Faerunner

She was also the goddess of cunning war strategies, while Ares was just mindless bloodlust. (It helps that most of what we know of Greek Mythology was written down by Athens cholars, and Athena was their patron goddess, so they wrote her in a flattering light while her rival god, and the god of one of their rival cities, Sparta, got written very unflatteringly.) I'd say Magram sounds like she has the personality of Ares but also has some traits of other female war gods and warriors, like Athena and Jean d'Arque.

It's not that there have been no healthy births in 15 years, it's that there have been so few that people have gotten worried. Healthy children have been born, just not NEARLY as many as they need to sustain the population.

I'm guessing about two to three years. Preferably the latter to ensure quality. I hope they build on the strengths of the first game instead of blasting the foundation and building a shoddy continuation from the ground up. (DA2.)

I don't know if story is a "weak" point of the game, but it definitely could have been stronger. I hope the devs improve on that next game.

Play the game on easy or storybook, then you don't have to micromanage the team. Oh God, a game that makes you think?! What horror! What nightmare will the devs inflict on the players next?! If you don't like the game (and it seems you don't like anything about it), then don't play it. That simple.

If you like Aumaua, then go for it. =) I personally like orlans because they're tiny hobbit-cat people, and I like that they have high perception and resolve, but that doesn't have to be the reason you like them. Like I said, I just fired up the game and tested making an Island Auamaua Barbarian from the Deadfire Archipelago. (Sue me, I like that location. A huge cluster of volcanoed islands with pirate- and sea monster-infested waters? Yes please!) The red and orange color scheme for her skin and clothes, the height, the muscles, the skull and ax icon for the barbarian class and serpent for the homeland, was freaking badass. That's not to say that's the homeland or background you have to have, but it's an endorsement. Have fun with it!

I personally think min-maxing is excessive. And the OP isn't really interested in it anyway, so why recommend something the OP isn't interested in? I think 7 or 8 is the lowest I go with any stat. (My ranger's Constitution is 8.) Personally, I just fired up the game to see what an Island Aumaua Barbarian looks like. I found out that, for barbarians, Might and Constitution are "HIGHLY RECOMMENDED," while Dexterity and Intelligence are just "RECOMMENDED." So for a decent build that isn't necessarily min-maxed, I would go with... Might: Max. (20) Aumaua look so strong! And the stat matches the muscles. Con: 14-15, or higher depending on your game's difficulty. (Higher difficulty = more Con.) I think it only makes sense to have a little endurance, again, due to the muscles. Dex: 12 or higher. Intelligence: At least 13. Believe it or not, the lowest intelligence checks for dialogue tend to be 13 (I once made a ranger with 12 intelligence, and I was always frustrated that she was one point below the threshold to make the lowest intelligence check), so I'd use that as a minimum. It comes in handy for roleplaying conversations, especially if you want a Barbarian with a brain between his ears. The Rest: Really, I think it's okay to keep them at 10 or 11, or even take a few points below (the aforementioned 7 or 8 ) to put more points into the above stats. I hope that's helpful.

Yep! =) Some backgrounds are tied to homeland--for example, Mystics can only come from The White That Wends, Philosophers can only come from the Ixamitl Plains, etc. But you always have at least six background options, so you won't be disappointed. =) As far as race goes, I can talk up the roleplaying aspects of it, but not the gameplay or combat. I'm also only really into roleplay, so I just play on easy or "storybook" mode. I like orlans though. They're my FAVORITE race in Pillars. Throughout their history they've been bullied, subjugated, and enslaved by the larger kith races. In fact, originally all orlans were wild orlans, but after many of them were enslaved and selectively bred by larger races for a thousand years or so, the new subrace of domesticated cats, the hearth orlans, formed. Hearth orlans sound really good for a barbarian, though. The Hearth Orlan's special ability is Minor Threat, which is "When attacking any target that is also being targeted by a teammate, Hearth Orlan convert 10% of their Hits into Crits." So basically, every time you enter battle just have one of your companions attack the same enemy that your orlan is attacking, and you'll get an exra 10% critical hit chance. The Wild Orlan's special ability, Defiant Resolve, is a little less useful for gameplay reasons. It basically says, "After being subjected to a Will attack, Wild Orlan temporarily gain a bonus to all defenses." I can't remember if the Barbarian has low defenses this game like in other games, but if so I guess a temporary bonus to all defences is helpful. (Certainly is for my wild orlan ranger, since I lowered defense stats to increase conversation stats.) So, you could easily roleplay a hearth orlan from a small village who's just trying to live their life but gets attacked by larger kith races, so your character became a berserking barbarian to fight off larger invaders. Or he's just a barbarian because, as an orlan, he wouldn't be allowed to have the same fancy martial training and shiny armor and weapons as the larger kith races, so he learned to fight with what he had. There's a lot of directions you can go with this. =) The Aumaua are awesome too; don't let my bias for orlans sway you. All aumaua have +2 Might (or Strength), so that's helpful. The Coastal Aumaua (the blue shark people) have Towering Physique, which gain defense bonuses against Prone or Stun affects (fantastic!), and the Island Auamaua (the brown and orange shark people) have Armed to the Teeth, the extra weapon slot you heard about. The Island Aumaua are also from the Deadfire Archipelago, which I think is hands down one of the coolest areas in this fantasy world. And again, you don't have to roleplay an auamaua barbarian as a villainous killer. Lots of empires are fighting over control of the islands in the Deadfire Archipelago, so you can headcanon or choose a background that your aumaua became a "barbarian" to fight to defend their home, or to fight back when a bunch of pirates, raiders, slavers, or settlers tried to bring the fight to you. There are so many possibilities.

The good thing about this game is there are a number of homelands and backgrounds. On top of choosing a class (barbarian, paladin, etc) you can choose where your homeland is (Adyr Empire, the epitome of class and sophistication, the Living Lands, a perilous tropical jungle where everything tries to eat you, the White That Wends, a frozen tundra, the Deadfire Archipelago, a huge cluster of volcanic islands where the water is filled with sea monsters, and others), and based on your homeland you can choose one of several professions. Depending on your home, you could have been an aristocrat, artist, clergyman, merchant, mercenary, hunter, philosopher, scientist, slave, etc. If you want to be a barbarian but don't like the idea of being a war-mongering brute, you can choose a background that fleshes your character out. For example, if you want to play a barbarian, you don't HAVE to be a raider or mercenary. Your barbarian could be a scholar, scientist, colonist, merchant, laborer, slave, and much more. In fact, a character near the start of the game will always ask your character a bit about themselves, and you can elaborate a little on your background. For example, if you choose the "laborer" background, you can say that you were a blacksmith, or a builder, or a cook. If you were a hunter, you could say you were a trophy hunter, you lived alone out in the wild and hunted to sustain yourself, you were responsible for hunting for your village, or you were actually a fisherman. Same goes for all backgrounds. So, yeah. Play your cards right, and you can have a barbarian with a laborer background who was actually a blacksmith in his home village. Or a dissident that took part in a rebellion against a tyrannical government. Or maybe he was a scientist who went to study the variety of life out in the Living Lands and became a buff barbarian-like fighter in order to survive the huge number of giants, ogres, huge cats, and man-eating plants large enough to eat a man out there. Or maybe he was an artist; who knows! The sky is the limit as far as your backgrounds are concerned. You don't HAVE to box your character into a narrow stereotype.

This one's weird, but I want more Wild Orlan content. I LOVE playing wild orlans, but darn if it doesn't depress me that there's only one head shape, one portrait (thank goodness for fan artists), and few to no NPC's. Granted, it's fitting that there are so few wild orlans given how they tend to shun the bigger kith races, but that's actually something I want too. I also hope the sequel explores wild orlan and pale elf cultures, since we know next to nothing about them from the game. I realized all the descriptions of their cultures in Pillars are based on in-universe outsiders, and since few to no people have even been to the White That Wends or the wild orlan camps deep in the forests, we don't know anything about them either. Makes headcanoning our characters' upbringings pretty hard.

Considering wild orlans have only one default appearance (though different fur colors) and godlike only have a few heads, I don't really need it--but thank you!

-BEAUTIFUL scenery and backgrounds. -GORGEOUS music that really sets the mood and tone. -Awesome and extensive character creation and background choices. -Likable companions (except Durance), especially Aloth and Eder. -Aloth's personal quest. (I love being able to hold his hand as he remembers his traumatic past.) -Eder's hilarious and adorable (and suicidal) love for animals. -Eder nearly losing his hand petting Itumaak. -Eder nearly killing himself trying to pet the giant saber cat. -GIANT MINIATURE SPACE PIGLET! <3 -Helping orlans escape wrongful persecutions. -The ogre wrongfully accused of kidnapping a girl, whom we can invite to work at our stronghold. -Party banter. Just... party banter. It's fantastic.

1) Richer, more intricate, more in-depth story. I enjoyed the story this game, but it seemed more like an excuse to run around beautiful scenic areas and kill creative baddies. I'd like it if the next story wasn't quite as simply summed up as "You are a Watcher, and the one who made you one leads a crazy cult with nefarious plans, so you run around trying to find a cure to your condition while uncovering and stopping what they plan on doing." 1) More in-depth exploration of a few nations, cultures, and/or races rather than shallow overview of all of them. Going to Dyrwood and encountering companions and NPCs of every nationality, culture, race, and subrace in existence was nice, but I felt we didn't get to learn about any of them in detail. I'd love to go into more detail of any of these races or cultures in future games. 3) More reactivity to the PC's chosen race and culture. For instance, it's kind of jarring to hear everyone talk about how they think less of orlans, and treat Orlan NPCs like dirt, but only two people ever comments on an orlan like you owning a Keep or back-talking them. 4) More deeply written companions with personal stories and quests more intricately woven to the main plot. I get that one of the gimmicks of this game is to allow players to create their own party members, so there's no sense putting too much effort into something that many players won't even see, but still... 5) While I appreciate the Gameplay/Story Integration of companions' stats and abilities reflecting their personalities (for example, Aloth having high intelligence but low physical stats and Resolution to show how he's allowed himself to be easily led and overpowered by others his whole life), at some point there needs to be an eye for combat use-ability too. I get not min-maxing them since that's just silly, but by the same token... 6) Obsidian, PLEASE stop releasing games where there are (initially) only one to a few more companions than we can bring in a party. Remember Mask of the Betrayer? It KILLED ME that we could recruit four potential companions (Safiya, Gann, Kaelyn, Okku/One-of-Many) yet could only bring three in our party, making one sit out for no reason. For Pillars, before White March, we could recruit 8 companions but only bring 5 in each party. While not as bad as MotB, I find it frustrating being so close to being able to take everyone along, only to arbitrarily keep one to three out and miss out on a whole set. Yeah, other games like BioWare are worse since they usually let you have around ten companion but can only bring 3-4 in a party, but I can understand because I'm already going in with a mindset of "There are already way more companions than slots, so I can't hang out with most of them at a time." When there are only one to three more companions than party spots available, I personally find it frustrating because it's like, "If only there were a few less companions or a few more party slots, I could bring everyone and not miss out on companion-related content (ambient comments, party banter, companions' opinions on your quests, etc." This was rectified somewhat with the new companions in White March, but still. And I know it increases replay value by having different companions you can bring with you in different areas in different playthroughs... but still. I personally feel: "Either have way more companions than slots available, or have no more companions than slots available in the party."

THAT explains why the Shaen Temple was unpassable my first playthrough! I guess I'll have to be careful and play the whole area in one go next time or run into the same problem. =/

It is too bad that this particular area doesn't have many non-violent solutions. It's just the standard sociopath adventurer strategy: stroll in, kill everyone there, loot their stuff. I would have liked more options too, but well. I don't personally mind the dragon encounters though. Between the dragon on the fifth level of the Endless Paths and this dragon, it's become pretty clear that they're pretty dumb and aggressive; you can't reason with them, you can't sneak past them, you can't charm or distract them (I assume because they're huge and have great eyesight), etc. You can feebly try to talk to them for a bit before their hunger and/or aggression gets the better of them and they attack, but that's it. Now, trying to reason with kith races? That's another story. My personal first and most jarring disappointing RP experience was a minor quest in Defiance Bay. A guy who got kicked out of the Crucible Knights says his old rival kept his family armor when he was dishonorably discharged. Though he acknowledges his shame in getting kicked out, he doesn't feel it's right that this guy took a family heirloom that wasn't his. I went to the rival, asked him nicely to give it back, he wouldn't do it. I went to a soul scribe and found out he had forged his soul certificate, then came back and warned him that if he didn't give back the family heirloom I'd tell his superiors; he ignored me. On my way to his superiors's offices, he confronted me in the streets, begging me not to tell or else he'd get kicked out. At this point, there were a few dialogue options, "Your superiors have a right to know [he attacks]," "You're right, you shouldn't be punished for a previous life [hand it over]," "Don't care [he attacks]," "[Attack]," etc. What I found jarring was the lack of option to say, "Give me the family heirloom armor and then I'll give you this document." You can ONLY give it back or refuse and have to kill the guy. The whole point of the quest was to use the document as leverage to get the heirloom armor back, and by handing it over right away you lose that leverage. In fact, right after handing it over my gal asked if she could have the armor now, and he refused. Only by being super nice (which I wasn't in a mood for by this point) was I able to convince him to "be the better man" and hand it over. Flip that! I just personally found it so jarring because it goes against the whole point of the quest. "Please give it back." "No." "I found out you forged your soul certificate. Please give it back or I'll tell your superiors." "No." *goes to tell superiors* "OMG Please don't tell!" The logical progression of this quest is for you to say, "First, give back the armor, then I'll give you this." I don't know what possessed the writer(s) to think that having you just hand it over or just refuse and have to kill the guy was a good idea. I'm playing the game again for the first time in about a year, so I'm hoping they fixed this with the new patches.

I wouldn't call it a direct spoiler so much as... foreshadowing? There a bunch of little optional hints you can find all over the game hinting at what ends up becoming the ultimate reveal. For example, I'm in Raedrick's dungeon this playthrough, and I actually talked to Osrya for the first time instead of just attacking her on sight. She talks about how her research has led her to believe that Waiden's Legacy is not due to punishment from the gods or other such superstition, but that souls are being snatched and hoarded away somewhere away from new bodies, much like a biawic snatch souls away from mortal bodies and hoard them elsewhere. She doesn't "spoil" the ultimate reveal of Waiden's Legacy per se, but she does point to a root the player can follow through the game that'll ultimately lead to the big tree of events that have been happening.

It's been a long time since my last playthrough, and I don't think I even got that far. So I'm just about to complete A Mother's Mercy, where I go get a potion from the aumau midwife for Calisca's heavily pregnant sister, Aufra. This particular character can't bring herself to tell Aufra the awful truth about the potion, even though it gives her false hope and could potentially crush her after the baby is born. The game presents its little moral dilemma: tell her the truth and crush her (and gain an Honest reputation), or tell her a lie and make her feel more hopeful (and gain a Deceptive reputation). I was just wondering, though, does anyone know what happens to her later in the game? My gal's gonna go straight over and kill Raedric soon anyway, if just to protect women like Aufra from being exiled for having hollowborn. Does anyone know if she winds up having a hollowborn, and whether getting rid of Raedric allows her to stay in Gilded Vale? I know later in the game Raedric rises from the dead and attacks Gilded Vale, and is only stopped if you come to stop him. If I save Gilded Vale, she still won't be... killed in the chaos anyway, will she? If the game never follows up on her fate, no worries. I just want to know because she's a sweet woman, and I guess if there's a way to avoid it I just don't want to accidentally screw her over. Done enough of that to plenty of other people (unintentionally) over various playthroughs.

That's the thing, he's not. He's raising the prices for certain people because he doesn't believe they deserve it as much as others. He's basically picking who lives and who dies based on his own opinion of them, and while Sweynur may come across as a jerk in the quest he IS essentially starving and is basically fighting for survival. His providing food to Raedric's guards is also questionable, I didn't get the feeling that he was providing them good prices because they forced him to but because he thinks they should be well-fed 'because of the hard work they do' (his actual words). Not to mention he gives the starving townsfolk the moldy, rotten parts of the grain after price-gouging them. He gives Raedric's soldiers not only the choicest parts of the grain but for less money (even though they're technically wealthier than the farmers and thus could afford higher prices) while giving the farmers who grew the grain he makes only the nasty parts and for far more money. And considering what health problems one can get from consuming contaminated grain, that's not "capitalism," that's just unethical. I'm really tired of people using "capitalism" as the be-all, end-all excuse for amoral behavior. Like the pursuit of making money makes it okay to use, exploit, starve, endanger, and/or ruin the livelihoods of people. "Oh, he price-gouged the poor and has left half the town starving? That's okay, because it's all in the pursuit of making money!" And then act like the people being starved and price-gouged are the selfish and unreasonable ones for not just passively accepting being exploited for the sake of their exploiter making money. What are they supposed to say? "Of course, I'll happily go home to my hungry children, stare at my empty pantry, go to bed wrapping myself around my aching belly, and over the next season watch the skin draw taut around the bones of my family as we pick at the small scraps of moldy porridge, bread and ale that we spent our lifesavings on. We'll gladly endure our hunger because it's all in the name of YOU making money!" Give me a break. And that's a good argument for why capitalism sucks: it justifies letting people die for profit as 'rights'. The farmers can't not sell it to him, he is the only miller in town and they can't just sit on their crops otherwise they will rot. They need the food and they need the seeds to plant another crop. Trumbel knows this and could be said to be blackmailing the town into accepting his authority. There IS something the farmers can do: they can take a club to Trumbel's face, which is what they are essentially threatening to do when you come across the confrontation. Seriously. I used to wonder, "Why don't the farmers just refuse to sell him their grain? As the miller, he can't make flour without their crops. If he refuses to sell it back to them at fair prices then why don't they just refuse to sell it to him in the first place? 'If we starve, you starve with us' and all that?" Then it occurred to me that, as the miller, he has LARGE stores of grain in his mill, and as a noble Raedric also has large stores of grain in his castle. Trumbel and Raedric's soldiers can live on the flour they have already far longer than the farmers can live without any at all. Eventually they'll become hungry and desperate enough to cave and give him grain and pay the huge prices just for any scrap to eat. And since Trumbel has the only mill in town, and Gilded Vale is in the middle of bum-f*ck nowhere, it's not like they can just take the grain to the next town and use that mill instead. There are no towns close enough to make it a safe or cost-effective journey (given what bandits and monsters patrol the roads, and how far and likely expensive the journey is to the next town), so they're stuck. And Trumbel knows it. He's literally taking advantage of the town's isolation and desperation. So, in a situation like that, the only things they can really do are can either accept their miller price-gouging and starving them (unlikely), or try to force him to sell their grain at fairer prices or take the mill from him (by either killing him or driving him out of town) so they can make flour for themselves if he won't comply. And I'm with them; one guy making money doesn't excuse a whole town going hungry. Especially not because that same guy is arrogant enough to say the same farmers who grow and sell him the grain he uses to make money "don't work hard enough" or "deserve" the grain they grew back at affordable prices.

I always thought BG companions sounded like over-the-top, one-note caricatures with the voices to match. I like PoE characters and their voice acting. I think they have enough bite to be unique, but are more subtle and subdued, which matches the more subtle and subdued nature of the game anyway. I also think the voice actors match the characters just great.

Yeah, it always bothered me that the game starts with you being sick, then you never take any steps to heal, then it's just never brought up again. I mean, the caravan master identifies it as the Rumbling Rot, which he warns will kill you in less than a day if you don't drink water. But then you go through all that excitement without getting a chance to drink any water or make your tea, then after witnessing that ritual they just kind of drop it and never bring it up again. If the strange illness is actually your soul stirring because it senses something afoot, that makes way more sense... and I kinda wished they'd hint that before. It actually would have saved me a lot of confusion and puzzlement.

There's nothing I can really add that other people haven't already said. Just find out which companions you like and stick with them. =) You and me both. Well, Aloth is my favorite character, but Sagani is a close second. Even back when rangers sucked and my character was a ranger and having a second ranger in the party dragged us down, I brought her everywhere just because I found her so dang likable, and I enjoyed her comments and party banter with everyone. Yet everyone on the forum likes ragging on her. It's too bad. Character development doesn't automatically make a character likable for everyone. =/ Don't get me wrong, for some people it's essential, but not for everyone. For me, character development and character likability are not mutually inclusive. I can love a character who doesn't change that much (and why would I want them to change, when I already love them as they are?) and can loath a character who does. For a game, I'd rather spend hours traveling around with companions I already like rather than characters I don't like who will undergo the most change eventually. In fact, I'll be so bold as to say character development doesn't mean that much to me if I didn't like the character to begin with. Like Durance. "Yay. You're slightly less vile. I still can't stand you." So, yeah. Different strokes for different folks.

My point is I don't think all characters should have to wear their doubts on their sleeves all the time. The minute you say "all characters should do X" it becomes boring and monotonous because they all have the same shtick going. Eder wears his doubts on his sleeve while still keeping a level head and snarky sense of humor, so if Sagani did it too then what's the difference between them? (Apart from "he's a male human warrior" and "she's a female dwarven ranger with a pet fox"?) I actually enjoy how she's not only level-headed and snarky, but that she's generally pretty confident and easy-going and takes every problem one step at a time. She focuses on what she can do instead of worrying about what she can't or what's out of her control. I like that about her. It's part of what makes her a pleasure to have in the party for me.

I think it's interesting. I think if every character constantly expresses their weaknesses and doubts about their mission, they all become the same after a while. It seems like it's part of Sagani's character not to dwell on her weaknesses or internal doubts, or to mask them with a fairly chipper attitude and dry/snarky sense of humor, except during a few really serious moments. (In fact, I get the feeling she actually copes with her worries and doubts with level-headed pragmatism and snark.) And truthfully, I adore her snark and humor. I find her humorous comments and level-headed disposition much more fun and interesting than yet another companion who dwells on yet more weaknesses and doubts that they need the PC to play therapist to.

I want this for my wild orlan ranger from the "fertile savanna" as well! Make it happen!

Wow, really? How things have changed since I came back. When the game first came out, the ranger was one of the worst classes and the cipher was one of the best. (And of course I played the ranger, because I'm a glutton for punishment.) Fast-forward to 2016, and the ranger is now one of the best and the cipher is one of the worst. (And of course I felt like playing the cipher right as it got nurfed.) Why am I always drawn to play classes right in that window of time when they're some of the worst in the game?