JerekKruger

I definitely recognise the portrait (Anomen from BG2) but it's quite possible I recognise it not because of its facial features, but because of the distinctive art style of BG2 portraits combined with the fact that there are only a handful of portraits in BG2, and there are enough other distinctive features on that portrait to identify it. I can't work out how to post images (perhaps I don't have permission) so here's a link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B22piHxlmnNnMmI3ZDFVLXNmVm8/view It's of a reasonably famous celebrity: can you recognise who? That might be a useful metric for this sort of thing.

Edér's story doesn't require Dunryd row, or indeed any Cipher. The basic line is: go to Maerwald > go to the records office in Defiance Bay > build a sufficiently good reputation in Defiance Bay to get the records office to tell you where his brother died > go to the battle field site and find the doo-dad > use your watcher powers to gain insight into what happened to his brother > done As far as I can tell, you should be able to do this even after finishing Act II. In fact the only obvious obstacles would be going past the point of no return at the end of the game and somehow never getting a good enough reputation in Defiance Bay (which I think would involve murdering random people or similar).

Did you have the White March expanion(s)? It's something added in them.

There's been mention that every class is going to have a special item type unique to them, so I could definitely see Rangers getting arrows or quivers as theirs.

Important to note that it's sort of not an enchanting material, since it doesn't count towards the enchanting limit of an item.

What would make shooting the rigging possible at longer range than the crew? Coyotes aren't humans. I don't know how the thickness of their skulls compares, but I would be surprised if it was as thick or thicker. Also no doubt a well placed blunt arrow will do serious damage or even kill a human, but if we're allowing for well placed shots why not go with something that has a point? As for specifics, I found a site where someone used light gates to measure the speed of an arrow from a lower draw weight bow at around 120 feet per second, and suggested a formula of (100 + draw weight) ft/s for the speed of an arrow leaving the bow. Let's be generous and go with 250 feet per second for a 120lb bow (that's about 75m/s). The weight of the arrow is surprisingly difficult to find but I came across several sources suggesting something around 60g that also mention Mary Rose replicas, so let's go with 60g. That gives a kinetic energy of 1/2 * (60/1000) * 75^2 ~ 170J. Not bad, that's about the same amount of kinetic energy that a typical person generates with a punch, though trained boxers will generate significantly more (upwards of 450 for heavyweights). Now a punch can, if it hits the right place and connects well, do serious damage or even kill, but the vast majority of punches thrown by non-trained individuals won't do either. This is why I am dubious of the ability of a blunt arrow to achieve much in anything other than ideal circumstances. Also worth noting is that's the energy of the arrow immediately after it leaves the bow. The arrow will have lost a lot of that energy after travelling even a short distance (air resistance is proportional to velocity squared, and whilst fletching is great for aerodynamics it's not great for reducing air resistance). Of course, a blunt headed arrow has a smaller striking surface than a fist, so it will impart a higher pressure on the target, but if that's the argument in favour of blunt headed arrows being effective then I'll go one further and point out that a sharp headed arrow has even smaller striking surface and so by that argument is even better. Final point, against someone wearing a gambeson or similar padded layer they are going to do very little against the body, and against a helmet I doubt they'll do much to the head either. So I stand by my opinion that blunt headed arrows, whilst certainly useful for killing various animals without overly damaging the meat, are not an effective arrow type for combat. Effective killing range is an interesting concept here, since it heavily depends on where the arrow strikes. A longbow arrow isn't going to do anything if it strikes the breastplate of a knight for example, even at near point blank range (I know there's debate about this, but the tests I've seen that say otherwise never used actual proper reconstruction armour and the contemporary sources mention a lot of face and limb injuries but almost no body injuries). Similarly at 300m the arrow is going to nothing against most armoured targets unless it hits a weak spot. That said, if the arrow does hit a weak spot then sure, even at 300m it will be able to injure (kill really depends on what the injury is). The thing is, when it comes to sticks with sharp metal points attached to the end, it doesn't take a lot of force to penetrate humans. At that sort of range I suspect much of the energy imparted by the bow has been lost, and the energy of the arrow is mostly that gained from losing gravitational potential energy as the arrow falls. I'm no expert, but if I stood at the top of a 5 story building and simply drop an arrow (point facing down) off it I suspect it would penetrate a passer-by standing on the ground below: no need for extra energy.

At the moment it looks like Edér, Pallegina and Aloth are the only returning, recruitable companions, thought Obsidian mentioned that other may make cameos. Personally I can't see a reason (that fits his character) why Durance would leave the Dyrwood, but who knows what Obsidian have planned.

Hah! Seriously? That's quite the most ridiculous idea I've heard for a special bolt type. Even if physics did work that way you're designing a bolt that deliberately misses in the hope that your target will doge into its path. Hah!

Dubious. I imagine some arrow heads could achieve this aim but if your aim is to disable a ship without destroying it you'll find it a lot easier to simply use broadheads against the crew. This one is wrong. You can calculate the kinetic energy that an arrow has upon leaving* a heavy warbow or a quarrel has when leaving a very heavy draw weight crossbow and it's simply not enough to do any significant damage through blunt force trauma. The blunt arrows you occasionally seen in books are probably for hunting very small game where using a sharp point would cause too much damage to the meat, or perhaps for training (though this one I doubt). I can pretty much guarantee that no archer has ever evaluated their target and though "I'll be best served with a blunt headed arrow for this one". *Also arrows and quarrels slow down very quickly, so the kinetic energy is going to be even less when hitting the target.

When did you last play through PoE? In more recent patches Rangers have been pretty damn good, and I almost always take Sagani.

My bad I think. I noticed the fast travel thing and didn't associate it with the respawning enemies thing. That said, even without respawning enemies if you wanted to make a mod to enforce no fast travel for yourself then that's cool by me. Sorry if my original post about it came across as confrontational.

Yes, you'll lose the fist bonus. In the case of Monks I'd say Firebrand isn't worth it.

Apparently all death godlike's eyes (at least) are covered by their growths, so the question is whether someone can be recognisable from just the lower part of their face. I'd say that depends on how distinctive that part of their face is and, of course, how well the person viewing the portrait knows the backer. It's never going to be as obvious as with other races but I suspect it'll be possible. I'd check with Obsidian whether they'll do it first though. They might be reluctant for the very reason you raise i.e. they don't want someone being disappointed with the result after forking out that much cash.

Fast travel? Do you mean double speed or the ability to travel to any previously visited map? Both those are easily avoided by a player if they so wish, seems odd to want to mod them out.

Don't be ridiculous Tigranes, people don't play games for enjoyment anymore, they play them so that they'll be rewarded with digital stuff that makes them better at later content. Why do they want to be better at later content? So that they can get more digital stuff that makes even later content easier. Enjoyment never enters the equation

Exactly Chairchucker.

Whilst the spell is active it occupies ALL weapon slots i.e. you can't use any other weapon.

Problem is, if you promise something in a stretch goal and it isn't there in the final game, people are going to be disappointed or angry. Honestly I'd be happy if there was one open stretch goal that said "any money beyond the funding goal will allow us to add more content and make existing content better" and leave it at that. I'd rather let Obsidian decide what extra content that might be as and when they get to it.

Not if it ties the developer into making content that ends up kinda sucking, like a fifteen floor dungeon (or at least many of the later floors of said dungeon).

I also think a lot of crowdfunding campaigns overestimate the importance of stretch goals in getting funding. I've not backed Deadfire yet because I'm waiting for my next pay cheque to do so, but I am going to regardless of whatever the current stretch goal happens to be when that comes about. I suspect there are a lot of people like me who don't back straight away for various reasons, but plan to regardless. I'd rather stretch goals were realistic and hence gave developers more autonomy on where to spend their development time and money than force them to, say, spend time and money making a 15 floor dungeon...

Very good idea for a post (says someone who posted a speculation thread). If we could get it stickied that would be very handy.

Waidwen wasn't a Fire Godlike. He was a human whose body become the vessel for Eothas's soul and, as a result, emitted pure light (Eothas being the god of light and all). A fancy character model that Obsidian wanted to show off? Maybe another companion but that seems unlikely given we already have a Godlike companion.

I think it's incredibly unlikely Obsidian are going to force a race on the player.

I am a little confused by what this means? Do you mean every other RPG that was like PoE (isometric) that was also great had a 6 player party? There are other isometric RPGs that didn't have 6 player parties. Tyranny for one. Divinity Original Sin for another. I am sure there are other, older ones too. Are you saying these weren't great? There are other good (or even great) RPGs that had smaller party limits. Neverwinter Nights 2 (and hence MotB) had a party limit of 4 I believe. New Vegas allows only one companion I think. KotOR was three? Personally I find the idea that a party limit of 6 is key to avoid "messing up" PoE2 is pretty unlikely.

Right, the first thing to know is that all summoned weapons are part of the universal weapon group. This means that they benefit from the +6 accuracy from any weapon focus talent (for example, if you have Weapon Focus: Knight then, even though Firebrand is a Greatsword which doesn't fall in the Knight weapon group, you'd still get +6 accuracy). However you only get the accuracy bonus once, so don't take multiple Weapon Focus talents hoping for more accuracy. As for how good they are, that depends on which summoned weapon you're talking about. Citzal's Spirit Lance is perhaps the best weapon in the game, Llengrath's Warding Staff less so. Generally speaking summoned weapons have significantly higher base damage than their mundane equivalents, which means % damage increases benefit them significantly more. In the case of Firebrand, I believe the main benefits are higher base damage (possibly dual damage type fire/slashing?). It's a good option for many characters but I think the most obvious use is on a Barbarian since this allows high damage to be done to a high area.