AndreaColombo

The soul-animated plates in Crucible Keep are pretty tough, especially at higher difficulties (I remember their being very challenging on Hard.) However, they are pretty feasible. What was your party composition? Did you rest to replenish your spells and abilities before going in (you need to as there are many of them and they're all fairly tough)?

I too am all for the devs taking the time they need to develop a quality expansion. Don't get me wrong: I'm itching for the expansion as much as the next guy; but most of all, I itch for a quality product and I can certainly appreciate that quality takes time. I already have a character concept in mind for my next play through when the expansion's out

Judging by the people attending, my educated guess would be a new area.

A second expansion that goes to level 20 could be amazing but to keep the game challenging at that point they would SO need proper bracketed scaling AND scs-grade enemy A.I. for all content.

Josh:

Obsidian are going to have a panel at San Diego Comic Con 2015 this Saturday. (Link)

You'll likely find them in the expansion areas, and they will venture with you everywhere and have interactions with the original cast of characters and reactions to original areas and events.

In their preview of patch 2.0, Aloth had access to 7th-level spells; those only come at level 14, so I guess part 1 will get you to that level.

You're gonna hate this answer, but it depends XD There will be battles where you want Zealous Focus and battles where you want Zealous Endurance: You can pick both and switch depending on your needs.

Dumping any stat is supposed to hurt. The fact that it doesn't happen in the current system is a design flaw.

That would make PER a must-pump stat because you'd actually need the extra Accuracy to maintain the same level of power you have now in pre-2.0 games. So that would also turn the "OMG PER is a must-pump stat!" outcry in a self-fulfilling prophecy. I sure hope it doesn't happen. Well, that depends. It could definitely have that effect, but it would really depend on the particular amounts by which they adjust defenses, and whether base accuracy scaling is adjusted with it. They might also boost some defenses but not all on each enemy, giving attacks targeting different ones a greater variety of niches. I dunno, it's complicated, like you say. Mind, I don't know that I think they should increase defenses, but they've sure as hell gotta bring down accuracy if they're gonna drop max deflection by 16-22 points. But you don't need that much Deflection. Not in the slightest. I'm in my third play through, and zero of my characters so far have invested a single point in PER or RES. I've never had a pure tank in my party, and I never exploited doorways; yet, I've never had a problem beating fights or the game. The idea that pure tanks must be nearly immortal and absolutely incapable of landing anything but grazes is what needs changing. That's an extremely boring concept whose sole purpose is to exploit the limitation of the (rather dumb) enemy A.I. in the game. If you max out RES and don a shield, you'll be VERY durable. Like, VERY (I tried with Pallegina; she's got 15 RES and 14 PER—the effects of which can be replicated in the new system by having 19 RES—and I equipped her with a medium Superb shield; she could not go down, and I'm talking PotD.) On the other hand, a tank with pumped RES and PER could make up for the Accuracy penalty from the shield and actually be semi-useful in combat, which would be a welcome change. If relative Accuracy and defense values are changed, trust me, you will always want the extra Accuracy from PER to retain the power level you had before 2.0.

That would make PER a must-pump stat because you'd actually need the extra Accuracy to maintain the same level of power you have now in pre-2.0 games. So that would also turn the "OMG PER is a must-pump stat!" outcry in a self-fulfilling prophecy. I sure hope it doesn't happen.

Aarik, thanks for clarifying. However, an issue remains: If I am wielding an enchanted weapon, the bonus Accuracy and Damage from its enchanted quality will apply to both the primary and secondary target of Torment's Reach. Consequently, a Monk that wields a weapon is always going to be superior to a Monk that doesn't, which is sort of counter intuitive. Could you inquire whether this behavior is intended? If it is intended, could you bring it to Josh's attention as a matter of balance? Thanks!

Josh confirmed on SA that new companions will banter with the originals and comment on original content.

"Carefully drawn" should not be hyphenated as it includes an adverb. Screenshot "Between she and I" makes no grammatical sense as both "she" and "I" are subjects, and "between" requires an object. It should be "between her and me". Screenshot

Being official promotional material for the expansion, my educated guess is that they'll release it as a wallpaper sooner or later.

From Josh's instagram:

For the record, just because no NPC in PoE is all about humor, it doesn't mean there's no humor at all in the game. Quite the contrary, in fact: Hiravias is fairly funny in general; Edér has some pretty good one-liners scattered here and there (and so does Iselmyr); and both Aloth and Durance cracked me up upon entering The Salty Mast for the first time.

I keep saying this all the time and the wife never takes me seriously! XD

OK, got it. So, Torment's Reach AOE gets an Accuracy bonus equal to the Monk's level which is completely undocumented (not even the ability's tooltip says it will be there) and Transcendent Suffering is indeed not applying to it. Here are my tests with the same Monk leveled up to 9. No Weapon Focus. My Monk's unarmed Accuracy is 62 (54 base, +8 Transcendent Suffering): My Torment's Reach attacks were as follows: First attack gets the Transcendent Suffering bonus at strikes at 62. Cone gets +9 from my being a 9th-level Monk but no Transcendent Suffering, and strikes at 63 (54 base, +9 from level) instead of 71 (54 base, +9 from level, +8 Transcendent Suffering.) When I equip Justice (Fine Great Sword), my Accuracy goes to 58 (54 base, +4 Fine enchantment): My Torment's Reach attacks: First attack strikes at 58, which is correct as Torment's Reach is stated to be a Full Attack and therefore employs the bonus from whatever weapon is equipped. Second attack strikes at 67 (54 base, +4 Fine enchantment, +9 from level) which is also correct. I'm going to edit my other post to reflect these information.

updated with latest findings SAVED GAME: link OUTPUT LOG: link REPRO STEPS: Load the attached saved game. Select the Monk and access its character sheet; observe that his unarmed Accuracy is 62 (54 base, +8 Transcendent Suffering.) Pause the game and use a console command to summon two hostile creatures (e.g. BSC cre_blight_earth 1 and BSC cre_blight_wind 1) Make sure the armored dearth godlike engages both, then select the Monk and use Mortification of the Soul to gain a Wound. Flank one of the creatures in a way that the cone from Torment's Reach would hit both. Use Torment's Reach, then pause the game and check the details of your attack in the combat log. First attack strikes at 62 (54 base, +8 Transcendent Suffering.) This is correct. Second attack strikes at 63 (54 base, +9 bonus from level.) Transcendent Suffering is not applied; bonus from level is undocumented. Transcendent Suffering should apply to the AOE of Torment's Reach. The Accuracy bonus to the AOE from the Monk's level should be documented in the ability's description and in its tooltip.

Jan Jansen was indeed funny and overall more original than most other characters in BG2. Jaheira I personally find quite obnoxious. But as I said, much comes down to personal preference

The expansion was $20 for backers so it must be at least $25 when it ships (that's for both parts together, not each.)

Pretty much. When no one's left fighting back, it's not that much fun for me. That's what I meant by "as countering it ranges from hard to impossible." I'm not a fan of the "no hard counters" policy; it's also very annoying when spores can spam mind-control your men and all you can do is wait for the effect to wear off (except spores have an infinite supply of those....)

It requires you to have three ciphers and execute a strategy whereby someone holds the enemy line while someone else goes around them. Not particularly hard, if you will, but that's because enemy A.I. is dumb. The strategy itself is pretty good. EE is still very good if used outside the scope of this strategy but so are many other cipher powers and druid/wizard spells.