JerekKruger

It seems better than the Wiki, but it's missing level 7 spells (or level 4 chants and invocations in the case of the Chanter) which is a shame.

Hah, I was just going to link exactly the same quote

That portrait is really nice!

Huh! All the usual cipher melee builds I see seem to suggest you need to max might and intellect. If nothing else thanks for opening my eyes to the fact non min-maxed characters are viable With racial bonuses and a background you should be able to start off the game with 14-10-10-15-15-14 I think. You start with 10 in all attributes and have 15 additional points to spend. On top of this your race effectively gives you 2 extra points and your background gives you 1 for a total of 18.

Yeah, people often wheel out the whole "medieval peasants usually died before they were 30", but the reality was medieval peasants were very likely to die before the age of 5, but if they survived past this they were actually fairly likely to live to see 60. I think what makes the hollowborn epidemic shocking, even for people used to high rates of infant mortality, is it's recent nature and it's perceived relation to the death of St. Waidwen. New afflictions are scary because they're not wholly understood, and the fact that this affliction might be divine in nature is likely to stoke the fires of fear. Yeah, PoE occurs during a period that is, I think, analogous to renaissance in Europe. Gunpowder weapons are really starting to become widespread, but plate armour is still widely used. Europe at this time was... not pleasant. If you're not familiar with the Thirty Years' War then you should read up on it. In terms of relative death rate it was truly devastating, with some estimates saying that the population in the Holy Roman Empire (sort of Germany) was cut by a full third, and certainly some areas were hit worse than that.

I try never to be set in my ways. If someone provides me with compelling evidence that hatchets (or similar) were particularly good defensive weapons then I'll change my opinion. Everything I've looked into so far says otherwise, but I am not an expert so it's perfectly possible I haven't got access to the whole picture. I thought we weren't trying to convince each other I've given my own opinion based on the facts as I understand them and that's all I can do. I don't particularly mind whether anyone agrees with more, or if I change anyone's opinion, a thread appeared to discuss the hatchet and I weighed in. Hah! Well done sir.

I agree on both points Cantousent. My tanks don't (usually) use hatchets because it doesn't fit my personal image of them and it's also not that big a deal. I agree about might too.

No, I've yet to see an argument put forward in this thread for why hatchets should have a bonus to deflection that is convincing. I am in no way in favour of adding a deflection bonus to battle axes, I was using the to explain why I think that argument is flawed. Nor do I think hatchets cannot be used defensively, I just don't believe they are inherently more defensive than all other weapons. Finally I don't hate hatchets at all, I just think they'd make more sense with a different defining attribute.

I certainly wouldn't oppose a new map :D Is Ashfall where the big temple of Magran that Durance mentions is? That sounded like it would be an interest location to visit in a future PoE game.

If PoE2 was turn based I'd be a little disappointed because I love RTwP, but in the interview he talks about a separate turn based game in the PoE world. Honestly that sounds pretty good to me.

They really weren't that large. Don't be fooled by what fantasy art depicts, if you go to a museum and look at axe heads used in war then two things will strike you: the heads are surprisingly small and the blades are really thin. Even the big blades of dane axes aren't that heavy because, once again, they're really think. As for your latter point, sure, a smaller lighter version of a weapon might be easier to defend with, but the hatchet isn't the only small light weapon and arguably it's not the most naturally defensive one present in the game. There's a reason swords were the secondary weapon of choice for most of history and that reason wasn't because of their great killing power: it was because they were very flexible and, in trained hands, quite useful for defence.

I think Alora was, technically, a better thief in terms of pure thieving skills, but yeah Imoen had some of the highest stats in the game. The way she is developed at the start of SoA is actually a really good way to develop her in BG1 too, which is nice for continuity. Yeah, as much as I'd like to pretend otherwise this is true. It's hard to pass up the mechanically superior but less interesting NPC for the interesting but awfully built NPC. In an ideal world it's not an either or of course.

I don't see why, at least not for the battle axe. Historical one handed battle axes are surprisingly light. Actually this shouldn't be surprising since you don't actually need that much force to take a person out of action and slow unwieldy weapons are not good weapons.

What about option three: fudge Imoen and fudge* Irenicus? For a lot of characters this would seem a reasonable response. The only reason the Bhaalspawn is supposed to care about Imoen is because of some rose tinted spectacles about her character in BG1, but I played BG1 and I know that she was a pain in the ass. A good character might feel obliged to help her as the right thing to do, but a neutral or evil character shouldn't have any such compunction. One might argue that an evil character would want to find Irenicus either out of a desire for revenge or, as the game mentions, to learn more about their "potential", but I don't think this is certain. A perfectly reasonable evil character could conclude that they've had a lucky escape, Irenicus is too powerful to face again, and there are easier pickings out there. I can see that problem yeah. As you said, some dream sequences a la Baldur's Gate 2 would have done wonders for reinforcing this, and a negative mechanic associated with being the Watcher might have helped too. I think if there had been an obvious downside to being the Watcher then the reason for chasing Thaos would have been more compelling. That said I still enjoyed to story a lot, but I don't mind filling in/glossing over holes. *I am not entirely certain what is allowable regarding language so I am erring on the side of caution here

Thanks for sharing this build Boeroer, I think I'm going to give it a go. I particularly like the fact you don't min-max and the fact that it's a viable build even before you get the requisite items.

Ah sorry my bad. I must have conflated your views with another poster who viewed story mode as a problem in itself. It seems strange that Obsidian wouldn't get the community involved in testing combat difficulty. If they took encounters out of the game and put them in, say, a completely empty grassy field, then let players create custom parties before fighting the encounters, I think that would give them a fairly good base line from which to balance difficulty and would overcome their problem of having relatively few staffers who can beat hard. It's not perfect obviously, because in the game itself you don't arrive at each new encounter with a perfectly rested party, and it doesn't give a good idea of how a party of standard non-optimised companions would handle the encounter, but it seems a decent compromise to avoid spoiling story, environments and NPC companions ahead of time. I tend to agree though that combat being enjoyable is preferable to combat being hard, though I also acknowledge for some people hard = enjoyable. That's interesting, I actually think parts of SoA are motivated less well than PoE. The first part of the game involves trying to rescue Imoen which makes the assumption that the player actually cares about Imoen. In PoE the player is suddenly struck by a strange affliction which, for all they know, might be terminal, and I think the desire to learn more about this is harder motivation to deny than SoA. That said I've never had a problem with the motivation aspect as I'm happy to suspend my criticism a little and go with the flow. I'm willing to admit that probably makes me a worse critic. I agree that the interludes were an excellent feature and I'd love to see them return in PoE2. Another thing I felt SoA did a better job of was fleshing out the villain. The start of the game did a great job of painting a picture of Irenicus as this evil dispassionate person who was also clearly incredibly powerful (his excellent voice acting helped a lot, I can still quote the entirety of his opening dialogue verbatim). I think Thaos was intended to have a similar presence but he didn't quite hit the mark as well, though he got close at times. I think Thaos also suffers from the less personal nature of his opposition to the player: Thaos only fights the player because the player deliberately opposes him whereas Irenicus fights the player because he literally wants the players soul. I'll have to give this question a bit of thought, as at the moment it's merely my gut feeling. I might also have to reinstall an IE game to get a fresher comparison.

The problem with that is it should apply even more to battle axe (at least based off the art) and probably also apply to the pollaxe. I think hatchets were probably given this bonus purely for balance reasons: every melee weapon has one, and only one, special property; Obsidian wanted there to be one that added to deflection; the sword already had the special property of having two damage types so Obsidian decided to give this bonus to the hatchet. Personally I'd prefer the hatchet to share the battle axe's bonus to crit damage (there are already fast and large one handed weapons that share the same bonus) and for the sword, if anything, to get the deflection bonus. Actually I'd probably favour not having any weapon have the deflection bonus as they way I wouldn't feel like I'm gimping my tanks by not using said weapon. Have the defensive use of weapons be purely represented by the cautious attack talent.

The fact that a hatchet can be used defensively is not the issue, it's the fact that the game mechanics make it the best defensive option. Hatchets are axes, and axes by their very design at less well balanced than, say, a sword, since the majority of their weight is concentrated at one end. This makes them good at delivering powerful blows, but less quick to change direction. If we assume that the main way a weapon is used defensively is to parry or deflect enemy blows (the name deflection supports this) then a weapon than is quick and agile is going to do a better job of this. This, I think, is the root of my problem with hatchets being the defensive option. I should add that this is not something that bothers me overly. If this remains forever in PoE I am not going to rage quit. That said, I'd like to see it change in PoE2, though I won't veto the game if it doesn't Whilst still a "hatchet", Rêghar Konnek has a model much closer to what I imagine when I hear the word tomahawk. It's also a pretty good weapon now that attack speed is fixed. If you wanted to build a tomahawk wielder that might be an option.

Exactly. Unless you are a billionaire who could literally afford to finance Obsidian alone without any need to turn a profit then you're always going to have to accept compromise.

As long as the game isn't designed around story mode as the default then I don't really see the problem. Moreover I really don't see why it would be based around story mode. Story mode seems to be about making combat very easy (perhaps even trivial) in order to allow a player who either doesn't enjoy the combat or finds it too difficult to experience the story. As such story mode doesn't need to be particularly well balanced for play: if in doubt err on the side of easier and you're good. It makes a lot more sense to balance the game around normal and/or hard mode then scale from there. Add to that the fact that PoE is supposed to be a spiritual successor of the IE games and you've got a substantial portion PoE2's existing potential market being fans who want a game that isn't too easy. Unless Obsidian are incredibly confident they can gain enough new customers to at least offset any loss of existing customers they'd be foolish to make the change you suggest. But perhaps I am the wrong person to be talking to this about because I really enjoy PoE. Is it perfect? Definitely not. But to my mind it really is a worthy spiritual successor to the IE games. The environments are beautiful, if somewhat generically temperate fantasy at times; the story is solid (I really like it but I acknowledge some of the criticism of it, and let's not put SoA's story on too high a pedestal); perhaps most surprisingly, I really like the combat, and think it is better than that of the old IE games, though to be fair it has been a little over two years since I last played one.

Logic here simply means making conclusions about the world (Eora, not earth) given the rules of that world. It in no way relies on the rules of our reality. Another word you could use is consistency. We have no objection to the rules of reality in Eora being different to our own, but once those rules are set down we expect them to remain consistent. Given that it doesn't seem like the rules of physics governing weapons are fundamentally different in Eora, it is reasonable to make conclusions about the properties of weapons in Eora based on our own experiences. EDIT: alternatively, read Heijoushin's excellent post above explaining my point better than I do.

Some people, myself included, like RTwP very much, and whilst I have no particular desire to see very long combats, I would prefer them to be long enough and tough enough that I can actually make use of spells and abilities. There's already a problem with Chanters hardly being able to use their invocations on easier difficulties, faster combats would just extend that to harder difficulties and make other classes unable to use multiple in combat buffs.

Something worth noting about Raedric: according to the Wiki he is Thayn of Yenwood, and also according to the Wiki one of the two defunct erldoms is the Erldom of Yenwood. It makes me think that Raedric may have taken advantage of the power vacuum created by having no erl above him to make himself the de facto Erl of Yenwood. As such his power might not be representative of a typical thayn. Just a thought.

For me this aspect is one thing I look for in a game, but the story is at least as important, if not more so. I dare say the combat system could have been improved if less time was spent on the story, and perhaps some players would have preferred that, but I'm sure glad they didn't. Similarly whilst I almost certainly won't play story mode I don't begrudge Obsidian spending time on it for those players who will. I am exactly the same. I always enjoyed pause heavy play in the original IE games and much prefer microing my characters every move but I understand some people don't. If the argument is that Obsidian will make PoE2 easy by default then I understand your concern, though I don't share it. If on the other hand your concern is that having a story mode option available will result in more players choosing that option then I've got some bad news for you: a lot of people are going to disappoint you. Not everyone attaches the same importance to any given struggle that you do and as long as we live in a free world they simply won't bother with it. My guess is the main difference that having a story mode will make will be to open up PoE to people who otherwise simply wouldn't have played it at all rather than converting vast swathes of the current player base to the easier mode. This in turn means more profit for Obsidian, which means more money available for the development of PoE2, which hopefully means we get a better sequel. EDIT: I also doubt that a lot of the current "casual" players of games like Dragon Age: Inquisition would be tempted over to PoE even with a story mode. It's not just the difficulty that puts them off, I am sure they're put off by the graphical style. Thus unless Obsidian are going to make the full jump to AAA fully 3D RPGs and try to compete directly the majority of their market will remain the nostalgia crowd and the new converts to their style of game (a combination of people keen on the challenge and people keen for a deeper narrative). As such I can't see Obsidian changing things too much.

They're not taking it away though, they're giving the option to take it away but it's still very much there for those who don't enable the option. I really don't understand why adding in an option bothers people so much.