Elerond

I would change this to following: Increase DR by 2 for every wound that monk has.

I agree full upgraded Stronghold should give all those resting bonuses to you same time, and it isn't even that overpowered, when you compare it to inns that give you +6 attribute bonuses, and full stronghold would give you same +6 attribute bonuses and +5 skill bonuses. Now resting in inns is only reasonable thing to do, especially in late game as you aren't going to run out money any time soon if you have done even little bit of looting and selling stuff.

That is one thing where they are good, if they have high enough resolution (I would go with 2K display or with 4K if we speak over 13" 'tablets').

Except that it would not work well with end sequences slides which many of those lose ends have effects. So letting you do them after you have seen them would be just remove lots of consequences from doing those things and of course world is changed quite lot when you finally get back on surface. So they would need to ignore events that happen in Dyrwood after you come out from Sun in Shadow and how people react in the fact that there isn't any more hollowborn children and maybe how some of them got their souls back or they would need to write quite lot more reactivity so that people can go see their handiwork. Where we get in the actual point, they have decided to give you than PRE-ENDGAME save because they don't want you to travel in world that don't have any reactivity towards things that happened in Sun in Shadow and they don't have resources to spare to write such reactivity in the game.

There are timers for manual resolutions of stronghold attacks. Also, stronghold adventures expire. That's why I am concerned about bounties. I meant that there is no timers in quests and tasks. Stronghold events have timers that are either based on game world clock or stronghold turns.

I'd actually have liked that more than the figurines - for one thing it could have required more points in Lore for all chrs. to be able to use, vs. buying all the figurines and just dumping them on all chrs as perm. quick items. Anyway it just would have been nice if some crafting had felt more unique/fun, vs. largely about utility. I hope that they will add option to find more unique formulas like the one in that ruin near Dyrford, which would need some very rare/unique ingredients so that you can put them only one or max two items. It would had made enchanting weapons and armors much more interesting. I can't think anything that would make foods, potions and scrolls more interesting until you actually need them to complete the game, as now crafting them is nice to have but probably don't need it feature.

In my knowledge there is no timers in the game. So you can take as long as you want to do any of the quests and tasks in the game.

5/5 - not because I think that PoE is somehow perfect or even near perfect or that I don't find some of it features off putting or needing fixing, but it is game which Beta and Final versions have hold my attention over 200 hours, which means that it is good enough for me to enjoy it quite lot and therefore it's fair to give it full five stars.

Only game of those that is Obsidian's is PoE. BG I & II are Bioware's games and IWD I & II & PS:T are Black Isle's (which is company where some members of PoE's team worked before Obsidian) games Kotor II, NWN II (+ its expansions MotB and SoZ), Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas, Dungeon Siege III, South Park Stick of Truth, Pillars of Eternity and Armored Warfare are Obsidian's games.

...What about it? It would allow us to use this again

I think it is counted by enemy's level. Drake's are fifth level beasts, where Elder Lions (and every other creature that is marked as elder) are 9th level beasts. Non-elder stags, that aren't marked young, are 5th level beasts. Sky Dragon is level 10 and Adra Dragon is level 12. Adra Dragon is highest level monster in the game, but I suspect that some of the kith enemies have higher character level. So Sky Dragon should replace Stag (even if it is elder) as most powerful enemy defeated, but Drake should not replace Elder Lion, if my guess of how most powerful enemy defeated is determined. I don't know if they have any system that sorts same level monsters in some specific power order or is it determined by which you kill first.

World where gods have concrete influence in people's every day life by direct acts of power that people can easily perceive themselves it would be quite odd if they would start kill outright children that is marked by god, is such mark blessing or curse is debatable but marked by god anyway. Especially in area where they suffer something (Waidwen's Legacy[hollowborn children]) that they think is caused by people crossing will of the god, probably is even less willing to do anything that could anger gods more, even if they dislike or even fear how those who are marked by gods look. In ancient time Roman law had "The mother is always certain, the father is always uncertain" If your child does not look like the father there is a good chance/certainty that the wife was unfaithful. In a tightknit village community where everyone know everybody, having a child that does not look like you would be the source of ridicule. Having a child that looks like a monster would be much worse. Was your wife unfaithful with a demon? Was your wife unfaithful with another man and the demon child is a punishment from the gods? Knowing how cruel kids are when it comes to someone being perceived as different, how cruel would they be to the little demon spawn in the village? The game setting has a lot of superstitious people, it would be easy for there to be a drought or a crop blight and someone would spout off that it must be the demonspawn that caused it. People accused of witchcraft were drowned because witches are made of wood, if you float you are a witch and they kill you, if you sink you drown but are not a witch. In Roman times there was no gods that had ability impact with real force people's everyday life. People of Eora know that gods exist they can actually see how their powers work in world and have no doubts that it is gods that do those things. And so when you have child that bears mark of god in them even if you think that they look horrific because of that you most likely don't kill that child because you fear what gods can do to you. So people of Eora don't think that godlike children are demons or children of demons because they know for the fact that they are people marked by gods, although people of Eora aren't certain are those who bear mark of god blessed or cursed, as gods give only vague answers even those who they decide to give any answer for the question. And as you point out there is lot of superstitious people in Eora, who wouldn't in anyway want to cross the gods, which means that godlikes are probably of the all the races most unlikely to face violence because of their race. This of course don't mean that people necessary treat them well even if they think that they are blessed by gods, because they look strange (it is established in lore that most people find godlikes odd/strange looking ) and it is hard to treat people that you know are blessed/cursed by god/s as same as other people around you, and these things combined probably in most cases would make godlikes feel like they aren't really part of the community and that their are hard to establish relationships with other people where both treat each other equally (which is what setting's lore tell us how godlikes are usually treated and perceived).

They have already confirmed two expansions for the PoE, which all those who bought expansion add on or whose reward included expansion will get. So I would not be surprised if announcement for PoE2, if such will ever come (as PoE is currently Obsidian's worst selling game and worst game that they have ever done, if I should believe this thing that is called review from esteemed board of protectors of RPGs) will be sometime of next year or year 2017 or even later date.

They didn't have a publisher insisting on deadlines. They were on their own timetable. So how did they end up "not having enough time"? Sad fact is that even when you don't have publishers insisting on deadlines you need pay for your staff and when you run out of money you need to release product or bury(cancel) it regardless of how ready and polished it is.

Which other Estoc has those enchantments? Game has only these estocs if they haven't for some reason not used "estoc" in some estoc's file name. estoc_endless_paths.unity3d (Blade of the Endless Paths) estoc.unity3d (Normal Estoc) estoc_drakes_bell.unity3d (Drake's Bell) estoc_exceptional.unity3d (Exceptional Estoc) estoc_fine.unity3d (Fine Estoc) estoc_the_white_spire.unity3d (The White Spire)

None. It seems to just be a visual. It could be remnant of system (although I have my doubts) that would have worked as way to limit how much time player character has to solve their problem/s, but which has dropped because time limits to finish the game was seen as bad thing by lots of backers and/or they realized that it don't work well with how they want to tell the story and/or limit the players.

World where gods have concrete influence in people's every day life by direct acts of power that people can easily perceive themselves it would be quite odd if they would start kill outright children that is marked by god, is such mark blessing or curse is debatable but marked by god anyway. Especially in area where they suffer something (Waidwen's Legacy[hollowborn children]) that they think is caused by people crossing will of the god, probably is even less willing to do anything that could anger gods more, even if they dislike or even fear how those who are marked by gods look.

...maybe calling them 'lazy' is a more of an insult than I realized (and to be frank I still can't), but I am not going to apologize or feel bad for thinking that this is them taking the easy way out. And for me this is that in the end of the day...it's a bit like the situation with the Keep really.... ...but enough of that since it's really offtopic - continue discussing how pretty blue people are - very! Generally when you call somebody lazy it is viewed as insult usually quite bad one in every culture that I have had dealings with in my life. So it would be quite strange if you didn't know that calling somebody lazy is generally viewed as insult and I would say that it is quite cop out to claim such thing which is quite ironic when you claim that somebody else is taking easy way out. And it is strange that you say that they should do things like they are in BG2, which gives you option to make custom silent party from beginning (addition to unique NPC companions that you can find allover) without even trying to make it as part of game world.

So there can't be an oldschool FPS? If you can move your cross hair in non-horizontal directions then I refuse to acknowledge their old schoolness

Dunno man, that's one of aspects I didn't quite like in PoE. C&C seem irrelevant, within 10 minutes of act3 I had the following happening ("translated" into spoiler-free speech): 1. NPC: please do this horrible thing for me Me (a holier-than-holy pally): No, I won't. [ending the dialogue] Quest journal: "New Quest: Do the horrible thing" That don't actually has anything to do with C&C it may be poor way to mark quests that you don't want to do in your journal, but it don't anyway impact on your choices and their consequences. If I choose not to do a quest, surely I don't expect it to pop up as "active" in my journal. It feels like 4th wall breaking: "Hi player, we know your PC refused this quest, but we, the developers, want you to do it nonetheless, so here's the entry in your journal". That's just ignoring my choice, to be honest. But it don't have anything to do with C&C, but how information about quest that you have refused to do are marked. Marking them up just show that your character knows that there are person in the game that is interested you to do something and you are free to ignore it, or change your mind or find way to go against that person. But if journal text don't match your refusal then there is problem in how quest is marked in the journal, but still it don't have anything to do with C&C, because it is not choice nor it is consequence it is just information that is marked up so that player has easier time to recollect information they have learned.

Dunno man, that's one of aspects I didn't quite like in PoE. C&C seem irrelevant, within 10 minutes of act3 I had the following happening ("translated" into spoiler-free speech): 1. NPC: please do this horrible thing for me Me (a holier-than-holy pally): No, I won't. [ending the dialogue] Quest journal: "New Quest: Do the horrible thing" That don't actually has anything to do with C&C it may be poor way to mark quests that you don't want to do in your journal, but it don't anyway impact on your choices and their consequences.

I have found some other backgrounds that have similar problems, which is left me wondering if there has been communication disconnect or did they change background options after initial writing to make them seem more unique but writing was never brought to date.

No, but I feel totally within my rights for calling out a name that sounds stupid. And fampyr sounds stupid. Fampyr is actually only one of their made up monsters whose name don't sound stupid or weird in my ears, but that maybe that is because I am Finnish and it sounds about same as our word for vampire (vampyyri), if you drop final syllabe.

What it now let you find information from souls of dead people, which let you progress in story and solve and do things that weren't necessary part of main plot, but still quite important part of the story as whole. But maybe those things don't count.

I find this review lacking objectivity, which just show how corrupt gaming media is these days. In my opinion we need much better journalistic standards and we should all boycott this media outlet until they fix their review standards... Isn't that the line we should use these days or did that already drop out from fashion?