Katarack21

What I would like to see in the expansion is reactive party interaction. I want the conversation options with our companions to react to our classes, backgrounds, etc; I want Eder to react to a PC who is a Priest of Eothas, I want my cipher character to react with cipher mind-reading powers to Aloth's issues, etc.

That's an excellent point, but slightly skewed, since strength and skill are not mutually exclusive. In other words, that's great when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson tries to go up against a 120lb master swordsman, but what happens when a really strong swordsman goes up against a much-weaker swordsman? That's why strength has its own role in the system, and skill has its own role. No one's arguing that strength should take skill's job. ... Yeah, "all the time" that he isn't dead. "How he'll do" with the claymore wasn't meant to literally be "how will he handle a claymore?", but, how will he fare, wading into a battle like that, all things considered. That was his whole point I was countering: that your 1-million-Might Wizard isn't strong because he won't last long in melee combat with just really high Might. Right, but my point is that even in D&D, strength isn't equal to combat effectiveness. Just because your character has a high strength, in D&D, doesn't automatically make him a front-line combatant; there is more flexibility, even in D&D, then that. This system in PoE takes that basic concept and adds a great deal of nuance to it.

Is there no way at all to do the "last resort" and go in with Dunyrd Row? All three of the other choices are douchebags. On a related note, is there any point in holding on to Gedmar Doemenal owing me a favor, or should I take the gold/weapon and run?

I haven't ran much with Kana Rua, mainly because I just found I don't care much for chanters. However, that voice is *AWESOME*.

It's on a loading screen now and then. That's how I found out about it.

There are various scrolls for various attributes throughout the game. I've found two of some, but not of that specific one.

Fine<Exceptional<Some named<Superb<Other named. But no color coding, and there is variance because of other enchants and such that can modify them for unique purposes.

'Tis why I always played a Sorcerer. Sure, I had maybe 2/3'rd the spell selection...but I could cast 6 fireballs a day!!!

The idea that there is any particular stat that is necessary for any particular class to be effective is just silly, IMHO. It all depends on how you build and how you play; what role you are assigning that character to.

But he IS physically strong! Make a D&D Fighter with 18 Strength and 1 Constitution, and see how well he does with a Claymore on the frontline. He'll do GREAT with the claymore in D&D. He'll be **** for taking damage, but he will hit people with that claymore *ALL THE TIME*.

2) Every rest in BG1&2 has a random chance of spawning enemies to attack you, scaled to your level. Successful rest spam also includes save scumming, which was clearly not designed for considering the above implemented mechanic.

Mind Lance is also good, to royally screw up an enemy caster straight off, and Mind Wave is a *great* AoE knockdown.

Plus it deals raw damage, does it not? Also, not to be a stickler, but to stave off confusion, is it not called "Arcane Assault"? Blast is the AoE effect from Implements (if you take the Wizard Talent). You are correct, both about the raw damage and the name.

I start with Mind Blades, because I have full focus at the start of every fight--I only have to gain focus after I've spent some. Is this not normal?

What are you talking about? The IE game implementation was the exact same, except with no free magic missiles every encounter and no conversion of low level spells to per/encounter when you get to high levels. If you hate vancian casting, the IE games have literally nothing over PoE in implementation. Unless you rested after every combat to get spells back. Which was silly and I'm glad PoE removed it. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not glad PoE moved it, it was a classic mechanic used in many games and made casters super fun. Whats so fun about spamming auto attack for most of the game on a Wizard? And the free spell is terrible, I'm better off using my arbelast and hitting for 60+ from far away. But yes the conversion to per encounter is nice, but after like 30+ hours (And the only 2 good spells from those conversions are getting killed as per this thread) Arcane Blast also dazes and is an AoE. It has some great uses.

Also craft and use scrolls. Non-priest party members can still cast heals using scrolls, and it's great for having a mage stay combat-relevant when out of spell casts, but the rest of the party is still good to go.

My experience with Aloth has been completely the opposite. 2 free magic missiles every trash fight with incredible spells to whip out in the hard fights. Wonderful balance. You aren't supposed to fire spells off constantly - nor are you supposed to just save them and never use them. Playing a Wizard correctly is all about rationing properly - it's a resource management game. If you don't like it, there's always Ciphers or Chanters for unlimited casting. So it's by design that you have to spam auto-attack for most battles? I like IE game implementation better, casting spells is fun. What are you talking about? The IE game implementation was the exact same, except with no free magic missiles every encounter and no conversion of low level spells to per/encounter when you get to high levels. If you hate vancian casting, the IE games have literally nothing over PoE in implementation. Unless you rested after every combat to get spells back. Which was silly and I'm glad PoE removed it. Silly perhaps, but also very, very common. I did it--didn't even realize you weren't supposed to. Didn't realize it was considered "cheating" or anything. It's such a common way of playing IE games that they specifically implemented a mechanic to prevent it.

Monsters of the Deadfire Archipelago is pretty good. Polpovirs sound terrifying.

Freakin' why? The monk is an already very powerful class. Actually Barb is way more powerfull than Monk, so if monk is very powerfull i wonder what Barb is atm.... I tryed a MOnk lvl 12 it does like 5-10 per hit I used mine as a tank. I didn't use him for damage. I'm not sure why you would tank with a Monk when you can Use a Paladin and a Fighter with special ability to tank... Most of Monk ability/skill are offensive one and we dont need dps for a tank. So i'm not sure what you mean by powerfull. I'm using a high might/high con/high resolve custom barbarian as my off tank. Works great. Also, for any spell user you should make and use scrolls.

Those druids are rugged. I came back later to deal with them.

Why waste time.

My cipher is perfectly ok with the Mind Blades nerf. That power is OP; it's why I use it four times a fight.

I don't think my Pallegina bug is fixed yet, nor the mess that is the Sanitarium I'll give it another month before I start whining, I think. Fair enough. They're *already* working on the patch after this one, too. I think, all in all, they're doing a pretty good job. As a side note, I'm playing an ex-slave, Orlan cipher. I'm all about the animancers, and I despise all the major factions (Knights, Dozens, Doemenals). So I'm basically pushing the animancers as hard as I can. )

I absolutely hate this type of argument. It doesn't, and shouldn't, matter how much blood, sweat and tears someone put into a game. What matters is if it works. Otherwise I could start using the same argument for the architect who drew up a building that ultimately ended up collapsing because of structural mistakes. "But he worked hard! We should still appreciate the effort he put into it!". Not really. Also, you act as if "just putting down the money for the product" is somehow something completely inconsequential. As if those of us who may not have that much money and chose to buy this game knowing it would probably be the only one we could buy for an entire month can have that same cavalier approach to spending cash that you seemingly have. That is kind of disrespectful. Not everyone who experiences a bug, even a severe one, will post about it. Some may choose to play on, some may read the forums and see that others have already addressed the issue and wait, some may simply wait for a patch without making a complaint and so on. Obviously you have no way of knowing how many people out of those who bought it that experience problems. With the activity we do see here and with the number of people who report the same issues, it's probably a fair bet that these bugs plague a lot of copies of the game. No, but you do get a general idea of the ratio and proportion. This is statistics, man; it's a known and quantifiable percentage and extrapolation. I played VtM:B, KOTOR 2, Pools of Radiance, etc. I know a bad launch when I see one; I know a game that is truly unfinished, that does. Not. Work. This is not that. This is not anything like KOTOR 2, where the game was released with major chunks of coding literally incomplete. This isn't VtM:B, where they released an alpha product and then went bankrupt (and included 100% fail full-stop bugs). It's not even comparable.