Namutree

I approve.

That seems pretty reasonable. I wouldn't complain if Obsidian went with this idea.

Good to know. Been following the game diligently but didn't remember this particular tidbit. Josh mentioned it in a thread some time ago but I don't think we have anything more specific than 'rare' I honestly liked the BG way - mostly static but finding tomes could raise it. 3rd ed. had the point raise every few levels and that was ok too but it mostly meant just raising your key-stat and ignoring the others. In PoE, with more stats being useful for each build, we'd have to see if it's better to raise one stat or balance it out (or whether both would be good but different options). Both options being good in their own way would cool; I think raising at least two attributes ought to be optimal by a small amount though. Raising only the primary attribute seems too simple.

Gromnir, I approve of the way you type. "Tis most amusing.

Care to elaborate why? I am genuinely curious. if you do not gain attributes past character generation, each o' those points is all the more precious. if you will never get more points, you needs be more careful in spending. in theory this should lead to more balanced characters being built, but it typical works out the opposite way with extreme min/max. there is also the issue with some systems (particularly class-based systems) where a character will eventually have one or two stats improved to relative superhero levels through ability inflation. hypothetical: a rhino has a str o' 20. the absolute best strength a starting human character may have is 18. ok, so maybe the rhino is a bit weak, but is not so outrageous that it makes folks fall over laughing. the thing is, by level 20, our human is likely to have a strength that far surpasses the rhino, and that ain't even talking 'bout magical boosting. as is a Fantasy Game, such stuff doesn't actual bother us, but the aforementioned is typical answers given for avoiding inflation o' abilities... and such notions does have merit. HA! Good Fun! I see. I still want to improve my attributes, but I can understand that position. There are ways to avoid the situation of some one having an obscenely high attribute from exclusively raising it. Make it so raising lower stats is more helpful than raising higher stats. After all, in poe all attributes are useful to everybody. Another solution is put a limit on how often a specific attribute can be increased, for example: My fighter increased STR at level 4, so on level 8 STR is not available. So instead I raise INT since it helps improve my abilities. Then at level 12, INT cannot be chosen because I raised it last time. STR however, is now available again. That could work.

Care to elaborate why? I am genuinely curious.

Whether or not three level is too much largely depends on how important a single attribute point is. For example, if 30 points in any given attribute were normal; 1 point per 3 levels would hardly even make a difference.

Yeah, that is what I had in mind. It makes that 4th/5th level seem special. Also, the value of one attribute point in poe is probably less than in AD&D.

I liked in IWD2 that you could get an attribute bonus every four levels. I hope something like that comes to poe. The stagnant attributes in Bg were regrettable.

Ha! I approve.

Custom portraits will be neat. I sure hope it's easy to import them.

I'm on it, but I can't think of anything to talk about.

It's probably best that they hold off on romance until poe2. The farthest they should go in terms of romance in poe would be a bit of flirting. While it is clear there will be no romance in poe; no one has said they won't allude to possible future romances. Besides, mods will give the community romances anyway.

Skeleton Warriors can beat a lich. That was how I beat them on my first playthrough. I never found liches to be challenging at all in Bg2.

I'll be six rangers. My team will be huge! jk I'll be making my pc a ranger and my allies will be based on which npc's I like, but I definitely have a paladin on my team.

I believe the problem is to keep the game balanced. Imagine you could kill such merchant at the very beginning of the game and have all his money and stuff. There is no more point in looking for good equipment drops, collecting money to buy it or explore the world to find it. Having powerful items so early your party will easily kill monsters that possibly was designed to provide a challenge to you. I have seen something like this in Fallout 2 - you could visit Navarro just few hours after you started the game and take your hands on quite powerful armor and weapon but doing so is like entering "God Mode" cheat - no more tough battles and enemies first half of the game and no point in upgrading your equipment until late game. P.S. Do you remember things like "Bags of Holding" (IWD, BG, NWN games)? It's a magic bag, that is bigger inside then outside and also it reduces (drastically) the weight of the things you put into. You can think merchant have few of them with some additional magic that for example destroys the bag on owner death. Don't have an early merchant who has super high level gear. Give the merchant a few high level guards to make killing him and living to tell the tale impossible for a low level party. Make his safe well secured so it can't be robbed by a low level thief. Many solutions to the game balance issue.

Have you ever played IWD2 in Heart of Fury mode? It should be as though as that, or just below. I see. Seems pretty tough for a first time through. You got guts owl; I am impressed with your moxy.

Inspired by this charming image I've composed another fan art music. So this time it's a theme for The Celestial Sapling inn. https://soundcloud.com/consona-adversa-pars/the-celestial-sapling-theme Enjoy and thank you for listening! Nice.

Never played path of the damned. Could you give me an idea of how tough that is compared to IWD2 or BG2?

It'll be even easier than most people expect since it's basically impossible to make a bad build. Josh said the game will be as tough as Bg2, but he was likely thinking of Bg2 with a competent pc setup. One of my friends made a crappy pc in Bg2 and had a much tougher time than he would have in poe. I'll be playing poe on hard mode on my first play through; I recommend the same to any IE veteran who likes a challenge. As for the update: The fighter seems cool.

Really? Too bad. I'm still excited for poe though.

Maybe whether or not you can stop the fight would be based on CHA or whatever the CHA is called in poe.

I found Bg2 pretty easy on my first time playing, but I did import a very powerful character from Bg1.

Does anyone know if any of npc characters will fight each other? I thought it was kinda cool how in Bg1/Bg2 the npc's would argue and even try kill one another if poorly matched.

Nothing wrong with backing something you're excited about. I'll probably be backing it soon myself. I wanted to get a good idea of what the game would be like before I gave Obsidian my hard-earned cash. With that said, welcome to the community.