Ansku

The strategy guide and several walkthroughs suggest that if you side with Alarhî it should be possible to get Rinatto to leave Twin Elms by choosing cage + dexterity/constitution/resolve option, but the only way I manage to accomplish that is with lie + might option, which doesn't fit my character in the least. And yet, every other combination leaves him dead. As far as I can tell there is no conversation choice that mentions being a Watcher at all.

Looking good

.... Not limiting cipher to enemies could have lots of interesting consequences -- and I bet the allies might have a thing or two to say about being used as spare batteries! Yes, attacking the monk pre-battle would buff up both of them. Hmmmm. Hmm, I must admit I forgot that about the monks, but it wouldn't necessarily be a problem if you would in any case have to use that route very sparingly lest the recovery times and side effects become a bigger problem than any gain you might get (I'm assuming here that damage to soul heals differently from damage to body), especially if there are enemy ciphers lurking around as well (wouldn't want to use up all your resistance). Also, some allies might demand favours owed in return, while others might walk out of your party or attack the cipher, in some cases at the first attempt already. It could also be interesting in this kind of situation that when there is a fight and your main character isn't the cipher those both characters might become uncontrollable until someone else in the party attacks or helps either of them, showing which side you are on, so to speak, at which point you would gain control of the helped party and an enemy out of the other party, or an enemy of both if you hit them both. And when they are enemies you might arrest one or both of them and take them to your dungeon... Alas, as it is effectively you who would be making the initial decision to attack that ally it might be a bit difficult to justify such consequences, unless you could somehow make the cipher make that decision all by themselves -- perhaps by not explicitly forbidding them of using such methods in a tight corner, which would be rather risky for your party (you might not be only down two fighters -- one of which you can't even choose so it might be your tank -- in a difficult fight but up two more difficult enemies as well, especially if you accidentally hit them with some area effect before you realise what has happened) but could provide the only way of reaching some quest line. Just to list a few possibilities

Seems that way. But I would consider that a good thing as powerful abilities should have weaknesses you have to tactically circumvent. If you go against a powerful enemy and minions the cipher will have to attack the minions first and save his focus for the boss. If that is not possible the cipher might have to use an ally, in which case a strategic thinker could hopefully level up a designated focus battery ally by making sure that that ally is not hindered much by that soul whip. Oh, I didn't mean to sound like it was a negative aspect of cipher! I merely wanted to get confirmation for something I was hoping might be included Not limiting cipher to enemies could have lots of interesting consequences -- and I bet the allies might have a thing or two to say about being used as spare batteries!

Perhaps there are some grazing animals that keep it that way? The flowers and the longer grass and the bushes might taste bad or be thorny, which is why they are left, and the existing trees would be too tall and woody to eat, but any saplings would be nice and yummy, which would keep the area from growing more forest-y...

Alas, I don't have time to read this whole thread right now, so I apologize if I'm repeating someone's question, but... In battles against enemies too powerful or resistant to be harmed by the soul whip, cipher is either unable to use advanced techniques (or even repeatedly use minor powers), or is perhaps left with the option of attacking allies to gather the necessary Focus? All in all, interesting update This class probably won't be my first choice, but I'm looking forward to this in a companion and/or replay character.

Beautiful concepts

Broke, huh? I guess the World Economic Forum and the credit rating agencies are doing something wrong since they keep listing them pretty high. Then again I was never in the least interested in economics so what do I know, it just goes against my logic somehow. Personally I don't mind one way or another what economical model the stronghold taxation is or will be based on, I'm willing to accept the high prestige -> rich people want to move in -> more money from taxes explanation that was offered earlier.

Very promising! Much more detailed and varied than I dared to hope, even I don't have much experience with strongholds in general, the only one I remember off the top of my head is the BG2 one (and didn't even remember that there were other options than d'Arnise Keep before reading this thread, I really should find some time for yet another replay), but this sounds leagues of better than any such place I've even heard of.

Before reading any of the comments -- very nice update, I hadn't quite realized you were this far in the process Very much looking forward to the final product!

I for one backed PE because I loved BGs and PST, and liked IWDs well enough, and haven't been able to play much of anything in the ways of RPG after them since they all give me a hell of a motion sickness. I mean, Witcher is nice enough and everything, as long as I choose the highest camera angle, never ever run, only play for an hour or two at a time, and keep my eyes closed whenever I can when navigating city areas, but that really doesn't compare to the fun I had (and still have) with the old IE games. This far I'm quite satisfied with what we've been promised, and I don't think that has changed in any significant manner since the first day of Kickstarter. Granted, I've only read three forum threads through and glanced at two others, so I may have missed something major.

Looks very nice to me, much kudos

I must admit I'm not even halfway through reading this thread since my time is very limited (but not too limited to write this monster of a post, it seems), so it's quite possible someone has suggested this already, but how about limiting your incentive to sell your unusable loot or making the loot more of a story item than just a source of money? Below some completely random examples. -- For example you could see these little scraps of blue silk strewn around the whole world, and sometimes turquoise, and very occasionally green. When you collect them they all go to this one pile that merely keeps growing instead of taking your inventory space, and when you ask about it most people won't care/have a clue but some traveller/retired adventurer/dusty old book/grateful priest eventually lets you know that that material is some special spider silk, made in ancient times, tears easily but never decomposes, used to be quite a fad at some point in the distant history. And hints that it still might be, somewhere. You could usually come across those scraps, say, at the same rate than you come across rings in BG2 (not that I remember what it was), but it varies by the area, somewhat. And then you find a place where the stuff is just everywhere. When usually you might find a few coins in almost every corpse and a scrap of silk in every fifteenth one, now it would be the other way around -- gold is really rare, and silk in abundance (especially in the stomachs/pockets of larger monsters that stalk the roads). And when you get to the town/village/whatever you notice that just about everyone is wearing those scraps in their person -- stitched to their clothing, made into scarfs, hair ornaments, anything. And there you learn that the silk is supposed to bring you luck, and you should always wear it on you. Well, by then you have found enough remains to know this doesn't sound very likely, and have probably also carried the stuff around for a good while without noticeable boost in your luck, so you feel a bit cheated that you have bothered to carry it around at all even if it doesn't really weight anything. But then you notice the old adventurer at the tavern who *doesn't* wear silk, and go ask her about it, and she asks in return don't you know how much they pay for that stuff in area X? So you keep collecting the stuff and go there, noticing that suddenly the silk is really, really scarce in the nearby areas, and then find out the gal was exaggerating a bit -- you won't get even one coin per scrap -- but you also notice there's a guy whose clothes have a very distinct and familiar shade, just like he had had it all made from the silk. And when you talk to him you learn that you can have the stuff crafted into clothing in some weaver shop, or if you have talent in handcrafts you could get patters from this guy in this private club, and by the way they also buy those crafted clothes there. Then it turns out that whether you craft them yourself or have them crafted by someone else the clothes don't really get that good price (except the rare green ones, possibly) -- but if you provide enough of them you might get an invitation to the exclusive club. Can't get inside if you aren't dressed properly, of course, or at least you'll get a very grudging reception, but if you do dress up you'll be really quite unprotected in the meanwhile, so you might wish to invest in some stealthy means of defending yourself and possibly leave a couple of your less sophisticated group members outside both to serve as a guard and to keep them from insulting the members. Might be that you should veto even yourself from going and send someone else in your stead, if you have someone else who fits the profile better and is worth your trust. And depending on how well you or your representative get along with the various members and whether you'll fill their possible side quests in an acceptable manner you could end up with various kinds of benefits -- an unique item in some fabulous colour, perhaps, or goodwill of the town guards who will look the other way as long as you aren't raiding the houses of the members (easily recognizable through some symbol, or contents of the place), or you could find a buyer for this completely useless set of turquoise armour you've had lying around in your stronghold because it just has to be a quest item, and so on. In fact you might be even collecting those weird and useless sets of armour (parts of which you might need to buy or craft/have crafted to get the sets complete, and sometimes replacing an original but badly damaged piece might be beneficial), and find someone who would be interested in displaying selected pieces of your collection in some other elitist society's function -- you might not get that much money out of that either, but your reputation would spread and you would get more deals like that, with another set of benefits as a carrot in the end. And perhaps one of the armour enthusiasts would try to swindle you, and you would have to choose how to react to that with different kinds of consequences. Then perhaps another weaselly-looking person tries to make a deal with you afterwards, and you suspect the results will be the same but you go for it anyway, and get something special extra for your troubles since he's having such a hard time getting anyone to lend their collection to his functions. You might even hold some armour fair of your own in your stronghold, with all your displayed armours guarded and securely booby-trapped in various ways in case of thieves. You might even present older sets of your own armour, along with stories of your accomplishments while wearing them. Not to mention your ring collection where every item also has their own story, even if you had to make up most of it yourself since the corpses you found the rings from weren't too forthcoming with information, but no matter, everyone loves a good story, right? As long as you don't embellish too much and get called on it, that is. And if you are of dark inclinations yourself, you might have yet another, secret collection that has that elven-hide armour and a necklace of small finger bones and other dubious items, and gain nice pieces of information/influence/contacts with the similarly inclined collectors. Of course if you go and show it to the wrong kind of person you might not like the consequences... And if you don't want to go through all that trouble you can just sell the silk and the useless bits of armour and the cheap rings at very bad price, and make do without the extra items and other helpful things you can earn from going through the guests -- but your main merchant will grow very fond of you, and give you some special guests of his own as a reward, and perhaps you'll find yourself very tight with the merchants of that area in general. And if you want to have it all, you'll really have to run yourself ragged trying to find enough silk and stuff for everyone, and it might not be completely possible in any case since the merchants don't get along well with the secret society of the fancy clothes (as they steal customers, even if they also buy most of the silk off from the merchants), but you can always try, eh? -- Personally I don't really mind being the richest person ever alive at the end of the game, either.