Mr. Magniloquent

Considering the African Union is a false construct meant to consolidate power, I can't see why anyone cares. It's a good thing that it's a joke. Like the EU to Europe, it's just a gambit to federalize a continent. That is a bad thing.

Rogue. Unbelievable DPS. Killing them first is all that matters in PoE and Rogues do exactly that. Cipher. Ciphers have meaningful and inexhaustible CC. It's much better to prevent stamina loss than heal it. Druid. A more meaningful spell caster. General mix of fairly desirable spells with foe-only aoe damage spells.

Actually, Blinding Radiance is a D&D property. As such, PoE has Sight Inhibiting Photon Emissions.

I support friendly-fire for the same reason I like "Vancian" casting--it provides a structure that will enable developers to design potent and worthwhile spells. My criticism is that we got the gimping of Vancian caster per day and friendly-fire without the benefit of having potent spells. Factor in the difficulty of aiming with how fast opponents are and how rigid combat is..and you have little incentive to even bring a wizard along. The pressure towards missing/grazing coupled by ubiquitous DR & DT don't help either. I offered some solutions to the friendly-fire problem in my thread, but they were entirely ignored. I ultimately recommend a talent progression that would modify the foe-only and all-target portions of the AoE, example: Selective Spell Initiate: The outermost 1/3 radius of spells cast by the wizard causes reduced or no friendly fire. Selective Spell Adept: The outermost 2/3 radius of spells cast by the wizard causes reduced or no friendly fire. Selective Spell Mastery: The entire radius of any spell cast by the wizard causes reduced or no friendly fire. This and anything remotely like this shall not happen for many deliberate reasons though.

You're off mark in several ways. It's not so much about controlling oil per say, as it is about controlling what oil is purchased with and priced in. Internationally, this is done by using the US dollar. If you want to know why it is this way, look up Henry Kissinger, Saudi Arabia, Petrodollar. Oil is extremely important and everyone needs it for many different things. In having everyone need US dollars to get oil, the US Government can then essentially get something for nothing. However, this arrangement is rapidly concluding for many reasons. The Keystone-XL pipeline has nothing to do with delivering oil to the USA. It's about transporting it to refineries and then exporting it outside of the USA. You better believe that the pipeline will be created, but only by the time that certain OPEC members start faltering in their production. Warren Buffett is also a major impediment, but he is getting off of his own trains and boarding the Keystone-XL pipeline express. There are many other reasons as well. I expect it to be completed close to 2020.

I wish I had *more* time to game. Generally I'm either tending to my career, family, or frankly out living life and doing things. That's not a complaint per say, it's just that there are games out there I would really like to have more time to play. Even with ignoring everything console, almost everything AAA, and much of the indie shovel-ware, 2012 was the dawn of a gaming renaissance that I just don't have the hours for. It's a good problem to have.

I find them to be fairly irrelevant. For most stats, 1 point difference is roughly 3%. The racial abilities provide greater distinction, but are not really mechanically significant so far as I have noticed. That being said, I prefer the bonuses of Hearth Orlans over just about everything else.

You need to watch this video.

Large quantities of painted portraits are/were going to be very difficult in PoE, as many of their demihuman races are very phenotypically distinctive. This is just something we'll have to overlook in the meantime. As for Baldur's Gate portaits, I use the Paint BG mod. It has a wide variety of excellent characterizations, and even provides portraits for NPCs--including some mod NPCs. Here's an overview of what it offers.

While I fully understand this reasoning, and do appreciate the consideration, I would rather Obsidian attract as many players as possible using whatever price suits that goal. I look at kickstarter as a modern form of patronage. Patrons know that art is fickle, but support those with reasonable ability to deliver with money they won't miss. Kickstarter is this on a grand scale. I'd rather everyone play the game and let there be market discovery with this style of game than have nose thumbed at it due to price.

I imagine when playing as a Skaenite that the player may run into some conflict of interest once they move into their bourgeois castle.

I use some mods too Even on a modern machine it takes several hours to install, but by every god and its mother, is it worth it. There is some feature overlap, but many of them now recognize this and help the uninitiated through the process. Some of the NPC mods which allow you to kit them out or change their class might not be advisable for someone not intimately familiar with the game though. Baring that, this game was already a marvel, but with over a decade of dedicated polish and expansion, it is unrivaled.

I still cannot fathom why Obsidian did not choose an ECL system. It takes much of the nightmare out of encounter balancing an entire game. It also then becomes practical to incentive different approaches without a cold-sweat keeping developers up over night gripped with the terror of "degenerate gameplay". It feels like a truly rookie bit of oversight to me.

It really comes down to the change in how character no longer miss on a large percentages of attacks. When everything hits, you need a very sophisticated way to mitigate damage without resorting to the banalities of HP bloat that plagues every Japanese game, boss fight, and MMO. Damage Threshold is an intuitive way to screen out frequent grazing, and Damage Resistance is the logical conclusion beyond this for having armor mitigate damage rather than evasion. I personally have no problems at all with any of this though. Things can get out of hand very quickly, but that gives combat more visceral and threatening appeal that I appreciate. With their knockout system behind it, I don't feel that the wide range of weapon damage is terrible as those attacks are not resource based. I feel this system would be much easier to handle if weapons had a single damage value rather than range. The ultimate damage would still be determined by the wielder due to the accuracy resolution and armor design. Doing this would eliminate the worst of the "swinginess" offenses that people dislike.

The writing is cheesy? You wake up in a laboratory where you and your childhood friend are being tortured. Stumbling through this wizards laboratory of horrors a biological test subject begs for death, a companion finds her husband eviscerated, and an insane clone of your captor's long-lost love goes berserk on you, all the while trying to survive and navigate the magical minions, denizens, and hazards of this dungeon. That's just the opening. Aerie is supposed to be adolescent and naive, Jaheria is supposed to be domineering, and...where else was Minsc going to hide his beloved animal companion? He had to improvise! Too many quests? Oh, no! Too much gameplay! Too many potential adventures! You are aware that you're not actually forced to seek out all of them right? If done correctly, you can have every coin you need before even leaving the Promenade. You didn't even do the carnival tent correctly. Most of the monsters can be very easily vanquished with simple spells or a single theif ability. Aerie actually warns you about their nature and gives you a major hint how. She even has several spells and an an ability to solve the entire dungeon. A couple of the monsters are immune to magical weapons, but all of them can be avoided or ignored, they can be turned, killed with magic directly, or killed by one of the several magical weapons already come to your possession by the time you've left Chateau de Irenicus. Holy-hand-holding Batman! The Lilarcor thing was great! The sewer had some decent battles, traps to keep you on your toes, a riddle quest, a powerful and iconic weapon, and even a back entrance to another quest! How great is that? All of this in just a tiny foot note that could easily be missed. In the words of said Lilarcor, I've got some choice words of advice from you about playing Baldur's Gate: "Choke up, dolt, your grip is all wrong!"

I prefer the Paladin in PoE. I rarely need to heal, and when I do it is generally one character that has either somehow become stranded or recently suffered a critical hit. The per encounter aspect of the Paladin's Lay on Hands ability suits me very well in that regard. I rarely need it, but it's always there every fight. The same applies to Liberating Exhortation. It's a per encounter ability that suppresses all negative effects. Their passive aura is always on providing buffs, which is nice because PoE spell durations are painfully short.

To anyone still playing the BG saga and is interested in using a shapeshifter, download the Ultimate Shapeshifting and Rebalancing Fix. Overpowered for BG 1 of course, since you're a proper lycanthrope, but appropriate in BG2 and ToB.

I haven't gotten around to playing with multiple Chanters, though I've been meaning to. Do chants stack at all with the chants of another Chanter, or is the benefit purely that you can keep more than one active simultaneously?

It's not a conspiracy theory if it's proven true; it's just conspiracy. My reasons seem strange because I actually base my views on what government do, rather than what false rhetoric they employ. It is correct that you don't generally respond to anything I post, though I sincerely doubt that you could--either on a factual or rhetorical basis. I imagine that you must go through an entire pantry of blue pills just to make it through the week. I find your lack of awareness genuinely terrifying. I have an incredible wealth of resources to share with you, should you ever be so brave to ask.

Don't give me that worn-out limited asset apology. It's a red herring. Existing volume of spells by class: Cipher: 30 Druid: 45 Priest: 45 Wizard: 67 Total: 187 Baldur's Gate 1 (pre-ToSC) total across all spellcasters: 96 This is on top of all of the copious abilities for these and other classes. We asked for a wheel and Josh Sawyer tried to reinvent it. All they had to do was create spells and give them a name that doesn't bait copy-write suits. Furthermore, magic in PoE is not differentiated between Arcane and Divine. They could have created one unparralled spell list using the entire IE compendium as a template, then organized it from there out. Chanters and Ciphers would exist exactly as they do now, but draw from a greater spell list when choosing invocations and powers. Priests, Paladins, and Druids would draw from the same pool, but be limited to those belonging to their domains. Wizards would also draw from the same spell list. They all would still be further differentiated not merely by their resource mechanic, but by their class features and abilities. That would have been significantly less work and produce a marvelous spell list. Instead, Josh Sawyer was more keen on pigeon-holing classes into MMO roles and gutting what makes magic magical. The failure of the wizard class in PoE, and it's magic by large is a failure of concept--nothing else.

Here's some keywords: - Kickstarter Budget - Expansion/Sequel - Mods - Future Here's a good link.

Roleplaying is not why I typically prefer spells without cooldowns. Cooldowns typically ensure that a spell will be bland, flaccid, and without impact since it can be used again. It's one reason why I argue for "true" vancian casting. If you only get to cast a spell but once, it needs to matter. That's when magic gets to be magically, rather than MMO ranged DPS garbage. True. It'd be silly to claim that mages were exiting to play from 1st-4th level in the IE games. The mere implementation of rods and scepters *alone* already insures that you'll get more meaningful gameplay out of your newborn mage in PoE than you got out of him in BG1 and IWD1. Even levels are a bit nebulous in AD&D. Even still, a level 4 mage can blind, summon, charm, stun, sleep, turn invisible, detect invisibly, identify, scry, dispel, knockdown, and much more in addition to what a PoE wizard can do. I will take the AD&D wizard over PoE's fractured joke any day.

Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections Hahahahaha! Every season the plebs are forced to choose between Statist A or Statist B. If you're in a parlimentary system, you might occasionally get Statist C. Nothing more satisfying than lending legitimacy to a false choice. Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections, respect for human rights Hahahahaha! Every State reserves the right to rob you and either throw you in a cage or kill you should you refuse to comply. The US government even reserves itself the authority to murder anyone on the planet at any time for secret reasons based on secret interpretations of unspecified laws. The British routinely throw children in a cage for thought crimes on social media. Many examples of other violations abound. Just because women aren't forced to wear burkhas does not make "The West" respectful of human rights. Western civilisations are primarily your Western countries that follow ideologies like democratic elections, respect for human rights and Capitalism. Bwahahahahahaha! EVERYTHING in The West is regulated and taxed. If it's not, then it's illegal and they will kill you over it should they find the need to. Who can make what, where, how, and sometimes even how many is ruled over. Even the who, what, when where, how, and even why are regulated when it comes to sale. This applies to everything from bubble gum to mammogram machines. Western countries are superior to other countries because they offer their citizens the best quality of life and opportunities to achieve economic succcess We dont want it ever to collapse because of all terrible alternatives that exist like how Russia and some places in the Middle East are governed After a certain point, it's hard to even cynically laugh. Russia & the Middle East are just slight more progressed forms of Neofeudalism. Russia actually has significantly less regulation and taxes, but corruption is open. The Middle East even more so. The main difference is that in The West corruption is codified by law, and shake-downs are done "for the good of the people". Which would not be difficult to do. Why do you think Ghaddafi is dead or Saddam Hussein? Gold. Oil for gold. That would crush the entire petrodollar system. That's why Iran is where all warpaths of the USA lead to. Any triggers of the Credit Default Swap system would cause every bank in the entire world to become insolvent overnight as well. They have hundreds of trillions in derivative liabilities, which is banking code for gambling on insurance policies for worthless collateral that you are not party to. The USA government and many of its lackey states in Europe would see the world bathed in nuclear ashes before allowing that to happen though. That's what this whole business about Syria, Russia, and Iran is about.

I felt like Neverwinter Nights handled this well. I remember my rogue falling into melee with a patrolling guard in the prison. The characters shifted around one another, parried, dodged, blocked, etc. Having an extreme preference to magic users, it was probably one of the first experiences of my life where I had found melee combat in an RPG interesting. However, with how asynchronous combat is, I doubt this kind of animation would present well in PoE. As it stands, I find the combat animations adequate.

I would replace it with nothing compulsory. Ratings agencies exist. Insurance companies would have to survive on their own, rather than seek rent and favors of The State. Prices would plummet since practitioners would actually be able to enter the market and drugs would be able to be produced cheaply and broadly. You would be responsible for finding a doctor you trust--something people should already be doing. Believe me, AMA board certification means very little--I have worked with hundreds of physicians. Everything would sort itself out (for the better) very quickly.