JerekKruger

I still suspect that, a bit like Citzal's Lance, they're model isn't complete but is rather just the VFX of the final model. Might be wrong of course.

Before level 13 "high" isn't going to be that high. Your only damage dealing ability is Flames of Devotion which, whilst great, is only usable twice per encounter. Beyond that you'll be relying on Sworn Enemy (once per encounter, only works on a single enemy), Zealous Focus (passive but applies to your whole party so isn't really a specific bonus to your paladin) and various generic talents that any class can take. You also have lower base Accuracy than Fighters, Rogues, Monks and Rangers and don't benefit from the AoE attacks of Barbarians so you're at a disadvantage there too. To make up for all this you're going to be fairly tanky no matter how you build your character thanks to Faith and Conviction. You'll also have access to a whole range of support abilities that you should take since they are very good. After level 13 things change as you get access to Sacred Immolation, one of the best abilities in the game. When activated this does constant damage to all enemies within the area of effect for the duration whilst also healing allies and makes your Paladin a very potent damage dealer. This is easily one of the best damage dealing abilities in the game. As for Attributes the essential things are to maximise Might and Intellect so as to maximise your damage and the duration and area of effect of Sacred Immolation when you get it (you could use lower Intellect until level 13 then respec then, but I prefer to stick with a single Attribute spread throughout the game). Beyond that Perception and Dexterity are the most important attributes for damage dealing, though personally I wouldn't dump Resolve or Constitution too low. I'd probably go with something like: Mig 18 Con 8 Dex 10 Per 16 Int 18 Res 8 Weapons wise the optimal choice for Flames of Devotion would be dual wielding, particularly in the hands of a Bleak Walker Paladin. Ideally you'd get Bittercut, improve it to Superb or even Legendary, then use the Helwax Mold to duplicate it (always do this after enchanting it fully as the mold duplicates enchantments too) and dual wield that. Alternatively you could use Tidefall (a Great Sword available early on) since your high Might will make very good use of its Wounding enchantment.

That was indeed the flaw in the system. It has, apparently, been fixed in Deadfire. I really hope they go back to Might and find a different solution for Resolve being a dump stat. Making Might a dump stat for caster classes isn't really a good solution.

You're aware of the changes coming in the next beta patch right? A number of currently Fighter exclusive passive abilities are going to be added to the proficiencies, allowing all classes to take them without using one of their ability points. Fighters aren't getting anything to replace this loss, in fact they're still going to be able to take those passives as abilities even though they could take them as proficiencies for free instead.

That really depends on what sort of character you like playing. If you're hoping for the typical tough barbarian experience then the early game will likely disappoint you. Barbarians start with the highest health/endurance pools of any character but their defences are lower than most frontliners and early on this makes you surprisingly squishy. As the game progresses you become less so. That said they've got perhaps the most interesting class defining ability in the form of Carnage, and Heart of Fury (one of their highest level abilities) is possibly the strongest single attack in the game when used right. Before you get Heart of Fury it's a bit of a toss up. After Heart of Fury dual wielding beats a two-hander by miles. Short answer is yes. Longer answer is that it depends on difficulty and settings. Soloing the game on Story Mode isn't going to pose much of a challenge for any class. Soloing it on Paths of the Damned with Expert mode and Challenge of Iron is (probably) possible but likely very frustrating. The Barbarian's unique ability, Carnage, adds an AoE component to their attack and Intellect increases the area that it hits, so high Intellect Barbarians hit more enemies with their attacks than lower Intellect Barbarians. This only applies to some loot. Most important loot is fixed drops. I agree that it's a dumb system. Obsidian should either have made it genuinely random or not had random loot rather than having a system that can be gamed but in a tiresome way. Don't play on Story Mode. My first playthrough was on Medium and I found it got too easy by the start of Act II. Even Hard isn't particularly Hard, but that's where I'd suggest starting if you're a Baldur's Gate veteran.

I have an irrational hatred of it.

I'd imagine you'd be better off being a pure Evoker but I might be wrong.

It might be work in progress graphics. Certainly a lot of things in the beta are.

Hopefully, but currently Obsidian aren't planning on adding anything to replace the formerly exclusive passives.

They're great when Echo fires aren't they. Even Minor Missiles, which seems to have pretty low penetration, does decent damage when it Echos whilst Wellspring is active.

And understandable desire.

Not at the moment. Lightning only. Perhaps later you will.

Replaces it.

I think they do have a flat bonus with elemental spells. Their Blight form instead gives them a few extra abilities (a lightning based auto attack that jumps targets, a blink ability and a single target lightning nuke).

Paladins were great in Pillars. Perhaps not so much pre-WM1, but after that they were a really good class.

If the increased load times aren't specific to area why would vendor bloat affect them? Surely when I enter Durgan's Battery the game isn't fetching the data about all vendor inventories.

Would love to see this feature added.

On my keyboard the console key is the one directly to the left of "1" which types "¬" and "`" with and without shift respectively. This may or may not be helpful to you, but I thought I'd mention it since it's not the "~" key.

I like it on Wizards. Super easy to activate and a lot of their spells scale with Power Level.

Simply use the "GiveExperienceToLevel 6"* command after hiring a full party of adventurers to make them all level 6. You'll need to cheat to get yourself enough money to hire four adventurers too. *It might be "AddExperienceToLevel 6", I can never remember.

Whereas it's looking to be a pretty good racial in Deadfire.

I felt that some of the Paladin penalties were a little too steep and should have been changed to make them less so, but on the whole I don't think they needed to be removed altogether. Agreed. Throw in a warning when you select this combo if you're worried that players won't realise the risk, but don't disallow it altogether.

Yeah sorry Katarack but I simply don't agree with your objections to the power level system. It is no more complicated than caster or character level as a method of scaling abilities and your claims otherwise haven't convince me otherwise.

Globally everything does. Locally life can be seen as decreasing entropy, but that decrease comes at the cost of a larger increase somewhere else.

@dam - I completely agree. I was simply pointing out that "power level" would be understandable to the same extent as "caster level" i.e. something that makes your spells more powerful. The details definitely need to be spelled out in the UI and in game documentation.