MasterPrudent

So I was watching the stream today and I noticed a certain dialogue option in the Gilded Vale Inn. Hmmm... For those of you who aren't deeply into Black Isle lore The Black Hound was a Forgotten Realms DnD game that Josh Sawyer was the lead on before it was cancelled. He wrote about it here: http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2012/09/the-black-hound-what-its-deal-was.html

Also just to clarify: your pet does not help you out in combat in any way.

I don't think there's any need to do all the hard encounters but you should try Watcher's Keep before you put it away seeing as it's a neat dungeon delving expereince that is quite different to the rest of the game.

Public beta? The conversation was about the linux version of the game and beta. As far as I know there are no plans to open up the beta to folks who haven't bought in.

Mr Adler posted in the BB Update thread to say they're looking at pushing an update for the beta some time next week. Assuming that the linux release happens in the same way that the Mac release did I imagine that would be the earliest potential date for a Linux release.

(a) There's no need to be rude about it. (b) They might not have an official, set in stone release date atm and it's hardly worth their time to be posting "We don't have a realse date yet," every time someone clamours for it.

So long as it has coconuts instead.

The priest is very much inspired by the DnD cleric and has a similar selection of buffs, healing spells and debuffs as well as some decent offensive spells. You can get a look at their spells here: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Priest_spell. In PoE pretty much any class can be built to use heavy armour; the trade off is the same for everyone (your action speed gets slower). They're an okay choice for the frontline as their base deflection isn't bad and but their base health/endurance isn't great. The paladin is a much better frontline choice (high deflection + high health/endurance) and they do have a fair number of group buffs and healing abilities (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Paladin) although obviously not as many as the priest.

While we're talking about it I think the icon/s for the class unlocks look awkward just sitting on the background. They could probably do with a border, or some fading at the edges, or something.

Jesus, that's cold. At the very least there's a two year old out there who is going to grow up with the burden of having killed his mother and a family without a daughter/husband/mother.

Honestly if you're really into 4x games I doubt you'd find any but the most obscure RPG to be beyond your comprehension and enjoyment, particularly if you dig Crusader Kings and its ilk.

Conversation stat checks are always checked against the main character regardless of which character initiates conversation. And regardless of which character appears to initiate conversation the convention is that it's always your main character who's talking.

I think most people agree with you. Fortunately they're in the works: http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/99162697691/any-idea-when-the-number-of-portraits-available-for.

Is it just my machine or has performance/load times taken a bit of a hit in this build? EDIT: I dig the new loading screens too but I think they need to put a background behind the tips to make them readable on some backgrounds. Also the ability to just keep levelling up characters until they're done is a neat new feature (albeit one the probably won't get much use in the final product).

From the announcement of 301 going live:

It's been known that you can save this person for some time but it's only if your PC is a cipher (skills and attributes have no bearing on it). There's some speculation that you may be able to save her with any cipher in your party but I don't think anyone has tested this yet.

Skills have individual, not group, benefits. For example if a character has high survival it makes potions' effects last longer for them but has no effect on what benefits the rest of the party gain from drinking potions. For the most part one character having a high score in a skill does not make another character's skills obsolete. (Lore may be something of an exception, I'm not sure having high lore on lots of characters would speed up codex information gain by a significant factor.)

Yes. So many little things that just make it feel so much better. The way paused characters turn towards their targets once you select them, the way the special attacks' icons now appear on the characters' HUD to tell you what they're doing next (although it doesn't seem to be implemented for all abilities yet), the highlights on selected enemies, the engagement lines, the sprays of blood to indicate hits... It just feels soooo much better.

Good catch but I'd say that Orlan male head #3 doesn't have this issues at all. It has hairy looking face protrusions but not a massive default hairstyle that the female head comes with. I can't edit my original post so I'll note here that, for me, this issue is restricted to female Orlan head #3.

DESCRIPTION: I'm finding this hard to describe so maybe just skip ahead to the screenshots but here goes: Orlan head #3 has a hairstyle that is treated as part of the head. Choosing hair options other than #1 (bald) displays that style under the "default" style. The result is an ugly mess. [DETAILED list of steps to reproduce the issue AND what to look for] Example: 1) Start chargen 2) Select Orlan as your race (either hearth or wild) 3) Select head #3 at appearance. 4) Cycle through the different hair options 5) Notice that hair options are displayed "underneath" head #3's "default" style and clip through it. [Expected behaviour] Heads should not have default hair styles associated with them or, if they do, it should not be possible to select other hair options.

Someone over at the codex said that they're not implementing dropping items on the ground because (a) it makes the save/reload system much harder to implement and (b) it's not needed anyway because you can drop everything into the stash.

As it stands in the current beta version you do not gain attribute points after chargen.

Amazing comment/avatar synergy.

I think you might be reading a little too much into a magazine cover. There's no reason why they'd feel compelled to accurately draw an in game situation - its only function is to look cool on the magazine rack.

Just dropping in to say that I really like the system as-is. I really like the combination of convenience (take whatever you want) and restriction (figure out what your must-have items are before you go adventuring).