never claim that BG2 is difficult. Second, do we need this silly hyperbole? Third, working in unison with an inquisitor (You mean Keldorn?) or any other party member to make things easy, is not an argument to the powerfulness of Wizard slayers. It just means your inquisitor and your other party members were the ones who took care of mages. Because paladins, clerics, mages and thieves are the overpowered classes. BG2 is about Loot and magic. Wizard slayers can't use any loot but armor, weapons and healing potions. And they most certainly don't have access to magic. That makes them underpowered in BG2 by definition. That's not how the Beta played out for me. Nor is it a description of Josh's game design philosophies. AT ALL. In my playthroughs of this beta, a naked mage (yes naked. see the gear disappearing loot bug) was not even remotely ineffective in combat...melee or otherwise.

You mean speculate? It's neither. It's resources. They had more than $4M to work with for their other games.

Until they nerf Rifles, Ranged will always be a more viable combat style for a fighter than melee.

Indeed.

^well that's... a pretty darn well-written argument, Junta. You have earned another 'Like" from me. Also, I'm suddenly conflicted on whether I should start a new PS:T playthough or throw the CDs in the trash. Of course, PS:T, whether it's a good example of anything or not, is almost always the bizzaro exception to every rule. On paper, it's the worst RPG ever made. 1) No Gender or race choices. A fixed protagonist, with only 3 class options (like Dragon age! But worse) 2) you can't wear armor 3) you can't use missile weapons of any type (in fact, no one can, save for 2 NPCs) 4) the weapons and spell choices you do have are ridiculously limited 5) Combat is horrendously, hideously, unthinkably, terrible 6) It's an exceedingly ugly game 7) It's filled to capacity with fetch quests 8.) the Modron cube <ugh> 9) The goal is to die. 10) The loot is silly 11) It's party based, yet aside from a couple of exceptions, you cannot equip your companions with anything, or choose their weapons, or customize them in any way 12) Nothing is tactical, nothing is strategic, 13) you can't die, and you can resurrect your party members 3 times a day if they die, but they never will because: 14) Healing charms are stackable to 99, and you can pause the game and consume as many as you wish. The effects are instant. Thus insuring immortality of your party members. 15) The Pacing is the worst of any game I've ever played. 16) It rewards unpredictablilty, as you just mentioned + the grinding (although that's purely optional, since even leveling is not of significant importance in the game) Yet, somehow, PS:T manages to be the greatest RPG ever made. Art is intangible, I suppose.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this? Because I was going to cite PS:T as the perfect example from beginning to end. That is - it's a perfect example of a game that grants rather large XP rewards --and-- it gives the player endless opportunities to XP-grind every dungeon (the Abishai endlessly respawn in Baator; everything in the Clerk ward sewer endlessly respawns; then there's the modron cube etc), yet at the same time the narrative was so powerfully presented that anyone with a drop of Role-playing in their blood was instinctively drawn to the non-violent, RP options whenever they were presented. (who the hell ever killed Cassius, when you could just pick his pocket and verbally shame him to his face for XP instead) I'd go so far as to say that PS:T is the only RPG you'll ever play where you felt like you were talk grinding for XP. In any case, yes, The structure/pacing makes a giant difference in whether the absence of XP will feel alright or whether it will feel like you're looking at the Mona Lisa and the head is missing. PS:T would have been fine without Kill XP. And BG2 would have been fine with just encounter and quest XP. The Icewind Dales, on the other hand, would have been insufferable disasters without kill XP. But you've played the PoE beta. You don't need our speculation. How did level advancement feel in it to you? To me it felt wrong. It felt exactly as I thought it would feel. And it wasn't just because I got nothing for killing lions beetles and cultist. Successfully Solving the Dragon Egg situation should have rewarded me XP. They presented it as a problem that required significant skill to overcome. XP rewards for it should have been 1) get the egg down from the next = XP, then 2) return the egg to the alchemist = quest completion XP.

It's heavily influenced by 4e. It doesn't have to be an exact replica for MC's point to ring true

What? LOL no. First off, contrary to the strange arguments being put forth on this thread, Kill XP and Role playing are not mutually exclusive motivators. They have existed in complete harmony since the inception of the CRPG itself. Can we please stop pretending they're at cross-purposes, already? It's insulting. Second, Obsidian has decided to scrap kill XP because It's far easier for them to control and balance the pace of level advancement in an open world when they don't have to account for the XP of every enemy kill in every crevice of every room in every map...for every difficulty setting. Instead, they can simply hand place specifically calculated XP rewards where they wish and then add it all up and make sure the XP cap isn't reached by anyone when they still have 50% of the game left to play. (Example: what kill xp did to BG1)

Hilarious (and alarmingly naïve) to think that Obsidian's decision to scrap kill XP had anything to do with trying to enrich the roleplaying experience. It did NOT. Also: Indeed. Now we have a system where you'll be forced to kill things anyway... even if you think it's a bad idea. Three cheers for "role-playing"!.

And this isn't a thread about early D&D anyway. It's about BG2. Trying to equate early D&D to the designs and systems that were actually implemented in BG2 is silly. It's like saying "No way in hell will I ever touch French Champaign if it's the last beverage on earth, Because when I was younger, I used to drink Bud Light and I couldn't stand it!"

Sweet merciful F*ck. I said NEGATIVE. I'm advocating real penalties for stats that are dumped to 3. I'm advocating a system similar to BG2. In BG2 if a weapon does 10 damage (base), and you have 3 strength, you're only going to do 6 damage (assuming the game lets you lift that weapon in the first place). Because 3 str = -4 damage penalty. So lets redo your chart, Mayama. Might starts at 1. Sword base damage is 10 10 + 1 might = 1 damage 10 + 2 might = 2 damage 10 + 3 might = 3 damage 10 + 4 might = 4 damage 10 + 5 might = 5 damage 10 + 6 might = 6 damage 10 + 7 might = 7 damage 10 + 8 might = 8 damage 10 + 9 might = 9 damage 10 + 10 might = 10 damage And then the bonuses begin 10 + 11 might = 11 damage 10 + 12 might = 12 damage 10 + 13 might = 13 damage 10 + 14 might = 14 damage 10 + 15 might = 15 damage 10 + 16 might = 16 damage 10 + 17 might = 17 damage 10 + 18 might = 18 damage 10 + 19 might = 19 damage 10 + 20 might = 20 damage Thus a character with 1 might is dealing just 1 damage when swinging a 10-damage sword, while a character with 20 might is dealing 20 damage with that same sword. I call this a functional difference. Not just a presentation difference. But Note: I would also recommend that since PoE operates on a much higher Health wavelength (spiders have 150 health. And even a 5th level wizard has almost 100 health IIRC) that the bonuses and penalties to damage be suitably adjusted.

LOL well no. I'd want there to be a functional difference. Ok, just going off the top of my head(numbers are probably way off) I believe Rogues get 17 health per level (base) after level 1. If we were to impose Con penalties on a rogue, then a rogue with 3 con would get a percentage of that deducted every time they level up. Same thing with Might. if the base damage on a Pike is 27-42, then someone with 3 might would do less than that with his Pike.

Have you tried it or are you just talking out of your khyber? I dare you. Create two wizards. Pump CON and RES on one, and dump CON and RES on the other. Kit both up in brigandine and put them on the front line. Play on Normal or Hard. Then come back and tell us, hand on heart, that there was no difference between the two. Yes PrimeJunta I tried it. And if there were any con or might based differences between the two I didn't notice them. When my priest healed me, I healed up all the way, just like my 3 con wizard. And when I smacked people with my stiletto, my damage looked exactly the same (although to be honest, I didn't have a Microsoft Excel sheet open to literally compare) What made the big difference was that the Wizard class in this game lets me wear heavy armor and a shield to compliment Arcane veil and mirror image

I agree. Now if we could only go back and unpost/erase your fanatical and repeated BG2 bashing on this thread, we'd be able to cite you as the honest voice of reason! But until then, nice to meet you Mr. Pot. I'm Kettle. You're Black.

So do you dislike the presentation as all bonuses, the magnitude of each point spent, or both? I'd agree that magnitude should be increased, but have no feelings about the presentation as I initially pump attributes to 10 anyways. Both. First, yes. The magnitude. It needs to be turbo charged. When the difference between 3 Might and 18 might is less than 5 points of damage for someone wielding a Greatsword, (and it's exactly that way for every stat) then there's no real point. The entire stat system is little more than illusion - something there to make people feel like they're actually engaged in meaningful customization when they really aren't. They're simply fine tuning. Someone here did a thread about his "Muscle Wizard". He was quite happy to discover that after pumping his Might and Con to 18, his Wizard seemed to be pretty effective blasting monsters away on the front lines. But the fact of the matter is that it wasn't stat pumping that made his wizard a decent front liner. It was the wizard class itself. he could have dumped his might and con to 3 and he wouldn't have noticed the difference. Second, the presentation... mainly that there's no penalties for stat dumps and no sweet spot in the middle to represent 'standard' (ie. neither bonuses nor penalties). There's just Bonuses, from the bottom to the top. Even people that *agree* that both of these are issues still don't understand the implications here. They think it's simply a matter of "oversight" or "hehehe just needs some tweaking!" when both of these, in fact, represent a design goal that Josh Sawyer has been adamant about since Day 1: That New players who don't understand the system should feel free to character build however they want without fear of ending up with tragically weak builds.

But.... But.... No bad builds! Dont you get it IT DOESNT MAKE A DIFFERENCE where you put the average. If you start with 3 and give +5% good looks for every point after that or if you start with 10 and substract 5% if its lower or add +5% if its higher doesnt make a freaking difference. Bullsh*t. If we had a system like the one Namutree suggested (where 18 = 100% increase in the benefit and 3 = 100% penalty), and we made a rogue with 3 con and 3 might, it would be a bad build. Or more relevantly, it would be just as bad a build as a fighter in BG2 who dumped his Con and Strength all the way.

But.... But.... No bad builds! I would never advocate such a pointless, banal system How about we make 10 the standard, and then anything less incurs increasing penalties, while anything more grants increasing bonuses? You'd begin seeing massive differences then. As such a system would actually have a meaningful effect on builds. lol Number tweaking. It would constitute a philosophy change. As crap builds would become possible.

So you think: - offscreen web, offscreen cloud kill, offscreen fireball fireball fireball - enter room of a deadly mage, leave room, wait out his spells, kill him - getting tons of movement speed / actions by stacking haste spells - getting 25 charisma with rod of terror + ring of charisma - abusing double regen effect while hasted - using the guard button to shot through doors - blocking doors with eye of the wizard was fun? Oh what a great argument. Lets talk about exploits and confirmed bugs only. Because that's all BG2 was about, after all. In PoE, if you equip all of your characters with rifles, you can break the demo, as there isn't a single encounter that can't be steamrolled effortlessly by doing so. Therefore, PoE sucks. </mayama logic>.

Actually, they made a system where every stat can be dumped with no penalty at all. No, worse than that. They made a system where you can dump every stat to 3 and still receive bonuses. Dumping your Barbarian's Might to 3 will cause him to receive a +10% boost to damage and healing. Same goes with the functions of every stat. It's the casual gamer's dream system. Makes class building idiot proof.

That was just the *first* time I discovered an underpowered class build. Later I discovered a few others. The Beastmaster druid build is fundamentally underpowered. Of course, "challenge" is only part of all of this. The first time you discover a ridiculously overpowered build is also one of those magical moments in BG2.

Of course you ain't alone. Run for President and I'll vote for you. You've touched on one of the things I value immensely in the IE games and especially BG2: No Fairness Guarantees. They were *SO* anti-"play-the-game-once-crowd". For example, I loved BG2 the minute I got my hands on it. But I didn't truly appreciate just how utterly great it was until my 4th or 5th playthrough when I rolled up a Wizard Slayer. I thought that since I had an extensive AD&D background, and since I had played the previous IE games to death (BG1, IWD, PS:T) and since This was my 4th or 5th playthrough of BG2, that it wouldn't matter what the class skill-set was. The bottom line in my mind was that I memorized the game and therefore, Game dominance was assured. Nope! Didn't happen that way at all! I found myself getting thrashed like a clueless n00b by a game that seemed to take issue with my smug arrogance and delusions of mastery. As I quickly discovered, Wizard Slayers were simply one of the classes designed for the pros. They were mechanically underpowered. The game can be beat with them of course, but Bioware didn't give a sh*t about "fair", "diplomatic" crap like Level Playing Fields, and "equality for all". As a result, it felt like a brand new game all over again. And this intrigued me so much that I redoubled my efforts to recapture the moment. for the next 13 years I'd explore hundreds of different builds, I'd "throttle" the game's mechanics to the breaking point and I'd routinely fall in love with the game all over again as I discovered other builds that were decidedly weaker (and stronger) than each other. PoE isn't gonna give us that even if it ends up being an excellent game. Because all of the above is in direct opposition to Josh's design philosophies.

If anyone here is complaining that you can't make a viable INT/PER fighter, or even a viable RES/PER fighter then they're just blind guessing. They haven't actually tried it. You can make a viable anything fighter in PoE because the class itself is viable right out of the box already. The stats in this game don't change this. They're *bonuses*.

Right: sorry, my bad. I missed that part. I will concede then that yes, a low-WIS cleric is viable in AD&D. No, It was my fault, I literally typed "D&D" when I was making my Cleric example, instead of AD&D. I meant the latter. we were discussing the latter.

Yes. Someone needs to mass email this to Obsidian. And then sticky it at the top of the page for everyone else. Stat design is a big deal. It's current state in PoE is not right and we all know it. Fixing it the way you describe will distinguish this game from every streamlined, casual-friendly RPG to come out in the last decade.

Technically you could be multiclassing and don't plan on going above spell level four. We were talking about AD&D, anyway. Clerics with 9 wisdom in AD&D can learn Cleric spells of every level. They just don't receive bonus spells.