Gromnir

people have a tendency to overthink attribute allocation in poe. starting attributes is so important in other games that one expects it to be similar important in poe, but is difficult to accidental build a bad poe character. sure, if you purposeful choose talents and abilities that do not work well with your attributes, then you can gimp your character, but is actual harder than one might s'pose. most o' our characters have very similar attribute spreads: m 10-15 c 8-10 d 9-12 p 11-15 i 14-19 r 11-19 our current potd, hearth orlan, priest o' eothas m 14 c 9 d 10 p 15 i 15 r 15 our current potd, wild orlan, dracozzi paladini m 10 c 10 d 9 p 14 i 19 r 16 play a mage? we would likely go with the same spread as our priest. why? we like to have the cerebral attributes high enough so that we get those dialogue options we feel is most interesting... w/o resorting to metagaming and wh0re bonuses n' such. start with 15s in perception, intellect and resolve and you will be able to achieve favorable dialogue options with little effort. get the most outta dialogues w/o resorting to metagame is Gromnir's idea o' optimal, 'cause the power difference 'tween an optimal attribute spread and our more dialogue focused spread becomes negligible relative early in the game. poe attributes are important, but not determinative. ability, talent and playstyle choices is at least as important as is attributes when attempting to predict success in poe. anything other than a tcs build is gonna have us unconcerned 'bout min-maxing attributes. HA! Good Fun!

people forget. for more than a decade following ps:t's underwhelming (from a sales pov) release, black isle and obsidian (and bioware too) would invariably reassure players by observing that their new titles would not have as much text as ps:t. bioware adopted a loose 3-line guide 'cause o' feedback from bg 1 and ps:t. why? 'cause folks stopped reading. people started clicking through some o' the more tedious ps:t dialogues and descriptions w/o even trying to read. and again, sales o' ps:t were terribad... took Years to finally get into the black, and only after it were eventual released as a two-for with soul bringer. as much as some folks loved ps:t, too many people did not. ... ps:t is still our favorite crpg, but we got loads o' complaints 'bout it, and not just 'bout the bad combat and buggy release. ps:t writers indulged in excessive exposition and lugubrious navel gazing that frequently set our teeth on edge. many characters in ps:t gots kinda cheesy theories o' metaphysics that they wanna share with you... in detail. a kinda comic book profound is what writers seemed to be aiming and they made similar reliance on exposition as one expects from anime or comics. show, don't tell-- is a writer's axiom. coaxmetal didn't do a damn thing. stood largely stationary in the siege tower and tried to wow us with creation-through-destruction philosophy... or were it destruction-through-creation? doesn't matter. were not particular deep or profound, and it were all revealed through clumsy exposition. is opposite o' show don't tell... and were all too common an approach in ps:t. on the other hand, a few o' the characters in ps:t is fantastic. ravel is still our most impressive crpg character, and second best is a distant runner up. ravel is not just the hag trapped in the maze, but is also ei-vene and marta and mebbeth. ravel shows and not simple tells. to many, ei-vene seem like little more than a signposting character that teaches the protagonist how to interact with ps:t named npc and to also provide healing supplies, but she is an incarnation o' ravel herself. with benefit o' hindsight, the puzzle that is ravel comes together and we recognize the sheer scope o' her commitment and sacrifice. best character, and single best dialogue encounter is the final dialogue with mebbeth after returning from the planes... after ravel is already "dead." is more than a couple fantastic characters and quests in ps:t. yeah, we gotta dig through all the clumsy/young writer clichés (ironic given that chrisA were attempting to avoid clichés) to get at the good stuff, but when ps:t does something right, no other game is as evocative or clever. regardless, black isle, the developer who made ps:t, was aware that their approach to ps:t coulda' used a minimalist esthetic. black isle did not hesitate to reassure potential future customers o' upcoming games that they would not be doing as much dialogue and text as were utilized in ps:t. is not that fans were too stoopid to get how profound were ps:t. the problem weren't with the audience. takes more skill to be profound with less. more text is rare resulting in better or more profound writing. the actual problem with ps:t weren't with excessive text, but rather that the writers typical did so little with the extra text. no game woulda' benefited more from an aggressive editor than ps:t would have. is good stuff in ps:t, but is also more than too much padding. 'course the black isle folks were still young and learning their craft. they learned how to say more with less... some o' them. point is that ps:t is a particular poor example o' economic writing. HA! Good Fun!

It seems that we agree that the current stash is unexplainable, that it was a pragmatic decision, and that they have to be made. For you this one is of no significance, for me it has little. So...yes;). agreed. only reason we respond is 'cause genesis poster observed that the absence o' an explanation destroyed immersion and you observed that, "details like this are crucial in building general atmoshpere of the game." am not gonna get into all the things wrong with immersion complaints, but our point simple were that the degree to which the stash destroys immersion is highly subjective. is such details crucial? not universal. HA! Good Fun! Wouldn't you agree that the while every single little detail can be deemed unimportant and dismissed, the totality of them is important in building atmosphere? At least for me a high polish brings a feeling of coherence and believability into a work of fiction. And a large amount of poorly treated little things creates a somewhat repelling feel. An example of that, I think, is the case of using multiple languages in a movie. Making every character speak the language he should speak requires a lot of work for the creators of the movie, and often can be safely ignored because the audience won't miss it very much. But when it is actually introduced, it's something that matters - at least to me. Are there any "general immersion theories" out there? A thought ocurred to me that people have different claims on what makes a game immersive, and whether "immersion" is important or not. But probably many, possibly including me, don't *know* what they really want;). PS. I've got a better example. Running everywhere in video games is annoying. There has to be some kind of fast travel system. But if it's well integrated with the lore and incorporated into the game mechanics, it contributes to the game. The example is Morrowind - how awkard the directions sometimes were, and flawed the journal, the combination of silk striders, boats and teleports surely deepend the famous "immersion"...especially in comparison with Oblivion, in which Bethesta took a more pragmatic approach. if there is general immersion theories, they is gonna necessarily identify the inherent subjectivity o' immersion. before "immersion" is always some possessive pronoun. is his immersion. is her immersion. is their immersion but not necessarily our immersion. and given just how much difference there is 'tween your crucial elements and his or her crucial elements, what sorta guidance do you give developers to decide on what is actual necessary for immersion? am thinking we both agree that not everything that adds to "immersion," even when we speak only o' your immersion, is crucial. again, you said that, "details like this are crucial in building general atmosphere of the game." why is the stash crucial? explain. why is this detail more crucial than the literal thousands o' other things you is willing to overlook... or things you don't notice but is critical to others. poe combats is complete unrealistic, as is all crpg combats. is it necessary for us to describe all the potential immersion killing aspects o' poe combat? hope not. from the manner in which armour behaves to fatigue to what happens to the human body when giant rocks or lightning bolts or pillars o' flame scorch us, poe (and every other crpg to date) is so crazy-implausible that your immersion should be complete undone. most use o' poe shadows (not the monster) is wrong 'cause they do not behave according to the inverse square law. the heat and flame from fireballs disappears into walls rather than deforming based on shape o' the container/room into which the fireball were released. we inexplicably travel everywhere on foot. how could any plausible economy function with all the poe gold apparent lying around? etc. the aforementioned stuff ain't just internal logic. we get that magic works, so we accept. nevertheless, magic shouldn't change the fundamental manner in which light or fire behaves without an explanation. perhaps none o such details is crucial to you, but they is likely crucial to somebody. the folks who find the technical aspects o' shadows to be immersion killing is gonna be hard pressed to explain why shadows is so crucial, but stash isn't. so explain why stash is crucial, but shadows conforming to the inverse square rule is not? explain the importance o' a rationale for stash w/o providing what is essential little more than your personal definition o' immersion. be specific. don't reference immersion in your explanation. look at from developer pov and try and figure out specific what is crucial 'bout stash immersion that is different than all the other implausibilities related to combat, economy and physics that folks routinely accept. regardless, if all such details is crucial, then you has made the definition o' crucial meaningless, no? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOcxnQRUhMM is as close as you is gonna get to seeing what realistic combat with swords looks like. real medieval/renaissance era combat is even more ugly and brutal. now have harvey keitel or keith carradine fight a bipedal rhinoceros (typical ogre in armour) wielding a hundred pound club. and heck, in poe after the two gentlemen in the duelists video get a good night's sleep, they will be complete healed. ... but what 'bout muh 'murshun? am getting that some folks want more reality in their game. is an esthetic choice that people try and label as immersion or whatever, but regardless o' what it is called, it is genuine. the subjective reasons for finding one practical concession to game pragmatism acceptable and others offensive is difficult to explain and even harder for developers to make general rules o' applicability regarding. we devolve into comparisons to other games suggesting that game X did immersion better than poe, but that game Y did worse. in this thread we have seen folks identify features from other games that they find to be more believable than the poe implementation. is all very subjective and vague, and as you noted earlier, it is the "totality" of a multitude o' elements and features that to you is "important in building atmosphere." oh, and we disagree that "details like this are crucial in building general atmosphere of the game." the degree to which we become engaged in or emotionally involved in a crpg such as poe typically does not hinge at all on such details, and am admitting our own inexplicable biases 'bout what perversions o' reality is excessive. more overarching issues related to the lore o' the setting is important to us. that the characters within that setting have believable motivations is important to us. is hundreds (thousands) o' things more crucial to us and our emotional involvement in the story than the mechanics behind the poe stash. is a FANTASY crpg. is a fantasy crpGAME. the fact that is fantasy AND a game means that we accept that very little in the title is gonna conform to the minutiae o' reality. reason why stash functions as it does? 'cause poe is a Game and the developers saw how a couple decades worth o' crpg players actual played games. but as we said, we got our own inexplicable biases. given all the thousands o' impossible and unbelievable elements we routine accept in a fantasy crpg, we is always annoyed by anime-inspired giant weapons. why is giant swords worse than impossible shadows? is an esthetic choice. am not gonna try and wrap it up in some kinda gestalt immersion bit. giant swords and weapons that would be difficult to lift much less wield crosses a fuzzy esthetic line... unless 'course the game itself has a kinda cartoon-based esthetic such as the wildstar mmo. HA! Good Fun!

It seems that we agree that the current stash is unexplainable, that it was a pragmatic decision, and that they have to be made. For you this one is of no significance, for me it has little. So...yes;). agreed. only reason we respond is 'cause genesis poster observed that the absence o' an explanation destroyed immersion and you observed that, "details like this are crucial in building general atmoshpere of the game." am not gonna get into all the things wrong with immersion complaints, but our point simple were that the degree to which the stash destroys immersion is highly subjective. is such details crucial? not universal. HA! Good Fun!

we got no doubt that for some folks, a plausible explanation for the stash that is internal rational with the gameworld is vital. for Gromnir, such an explanation is unnecessary. the developers gotta make a cost v. benefit decision while recognizing that folks such as pampa and Gromnir will both be playing poe. every game is gonna offer many such developer dilemmas. developers gotta decide if an explanation for a pure pragmatic feature is genuine called for in light of costs to implement and given their perception o' the value o' the feature to the overall quality and enjoyability o' the game, yes? HA! Good Fun! ps am recalling nwn after release. were a poster on the boards, a regular, who were worked up 'bout shoes. regardless o' footwear equipped 'pon a nwn avatar, appearance did not change. this were a gamebreaker for the poster. no visible shoes? surely the developers understood how immersion breaking such an oversight were for many folks? the poster were genuine... meant every word. game were unplayable w/o visible changes resulting from footwear choices. for Gromnir, we woulda' liked footwear to be visible, but absence o' such weren't game breaking. on the other hand, the stuttering problem we suffered at release were game breaking.

Too bad walking back and forth for camping supplies wasn't considered "degenerative gameplay". to be fair, there were a fatigue mechanic that s'posed removed camping from the realm o' degenerative... constitution in many o' these kinda games becomes a dump stat for any character save for frontliners. am not sure poe fatigue beyond combat ever worked as intended. that being said, we suspect that most gamers who choose the limited camping options that come with higher difficulties take limited camping supplies into account while making tactical and strategic choices. as for a scientific explanation to the stash, well, there isn't one. is purely pragmatic. sure, the developers coulda' made a functional wagon train o' mules to follow you, or make an implausible magic steamer trunk or somesuch available to you in the first village you visit, but why bother? coulda' used limited resources o' game development to 'create an internal coherent explanation for the stash, but what in the game would you have been willing to give up just to get such an explanation? game development is zero-sum. hours o' development to actualize features (bioware had their "zots" label) is limited. if you want something added to the game to make a bottomless stash plausible, you is necessarily taking resources away from elsewhere. so, let the gamer come up with their own explanation... or better yet, allow the gamer to accept that a bottomless stash were a pragmatic choice. every feature has a cost. the benefit o' a feature that serves only to explain bottomless stash? what value would you attach to such? developers presumably attached low value. HA! Good Fun!

the stash is a concession to game realities. for years the developers watch players in game after game take multiple return trips to a dungeon or crypt to retrieve l007 they could not carry due to encumbrance limitations. does such limitations make game more fun? for some folks, perhaps, the immersive quality o' limited encumbrance enhances the game, but experience o' the developers suggested otherwise. unlimited stash were a recognition o' the manner in which many/most folks played the ie games. HA! Good Fun!

y'know, when you look at the actual lists of unique weapons in the core game, things is pretty even. the genesis poster mentions great swords as an example o' paucity. our experience were different. the third unique weapon we found in the game were justice... and tidefall, arguably one of the best weapons available in the base game, were discoverable at mid levels. there is a great sword for sale in dyrford... which we could never afford in the beta, but we would stare at it longingly. also, one o' the vd weapons is unique, rather than just offering a unique name. great swords is actual one o' the better represented categories. sure one category may have three uniques and another has four, but the the spread is good... is technical good. the thing is, a few weapon categories have their uniques backloaded. pollaxes got three uniques, but two is only gonna be available late in the game. there is three unique battle axes, but one is available from azzuro, so you may never even get a glimpse o' it. for the most part, the spread is good, but is tending towards backloading. hatchets and maces is particular bad as there are only two uniques and the seconds is late game. a couple categories really could use some help with a few earlier options. HA! Good Fun! ps morningstars is a particular weird category. there is 3 uniques. one is an azzuro item, so good luck. one is available through the storybook cutscenes, but it is possible to miss AND you need a party member with a 16 (?) con score. the last morningstar is found so late in the game as to almost be a joke.

in the past we got very little use from cipher's detonate. powers that target endurance tend to be low on our list o' options as foe fortitude is typically higher than other defenses. even so, we have been using more o' late-- is a nice way to kill mobs and get our monk some wounds. the thing is, the secondary damage from detonate is counting towards focus build. whatever damage the initial detonation causes to surrounding enemies gets counted towards focus, which can send focus to the max in the blink o' an eye. amplified wave is no longer generating focus for us, so is a different issue. is not a huge exploit (if it is an exploit) as is of limited usefulness. need actual get the near death and low endurance foe to explode while surrounded by additional foes. the short range o' detonate is also a serious drawback. works great 'gainst vithrack(sp? the floating, telepathic, spider beings) and a few o' the spell casting primordials, but at least in potd, most critters got extreme fortitude that is limiting our exploitation. regardless, this feels like a bug. HA! Good Fun!

luck likes hearing self talk. doppleschwert solution is not soulbound: universal and equippable only by durance. regardless o' your pointless proselytizing 'bout what durance staff should be, one solution you seem to be ok with is having durance staff not be soulbound? okie dokie. am not seeing need for more discussion, but... *sigh* "Do what's right for the game isn't always the same as doing what people want." yes? am agreeing with you. so what? doesn't change fact that developers gotta care 'bout players and their concerns. satisfied customers is good 'cause they tend to buy future games. duh. sometimes ignoring individual player concerns is best. players often want ridiculous, as with iwd2. give folks the deathmaster kit likely coulda' been worked into narrative, and am doubting the developers objected for matters o' principle. give players over-powered, and then they complain how easy were the game. is precisely 'cause the developers care that they sometimes gotta reject. is many reasons developers gotta deny player pleas. players often want impossible. players want pointless that wastes limited developer resources. players is often much divided. heck, more than a few players want bg style per-kill xp. players can be nutty. the thing is, developers gotta decide what is most likely gonna make for an enjoyable game, which is precisely why the careometer is always at max even if the developers sometimes gotta reject player desires. nebulous notion o' maintaining principle or narrative as the reasons for making durance staff soulbound? *snort* HA! Good Fun!

is a game. is a commercial game that obsidian want to sell. is not the decade long trial o' james joyce to get dubliners published as he wrote it. developers in the business o' selling games got obvious motivations to satisfy fans. for the developers, the careometer should always be set to max. 'course the obvious problem is that it is difficult to satisfy most fans with any decision, and giving fans what they actual ask for tends to backfire. nevertheless, your careometer is busted. also, no doubt groovy hipsters can deride choices that don't conform to rather nebulous notions o' principle and narrative, but is the rather curious disconnect between the narrative and and rational gameplay mechanic that is at the root o' this entire discussion. it is the developers, in their questionable wisdom, who gave durance a staff that is integral to the narrative, a staff that he can not make effective use o' in combat in spite of poe gameplay being dominated by squad-based tactical combat. poe is a game-- first, foremost and last. chrisA himself observed more than once that a good game could have excellent gameplay w/o compelling story. the reverse, in his opinion, were not true. a game with excellent story elements but poor gameplay were still a bad game. where narrative and gameplay considerations is conflict beyond resolution, narrative should give way. thankfully the present irrational narrative choice appears to be salvageable. regardless, from our pov, doppleschwert's proposed solution is excellent, but am not knowing how difficult it would be to implement. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking we mentioned that one o' our grandparents is caucasian. polish. some o' the vegas folks will recognize bobby stupak? our mother were a close relation to bobby and had curious and disturbing stories 'bout bobby when he were younger. 'course our mother's family were involved in number running and a floating crap game (which sounds like something from a south park episode, but isn't)... among other questionable businesses. polish organized crime... in pittsburgh? *sigh* take with a grain o' salt. regardless, in part 'cause o' our family history, we can't think o' vegas as anything other than a big scam that tends 'towards tacky... which is unfair given just how much money vegas has invested in changing its image. HA! Good Fun!

there is an obvious reason why some find his quasi-candidacy disturbing. hesitate to mention as we would hope folks were beyond such. HA! Good Fun!

universal and equippable only by durance sounds like an ideal compromise. sure, we will miss being able to use the staff on our priest o' wael, but it always felt silly that or priest would get more use from the staff than durance. personally, we have always liked durance's gear, but the fact that durance were relative ineffectual with his signature item struck us as a bit curious. universal but only equippable by durance? sounds good to us. HA! Good Fun!

admission: we would never voluntarily call another person master. the only person who can teach us the five-point exploding heart technique is Master pai mei? if the old buzzard insists that we call him master, then Gromnir is gonna need be left ignorant o' the technique in question. if the folks at harvard were insisting that students actual call'em "master," Gromnir woulda' likely supported their cause, but that is doubtful. is unlikely that harvard headmasters were insisting on being called "master." HA! Good Fun!

iwd2 were initial planned to be 2e d&d just as were iwd. as such, the black isle developers post a few preliminary suggestions for kits (myrmidon were one such)... which the fans lashed out in anger at. the black isle suggestions "sucked," or worse. so the fans started making better suggestions-- almost complete munchkin bait. this went on for a couple days with improved baldesingers and homebrew priests o' mystra having their merits debated. apparently the black isle developers lost patience, so they released revised kits. developer offers some kinda ridiculous overpowered deathmaster kit-- were a joke. were meant as a joke. fans didn't get the joke. fans Loved the deathmaster. HA! Good Fun!

forcing tina turner, a black woman, to call a white man "master" were offensive and left a permanent and indelible stain on Gromnir's soul. ... in actuality, we saw the film while in high school... went with some friends from the football team. as we attended a school that had a +90% black enrollment, it should come as no surprise that the guys we saw the movie with were all african-american or o' mixed backgrounds. we all thought tina were fantastic... and given just how dangerous were our neighborhood, am certain we all used "safe space" different than did the kids from harvard who were offended by titles. *shrug* martial arts movies must drive the harvard kits absolutely nuts... and star wars. HA! Good Fun!

just a thought. you could make the weapon soulbound w/o actual having it improve. have soulbound exclusive to durance. this would allow durance, as a priest who is not particular effective with a staff, to actual make use o' his eponymous weapon. HA! Good Fun! The problem is that soulbound weapon can't be enchanted. So making it simply soulbound would actually make it potentially weaker. It is basically more simple to keep the balance by making it evolving soulbound. fair enough. a weak soul bound weapon exclusive to durance doesn't sound bad. have the thresholds for improvement simple be levels... or levels and companion quest thresholds. that being said, am doubting that fans is gonna be satisfied with a weak soulbound... at least based on past experience with such scenarios. fanbase iwd2 kit suggestions were a low watermark for a game from these developers, but has never improved. HA! Good Fun!

just a thought. you could make the weapon soulbound w/o actual having it improve. have soulbound exclusive to durance. this would allow durance, as a priest who is not particular effective with a staff, to actual make use o' his eponymous weapon. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking that the biggest problem with defender is its name. defender is not a great defensive ability. that don't make it a bad ability. the fact that enemy ai has improved/changed to the degree that engaged and enemies will take the disengagement hit to get at your squishies actual increases our dps fighter lethality. have a dps tank or off-tank forgo a shield and instead give him a big and vicious 2-handed weapon. is likely better for an off-tank to hold the flanks, but you can build a tank that survives not 'cause o' deflection, but 'cause o' enormous endurance/health and regenerative qualities. use defender and engagement not as a defensive quality to hold enemies in place, but to punish those that predictably do not. the fact that defender were such a no-brainer were not a good thing. bad balance. defender is no longer a no-brainer, but the name is misleading. defender is a fighter ability that gots situational, but genuine, offensive usefulness. rename it "punisher" and less folks would be confused. heck, rename and change icon, but leave everything else the same and we bet folks would get more use from the ability. HA! Good Fun!

so what. so what? am not thinking it should take much effort to see why, from a developer pov "it's almost impossible to solo the game with one class," would be bad. player gets frustrated and angry if they cannot beat a game, and if the reason they cannot beat the game is 'cause the developers put a trapped choice, such as a broken class, into the game, then the player is gonna have justification for being angry with the developer. that is bad business. crpg is 'bout choices, but if a considerable number o' those choices is fraudulent or only useful with specific builds or in certain situations, then your choices is fraudulent. and the excuse that a game is single-player, so balance should not matter has never been particularly convincing to Gromnir. as we noted earlier, balance actual promotes diversity by making more o' the available talents, abilities and powers in the game... viable. with these oft repeated poe balance discussions, the obsidian developers observed (more than once) that they has benefited from having been able to gather considerable data on how folks actual play some o' the most popular crpgs from the past couple decades. obsidian folks has been around the block. watch how folks actual built characters for the fallouts and other classic crpgs. Doppelschwert mentioned the issue earlier in this thread, so am only repeating, but if you got a game with literal thousands o' possible choices, but only a handful or two o' builds is actual being used by players, then am thinking that the balance issue is salient. ask tim cain how many builds were actual used by the vast majority o' fo players. balance leads to More diversity. takes little effort to add gazillions o' useless character development choices to a game. if only a limited number o' choices is actual used/useable, then it is a development fail. not directed at you, but frequent the arguments against balance is actual balance arguments. complain that X feature were nerfed into uselessness is NOT an argument against balance. if you observe that the developers removed the usefulness o' a build, weapon or talent, that is a balance issue. does such stuff happen frequently? sure. when the developers attempt to fix, they can go too far... or they can unexpected break something else. but nerfing the fun out o' a talent or having a build unexpected become useless is a balancing issue. is not that the developers were wrong to balance or that they balanced too much. sometimes the developers get it wrong and they hurt balance when attempting to improve. even so, the problem with nerfings and breakings is not that the developers did too much to balance, but rather that they failed to achieve balance. HA! Good Fun!

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14825763/nfl-combine-preview-targets-positions-need-all-32-teams added to get things going. am most interested to see how far jaylon smith drops due to his bowl game acl, and for various reasons am curious about carson wentz. when nfl scouts start raving 'bout a small school prospect such as wentz, one wonders how much is genuine and how much is an attempt at subterfuge. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000637808/article/mayock-carson-wentzs-ceiling-similar-to-andrew-lucks HA! Good Fun!

all priests.... perhaps all priests and one dedicated tank class. we made an all priest party that were too powerful to be fun, but while our priest-tank were viable, he weren't ideal. we like to have a genuine tank. am always surprised by how infrequent folks make use of a priest's offensive potential. HA! Good Fun!

talking to us? possibly. responding to us? not at all. HA! Good Fun!

Really? Looks totally normal to me. You really don't need to build your paladin as if he would have to tank a dragon in every encounter. our build can tank a dragon quite well, thank you. as for pneumatic's queries: 1) having at least 15 in an attribute makes almost all dialogue options attainable with the augmenting gear you find as you play. inn bonuses to attributes can be significant, and food bonuses last a goodly amount of time. there aren't many dialogue-based attribute checks higher than 18 in the core game. even if you do not feel comfortable metagaming, with our suggested attribute spread, early in the game it is ez to achieve all 18s in the cerebral attributes for virtual all dialogues. but seriously, don't forget food bonuses. 2) pale elf or moon godlike are both excellent options for a tanky paladin. the wm expansions have added a few interesting helmets, so keep that in mind when deciding 'tween elf and godlike. 3) ok, this is where things get complicated. as we noted, Gromnir's potd paladin is a dracozzi paladini with intellect as the attribute score we boost the most, even more so than resolve. intellect increases durations and area of effect o' many/most o' our paladin auras and abilities. a shortcoming of paladin auras is that they are a bit limited in the amount of acreage they cover. high intellect offers a significant boost to your aoe size. intellect can also substantially increases the duration of your buffs. so, beyond the obvious sword and shield talent choice, for abilities we make sure to take lay on hands, zealous focus, liberating/inspiring exhortation, hastening exhortation and sacred immolation for late game... but there are so many different choices with arguments in favor of many alternative choices. inspiring exhortation, for example is of major benefit up until the late portions of the game when you may become rather dismissive of the +10 accuracy boost. by level 12, we also got flames of devotion and fires of darcozzi palace. why? we like to burn things. *shrug* is not a particular effective ability, but we figured, "what the hell." we tend to switch things up a bit each time we play. there aren't many bad abilities for a paladin tank who is also interested in buffing... although inspiring triumph and kill related abilities are not gonna be all that useful. HA! Good Fun!