Zixu

I've never liked D&D Paladins, finding them a bit boring, and their spells mostly pointless. These Eternity-Paladins look awesome though. Buffs are like my favorite thing in an RPG, especially passives or auras, but also spells. It's like a weird obsession of mine. If asked to choose between a 5% passive damage buff and a massive fireball of doom, I'll always go for damage! So I'll definitely be bringing a Paladin with me when I get my hands on this game!

Sounds pretty awesome. Seems like a Monk will take a lot of micro, and that's nothing but good. My problem with melee characters in the past has been the fact that there's very little to do with one besides click on stuff. New mechanics for them are always more than welcome.

I like a good story with plenty of choices that have actual impact. It doesn't all have to factor into the ending, but the choices and their consequences are what make multiple playthroughs so appealing. I can forgive some gameplay flaws if the storytelling is good. Alpha Protocol for example is a pretty flawed game gameplay-wise (and those bugs, oh god those bugs..), but I just love the hell out of it despite that. Plenty of choices, and those have actual impact. Even the choices you don't know you're making can have impact, at least on a conversational level, and because of that it's always fun to start a new playthrough. That is something I wish so bad that other game developers started doing. In, for example, Mass Effect 3, your personality makes no difference to anything, and all the choices that make that playthrough different are made in one line of dialogue that you pick. I still love the game, but Bioware could still learn something from Alpha Protocol. And I certainly hope PE will make use of those lessons too! I assume many of the team worked on AP after all. But good gameplay certainly makes any RPG that much better. Torment for example is just a step away from perfection because the combat is so tedious.

Icewind Dale 2 is actually pretty awesome. The best combat, no doubt, although the story is a bit weak. It gets more fun if you download the mod that adds companions to the game. They play just like the normal characters, but they work like they do in Planescape or BG. They comment on stuff that happens, talk to you and to each other on their own, and you can even romance some of them. They're also voice-acted quite well, although the sound quality leaves something to be desired for some of them. You can google something like "Icewind Dale 2 companion mod" and find it I assume. But I do suggest you play torment first. The story just sucks you in like no other. Combat isn't a ton of fun, but there doesn't need to be a lot of it depending on your playstyle.. To my shame I still have yet to play BG2. I'll rectify that one of these days for sure.. Might wait for the EE just because I'm not in a hurry.