Enoch

Ehy, somebody ask him about Wael too! IIRC, Wael and Skaen/Woedica don't ask for a vow or offer an immediate boon. (Wael doesn't promise anything at all; Skaen offers you Thaos' former place as Woedica's favored.) They just urge you to direct the soul energy a particular way.

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/911663832732278784

Who's doing QA? IIRC, both Obsidian and Paradox had QA teams on Pillars 1. Is it all in-house this time around?

Now consider Gromnir's point about the school exclusions in this context-- what if you're a Skaenite who can't do Inspiration spells (which, I'm guessing, includes Devotions) or a Waelite who can't do Punishment (probably Shining Beacon's school)? It works at other levels, too: Eothasians who can't learn Armor of Faith or Circle of Protection; Magranites who can't learn Consecrated Ground or Revive the Fallen... There probably isn't going to be one Priest who can get all of the "clear best option" spells. (Unless, as I suspect might be the case, Xoti's unique subclass is a generalist.)

Eh, for my part, using the same spells in every single encounter is boring. One of the worst aspects of Pillars 1 Ciphers, imposed on even more classes. And I liked the situational-ness of the spells. Druids were fun in part because you could analyze your opponents and pick the best option from a wide variety of spells attacking different defenses and DR types.

This seemed a significant enough change to merit its own thread. From the SawyerTumblr:

A broader question regarding Chanters: How do they level-up, given that their signature class feature breaks evenly into 2 abilities? According to the level-up chart in the Update, a single-classed character is going to get 1 class ability per level. So, will a 1st-level Chanter only have 1 Phrase, and no Invocations? Seems quite limiting. Further, when you unlock a new power level, will you have to choose between a new Phrase or a new Invocation? Or can one general "Ability Point" be split between Phrases/Invoks?

That's curious... could we get a source and reasoning on that? See the July 12th Twitch stream. Here's the excerpt from the transcript: And some futher explanation on the SawyrTumblr:

As they say on Twitter, life comes at you fast. I wonder if this refers to normal publishing where they would provide the capital for a game not just distribute it like with Pillars. If that is normal publishing I mean they are not taking on all the risk here for Pillars so maybe it more attractive. Keep in mind, also, that Obsidian is a more established developer than Versus Evil has worked with before, and they're making a sequel to a game that was already a critical and commercial success.

Another Sawyr Tumblr that touches on how the Deity-based bonus spells work, relative to specialist Wzards' opposed schools: Somebody with a Tumblr login needs to ask the obvious follow-up to that "can select ... as a Priest spell" language: Will Priests and Druids now need to use level-up resources to select each individual spell, rather than getting access to a whole spell level at once? How restrictive are they planning on being here? Will there be Grimoire-like class items for Priests & Druids to add more spellcasting flexibility?

Some elaboration on the dev-pub relationship from Katrina G.:

For a do-it-all backliner, I like the idea of a Wael-Fury Universalist. Get the important Priest buffs & debuffs, get Illusion magic's crowd control, and get boosted nukes from the Druid list. Plus, what's more Wael-like than transforming into a cloud of steam? That said, a pure-caster backliner is probably still going to benefit more from single-classing than most other party roles will. Action economy will limit the upside of do-it-all flexibility-- getting to the higher-powered stuff earlier will likely give a bigger advantage.

This raises lots of questions about spellcasting classes. Fundamentally, we have a pretty good idea about how Wizards work-- they get to learn a few select spells innately, selected as a class ability, and add more of them by equipping a Grimoire with additional spells in it. But I don't recall anything being said about Priests and Druids. The "can learn"/"cannot learn"/"gain access to" language in the subclass descriptions and the ability tree layout in the video seem to suggest that they'll need to spend a class ability to unlock each individual spell. Which would be massively more restrictive than was the case in Pillars 1. Or does using a Class Ability on a Level X spell just get you one more per-encounter cast of any of the spells at that level? (Which would be a similar structure to that in Pillars 1.) And how would the "can learn [X-type] [other class] spells" characteristics interact with this-- would each spell require an Ability investment, or are the just added to the list of spells the PRI/DRU can access all the time? I'm assuming that prohibited schools will only apply within that class (e.g., so a Conjurer/Magran Thaumaturge can use Priest abilities to cast Wizard Fire spells, even if they are Evocations), but the contrary wouldn't completely surprise me. (Although it would likely make some multiclass combinations far less viable.) And, of course, more info on spell schools will be of great importance in planning characters. Ruling out spells entirely feels like a quite harsh penalty for specialization. (I tend to prefer the Pathfinder approach where opposed-school spells consume more resources, but aren't wholly barred.) This is particularly evident for Priests, who can't opt out of specialization. Based wholly on surmise grounded in the school name, playing a Priest without Protection spells or Inspiration spells, in particular, sounds to me like the guts being cut out of the class. Those poor Eothasians and Skaenites...

As I posted in the tweets & teasers thread, I'd have gone with "Theurgist" instead of "Theurge." I know that's the word that the D&D PrC uses, but I've always seen Theurgist used to describe historical practicioners of Theurgy (the 2 dictionaries I have on hand agree), and it avoids easy "The Urge" jokes. In my book, "War Caller" is a good deal more lame than WildRhymer. Should've just named every Fighter/Chanter Edwin Starr.

Thought experiment: Least viable Multiclass/Subclass combination? Possibly any combination of a Cipher with another caster, who will have to use weapon damage (i.e., not cast spells) to generate focus? Or will spell damage generate focus as weapon damage did? If it does, then Cipher-Wael Priest sounds bad-- Waelites lose access to "Punishment"-type Priest spells, which I assume means most of the direct-damage ones.

A guess: Xoti is going to break the rules, allowing most players to evade this problem. We already know that she's a non-player-selectable Priestess of Gaun. I'm guessing that she'll get access to all the Priest spells-- they won't want to have a school of spells that the vast majority of players (i.e., everyone who doesn't either play as a Priest or unexpectedly multiclass another NPC into Priest) will never see. Of course, that does little to allay your concerns regarding single-classed Watcher Priests.

Inb4 a lvl 20 pure druid becomes an archdruid) Gotta oust one of the existing Archdruids in personal combat, first. But that's just a stepping stone to being named The Grand Druid.

Personally, I'd have gone with "Theurgist" instead of "Theurge." I know that's the word that the D&D PrC uses, but I've always seen Theurgist used to describe practicioners of historical Theurgy (the 2 dictionaries I have on hand agree), and it avoids easy "The Urge" jokes. And, yes, that 2nd row is probably Paladin, not Fighter as I initially postulated.

Isn't Transcendant a monk/cipher?, would fit with ascetic being monk/druid which would be a monk that is one with nature, living the simple life. *goes back to try and find that teaser of cipher multiclass names Josh teased* Hey Andrea! You haven't been updating the OP! edit: YEP! Transcendant is monk/cipher! https://www.instagram.com/p/BWyXIbQFAXU/?taken-by=jesawyer1975 You caught me pre-edit, dammit!

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/910289350562160641 Somebody less lazy should probably just post the image directly. It's pretty clearly an excerpt from a table of multiclass names. Default organization is likely alphabetical, and that fits with the columns (Chanter, Cipher, Druid), but it gets weird in the rows. Looks to me like Druid, Fighter, Priest, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, and Wizard, top-to-bottom. Which is mostly alphabetical, except that Priest comes before Monk, and Paladin is out entirely (or all the way at the top with the Barbarians). But Priest-Druid as "Universalist" is so on-the-nose that I'm pretty confident, in spite of the alphabetical anomaly.

Josh pops in at the Pillars subreddit, talking about savegame import:

Arrest this man He talks in maths He buzzes like a fridge ... He's like a de-tuned radio???

Could be tricky. They appear to not exist... https://www.google.com/search?q=pillars+of+eternity+frost+darts Hopefully for those creating a new game, some default items determined by Obsidian make it in. They existed but melted away before the Watcher could ever run across them. I guess I'll ruin the joke by explaining: Icewind Dale 2 had random loot drops. The tables governing such were a little wonky at release, though, and Returning Frost Darts tended to come up just a little bit more often than expected. IIRC, the patch addressed this, but that didn't stop Returning Frost Dart jokes from being all the rage on the BIS forum in late 2002.

By this point, Josh probably knows where Gromnir is from, too.

If only! I was just seizing on the (admittedly tenuous) opportunity to gripe about the unseemliness of the, erm, porcine bonuses in Pillars. Sophomoric? I guess, but it's for a good cause. In that vein, casually referencing an oddball article that appeared in the NYT 16 years ago is remarkably consistent with the persona you've been exhibiting around here and elsewhere for at least as long as I can recall. Bravo! (Actually not joking here.) And, just to bring this within the stated topic, here's a recent tweet.