Faerunner

I thought he seemed troubled enough, he just expresses it differently. From what little we learn of his childhood, it sounds like his father was a drunken abuser, yet his parents sent him to a good school, yet he got beaten if he didn't do well, so he learned from an early age to hide all imperfections and pretend everything was fine. Then Iselmyr was awakened, and she comes out every time he's under distress or pressure, but he's often left to clean up the messes she makes (for example: she tells some tavern patron to **** his sister, then he has to deal with the angry mob that wants to lynch him), so he's learned over time to try to suppress her outbursts and/or smooth over the damage her words cause. By the time the Watcher meets him, he's very tight-laced, tight-lipped, secretive, and emotionally withdrawn. He can't and/or won't relax or open up with other people (so much so that he's the most distant of the group besides the Grieving Mother), and basically has to be hypnotized into revealing anything about the day Iselmyr awakened so the Watcher can help him learn why she awakened, and/or open the lines of communication between the two. I thought the writers did a great job of showing the issues associated with someone in his situation; I just don't think he needs to be emotionally unstable, or have frequent breakdowns or meltdowns to show it.

Main reason my first character got involved was because she'd become fond of Calisca (and felt guilty about her death) and so wanted to help her sister. When the locals' comments made it clear that no matter what my character did to try to help her, there's no way to predict or prevent her having a hollowborn and she would be screwed if she had one thanks to Raedric's law, my character decided the law had to change. Since Raedric wasn't about to change his mind, Raedric had to go. That simple. Normally I'd be all for the argument that it isn't the place of some foreigner to wander into a village and immediately start interfering with their social and political affairs, since the political and legal framework is one we know nothing about; but the game makes it very quickly clear that their social and political affairs are not fine as they are. Not enough that the local population is on the verge of collapse thanks to so many hollowborn, the local lord somehow manages to make it worse by blaming and terrorizing the mothers, exiling and killing them for having hollowborn, which they can't help and don't want anyway (and there's no proof at the time that their wombs are to blame, so why punish them for something when you don't even know if they're guilty?), making them sick and desperate with fear and making the locals even more anxious than before. When there's a fire, Raedric, you don't pour fuel on it. That's why you got kicked off fire duty. Also, you don't technically have to oppose Raedric. If memory serves, you can take his side after you confront him or just don't follow through with the quest. That simple.

Wow, I think you just described my playthrough word-for-word.

It could, but I don't think it will. I don't think the devs would have put so much attention and lavish detail into how present-day Dyrwood works just to turn around and say, "Now, centuries later, here's a completely new state of the world with whole new countries, cultures, socio-ecnomic societies, interracial relationships, etc." Everyone has their own interpretation, but it seems to me that PoE mostly focuses on establishing the setting (with a serviceable story), and will use it as a springboard for creating more in-depth stories and challenging themes for future expansions and sequels. (At least, based on their track-record, that seems to be how the folks of Black Isles -> Obsidian tend to do things. From what I've heard, BG1 was a decent game, BG2 got a much richer story. Fallout 1 was solid, Fallout 2 was much more engaging story-wise. NWN2 was rather generic but fun, NWN: MotB had a much richer story and atmosphere.) As others have said, I can see a Xaurip companion, or at least encounters with Xaurips that challenge established stereotypes or question how arbitrarily the "kith vs creature" lines are drawn, but I don't think the protagonist will be playing a Xaurip. As it is, we have six kith races (aumaua, human, elf, dwarf, orlan, godlike) with their own subraces and subcultures to explore (we've barely scratched the surface for most of them in PoE) without adding new playable races on top of that.

Sexual assault trigger warning, if you please.

If the story calls for it, I would be happy. If not, I guess I'd be just as happy making a new character.

To be honest, I kind of imagine them as a semi-Scandinavian, semi-Western European kingdom filled with ice castles and palaces, fur coat fashion (white mink coats and muffs), ice crystals and chandeliers, and so on. I imagine them being like the Snow Queen: pale and powerful, yet beautiful, graceful, elegant, and refined. I imagine their culture is focused more around high-brow manners and intellectualism than, say, "savage/barbarian" cultures like the tribal Glanfathans. I imagine science-based wizardry, intellectual-based philosophy, and elegance-based aristocracy is more valued than wild berserker-style fighting. Probably just me.

I love the pre-made companions so much I can't even think of creating my own.

My hunter was from a small wild orlan village in the Ixamitl Plains. Very proud of their freedom from the larger kith races (unlike their hearth orlan cousins), they lived almost as wild as a pride of lions out there in the fertile savanna. They stayed away from larger kith villages (like human settlements), and mostly hunted and foraged for food instead of farming. As she told Caliscia, my orlan was largely responsible for hunting for her village. She stalked wild antelope by blending into the tall dry grass with her golden fur, inching just close enough to loose arrows. She eventually bonded with a wild warthog, who helped her hunt by circling, herding, and keeping prey closer to her bow. Ora loved her family and village, so nothing could have driven her out just short of exile. Which is exactly what happened: a hard season drove the hunters to search farther and take greater risks. A less seasoned hunter wanted to seek out an elephant graveyard (a river ford where elderly elephants whose last row of teeth have worn down go to eat softer river plants until those teeth wear out and they slowly die of hunger, leaving a lot of elephant skeletons in their wake) since a whole elephant could feed their whole village for a season. He gambled on the meat, lost to the tusks. Since he was beloved by the community, everyone blamed her for the accident (since, as the senior hunter, she should have known better than to try to take on a desperate elephant with nothing but a few bows and spears), and Ora was all but driven out.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but not ALL decisions HAVE to have vastly different and far-reaching consequences. Is it nice when they do? Absolutely. But sometimes it's nice just to come across a simple role-playing scenario where your character makes a decision based only on the information s/he had at the time. No tricks, no rewards or punishments, no in-game incentive to make this decision instead of that. Just get into character and have your character make the decision s/he would in that situation. To paraphrase Penny Arcade What Makes Us Roleplay? video, "If you mechanically incentivize a choice, it becomes a barrier to players role-playing around it... If players know that certain in-game abilities [and/or consequences and outcomes] can only be accessed by making [certain choices], then the player is going to be torn between choosing what's right for their character, and getting to play the game the way they want." Sure, in-game acknowledgment of choices and consequences of actions are awesome, and necessary at least a good chunk of the time to make our characters' role in the story/world meaningufl, but I don't think it's required 100% of the time. In fact, if it's like that EVERY SINGLE TIME, people aren't going to think, "This is what my character would do," they'd think, "Which decision will have which outcome? Which is the 'best' outcome? Which is the outcome my character would want even though s/he had no way of knowing at the time? Which decision should my character make to get the outcome I want?" And it gets tiring, and it pulls you out of the roleplaying experience. In this case, I kind of like that there is no significant in-game consequence to dealing with Maerwald's soul. Just have your character decide what to do with it based on his/her own moral compass (would s/he want to absorb it to gain the knowledge, bind it to the Keep, let it move on, etc?), and don't stress it since there's no in-game reward or 'penalty' to make you choose otherwise.

I think the amount of voice-acting is fine as it is. I don't feel too invested in seeing it change.

The impression I got from pre-release updates was that the idea of classes in this game aren't 100% based on gameplay. They're also based on in-universe lore and story. Lore-wise, the ranger was basically conceived as a skilled, cunning hunter who has an animal companion who is basically your life partner. The ranger and animal companion share a very deep bond (so deep that when one falls in battle the other is severely grieved), and assist each other on the hunt and in battle. I think the devs even said they wanted to avoid the animal companion feeling like "a glorified summon." As such, the combat mechanics reflect this. I think the idea was that rangers were supposed to be the massive DPS ranged class (along with ranged rogues) with the "unique to the class" animal companion. I think the combat was intended to revolve around the ranger shooting from the distance while the animal companion provides free melee and tanking. Unfortunately, it didn't work out so well. From what I hear, both ranged attacks and animal companions aren't as strong as they should be. I often hear how the rogue greatly outclasses the ranger in terms of ranged damage, and the animal companion is so weak it often/always dies and removes too huge a chunk of the ranger's Accuracy. Not only that, but I keep hearing how the ranger class itself is too dull build-wise and tactics-wise for combat micromanagement fans (not too many interesting abilities to take as you level up or buttons to press during combat), and the animal companion's frailty has left non-micromanagement fan displeased (since they don't want to have to keep moving the animal around to keep it from getting killed). I think it was a good idea that just wasn't properly executed. My guess is they were afraid of making the ranger's ranged attacks TOO strong and the animal companion TOO good a melee/tank since that would make the ranger game-breakingly powerful. (Imagine if they were the undisputed ranged DPS champions like how many consider the ranged rogue now AND basically provided an extra regular companion with a warrior/tanking animal, making the "ranger" basically powerful classes all in one.) But in scaling them down, they unintentionally made the ranger a jack of all abilities, masters of none. Not the best ranged, not a very good melee/tanking animal companion, not interesting enough for micromanagement fans but too difficult for non-micromanagement fans. I hope they can sort this out. I still love the ranger in theory (and adore my Piggy!), and want it to be a well-regarded class.

I'm kind of in the same place. Ish. I always restarted over and over to build better companions from the ground up in other games (especially the Neverwinter Nights series), and swore I wouldn't do so this game. However, I'm now in the middle of Act II, and realized that my parties' middling combat abilities are due to me misapplying abilities, spells, etc. (No wonder I got in the habit in the first place.) Now I'm really tempted to either restart, or go back a significant chunk of the game to give my party members better spells, attributes, and abilities from the word "go." On the other hand, I just can't face playing through the whole game with the same character again... So I'm kind of avoiding playing altogether until I make up my mind.

What you're discribing is not "casual" vs "hardcore" but "non-completionist" vs "completionist". There are casual completionists and hardcore rushers. Those playstyles are not bound to any stigma. *claps* Bravo. I was going to say something similar, but you described it far better than I could.

(Not) Bob, a good way to stop restarting is to ask yourself WHY you keep restarting, and try to find a creative solution around it. For example, I also have a long history obsessively restarting every few minutes. Reason being I'm a perfectionist; I want a "perfect" character with a "perfect" playthrough. During the first several rolls I inevitably make mistakes (in CC or gameplay), and so re-roll to try to fix them. After that I become nervous about making mistakes, so it becomes easier to reroll to play parts of the game I'm already familiar with so I know I won't make imperfect game choices. Since my reason to reroll was perfectionism, I found a way around it by designating one character the "perfect one" (particularly my desired race/class/background), then designated a second character the "imperfect one." (Bonus points in that it's not my first choice of race/class/background.) In the "perfect one" I poured all my hopes, dreams, and expectations of a perfect playthrough. Naturally, I soon felt compelled to restart or felt stressed entering new territory (read: post-prologue) since I was afraid of making a mistake. So I'd put forth the designated "imperfect character" to "scout ahead" and make all the mistakes so my perfect character would know what to expect when she got there. Since there's no pressure on the second character to be "perfect" like the first one, I can stroll through the game not feeling stressed or nervous about making mistakes or imperfect choices. For example: I've wanted to play a Wild Orlan Hunter since both race and class were announced. I got into a restart compulsion with that character. So I finally made one that I liked stat-wise, played the prologue intro, then stopped. Then I designed a Nature Godlike Druid, pouring mental energy of "this is not supposed to be perfect, I don't care about this character." With that, it was very easy to not only blast through the prologue, but blow through Gilded Vale and most of Act I since I wasn't worried about making mistakes. After that, I took a break with that character and played through the prologue and start of Act 1 with the Wild Orlan without feeling too anxious or needing to restart. I don't know what your reason for constantly rerolling is, but I hope mine my example helped.

I completely agree. I've known lots of gamers and crpg'rs that want the combat to be super easy/relaxed precisely because they want to see every single nook and cranny of the game, but don't want to have to deal with "all that combat" just to do so. Their main interest is not in outwitting or conquering tough combat challenges, but they may still spend 100's of hours doing whatever it is they enjoy. You can be "hardcore" about many things re:games, it's not only about super punishing combat or number crunching. I don't really like the term that much, even as I use it sometimes. Thank you, you both took the words right out of my mouth. ^_^

Had the Grieving Mother free the girl from the influence of the ritual, helped the girl escape, then killed the uncle. I think the Skaen had a point about power, corruption, socially created ideas of "inherently noble bloodlines" nobility, leading to socially condoned abuse of that power and exploitation of innocents to perpetuate that power and privilege, etc. I just thought they went about it all wrong (since the PC can note their plan was needlessly complicated, and Eder notes, "Coulda just formed a lynch mob. They don't do a lot of things right, but in situations like this they know what they're doing"), and they ironically ended up being just as bad as her uncle since they also forcibly implanted her with their own "progeny" in a way that left her traumatized afterwards. (And would have broken/consumed her mind, body, and soul if they succeed.)

I don't know how to mount evidence against him, but I know how to kill him because the game makes it hard not to. When I first questioned him about the missing girl, it was clear he was lying through his teeth. When I [Perception-check] called him out on it, his hand flew to his hilt and he snarled about this being the first time an orlan dared talk to him that way. I spit on his boots and said I could say whatever I want; he attacked and I had to kill him. Reload. I went to the ogre cave like he said, but found that the girl wasn't there (and the ogre innocent of the accused crime). Since I needed to return to the village to cash in on a few quests anyway, I went over to say "What gives?" I expected him to say something like, "Okay, you got me, I really saw X take off with her instead," but instead he attacked and I had to kill him. By this point I thought, "The game clearly wants me to kill him." So I looked in the back of his shop and found a door to a crazy cult temple. Who knew?

I like reading. Plus, I'm an English Lit Major. I read far longer passages of much flowerier language every day. This is downright short and efficient compared to the 18th and 19th century authors.

Title says it all. Arrived in Defiance Bay, completed most side quests and tasks within the city, and got to the Temple of Woedica, which revealed that I should find some sort of tower, ruin, and "place of madness." Now it's time to tackle those puppies. After asking the guards, I found that the three places in question are the Sanitarium, the tower in Heritage Hill, and an old ruin out near Dyrford. Is there any order I should complete these in? Any story reason or level difficulties I should know about? * Note, I still haven't met the last two companions (Hiravias and Grieving Mother) who the wiki says can be found on the way to and in Dyrford. Should I pursue the ruin first, meet up with the last companions, and then tackle the Sanitarium and Heritage Hill after? Or should I complete the two main quests within Defiance Bay first since I'm already here, then move onto the ruin outside Dyrford last? (Note also that I like to complete as many quests and explore as many subareas as I can when my character is in an area, since travel is so time-consuming in-universe and out.)

As others have said, it sounds like you just jumped into this game expecting it to be like other games you've played, rather than slowing down, taking your time, assessing what combat entails, and seeing what this game has to offer. Also that at the beginning of every combat encounter you just charge at enemies or throw random spells at them, expecting combat mechanics to be like in other games you've played and then being surprised that combat works differently here. All I can really say is slow down. Take your time. During combat, pause frequently, read the spell descriptions, assess the situation, use spells and moves based on what seems appropriate for the situation, and watch to see how it affects the enemy. If it has the desired result, keep doing it. If it has an undesired result (like missing the target because they moved or causing friendly fire to your allies), then figure out why it didn't work and try to avoid that next time. However, there is one thing: You'll probably need to change that outlook then, or else this game is not for you. First off, this game has a fairly significant emphasis on dialogue and story. And reading. Lots and lots of reading. If you skip all the reading, you're skipping a lot of what this game has to offer. The dungeon crawling and combat, while enjoyable in its own right once you get used to it, is not the central focus of the game. The combat is a means to advance the story and explore the world, not a flimsy, skippable pretext to throw lots of mobs, loot, dungeons, and treasure chests at you. Secondly, in fact, this game doesn't place a huge emphasis on loot, cool magic items, or weapon/armor upgrades. Anyone here can tell you. Most of the stuff you find is rather plain and average, and not significantly stronger than that average sword or crossbow you picked up at the start of the game. Not that cool loot or magical items don't exist, but it's also not as common as you think. So, yeah. I'd adjust this mindset, or else accept that Pillars of Eternity is probably not for you.

I actually rather agree with the OP. In fact, I've been thinking about making a similar thread for a while now.

I'm sorry to see so many people find the humor lacking. I personally find this game very funny. Almost every scrap of party banter, ambient comments from companions about random places we visit (for example, everyone's comments when we visit The Salted Mast), random comments from NPCs (quest-givers or otherwise), many of the PC's own dialogue options, some paths the PC can choose to go down for quests... I'm having a ball. I find the humor this game a little more subtle and understated than, say, BioWare games (that includes Baldur's Gate, btw), but I still think it's present and I enjoy it immensely. ^_^

Moving on from the "****y" discussion, lucky you, OP. I just spent hours crawling through a lengthy dungeon, then came to the final room where there's suddenly several obscenely powerful spellcasters that keep healing themselves and killing my party faster than I can kill them or heal ourselves, no matter how many times I reload and give them better weapons, armor, scrolls to read, instructions to follow, etc. It's not the first time this has happened either (it seems to be a PoE specialty where the dungeons are fairly easy until you get to the final room, and then the difficulty SKYROCKETS), and it's really frustrating because I PUT THIS GAME ON "EASY" FOR A REASON!!! Right now I'm not feeling too empowered or confident that I can take this world by storm. I just got my ass handed to me for the 10th time and am feeling REALLY STEAMED about this game.

I kind of have to agree with the OP. Race-relations in Dyrwood seems be a case of "Tell, Don't Show." We're told lore-wise that orlans are historically oppressed and still second-class (much like DA's elves), and we run across a few victimized orlan NPCs who tell us about the discrimination they face or have faced growing up (being expected to fill cups rather than participate in celebrations, being expected never to backtalk larger kith, being scapegoated for someone else's bad behavior, etc), but the PC is NEVER treated the way the text or NPCs describe. (Same with Godlike.) I guess I wouldn't mind so much if companions and/or NPCs didn't treat every orlan and godlike we encounter one way, then treat the PC completely differently. For example, the party often comments on Pellegrina's unusual features, but not a peep about the Godlike PC's. Many orlans we encounter mention how larger kith expect(ed) them or defer to them, yet the Orlan PC is always immediately accepted as a person of consequence (no irony or skepticism that an orlan could lead an adventure party/be able to get the job done), and can mouth off to larger kith without them being particularly upset that a lowly orlan dared backtalk them. (Although, there was that one time... ) Oh well, it is what it is.