PrimeJunta

Tried it. Yep, the estoc packs a punch. Also I get the feeling it pays to take those weapon focus/specialization talents. It's interesting how different the difficulty feels with two fighters rather than an extra offensive caster. The beetles are way easier; go down with getting nary an attack in, but I have much more trouble with the swarm of spiders in the ogre cave. With another druid, wizard, or cipher throwing a nice CC combo they go down fast, but with the two fighters trying to hold a line against their stacking poison and petrification they're pretty rough; I often have at least one or two go down in that fight. I dig that. This is how it should be -- with a different party, some things should be easier, others harder.

Cool. Gonna try that next. Wish I had more time to play with this; today was actually the first time since Monday. Work... and also settling in in a new country.

Huh. Who gets the estoc?

I did. It just took a while to sink in. Also there's a certain dearth of 2H weapons in the demo. If I head straight to the beetles, as I often do, all I have is the morning star. Recently I've also mostly played casters, which means my tactic has been to send the fighter in front in maximum tank mode and have the casters do the damage. This time I rolled a second fighter and grabbed the stuff from Medreth for the arquebus. They did go down faster.

Yay. That explanation of Josh's bumps up my optimism several notches. I certainly have no problem with barbs and fighters being inherently better at absorbing damage than other classes. I just want my musketeer... or, basically, other options besides front-line tank.

About those beetles. I figured out what I was doing wrong... and I don't feel too bad about it. I was using warhammer + shield. Crushing damage + extra deflection. Warhammers are really wimpy. With the morningstar + that staff from Dracogen, the stone beetles do go down pretty fast. Two-handers should do more damage, but one-handers feel definitely underpowered by comparison. (Those cult archers with their Deep Wounds will ruin your day though. Ouch.)

Yeah, and reload until they fail their saves. :eyeroll:

The 'poll' in pollaxe comes from the same root as, say 'take a poll.' That comes from Middle English and means 'head.' See also 'poll tax,' a tax levied on all taxpayers equally, i.e., per head. So a pollaxe is an axe for hacking heads, whereas a poleaxe is just an axe on a pole, which is way less cool. Etymology, brah.

@Indira I certainly hope there will be "spike" difficulty in P:E -- but that has nothing to do with how areas are balanced overall.

@Indira: Every game has content designed to match its mechanics. Every single one. And also mechanics to match the content. It's a game of push-me-pull-you to get it right.

We demand that water flows properly downhill! Water flowing uphill breaks my immersion! In water!

Yep, @Pray, that's a much better idea. More class versatility, not less.

You're right, Hiro. My liking it was hasty. On further reflection I'm not sure I like it much at all.

@Hiro Yes, in the subsequent updates the fighter was clearly specced as a defender/tank. That's why I'd like them to go back to the original vision, which, as the quote I showed you, was clearly much more versatile than that: "Fighters are dependable and flexible, able to shift between a variety of attack modes that alternate between high damage, maintaining a strong defense, weakening opponents, and dealing harsh retribution to those who attack his or her allies ... while fighters are often thought of as being primarily melee-based, they can specialize in a variety of weapons, including bows, crossbows, and even firearms. They're unlikely to outclass rangers at their own game, but fighters can be almost as dangerous at a distance as they are up close." This does not describe the fighter as it currently exists, namely, a pure tank. I would like them to roll back to that original vision.

I was more interested in the ratio. 1:1 is punishing even if you've maxed both 1's.

I like this. One question though: will we be able to affect the health/stamina ratio in any way, e.g. via abilities? For example, I would assume that wizards have less health than fighters. One of the most fun wizards I rolled in the beta was an armored frontline wizard blasting away with those cones and lines. He would need higher health than your traditional glass cannon. Will it be possible for me to take this into account in character creation?

That's a shame. It was a bit of a staple tactic to sneak the rogue in the back, engage with the rest of the party, then de-stealth the rogue and backstab. That's currently hard to do because the rogue un-stealths with the party as combat begins, which means one of the nasties is likely to get at him. I am not enjoying the current stealth system. It lacks the tension of the original. All you have to do is not make some circles intersect, and you're safe. In the originals, stealth was always a risky proposition: you could be detected and then had to bugger off to safety. That was a lot more fun. Edit: saw your other post describing the goals for the ongoing work. Sounds like you're addressing most of these concerns, so yay. Re-suspending judgment regarding per-character stealth.

Looked it up. Didn't find it. I think it may have been Tim Cain in one fo the videos. Here's Josh's first post on the fighter, though, which is fairly close in spirit, and IMO the current tank is quite far from the class described here. Update #15: "Fighter - Fighters are men and women trained to use a wide variety of traditional weapons in brutal combat. They are often put in -- or put themselves in -- harm's way and are built to take an extraordinary amount of punishment. Though not traditionally as mobile as the monk nor as likely to dish out individually withering attacks as a rogue, fighters are dependable and flexible, able to shift between a variety of attack modes that alternate between high damage, maintaining a strong defense, weakening opponents, and dealing harsh retribution to those who attack his or her allies. Some fighters build up arsenals of feints, knockdowns, and special attacks rather than rely on the “slow and steady” approach. "And while fighters are often thought of as being primarily melee-based, they can specialize in a variety of weapons, including bows, crossbows, and even firearms. They're unlikely to outclass rangers at their own game, but fighters can be almost as dangerous at a distance as they are up close. Though it may not look like it to see them in battle next to wizards and priests, fighters are just as able to tap into the power of their souls to devastating effect: accelerating their attacks to a superhuman speed, striking foes with such power that nearby opponents are knocked off their feet, and maintaining a phenomenal endurance that allows them to rapidly bounce back from even terrible wounds."

Wel-l-l... I just started another BG1 playthrough and actually some of the fairly early fights are quite intricate. The adventuring party that tells you a cheerful hello when coming out the Nashkel mines on the other side, for example. That's not easily winnable with your basic trashmob tactic.

Good catch. Log a bug.

True, but I'm not sure the current system is an improvement. Invisibility and stealth were perfectly serviceable. The detection circles, especially visible, are a step backward. They take the thrill out of stealth. It becomes dull and predictable. As to magic invisibility, the reliability was kind of the point. You knew you wouldn't get detected until the duration ran out or you stabbed someone in the face.

This. The IE games managed selective invisibility. I can't believe it's insurmountable for P:E. A bad stealth system won't ruin the game, but it is an ugly wart.

I just meant to report that but you beat me to it.

Apparently Stunning Blows are becoming per-encounter and Clarity of Agony per-rest Huh. Then what are Wounds for?

@Indira I hate to break it to you, but monks are clearly OP at the moment. With two of them I've no doubt you're roflstomping all over the map. I doubt it's gonna be that easy once they're suitably nerfed.