Gallenger

I went with normal despite having played every game to come out of the IE days, and after lol. It's been pleasing, I did absolutely no research into the game mechanics prior to playing, so I knew I'd make some sort of a disaster character anyways, and I intended to play only with the provided NPCs - it's made for a few rather challenging fights/scenarios, a few walk overs, and all in all just good fun.

At least wizards get a cool scepter thing that shoots magicy stuff at people instead of a sling that only does 1d4 .

a 6 wizard party, for example, *could* work if you used a ton of consumables, and managed to make it long enough to get some of the really handy buffs.

"good" is a loosely defined skill - my paladin tank cant even be hit by the highest level spells - they "miss" him lol Seems sufficient for a tank right? I wouldn't worry about it - it's all part of the story - half the fun is seeing how screwed up everything gets, and yet you carry on and make your own story. That's kinda the point I think, actually, maybe... Also if not seeing the proper dialogue options makes you sad - you can turn that off - THEN YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, and ignorance is bliss :D

This is really weird - I'm on a fairly old HDD and my load screens are nearly instant - I don't see them being any more plentiful than they were in IE games - and they're certainly much faster for me. My Quick saving *was* nearly instant for a large portion of them game, then around hour 40 it started slowing way down (I assume perhaps because I have a GIANT stash of crap i'm carrying around). Maybe there's something in particular that's slowing the show down.

Except for when the tree ladies inform you that the Gods aren't "real" in a sense, It's entirely possible that the "watcher's" perception of reality is being manipulated throughout My favorite theme of all. Downright Cartesian! Evil Daemons bro 4 realz

I'm an idiot who can't make spoiler tags Of course the important question is, what difference does it make? *Spoliers* From what I'm given to understand, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference in the short term - maybe for endings? I went as a member of the Dozens, but I totally opposed them at the hearings, I honestly didn't like any of the factions' opinions on animacy, or their social standing essentially, so I basically just suckered them into letting me get in there and give my spiel - and the dozens guy yelled at me *plenty* but the results in the short term were the same as friends of mine who joined the crucis and doms who said basically the same things at the hearing

It really set the tone of the game for me - I was like "Oh hey there Calisca, welcome to the ranks of famous and well loved early game NPCs, you get to join Imoen, Morte, Virgil, Ian, et al on the totem pole, AND THEN THEY KILLED HER! Set the grimmer tone (this game is far more grim than any of the IE games, excepting Torment) right off the bat. Loved it. It's a shame there aren't just more NPCs in general - I'd have taken a few less fleshed out NPCs just floating around for variety - but I guess they figured you could make those on your own.

If you wanna be a sneaky sneak, rogues can be the very best sneaky sneak - don't let the fact that everybody else can sneak too get you down, you've got a bonus there. It's just like D&D - everybody can invest points into sneak, but they'll never be able to catch up to you if you make a concerted effort. As far as social skills, that's *all* reliant on your base statistics - there aren't any social skills "skills" or smooth talker perks to take. Literally any class can be a face with enough resolve, and perception + the right built up reaction traits (I'm still not 100% on how those affect dialogue but they hopefully do). If you want to play a face though, the thing you'll have to ask yourself is, are you having fun playing the class in general. If you don't like the role of thief (being the highest damage output character in the game - by using dirty tricks and sneakery) then there are a bergillion other classes to pick that may suit your fancy.

The companions were *great* I liked it. You *could* get most of their stories by just recruiting them and talking to them periodically a la a few bioware series once you get your stronghold, but you'd miss out on some pretty good bits - I'd suggest taking along at least one. I wouldn't let their "unoptimized" stats really bother you so much - it's not like we're playing against each other - and there aren't any garricks.

Let us recall the update when they proposed a very big crafting system and everybody went nukin' futz and demanded something more simple. You can blame them d;D I honestly don't mind the crafting system, once you get down what each ingredient goes for, and what you like to make/enchant it becomes fairly simple, and gives me an excuse to revisit old locations to troll the shop owners - and see some of the neat "post-you-did-things" texts and blurbs from the common folk.

I went at the ogres at lvl 11 and they absolutely dumpster trashed me a few times lol - but after those there's even more! :D

I think it may run deeper - perhaps the order you do the quests in or perhaps the dialogue options you get/choose - because I still went down and got the secret weapons and murdered all of those crucible knights - and they were still totally cool with me :/

It ultimately doesn't matter - yes maybe a fighter would be marginally better, but a Paladin tank is, for all practical purposes, just as well. Playing through this game I've found that rather than sneaking around, using my Paladin tank to trigger traps is far better - because even AoE traps miss him or deal no damage. You can also create some pretty solid Paladin DPS builds if you're of a mind, perhaps there are other classes that would DPS better than them, but it's not a competitive endeavor. The easiest Paladin DPS build is to combine a fire arm with your "smite" type ability (pretty easy to tack different damage types onto that) and then smite them with holy arquebus fire - you can get some pretty dastardly hits in with that, particularly if you've got a bit of might. Then once you've fired your shot, you wade into melee - I'd presume either with a 2h sword or dual wielding + you'd have some auras to provide extra deflection, or be able to heal yourself on occasion. That's how I've utilized a certain somebody you get as a joinable npc - and it works great she can blast people for well over 80 damage a shot just to begin combat, not to mention what she'll do once she gets to choppin'.

All that will likely come of it, is a little notice, stating that whatever appears in backer made content is not officially endorsed by Obsidian - that solution pleases everybody. A. People who find such things offensive will know that potentially offensive things will be lurking in the backer made content, and B. Obsidian can absolve itself from whatever responsibility it may or may not have regarding the content within the backer made content. It could even appear in super tiny text in the opening screen. Thus the equally incensed parties on both sides are dealt with. I'm mostly shocked somebody found anything in those - I mean I clicked on a few - but have ultimately given up. It must be in one of the first ones or something, or there are some really dedicated people out there lol. + anybody knocking Sawyer for his response is a fool. I mean have you ever tried to ask anybody for anything? The *first* thing they'll do is pass the buck to some sort of insidious shadow group such as the "producers" who will promptly - likely - do nothing at all, because these sorts of things tend to blow over very quickly.

My string of bugless luck continues - I did all available quests for both the knights and the dozens (and a few for the Doems - they have me as an ally) - and I was able to get my invitation to the hearings from the Dozens when I tried...

I've done everybody's quests because I'm psychotic - we'll see how stuff goes once I get there lol. Looks like I may be boned or maybe. I'm a hero with both the knights and the dozens lol.

So I'll address the armor situation. In previous installments of this type, such as BG or IWD - the armor *was* the same - because you would ultimately just wear the heaviest possible armor at all times so long as the character had the strength to wear it (Viconia!!!). This resulted in a system where you literally had everybody wearing the same thing - there was no reason to even wear any of the other kinds of armor besides fancier armors being too expensive. The goal of this game's system is to get you to pick on a trade-off (do you want more protection - or to act faster in combat). As the game progresses you'll find plenty of unique armors that will have you pondering the relative merits of each set as well lol. Adding crafting on top of that and you've got plenty of variation. The weapons are along the same line - they tried to give each separate weapon type some sort of upside/downside trade off so that they didn't feel the same. Because ultimately all that's different about weapons in standard D&D-type systems is their damage type and what sorts of dice you roll for a given weapon. I'm at the point where I've found *tons* of much "better" weapons for my tank, but ultimately, the deflection bonus his fine hatchet gives him is something I really want - because it helps him reach god-tier deflection lol.

It's not that important TBH - I've got virtually no mechanics skill in the party at all. You'll find an NPC down the road that has some mechanics levels (which can bridge the gap if you intend to add some to yourself). However, my tank's deflection is so high that typically he can just walk over all the traps in the game + open trapped things, and they miss him (unless it triggers an AoE). I've likely missed out on secret stuff since I rarely go into scout mode, but such is life - more surprises for later :D

Lol well, like many many twitter users found out with the bear(s) - just because the game tells you about a thing, or gives you a quest, doesn't mean you're able to do it right away I managed to take him out with a party of 4 on medium - by sending myself (tank) up the stairs and getting gang busted - and then just blasting the whole area over and over again with spells from Aloth and Durance. Another thing I could suggest, if is you've got any ability to craft scrolls - fan of flames scrolls are DEVASTATING to the opposition in this encounter - because they'll end up so tightly packed on the stairway. Putting lore on my tank turned out to be quite handy for such occasions lol.

I'm pretty sure it's as intended - although it will end a few questlines if you've not completed them yet (it appears 2 of the more important questy types don't seem to care about you butchering all the animancers).

You don't get XP explicitly for killing things. When you fight a new type of creature, it will create an entry in your journal about the creature, which will net you some xp. You can then get additional xp for killing that same type of creature to a certain limit, and once you've completely filled out the beastiary entry, you will get no further xp for killing that kind of creature.

So you're saying, neat little "soul lookery" stories detract from the game more so than Peasant #9520 saying the same things as every other peasant in a zone? The only inconsistency is that you can't look at certain peoples' souls and it doesn't really explain why as far as I've seen.

Honestly the way I worked my way through that whole encounter (because my squishy kept getting rolled) was I just crafted the bajeezus out of fire spell scrolls - shadows no likey the fire and I had the mats on hand.

I went at it traditional style - with only the 3 party members I'd found and myself (I'm a Paladinial). The final battle did have to be scammed *somewhat* in so far as I had my paladin tank walk up the stairs - and everybody else (the more squishy types) stay at the bottom. But really, it's just solid tactical thinking - don't want to have everybody get surrounded - salients and so forth right? I justified it to myself anyhow. I mean... the door you need to unlock is only level 4 mech + lock picks. I should be careful to point out that I too didn't think I could open the door - the rub is the lock picks must be in the inventory of the person doing the lock picking - and you must have the lock picker selected when you click on the door - otherwise it'll just tell you it's a no go. Now, lock picks may be an issue (you need 5 I think, and 4 skill? something like that - on normal anyways) but there are ~10 lock picks that I found in the hold itself so that's not really an issue. You need to unlock the door one way or another. If you made the mistake of having a party devoid of mech skill, just go back to town and hire up a merc and get him 4 skill points in mech and hand him 5 lock picks and you're good to go.