blindhamster

Why is it suddenly Min/Max to be able to choose the skills of companions at level up? We should be happy that the game auto picks absolute tripe at level up for us? Just one of the symptoms of the breed as I see it, and as I suspect RevBlue sees it. I don't recall anywhere near this much kvetching about NPCs in BG2 back then. People who loved BG2 were willing to accept the NPCs as they were. IMO, the complainers sound more like IWD1/2 type of players who prefer making their own NPCs, even at the cost of losing any ability NPC interactions.There aren't really any meaningful choices upon leveling in 2E D&D. I mean, sure, you could spend thief points terribly, but you get so many that presumably you'll put at least some into dealing with locks and traps. Weapon choices were mainly aesthetic unless you knew which weapons were the good ones (which is impossible on a first playthrough.) Talents and skills are a much bigger deal. I picked up Grieving Mother at level 8, and she's got two awful talents out of 4 (Greater Focus, Mental Fortress) and her choices for "spells" are less than ideal, and it's not like I can switch any out or learn more than a very limited number. Given her fairly terrible stat selection, it would be nice if I could at least select her talents so as to make her more useful, so that I can enjoy having her along, instead of doing so only because I find her story interesting. I used greater focus on my main as well, made all the difference a number of times, I found grieving mother to work fine so far, pain block in particular was a handy power to suddenly get that I didn't previously have.

Oddly... I play on hard... I picked up grieving mother at 9th level, I picked up the paladin at 6th level, eder at 3rd Level, durance at 4th level, sagni and the druid at 5th level, I have a probably far from optimal cipher as my main and have a poorly made rogue I use from time to time when I find my mains mechanics isn't high enough for an area (temple of skaen was the first time). So far I've had no issues with the premade characters, eder tanks plenty good enough, I found grieving mothers powers compliment my mains pretty well, they share some powers but have a fair few different and I've found I use them too. Aloth does crowd control fine alongside the druid and durance is a good party healer and buffer...

I use the first two you get on my melee cipher reasonably often

you'll want a chanter to give the reload power, and to take the reload speed talents on them ASAP

whats your cipher build please? thats quite a lot of health, so interested to know the full build! (stats, skills, equipment please)

fun fact, ive yet to have any of the game breaking bugs other people had... i never double clicked items onto character, always dragged and dropped - purely because that was what i expected to do, i didnt even consider double clicking till i read about the bug. id probably have run into the focus bug with a few items on my cipher, except i read about that before getting any of said items - i await a patch before equipping them. i didnt have any issues in Raedrics hold, just an enjoyable RPG experience. my load times are generally short (3-6 seconds on average), i do use an SSD for my games though. what other major bugs are there? anyone mind listing them so i can check if i had them?

Due to low endurance you're going to want to improve your deflection. My melee cipher is 15 10 15 12 14 12, so far on hard he's done very well, I went the great sword and breastplate route, technically I probably would have been as good or better had I put perception and resolve on 14 each and might on 16.

No emails for me yet, I'm in the UK and did the CE as well.

I have a very even spread of stats on my main character (a cipher), I didn't see the point to min maxing, on hard at least it really isn't necessary. 15 10 15 12 14 12 So far I've had no issues whatsoever, likewise, the 'poor' stats the npcs have don't seem to have impacted my ability to take on encounters, and I don't rest particularly often (at most once per map, often less)

Huh, hadn't realised that about mind strike, I still like going into melee though! worked fine for me so far anyway, even if not optimal

I guess that's the difference... I neither min maxed nor made a glass Canon, mine stands in melee at the front (well... slightly behind eder lol) As a result I find I can regularly knockdown 3+ enemies. I started with mind wave and antipathetic field, I picked up eyestrike on level 2. I barely use eyestrike (or antipathetic field) but find I use mind wave every fight - but again, I built him to be good in melee, his wood elf bonuses are mostly to help him survive enemy ranged attacks, or for when I want to make ranged power attacks.

I've been playing on hard, i'm in defiance bay and on level 6 now. I have Aloth, Eder, Durance, Kana, sagni and the druid, I've also made and used for portions of the game a rogue and a barbarian, with my main character being a Cipher. honestly I dont think theres any real issues with their stats, they all do the jobs they need to do, Eder makes a good tank with the right gear and very little optimising for the roll outside of that. Aloth does all he needs to do with magic so far, Durance is mostly used to provide the big AoE heal and party buffs, I havent used Kana (he lives at the stronghold along with the two characters i built myself) Sagni is doing just fine, shes pretty decent with her bow, I've not used the druid much yet. But overall i've not felt like the companions hampered me in any noticable way, their stats are made to fit the characters, which I like. Likewise my main character doesnt have optimised stats (15 10 15 12 14 12) but I've not had issues with him and i tend to run him in melee more than anything else... it feels to me like stats have a much smaller impact on the character than general level and talents, I can see the issue with duff talents, but even there i think generally there arent any really terrible choices i've seen.

I find mental binding to be absolutely essential, its probably the best defensive spell in the game as the amount of damage you can negate with well timed and well placed mental bindings is incredible, certainly out of the spells/powers i've got access to currently (level 6 party atm) I personally prefer mindwave to Eyestrike, its damage to target is pretty sub par, but the knockdown effect on all other enemies in the AoE is again very very handy. Mind Shards can be a fairly good way to finish an encounter when lots of enemies are down to low health. Generally though I think all the powers have their place, its just a case of using them at the right time. I personally found it to be more useful to pickup more of the low level powers than the high level ones, this allows you to get more powers off over the course of a fight... at level 6 my Cipher looks like this: might: 15 con: 10 Dex: 15 Pers: 12 Int: 14 resolve: 12 Aedyr Wood Elf Mercenary. skills are mostly in lore and mechanics, with a little in stealth and athletics. talents: Greater Focus, Biting Whip, Weapon Focus: Soldier he uses a greatsword and arquebus and wears a breastplate. powers: mind wave, Antipathetic Field, Eyestrike, Soul Shock, Mind Blades, Mental Binding, Psychovampiric Shield, Soul Ignition and two others i picked before going to bed but cant remember! I've found that I use Mental Binding at least twice every fight. Usually I use it once enemies are already running toward me as they tend to clump up meaning im more likely to hit 2-5 enemies with it. I use mind wave if enemies clump up around the cipher and soul shock if they clump around an ally that i need to keep safe (or if i can get to said ally, i use mind wave from the cipher and have Eder use trip - allowing the individual to flee without being attacked).

wizard will have less spells without resting. druid is apparently flat out better than wizard currently I really hope Wizard gets some tweaks to be on par with druid, really dissappointing that my favourite RP class is so sub par atm.

im roughly the same as you haha, i likewise booked tomorrow off

I booked the day off work tomorrow so i can come home from work, fire up the game, play it all night, sleep for a bit during tomorrow day, then get right back to playing it :D I'm 27 with a wife and a 7 month old, neither of which i expect to see much of for a couple days... does that make me a bad person?

kickstarter bonuses presumably are only for those that backed at kickstarter time? or do slacker backers get it too? Only ask as i noticed the item in my products list said kickstarter royal edition, despite me not having the funds to back till it was slacker backer time (december 2013)

same here, portal has my key available (havent redeemed it yet as im at work) but not seen an email about it as of yet.

Where does it state this? a little dissapointing to have to wait longer for the box without the game in it, to then have to wait even longer for the actual game to also arrive... i mean, i guess its good that we get digital download, but when a big deal was made about things going out to arrive on time meaning game and the rest of the contents would be shipped separately, its just a bit sad that in actual fact euro backers will be waiting doubly long. Are there any in game stuff that was being shipped with the boxed contents that wont be made digitally available on release? (glowing pig for example) as that kind of defeats the purpose of providing them as either a) people will play without them and potentially never use them, or b) people will wait for the stuff to arrive, effectively meaning they got the game late anyway. Dont take this the wrong way, i'm still super excited for the game and everything in it!

voted to wait, i can cope with a couple more weeks, it saves money - which goes toward expansions or whatever else, this can only be a good thing