rheingold

Is it definitely a survival check? Haven't played in a while but for some reason I think it might be tied to resolve. At any rate it's pretty obvious that if you don't hand the dagger to him carefully and warn him, someone is going to get hurt!

Regarding the npc's, not sure if you have finished the game or not? If you haven't completed a play through with all the characters I'd finish one with them first then do another one later with custom characters. They are well worth taking along for their banter and quests. Of course, once you've finished the game with them you can probably ignore them for the next run.

Well if "Project Lousiana" is Pillars 2 I'd like to know what then devs have been smoking to come with the weird codename. PS: Perhaps they would care to share whatever they (or Eder) smokes.

Well you are best off looking at the builds section or asking Boeroer for advice nicely. I play on PoTD, but I'm not a min/maxer at all. I tend to not drop any stat below 8( the lowest). I find that 16 in 3 stats and the rest at 10 (roughly) works really well. Barbs need more attributes so they are the only ones I'll drop lower. So, normally go something like this: Boreal dwarf, I like dwarves from a role play point of view, but any race will do. Might: 16 Int:15 Perc:16 Dex:10 Con:12 Res:9 I tend to switch between tall grass and the various axes so I take the dual wielding talents but not the two handed one. Slight bit of extra damage is not worth it. Still as the weapons are all single damage types you do need another option anyway. If you go just two handed I'd drop might and resolve by one, con by 2 and make dex 14. Abilities: Must haves: frenzy, hof, dragons leap, savage defiance and blood thirst. I'd avoid barbaric yell. The rest is choice really. Certainly not saying it's better than a fighter build, I prefer it though. I just find fighters boring, mainly because they seem to lack any flavour. But that's a personal hangover from d&d days when the only contribution a fighter could make was to knckdown opponents... twice a day

Well the only vancian caster I ever play with is a Druid, it's really not difficult to do without wizards/priests once you get used to it. Favorite party of mine has to be: Chanter tank: Boreal dwarf/pale elf Barbarian with tall grass and wetoki/axe of choice: Boreal dwarf/wild Orlan Juggernaut monk with some changes: Pale elf/ human Paladin for healing buffing with tidefall: Human/pale elf Ranger - few variations, sometimes a gunner, sometimes persistence or stormcaller. Boar or wolf companion: Boreal dwarf/human Druid: NG But seeing as you don't want a vancian caster could use a cipher instead of the Druid. I like melee heavy parties and this one is simple but brutally effective.

It's hard to balance rangers right.Due to their solitary nature they usually don't bring any buffs, cc or passives that make the party stronger. They are mostly designen around [ranger + pet] duo. Game designer can make this pair weaker than other average class; stronger; or being on par. But even if they are perfectly balanced dps wise, their versatility would still be questionable as they can't escape like rogues, can't save a teammate like a paladin, priest or any hard-cc class, and they don't have any ace in the sleeve for the boss fights.As for OP's question, I still believe that class power depends on game difficulty, resting frequency and the party composition built around that character.Assuming optimal use of the class/build, in my humble opinion classes could be placed in the following tiers:Pre-PotD difficulty (easy-medium encounters; resting > 8 fights)tier 1: ciphertier 2: barbarian, paladin, fighter, ranger, wizard (blasting), chantertier 3: rogue, monk, druidtier 4: priest, wizard (pure-caster)Pre-PotD difficulty (easy-medium encounters; resting > 4 fights)tier 1: ciphertier 2: barbarian, paladin, fighter, ranger, wizard (blasting), chanter, rogue, monk, druidtier 3: priest, wizard (pure-caster)Pre-PotD difficulty (boss fights)tier S: priesttier 0: wizard, druidtier 1: cipher, fighter, paladintier 2: barbarian, ranger, chanter, rogue, monk----------------------------PotD difficulty (easy-medium encounters; resting > 8 fights)tier 1: ciphertier 2: barbarian, paladin, wizard (blasting), monktier 3: druid, fighter, ranger, chantertier 4: priest, wizard (pure-caster), roguePotD difficulty (easy-medium encounters; resting > 4 fights)tier 1: ciphertier 2: barbarian, paladin, fighter, ranger, wizard (blasting), chanter, monk, druidtier 3: priest, wizard (pure-caster), roguePotD difficulty (boss fights)tier S: priesttier 0: wizard, druid, ciphertier 1: paladintier 2: barbarian, ranger, fighter, chanter, monktier 3: rogue----------------------------Combining that all together, plus how many there are boss/hard fights vs easy/medium ones, I'd overall place classes in following tiers of power: (for PotD 6-man party), (taking into account their overall contribution over the whole play-through)tier 1.0: cipher, wizardtier 2.0: priest, druidtier 2.3: paladin, barbariantier 3.0: chanter, ranger, monktier 3.4: fightertier 4.0: rogue Some good points but I think you might have cipher a bit high and chanter to low on the list, at least that's my experience. The problem, of course with these lists in general is you also have to take into account level and party composition... so it's one of those fun questions like whose the best rock guitarist of all time... Sure you can kinda get a general idea but it's all subjective and largely depends on play style. For me, I'd say the top 3 are definitely: priest, Druid and wizard. (In no particular order). They have the tools to handle just about most situations efficiently. Tier 2: Cipher, Chanter, Monk, Barbarian(high level with HOF) 3: Paladin, ranger, fighter 4: Rogue But it depends on so many things.... Having said that, I don't normally play with priests/wizards, and by far the easiest play throughs I've had, have been with a wizard, priest,Druid party. It was like dropping down a couple notches in difficulty.

Especially on a pale elf!

Thing is, while doing buns of damage is indeed nice, I focus on targeting priority targets (when possible) with the lady of pain, which means she's going after the squishies. Now, there's 3 things she does that can lower those squishies effectiveness:1. Knockdown 2. Clear out 3. Interrupt After that, I can only rely on interrupts if shet hit the fan and I had to use all of my stuff on not enough stuff, if you know what I'm saying... Perma prone locking someone after the 1st knockdown should be pretty feasible even without disciplined barrage, until they're dead (pesky wizards generaly). I still haven't made the decision, nor have I braved the white forge yet in this run, so no durgan available yet. Why do you fancy on crit effects with barbarian other than carnage? Well it's just carnage really, barbarians don't have great base accuracy but with decent perception they do fine. But carnage, (and HOF) are ridiculously powerful. I just find that while prone or stun are great, if it's a choice between more damage or the effect I'd rather go more damage, unless the character in question has carnage. But it also depends on party composition. If you have a ranger then tidefall is even better, and the ranger can then use stormcaller. Otherwise the ranger could use persistence for wounding. But the thing is, there are so many options, and to be honest they don't really make a massive difference in the end, so I'd probably go with what looks cooler....

I'm not crazy about "on critt effects" with few exceptions, mainly for barabarian which benefit hugely from them due to carnage. Also a stormcaller ranger. Beyond that, for melee in particular, I think it's hard to beat tidefall. Blade from the endless paths is good, except it's a single damage type which is not great. Also depending on your build and Durgan steel requirements you may not need the speed buff. Again Hours of St Rumbaldt is probably the best weapon ( with tall grass) for barbarian but I'd rather kill single targets quicker than knock them on their ass.... So tidefalls nice

I agree with Kubya, the stats are the best I've seen. Are they perfect no. I think the stats are almost there, but a few minor changes would be good. I understand what they where trying to do with might - it's inherently your power level - whether you are a caster or melee. So for a warrior it is how much damage he/she deals. For a mage, it's the measure of their magic power (not physical), so it is also good. Problem though is if the mage then picks up a staff and starts laying about, it becomes his physical strength by default. Which means, in essence you can't make an effective role playing mage who is really weak, but magic skills are through the roof. So why can't Intellect be the damage stat for casters. Might would still be important for healing and fortitude. Resolve would function as intellect for non casters - warriors. So it would impact on AOE and duration. Mainly because it seems silly having a barbarian with low resolve. If there is ONE stat that would make them run naked and screaming into battle it would have to be resolve. So it might be an idea to have caster and non caster stats, and they would function slightly differently in each case. They could still make sure that each stat is useful. For a barb, they would now need resolve but intellect could give a better bonus or penalty to will saves so it can't be dropped to low. The problem is the one size fits all. There is no true multi classing so each stat could be more specialized and effect every class differently. Not saying it's a great idea, mind. It would complicate matters hugely. Just throwing it out there. But yeah, as is the stats are pretty good.

If the current companions are going to be in Pillars 2 I'd much rather Obs came up with their own canon, rather than taking into account different players decisions as in Mass effect/DA. Problem with that route is the story really suffers and it it becomes a mess.

Only issue I have with the merciful death scenario is he would have to choose it, otherwise you run into some minor moral dilemmas, namely murder I'm personally supportive of euthanasia myself, but the person has to make the decision themselves otherwise it becomes slightly morally suspect.

As Karkarov said, I'm sure they have been busy with Pillars 2 for a long time already, but even so it's probably about a year away. Which is pretty good from a rational point of view. But I want it NOW damnit!

Ha, I have something to confess - I've never played Pillars with a priest Or Wizard for that matter. One day when I'm grown up I'll do a playthrough without a priest, paladin and chanter... Though that's likely to be painful. Seriously, between Paladins, Druids and Chanters I don't miss priests at all. Not saying that it's possible to cover entirely for a priest - it's not, but I find that it works just fine without them. Between the 3 classes they manage to buff and heal just fine.

Thing is, for me at least, the adds are the toughest part of the fights, not the big bad boss itself, so a Barb with HOF and dragon leap works wonders. But, yeah, sure one on one in boss fights is not their strength. And to be fair, they were intentionally designed that way. If you had a character with high enough defenses and single target dps - and a barbs crowd control it'd would be a bit silly.

Well, I googled how many employees Obs have: didn't have much luck, the only article I found claimed they have 200 people, have no idea if that's correct. Also have no idea how many of those would have worked on Pillars, but 20 people is very conservative, it could be potentially double or more than that. So yeah, that's my point I guess. Obs did a fantastic job considering they built a gaming system from scratch, created a new world and a unique story on a rather small budget. It's pretty impressive. I don't think people are at all realistic when it comes to expectations - that's the problem.

Don't get me wrong, I'm about as nostalgic as can be on the old ie games. I just realize that the writing and stories are a tad childish... They are very like Tolkien's stories, simplistic to a fault - good vs evil, where evil is a black uruk hai. Again I used to love Tolkein - when I was a child. I still have fond memories of his books, like the games. I'm just aware of their faults now. Pillars story is a bit more sophisticated and attempts to ask some questions. Regarding the 4 million budget, that really is tiny - not sure how many people Obs actually employ, but to pay salaries and other bills for a couple of years - it must be really tight.

Unbelievable, I though we had seen the last of the Sensuki lites a long time ago. How many times must this be repeated, if you don't like Pillars or the direction it's going move along. I and many other people do like it. Pillars is not perfect, but no game is. In fact it's as good as it gets. The biggest problem people seem to have is with the setting. Sensuki was fine with gameplay, in fact he was enthusiastic by the release - he had done a substantial amount of video tutorials. A couple of hours after, he was horrified. It can only be the setting, which is what the problem is for others of his ilk as well. It is a successor of the old ie games, and a darn good one, it's not a clone. Frankly removing the rose tinted glasses and haze of nostalgia, the old ie games are not fun. They have dated badly, story and writing is simplistic and gameplay makes them almost unplayable. I am glad that Obs realized this and made changes, but still managed to deliver what they promised. An updated successor...

There are a couple of resolve checks which can make a difference, both of them require 16 resolve, easy enough to get. Both white March pt 1 : injured white wolf, and awakened dwarf miner. Those are the only 2 I can think for where there are consequences. Not sure about the LLengrath requirements though, that also makes a real difference between fighting her or not.

Constitution used to be a dump stat, now it's much more useful. I wouldn't drop con on a melee rogue, they have bad health/endurance and deflection to start with. Also fortitude is pretty important. If the rogue is going to be ranged then you could get away with it. I'd drop might and perception. Might 10, perc 15 con 10 resolve 15. Resolve is the most important dialogue stat. And rogues don't need might for damage or perception for accuracy as much as other classes. This way you'd have high Int, perc, resolve (with items) for dialogue, roleplay and not keel over when someone looks at you. Edit: type waaaay to slow on a touchscreen, most of the above has been covered already.

Druid or Ranger? Both are flexible classes as well, druid in particular - can melee, cast spells and tank (a bit). Loads of options.

The current system would have to be reworked extensively for a high level campaign... Some of the abilities/talents/spells are way overpowered. I'm not opposed to a high level campaign mind, and I like the direction Pillars went, its just the game was designed for low level campaigns as is, so it would mean a substantial amount of rebalancing and fine tuning.

I guess my issue with having 2 of a class in a party is based more around the fact that I get bored - it's less about power. Pillars has some great classes and I have enough of a problem picking 6 so it just seems a waste for me to double up. But yeah, from a power perspective there is an argument for it.

Haven't played cipher a huge amount but when I have I found that dual wielding seems to be the most fun and efficient way of getting focus. (And the riskiest, but that's fun)

Priests and wizards are nice but hardly compulsory even on PoTD. I normally give them a miss. I'd probably try to avoid doubling a class up unless you take a chanter in which case having 2 works well. So I'd first look at which companions you want to take and then choose from one of the other classes. But going with your picks, priests, paladins and ciphers are all pretty solid, you can't really go wrong. Again, if you are taking Pellagina I'd avoid paladin. Some people swear by having more than one paladin but I find it boring and a waste of a slot. (Nothing against the class, it's a great class, just having 2 seems a waste.)