Tsuga C

If player wildshaping is included, I'd wager that it'll be for druids. Rangers and barbarians will likely have their own abilities and are generally considered more "martial" in nature than the druid, but the druid is the class that embodies becoming one with the primeval world. If any class can become a stealthy great cat, a raging bear, or a tireless wolf, it'll be the druid.

Drizzt had sufficient pull with the swords & sorcery readership in the USA that he became the standard by which all other "rangers" were molded and judged. Also, the dual wielding aspect of the ranger class makes sense if you're viewing the class as a bush fighting, hit-and-run specialist. Pepper the enemy with arrows and then close in to mop up with lighter melee weapons (clubs, daggers, tomahawks, short swords, spears**, and other single-handed melee weapons). If the attack goes poorly, it's time to fade into the underbrush and try again at a later date. Large and tower shields are for relatively open areas such as plains and city streets. No one in their right mind is going to lug a large kite or circular shield through the undergrowth of a second-growth forest where you pay for every ounce you carry in sweat and aggravation. Small shields might be an option if the ranger isn't going too far from home and expects trouble. Old growth forests are something different as they're often fairly clear and open beneath their towering canopies, but anywhere there's an abundance of brush that shield's going to be a major hassle. I've wandered through enough forest in my life while crusing timber to know that the less you're carrying over and above the essentials in the wilds, the better. **Although often employed as two-handed weapons, a spear with a shaft of ash is a surprisingly light weapon.

I'd expect them to be skalds, offering buffs and tales and songs of derring-do to encourage bolster the morale and competency of the party. They should also be the natural charmers of the party (with or without arcane enhancement), often called upon to persuade a stubborn clerk or imperious city official to give/allow the party what it desires.

How so?

Romances written by David Gaider, Mary Kirby, and Sheryl Chee might be preferable to what Avellone & Co. come up with as the latter group have an overly cynical and jaded viewpoint at times.

An element of horror a la Ravenloft is a fine thing, but I wouldn't want the majority of the world to be dominated by the horror theme. Horror is at its best when it's applied to a limited area. Make it too common and it palls and loses its ability to put the player on edge or disturb them.

If you're looking for an ancient biologist or botanist, you'd do well to consider the druids. Rangers are more attuned to the wilds than woodcutters, for certain, but they're the more martial arm of the green team (druids & rangers). Druids aim to become part of the primeval world and defend it against the encroachments of civilization as a secondary function whilst rangers functions as intermediaries and buffers, defending the frontiers of civilization from savages and attempting to discourage the worst depredations of the city folk upon the wild lands and their inhabitants.

Others might take great satisfaction from searching high and low to find all the components necessary for typical crafting, but it doesn't do all that much for me except annoy me. Granted, if the component in question is a rare item and a quest is focused upon obtaining it, this can be worthwhile providing that the journey is an engaging one. Overall, I'd rather leave the crafting to professional craftsmen and just enjoy the journey. P.E. isn't a workplace simulation game and we're not playing alchemists and blacksmiths. "Crafting" items in a toolset is much more my style. My characters focus on their individual callings and not one of them has ever been called to open a shop and start producing items for sale. I sink my skills and feats into a variety of combat and non-combat skills, but crafting bores me to tears.

My preference is for gods that are truly divine and beyond the reach of mortals. Maybe a mortal might ascend to demi-god status and become a powerful champion of their deity and exemplar of their faith, but true godhood should be reserved for the divine powers. Let there be tricksters and gods of death, war, art, love, etc., and let them command a high level of majesty and puissance that lets one and all know beyond any doubt that they worthy of worship, or at least of placation. The divine should not be a joke and needs to be taken seriously by the peoples of the world, albeit to a greater or lesser degree dpending upon the individual in question.

Depends on the definition of fail. If fail means buggy as **** then that is a very real possibility with Obsidian. Now that's one I hadn't contemplated. Bugs truly can kill a game, but given that they're working with a well established engine, one would hope that they don't find new ways of breaking it. QA on this one needs to be of the highest order. They certainly cleared plenty from the Kickstarter campaign, so I'm not in a mood to accept any excuses for bugs making it to the DVD.

Although I'm somewhat leery about not having any significant healing spells available on a regular basis, I'm withholding judgment until we know more about the resting system. Assuming there are four levels of difficulty (Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare), I'm hopeful that the resting mechanic will change with the difficulty level.

Close this one. We really don't need the negativity it might inspire. They're simply NOT going to fail, friends.

So very, very glad that I backed this one. Take your time, Obsidian. It's ready when it's ready and slow cookin' makes for the tastiest meals...

I'm thinking that it'll be just the opposite. Anakites were simply large humans, though very impressive specimens. The planetouched of Planescape have a bit more panache and are suitably "other" in appearance to make a strong first impression upon videogame players.

http://t.co/51QvTATb Then get one soon. They need help.

i agree with this It doesn't look to be that sort of game. The transitions between areas don't bother me and they're a small price to pay for a greater level of detail.

A dog companion might make some sense, but methinks the Druid and/or Ranger classes should satisfy your desire for an animal companion via their ability to call one. Wizards could, of course, have familiars. I'd like to see that the FACs have well developed personalities, even at the expense of having a more limited number of them from which to choose.

Methinks this will not be a problem in P:E. I anticipate the graphics being up to snuff for a modern game even if the game structure is more reminiscent of one made 15 years ago.

This is a lousy idea for a cRPG where character skill is supposed to trump player skill (twitch) every time. Saving throws and defensive spells should determine whether or not a member of your party is hit and take damage, not twitch-like input from the player.

Yes, and yes, I do wish to find P:E sufficiently engaging and Old School that all the cRPG-lite, action-addled Konsole Kiddies go elsewhere and leave this one to those of us for whom a videogame that closely simulates the Pen and Paper experience is the ideal. I don't need fights every other step and kewl sploshuns to keep my attention riveted to the screen if the storyline, companions, and gameplay are conceptualized and executed with care and craftmanship.

This is a non-issue for me. Realistic arms and panoplies matter, but the interior dimensions of the local pub versus its exterior dimensions hardly raises my eyebrow. I'm used to it from NWN1 and NWN2 and it's small potatoes compared with a score of other potential graphical/artistic pitfalls. *shrugs*

No mini-games with locks, thank you. And skill points are the way to go as they let me determine what my party has been practicing during their "off hours".

I'm generally going to reload unless I'm growing weary of having that particular NPC around as I hate missing out on dialogue and banter. Death-related quests? Well, I wouldn't mind going on a quest to have a companion raised from the dead, but otherwise I'd likely end up missing all such death-related quests as I'd never let any of my companions die.

I've found the following site to be an extremely useful tool for the conceptualization and building of characters for NWN2. It's my hope that P:E includes something very similar to enable us to plan our characters from start to end. People have asked for the ability to "respec" their characters, but if one can plan the growth arc of a character properly ahead of time, this would eliminate a great many mistakes that lead to the call for "respecing". http://nwn2db.com/

Well, there you go again with your elitist, discriminatory logic and factual statements. You clearly have no place on the forums, you hater!