illathid

At first, I was thinking like you, but then I thought of the situation were your mainhand weapon is much stronger than the shield bash. Instead of having a strong and a weak attack alternate, you'd probably want to disable the shield bash to use your main weapon all the time while keeping the shield equipped for its defensive bonus. On a side note, on my fist-only run, I often disable vulnerable attack against enemies with too high DR (like those damn constructs) since it sometimes turns out that even with the DR reduction, I still can't break through DR and only do minimal damage either way, making vulnerable attack strictly inferior to normal attacks. Personally, I wouldn't like bash as a per encounter ability, since the concept of bashing continously seems more fun. If given the choice, I would treat shields as weapons with defensive buffs whose attacks have to be enabled by a talent. Two handed shields would be icing of the cake. That's fair. In the situation you described I'd just put the main hand weapon a character without bash though.

Yeah, priests are optimal but I find the micro to be tedious myself.

Since you are right and there is no need to discuss, I think you made this topic just to feel good about yourself. But seriously, even though its true that bash being a magical property is silly, I think they set up the programming early in a way that made it difficult to implement bash different from what we have now. One problem is to be able to decide whether to use bash or not depending on the situation. I think the only proper way to do it in a sequel is to introduce item modals as boffmoffet suggested, where shield bash can be turned on/off depending on situation, and the availability of the modal should be a general talent for everyone to pick. If it is enabled, it should be treated as a weapon for two weapon fighting. With the same thinking, it would be nice if there were bastard swords with a one-hand / two-handed modal, although I see a lot more technical issues with equipment slots for this kind of thing. Furthermore, I think in a sequel we should be able to wear two shields simultaneously. A defender using his shieldbash as main weapon is a cool concept. Also, two-handed tower shields should be a thing. I'm not even kidding, I think there is a lot of cool conceptual unexplored stuff with shields in RPGs. Well it wouldn't have to be modal. You could just make it a plain talent and if you don't want to bash you don't take the talent. If I'm designing a shield bashing character I'd want them to shield bash all the time. I actually think that's true of most of the talent modals though, if I take savage attack or penetrating shot those get left on permanently. The other option would be to make bash a per encounter ability with additional effects of some kind.

I'd contend that "Evil" and "Crazy" are not mutually exclusive conditions.

Yeah, I'd say it's a pretty nice but not exactly OP. It still damages the paladin and your charmed party members. But yeah, I do hope they don't change it as it's a fun and thematic build to have.

Somewhat related issue with the mourning gloves, as the -1 resolve get surpressed by any +resolve gear.

I was going through the Endless Paths today when I noticed a cool ability synergy. The flame attacks of Sacred Immolation trigger the end domination effect of Aegis of Loyalty. So with this set up Sacred Immolation hurts enemies, heals allies, and prevents long term charms of your party. Wasn't sure if others realized this as well so I thought I'd share.

The stash is everything I ever wanted in a RPG ever.

I have the same issue with Purgatory not displaying the burning lash visual effect as well.

There's the death godlike with a party you meet in Magran's Fork.

Great! By chance does anyone know if they fixed the faith and conviction bug reported here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84270-main-character-paladin-faith-and-conviction-doesnt-add-disposition-bonus/ Aarik D said it'd be in the next patch, but I don't see anything about it listed here.

Having the Watcher's story continue does pose some technical problems. Since the watcher actually experienced the events of PoE, any reference to them would need to take that into account or ignore it for the most part (think how BG2 reacts to stuff from BG1). Whereas if it's a new protagonist, they can just make oblique references to it without nailing anything down (think how TES games deal with events from previous titles). While a new protagonist would be easier, I'd prefer to continue the story myself.

Thanks for the pointer! I did not know that!

What weapon focus is used for Abydon's hammer?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/portraits-for-poe-thread.98127/page-3 http://www.jasonseow.com/poeportraits Check out his other work, too. Also, notice the scales on Sawyer's armour. Yeah, I'd want to see Cain, Avellone, and all the leads as well (Adler, Brennecke, ect.).

- Sawyer-Sama! What is best in life? - To crush the exploits, to see badwrongfun driven before you, and hear the victory cries of muh balance. I agree with Josh on most mechanical point and find your constant complaints about him to be ridiculous, but that's a ****ing awesome portrait! I'd love to see the rest of the PoE team given a similar treatment.

Errr... Sort of. It actually has no power on your ability to hit accurately, but it will infuse the projectile with a portion of the mightiness of your soul, making it hit harder.

People with mighty souls are able to use that soul power to do more damage. This is true regardless of the damage you are doing, whether you swinging a sword, shooting a gun, or casting a spell. Your soul power bleeds into every action you do, whether mundane or magical in nature.

You mean like the NPC in the Crucible Knights HQ?

You can take the stash from my cold dead hands. Inventory Tetris is not a game I want to play.

If accuracy only played a role in DPS I'd agree with you, but it doesn't. Crowd control and debuffing also rely on accuracy as well.

Adding accuracy back into the system is a mistake. As I've said more than few times, it's too important for any build you can think of. It immediately becomes a must have stat, regardless of what your build is. And I continue to disagree. Accuracy is valuable, and I'd like to see some graphs on exactly how much Accuracy is worth in relation to, for example, Might. Is +1 Accuracy worth more or less than +3% to Dmg and Healing? How is it quantifiable compared to +AoE% (which I want on Resolve) and +Duration% (which I want to keep on Intellect)? And is the difference enough to matter in a meaningful way? I'm still not convinced. That's fair, but I think you and I will probably never be able to see eye to eye on this.

Adding accuracy back into the system is a mistake. As I've said more than few times, it's too important for any build you can think of. It immediately becomes a must have stat, regardless of what your build is.

Agreed. They should just take it out completely. No need for murderhobo XP at all.

So I normally hate random encounters, but I was thinking of a way that they'd be less annoying. Have them be random scripted interactions. No fighting trash mobs, but you'd have to deal with the realities of the road.