Gallenger

I was a pale elf paladin mystic - The pale elfness came up a few times, particularly with Sagani and the Pale elves in Twin Elms at Rymrgand's temple. - The Paladinialness came up 3-4 times, particularly in gilded vale and the crucible keep, where my choice of order was belittled openly, it lead to certain "misunderstandings" lol - My being a mystic came in several times with the watcher dialogues - because the "visions" you have are often explained by the PC in a religious context instead of simply having watcher abilities. He also got to question Rymrgand and Gallawain a *little* more deeply about the visions they give you.

Aloth, Kana, or Sagani would be who you can cut. I suppose you could also cut Durance, but why would you do such a thing? The druid can do DPS, or CC - although I could understand not wanting to drop Kana if you're using his chants to buff *your* ranged weapons.

The point I was trying to make is that it's not necessary to wrap all of your NPCs too integrally to the story. I further went on to say that it would get bothersome if it was something that was *always* done. I can understand that you may or may not have a personal preference, but would encourage you to try and look at things differently (because games like KOTOR 2 are extremely rare lol). With fantasy settings like this the *only* thing that's really necessary is for an NPC (it doesn't even have to be a traveling companion, it could just be people you talk to often) *has* to provide exposition to the player, or they'll never really connect with your story/world. Since, especially when you're not working with established fantasy settings, your player is a fish out of water, and will generally feel pretty overwhelmed by all the stuff going on. That's the *role* Kreia fills in KOTOR 2 - because they were trying to mess around with the "canonical" understanding of the jedi code. If you didn't have her, a lot of the situations that are presented would be really confusing to the player, or if they were familiar with the Star Wars setting, they'd be more likely to deal with them in a black and white manner. That's the major difference between KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2. KOTOR 1 is essentially a star wars movie - a fun adventure story. Nothing about the setting, lore, etc, is really challenged, and if anything the Bastila character tries to reinforce a traditional understanding of the Jedi code and so forth. KOTOR 2 of course is entirely about subverting the understanding of what it is to be a jedi - and the Kreia character does this quite well. I know I felt overwhelmed with PE - particularly during my first character creation - those culture descriptions may as well have been word salad, because nothing made any sense. But after a playthrough I feel pretty confident with the lore + setting. All of the NPCs in this game are meant to show/teach the player, in interesting ways, about the setting, so they can become more involved in it + help you in fights. Eder explains the Saint's war and the history of the Dyrwood from the standpoint of a life-time Dywoodan and also Eothas Aloth *shows* the player the pitfalls and intricacies of being awakened - Maerwald does the same only in a more extreme way Durance explains the pantheon and the vagaries of the Gods Kana introduces the player to Rouatia, their culture, and so forth, as well as some historical bits Hal (I can never spell his name) gives you a big insight into Glanfathan culture and their history Pellagina teaches the player about Valian society and also the vagaries of being a god-like Sagani teaches you about the wheel and also about the mountains by the white that wends Grieving Mother teaches you about psionics, ciphers, and the hollowborn epidemic Those are their primary functions in the story - and they help to provide grounding in the setting itself. They obviously have books and stuff you can read in, and out of, game, but typically the most effective way to teach the player things is to tie it into the game itself, and to make it fun, thus you put it into the quests of the NPCs. It's not necessary to put *any* of this onto your NPCs, but they chose to do it here because they're obviously quite proud of the lore they've written up and they want to expose the player to it so as to enrichen their playing experience. Obviously, there's the assumption that the players will be interested in the lore to begin with. The other major problem with tying the NPCs too deeply to the story is the fact that the NPCs can die, permanently, only seconds after recruiting them, and the way the lore is constructed, it'd be difficult for that spirit to move the plot along lol. They didn't have to worry in KOTOR because nobody could die in that game except the PC lol. I understand where you're coming from, I'm simply trying to encourage you to enjoy NPCs that aren't plot-integral. Of all the NPCs I've ever had in various squads, I still remember Ian from fallout 1 most fondly, despite the fact that he spends 1/2 the time trapping you in a corner irreversibly and forcing you to reload, and shooting you in the back. He hardly says anything in the game, but you go through *so* much with Ian you can't help but grow to like the poor guy lol. I assume Imoen gets the same love from players in BG1, because you recruit her immediately after the first area, and if you're not a rogue, you'll carry her for a *long* time, and you form this attachment to her simply because she's been in the group so long - despite a complete lack of interaction or exposition, or importance to the story. I even felt guilty in this game, because Eder is such a nice character, and he saved my bacon early on, but unfortunately, I was playing a tank, so he spent the rest of the game (after I recruited a 6th NPC) sitting in the upstairs of Brighthollow. My second playthrough's sole objective was to give him space to operate so I could carry him to the end of the game lol.

You could safely play the game *before* the patch unless you were particularly unlucky or did 2 unadvisable things, I certainly did *and* it was great.

Well you can also just leave them trapped - that's why I didn't count them - whereas if you tell Imoen to go away, you still end up saving her eventually.

This is a long and proud tradition with these kinds of games. I mean, how often could you put plot essential companions in a game before people got tired of it? It's actually a fairly big risk - the KOTOR series had a *little* bit of a background in it, since Bastila is at least somewhat important to the story, but it'd get pretty tiresome to *always* have a kreia-esq character or always have somebody out to betray you. In PE you've essentially got a big gaggle of misfits - Aloth is about to get lynched and so is Eder. So, they may as well join you as stick around or die in the wilderness. Durance *really* wants to join you because he wants a watcher to help him discover whats up with Magran. Etc etc. This is *mainly* how companions were dealt with in all the IE games, excepting a few Torment characters and Yoshimo and Imoen in BG2. The comedic thing about BG1 in particular is that one of the most popular NPCs, Imoen, was put in the game as an afterthought lol - she was actually a combination of two different NPCs and thrown in the game at the last minute - and lots of people really liked her. I honestly didn't expect the NPCs to have nearly so much dialogue - I figured we'd be going back to the days of Bg1 or, at most, Fallout 2 where the NPCs talked a *little* and then that was that. I was quite surprised that they put so much content on them. It's a different approach. I prefer for the NPCs to be somewhat muted or to join you in an organic way - because it lets you write your own story essentially. I mean... Look at fallout 1 and how many people love dog meat lol. Dog meat doesn't speak, dog meat doesn't really tie into the story, but people love him none-the-less because you end up making your own story organically in your head.

Or if you have her help eder during his quest he has a REALLY great dialogue line where he laughs at you and then patronizingly says that he's sure she's a nice old lady but she couldn't possibly help him lol.

I gave 50$ and would give 50$ again. This game is *great* The game was sold as a "spiritual successor" to the IE games which is something we've heard a lot - I really see this game as more of a IWD/Torment fusion lol. It's got a *lot* more story and NPC exposition that I *ever* expected to see. It also has a lot of combat that feels, situationally, a lot like IWD. I was pleased. The game has it's little flaws here and there, but it's nothing crushing or game-ruining. Things I really, really liked in this game: - Lore - Visuals - Music - The NPCs - Story - The character classes - Tone - Plot - weapons/armor system - the fast forward/slow down system - those text adventure thingies Things I didn't like: - Not being able to move items out of my stash into containers elsewhere - Not having a rogue/true skill monkey companion - The save/load times ballooning at the end of the game - not being able to search without scouting

I just kept telling Pally to do what she thought was right and saying nothing. I got the durance glitch where he wouldn't talk to me about woedica So he burnt himself on a pyre - I dont really mind that ending, he was so messed up anyways, he pry is better for it. I let sagani talk to the stag, and had her tell it about P's family and the village. Then kept trying to convince her she did the right thing + didn't waste her time.

- I chose Rymrgand's path and disintegrated the souls. Visions of a great exodus were had by many persons around the Dyrwood. Healthy births resumed, and people began to assume that it was because of the burning of the sanitarium and the mass killing of animancers. - I chose to destroy the Engwithan machine, and it took a while for people to move back in, but they did. - I sided with the dozens and argued *for* animancy. Defiance bay has a chaotic period, but things turn out more or less OK as a recalled. - same gilded vale as OP - same as OP - Similar eder ending HOWEVER he didn't become mayor, nor did he interdict the Skaen cult, he just helped turn it into the gilded vale of his youth, on the outside anyways. - same aloth as OP - Similar Kana ending, he didn't get any prestige but was well liked - same grieving mother ending - I didn't get any mention of negative implications of the trade agreement (I let her do the whole thing) she joins the kind wayfarers and it didnt seem overly negative. - Durance burnt himself on a pyre - Hiravlas had no ending for me - Sagani became a village elder, and lead her people to a period of increased propserity - eventually another was sent to look for her when she died. -

Is Kana your party leader or something? I hardly ever heard them talk unless I clicked on them. Other situations it tended to rotate a lot.

My tank had gone *most* of the game without being hurt, ever. The first thing I noticed in that battle, was he was taking damage - I knew it was going to be some BG1 final battle stuff going on once I saw that happening. Everybody dropped except grieving mother and Durance in the end lol, and grieving mother finished the fight by blasting thaos in the face with her boom stick lol. Had it not been for that I'd have had to reload . The big thing is that a lot of the bodies on the way have some pretty good rings that'll protect you from a lot of the nonsense that will go on in the fight, and then I did the #1 all time D&D no-no and split the party, so that the statues would go on my beefy types to keep them from squashing my squishies when they found themselves able to move from time to time.

Arcanum tried having a large open world, outside of the "square" main maps, to a degree. Most people never used it. I have gone for a few arcanum walks, but I've never really found anything of note hidden out there - just more and more dirt lol.

I didn't sneak at all and missed nothing of importance lol, ie I was still very well geared lol. If you want to sneak and find pieces of candy, more power to you, but it's not necessary. My main tank (a PC paladin), was so ridiculous he could typically trigger any trap we came across without any serious risk of harm - half the time they missed him :D so I didn't even bother with it - I just had him walking out well in front.

The enemies' spells are not, however, limited in the short term, and it's much harder to predict whether or not the player will have buffs remaining at their disposal - as I say, it makes designing encounters much more difficult - every person who has DMed for a long period of time knows this. You *know* your players will have some long term buffs on them, so you can counteract that in some ways if so you choose, but for your bigger fights it gets a lot more tricky to try and make good high level encounters. I got around it by making a "max" and a "min" encounter - so if my players were really getting hammered the opposition wouldn't be carrying all of their prot spells, but that's not possible for the game to do lol.

well the food is meant to be eaten before battle - so it is a prebuff that's allowed.

Look this is simple. If you allow your players to pre-buff, with the assumption that they will *know* there are enemies ahead, either due to saving and reloading, or because they used a sneaky scout, you have no choice but to: 1. allow the creatures to come pre-buffed as well, or they'll be at a decided disadvantage to the player. 2. Make the creatures significantly more powerful in their own right, so as not to be at a disadvantage to the buffed player. The 1st case creates unpleasant scenarios where the enemies have to pre-buff instantly whenever they are seen by the player, this happened quite a lot in BG2 for example, where simply detecting the existence of a mage would set off all of his prot spells. Then you could simply walk away, put the kettle on, and when you came back, walk back over and detect him again, and then the mage wouldn't have any more buffs once you got your tea all set up. In the second case, that's all well and good - but you necessitate pre-buffing to not get waxed by the monsters. On the contrary if you don't allow pre-buffing, you can just plop your monsters down and be done with it, and you wont have to build a sequencer mechanic or anything! Nor will you make a pre-buff period necessary.

I honestly cant remember if it did damage to my tanks or not - tbh at that point in the game it was rather difficult to damage my tank at all lol. The explosion radius was pretty surprising though (pry about the size of the wizard's blast ability's radius).

I used lore on my tank simply for fan of flames - because generally at choke points - you can get pretty solid damage off, there are a few other scrolls that come in pretty handy for tanks too, it's just keep yourself supplied with agates - which is challenging at times.

In my first play through I went with a Paladin who was *too* good, that is to say he tried to violently resolve *any* interaction with perceived evils. It lead to him slaughtering fairly sizable portions of some cities... There were also a few COMPLETE, I swear, misunderstandings that led to bloodshed on a fairly massive scale...

*nobody* can see her. She uses her psionics to conceal her identity - everybody just sees her as an old peasant woman. You use your watch ability to see her - but if you upset her she'll make herself fade out to you too.

Yeah the spell isn't an insta kill - it does fairly decent damage, and then if the target dies as a result of that damage it blows up and deals damage to everybody lol, it's kinda handy when you fight a big group - but not nearly as handy as knocking everybody down

I mean.... I'm a bit biased in that I've never particularly cared for romances in video games - if anything the 2 romances you could *try* for in Torment were so immediately truncated that it left this sort of feeling of mutual connection, and unfulfilled tension that was kind of interesting its own way. But this game, the story it's trying to tell, and with the characters at hand, romance just doesn't make sense. You can *sort* of get a romance with *somebody* (a non NPC for the party anyways). If you choose your dialogue correctly, it is a sort of romance. But it just wouldn't fit here, and from having seen a few interviews on the topic, the devs here simply didn't want to do it it. If they were really enthusiastic about the story potential of romances they'd maybe have switched some things up. But having played the game a romance just doesn't fit. You're this horribly messed up dude/dudette seeing people getting burned at the stake all the time for no reason, seeing spirits walk all around, having flashbacks of past lives, constant nightmares, and staring at dead bodies for hours. Now those may be fun couples experiences for *some* but it'd be *pretty* hard to sell here lol.

If you don't know what nepotism is, and how it influences the economy overall you may want to rethink how you view the world lol. Literally every promotion I've ever gotten has been due to my relationships with my superiors. I even found out years later I got the best job I ever had because of a mistake lol. They'd meant to hire somebody's son, but instead hired me on accident! lol. The HR person got fired shortly there after but I stayed for 4 1/2 years lol.

Sell sell sell it all must go 1 day only (+ if you need it later you can just buy it back or find more). I'd hang onto all the crafting mats if you're going to try crafting.