anameforobsidian

Did you use a spell that targeted fortitude?

Valian Republics would be great. Ruatai could also be neat. Kana's descriptions of it sound like an interesting setting. Maybe the living lands. I do think the character's arc (if it extends past one game) should end in Readceras. The Godhammer has such a significance that the citadel needs to be explored.

I'm not very sympathetic to monks breaking archetypes as a complaint for a couple reasons: - Unless you're playing PotD lower armored monks work fine. Put on an enchanted robe and put that **** through the white forge. Grab duality of soul, and a few other powers. - They get a huge unarmed bonus, to the point where on a first run monks will almost always have some of the best weapons in your party. - Archetype changes over time. The archetype of the unarmed / unarmored monk is not accurate for either Western or Eastern monks. The fact that they're more accurate to a centuries old tradition than a forty year old one makes it better grounded. Why would verisimilitude break immersion? - I really like the mix of flagellate and kung-fu. I think it makes a cool image. - Why is the asian monk a more valid archetype than the European one in a highly European setting? On the other hand: - I wouldn't mind wounds as damage mitigation returned. - Another option would be adding a talent to benefit light armor wearing monks. (Archetype restored with minimal effort) - Talents adding whole new class mechanics is really stretching the point of talents by a lot (cross-class talents not withstanding), and it makes characters harder to build. Other OP complaints: - Raedric could do with a messenger, but what person doesn't visit the tavern in a new town? Baldur's Gate practically relies on that ****. - Monks could use more class dialogue, I believe you get some with Zahua. - No one's terribly happy with the end of act II, including the lead writer. They shouldn't write themselves into a non-reactive hole next time. - The Knights and Dozens are very human groups. They are both flawed with several positives as well as negatives. Only the Doemenels are completely evil. - The machine in the city gives you the option to overload. Why wouldn't the Leaden key use it again? - Pillars did need more content. Act II is by far the worst offender. I see the expansions with hope to how a sequel could look. However, it's far improved from its original state, and I easily think it would garner a few more metacritic points now.

I'm playing with it right now. It's pretty effective and you don't need any stealth. Most sneak attacks come from flanking or one of the may other status afflictions that apply. Combine it with weakening blows, and you have a character who murderates weaker mobs and uses flagellants path to zip through and around the bigger clumps of enemies. This works especially great with wizards.

Really it shouldn't be related to getting into anything. The whole point of the Leaden key as a name is because they snap, and no one can get in the door.

They've already boosted constitution, and with a lot of my parties the enhanced health is no joke on PotD. One problem with constitution is that its effects are more biased towards certain classes / class based than any other stats. I feel like barbarians, in particular get more surviveability from high con. I really think that if they wanted to make con more valuable, the only thing they could do is rebalance the entire system making damage higher, thus allowing con to have more of a spread. I disagree with the idea that con should affect DR. The system can be opaque in parts already.

What's your favorite piece of new stronghold content? They added a bunch that makes the stronghold much better. Several of the adventures have interesting lines. The loot in Endless Paths seems to have been changed on lower levels or maybe I missed it the first two times, there's a prison break I haven't seen yet. But my favorite one, by far, is when a slaver comes to visit. You can order him hung outside your walls, and then when you come back to your stronghold, you actually see a corpse hanging.

Right now Pallegina is one of my best and most reliable characters on PotD. She's using the unfortunately bugged St. Waidwen's Redeemer. And the key for her keeping high DPS is to actually use the flaming sword move. Ones she gets the pulsing fire move it makes fighting the undead much, much easier. I only lost one person fighting Raedric II, and that was accidentally on fast mode. The key to her DPS is this, you don't get DPS if you die.

I don't think that'd be bad for the sequel. People have already commented about wanting a pirate style, pistol in one hand sabre in the other.

It's worth pointing out that the monk concept is a mixture of western and eastern monks, not just kung fu monks. Armor perfectly matches the western paradigm.

I do think that he was a little two dismissive of the possibility of an alternative Act II ending. They could have just had Leaden key attacks instead the current one either way.

Did they ever release the tabletop book? I thought there were plans for something like that? Or at least a campaign guide.

I doubt it. Rangers were not originally intended to have pets. They were only added after fan outcry. Sagani's character design was shown sans-Itumaak in the kickstarter campaign.

I'd love to see a solo PotD playthrough with a Barbarian. No one seems to try it though. I did it when One Stands Alone and retaliation worked together. I have to say, a very, very underappreciated feature of barbs for soloing is wild sprint. Wild sprint is awesome for disengaging. If your characters are fast enough, you can pull parts of groups for most fights. That made bounties a lot easier, because a lot of the bounty mages don't chase like the strikers and fighters.

Haha, see, this is why I can't take you all that seriously. You're against the Codex for being a den of "racist *ssholes" when your entire schtick is based around being kind of an *sshole here. You just like hanging around in a place where you can dish it out but don't have to take it. Lazy. Great, but but that doesn't really change my point, does it? Josh talks about one kind of narrative but not the kind I wanted to know more about, so I interviewed Eric. I fail to see the problem here. I respect the hell out of you as an admin and poster and dev-botherer, genuinely. But the massive continuing butthurt at the codex about PE alone makes it hard to respect. ****, there are people who complain about build variety in PE still, when its vastly more flexible than most rpgs. The way everyone is some kind of "_____f*g" makes it harder. The fact that Sensuki is a representative of a significant portion of vitriolic players there makes it even harder. And the less than cute way you alter each others profiles for a vast number of personal insults. I get that everyone there knows its a rough place but that doesn't make it more appealing. I still read the news every two or three days. No one else does rpg news as well.

I doubt it. At best it will probably start a friendly rivalry. The people who don't like the game (a lot of the Codex) weren't going to put money down on a kickstarter no matter what happened. I think the game will inspire a small but relatively dedicated fan-base. The build variety alone of the system is relatively unparalleled in a class-based system.

I'm of the mind that even if Durance is crazy, he's not completely out of step with the rest of the world so he still has limited agency. And even in his saner moments, he's still remarkably amoral (joking about other characters' deaths) etc.

I would support a kickstarter that was similar to Shadowrun Hong Kong, where the whole thing was carefully measured stretchgoals in addition to base funding.

Depends on how old he/she is. When I was a teenager, expansions were done exactly the way they described. The problem is, that was only a few years ago. Seriously though, if you look at the IE games, ToTSC is the odd man out. Throne of Bhaal was designed to continue the main story and Heart of Winter could be played after the main campaign by importing characters. So I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to expect White March to allow the same. Ultima is probably "the" classic RPG series and it was more TotSC-esque. Ultima VII had a mid-game expansion like TotSC and although Serpent Isle is called technically called Ultima VII: Part Two it's a sequel (or spin-off) for most intents and purposes, with a mid-game expansion of its own. Both types have their pros and cons, as WM demonstrates a mid-game expansion doesn't have to interfere with the main storyline since the base game largely concludes the story of the Watcher (even if it has a somewhat ambiguous and open ending). I think the introduction of microtransactions and DLC has made WM-style expansions/additions more popular during the last decade or so. Personally I prefer the Throne of Bhaal approach over Tales of the Sword Coast one, mid-game expansions often feel glued on top and if you don't want to play through the entire game again you can just pick up and play the expansion right off the bat. Of course if the TotSC approach is done well it greatly increases overall replay value. I guess Watcher's Keep was also available during Shadows of Amn if you had ToB installed but it had little to no plot [integration], it was just a big endgame dungeon for extra loot and challenge. By itself not something I would've picked up ToB for. I think it depends on the style of game. If a game is based on exploration, like BG1 or parts of PE then plug in locations make a lot of sense, because they can strengthen the game. Pillars of Eternity could have certainly used more wilderness areas, so White March alleviated one of its weaknesses (not enough places to go). Furthermore, in exploration based games, not seeing and outleveling the content is okay. In games where the focus is closer to the narrative, and your time is spent on sidequests rather than exploration, I think standalone expansions are better. It's easier to incorporate new places than new characters. One strength of standalone expansions that hasn't been mentioned is their ability to redefine a series. Shadowrun: Dragonfall is a great example of this, mediocre release and much better campaign as an expansion. I think this is natural given that the company has a greater familiarity with the system and toolset. I'm certainly finding WM much better than the areas around Gilded Vale.

I have no problem with restricting proficiency bonuses for soulbound weapons, but there very clearly is room for it in lore. We already know souls can be bound into items, Caed Nua, Sanitarium, Persoq; we already know that souls can be linked to other souls (Twin Souls); we know that souls can link to items to make them more effective Maerwald / White Forge; finally, we already know that you use your soul powers through items and that items reflect the strength of your soul (might, grimoires, specialty cipher items / every martial class ever). Therefore, an item that links to your soul to allow you to use it's strength more effectively is hardly controversial.

Probably the actual Pathfinder game. I'm more surprised they're not going straight for the sequel.

Reviewers and many player hated the soul sucking mechanic in NWN2.

No way, no how. It's the fact that Durance has done all these things yet had more or less good reasons for doing so that makes him a good character. The only objectively evil thing about Durance is the writing towards the end of the game. They should've just let Avellone do his thang. Evil people can have well-developed reasons for their actions. Magneto is a great villain because of this. No one has yet defended Durance's pogroms against Eothasians.

Evil doesn't have to mean unbelievable motivations. Durance has killed the hollowborn, killed watchers for who they are, and voluntarily participated in religious pogroms. Those actions are objectively evil. Is he a well-written, believable character with understandable motivations? Mostly, yes.

Durance is very, very close to flat out evil. His hands are super not clean.