Gromnir

I have a bridge on the Thames to sell you. I'm not even gonna begin to address Grom's whole "it's not irrational if you're already crazy" argument. one of my first clients ever was a guy who was thousands of dollars in debt and was facing repossession of a stereo he bought on hire purchase/an installment plan. he had fallen waay behind on the payments and had no money to make new ones. but he still wanted to keep the stereo. okay, that's not irrational, if you grant the premise that he has good reason for keeping the stereo, i.e. he likes to listen to music. but it's surely irrational in the broader, you-can't-seriously-expect-to-keep-a-stereo-you-can't pay-for. yeah, Alistair's reaction to Loghain is stupid for all the reasons Grom lists. i agree 100%. but is it realistic? sure, in my experience. i've lost count of the times i've seen folk loose all perspective... again, if you got history and development as to the person being crazy, then their actions is not implausible. we has met your stereo guy... though dealing with stereo's ain't our thing. nevertheless, we has met people who is complete stubborn about some seemingly minor issue. the thing is, if you got enough history with the person, you will not be so surprised by their odd behavior. is always a reason... even if is terrible. if allister were painting his tent walls with poop, Then we would get it. if allister had been shown as irrational regarding a particular spoiler issue previous, Then it would be acceptable. even if you think people is wacky/irrational in real life, it still is bad writing. if the only argument you got is that it makes sense because it doesn't have to make sense, then you is doing a pretty crappy job of making a convincing argument that allister is plausible or acceptable as written. *chuckle* imagine a mystery novel... spend +250 pages developing characters and plot. author then ultimately resolves by revealing that the killer/antagonist were just some random guy who went nuts. Worst. Story. Evar. even if is plausible, no writer ever resorts to such nonsense. "he went nuts" is the worst kinda crutch and is complete unnecessary when a writer has +50 hours to make plausible. even if you like the game, is no reason to be an apologist for every stoopid thing the developers did. allister's choice is implausible... and so far the only excuse we has seen is that such implausibility is completely plausible. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

am sorry, but the allistar defense committee is... lame. if only excuse for allistar behavior is that he were "irrational" and that is ok 'cause people IS irrational at times, then you still gotta complete ignore the character as he were developed for +50 hours leading up to the choice. and most o' the times our clients is not irrational, if we accept their pov. our client's fears and expectations may be irrational, but if you accept the client's pov, typically they is acting rationally. "If I proceed with this case, God will smote me for being greedy." irrational? is only irrational if you don't believe in a God who smotes his followers. Mr. P (for plaintiff) were a very religious man who had had some bad experiences in the past. couldn't convince him that his fears were misplaced. the thing is, if we put ourself in Mr. P's position, and we genuine believed that God would smote us if we didn't accept the govt's crappy initial deal, then his decision made sense. we also worked at a juvenile detention facility, and a good number o' the kids were on some serious drugs. kid paints his walls with his own poop to keep the monsters away. irrational? not if you assume that 1) a demon is really out to get Mr. Beeson in room 12, & 2) those poop symbols will keep demons away. the thing is, Gromnir had experience with Beeson and knew he were a nutter who were on drugs that seeming made him more apt to hallucinate. so the excuse is that allistar acted nutty once. regarding al, his irrational behavior were not a part o' his developed character, and it conflicted with the biowarian efforts leading up to that point. "and then he went a little crazy." sorry, but that ain't competent or plausible character development even if you thinks it is realistic. is a lazy shortcut... is an apologist response. HA! Good Fun! ps am still pulling for kal sharok in a sequel or dlc. we were told that orzamar cut off ties with the other dwarven communities during the last blight, to save themselves... only kal sharok survived. is fertile story ground. the dwarf stuff were some o' the best material in da. would be interesting to see a different dwarven pov. we gets this themes o' hard choices and sacrifices... what sacrifice is too much to save everything you hold dear? could use that on a larger scale for kal sharok.

yeah. of course the numbers still assume 100% hit rate and use of tainted blood... and unlikely equipment for much of game. Gromnir avoids tainted blood like the plague... which is one of the oft mentioned complaints of the linked calculation. the 100% hit rate also fails to consider the significant difference between attack ratings. in addition, the formula seems to assume a 100% backstabbing, which is in our experience, highly unlikely or self defeating. if Gromnir achieves only 3 attacks while some other player is setting up a backstab, Gromnir has already complete nullified the superior backstab damage, no? HA! Good Fun!

for the battles Gromnir would wanna be stealthed, stealth don't help... which is any serious boss battle. for any other battle, being stealthed simply takes us out of combat. if Gromnir gets three standard attacks during the time monte needs to set up his 100 point backstab (a very conservative estimate btw), Gromnir has already dealt over 100 points o' damage anyways. stealth gets kewl points more than it is an effective battlefield tactic. as a light armed foe, we is pretty low on the target priority list. with shale doing taunt and stoneheart mode, Gromnir is usually able to gets our flanking position when desired... and with a mage or two and shale, most enemies is stunned/disabled for much of combat. put the bosses in a force field, shred the mobs, and then concentrate on the boss unhampered. *shrug* to weave through the mobs and achieve tactical superiority we need tier 3 stealth. tier 4 not genuine help with the stuff we really would want it for anyways. HA! Good Fun!

good breakdown. seems to agree with our own personal observations regarding criticals and back stabs being an either/or proposition. however, as we is likely to continue to use shale as our primary tank, the swords win over daggers for us. the best 1h weapons in the game are swords and we want those in our pc's hands. there is one super dagger in the game, and it is also super expensive... Gromnir can buy lifegiver ring and other stuff by forgoing the dagger. in any event, smart play seems like str or dex... not cunning. cunning is just not worth it as far as we can tell. HA! Good Fun!

I have no problem with <that event> being a dealbreaker for Alistair. Every second exchange with him seemed to involve him getting misty-eyed over Duncan's death and his love for the Grey Wardens. He was ambivalent about the throne and - as for sex with Morrigan - . But . I was taken aback by the strength of his reaction on the first playthrough, but i have absolutely no problem with it being a core tenet of his being. and darkness will sweep over the world, and all that you know will be reduced to blood and ash. bah. HA! Good Fun!

the problem is that least originally the rogue weren't gonna be a rogue. were all kinda community suggestions regarding the third class. rogue were gonna be a jack-of-all-trades kinda thing. the rogue, in final incarnation still isn't Necessarily a scheming, murdering, sneaker. the class May be a lightly armoured flanking fighter or a duelist as the specialization suggests. 'course, if only the rogue can take thiefy skills, then thief it shall be, no? the thing is, we suspect that the human noble origin were developed before bio settled on making their 3rd class a thief rather than a jack-of-all trades or skill user, ranger or bard... or any o' the other similarly stoopid suggestions we saw. one o' the only intelligent things vol has said in the past month since da were released were that rogues is unnecessary... and the only reason we thinks it is an intelligent observation is 'cause he agrees with Gromnir. is simply no need for a rogue class. open up the thiefy skills and talents to warrior and mage and you got a superior game with more character-build variety. HA! Good Fun!

Gromnir chose dwarf noble 'cause none o' the starting talents/skills were objectionable. sadly, we was displeased to see how little impact our origin had on game when we returned to orzamar. a couple of snide remarks were the only difference we noted... and one additional conversation to explain just why your returning weren't noteworthy. if we does rogue again it will probable be city elf or human... but the human noble origin is just gawd awful. "Oh, the humanity!" HA! Good Fun!

Now this is the rub. I don't mind giving up a little bit of combat ability in order to have a fast talker. What I don't like is giving up diversity. I wonder if it's possible to split the difference. Have enough cunning to persuade folks and pick locks and the like and have enough strength and dex to give me a good spread on talents. I mean, talents make this game. You can literally have two people from the same class who are nothing alike because of talents, which I think is good. It does lead to the opportunity to screw yourself, but overall it's a good aspect of the game. fast talking can be achieved through skills... need 18 cunning to get tier 4 talky skill. what we didn't know is that a high cunning player don't need tier 4 o' proselytizing skill... so with high cunning you can save 1 skill point (although we s'pose you will not get top-end intimidates). talent-wise it would appear that the high cunning rogue doesn't need the fourth tier of lockpicking if you want to open all chests. so you save a point there. ... dunno. you gotta spread talents and abilities much more careful to get a good cunning rogue, whereas the strength rogue you can get all the benefits o' the cunning rogue, while not having to go the Cunning Route with talents. am really not seeing an upside to the cunning rogue.... but that don't mean that the cunning rogue ain't effective, 'cause they are effective. HA! Good Fun!

"I'll stick to the cunning build even if it's slightly less advantageous than strength build, assuming that it's not suicidal." is definite not suicidal. the cunning route is perfect viable... is simple no good reason we can see to choose. am not recognizing any kinda real advantage to going the cunning route if you is a dual wield combatant. the str option ends up resulting in a superior combatant, and you actually can be a bit more diverse in your talent choices. *shrug* and the mage tower only gives 1 more point for cunning than str or dex... is not much significant. HA! Good Fun! ps as for stealth... three tiers o' stealth with a mere 18 cunning is good for 99.9% of game.

"Most importantly of all my stamina adjustment, fully kitted out, is +2.25% or something, so with lethality and momentum switched on I'm a chainsaw." with wade's superior drakeskin and a halfway decent helm you is gonna get something like -6.1% fatigue... but that has nothing to do with cunning. momentum is great... but that also gots 0 cunning relevance. lethality is complete unnecessary if you go str route. most o' the stuff you mention ain't cunning dependent. can get same benefits or more with str build. cunning not improve your defense. cunning not improve attack. cunning can improve damage, but it still not equal what you get by boosting str over cunning. HA! Good Fun!

well, am thinking you can still make use of keen defense (tier 3) and the initial dex boost. 'course, what is your other options, 'eh? the ranger critters ain't half bad. HA! Good Fun!

makes cunning even less necessary... or more, depending on how you look at it. the lack o' transparency is a real hoot, no? so, 18 cunning gets 3 ranks in stealth (if you like stealth) and to get 4th tier o' lockpicks you need a cunning score o' 22. HA! Good Fun!

^ As I posted earlier in this thread, having a good rogue with high Stealth skill (3+) and decent Cunning makes crowd control very different from the vanilla 'Tank & Mage' melee / fireball inferno route. honest, am thinking that alan managed to sell folks on the high cunning rogue 'round these parts before folks actual played. no doubt the high cunning rogue is still effective, but the numbers (at least the ones that is viewable) is still seeming in favor o' the high str rogue. more base damage and you don't need lethality line to achieve. better attack rating regardless if you is flanking or not. am not sure what is minimum cunning to open all chests, but even if you not go past 18 a handful o' missed chests is unlikely to be more than a minor irritant. am aware that cunning gives additional armour penetration and critical chance, but we recently began using tier 4 duelist and it became pretty damned obvious that criticals ain't near as important for a rogue as we surmised. if you use coup de grace or you is backstabbing, you is effective doing criticals anyway. the numbers leaping up on screen is no different/better for Gromnir when he uses the tier 4 duelist auto-crit, then when we is attacking from flank or attacking a stunned/immobilized opponent... and is appears that criticals and backstabs is identical... no stacking. also, am not bloody worried 'bout minor improvements to armour penetration if our backstabbing rogue ends up with a modified str in the 50s. can still get stealth 3 with 18 cunning. as counter-intuitive as it first seems, am not sure if there is a reason to go past 18 cunning for a rogue... dual wield or archer. strength for dual wield and dex for archer... and less need to spread attribute points. your dw rogue is gonna get to at least 25-27 base str anyway just so you can use the best 1-h swords in game, right? dunno, am thinking that low 20s cunning is all you need to open all chests and disarm traps, so if that if you need such to be appropriate rogueish, then so be it... otherwise, am not seeing a reason to go past 18 cunning for any rogue build. HA! Good Fun!

The Twisted Rune alone has more fiersome and varied mage opponents than all of DA. agreed. and vol, just as you keep fraudulently claiming that we concluded that rogues is useless and weak, we also never said that the denerim thugs were the toughest battles in the game. we did note that the denerim thugs is disproportionate tough for a bunch o' back alley reprobates, but those battles were not anywhere near the toughest in the game. in any event, we stand by our assertion that 500 of the denerim thugs we encountered as a level 18 or level 20 character would make short work of the blight. Gromnir's gimped 4-man party and a handful of henchmen cut through the heart of the horde without much resistance. if less than dozen thugs could make Gromnir sweat, 500 would makes kibble out of a mere blight.... just as Gromnir eviscerates vol. "I didn't even know you could get up to 100% spell resistance." requires very specific and costly equipment. multiple +10 gold grandmaster dewomer runes. a pendant that cost +85 gold. armour that will run you in the neighborhood o' +25 gold. etc. only a templar can wear the special armour, so that further limits the potential usefulness o' the 100% sr build. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

with 100% sr 1 character can ignore mages... not your party... and your 100% sr character is also necessarily more vulnerable to physical attacks than he/she would be if she were more intelligently arming and armouring self. enemy mages is dangerous and dumb. if enemies target your mages the same way you try to eradicate their mages, da would be a very different game. am not sure why this isn't getting through? and for you to invoke logic is just crazy-wacky. and bg2 mage battles were much more complex than da mage battles... but that is to be expected given the vast catalog of spells available in bg2 as opposed to da. if da were to suffer from the same unrestrained spell list bloat as does d&d, then am suspecting that da battles would be tougher... particularly if da enemy ai were improved. HA! Good Fun!

nope. HA! Good Fun!

the mage tower? HA! mage tower is purposeful set up so that it not matter how your character is built. you could have worst equipment and most lame build ever, and mage tower is beatable and fun precisely 'cause none o' that matters... and most o' the demons is doing elemental or physical damage. and again, to be 100% magic resistance you reduce your efficacy considerable against physical foes. 3 mr runes and otherwise average armour... and an extreme expensive amulet... all to get mr? why? is stoopid. use same cash to buy lifegiver ring and paralyzing runes that make you tough v. Everything rather than just mages... buy better armour too. cost v. benefit? is a concept you never heard of? 'course, if enemies used magic as smart as does players, then yeah, 100% magic resistance would be great, but as has been noted Many times, enemies is dumb. they not make use of their magics effective. as it now stands in da, is only one battle with a solo super powerful mage/revenant, and that is a side-quest. every other battle it makes far more sense to turn up the hurt and kill'em faster. "Might as well just allow people to have 100% resiatnce to phsyical damage and call it a day. LMAO" actually, such a thing Would break the game... is one reason why peoples claim that arcane warrior is broken. you ain't been following? is far more physical attacks coming your way than magical... and to get 100% magical resistance you sacrifice your ability to dish out and soak up physical damage. HA! Good Fun!

"No logic can defend something so immoral, broken, and cheesy." funny. maybe you should actually try using logic or reason for a change... might then make apparent that your conclusions is fallacious. Gromnir is using reason, but all you gots is conclusions and claims o' cheese... which is to be expected from R00FLES. HA! Good Fun!

"Both Alistair and Morrigan are petulant, selfish little children." am in full agreement. we liked that bio confronted us with hard choices, but the scenarios they presented in da to achieve the Hard Choice were a bit... dubious. mass effect did better with the simple choose A or B. though am gonna note that based on the way we built our party for +60 hours o' gaming, it were far more difficult for Gromnir to maintain our resolve and kick some folks to the curb... even though we saw it coming in one case. HA! Good Fun!

typical vol nonsense. is not simple. so what if you becomes invulnerable to mages if doing so makes you more vulnerable to, and less effective against, physical-focused adversaries. is a trade-off, and the trade-off is not worth it save in one battle. the number 100% not mean anything in and of itself. btw, thanks to Di's prompting we went ahead and played the mage origin. in fact, to be fair, we has now played all the origins. am not sure if we would claim that the mage origin presented us with moral ambiguity. sure, having already played through the game once we had meta-knowledge regarding some important mage origin characters. nevertheless, depending on your pov, you could make a mage origin choice secure in knowledge that you were doing the right thing... were no true no-win. nevertheless, we did like that the choice were hard, if not gray... not that it genuine mattered in the end. actually, of all the origins we would say we enjoyed the mage one the most. is sad that the resources allocated to the dahlish portion were so obvious inferior to those of the other origins. as the dahlish art not gets recycled in game it were understandably poor compared to other origins. nevertheless, we actually thinks it were pretty solid. 'course, having now played through human noble entire and dwarf noble +80% (including orzamar) am gonna reiterate that we is moderate disappointed that bio's puffery regarding the impact o' the origins weren't more accurate. not surprised is Gromnir, but am a little disappointed. HA! Good Fun! ps w/o considering pickpocket skills, am thinking you gets the most ph47 1007 doing mage origin... probable followed by (edit) the city elf. two very nice items is included in city elf haul.

having played with the patch, am not too bothered by the changes so far. as noted earlier, crushing prison is not nearly as useful on hard difficulty as some would suggest... it can takes out a single archer and Maybe disable a hurlock or gorlock emissary... maybe. am sorry for folks playing on normal, but Gromnir hasn't been impacted overmuch. force field typically lasts too long for Gromnir anyways... or too short. against everything but Super Bosses we get bored waiting for force field to expire. against the mega dragons it only lasted a couple of seconds. am betting those dragon battles is gonna require some new tactics. cone of cold is indeed shorter... which is a good thing. it were the single best spell in the game for us... which is just plain wrong. is no way that a third tier spell should be bestest. 'course, those revenant battles is gonna become Much tougher now. honestly, Gromnir didn't notice much difference with blizzard, but Gromnir usual combines with wynne earthquake and shale rock barrage, so critters is being disabled regardless of being frozen. still, those scattershot archers is gonna become even more annoying now that blizzard is less efficacious. other than the fact that the durations for some o' these spells were already crazy short with some boss creatures, we gots no real complaint. cone of cold were indeed our ace-in-the-hole with the Godzilla dragons and am kinda looking forward to the new challenge a nerfed coc dragon age presents when confronting the titular enemies. as for the possibility of 100% spell resist... so what? is only 1 or 2 significant battles in which spell resist of such magnitude would be worth the costs. dragons and revenants beat you to a pulp with physical attacks. forgo better armour and runes to get spell resist against a dragon or revenant? not a chance. come to think of it, is actual only 1 genuine battle in which we would ever consider jag's 100% spell resist approach... and spending the ridiculous amount of gold it would take to achieve is just not worth it. HA! Good Fun!

am embarrassed to say that the biowarians did a good job with sarel the storyteller. ... Gromnir has met sarel a dozen times in the past. typically is a bright but unemployable relative o' ours whose thinly veiled sarcasm regarding our enculturation has managed to bring Gromnir to the edge of violence on more than one occasion. these sarel clones is quite willing to concede that the wasi'chu is not to blame for every misfortune that has befallen the People... but after listening to these guys complain for hours on end at the local tribal hall, feed store or corner bar, it is difficult to identify a problem that did not originate from the river o' wasi'chu venom that We has been drowning in for more than 150 years. *groan* bio did a pretty good job of making the dalish both sympathetic and annoying at the same time. HA! Good Fun!

to be fair, Gromnir cannot think of a way for the ai to handle cone of cold. we position morrigan, pause, and then shift the area of effect for CoC to within a micrometer to get the most impact. is simply not a spell we is ever gonna have in the combat tactics menu. we also got tired of shale dismantling our own party because it hurled rocks on Gromnir, or because the ai didn't recognize that such hurled rocks could be obstructed doing damage somewhat closer than intended. area effect spells never show up on Gromnir's combat tactics menu, but we don't mind the micromanagement. the best crpg ai is stoopid, because it almost always views players as individuals rather than as a group. can have aoe spells only cast at X distance from caster and that still don't take into account that fellow party members may be in the Kill Zone... or such casting may create a Kill Zone where you not want one to be. called "plays" that would combine behaviors for multiple party members would be ideal, but developers never seem to embrace such an approach. HA! Good Fun!

please give examples o' imaginative gameplay. am reminded o' folks who prefer modern art, 'cause is imaginative and interesting. personally, Gromnir is more concerned 'bout execution than we is by New. chess sucks because is sooooo unimaginative.... should have to play naked, suspended 'bove a pool o' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads. HA! Good Fun!