gkathellar

Watcher Paladins are fantastic pure tanks due to unequalled defenses, which is all that matters for a pure tank. NPC paladins, on the other hand ... take a monk.

@Stun - They could be the Greek definition of hero (strong dude), mind. And I dunno if talking stone heads are necessarily good moral arbiters. That said, yes, as far as my Shieldbearer paladin was concerned, the laws of hospitality dictate a choice offered between sword and bread. When the Vithrack came at me sword first, it made clear how it intended to treat not just my Watcher, but any less capable kith who might stumble upon it.

Gul and wicht are better than some, being closer to their etymological roots (wicht is Dutch, and gul/ghul is Arabic). Kobolds, from cobalt, are Germanic earth spirits. Besides that, they have a ton of D&D baggage. I can see wanting to avoid that. Besides, Xaurip vaguely suggests an etymological root of "yipping lizard," which is awesome. Fampyr, on the other hand, is actively wrong. And don't even get me started on Grefs and Thaynus.

Either the rep bonus is part of a paladin's expected power curve, and it's a nerf to non-Watcher paladins, or it's not part of the power curve, and Watcher paladins are overpowered. (Hint: They aren't.) Would this hamper some people using Pallegina? Yes, if they were behaving in a way she actively disapproved of. It would also bring her (and all hireling paladins) up to the basic standard for compatible players. Defenses are the thing that paladins have going for them, and NPC paladins don't even have that.

At present, any Paladin other than the Watcher recieves a serious nerf to Faith & Conviction, losing out on as much as +6 deflection and +12 to all other defenses. This is ugly, and greatly discourages players from running NPC paladins. The easy solution is just making the rep boost ubiquitous. The slightly more complicated (but still easy) solution is tying it to an already ubiquitous talent, like Deep Faith, for NPC paladins only. I get that the party's reputations are supposed to reflect mostly on the Watcher, but it makes sense to me that a paladin might gain conviction by fighting for a group that they felt was worthy (or lose it in the opposite case). (It could also lend a bit more character to Pallegina, and she certainly needs it.)

Inorite

Egregious, considering how often your order gets a mention as a Kind Wayfarer. And Bleak Walkers would be easy, too, with their Violence Is The Fastest Option worldview. Every time someone wants you to resolve a conflict quickly or violently, they could bring it up. The dialogue with Wymund in Dyrford should definitely have one - "Of course Harond needs to die. But did you ever consider that, instead of this big elaborate scheme, you could just, you know, kill him?"

Hence his not so subtle name... enDurance... "Durance" was actually Middle English for "imprisonment or confinement." Considering he was written by Avellone, and his NPCs are usually angsty, I'm sure that was on purpose.

As Achilles says - this is one of those answers that just raises more questions. And crucially, for your priest, it raises this one: "Do we follow the gods out of indebtedness, or out of admiration?"

I don't know that I'd call the DnD Forgotten Realms and thus Baldur's Gate setting "bland", though as you rightly point out, different strokes for different folks. Whether one actually liked the FR setting, one thing it had going for it was a massive amount of pre-existing depth going for it that the creators of BG didn't have to create when they were designing BG1/2. All they had to do was create their game within that pre-existing toybox, which perhaps might have meant that its developers could spend more time on the story and less on creating the environment where the story would take place. Just a thought. I wouldn't call a huge catalog of fantasy cliches "pre-existing depth". I actually kind of find it amusing that in one go a game design company made a more interesting world than the most popular D&D world of all time. You can choose to not accept it as depth, but it is. There's no denying that it exists, whether you like the content or not. And I'm not entirely sure that I'd call PoE's world more interesting. Matter of taste. "Amount of content" is not equivalent to "depth of content."

There are some character interaction things in Defiance Bay, but that's all I can remember offhand.

Well said. This pretty much encapsulates my own feelings.

... you get it in Lle a Rhemen.

And then this mod got featured on PCGamer because hwaaaaaaah

Their defensive stats are awesome if they're the Watcher. Otherwise ... Yeah.

Yo dawg.

Yep. Doesn't matter all that much for priests, but for paladins, it's a big loss.

This. Pallegina is his waifu and therefore she gets her own unique armor and race. The same, I'm sure, as Haer'dalis or Xan or Aerie or Viconia or Edwin or Anomen or Nalia or ... I'm not strictly disagreeing with you, but the case for Pallegina being a sue is thin, at best.

... so? Do we want D&D-style combat, or IE-style combat? (Hint: the second one.) (And of course, this is putting aside the fact that in 3E-based games, AoOs stop happening as soon as you get +14 to Tumble.)

(a) You've spoiled that her temple shows up in game. (b) Any answer to your question would be a spoiler. Stories forum gogogo

Yeah, it comes down to the way IE-style (as opposed to NWN-style) weapon sets are arranged. The IE games had just the opposite problem, with a single shield/off-hand slot that obstructed changes in weapon style. The only solution I can think of that would keep the IE model is making left-hand and right-hand slots separate. Characters would have a list of each (vertical in the inventory UI), and could only switch to a two-handed weapon if the left hand was empty. The NWN approach would be more elegant, though.

I dunno why we need to keep robes >_> The Berathian robes really bother me on an aesthetic level, though. "Oh hai there, guys, I'm a totally incidental fluff item with wholly unique and so weird that you'll seriously consider enchanting me and using me for the whole game." What, and make aggressive tanks who depend on Con and DR viable? No way. That's crazy talk, dawg. (This is sarcasm. I'm on the phone, so ... no red.)

Not a bad idea, Caerdon. That, or a return to DR/DT. Or both. (<-this one)

The advantage of Dwarves isn't their +1 Con, but rather, their -1 Dex. You can drop Dex to 2 with a dwarf tank, for an extra attribute point in something else. Not the greatest benefit in the universe, but not insubstantial.

I looked it up: Doesn't seem worth it at all, tbh. To be honest they should tweak it to make it more tempting. Yeah, the only really good one is Eder, and hell if I'm sacrificing him. "I'm gonna pet him." lol