anameforobsidian

I'll also throw my lot in with Cipher. They get more than one unique RP lines what with their mind-reading and all. I had the most fun with ciphers and barbarians, but your own value may very.

I actually ran a potd solo run with a barbarian. They have the following advantages: - Huge health pool, only made larger by the patch. Put it with a moonlike and you have some serious hitpoints. - Carnage. Potd has tons and tons of mobs. I could run into a group of kobolds xaurips and kill most of them before they hit me. It's both fun and powerful. - Retaliation armor. It's not as glorious as it was, but retaliation is beautiful on a character you want to get hit. - Targeting fort instead of defense. I don't know how this plays in patch 2.0, but it could frequently be a +20 accuracy buff. That's before threatening presence, which lowers their fort another 20, and lowers will so it normally stays on once it hits. - Threatening presence is also quite nice with a party. A constant defense lowering debuff that is cast automatically without cost is pretty nice. - Stat bonuses with frenzy. You can wear items that give you double frenzy. And the largest advantage of all (for me at least): - Wild Sprint. People never, ever seem to talk about this ability. And it kinda sucks from a number cruncher's perspective. But there are three very good arguments. Positioning at the start of a fight. You move faster and can break the intended positioning of the enemy. This allows you to run through / around those annoying frontline fighters and go straight for those xaurip clerics. Breaking free from the front line. Similarly, if you're surrounded by trash, and want to get at the casters, you just click it and go. Running away. Most characters can't run away. Barbarians can. This helps a lot in PotD solo. Best of all, amazing pulls. If you're really good with it, you can start a fight with the enemy, hit wild sprint and get all but three or four of the enemy to run away. This cuts mobs into far more manageable pieces. Yes it's cheesy, but so are figurines and they're essential to a potd solo run.

I think Valia would be a great place for a sequel. Big cities, lots of content (though they should work on some barks for the cities), and a trade hub means all kinds of possibilities. Also, the politics of the five kingdoms could lead to a cool plot. But I also would really, really like a world or large area map before ruling anywhere out. Something about the geography of Eora seems a bit off.

The Ardra Dragon fight is certainly not thrown at the player. The player has twelve levels of warning. Some of those levels include very nasty fights if you're under-levelled (ogre druids, drake, fampyrs). And Iron Man mode is entirely optional. And even in ironman mode you can skip the fight either by not going there, or by using the dragon fighter option. So it's hardly thrown at you. Also, for the Ardra dragon, it relied on positioning much more than dice rolls. Turns out that having your entire party stand in front of a dragon was a bad idea. Dominate the dragon or the adragans, suddenly your enemies are tanking for you. Boost accuracy with spells. I'll admit that the numbers did see a huge jump, and the difficulty curve had a vertical climb when you got to the Ardra dragon. But I don't think that's the same thing as the whole encounter being bull****.

That may be true in some single player games, but if the game gets too easy or hard it ceases to be fun. However, it is not true in a party-based game. In a party game, characters are being judged against each other, same as MMOs. Additionally good balance enables multiple runs by creating an enjoyable experience with each class.

You can also kill the guardians first, so he never can transfer. Another thing you can do is charm them. Suddenly they're beating each other up and the game becomes much, much easier.

I do agree that PE tended to make its dungeons too large and wilderness areas too sparse. Obsidian could have shrunk its wilderness areas, or in a perfect world with no money spent another six months adding content. Weirdly enough, I think the critical path content was generally worse than the optional content. I don't think that should detract from the fact that when they got it right, they did a pretty good job. PE had four decent dungeons. -I found the Endless paths an entertaining game by itself, and started skipping story content to delve deeper. They mix it up level by level and only one or two levels are too large (2nd with xaurips could have lost a room or two, same with Fampyr levels). The Spider Queen, Kobold pit fight, the ogres, the drake, the blights, the fampyr conversation (level was too long), the Vithrack, the weird wall of thorns, Od Nua, and of course the Ardra dragon are memorable from the Endless Paths. Honestly, if they had broken up each level and instead placed them around the world, the game would feel a lot more full. -The first dungeon (and wilderness area for that matter) clearly had more detail put into it than most other areas. It had multiple means of solving problems, was short, had unique monsters, and was generally a good introduction. -Raedric's keep is a bit too large, especially given how small the surrounding towns that support it are. Also, the undead fights probably could have been cut in half. I think Raedric's keep could do with some more sign posting that no, you're not supposed to fight your way through, and the game is actually more fun if you don't. But it does a great job telling a story; providing difficult yet varied combat; and having multiple means of approach. -Sun in Shadow is well focused, atmospheric, tells a story, and has some fun fights. And PE had four decent wilderness areas. - The area outside of Dyrford. If the rest of the game had wilderness areas like this, it would make a decent run for BGII's money. It was full of content and variety, and wasn't afraid to kick player's butts if they got complacent. - The sea shore. Even though it was relatively small, the different xaurip groups provide some different fights, and the witch and her xaurip helper were pretty cool. - The first wilderness after the first dungeon. Could have done with maybe one less encounter, but it had a lot to offer and a lot to discover. - The map north of Twin Elms. It had the hunter's quest, and the smugglers, birds, Persitaaq, and the entrance to the temple of Hylea. I was quite fond of that little area, even if I had been level capped for hours by the time I reached it. Namutree, on 30 Aug 2015 - 12:56 AM, said: Irenicus's dungeon was a terrible dungeon and the worst starting area I've ever had the misfortune of playing. Love BG2; hate that dungeon. I liked it quite a bit the first time I played. It was only in later games that it felt like a drag. Many people feel the way you do though, people have made mods to skip it. BGII had its less good filler dungeons too, like the Sahaguin City, Spellhold, Bodhi's Lair x2, and the elven city. But yes, the general dungeon quality was higher, with more content. But it did have some absolutely amazing ones like De'Arnise Keep and Firekraag's lair, and in general they had more variety than PE.

From what I understand it opens at Chapter 2, when you're going to Twin Elms.

We must find Ron Constructs, and learn from him.

I don't believe that for a second (and in fact suspect that you are making a deliberately contentious statement). This isn't an MMO where the nerf-buff-nerf cycle is necessary to keep players rerolling, regearing and therefore spending money. (Or where, indeed, PvP-and-sometimes-PvE-induced butthurt results in strident cries of "OMG SO OP NERF ASAP SUB CANCELT WAITING 4 <insert next hot upcoming MMO title here>"). For most people, PoE will be one-and-done, maybe two-and-done for those who want to go for achievements. There's nothing wrong with it, PoE is not open-ended like Skyrim, it tells one story that is fairly on rails and has a definite end. It doesn't even have two distinct story branches like Witcher 2 for example, so people are unlikely to replay it more than maybe a couple times. For those wishing to do so, there are multiple classes and multiple races. This offers plenty of "fresh" experience. Ripping the guts out of the gameplay of one or another class just to keep it "fresh" is poorly justified at best, and smacks of chronically bad design choices at worst. Outside of fixing outright bug-induced exploits, single-player games should offer a fairly stable and consistent environment - at least compared to MMOs. If it is necessary to rebuild characters and drastically change your playstyle every time a patch drops, then at the very least, it leaves a very bad impression; combine that with the necessity to dodge the ever-swinging nerf bat, and one may start to wonder why they aren't playing an MMO in the first place. "Ripping the guts out" is pure hyperbole. Yes, they do make modest changes so that you can't faceroll the game. Breaking the game once is fun, but you effectively have nothing to do with a character once they've broken the game. All fights become repetition and repetition becomes boring. Then the advice spreads online, new players look at it, and complain about the game being too easy. Therefore, it's in the best interest of game devs and players for the devs to have the best version of the game available at any time. Also, despite bitching, patches almost never make a class or build unusable. PE is very friendly to suboptimal builds, especially at lower difficulty levels. Most players play on normal. The complaining comes from people who are playing PotD runs, yet whining when patching makes a hard mode hard. Furthermore, rule changes in non-MMOs happen all the time. Chess went through a bunch before it reached its current form. Solitaire has a bunch of variants. Pokemon is mostly singleplayer and they've gone through a bunch of changes. DnD changed 3.0 to 3.5 and Pathfinder made 3.5++. Even the Witcher 2 changed balance in patches.

That seems like using RP as equivocation. Why would enemies who were seeking to do the most damage attack the most threatening foe? Also, people who live in that world and are aware of magic are probably aware of the danger. When in doubt, kill the mage seems like a pretty good philosophy for fighters. It also isn't neurosurgery to figure out. Also, I think taunt systems are ridiculous in any form of roleplay. To quote the ever-terrible RA Salvatore: "You're mother is an ore-loving harlot." The orc ran at the dwarf instead. There are much more realistic(ish) ways to deal with overly aggressive enemies. Trips and knockdowns. Dimensional shifts. Grimoire slam back into the fighter they just disengaged (Grimoire slam is super fun, it's worth taking a suboptimal feat to literally beat your enemies to death with books). Sleep spells. Llenegrath's safeguard. Using summons to get in the way. Charm Spells. Silent scream. The utterly ridiculous amplified wave. And the list goes on and on. Basically, if you use your abilities to harass, harry, and control opponents you can get much greater mileage out of them. Charming the enemies and having them go to town on each other has always been more effective than engagement anyways. Same with the remarkable slicken and adragan's gaze.

I remember importing from BG1 into BG2. Dont remember being able to start over with my previous end game character. You could. You could import any saved BG character into BGII. It's kinda fun to send an ubermensch who finished watchers keep through the game and watch them gib all the midlevel enemies. My friends used character imports to abuse the hell out of this in a multiplayer game. They would save before a big quest reward and constantly finish the quest reload the characters and finish the quest again. I never saw the point.

Can't talk about the latter, but have you thought about putting armor on your casters for that specific fight? It sounds like the hit cushion armor provides could do a world of difference.

Class restrictions should be used very sparingly on weapons. Iconic weapons for individual classes are great, but if they're too powerful, they have the potential to undermine the wide variety of equipment you can use. I like the idea of the slayer weapons though. I hope its not an enchantable enchantment.

It sounds like you're conflating harmful and evil. Galactus is harmful, but not evil; he just wants to nom. Drow and Demons are evil; they're aware of our morality and choose an inversion of it. There are already many harmful semi-sentient creatures in PE (wichts and xaurips), but almost no evil ones. Dragons are fairly close to an evil race, there are no "good" representatives that we meet. In general, I think evil races are usually unrealistic. Many of our "good" traits are functionally advantageous. Societies like orcs and drow are maladaptive, and probably would not survive in the long run. Sure there are ethical quandaries (lots of interesting possibilities with psionic collectives), but to fit into PE they would have to make sense as a long term survival strategy. Even if a race displays behavior that is harmful towards humanity, they could only do it within certain bounds. IE, there would have to be a reason they hadn't wiped humans+all out or humans+all hadn't wiped them out. And their actions towards other members of their own species should make sense. Dragons and vithrack are great examples of this.

The Black Hound was supposed to be a backer inn but the backer never contacted them. So they did it based on the Black Isle BG3 game that was never made. I believe one of the enemy companies is in the inn in the market in Defiance Bay. They do give you that awesome retribution armor.

There's another option for the Adragans. My cipher was regularly charming the Dragon herself. The Adragans were not really a problem after that. I haven't approached the Dragon in a PotD run though.

I didn't vote, because the poll has problems. First I don't think they need more. In PE, unlike D&D genera, race does not equal culture. Boreal dwarfs are effectively a new "race." New cultures would be better. Second, no half races. PEs lore makes it clear that either the species never interbreed. They could do a few sterile offspring maybe, but I really would prefer it was just left alone. Third, it's missing the fact that many PE races are substitutes for D&D. They're just more coherent to the lore. Aumua are orcs. You just don't notice because they're not horribly designed caricatures that enflame xenophobic passions. Godtouched are the equivalent of Aasimar, Tieflings, etc. Fourth, they would have announced if they were adding a new race in the expansion. I doubt they are. Honestly, I don't even think they need new species. The existing ones feel kind of full already. Fifth. No drow. Not ever. Sixth. I kinda want to play as a Xaurip. If they had time, it would be really fun if they had a Xaurip mode in a new game, where everyone treats you differently. Hell, it'd make a good mod for PE if it's ever moved over to Unity 5.

Why not? Pillars of Eternity seems to take place in high middle ages which means somewhere between 13th to 15th Century. Flintlock weapons were introduced hundreds of years later in the beginning of the 17th Century. They totally break the immersion of the game to me but I learnt to live with it. Now if the devs decide to add grenades that'll be the final straw, I agree with Cantousent when he says we're on a slope from there on. Have you ever heard of nafta throwers? Grenades are viable and certainly possible in a place that can mix early powder grenades with magic. I would not mind them as long as they are scaled properly. Naphtha is not nearly the same thing as a grenade. It's an oil mixture and the early grenades would have been much closer to a weak molotov ****tail than what we think of as grenades. The other important thing to remember is that black powder then was not nearly as powerful as black powder now. They didn't know the best mixtures, etc. Some of the earliest gunpowder weapons were gun powder packed in bamboo. Obviously PE's world has better gunpowder than that, but it's not reasonable to assume that they're anywhere near American Civil War technology. If people want grenade like effects (I personally don't care), I think throwable potions are a much, much better solution. It's classic to the medium, far more limited than hand grenades, and makes sense given the atmosphere of the world. However, if they were to appear, they should be limited (no fireball potions), and expensive.

I thought the guns in Pillars were matchlocks, which were around earlier? Either way, thematically the guns fit because the time period is clearly Renaissance influenced.

Just roll 6 fighters and go to town. Or a mix of fighters, chanters, and paladins. Team C student can probably beat the game without too much "hand holding."

Eh, there were rumors of friction between him an Sawyer. Something like Durance and Grieving Mother were both supposed to have influenced the PC negatively. Eventually it was to be resolved with a text dungeon inside the player's mind. Sawyer supposedly nixed the idea because it would have involved too much work to get working / was outside of the already large scope for PE. That's all rumor. That said, I think there's probably a simpler explanation. Obsidian has been building up a team of writers and level designers for a while now. New Vegas probably gave a lot of them more creative freedom than they expected due to its large scale, and some of them probably grew a lot. Also, Obsidian now seems like the most stable its ever been. That means that Obsidian needed Avellone less, so he was free to do a bunch of side projects right. As he did more side projects, he probably realized that he liked being a freelance writer more, and his role at Obsidian was replaced through necessity rather than malice. That's my guess. It's less salacious than rumor though. I also think Avellone could have a fantastic kickstarter, either as a small team starting a new setting at Obsidian or elsewhere.

Even though BG2 had waaaaaay less systematic and art content for strongholds, it felt more satisfying for two reasons: 1. Not everybody had the same stronghold. Getting a mage sphere, thief's guild, or castle felt very different. 2. It's all about the writing. To Obsidian's credit, the chairlady does notice when you reach certain levels of prestige / security, when you slay the big bad of the Endless paths, and when you finish restoring everything. However, having some non-random quests with some dialogue given to you by quest givers would feel far more satisfying. If they fed back into the strength of the stronghold that would be excellent. If once you had a warden, he would tell you to go talk to a specific merchant, etc. in your stronghold and they would have the quests, it would feel more like you were building something. 3. Addendum to 2. NPCs man. Put some NPCs in. If I replace a garden, how bout a gardener? If I fix a fora, how bout a philosopher? I feel like they put a lot of art and systems work into the stronghold. The dual floor in the inn is very clever (it changes if you fix it). The hand around the weapons shop is too. The ability to take prisoners is awesome (and they talk to you). The bounties are some of the more fun fights in the game. They just needed the content to back it up. Note, this would be prime work for modders, so I hope they do the next one in Unity 5 and either they or a clever modder backports this game in.

Sawyer's SA response to criticism about the lack of content for strongholds: Content does not burst forth from our foreheads fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus through desire and good intentions. I laughed.

The stats already strongly influence the way your class is played, and this will be even better because it makes crit builds viable. I think people may be missing the fact that stats synergize with each other. D&D has conditioned people to think about maxing one stat and then playing with the rest. In PE, builds depend on what degree you emphasize two to three stats, not maxing one. A perception / dex / might character rogue is going to specialize in getting crits and could easily favor lighter weapons while being very fragile, or use bows to attack from a distance. A might / res / per rogue is going to be more of a brawler, using something like an estoc to get nasty hits. Note that only one stat has changed out, but the way they've been emphasized has completely changed the profile of the character.