Ninjamestari

I think it's good to have both 'normal' characters and freaks. The normal dull characters are there so that you can better appreciate the interesting freaks. What I'd like to see is some freakish wizard chick. You know, Safiya meets Vette kinda freak with a couple weird obsessions to add for spice.

You do realize that more fleshed out background means less overall backgrounds, not more?

I don't think there should be a significant tradeoff for the defensive bonuses of shields. If you go strictly for any type of combat, a sword and a shield is a superior setup against a single one-handed sword 100% of the time, no matter the circumstances. I think this is one of those futile searches of equality where it is not warranted. A one-handed weapon and a shield isn't simply different from only having a one-handed, it's better, and I don't think pretending otherwise is beneficial to the game in any way. If you want viable "duelist" options, create a character progression path for that fighting style or something, but just like being unarmed is simply inferior to wielding a weapon, not having a shield with that weapon is inferior to having one.

Tbh, PoE1 attribute system is quite deep. From related games I've played and enjoyed NWN, NWN2, DA:O, DA:2 and DA:I. And tbh Pillars' system is deeper than those. And a deep system is interesting in my book. Doesn't the second paragraph contradict the first one? Nope. I recall Josh saying in some seminar something along the lines of "Would I personally use the PoE approach? No." The whole system was built around general consensus and backer feedback.

I think this is all a band aid solution for not making the base mechanics properly. The basic stats of PoE aren't interesting, so instead of reworking the system they add new stuff that serves more to convolute the game rather than making it more interesting. The empowerment mechanism simply isn't needed, it doesn't really add anything that the old system didn't have and feels forced and artificial. From what I've followed this process, Josh should just take free reign over the class system and create something that inspires him rather than trying to "give the people what they want". People don't know what they want until they try it, that's a fact in all forms of entertainment and consumer products, games are no different. I trust the artistic vision of one man far more than I trust in the consensus of a bunch of people with more opinions than insights.

Portals! Now I know what sort of Mega-Dungeon I want! Tons and tons of PORTALS!

Considering the winds that are blowing in Europe, one would think that you'd prefer dollars. Come to think of that, some sort of financial crisis might be interesting to deal with in a fantasy setting. Kinda like the Iron shortage in Baldur's Gate. I think economic schenanigans would fit the renaissance setting perfectly, banks overthrowing governments and such.

I wasn't talking strictly about an evil character, but rather the unpredictable kind that you really can't tell whether you can trust them even though you also really want to trust them. The kind of calculating psychopath that manipulates you to see their side of things and makes you hope that if you are useful and loyal to them, they'll be loyal to you in turn. The kind of character with such personality that you yearn for their approval, even though you're unsure of their true intentions and can't really get rid of that nagging feeling that they would betray you in a heartbeat if they deemed it beneficial to their goals. The kind that will treat you with kindness and respect as long as you're useful, ignores you if you're not and coldly disposes of you if you stand in their way.

I think there are better ways to limit access to that high level mega-spell-of-doom than simply having limited slots. Perhaps those bigger spells require costly or rare reagents. Maybe they require preparation components, such as your mage has to complete a ritual out of combat and then he/she can unleash that mega-spell-of-doom as the first action once combat begins. Hell, the most powerful spells might even inflict permanent stat penalties if one is really feeling hard core, the caster sacrificing a part of their soul to power the ultimate-mega-spell-of-doom-and-destruction. Vancian as is isn't a very interesting system to me, and the only thing I'd keep from D&D is the ability to craft scrolls and learn spells from them to add to your spellbook. That search for spells is an integral part of the Wizard fantasy for me.

I definitely wouldn't say no to a female elf. I think I've had enough of feminine elf-men and masculine warrior-women to last a life time. Every single game, book, film and TV show is filled with them. A good traditional beautiful elf-maiden, preferably a wizard or priest, would fit my party perfectly. The challenge of being an intellectual woman aren't really explored that well in fiction usually, and a wizard would do well for that role. Powerful, inquisitive and intuitive, but also fragile, frightened and vulnerable with the dichotomy between her feminine desires and instincts that drive her towards nurturing and caring and the dire circumstances combined with her powerful abilities that push her towards violent confrontations. Now add her, the beefcake Paladin I was hoping for in my first post and Trusty Eder who, if I've understood correctly, is making a comeback, and my party is only one person short. Unless of course fortune truly smiles upon us and we actually get to keep our six person parties. One type of character that I haven't had the pleasure of having in my party very often is a calculating, charismatic, cold-hearted psychopath. I don't mean the "I kill puppies and eat babies" kinda psychopath that just likes to see suffering, but more a driven person with an agenda who doesn't really care who gets in his way. I like how Kane is portrayed in the original Command and Conquer, that commanding presence with hardly any emotion getting through. These types of characters are typically the villains, I know, but it'd be interesting to have one as a party member. You'd never be quite sure if you'll ever wake up again when you press that "camp" button with him in your party.

Am I being an **** if I'd like to put that collar back on her before accepting her into my party? :D Seriously, a weird romance is worth a thousand ordinary ones

I'd rather have one 15 level story than three 5 level stories.

I don't think free multi-classing is the right way to bring about build diversity. More diversity in skills, talents and spells would be the better way of doing that in my opinion. The difference between an even split and a slight leaning on one class or another isn't enough to justify the loss of the seamlessness, like I said, and the 17/1 character causes way too many problems. The thing is that with AD&D style multi-classing you don't have to do all that level-scaling abilities thing, you can have all the early punch you had in PoE 1 for your stuff without breaking the balance as badly. That being said, the scheme that was proposed doesn't seem nearly as horrible as 3rd edition D&D, but still, if your multi-class character gains 3 power levels of the primary class and 1 power level of the secondary class every time you level up, then you'll end up only losing two thirds of a level in terms of power in your primary class for making that 17/1 build, and you'll gain 19 power levels of that secondary class, effectively ending up as a 17/6 character. No one in their right mind would stay single class under such conditions I think.

Get a T-Shirt that says that, maybe it can still happen if you wear it with a smirk :D

*puts a finger in both ears and starts making loud la-la-noices* Seriously though, I didn't just mean abilities that combo well with summons, I meant a whole set of powers, talents and passive abilities that modify the amount of summons you can have up at any one time, what your summons can do in terms of abilities and passives and stuff like that. :D

Well, realistically speaking, if there are any ideas here worth pursuing, nothing is preventing Obsidian to implementing them as non-party NPCs. The party-member angle was just something I came up with while watching SG-1 and is not that important. The character concepts and personalities are the important part. Just curious, what kind of a personality would you imagine for him/her? (Do these guys even have genders?)

So, a seductress type character. Maybe a Courtesan? Yes please!

I still think that they should just go for the AD&D style multi-classing. The whole concept of 17/1 would require so many tweaks to discourage that the aftermath of introducing multi-classing as proposed might just ruin the feel of many classes. Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). A simple eloquent solution to multi-classing is so much easier to balance that the amount of collateral damage would be reduced immediately. Too non-restricted systems lead to exploitable holes, which in turn lead to band-aid solutions, which in turn severely restrict what the developers can do with single classes. In essence there are only two types of multi-class characters that only have two classes. The balanced characters that go for something around 9/9, and the non-balanced where the character picks the minimum amount of levels in the other class he needs to in order to get ability x. The balanced build is more fun to play with the AD&D style system where both classes level simultaneously and seamlessly, and the non-balanced build I think is something that causes more problems than it's worth.

So, I was watching old Stargate SG-1 episodes recently and got to thinking of how rarely I've seen characters like Teal'c in fantasy games, and naturally the next thing that line of thought lead to was just how awesome it would be if Obsidian got Christopher Judge to voice act this Big-Ass Aumaua Paladin with similar extremely stoic, formal and dedicated personality as a party member. And judging by the title I chose for this thread I think you're already guessing how that got me interested in seeing what kind of character ideas you guys would have. So here's the deal. I'd like you to come up with character concepts you would like to see as party members, anything goes, including Orlan Terminators and Godlike Jesters. Don't worry if your idea sucks, as ****ty ideas are often only one step away from being totally awesome ideas. I don't know at what phase Obsidian is in designing the party NPCs of Deadfire, so I naturally don't know if they'll have a chance or the will to implement any of these, but it may still inspire someone to do something somewhere at some time. The Idea also doesn't have to be very detailed, although it definitely can be. C'mon people, show me some passion! :D

It's true that the Endless Paths had its share of problems, but I think there could be a mega dungeon with more a more expanded story and questing experience. 15 levels is good if you have 15 levels of interesting content that keeps surprising, progressing and building up to the final encounters. Either way, I like the idea of having a deep well of enemies to go slaughter if I feel like dungeon crawling, so while the Endless Paths could've been a lot better, I still like having 'em.

I would definitely like this approach, so thumbs up for that, but there still remains an argument for a more dedicated summoner class that could have its own mechanics that are designed around the concept of summoning, so you don't run into the problems you would run into if you just slap summoning on top of an existing class. For one, you could build a mechanism around how many summons you can have, something that could be extended with talents, summoner specific powers and maybe items to avoid the infinite summon spamming. Again, mechanically something akin to Diablo 2 Druids and Necromancers.

I don't know if they're doing a mega-dungeon, so I won't comment on that, but what I will say about a mega-dungeon is GIMME GIMME GIMME!!! :D

You can rationalize it all you want, I don't like chanters, and neither do the people who keep demanding a summoner class. If they liked the chanter summoning, they'd be happy. That means there is a demand for another class to fulfill the fantasy chanter fails to. It's up to Obsidian to choose whether or not to cater to that demand, it's their game and their vision, but the fact remains is that there is this summoner fantasy niche that the chanter doesn't fill, and no amount of "people get too stuck on the singing" will change that.

But there are manifestations of ether, spirits, ghosts and wisps and stuff like that. A summoner archetype could be built around those concepts, it doesn't have to be strictly necromancy. I'll tell you one thing, If they did make a proper summoner class, then that's the class I'd be rolling.

Not when you realise that the bonus damage from crits is additive with other damage bonuses (including the damage bonus from things like "exceptional" weapons), not multiplicative. By the late game, when you're wielding superb weapons and have various talents and abilities that add percentage damage crits become much less important. NOW you're telling me! xD But this is kinda exactly my point, the game really isn't very clear on these mechanics. EDIT:all in all, Intuitive means that things work like you'd expect them to work intuitively. This is why PoE made a major mistake with their whole stat system of everything affecting everything. I can't say how much I hate the stat system in PoE, how much I hate that Spell damage is determined by Might, how much I hate that every single stat is a pure combat stat. In 3rd edition D&D the Ability scores clearly measured intuitive aspects of the character and they worked the way one might expect them to work. For example, Intelligence granting skill points, vs Intelligence increasing durations and AoE. I mean seriously? What the hell does intelligence have to do with those things? This has reduced the Attributes of PoE into meaningless words; when you gain intelligence you don't think that your character is now smarter, you think increased duration and AoE. PoE attributes are so divorced from reality that it makes the whole system uniquely unintuitive.