PrimeJunta

I also like the Pillars class system in general, and I definitely like all of those examples. I would not get rid of paladins or monks, or merge them into any other classes. The only part I don't like is the relatively weak and somewhat artificial differentiation between the fighter, rogue, and barbarian, and I think it would be a good idea to merge the three into a single martial class.

I'd settle for pirate pistols. I.e., make pistols one-handed so I can have a sabre in one hand and a pistol in the other. With one of those snazzy tricorns you'll have the look right down. I would also like more Vailian fashions. The purple is rather... offensive to the eye. Red Rackham somehow has a better ring to it than Lavender Caglioni.

Not enough in my opinion, and I can't think of ways to do it without going full jRPG which IMO doesn't suit the setting or the style of the game.. Can't argue with that, except with what I said before -- sometimes giving people what they ask for isn't giving them what they actually want or need. How so? If you merged the classes, you could build just as strongly-archetypical a rogue or barbarian as you can now, you'd just be doing it from a base that would be shared with the fighter. I don't think so, because you would still have distinct and different combat roles for martial builds. There would, at the very least, be an optimal tank, an optimal striker, and an optimal archer. That's your three optimal builds right there. Why would you take those for a ranged fighter? True. These are all balancing problems though: if some abilities or ability combos are overpowered, nerf them. If some are too weak that they're never taken, buff them. This is true for the game regardless of what the classes, abilities, or combinations are -- and very much so for Pillars. As to DA:O, I thought the class design in it was overall pretty terrible, so I'm not sure what lessons we can learn from it other than "cooldown-based gameplay gets dull really fast." (Some of the spell combos were p. cool though, I'll give you that.) Per-encounter in-combat stealth would be cool, yes. As to more fragile... nah. Dump the defensive stats and it's a one-hit wonder already. Problem is, some of the ninja abilities they already have -- Shadowing Beyond f.ex. -- is pretty far in to jRPG land already; give them more of that and they won't be a rogue anymore, they'll be more of an arcane trickster, shadowdancer, or similar. Which brings us right back to "player expectations" again. Ehhh... you know, I somehow really dislike this approach. It's the same beef I had with the fighter in the first BB -- I wasn't in charge of the build anymore, I was playing a dedicated, predesigned tank. This is my main issue with D&D character classes as well: they're very much on-rails, very much what the game designers made for you, and leave you very little scope for creativity. IMO Pillars' biggest strength is that it really does allow creative yet still effective builds (as @Boeroer and @Torm have demonstrated). IMO the martial classes are especially well-suited to this kind of creativity, and merging them would allow more of it. Making the classes "like they are but more so" would get us back to "the fighter is a tank, the rogue is a striker, the barb is a raging carnager, full stop." I find that dull.

^ The evil cat speaks wise words.

Which version do you have? In the current one (2.03) they should auto-attack if you have the AI switched on (and it should be switched on by default). They used to behave like that in some older versions.

I think druids have potential to become better differentiated, so I wouldn't get rid of that class. But yeah I do find the way the fighter, barb, and rogue are currently differentiated to be both weak and artificial. I would prefer all the martial talents to be baked into one class, and let players differentiate by builds. I emphatically do not believe that that would lead to samey builds. Why? Because there are several distinct combat roles a martial combatant can play in a party. To name three: the tank, the melee striker, and the ranged combatant. Then there are all kinds of entirely viable and interesting hybrids which combine characteristics of each of them. I'd prefer to be able to roll my own rather than have to struggle within a class's constraints if attempting to do something other than its designated role here. Also note that I'm not proposing to ax the monk or paladin: they have genuinely different, useful, and fun abilities plus a strong in-world rationale for them.

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For a non-micro ranged toon though I prefer a cipher. Serious damage with auto-attack with Biting Whip, and you get those badass casts when you need them.

Saruman - Human wizard, staff Uglúk - Aumaua ranger, wolf companion Grishnakh - Aumaua fighter, sabre Gothmog - Human cipher, morningstar Khamûl - Human Bleak Walker paladin, sword and Balrog - Fire Godlike barbarian (two-handed sword, Forgemaster's Gloves, Scion of Flame etc)

I'm seriously crushing on this build. I think I'll go with it for my next playthrough, when WM2 comes out. (Also, if I also take Pallegina onboard, I can build on her Flames of Devotion to make her a serious striker, plus give her another aura for yet more "force magnifier" effects. Double the paladins, double the fun.)

If you want an easier game, go with a full party. You will level up a little slower, but there's way too much XP available in the game with all the optional content anyway, so it won't make a difference in the long run -- and in the short run, you will benefit greatly from the help. That said, "easier" is not necessarily "more fun." For a ranged damage dealer? Ranger or cipher. Ranged rogues are decent enough but, like, half their abilities are geared for melee combat so you're not really playing to its strengths.

Also, sneak attack should not affect carnage. Main attack only. Yeah it's a bit more complicated than just making all the talents available to everyone, some of them would certainly need tuning.

Yeah, I'd merge them into the fighter. Keep the interesting talents, and allow the fighter to pick them on level-up. Edit: and also, make Constant Recovery optional. That way, you could build the Pillars rogue or barbarian within the fighter paradigm, while allowing for more creative builds, and without the clunky cross-class talents. Edit edit: one of the very first feedbacks I gave on the BB -- and I wasn't alone -- was on the fighter: I wanted the class blown wide open. It was, mostly. In its original conception, it had lousy ranged accuracy and got all the "tanky" abilities automatically. It was basically an on-rails role-locked tank. I thought it was rather boring and am glad they did blow it open. It could use even more of that.

I don't think it's likely though, it would be too big a change. However I do hope they fix the half-baked cross-class talents and give us true multiclassing. There's a lot of room for stuff within the classes already, allowing players to mix them up would give scope for further creativity. But please, no more classes. There are arguably too many already; Obsidian does a heroic job of keeping them distinct but they're struggling -- the druid and wizard are effectively interchangeable with the differences mostly in flavour, and the rogue and barbarian could be dumped altogether without anything much of value being lost.

Obsidian had to put effort into backer NPCs? To get from a paragraph written by a fan to an NPC in the game does take effort, and there are a LOT of them. Why? The dungeons integrated into the main plot were short, fun and to the point, while the megadungeon served the role of a dungeon dedicated to people who enjoy dungeon crawling. It's the best of both worlds really, it's not like there would be more plot content in 4 level dungeons than there is in 1-2 level dungeons, it would just be pointless filler for those who want to experience the story. The megadungeon would've made a decent expansion, Durlag's Tower style. It's out of place in the "regular" game though, and I would've preferred that the considerable effort that went into it would've gone into fleshing out the underdeveloped areas of the main game. Let's drop Defiance Bay and properly develop the actually interesting city then :-P Sure, why not? I enjoyed BG2 a lot less than BG1. The focus clearly shifted from a game focused on "adventure" and exploration to a much more story-based RPG. I find BG1 thoroughly mediocre, interesting mostly for historical reasons and significant because it laid the groundwork for the much better games that came later.

I liked Twin Elms too, but it also felt sadly underdeveloped, even more so than Defiance Bay. I'd drop it because I'd rather have one really good thing than two mediocre ones. It has the Dracogen, Inc. logo on the inn sign, and the innkeeper has the same name as the CEO of the company. I find that in extremely poor taste. What's next, Kotaku Inn?

Ehhh, Kickstarter overstretch. They came up with a lot of nutty stuff during it, and the game would've been better off without it. Sometimes more is more and a Pillars style game does need to be big enough to feel... big, but overstretch is overstretch. Drop Twin Elms, put that effort into Defiance Bay instead, instead of a 15-level megadungeon have four 3-4 level ones well integrated into the main quest, drop the backer NPC's and put that work into fleshing out some of the minor ones that are already there. The inns were cool though, except the Dracogen one with its jarring, out-of-place name, innkeeper, and logo. That felt too close to paid in-game advertising to me. If they do crowdfund Pillars 2 I hope they really have learned the lessons they say they've learned. Sometimes giving people what they ask for is not giving them what they want.

Yeesh, not good. One thing you could try is installing the nVidia web driver. You'll find the download links here [ http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/306535-nvidia-web-driver-updates-for-el-capitan-update-12142015/ ].

I understand chanters are getting an overhaul for 3.00. Maybe they'll sort out the skeletons at the same time.

Skaen is always up to something really, really bad. And it would make a great, excellent, super-cool basis for Pillars 2.

^ Yeah, now that would've made a cool expansion. Imagine if they put the effort into that that went into WM!

In re barbs, not my fave class either but they definitely do work. I've built several that are powerful enough. I just find playing them to be a bit... what's the word... tedious: basically you're firing the same two per-encounter abilities in the same order every time. That's dull. Same reason I'm a bit unenthusiastic about the cipher. To go on a bit of a tangent, what don't I find dull? The low-maintenance pawn. A fighter can be built this way: you position him, and he does his thing, while you focus on the active characters. The mobility-based striker. You play this one by actively positioning him, giving him a target, and then moving again if he gets targeted. The caster with the big repertoire. You pick the right tool for the job, and there are enough different tools and jobs that you end up using lots of different ones in different combinations. Most of the Pillars classes fall into these categories when built "to type." Fighters, rangers, and paladins are mostly type 1's (pallies with a touch of type 3), rogues and monks are type 2's (monks with a touch of type 3), wizards, druids, and priests are type 3's. The barb, cipher, and chanter aren't: they have a quite a few abilities you need to trigger, but you end up triggering mostly the same ones in the same order in every fight. TBH I haven't played with the AI scripts in 2.03 so it's possible that could be automated, which would put them into the type 1 category.

According to the Collector's Book, male pale elves may have facial hair (page 42). The character generation however does not allow this.

This is serious. Imma file an issue.

Yep, that's what I meant. Pick Chill Fog or Slicken for level 2. I usually go with Chill Fog. I always liked Kana, both the way he's written and the way he plays. I just wish they hadn't given him those stupid skeletons. Backer beta lore: the skeletons were hilariously broken in one of the early betas. Not only did they punch hard, they didn't unsummon after the fight, so if you had a chanter onboard, after a while you'd be commanding an entire freakin' army of darkness and roflstomping over everything. I believe they may have over-nerfed them a bit because of that...