Pray

It would be nice if bodies stayed around for a while.

Would this really be such a bad thing in the early game? I think having the option alone might incentivise players to save more money (either having money to skip these quests. or saving the money by doing the quests) which causes the player to feel the risk vs reward mechanic of having more or less money. Players frugal enough might be able to never feel the pinch of "wasting" money on the sink, but then it simply serves the purpose of a money sink.

Just off hand a few money sink ideas that involve side quests: 1) A political line that involves having a high intellect, a high stealth, or loads of money to bribe officials and individuals, in order to finish a quest line with the optimal reputation. 2) A small house is found somewhere along a non-critical path and the player finds a troubled family in need. Player can decide to ignore their need or help provide for them. This is both costly and time consuming - in return, when the. say, father recovers from his illness/injury, they provide some sort of persistent benefit to the party (regular buff foods, or the offer to work as a guard/manager of your stronghold). The benefit does not necessarily have to be a net gain to the player, but is simply a question of what the player values emotionally. 3) Obviously expensive items can be a significant money sink. I feel like this is an obvious one. 4) Becoming a backer of a rebel cause (or it's rival), while staying in the shadows. This means providing both financial as well as perhaps more shady assistance. Winning the cause means a town (after the rebels win or lose) becomes hostile or friendly to the party, and becomes a hub for trading/rest near a perhaps farther from friendlies location, giving it strategic meaning but not forcing the player into the option. Just a few ideas.

I'm glad my very first post grew into a great discussion! I learned so much about that game, and really hope to learn more about the character classes!

I read a lot of the post about their being no true missing - IE spells and attacks always do damage. Has this changed, or been updated/revised? I was unable to find anything else about it, and the post on it was closed almost a year ago. I was just thinking about how much fun it was to wait to see if your sniper hit/missed that critical shot which would spell life or death for teammates, and that if that was mostly gone, how sad I would be. Any updates?