Enoch

The problem with 8-10 is that this is not 2nd ed. AD&D. Classes in AD&D were basically on-rails. Rolling an 8th-level character doesn't take a whole lot more time or thought than does rolling a 1st-level character. All you're adding from the level-ups in BG2's system are weapon proficiency dots, populating spellbooks for Wiz/Sorc, and allocating Thief skills. And, really, of those, spell selection for Sorcerors is the only one that is seriously consequential to the character build. Is Obsidian really going to ask a player new to the system to pick 8 levels worth of Talents, Spells, Skills, and Class Features, before they've even played the game? (And I note again that, even for Pillars veterans, the game mechanics are going to be changing. We'll likely have to re-build any imported characters from the ground up.)

Comes down to some pretty subjective preferences, so it surprises me that Obsidz are planning on rocking the boat by changing this. For my part, 5 or 6 are fine with me. But 4 feels too few, and 7 somehow crosses the line into way too much hassle. I guess with the cap at 5, I no longer have to avoid Rangers in the party. (But, really, I'm still going to avoid Rangers.)

This wasn't new with PoE. NWN2 had the main character to level 3 before you left the starter village. ("Lower BoringSwamp" or something?) I think I leveled from 1->2 bobbing for apples at the fair.

Thought: Without a known external system to pin character advancement to, shouldn't "Level 1" = "The level at which you start the game"?

Well, they're re-jiggering the game mechanics, too. It's rarely a good idea to ask the player to pick a whole lot of abilities at once, right at the start of the game. They'll want the game to be accessible to new-to-the-franchise players, and, even for returning players, there's probably going to be a healthy amount of new options to consider. My suspicion is that they'll start us at something that feels like level 3 or 4. Systems like this tend to be most fun in the 3-10 level range, anyway.

Hopefully not too much. Ondra probably isn't particularly happy with the only character I've played through WM, and he's likely to be spending a whole lot of time on a ship at sea...

If these teasers (after the first three) do relate to factions rather than characters (which seems more and more likely), I guess Old Vailia is the fit to this one. A once-great empire, now faded and fractured by continual internal warfare.

This sounds credible and all (especially if you add Rauatai as an additional mercantilist force rivaling the Republics), but the problem is that they've done that already. Fallout: New Vegas features a frontier region with 2 rivaling geopolitical forces competing to control it, and presents the player with the option to tip the balance to one, the other, or to the natives (whether led by House or the PC). It'd surprise me if Obsidian goes for that level of thematic repetition.

As are we all, I'm sure. (Also, I'm not sure if I should be impressed or scared by the fact that you remembered that it was me who made that comment nearly 2 years ago.)

I wouldn't say that the resemblance goes any further than both of them being roughly triangular. And that explanation doesn't account for the waves and the reference to sharks-- Eir Glanfath is landlocked.

[nevermind; misunderstood something]

Deathblows can't be learned until level 11, at which point your Vancians will have 1st- & 2nd-level Mastered spells. I'd focus on using those, as they're per-encounter and don't have to wait for wounds/focus generation. Sunbeam or Curse of Blackened Sight for Blinded; Halt for Stuck; Slicken or Repulsing Seal for Prone; Fetid Caress for Paralyzed. (I wouldn't recommend Mastering Tanglefoot or Binding Web.) Combine any one of those with each other or with a Painful Interdiction (Weakened) from the Priest, and you're there. My favorites are the Blinds-- it's a great debuff that few enemies are immune to (Oozes and Eyeless, mostly), both the spells affect several targets, Sunbeam is super-long-range and works great as a first strike, and CoBS is Foe-AOE for front-line targeting. Halt can also be a nice spell to Master, presuming that your Paladin will have an aura making Blessing largely irrelevant, but it's single-target and can make the target tough-to-reach for melee rogues. Against enemies that are immune to some of these, maneuvering into flanking position or using per-rest spells probably becomes necessary.

It refers to the casters who use per-day spells. It's a reference to the author Jack Vance, and his Dying Earth series in particular, in which magic users are limited in the number of spells they can simultaneously remember. They have to pick which ones to use beforehand and forget them when they are cast. Dungeons and Dragons borrowed this concept for its spellcasters. Eternity's casters aren't completely Vancian (e.g., in how Priests/Druids can pick from any spell at any time, and in how the Grimoire differs from memory), but it works as shorthand.

Hey, look! Somebody listening to Rush tolerable!

Haha! You fell for the trolling, you poor fool!

Excellent long dialogue on what the Russian government is trying to get out of mucking with U.S. elections. Excerpt:

I'm plagarizing this line from somewhere, but in addition to all the actual evidence regarding the "the Clintons are serial murderers" nonsense, the whole theory falls apart when one considers that Anthony Weiner is still alive.

I can find reports that Aloth can apparantly do it as well, but haven't confirmed it myself. Probably needs a CON buff of some kind, but those are easy to come by. I was stymied in my attempt by the fact that both Hiravias and Aloth had used all their 1st-level spells Sunbeaming and Slickening Ogres. And Winter Winds / Chill Fog are the only ones that work (plus the frost-traps Chanter thing). H had casts of spells like Blizzard, Hailstorm, and Overwhelming Wave left, but they weren't presented as options.

I think Josh checked the "font circumflexes" display option a few times too many.

Almost anyone that played it knows its combat is a busted mess. However, the world is incredibly crafted, its char gen is among the best (I think it is the best), its reactivity is stellar, and it has some great side quests/companions/content. It's definitely a very flawed gem. It gets a whole lot wrong, but the things it gets right are incredible. If the combat was better implemented... I daresay people would remember it more fondly than many of the classics (Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc). However, we got what we got, and the world (plus its other positives) is/are well made enough that the IP deserves another shot despite its broken combat. The character creation system was bad. Sure, lots of weird options for flavor, and it had a certain elegance in that a point was a point was a point. But allowing a lot of options doesn't help you much in my book when a substantial percentage of them get the "ha-ha, non-viable choice!" kick to the balls a third of the way through the game. (And a few others get the opposite treatment: "Oh, you put a single point in the 'Harm' spell, so the rest of the game is EZ Mode!") To me, Arcanum is exhibit A to support the proposition that, yes, balance matters in single-player games. As for the setting, the world had an interesting core concept, but they failed to populate it with any interesting characters.

RPG fans are notoriously tolerant of poorly thought out, poorly implemented rule systems. I am not immune to this-- I can have fun playing in some deeply terrible rulesets (e.g., Basic D&D). But, for me, Arcanum was just too far. Mechanically broken to the degree that the game was simply not enjoyable.

Well, there's this: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/791419241069023232 Context:

That's something I surprisingly haven't seen discussed much. Let's put aside corruption for a moment and look at polls at face value. Clinton is winning. But the last I heard in regards to voter morale, Trump voters were demolishing Clinton voters in terms of motivation to vote. I think a lot of them are openly annoyed by the accusations of being stupid for voting for Trump and being antagonized by the media, thus their motivation to vote spikes. Hillary supporters...? Pretty much her most loyal supporters are those that would ALWAYS vote regardless of circumstances. She doesn't really inspire loyalty. It'll be interesting to see the results though, since there's sooooo many factors in play, from potential election fraud to media corruption and propaganda to a Republican candidate that has broken traditional Christian home values (strong republican voting base) to a Democratic one that struggles to fill high school gyms and has infamously low media interaction that isn't scripted, whereas Trump gets free media and constant coverage like crazy even if the majority is bad. On the other hand, a candidate insisting that the contest is "rigged" probably isn't the greatest motivation to show up at the polls, either. Organization matters, too. And the Clinton team is way ahead in having staff on the ground to drive their get-out-the-vote efforts (e.g., election day reminders, transportation assistance). The guy who was running that aspect of the Trump campaign stopped working just a few days ago. Also, there really is no meaningful chance that election fraud will affect the result.

Everyone in Iraq/ Syria announces their attacks early for some reason. Except ISIS, and that may just be because people are too afraid to end up on A List if they read their output. Part of that is because they're trying to reduce civilian casualties, warning non-combatants to get out of the way. But the main reason is that every move has to be worked out beforehand between different factions with lots of competing interests. Americans are providing intel, air support, and special ops, but the forces involved are a smattering of Iraqi security folks, the Kurdish Peshmerga, Sunni tribesmen, and Shia militiamen (with the Turks not directly involved, but watching very closely), all of whom have their reasons for opposing ISIS, but who also want very different things out of the operation. MacArthur and Patton could act with "surprise" because the soldiers they were dealing with answered to their commands. Operations like this require hours and hours of negotiations beforehand.

Best-received by whom? Besides the whole "pretending that one Senator can change things all by herself" thing, I don't really see how "people who support you also evade taxes" is an effective retort to an accusation that the actual candidate for POTUS, who has bucked decades of precedent by keeping his own tax information secret, did the same. (Also, Warren Buffett shot Trump down. Tonight, Trump, as is his typical practice, disregarded any evidence contradicting what he wants to believe and repeated himself.) I do love that they got this into the transcript: