gkathellar

... I feel like there should be a blindfold item to take advantage of that kind of thing. Mod request?

I feel like, if they lose out on healing spells, they need a little something extra to compensate - maybe place some of their bonus spells at lower-than-normal levels, or give them access to some extra corrode/raw/health-stealing spells as normal picks? Whatever the case, they should definitely get Ninagauth's Shadowflame. It's just so appropriate.

More propaganda against the one TRUE sidekick Ydwin. How dare you insult the sacred waifu Fassina Gentlefolk, gentlefolk, please. The true answer is all of the above.

Perhaps it varies by difficulty level?

The Republics always struck me as referential to the mercantilist city states of late-medieval and Renaissance Italy, which were very powerful in the Mediterranean in their heyday (we're talking, "competed with the Ottomans" powerful). I think there's also strains of Colonial Europe in there. Together, the two influences start to look a lot like the very ugliest form of state-sponsored international capitalism. Both are bad, but the Huana culture is theirs to fix and Tekehu makes noises that suggest he'd want to do that. Supressing their culture and replacing it with another, especially one that actively supports slavery including slavery of the Huana, doesn't seem a whole lot better and depleting a natural valuable resource for profit can ultimately be more destructive in the long run. I think if slavery is one's main focus, one would have to pick the RDC or Aeldys. Pretty much. It would be one thing to provide support for Huana attempting to change their own society for moral reasons, but it is another thing entirely to show up on their beaches, cannons loaded, and tell them, "hey so we're in charge now, the good news is we don't give a damn about your caste system except as a tool to exploit, demean, and enslave you, the bad news is that we are here to exploit, demean, and enslave you." Because realistically, colonists don't dismantle caste systems. They just make the caste systems reliant on their presence, usually by inverting them or by constructing new ones out of thin air.

I strongly recommend to use fists. Much more accuracy and dps. Anything could work, I suppose, but fists are just way too good. Fists are better at the beginning when you don't have good enchanted weapons. From the mid to end game however, the enchantments are far superior to whatever marginal advantage the fists have. Seems like it'd be good for something where you can't get the strong weapons until later in the game, then.

Huh. Actually ... that would make a pretty good central conflict for PoE3. Or even if, unbeknownst to the Engwithans, another civilization did the same thing as them, and created a totally unrelated pantheon. ... damn I like this idea.

... Svef being basically cannabis. Snrrrk. No, no, no. Svef is a powder made from berries that induces hallucinations. It's nothing like cannabis. *WHITELEAF* is cannabis; it's a common weed that's dried and smoked in a pipe and induces a sense of calm and lethargy. Mm, I suppose. I guess I just assumed it was weed after that quest in PoE1 where it came up that Svef just made people listless and unfocused. Shrooms, then?

The best way to do it by far is in a game with an advantages/disadvantages system, as a perk that triggers certain dialogue options or a small bonus on certain checks, while keeping it totally separate from the core mechanics. Beauty should generally be placed along things like "oh, I have photographic memory," or "oh, I know ALL THE TRIVIA," or, "oh, I'm familiar with military stuff" - miscellaneous character traits that can be independent of combat attributes.

No, for the same reason that it's far better to have an abstracted combat system than thirty different combat stats governing grappling. You started with a good approach and then ruined it all with that one silly sentence. I fail to see how these are appropriate responses for something like this. OP just shared an idea, maybe not very well thought out. Since when is that to be shamed and discouraged? What happened with the notion that there are no dumb questions, only dumb answers? There are definitely dumb questions. The whole post was basically a question. Nothing in the post is aggressive. Nothing in it deserves such a response. Just tell them that you do not like this particular idea. Tell who? The troll that posted once and then never reappeared in the thread? Give me a break. Oh Yosharian, Yosharian, sweet summer child. Just because they didn't reappear in the thread under the same name doesn't mean they didn't reappear in the thread. I mean I can't be the only one noticing that whenever one thread whining about women in PoE gets closed down, a "new poster" starts another one using slightly different tactics. Honestly I think it's a lot weirder that we use the same word to indicate the differences between people with different skin colors and facial constructions as we do to indicate the difference between humans, dwarves, elves, catgirls-hobbits, and shark-people. Like I know why (it's a linguistic callback to times when we thought the differences between skin colors and facial constructions were a lot more significant than they actually are), but it's still weird. I guess when I'm saying is that "race" in PoE is not really "race" IRL and the use of the word is sort of a living fossil/genre trope. There's a reason sci-fi prefers "species" or "sophont clade."

... Svef being basically cannabis. Snrrrk.

This is a very cool build with a very cool premise.

I'm also curious to hear how ranger/wizard plays - seems sorta like the two sides don't fit organically.

That seems about right.

Okay, so remember how BG2's Wizard Slayer was absolutely godawful? This is that. What's funny is that it feels almost deliberate!

He had a panther figurine that let him summon a magic panther. That's a pretty perfect fit for what Ghost Heart does.

Are you asking how people see their characters justifying it to themselves? Because in general, I'm pretty sure that the answer is always going to be, "I wanted power." Even if you murder a jerk like Durance, you're still ultimately doing it because the Blood Pool told you, "HEY YOU YES YOU WANT TO KILL SOMEONE FOR A POWER BOOST"

But that requires sparing Harmke and he deserves to die if anyone does. That decision was one of the few ethical dilemmas in the first game, reducing that to a powergaming gear choice is terrible game design. Especially because killing Harmke results in DoC walking into the ocean and basically shutting down. And this is a game where you sail a boat. On the ocean. It's not rocket science how you could've included the armor either way, is what I'm getting at.

Isn't Geralt mostly a warrior who self-buffs by way of tonics/potions/etc, and uses a variety of weapons suitable to the opponent he's fighting? That doesn't sound like wizard or another full caster would really represent him well. Fighter or Fighter/Rogue seems like a good fit, or maybe Fighter/Cipher if you want to play up the supernatural abilities. As for subclasses, Black Jacket might be appropriate, given the emphasis on weapon-switching, but it also kind of sucks so maybe not >_>. Fighter/Trickster would be another way to emphasize the magical elements while keeping him primarily a warrior. Fighter/Nalpazca or Rogue/Nalpazca could of course represent the potions and stuff, but it doesn't feel quite right.

Talking about Magran, I thought she is evil goddess since she conspired with Woedica during POE1 event and always exercise extreme method. I didn't expect she is more benevolent than Ondra. Magran's not evil so much as she's a selfish, reckless jerk whose default solution to any problem is violence - which makes sense for a god of war and fire. Her old enemy Eothas has made himself vulnerable? Blow him up. The priests who made the Godhammer can't be allowed to live with the knowledge of its construction? Blow them up.

Also, regarding companion quests and WM2:

Chanters are also where a lot of the necromancy is at so ... yeah Bleak Walker/Chanter ftw

Have you done any calculations on the ratio of land to ocean? Because at a glance, that doesn't look much different from Earth - a lot of map projections are pretty deceptive about how much of the world is actually covered in ocean but bear in mind that at 2/3, "water planet" is a reasonable description of our world.

Vampire librarians all day every day

Pretty slick. I like that it's an RP build, too!