Gromnir

Gromnir approached last battle different than some. our casters were high enough level: 8/10 cleric/doomguide & an 8/10 wizard/asock, but trek through temple had exhausted most o' their real powerful spells. had some scrolls and potions to do most pre-battle buffing. rather than go all the way to overland map to rest, we tried end battle w/o a full spell compliment. took two tries with our depleted casters... first attempt were focused on taking the hierophant down first. we killed the hierophant, but didn't have enough juice left to take out the herald. died after a considerable long battle, but the battle were hopeless pretty early into it. second attempt were directed at taking out the herald as quick as possible, then use our 1 mass heal spell to get back on feet and finish off the rest o' the snakes. for Gromnir, and his mostly exhausted spell casters, removing the herald first worked much better than our earlier attempt. once the herald went down, it were pretty much smooth sailing for Gromnir.... but getting the herald down weren't easy. 'course our party were designed maybe different than some. our melee combatants were not so much damage machines as they were good at damage and great at making their saving throws. and we had +3 holy weapons and best possible equipment for every member o' our 4-person party. the alhoon mindflayer were very simple for Gromnir, but that again is 'cause o' our party dynamic. with our melee combatants being virtual guaranteed to make a save of any dc less than 30, and a doomguide spamming mass heals supported by a wizard casting maximized disintegrates at the vampire lords... *shrug* our party leader were actually our weak link as often as not. as a dual wielding rogue/swashbuckler/ranger (2/3/x), Gromnir had a ridiculous number o' attacks per round and very good saves. the problem, as with all 2.0-3.5 d&d boss battles at high levels, is that the bosses is immune or resistant to everything... including critical hits. Gromnir's leader only generated fantastic damage with critical hits, and 'cause he were a high int & moderate dex combatant, we often fell victim to bigby spells that required grapple checks rather than offered fort saves or knockdown attempts. HA! Good Fun!

can't post at bioware, so we will make some observations in this place... mainly concerning some odd bugs we has run across. bug 1) the conyberry meeting in which jon wright monologues for a bit after which there is a yuan-ti attack can result in a strange bug. if you save game after battle but before leaving conyberry tavern... then reload the saved game, the yuan-ti will respawn. good: for the nutters who love infinite exp bugs you can garner 1900 exp each and every time you do the save, reload, kill yaun-ti cycle. bad: if your party is injured, having to fight 7 or 8 yuan-ti holy guardians just to make it out o' the conyberry tavern. bug 2) am not sure where, when or why this happens, but sometimes (very very rarely) when we transition from a location to the overland map, our character dies. can be perfect healthy in port last, and then transition to overland and all party members is dead. game over. huh? played a bit o' motb wit soz loaded and the insta-death transition happened a couple o' times in the span o' 2 hours of gameplay. bug 3) speaking o' motb... after finishing soz, we took our level 18 character into motb for a short time. am not getting companion loyalty feats. safiya, kaelyn, okku and gann is getting their feats as normal, but not Gromnir's character. perhaps we has too many history feats already? not sure. not an additional bug, but the oft mentioned shield equip bug also appears occurs with motb characters, so am guessing that the motb companions has the upgraded ai. after a fight we noticed dove armed with a bare fist and shield, having unequipped her mace o' disruption. bug 4) have only seen this mentioned once, but the random special encounters, like the party polymorphed into chickens n' such, disappears from our game. it seems that any such encounter that moves also disappears. stuff like the wood elf, drow kinslayer and strange gnomes does not disappear. possibly unrelated observation, but will bring up anyway. the disappearing special encounters quirk only began after we traded out our sorcerer for a wizard character. am not sure why this would make a difference, but that is following the change in our 4 man party, we noticed this quirk. thankfully many o' the bugs is fixable via the console. npcs with missing feats and caravans that won't finish upgrading... the community has done a nice job coming up with work-arounds. HA! Good Fun!

vol, for a change, is correct. bg dialogue were pretty... thin. the developers went almost to extreme o' camp by including all the stereotypical fantasy characters who responded with brief and expected dialogues that did little to build character or story.... but 'cause everything were so by-the-book traditional fantasy, players filled in the gaps. for chrissakes, sarevok's Villain Laugh made us chuckle the first time we heard it 'cause it were campy extreme. is nothing wrong with people like for bg. am always believing that much of the approval of bg is kinda based 'pon nostalgia rather than reality, but even so, there is clearly a segment o' folks that want just the bare-bones and traditional fantasy shtick that doesn't necessarily get in the way of their "exploration." am not sure if such stuff can be said to qualify as good or better dialogue/story, but clearly some folks prefer that the game developers stay out of their way. HA! Good Fun!

"I think there might be some undetected sarcasm going on here." one hopes you is right... but sadly Gromnir is accustomed to encountering the BG Defense League whenever we suggest that perhaps bg were a flawed game. scroll up a few posts for an example. the xp cap thing were a drag for many. weren't really a shortcoming o' the durlag tower encounter though. nevertheless, am in agreement that bio dropped the ball with the TotSC level cap.... 'course the same flaw existed in bg. how many of us were at level cap BEFORE entering baldur's gate city? if we is discussing why people liked/disliked durlag's compared to stuff in bg core game, it may be tough to cite the TotSC level cap with a straight face. Gromnir hated the bg story and the patently ridiculous plan o' sarevok. poison iron IN a mine to create a synthetic shortage? a mine with a James Bond kinda self-destruct mechanism? etc. gotta ignore reason and economics to make sarevok anything other than a whack-job. nevertheless, we did see that many people enjoyed the BG story. personally we found the durlag story ever-so-slightly more compelling than the bg fare, but we concede that the general weight o' feedback were not mentioning story as the reason people preferred the durlag's tower encounter. that being said, please keep in mind that durlag's were simply an encounter within TotSC. were there a bg encounter that had a better individual story development? firewine bridge? the gnoll fortress? again. gotta compare apples. difficulty is one o' those issues that must drive developers nuts. no matter how hard developers make a game, there will be folks that claim it were too easy. no matter how easy the developers make the game, some will complain that game were too hard. am not sure how to honest measure toughness factor based on board feedback, 'cause Gromnir cannot recall any crpg released by bio or obsidian/black isle or bethesda or numerous others that did not elicit considerable complaints of "too easy" AND "too hard." regardless, am willing to recognize that approval for durlag's were not universal. HA! Good Fun!

you know, a statement like that doesn't really mean anything. 0 development of joinable npcs beyond the character record sheet? well, that made the game more accessible. individual encounters and quests is small, undeveloped, and largely dull? well, that too made bg more accessible. "more accessible" sounds like a lame excuse that can be used to explain away loads o' shortcomings. ... pretty much the only point we might accede to is that the cursory implementation o' d&d rulez in bg did indeed makes it more accessible to the general gamer. a person NOT familiar with d&d who picked up bg could still play game w/o feeling like they was missing 90% of the game. play a bg fighter? virtually your only options is how to spend weapon proficiency points... and there were so few weapon categories available that such choosing were pretty much impossible to break. as we noted already, based on player feedback at the bg boards, it were obvious that folks (almost w/o exception) liked Durlag's Tower better than they liked any single location in bg. inclusion o' Durlag's tower made BG less accessible? sure seemed as if folks wanted More Durlag kinda encounters. well shucks, but that necessarily means that developers must gives you LESS handful-o'-kobolds-in-a-cave encounters, no? sorry, but ns comments, w/o further explanation, sounds like little more than a lame all-purpose response to explain away developer shortfalls. am suspecting that main reason bg were a kinda rudimentary/fat crayon example o' d&d crpgs is 'cause the biowarians really didn't know what they were doing. were bio's first crpg after all, and there had been no successful d&d releases for a few years... so ain't as if bio could steal ideas from other games and developers. diablo were the only example o' a popular crpg released in a goodly time, so is probably not surprising that bg seemingly took inspiration from blizzard developers. HA! Good Fun!

perhaps you is correct. after all, is probable unfair to soz. bg strengths, such as they is, only is apparent when compared to the complete absence o' quality d&d games released in the mid to late 1990s. make bg today with improved graphics, but everything else same in bg, and it would get slammed by critics and ignored by fans. virtually no joinable npc interaction? big maps filled with an ugly amount o' almost random seeming encounters? shallow character development options. the few Big encounters in bg were actual pretty small. cloakwood mines maybe is biggest single insular and discreet bg location, with a surface and 3 sizable dungeon levels... and the dungeon levels were all pretty lame with little more than some linked rooms filled with adversaries intent on doing you harm. bg is bigger than soz, so it gots more of what sucks in soz, but the games is very similar. bg and soz has very much in common... from a gameplay pov. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure if we agree that iwd2 combats and dialogues got loads in common with soz. most combats in soz is very small set pieces on tiny maps... lots o' repetition ad nauseum. iwd2, for all its flaws, did present different tactical challenges... though far to often the developers relied on mob tactics to achieve requisite challenge (iwd2 hook horrors and barbarian attacks, in particular, come to mind.) also, am curious if you is being ironic 'bout party dialogues. nevertheless, iwd 1 and 2 is both worth playing. of the ie games, iwd2 did best with the character generation and rules stuff. iwd2 story were kinda... thin. nevertheless, targos were an amazing beginning town for a low level party... possibly the best such locale in any d&d game we can mention. good characters and challenges combined for worthy tutorial fodder for those unfamiliar with d&d and ie games, while at the same time targos were a compelling locale for those who not need the tutorial filler typical in such locations. ghost in the inn, and the cat lady is good stuff, and the fast travel options made even the fed-ex stuff seems less tedious. am not sure anybody has ever done a low-level d&d town better than obsidian/black isle did with targos. iwd1 were the most underrated o' the ie games... it somehow got the bg-lite label from critics and fans. the severed hand and dorn's deep were fantastic crpg locales, on par with anything in bg2, and the artwork and music were beyond reproach. heck, Gromnir, who largely ignores game music, appreciated iwd score. story in iwd were straight forward, but well-crafted with intriguing characters and plausible motivations... and even a genuine hero, which is actually rare in a crpg. also, the storybook intro used in iwd, coupled with winchester's narration, may also be our favorite game intro... regardless of genre. no super fancy intro movie sequence in iwd... just good art, some well written copy, and excellent voice acting. HA! Good Fun!

after playing +50% o' soz, we highly recommend that obsidian developers play me. a common complaint following me release were the seemingly pointless galaxy map explorations. bio developers agreed that in future they would give more quality quests rather than simple more numbers o' little worlds with little encounters. soz plays like me galaxy map exploration... w/o the critical path quests. good idea or bad idea: take stuff likes noveria and feros out o' me and just let players explore galaxy map. bad idea, no? nevertheless, that seems to be what obsidian developers did with soz. obsidian took what were wrong with me (pointless seeming galaxy map explorations) and built an entire game on the mistake. HA! Good Fun! btw, so we not sound complete negative 'bout soz, the flowers in the openpalm bazaar really looked neato. honest. am not kidding 'bout the flowers. the little hanging lamps, exotic birds, and clothes on characters in the openpalm bazaar were all aesthetically pleasing... but particularly the flowers. liera's trick were also pretty fantastic with all the little details included. were genuine impressed with appearance o' new areas of soz. may be a tired engine that obsidan used, but they does make some pretty keen looking stuff with the aged engine.

some o' the things people will focus their displeasure on is an unending source o' confusion to Gromnir. am recalling that after nwn were released, one poster complained 'bout the lack o' "pretty" shoes. with all the things wrong in nwn, this poster were most distressed 'bout the lack o' basic clothing options, particularly shoes. ... such concerns is no less valid than Gromnir's, but give us an hour to come up with all the possible complaints concerning nwn and we would never have guessed that the dearth o' pretty shoes would be a genuine concern. likewise, the inability to switch music back to motb would not have been one o' our top 100 predicted complaints. btw, am glad that we waited to play soz. it appears that many bugs has been addressed by the community with custom patches and work-arounds. perhaps somebody will even address the music "issue." HA! Good Fun!

have just arrived in sword coast. will offer up some impressions o' soz based on a goodly number of gameplay hours. soz reminds Gromnir o' bg, but not in a good way. the original bg became tedious for Gromnir 'cause it were a seemingly endless procession o' relative brief and uninteresting encounters. durlag's tower were the best part o' bg, but that were included afterward in an expansion. does soz have a durlag's tower? if not soz is truly a throwback game that failed to advance 'pon games of a decade ago. much as with bg, the cohorts is little more than a stat sheet... but that is ok 'cause we weren't expecting anything more. however, am admittedly a bit surprised that the static encounters is so... small. a tiny cave filled with fire newts. a " mine" or crypt where-in a half-dozen undead attack. is this all there is? ... perspective: after bg2 were released there were this vocal faction o' board posters that decried the absence o a sense o' exploration such as were present in bg. Gromnir were amused, 'cause we recall that one o' the most common complaints regarding bg were the tedium. everybody liked Durlag's Tower 'cause it fixed bg's biggest shortcoming: lack o' depth. bg2 gave players a large number o' sorta mini-durlag's, which is just one reason why bg2 is typically considered the superior bg game. still, it were amusing to see posts from folks complaining 'bout lack o' all those small and uninteresting encounters that were ubiquitous in bg, 'cause the bg2 developers had purposefully cut that crap out of bg2 in response to bg1 feedback. is as if soz developers not pay attention to last decade o' d&d crpg development. go back and make a game similar to bg, but w/o recognizing or implementing many o' the improvements added post bg. have heard many times that soz were 'sposed to hearken back to iwd, but where is dorn's deep or the severed hand? (dragon's eye sucked, so we will not mention as a positive) given how robust the character generation feature has become with nwn2, creating a party o' four has great appeal for the d&d geek in Gromnir, but so far, the character generation has been the best part o' soz... 'cause there just ain't much else. so, where is the iwd in soz? our party leader is a human rogue(2)/swashbuckler(3)/ranger(x) who started out with a 16 int and now has an 18 int... which means we got loads o' skill points. am always uncovering stuff on the overland map, and with high move silent skill we is able to pretty much pick and choose which random monster encounters we wish to submit to. 'course, we cannot imagine how frustrating the overland map would be w/o a considerable move silent or hide skill. the overland map literally swarms with monsters. instead o' rewarding the player who has a high hide or sneak skill, the developers seem to be trying to punish those who do not. you don't wanna have a sneaky party member? fine, then you gotta take the ranger cohort into your party and make her your leader... otherwise be prepared for monster spam. is bad game design that functional forces a particular kinda gameplay on a player. haven't made much use o' crafting. within the first hour o' gameplay we had created two sets o' full plate armour. kewl... points well spent, right? then, at level 9 or so, we made a couple o' +1 weapons with thundering quality. that has been all. with the exception o' weapons with potential multiple elemental damage quality, we can't make particularly powerful stuff, and as we ain't needed more powerful stuff to beat encounters on the samarach map, we choose to save our quid. is refreshing that at level 11 we is still using the hideously ugly +1 armour we stole from the ranger cohort, but so far we just ain't gotten much use out of points spent on crafting skills, or crafting feats. the bounty bag... sucks. am told that rare items is useful in crafting, so we would like to retain some portion o' collected... stuff. unfortunately, anything that goes into the bounty bag must necessarily be sold in bulk. got 12 will-o-wisp essences in bounty bag and wanna sell 6? tough cookies. is all or nothing for the selling o' stuff in bounty bag, and as we got no idea how many such essences we will need for crafting latter... *sigh* has resulted ina bizarre bit o' behavior in which we has various party members, not in possession o' the bounty bag, carry bits and pieces o' killed critters. is... inefficient and unnecessary. and speaking o' bounties, how often does boars and stag beetles drop parts? Gromnir literal spent two hours and killed dozens o' boars, and we managed to collect a grand total of 5 boar tusks. am a slow learner, but we stopped trying to collect bounties following that 2 hours o' nonsense. so far we haven't got too much story from soz, but that is okie dokie. the main motivation to continue playing soz seems to be a diabloesque 1007 & level kinda thing, but that ain't all bad. soz story is shallow, but not terrible bad. doesn't distract from gameplay, and can be explored at our own speed. am gonna continue playing 'cause the 1007 & level shtick IS enough to keep us entertained. am genuine curious to see how well our party turns out when it reaches levels such as 12 and 15. am also curious to see how the trading feature is implemented. even so, am wondering what the soz developers were thinking as they built their game. the overland map musta' been crazy-difficult to implement, 'cause there simply ain't much else there so far. we weren't expecting mulsantir and thaymount and the skien kinda size and depth to show up as encounters on the overland map, but Sherman set the way-back machine to the late 1990s, and we is getting bg-style kobolds-in-a-cave kinda encounters. am hopeful that eventually we gets at least one or two more complex locations, otherwise... what a waste. HA! Good Fun!

is 5 things we like 'bout nw9 as kinda a spice class... add flavor to a good fighter build. 1) give to a fighter type and it boosts will saves. nw9 gets will and fort saves. 2) the bab progression is high, so we not lose any melee efficacy. 3) the nw9 auras, on paper, is better than paladin auras. +3 save bonus and +2 deflection is nice for the guy standing next to the nw9. (btw, in nw2 we noticed that nw9 aura were bugged... for some inexplicable reason allies were getting a damage boost as well... but it were wonky and we could never figure out the numbers.) 4) spot and listen is class skills. not sound likes much? high level rogue types with sneaky attacks and hide-in-plain sight can be a nightmare. save up some skill points and then boost spot or listen to the max. levels the playing field a bit. 5) our f/wm builds is created to gets some ridiculous damage potential. am not one o' those guys that boost str to 20 at level 1 for max hitting power, but our earth gensai does start with an 18 strength and a falchion. at level 13 we is having weapon specialization, a 21 str, and am having a x3 crit on the falchion with a range o' 13-20. now, considering a 5th level nw9 can gets max damage on ALL melee attacks for 3 rounds... *shrug* but likes you noted, is all a matter o' personal preference. example: virtually every power build for mages includes red wizard levels... but we just can't do it. the notion o' playing a red wizard offends our delicate sensibilities. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

yup, is no reason to take wm post level 7... explains why we were gonna add levels o' nw9 at the back end o' our hypothetical f/wm. am assuming our party finishes finish at around level 18, which means we gets maybe 4 or 5 levels after going 6 fighter and 7 wm. nw9 looks good... and am pretty sure we can't swing the feats needed for frenzied berserker. though am still toying with the traditional fighter/pal/dc mix for smiting, divine mighting, and unbeatable saves. btw, loaded up and started playing a bit last night. in first battle we confront some relative low level critters including a goblinoid wielding a great axe. with one crit hit our ranger/rogue were reduced to negative 11 hps... which made us happy 'bout the implementation o' the new death rules. our first trip through iwd2's fell wood were sans wilderness lore, so we had to do bread crumb routine.... drop a bolt at bad exits and an arrow at good ones. made it through fell wood, but not much further. is not a bad game, but we just got bored. replayed through to conclusion (finally) late last year or early this year. really weren't a bad game if you could slog through some o' the tedious portions. HA! Good Fun!

rdd is very useful for level 30 non-caster builds. there is a cap on bab, so fact that rdd gets medium bab progression not hurt in long run. good saves, and stat boosts, plus some nice immunities to boot... but you gotta stick it out for all 10 levels to get immunities. am not a fan o' rdd with non-epic builds or casters... but perhaps we ain't lookig at it right. HA! Good Fun!.

And why would I do that? All you are doing is conveniently using that Moderator tag to pigeonhole me and then take pot shots - not unlike what you're doing with Josh. Please. All I am saying is that, in my opinion, your argument is needless and nitpicky. Josh ridicules those who don't like twitchy? Please, that's more sensitive than [insert non-PC stereotype here]. where we mention your mod tag? if we were gonna blame mod status we would mention it. there is always a tendency of the Faithful to defend the developers. you is a glassy-eyed fanboi? probably, 'cause you sure as hell ain't just saying we is needless nitpicky. spin-doctoring (which, in the spirit o' Inigo Montoya, don't mean what you seem to think it means,) and some other inaccurate descriptors has been thrown our way by tig, in defense o' a guy who seemed to try and go out of his way to insult a large % of people who played fo3... and a significant portion o' historic crpg fans. heck, is lucky that Gromnir responded to josh and not some o' the codexians or others. *shrug* actually, if not for the tag we woulda assumed you were a brit, 'cause those guys loves to mindless defend the monarchy, eh? HA! Good Fun!

"The point is that monkeyhopping on Josh's back for how he plays FO3 (a game already built in such a way) and extricating some elaborate state-of-the-industry out of it lacks logic and sense" did anybody do such a thing? only criticism made by Gromnir were directed at josh personal, as a developer... no state-of-the industry stuff from us. please review: josh decreed that those poor fools using vats to gets head shots were not playing legit. what? really? oddly 'nuff, although Gromnir much prefers turn-based gameplay, we typically found non-vats fo3 combat to be more efficacious, so josh's condemnation not touch us personally. the knockdown effect of a victory rifle, coupled with spam shots from a scopped .44 for anthing that did manage to get close, proved to be our mo for last 2/3 of game. even so, we feels some concern and consternation that a developer o' crpgs would have such a contemptuous attitude o' the way many chose to play fo3. those who use vats weren't doing legit? am understanding why tig wants to stick up for an obsidian developer, and loyalty to the hosts is admirable enough quality, but in this case we thinks that your characterization o' "the point" and your loyalty is both misplaced an unfounded. josh is the guy who spat a little ridicule in the direction o' those folks who not likes twitchy gameplay, and you is defending. bad cess. HA! Good Fun!

"If you beat Throne of Bhaal with the Ascension mod, that requires some planning. Building a character to make consistent VATS head shots in F3 doesn't really compare." building a fo3 character to take advantage of knockdown effects, sans vats, also not take planning. virtually every game has design flaws. you has made 'nuff d&d games to realize that by now. more complex a game rules gets, the more loopholes you is gonna necessarily provide. regardless, play vats or sans vats not = Legitimacy. a crpg developer who not seem to get that a crpg should rely on character stats rather than player skillz should be a little bit embarrassed, but perhaps you feels you is beyond reproach. too bad. as noted already, single head shots against still targets is hardly the extent of the game... as overpowered as such stuff can be in fo3, it ain't the sure-fire one-trick pony josh suggests it is, but regardless, josh's distinguishing game between legit and __________ is clearly contrary to spirit o' crpg genre. btw, if only a total n00b cannot make such shots as josh Decrees legitimate, then how can they BE legit? if any yutz can do, then what really distinguishes from vats? you really ain't making sense. HA! Good Fun!

sure didn't seem that way to Gromnir. without sniper perk and some points in small guns we failed at vats head shots for most of first 1/3 of game.... which is why we tended to go manual, 'cause we could spam a heck of a lot more shots outside o' vats than in it. after correct perks and point distributions, then the head shot thing changed, but not for early portion. regardless, you may have issues with how bethesda implements vats, but to suggest that manual dex way is the Legit way is, at the very least, arrogant, and disheartening... a disturbing pov from a crpg developer. HA! Good Fun!

"I thought Josh's use of "legit" had to do with taking the shot and actually GETTING a headshot, as opposed to lining it up, having it look like a head shot but pull the trigger and get an arm or chest shot (or a miss entirely)." yeah? what is your point? is not legit in a crpg to let your character's stats replace necessity of manual aiming? how so? is an unusual pov for a developer o' crpgs. HA! Good Fun!

that is kinda key, eh? get spotted after shot 1? what then? josh claims no dex needed for aim outside of vats, but in Gromnir experience, we were taking many shots that required our personal dex skills... 'cause it were hardly rare that a critter/personage would fail to die with 1st shot. is a funny thing, but fallout 3 enemies we hit rarely stay motionless after being shot. security bots we could sneak up on and deactivate, but what if we not have taken robot perk? how often did you manage to kill giant radscorpions with a single shot, and how often did you set up "legitimate" mini-minefields in anticipation of their inevitable attack post wounding? those monsters always seemed to spawn in pairs too. also, we found that if we snuck up close enough to set up kill shot w/o needing any sorta manual dexterity to aim, we might as well have just gone ahead and used scoped .44 anyways.... which kinda seemed silly. 'course all the aforementioned ignores what it is that josh ignored in his response: what makes josh way "legit." if his way is "legit" and he is contrasting compared to vats, then it is pretty clearly vats is Not legit in josh's mind. why? does he honest think it is the strategy and tactic considerations? ask 100 people who played fo3 what is reason for using vats. what is gonna be answer o' over 90% o' folks? vats takes burden o' manual dexterity based aiming out of hands o' player, no? nevertheless, what is typical considered a defining characteristic o' the crpg genre, is considered something other than legit by josh... not "fraudulent" but clearly not "legit" neither... which is also a baffling distinction in and of itself. HA! Good Fun!

letting your twitch gamer prejudices get the better of you again? it has been argued that what sets a crpg apart from action games is that is 'posed to be the Character's physical skillz that determine success or failure in a crpg, as 'posed to skillz o' the Player. player side o' the gaming in a crpg is 'posed to be focused on tactics and strategy (the 'line twixt the two invariably blurs) as 'posed to demanding manual dexterity beyond absolute minimum needed to move mouse and punch keyboard. Bob builds a fantastic sniper character and uses irreproachable tactics to achieve a perfect kill scenario, but 'cause he gots terrible reflexes all the planning and character building goes to waste? is simply disturbing to see a developer o' crpgs use "legit" as you did above. does that makes use of vats fraudulent from josh pov? ouchie. HA! Good Fun!

early christmas present: soz. has us vacillating. on the one hand, given some o' the bugs with trading and shield-equipping 'n such, am wanting to wait for the patch before we play. on the other hand, we already played fo3, and am not interested 'nuff to try fable 2. so, it looks like soz will get a go. for the overland map skillz monkey am going with either a human rogue/ranger/swashbuckler or a tiefling rogue/swashbuckler/duelist. am not sure how much difference max survival v. 50% survival will make if we skip the ranger levels. the party healer will be a human cleric/doomguard, 'cause if we ever feels the need to get that extra level via exp farming, a few 5 second undead encounters should do the trick, eh? don't like our casters to suffer ecl penalties... so no exotic races. am not a fan o' sorcerers... is too many neato spells we can't use. plus, a mage/asoc will be better able to round out our skills maxing goal. (our party is all lg folowers o' kelemvor, so no single-level-of-palemaster nonsense.) while it makes most sense to choose sun elf, we hate elves... not just how they is implemented in d&d universe, but given how horribly ugly they look in nwn2. stoutheart halfling. the role of the tank is where Gromnir is conflicted. an earth gensai fighter/wm/neverwinter9 wielding a falchion admittedly has a certain appeal, but the assimar fighter/paladin/divine champion were our initial choice as a tank with its virtual guaranteed saving throw attempts. the paladin really tends to shine at high levels... and it sounds like some o' the late battles in soz is pretty tough. well, if we play and we get frustrated by bugs, we got nobody to blame but Gromnir... 'less somebody can convince us that fable 2 is the more entertaining route. HA! Good Fun!

am also waiting. am interested in the trading feature, but it sounds as if this feature suffers from many irritating bugs, and as Gromnir is currently in full curmudgeon mode, we would like to avoid frustration. from perusing boards. beyond the trading aspects of the game it sounds as if there is some strange ai issues, and the cohorts suffer from a wide array o' problems ranging from incorrect/missing feat allocation to inability to progress as spell caters. ... with pc games Gromnir is always a bit more understanding o' initial performance related bugs, 'cause it is impossible to test game on every pc config, but the bugs that is being most often lamented regarding soz is Not performance... is lack o' diligence kinda bugs. anybody who plays soz all-the-way-through is gonna notice some o' the reported bugs, so it boggles the mind how such things could be so easily missed by obsidian/atari. am not intimately familiar with the pc game quality control process, but am always curious how developers can allow such stuff to go unnoticed. in any event, am glad we held off from day 1 purchase. would like to play soz in something other than beta form. HA! Good Fun!

That's because she wasn't a dwarf. Everybody knows that dwarves are the ones with Scottish accents. dwarves is scottish? we always imagine 'em with a brooklyn accent. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

I remember one of the devs from Microforte ripping on his own game (after the fact) for being completely and utterly lacking in tactics, despite the name. I still enjoyed it though. the first 2/3 of fo:t were pretty good. last 1/3 were... awful. sadly, the complaints we seen most often regarding fo:t were the typical hardcore fo nonsense. fur on deathclaws? how DARE they! HA! Good Fun!

No, not the only one. I'm level 10, and I have the urge to restart with a party called "The Underdwellers", consisting of a drow fighter, gray orc cleric, duergar rogue, and svirfnelbin wizard. I'm fighting the urge right now, though, because I want to actually see more of the game than just the first major area. am recalling that a developer (probably josh) mentioned that the game really punished his drow-inclusive party early 'cause of ecl. he restarted... sans drow. *shrug* we don't have game and haven't played. am planning on having a human rogue/ranger/swashbuckler (as team leader), an assimar cleric/doomguide, a vanilla gold dwarf paladin (or fighter), and a halfling mage/candlekeep scholar as our initial party o' four. wanna take advantage of some of the new stuff in game, so we ain't optimizing... but it sure sounds likes feedback from players recommends having a skillz monkey as team lead. HA! Good Fun!