JerekKruger

Agreed. They were lifted straight from tabletop, where they were a tool available to the GM to stop players from unrealistically resting after every fight. Given that in CRPGs fights are much more prevalent and save/load scumming is available they're just an annoying carryover from the games tabletop roots (and before anyone complains, I am a tabletop role-player, but ultimately single player CRPGs as a medium are different to tabletop and short of genuine AI they always will be). People did that? In BG2 I was always overflowing with money and the random loot dropped by such encounters paled when compared to unique loot found by actually questing. Moreover the amount of time needed to level this way would surely make it less efficient than simply playing the game. Most on-rest encounters were pretty trivial and therefore low xp.

Oh I forgot to add, if you don't mind minor spoilers, this link: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73599-looted-grimoire-spell-lists/ is very handy to have when planning which spells to take. I wouldn't plan miles ahead, but knowing which spells are going to be available to learn from dropped Grimoires for the first few levels is handy.

I think he pulls the group with a ranged attack, then backs off to cast Savage Defiance and Frenzy and drink some potions. Of course, once he's done that he pretty much three shots the group with Dragon Leap, Heart of Fury and Barbaric Blow, so I'd agree that it's basically a straight up fight without any tricks. That video definitely puts pay to anyone still saying Barbarians are underpowered though doesn't it.

Amplified Wave is AoE and targets an Ally so if I understand correctly it wouldn't be affected even if it were below level 5. How moddable is PoE? I ask because there were unofficial BG2 fix patches a long time after support for BG2 stopped, so perhaps we can hope for the same with PoE.

Whilst I agree that the game becomes rather easy after level 8 or so on hard mode or lower, I'll say that the same only really applies to PotD if the player has a good grasp of the game mechanics. I suspect that a player on their first play through will still find later game content on PotD challenging. Moreover I'd say that the hardest fights this game has remain hard on PotD without a very good grasp of the game mechanics. As for attributes, you certainly can min-max if you want to, especially once you get a party member or two to tank for you, but it's in no way required. With a party, the game is beatable on PotD even with non-optimised characters (in fact once you get a good handle on the mechanics you might want to avoid over optimising as it'll make the game too easy). Anyway, specifics: as AeonsLegend says, Might and Intellect are your primary stats for a Wizard. After that I'd probably rate Perception followed by Dexterity as the next two important: Perception increases Accuracy of spells, which increases the chance that the spell will hit and, more importantly for debuffs, that it will crit; Dexterity will increase the speed at which you cast your spell, and would be more important if it weren't for the fact that at level 5 you get a spell called Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (DAoM for short) which gives you a heft +50% speed boost making Dexterity less important. At the bottom of the pile come Resolve and Constitution. Resolve will increase your Concentration, making it less likely you'll get interrupted, but if you're a ranged caster you should be aiming not to be hit that often, and the first level spell Spirit Shield gives you the equivalent of 10 Resolve points worth of Concentration. Constitution increases your Health/Endurance pool, but since Wizards have a very low Health/Endurance pool and since Constitution acts as a % modifier, the bonus or penalty for raising or lowering it isn't that important. If I were building a Death Godlike Wizard I'd probably go with something like this: Mig 18 Con 8 Dex 10 Per 15 Int 19 Res 8 But I'm not a fan of reducing any attribute below 8 for arbitrary role-play reasons. If you want to absolutely min-max then the following will probably result in the highest damage (requires Living Lands background): Mig 19 Con 3 Dex 16 Per 18 Int 19 Res 3 But be warned, you will be very squishy.

Agreed, I would have preferred the game without them, especially given how generic they were. That tends to be my view as well. They'll be an annoyance after a while and most players will get into the habit of saving and reloading to avoid them, wasting time and leading to frustration the few times a player forgets. Sure, perhaps it's more realistic to have camping be risky, but there are an awful lot of other realistic features that we don't include because they're not fun. Of course, if there's a simple option to turn them off I don't really mind them being included. Now, having a quest initiated by such an event is a different matter, and could be quite fun. The problem is when they become routine and purposeless.

Yeah that was a shame. I mean, technically you are only wielding a single one-handed weapon so it doesn't seem unreasonable to allow it to stack with weapon and shield style, and if anyone complains that it's more powerful than dual wielding style or two-handed style I'd point out that it also costs twice as many talent points. Still, I guess Obsidian wanted it to be strictly one single handed weapon and nothing else so fair enough.

As long as you occasionally remain silent :D

There isn't, as far as I know, that much lore about them, so you're free to interpret it however you want. I'd say that if someone pays a Goldpact to do something, they do it, but that doesn't stop them from doing things if they're not paid (unless of course doing so would cause them to break another contract). So I don't see anything wrong with a Goldpact that does "pro bono" work for worthy causes.

Well, if you like the look of Goldpact then there's nothing wrong with them that I can see. Go forth and smite undead rationally and stoically :D

I choose to believe that it is.

Personally I'd go with whichever Paladin order has dispositions you're happy picking. Having a unique Paladin talent is nice, but it's not worth being forced to pick dialogue options you don't like. Also the core Paladin abilities are good enough that you're hardly hurting yourself if you don't choose your order optimally.

Full on Explosive of course!

The Paradox forums are a lot busier than here, and with business comes internet toxicity.

I don't want to see a real life picture of Boeroer, it would ruin my image of him as a blue, hirsute Orlan!

I'd say go with it. You'll have fun regardless.

Oblivion and Morrowind were a lot worse than Skyrim for this. In those the optimal strategy for playing a character who, say, used swords, was to not pick swords as a class skill. Moreover I remember painfully avoiding running and jumping, as doing so would lead to suboptimal level ups.

My bad, I didn't realise it came in Act IV. Slack83er go with Ydwen's and an arquebus and you'll be fine. I just noticed Daybreak had Destroy Spirit and thought it'd be good.

I've had a sudden thought. You could go Weapon Focus: Knight. You'd eventually use Ydwen's and Daybreak as your primary weapons. Ydwen's kills vessels, Daybreak kills spirits. It's perhaps not the best option, but it fits your desire to kill undead pretty well.

When has that ever stopped them?

I feel like facerolling shouldn't just be about making content easy, but also about making it low effort. Therefore I'll go with five Chanters and a Priest.

Why did Obsidian have to remove focus generation from retaliation. The Backlash Bedlam was such a fun build.

Well, if Boeroer's taking his sweet sweet builds there, I'll at least lurk

I'm really looking forward to Tyranny, but I am not sure I will spend much time on the Paradox forums. That said, I am far from done with PoE.

1: Don't import characters directly. The game already suffers from power bloat and having us carry on with the same levelling progression, only going higher, will quickly lead to ridiculous power levels. Personally I'd prefer to start a new character from scratch (I have an idea for the hook for this actually) but even if we do continue the Watcher's story, have a new levelling progression that ensures we don't reach the point where PoE Dragon fights become trash encounters in PoE2. 1a: As an addendum to 1, take advantage of the fact that the PoE game mechanics are bespoke to change them. This isn't AD&D, Obsidian can change anything they want, and I'd prefer they do than feel like they have to carry over everything from PoE into PoE without change. 2: Tighten up the main plot. Towards the end, PoE's plot felt rushed. I'd like the main plot of PoE2 to be on a par with WM1+2's main plot. 3: Improve companion quests and interaction. With a few exceptions, companion quests felt a bit rushed and bolted on in PoE compared to BG2, and intraparty banter was lacking. I'd love to see this done better in PoE2. 4: Include a Caed Nua style super dungeon, but make it, say, 5 brilliant floors rather than 15 floors of varying quality (I know this was a victim of kickstarter stretch goals but still). 5: More, interesting items with unique abilities (WM was a great improvement here) and pencil style sketch art on all items! Despite this list, I actually think PoE is an excellent game. If Obsidian did all of the above, PoE2 would probably be my favourite CRPG ever, and hence also my favourite game ever.