[Allow me to make stupid decisions, please....]

I'd imagine the bonus is for any skill you have a class for that you have points in, not it requiring you do it 'at' level 1. That and you would still have to have the class 'with' said skills as there core skills to even get a +3. I like the idea of a bonus like that, didn't even know pathfinder did that but I'm not up to date on Pathfinder like I should be. Personally I feel +3 is a bit to low in general to be a real difference, more so in a game with so many ways to bring skills up artificially. But I prefer that idea over the half-point thing for sure, less gimpy, easier to multiclass stuff since your not skimping on stuff you feel is your top few skills.

 

-edit-

Oh I really hope PE has some kinda multiclassing in place, always loved that option.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

You know what that reminds me of, for some awkward reason, Soulknife. I hope they have a line of Psionic Weaponry powers the Cipher can use. I'd love to make a Cipher that makes 2 mind blades for dual wielding. Always loved how later on they could even throw there short swords and rematerialized them as many attacks as they had, pretty snazzy stuff.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

If there was a talent, for magical bone wands that shank out of the top of your hand like wolverine that not only lets you stab fewls but shoot magical ****... ehh, yes? I'd make a damn wolverine mage and throw boneclaw magic at everything in sight!

[IWD2 - Game Killer for PE? Noooooo!]

@Malekith: Exactly my point more or less. And yeah, GUi, IWD2 had the best of them as far as im concerned. But it didn't take up so much of the damn screen. Very compact awhile ultimately having more depth in information and details then the past games... very good stuff. Also yeah good point on BG3, kinda feels like there second chance at it to some extent.

 

Curious if they'll get to work with beamdog if the BG3 thing ever actually does make it off the ground with Trent. I mean BG3 made with PE advancements and both teams coopin' it could be an exciting thing. Another discussion for another time (that may never arrive).

[Thoughts on the "resting" mechanic.]

Last update makes it look like you will actually need to rest to use spells instead of them being on a timer. Which leads me to believe some use abilities will be on timers instead and grimiore swapping (aka, spell 'sets') will have a cooldown on swapping. Looks like they're using a per day/per encounter setup with spells (at least for Wizards and Priests). Basically you have to rest to get your spells back, if your high enough level your low end spells will become per encounter meaning they auto-reset when a fight is over. DnD terms it would be like always having 5 magic missiles to use in every fight you go into once your say, lvl 5 or higher. Lets mages be useful magically on a consistent basis while keeping the higher more powerful spells on a more controlled basis.

 

Also you have to rest to regain health and it's the only way to get health back. Stamina exists as a means to, ultimately, extent your character's life bar by 4 times while still acting like it's normal in any given encounter. That's putting it a bit simple but its the jist of it. Say you have 50 health as per example above, say you have 50 stamina to go along with it in the new system (these may not actually be perfectly matched in game mind you). You lose stamina at a 4:1 ratio to health so you lose all 50 stamina in a fight you get knocked out and your health is at 37-38. You can basically do that 2 more times before you absolutely need to rest. It basically adds more risk while extending the time to rest... it's a good system.

 

Stamina will regenerate quickly out of battle (and not in battle with out aid). Basically it's kind of like DAO super-quick health regen out of combat except your companions and your character can die even if the rest of the teams still conscious. It just adds a bit more to manage while keeping 'how' often we have to rest (either by design or flaw) to a minimum.

 

-edit-

Also a well made Sandwich is delicious.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

I could see that being a really fun NPC party member of some kind. Also, heh, Wandsman.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

Yeah, they could easily tie in other spell casting stuff to the talents like extra casts per day or number of spells known per tome or something that ultimately makes it choice vs other options for sure. They've made pretty clear, in either case, that spell books are basically going to function as pre-sets of what you have available at any time for the higher end stuff (im guessing past tier 1 or 2). And being able to swap between them out of combat will be one of there ways to avoid constant resting when you run up against some crazy encounter you need something you don't normally keep prepared. That and use-per-day is handled more like a sorcerer... ehh.

 

Anyway I'd love to see some kinda off hand or staff or something that enhances spells so dual wanding (that still just sounds hilarious btw) would provide a combat style trade off of some sort for sure. very curious where they go with all there magic stuff one way or another. Also, wands are silly.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

Yeah, as I mentioned before I'd love, absolutely LOVE to see some of the Warlock Eldritch blast ideas make its way into the wizard. I'd actually play one if they did that. I mean they stated wanted to have a difference between some constant use stuff and the grimoire/tome/magy book stuff. Then again looks like they're current design has tier 1 (and 2 maybe) eventually become 'per encounter' which I'd imagine means its timer resets everytime combat is over which is a nifty way to go about ensuring mages always have something to do in later levels.

 

Anyway, Warlock stuff I was mentioning. Basically for anyone unfamiliar with it you started with a magic dmg based bolt (hit 1 target). You could get specific Warlock invokes that allowed you to replace the energy type (say to fire, or acid) and replace the shape of the blast. So you could turn the single target bolt of magic dmg into an acidic cone spray, or acidic chained bolt that hit 3 targets (but ignored party members for group friendly firing). They had a lot of different 'energy' types beyond the basic dmg along with buncha other shapes like fireballs or novas or extending the range of the blast.

 

Something like that as a base feature as an 'auto-attack' where you pick a shape-style and energy source and your wizard just blasts away with it till you use another spell could be interesting. I think though you'd want to tone down the 'shapes' due to all the other spells, something simple to mimic weapon use. Could do a single blast allowing something in the off hand, dual wield the blasts for a quicker volley, or double-up on it for a more powerful singular blast. Would allow for the weapon like 'styles' and also let wizards spend there talents on increasing the kind of elemental dmg they could do with that.

 

It would ultimately have to be relatively weak in comparison to spells though, DnD terms i'd probably keep it around 1d6 or so, maybe + from attributes up to a limit (based on level). Warlocks was more powerful, 1d6 every other lvl for awhile, ended at 9d6 by 20... basically infinite fireballs at that point, bit excessive for what im thinking of. As a site note, the wizard example in last update showed a starting ability to added a blast to wand use. They may already have something like that in, may require wands though, or just talents that amplify wand useage or something, I dunno. Still think wands are stupid though but that's a personal preference heh.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

Yeah only major difference is its a physical object your character is holding. Why I think mages should have an magical based auto-attack function, based around weapons or not. Doubt we'll actually be equipping grimoire's but then again maybe we will. If we do probably wont be a weapon slot though. Ahh I dunno I just don't think it'll feel the same but I agree mechanically it's would all kind of be the same. Though considering you'd be opening the book to read a spell from it (in PE's case) dual wielding would severely hamper your ability to flip pages.

 

If they had some kinda dual-wield metamagic that let you cast 2 spells simultaneous if you set up the combo ahead of time. Kinda like weapon sets, I think that would be a mechanically interesting spell combo'ing thing. Not sure how they'd handle that but I could see it just showing up as another tiered use in the spell book, maybe you'd get 1 slot to combo spells up. Only reason im thinking of it that way is in a turn based game (full turn based) all this could be handled easily. Real time though presents a lot of useability issues, outside of being able to pause when you want. They'd need some kind of setup prior to combat to really allow for a lot of that. It's one reason they didn't do multi-target on magic missile in the other games.

 

Anyway I agree it's a feasible possibility, they'd just need to come up with some interesting methods for it, user interface wise.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

I agree to some extent but my point came down to dual wielding only really works if its the auto-attack, or base attack. You can make a use-skill that 'requires' dual wielding, but mechanically it functions the same as other use stuff which spells are. You have to manually select it, you have to watch said animations out and so on. So with that in mind IF mages have an auto-attack like thing they can do (with out staffs, or with 'wands' I guess, though wands are stupid) then it makes sense to allow dual wielding to me.

 

Hell giving wizards and priests, either/or, a ranged magic attack that can be used as there 'auto' attack and allowing that to be dual wielded or with a shield which cuts down on the damage or something I could see being interesting. But mechanically, trying to dual wield a fireball just results in 2 fireballs at the same time and it, to me at least, seems kind of pointless then.

 

So base auto-attack spell thing that can be doubled up on for speedy attacks... yes. Dual wielding 'use' abilities makes no sense mechanically.

 

-edit-

Spell splitting like the fireball I can see being real interesting though I'll give ya that. I don't really consider that 'dual wielding' though. Always liked when games let you split up targets with magic missile like PnP does though. Anyway I could see the spell splitting happen, they could call it dual wielding spells if they wanted but I just can't see that really being 'dual wielding' in the same sense as 2 weapons. Ultimately that, to me at least, falls into the same category as 'dual daggers' being a single item. And no idea how they would handle allowing you to do 2 completely different spells at the same time with out some kind of forced pause feature for it.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

I think with something like the 3E Warlock where the base ability is flinging eldritch bolts that 'dual wielding' it makes sense. Complex spells or priest rites or psionics just... none of that really makes any sense for dual wielding it. Untill the spell just comes down to you flinging a bolt with just your 1 hand, makes no sense.

 

-edit-

Keep in mind, the Warlocks base ability might as well be an auto-attack for the class in a cRPG sense. Think there is an epic feat for Warlocks in 3E that lets you fire 2 per turn as well which could easily be considered dual wielding it.

[IWD2 - Game Killer for PE? Noooooo!]

Engine and game rules is all they had in common was my point. I personally enjoyed IWD more then IWD2, though I absolutly love 3E over 2E. Just far more complex in character builds, really loved that in IWD2. They definitely had the better visuals but then so did PST. That's less to do with IWD vs BG and more to do with a BioWare vs Black Isle. BioWare, at the time, had literally just moved in to games instead of medical software (which was the original reason for making BioWare). Black Isle made games before this and, as far as im concerned, have always been better on the visual department then BioWare for a long time.

 

KoTOR is about when BioWare made more of a shift towards the games looking better. Either way they've literally stated in multiple interviews and on there stuff they want a game more structured like BG2 with some added free exploration like BG. I was going off what they've said, and every time IWD had come up they've stated PE will be less like that then the other games. But yeah graphically, I expect PE to look damn good because Obsidian is good at making spell graphics and whatnot... it'll look real nice.

 

-edit-

As a side note I completely forgot it had puzzles but then I still haven't finished IWD2. When they got to the cave **** that was re-used from IWD1 I kinda had lost interesting. Replayed a few times up to that but I always just kinda stop when I get to the 'heres the IWD stuff over again'. Puzzles never really put me off either way, I just didn't find the story as interesting as the first game and ultimately get bored of it before i hit the end.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

@Osvir: my Barb/Psion who dual wields, more often then not, uses a 2H weapon. Greatsword or a Maul (almost always holding a maul). His reasoning for the maul is just to deal with locked doors or locks and pretty much always drops it to actually fight which I, personally, always found amusing in RP since everyone expected the bulky barbarian to flail around the maul. But I always liked using a 2-hander to mess around with up till I ran into something I needed to really go all out on - if he raged, he dual wielded. Didn't matter what he was using, he'd drop his weapon and take out the bastards and rage and just go wild on whatever.

 

A lot of that was driven by the myth of Miyamoto Musashi, master at dual wielding but in many of his legends often used other weapons because he either just wanted to, or did so as a means to throw his opponent off. Always liked the idea of being a master at 1 thing but spending a lot of your time messing with something your inferior at for the sake of your own enjoyment. It's like when I used to play ping pong in middle school, me and a friend got a bit to good at it, and started playing left handed to have a new learning experience with the game.... and we'd still often win out against others but it ultimately was just amusing.

 

So yeah, I agree being able to unsheath a single weapon of your 2 as a starter with out having to have a second like weapon or other to do that would be nice. Generally less inventory management to do that kind of thing would be nice. BG had that issue with how it handled DW'ing in that once you did, you couldn't really use anything else but swap out your main hand... which is just awful. So if nothing else, hopefully each weapon set is just that, let me use a pair of swords and a 2h'er as separate sets with out inventory management mid combat.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

That... didn't make any sense. Also, ability 'use' is different then general auto-attack stuff. I don't think your going to use chain lightning as a standard auto-attack you can 'dual wield up on' or 'use both hands to make stronger'. It's a spell, it takes time, then it does a lot of dmg often on a large scale.

 

Unless its Skyrim, then dual wielding lightning is good stuff and combining is kinda a waste with out abusing there system.

[Main Character Dies... Game over or...?]

We don't know the exact details of the story but we do know that your playing your character, that an event happens at the beginning that your character is effected by (and really only your character before you get party members) and that's what the story revolves around. That's the main reason your character is 'important' to the main story, it's around this supernatural phenomenon. We also know they want to structure the general game like BG2 but with some extra wilderness exploration like BG - that being a mix of the 2 games general exploration types.

 

Now, generally speaking, I don't think the NPC party members (aka, ones you don't make) should be something YOU have control over, conversation wise. I do think they should chime in though. Either forcibly on there own and/or as something you can initiate by directly asking the party for advice or to help out or whatever. But in the end, your playing the PC, not the Party in the RP department (the non-combat). The NPC have there own lives, there own personalities, and you have no control over that... so when they speak up, it should be 'them' speaking up (that being, Obsidians lines, not you picking lines for them).

 

-edit-

Edited for some clarification - also just read up on the game and premise, a lot of these 'we don't know or we do know'... we really do know, they've stated as much.

[Main Character Dies... Game over or...?]

See now it being the 'end' of the game not a 'anytime' thing... that's different, that they could add as any number of mid dungeon like consequences and you keep with the party to the end. Dead at any time causes some giant hurtles so... yeah. Either no player made protagonist and it's all 'party members' that're interchangeable (even with great personalities are stories of there own). Or this dying near the end (as a possibility), one of those 'better get your **** done before we go, this'll probably be the last opportunity' things.

 

-edit-

@Karkarov: That, and I wouldn't of kickstarted it at aaalll. I want me some BG2, PST masterpiece goodness in story and whatnot. Not another IWD game heh.

[Main Character Dies... Game over or...?]

Yeah, I don't think in general that there needs to be a 'main hero' to make a story great, but to have any meaningful relationships and character growth and attachment you need a protagonist that can't just be offed and have the game continue. Every game where that would work is ultimately an Icewind dale style game where your characters, quite literally, don't matter at all and have no personality. They're literally chess pieces. You don't grow relationships between your characters and other NPC, you don't build up one thing or another or pick factions over other factions. The general level of complexity in your interactions has to be cut to allow for that.

 

Again, not to say the overall idea is a bad one, I have no doubt it could be turned into a very fun and interesting game. It just wouldn't be a very good RPG if you have no real character development or growth between your character and NPC's in the world. RTS, a 'tactics' game, something more linear where all the story is 100% NPC driven that are mostly telling you what to do outside of you making actual choices... yeah.

 

-edit-

Oh roguelikes also kinda come to mind, you die and you play as a completely new random hero but with the pre-knowledge of what you've done and keep going and going till you manage to clear more and more stuff. ZombiU kinda manages something like that from my understanding.

 

As for a protagonists view on mechanics or was that not having one and killing mechanics? I didn't play BG2 or IWD2 any different from each other as far as combat. Just because if my 'main' died I was forced to reload didn't mean I kept them out of harms way. More often then not if I had an NPC I actually gave a damn about or hadn't completed there main quest (in BG2 for instance) I'd just reload anyway since I didn't enjoy dealing with the resurrection mechanics of hauling equipment around or ensuring I had a res memmed and all that.

 

That and there 2-bar health system (Stamina and health) will ultimately allow for your main to get knocked out, even on super hardcore modes, with out dying and let you keep fighting (they'll just be in sleepy time). Probably a good idea to ensure you move the fight away from sleepin' beauty though, don't need a fireball ruinin' their slumber. Either way my first chars gonna be a Barbarian, preferably dual wielding, and you better believe he'll be up front slaughtering fewls... and probably passing out a good few number of times from being overwhelmed in all his furious fury.

[Main Character Dies... Game over or...?]

Yeah no resurrection magic what so ever. And you also don't play other characters in BG2/PST. I wasn't playiing as Annah in PST, I didn't pick dialog choices for her, it would of been pointless to continue if the nameless one truly died via bring grinded up or burned to ash. In the whole of the baldur's gate series while your not a 'chosen' one if your main dies, and again you haven't been RP'ing for ANY of the other characters (sorry but walking and combat isn't really the RP'ing part) there is no point to continuing on. And PE is going to have a story where you (before you have a party) experience some supernatural event that makes you unique to the story in some way.

 

As for someones Robin Hood example, if an RPG did that where your 'main dude can die' and it doesn't matter I'd imagine you wouldn't be Robin Hood. You'd probably be one of his 'merry men' and Robin hood would just be tossing out missions and if you died you just played another random merry man and so on and so on. IWD1-2 are the only real examples in games past where the 'main' dying wouldn't matter... but that's because there wasn't a main. You made 6 characters, sure you could consider 1 the main but if they died you could literally replace them with a new char if you wanted or decide to carry on with out that slot filled.

 

IWD1-2 where fun and interesting games but they weren't big RP experiences. They where linear dungeon crawlers. They took infinity engine games, and turned them into Diablo with more tactical combat with a party system and arguably better stories. None of which stands up against BG1-2 or PST for RPG'ness. Just lacks the character development, attachment and general freedom in what to do.

[Main Character Dies... Game over or...?]

If its the 'party' not the main character there is no point in having a main character in the first place, at which point we're talking JRPG territory. Also once the main char doesn't matter, the less impact you get to have in general or attachment to a character you have. From what they've said some 'event' occurs you happen to be by and a lot of the main story revolves around whatever that is and it's ultimately how and why your involved with any of it.

 

Basically, the only kind of event I could see where you could 'die' and come back would be a PST style and its due to this event. Something about your soul constantly reviving you or some such is about the only thing I can see happening and I doubt they'll even do that due to all there other hard modes where death is death and all that.

 

Either way removing your main character as some method to try and make the game more detailed aint gonna work. It just removes any attachment or your making another JRPG and that's not much of an RPG.

[Level scaling and its misuse]

New Vegas had generally little scaling. It has encounter scaling like BG, though bit more broad and some areas where completely cut off at early lvls due to monster lvls.

 

-edit-

Last game I can think of that had heavy level scaling was Oblivion. Both Fallout 3 and New Vegas didn't have any and used encounter scaling in some areas. NV had an extremely small amount of it comparatively.

[IWD2 - Game Killer for PE? Noooooo!]

Main reason I think IWD2 or IWD1 for that matter is a bad example of what to expect as a whole? They weren't BG style games period. They where 'tactical' dungeon crawlers. They didn't exist to give you choices and in depth characters, they existed for the sole purpose of giving you combat and telling a little story on the side. That's why they where so linear in comparison. Puzzle or otherwise doesn't matter - it was all tactical combat scenarios one after another with a party of up to 6 you made entirely on your own. Very little character development in NPC beyond your mindless party members.

 

So outside of interesting combat scenarios you'd like or dislike to see again most of those games are a moot point to PE. BG1/2, PST - that's the bulk of what they're referring to as to what PE is meant to be an advancement on. It's like looking at FF Tactics and expecting the next awkward FF game to be a copy of that or have issues because of that - separate beasts, though maybe a bad example since in JRPG standards, tactical games tend to be more complex, where as over here it's the other way around as far as whole game complexity. IWD series just had more interesting combat scenarios.

[IWD2 - Game Killer for PE? Noooooo!]

It's not really a suspicion, they specifically said a mix of BG2 and BG exploration, though more BG2 oriented. From what I gather with there expansion is multiple zone cities like BG2, with some surrounding areas to explore like BG, and then further fast-travel locations like BG2.

[IWD2 - Game Killer for PE? Noooooo!]

Yeah IWD2 forest was another big puzzle thing. I can't see them doing the game like IWD2 though due to the structure of it. I could see a side dungeon doing it but not every other area like IWD2 did.

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

Yeah if you got superhuman strength a sledgehammer in each hand isn't as silly. Then again sledgehammers aren't designed for combat, they're far to heavy to be practical for that job. Pickaxes for that matter are overweight in that category. Claymores only about 5 pounds, sledgehammers a good chunk over that, 10-20lb (near same for pickaxes). That said most axes are relatively light even the 2 hander variant unless your talking the faky fantasy giant disc axes. Or those huge ones I think the danes used or something. But your average 1-handed viking axe or (smaller) tomahawk can easily be off handed, very little reason to use a second hand on em.

 

I think folks get the wrong idea with this stuff far to often, especially weapon weight. Then again if you look at NWN weapon weight they're all roughly double there actual values (in RL and in PnP handbooks). Main reason a lot of that stuff got double weight values (such as a longsword being 8lb -.-) was they didn't have a middle weight transition like in PnP. In 3E handbook if your strength allowed say 100, at half that you got slowed down. NWN that 100lb stayed but you didn't get slowed till you hit 101, so they kinda doubled stuff. cRPG's amiright?

[Two weapon style (dual wield)]

They where basically combat staffs modeled, the actual image they posted from the inventory isn't proper to the actual model or DnD illustrations. It was just a poor setup to show off the blade type due to how NWN handled weapon model swapping for customization stuff. In game it was literally just a staff with short swords on it doing 1-8 dmg but acting like you where using 2 shorties. Guess that was its 1 real advantage as said before outside of enchanting since ultimately you'd have a +5 by lvl 16 anyway. You'd get the lesser penalty of smaller weapons like shorties with dmg of medium weapons of said type, longsword, battle axe, maces.

 

Also I don't think there should be a benefit to having a smaller weapon in the off hand. That's a parrying dagger thing. Having 2 equal sized swords (shorties, scims, longswords).. having the basic same length and weight generally makes it easier to balance your self. With a smaller weapon in the off hand your lopsided and how you go about 'dual wielding' becomes much, much different. You end up using the off as more of a feint like the parrying dagger concept and have to put most your effort into the larger weapon as you deal with the difference in weights for either hand.

 

Basically closer they are, the closer your going to get to anything resembling (least in my eyes) proper dual wielding. Tomahawk/1h Axe in the off hand doesn't have the same reach but has about the same weight as your sabre, lets say. And would allow for hooking of weapons, shoulders, allows for more then a dagger would while keeping your over all balance about the same. If I was going to ever dual wield for the reals, It would be just that. An Axe in off, some kind of board or sabre main. It's how I picture my Rangers dual wielding and often how i have them equipped. Axe is useful outside of combat, and makes an excellent utility off hand that still functions as a very powerful striking weapon, sword gives better reach and stabbing potential in main hand... makes a nasty combo. Plus makes sense for a rangers basic woodmen gear along with the bow for hunting.