gkathellar

It's mostly just a legacy thing. It was this way in the IE games, and people would complain if it wasn't this way in PoE. /shrug

Barbarian is better for multi-target DPS, but Mork has Mindy to help him, so I'd call it a toss-up.

No they appear at several stages throughout the game and the most dangerous I've found is probably the De'Arnise Hold hidden area where Tor'Gal is. That can be a pain in the ass. Usually I just run in with my Kensai and close the door, he usually gets Confused but will still attack the Umber Hulks, then I come in a bit later with Minsc equipped with Lilarcor who I think is immune to Confusion because of Lilarcor (can't remember) and spank them. One thing I should probably try is sending in Minsc first instead, but that tactic has worked for me since I started doing it. Sometimes I think I used a Potion of Mind Focusing or something against the confusion, don't remember. It can be problematic because once the Umber Hulks are dead, my Kensai will still be confused, so I'll have to lock him in the room until it wears off. Then again you could also do it the way it was intended by using the dog meat to attract the umber hulks to the other room. Pfffft. Don't you know that you're supposed to use the dog meat stew, and then kill the Umber Hulks anyway for maximum XP? :D

... using a shield (especially a buckler) is extremely technical, and opens up all kinds of options in combat. This is setting aside the ridiculous suggestion that mercenaries or militiamen would have been unskilled, when in various times and places they were probably the best soldiers in Europe. It's typically used as a two-handed weapon, but it's possible to use it one-handed, and the Italian school of longsword had specific techniques for such. Mind, these are for specific situations, and the preference would always have been to use two-handed. Two-handed use is still the ultimate purpose of the longsword, and the word "long" in its name refers at least partially to the length of the hilt. If we go by the training manuals, rapiers were indeed used on the battlefield against armored foes. Techniques existed for use on horseback, as well as for dealing with firearms at close range. It wouldn't have been the go-to weapon for most professional soldiers, but alongside the lance, pike, longsword, and gun, rapier/sidesword and buckler would have made up a significant piece of their arsenal. You are thinking of a period about 200-300 years later, when the rapier had been supplanted by thinner, lighter foils and epees. Of the foil/epee/saber trifecta, only the saber is suitable for battlefield combat (and you can get away with using a saber poorly, unlike the others). The most technologically advanced firearm in PoE is the blunderbuss, which was used as early as the 17th century. The era of the early gun is also the era of full, articulated plate .

It was sarcasm. I thought maybe he was referring to the second bit. I dunno. I thought the "duh" would be an indicator I wasn't serious. In the absence of gestures, tone, and so on, linguistic cues are never as clear as you want them to be. /shrug Poe's Law is why I use the color red for sarcasm.

Don't bother with adding stupid political sites. There is an argue in the scientific journals and I rather stick to that... The National Climate Assessment (which has generally been criticized for being too conservative) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administrations are political sites? A. Most models in these fields are full of crap. You can't accurately predict the weather in the next week and you want to predict what will happen in 50 years? there are too many variables and the problem complexity is exponential. B.There are also models that don't predict a meter in a decade. Anyone can create a forecast and the truth is that scientists are getting their fundings based on how important their work seems to be so scaring everyone is in their best interest... C. So where is the rise of the sea levels then? I am living close to the sea and I can tell you that sea levels haven't risen in the last 20 years. At least the distance between the buildings on the shore and the water hasn't change. a) Modeling the next 50 years is a lot easier than modeling tomorrow, because tomorrow can be influenced by any number of minute factors, whereas in 50 years, said factors tend to get drowned out. b) On the one hand: first you say, "give me scientific journal articles," and then you say that scientists are all lying to keep their jobs? Never mind that the fossil fuel industry will happily shell out money to any credible climate scientist willing to deny the correlation between pollution and climate change. On the other hand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem c) "The science doesn't reflect my perceived immediate personal experience, therefore, it must be wrong!" Congratulations. Here is your intellectual dishonesty of the month award. I am sure no one else has put so many lies in so few words so far. WTF are you on about? What did I lie about? Pretty sure Heresiarch is misinterpreting your sarcasm. At least I hope it was sarcasm. See also: Poe's Law. https://xkcd.com/258/

Anything short of actually slaughtering everybody will get you that, yeah.

Rouge companion hands-down. I'm tired of these natural-looking companions - MOAR MAKEUP.

Bash is not a per encounter ability. Watch the combat log - it gets used every attack sequence.

Not believing in science is sort of like not believing in microwave ovens.Never said I doubt the science. It's just that a realistic look at the data doesn't put us on the brink of catastrophe, unless you couple that with a cynical view of how long it takes to enact widespread social change. I also admit that having such a cynical view is totally reasonable. Exaggeration for shock effect is arguably ethically justifiable http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/ http://coast.noaa.gov/digitalcoast/tools/slr

Not believing in science is sort of like not believing in microwave ovens.

How? Absorb the souls from the machine. You get a pretty massive bump in Deceptive and Cruel for your trouble.

I don't know if I'd buy it, but I'd be down for this idea, for several reasons: (a) It would pay for itself. No cost to other players. (b) No real additional content that non-buyers would be missing, just increased aesthetic pleasure for buyers. © No need to waste writing/programming/design staff time, since all of the content is already written. The only reasons I can think of to say, "No, I don't want this," is knee-jerk hate for DLC. This is one of those positive-sum benefit ideas, assuming it's financially worthwhile for Obsidian. You can turn VO off, you know.

My sense is that they just wanted to portray both as a "neck" slot, since most cloaks do clasp around the neck. It's pretty arbitrary, but then again, so is the other way. I could live with cloaks being strictly cosmetic, though - it would let me keep on my backer cloak, and keep Eder with his Eothasian cloak. I'd like that.

Oh, absolutely. They have to be taken on an individual basis. And this one, as an individual, doesn't even bother to warn visitors that it has no hospitality. It just tries to murder anyone who stumbles into its territory with a wave of spidery death. That seems problematic. You both are damn looters. There is no justice in here, unless Glanfathans come in and slaughter everyone. And they have the right to do that why, again? Because the Engwithans asked them to? I feel like there might be a contradiction in place here.

Which is a great trick, but really shouldn't be the only way to deal with the issue.

Hah, you think that getting in swordfights should make you better at fighting with swords? Ridiculous.

That depends on how quickly you can build Wounds.

Been wondering for a while, is it a bug or a feature that NPCs ignore party reputations? It's a derp. I could see it making sense for priests, but F&C is a huge part of a paladin's survivability.

Is Fampyr not like welsh or something? And Xaurips... Heck they are obviously Kobolds, for everyone who played D&D... Fampyr is not like Welsh or anything. You can tell by the lack of Ls and Ws. They're obviously kobolds (and goblins and whatever), yes. Calling them that doesn't make sense for reasons, though, so ... eh.

It's not just that it's counter-proof. Suppress Affliction and similar spells target allies. Dominate, Charm, Confuse and the like make allies into hostiles. Therefore, Suppress Affliction can't affect dominated, confused, or charmed allies, because they're considered hostiles. Yes, that's incredibly, obnoxiously dumb.

Presumably their lifestyle would have some similarities to Sagani's, as they're from (roughly) the same part of the world.

IIRC, Turning Wheel affects all full attack damage, melee or ranged. Someone did testing on Dangerous Implement monks, and said it applied to their attacks. Retaliation is a full attack. Rooting Pain is not a full attack, though. So that.

Or do you become a proper Dyrwoodan, and believe that people are basically allowed to decide for themselves?

Really, skip it. Waste of a talent unless you REALLY want to play a Benevolent Bleak Walker or something.