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Please post here where companions can be recruited ( with history - not custom one) If you can include screenshots. Thx in advance.

I excluded Priest from the poll due to the 10 choice limit per question. I figure that as the only true healing class most party's will include one regardless of usefulness. That said, please feel free to tell everyone if the Priest is awesome or terrible in the comments!

I'm thinking: 1: Priest (party healer) - Fire Godlike (for the DT bonus to keep the squishy priest around) 2: Fighter (obvious tank is obvious) - Coastal Aumaua (Resistance to stun) 3: Rouge (DPH and all dat stealth skillz) - Hearth Orlan (dat crit bonus + sneak attack) 4: Wizard (Crowd control and AoE) - Pale Elf (nothing really "screamed" wizard soooo... burn and freeze resist i guess) 5: Paladin (second-liner and party buffing) - Moon Godlike (heals everyone when pally takes enough damage= aaawwww yis) _____________________________________________________________ Would love to hear some feed back on what would make the best party! What about you guys, what's your "power-five"?

Hello everyone! New player here, willing to buy the game as soon as possible from GOG. I've been following the development of the game during the last few years, but without putting too much attention on it, because I really hate to wait and I already knew that the anticipation would have killed me. So, now that we are really close to release, I'm just starting to catch up with the game, and I've got some questions for the backers/beta/knowledgeable players; I'd really appreciate your help! 1) How difficult is "normal"? I'm not an RPG expert by any means. I'm fascinated by this world, but sometimes I lack the patience to focus on every aspect of a battle, and in general I'm more the APS guy than the strategic one (e.g. I'm skilled at Dota, while I'm pretty bad at D:OS). I've played and enjoyed BG2 years ago, but I think I was switching between normal and easy modes during the whole game, and for sure I remember frustrating moments/battles there. Do you think I can finally face the challenge of an old-style RPG at normal difficulty? Or would it just ruin my gaming experience? And what about "easy"? Is it a viable setting for inexperienced players like me or is it just "trivial", made for people without a brain (or without enough time to focus on the "nerdy" aspects of the game)? 2) About adventurers: I'm planning my party ahead, and I'd really like to fill a gap in my team by using a custom character made by me as my 6th companion. I already know that he won't interact with me or other NPCs, but will "the world" notice his presence in my team? Or will he just be non-existent in roleplaying terms? Example: if my 6th character is a godlike adventurer, will a village hostile to godlike people react to him being in my party? Or will the people just totally ignore him as if my party was made of 5 characters only? 3) Language: The game will be translated in my mother language (italian), but in general I prefer to play any game in its original form. How hard will it be for me to understand everything? Will characters speak in strange/unclear/dialect ways? My official "english level" is B2, will it be enough to understand everything, without missing a comma of this amazing experience? And if I decide to play it in italian, will there be voice dubs or just subtitles? Thank you for reading this wall of text, I hope someone will shed a light over all this!

We've always taken your pledges seriously and we remain committed to giving our backers every stretch goal you reached during the Kickstarter campaign. Budgeting a game of this size can be daunting, but we always remember the cornerstones of our pitch and the features you funded. Even so, there are two things we know a lot of you have asked for: more wilderness areas and more companions. Both of these are very time-consuming, but we understand why so many people want them. Because we've seen these requests more than a few times, we would like to ask the community if you would be interested in new stretch goals to fund additional development. If not, no worries: we're still going to deliver on everything you've backed. Please let us know your thoughts in this poll. Rock the vote.

There are currently 11 classes and, if I am not mistaken, there are expected to be 8 companions, meaning there will be three classes without companions. I understand that we can "hire" adventurers by creating our own companions, but I think it would be interesting if, when you went to hire companions, you would have the option of hiring from a pool of pre-made adventurers with thematically appropriate names, starting equipment, attributes, and unique (though not too involving) backgrounds. While Obsidian could make any number of these pseudo-companions, I think at minimum there should be three to cover the missing companion classes. My inspiration for this is the pre-made adventuring parties in the IWD series. Though there weren't much actual differences between playing the pre-made parties vis-a-vis your own party, the unique background information provided about these parties made all the difference role-playing-wise. Though there weren't any unique dialogues for them, the background information and names were enough to get me to fill the rest in in my head. Likewise, these pseudo-companions in PoE need not have any unique dialogues or voice-sets in order to be effective stand-ins. I realize you could do the same with an adventurer you create yourself, it would just that much more immersive if Obsidian gave us the option to select some pre-made adventurers. While I understand that the limited number of full companions was due to time-constraints, I would hope that the design and implementation of these pre-made adventurers would not take more than a few man-hours.

Companions are, and have been integral parts of party based ©RPGs for as long as I can remember. It's already been discussed to great length that, for any companion to stand out, they need an enticing back story and have some sort of meaningful relation to the story yet to unfold. The above problem is usually handled fairly well, with specific honors going to Mass Effect 2 (Garrus, Tali), Planescape: Torment (Morte, Dak'Kon) and Baldur's gate II (Several characters) However, more often than not, and not to knock those examples specifically, characters in RPG's are only really interesting from a Story & Dialogue perspective. Bioware games in my opinion are the biggest offenders of these all encompassing class systems, with Mass Effect, Baldur's gate, and Dragon age all suffering from samish companions during combat and gameplay. As an example, the Dragon Age: Origins characters all share the same skillsets, depending on their predetermined class (Rogue, Mage, Warrior) Leliana and Zevran, while both rogues, each have a different specialization initially with the former being a Bard that specialises in ranged combat and the latter being an assasin that specialises in dual wielding. They can however, given enough time to advance in level, take over each other's specialisations. Essentially everyone in their respective class has the same options of advancement. This isn't inherently problematic from a gameplay perspective, but they can all pretty much be molded into what you want them to be while you're able to carry the most desired characters into battle based on their personalities, rather than their skillsets. (ideally you'd balance both) In the aforementioned game there are two exceptions to take note of: Your Dog and Shale (a golem) both defy the class systems and have a skilltree of their own. As a Result no other companion can provide what they each provide, and vice versa. This makes them unique tactical party options. it also makes them more interesting. Games to this very day are still struggling with this very problem. If we look back, However, Planescape: Torment already did differentiate between companions & their mechanics in a big way. In planescape, the first companion you meet (and get forced to party up with) is a floating skull with, I believe one or two equipment slots, very similar to the Dog from Dragon Age in that respect. This skull, Morte, has a bunch of Unique-to-morte damage reductions as well as a taunt skill called Litanny of curses. If someone in the planes were to curse excessively, Morte would take notes (how?) and improve his taunt ability. Morte improves his attack if you manage to equip different sets of Teeth on him, and Morte can further improve his statistics through story elements and Dialogue choices, as well as the good ol` experience based levelling system. Morte is a Fighter by class, but unlike any other fighter. The next Fighter you meet is Dak'Kon. This guy is a Githzerai, a race who live in Limbo and place great emphasis on holistic knowledge and *knowing*. Anyway, this guy is actually a Fighter/Mage, but the way he operates is, he learns spells through advancing through dialogue choices involving the circles of zerthimon, if you manage to help him come to terms with the teachings of zerthimon you can further increase his stats, evolve his character bound weapon, and increase his arcane knowledge, as well as providing you, the Nameless One, with the ability to learn spells unique to this Gith, provided you're playing a mage. (and you should be) He, again, is nothing like the other companions. What both of the above have in common though, is that their advancement and unique traits are meshed into the game's story and dialogue mechanics as well as combat. They also aren't balanced perfectly in comparison to the other companions, and those two facts create a more immersive and interesting gaming experience. For the same reason Brothers: a tale of two sons was so well received. Making them diverse not only in dialogue and story, but also mechanics adds an extra layer of depth to characters, and increases player immersion and attachment to said characters. I'd like very much for this to be a bigger concern in Pillars of Eternity, as it is in my opinion, even more so than the expert writing, what sets planescape apart as a masterpiece even to this date.

Reading about the confirmed attributes and one thing struck me about spell AOE, what if the Wizard who manipulates the damage can mitigate its effects on his companions? One assumes that the Caster is in control of his creation, or else how can he shape and direct it, so why not have him proof his companions against these effects? Obviously there should be a price for this, as a matter of strategy and balance, perhaps a daily or per encounter ability is burned up in the casting of these wards. Would this totally unbalance the game, and destroy the usefulness of various protection spells, or would the fact that it is only the allied Caster's spells that are warded against and it does not affect the enemies spellcasting one jot make it more palatable? Well ladies and gentlemen, is this heretical thought crime that eliminates careful tactical play or careful preparation by wise players and blessed by He On Earth?

So, since it's pretty likely that we're getting some more stretch-goals that will involve two more companions being added to the roster I thought I'd throw out my hopes for what one of them might be. Everybody loved these guys: These companions are not the sort of creatures or people you would normally find it in your party. They are downright strange. Every single announced companion has either been an elf, human or one of the usual suspects. There might be an unusual companion already planned and not announced, but I'll just put the idea and hope out there for one of the stretch-goal companions to come in a surprising form if one isn't already in. Hey, maybe we could get one of these guys as a companion: Illithids are cool. Spiders are cool. Spider Illithids should be double-cool.

Hi Im curius about wat type of characters you hate in games (we have alredy love ones) And here goes one that i simply hated Elanee (she was simply the worst character in this game) She was damp boring and over moralised And here goes another well done character Cassavir He is also boring like rotting wood nut he at least has excuse his fanatic paladin

Update by Chris Avellone This week? Companions. I have been designing companions. I lucked out, because I got to do companion design work for BOTH Eternity and Torment, so two birds, one stone. Or three companions, one lodestone? I don’t know. Eternal Companion Facts Some facts from our Eternity design documents that I wanted to say up front before going any further: thanks to backer support, Eternity supports 8, yes 8, pre-made companions and 8 hired adventurers (16 total). You can have up to 5 in the party at any point in time (the 6th/1st role is your player character, who, well, sort of has to be there, you know, because it’s your game). It’s a lot of writing. We want to allow you to encounter all companions before the mid-point of the story. One issue we’ve found with introducing companions too late is that it doesn’t give players enough time to bond with them, and/or the player may have already formed a strong attachment to their other allies so much so there’s no physical or emotional room for more party members in their lives. Each companion also has their own mini-arc and quest woven into the game as well, so be prepared - they have agendas of their own. You know, like real people. Lastly in the fact train, we don’t force you to take anyone in your party. If you want them, take them. If you want to go to the Adventurer’s Hall and make your own, do it. Go solo. We don’t own you. We’re not trying to control you. Play how you want. Narrative Update... So a narrative update related to companions... Eric Fenstermaker (designer, Fallout: New Vegas, also responsible for Boone and Veronica and worked on NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer and... and... oh, just Google him) has been hard at work on the narrative, and it’s reached the point with the arc and themes that now seemed like a good time to introduce the companion supporting pillars to the process to take the story higher (...not necessarily in a “Can you Take Me Higher” Creed sort of way, since it’s not really a question, it’s more like, “yes, we will take you higher.”) Over the past few months, I’ve been scrutinizing the systems and story documents for Eternity (and Torment), the themes, and also checking out the other companion briefs from the other designers. Aside from the companion designs I wrote, feedback has been wildly traded in the interests of making companions even better than their core concepts. It was my goal to read EVERYTHING about the narrative I could, even brainstorming - and in Torment’s case, novellas as well. Now it was time to work on the structure of the individual companions. ...and now on to Companion Design We discussed companion design (http://forums.obsidian.net/blog/1/entry-168-project-eternity-and-characterization/) way back at the start of Eternity, so some points in this update will callback to this. There shouldn’t be a need for a refresher read unless you want to. The process for Eternity (and Torment) has followed these bulletpoints, and we’re holding true to our goals as well as expanding the design methodology as we go ahead. The first and best place to start with companion design is the game systems. For companions, this means considering race, class, and their role in the conflict mechanics of the game. Knowing what class of character you’re making is key to building their history and personality. For example, in the case of Gann in NX1: Mask of the Betrayer, knowing his class before writing was a big help, and I can use that class’s list of abilities, class focus, and the abilities the class specializes in and weave it in with the backstory. The Eternity designers have been good about indicating the spread of classes and races for the companions and rationing those out during the process. For Eternity, since combat is the primary challenge mechanic, one major goal is to make sure the companion is combat effective. Why would you take them in your party? How are they useful? In other instances of conflict mechanics (for example, dialogue or Tide reactivity in Torment), we also examine how the character is useful in terms of these challenges as well. A Note About Challenge Mechanics Really quick, I want to clarify what I meant about “challenge mechanics.” That doesn’t always mean combat – it’s whatever the primary challenge in the game is. If we were doing a Thief-style RPG, then stealth and avoiding detection becomes the primary challenge mechanic, not combat. Depending on the RPG and its range of challenges, a character can still be fairly weak in combat, but if that’s the case, we try to think of how they’re helpful with regards to the game’s other challenges (giving an edge in dialogue, healing, fast travel). For all the characters I’ve seen or designed for games that don’t cater to at least one of the game’s primary challenge mechanics, those guys are often unpopular or unused because they’re not helping out with the systematic gameplay, regardless of how cool they might seem. And the more actively these characters can participate in the mechanics (vs. passive), the stronger their appeal. Also at the same time, I try to be careful that the companion's skill set doesn’t overlap with the challenge roles of the other characters. We try to indicate in the companion briefs how each companion's challenge role is intended – one thing I learned as a pen-and-paper Gamemaster is you want to be careful about two players sharing the same role (Tank, Mage, Priest, etc.) – if one is clearly stronger than another, then the second one needs something else to make them stand out and be “special” in the party and fulfill an equally cool role in the party dynamic, otherwise one ends up getting upstaged by the other. And feelings get hurt. Which isn’t something you want in a game designed to entertain. For Eternity, we’re setting it up so even if players choose the same classes as some companions, the companions are designed to assist those character types and make them more special (ciphers, for example, can chain, and even priests with the same religion can discuss theology and combo attacks). In addition, we wanted to be careful about personality overlaps as well. I wanted to make sure any companion design didn't overlap with ideas or “concepts" of the other characters (or across projects – so for example, while I’m doing a Glaive for Torment, I’m not doing any fighters for Eternity) ...and that extends to personalities as well. As an example, I told Colin for Torment it might be a good idea if I didn't do a female rogue with a ruthless hidden agenda who can shape-shift according to your personality and have her/it be redundant with the Toy or the Cold, Calculating Jack in Torment. So knowing the general class-focus, role, and personality for each, as well as ones that would be useful, we try to include in the character briefs and get that info to people as quickly as possible so everyone can get a sense for what direction to take their characters. As for me, after much begging for the class itself and begging for the specific companion, I asked for the cipher. The cipher is near and dear to my heart, it felt like the first brand new class we were introducing that was tied into the soul mechanics of the Eternity world, and the freedom to explore it is a great opportunity. Character Freedom Both the Eternity and Torment leads have been strong advocates about letting designers channel their characters. If you are excited about an idea, they are willing to work with you to help realize that idea and help it fit into the world, without giving barriers to entry. In my opinion, the best GMs do this – rather than give you character sheets, they help you make a character you care about. In essence, companion design is a designer’s chance to design their very own player character that fits in with the world and the theme. On Eternity, Eric has a strong theme for the story already. While not the original theme, Josh was accommodating and we all recognized that if another theme came to the forefront naturally through the writing process, it’s fine to alter it to make a stronger design. Having this theme clearly identified and supported in the narrative is good, but we’re taking care to make sure the companions can provide direct examples of the theme at work (or present counters or alternate viewpoints to it) - and the more, the better. The companions cover a good range of culture and religion and factions in the game, which we hope to showcase more of in the future... the machinations of the world and the politics are prominent in the story (along with the magic system), and the characters showcase these elements very well. Companion Iteration There’s still plenty of work to do – like all design, iteration is key, and we have been doing passes of the characters to make them stronger. While the companions exist as individual entities, we also feel it’s important to do a pass of the companions to show how they relate to each other, which we feel is an important part of making the game Infinity Engine-esque, and it was a big part of the dynamics in Baldur’s Gate and Torment – describing how companions relate, fight, argue, or even act as sounding boards for both your character and each other’s viewpoints is an important part of creating a living world – and your party is very much the living world that follows you around. The work doesn’t stop there. A pass of the companions asking “why the players should care” is also something we like to make sure we have an answer to for each companion. While the answer of “good fighter” is an answer (and one that’s worked well for a number of companions in the past), we prefer to add more layers showcasing how they’re specifically adding to the player experience. Companion Nuts and Bolts There are other finishing touches we like to add. The companions have unique signature items (very Torment and Baldur’s Gate) in addition to their personalities and strong visual signatures as well. One comment we’ve always tried to include in these visual hooks is that because of the camera angles in the game, we want to make sure these visual hooks are easy for the players to see in the environment as well. Also we’re doing what we can to get the area designers involved with not just the story, but companions as well. A good chunk of the game is dungeon exploration, and we felt that what the designers had done in NX1: Mask of the Betrayer in making sure that each companion had a significant interaction in a specific area was important for the story – and having areas that revolved around companions as well gave them and the dungeon design more strength. Right now, the companions already have strong internal conflicts (and religious and faction, if not inter-party), now tying those more to NPCs and dungeon explorations is one of our next targets. With the companion design, we also tried to include narrative samples of analogies to that character that we’ve seen in other media or fiction that we feel help capture the character’s essence. Also, as we’re designing the characters, we include sample lines of dialogue when we can as another layer in the process so audio and other designers can get a sense of how the character sounds (both spoken and text-wise). That’s all I can share about companions for the moment, and we’re looking forward to elaborating further as the game progresses. If you have any thoughts or ideas on companion design, specific or general, feel free to post in our forums, we look forward to hearing from you! Arcanum Last but not least, we have the first of two blocks of Arcanum playthroughs in Shrouded Hills for you... from bank robberies, to mine plundering, to death, to dealing with telepathic bridge bandits. We’re releasing one with this update, and then (cross your fingers) the second will be part of the next update. It’s all recorded, production just wants to put some touches on the audio. Possibly to strip out my voice. And my breathing. And screams. Also, I may end blogging critiques of the game as well, just to distill the game critique information. It’s a little hard to get the design critiques during the playthrough – if that’s something you’d like to see in addition to the videos, I’ll try and make time for it. Check out the first video at: http://youtu.be/MNOJ5DRO7uQ. Kickin' it Forward: WARMACHINE: Tactics Do you like turn-based strategy? Do you like giant steam-powered robots? Then our friends at WhiteMoon Dreams and Privateer Press Interactive have the game for you - WARMACHINE: Tactics. Go support their Kickstarter and help bring the award-winning WARMACHINE miniatures game from the tabletop to your desktop PC or Mac. Click here for more info.

I have thought about this idea for rpg's for a few years and I think you may be able to pull this off. In real life we meet and loose companions and sometimes run into them again and again, A companion role has been for the most part stagnant they level up but never really grow. Loves and enemies crop up from time to time, they may go off and have families. They should age and evolve based on the relationship with the Player Charachter. for example: in the Fallout universe we acquire companions based on our karma etc. they travel with us and exchange weapons etc. but the charachter of the NPC never changes they don't age their wounds don't make them feel different. What if Fawkes found you to be morally upstanding and offered a quest to help the super mutants be less violent and learn to grow? What if you said no and a resentment began? What if you take a companion to a town where they are not well liked? just being associated with them makes the location and npc's of that town harder to deal with. conversations in the background about your companion are mentioned fingers pointed etc. giving you the feeling you may want to loose this companion or try to right the wrong they have commited. Life choices have a true effect on them as they age and evolve next to you. Say you dismiss a companiom and months later find what not getting together has done to them. Charon a freed slave has become a freedom fighter and has created a merc group and is hunting down slave owners, since you spurned him in an earlier part of his life he has been leaving exidence that you are the leader. Thus a new line of hostility is created towards you within that area of questing. Charon a purchased slave holds resentment towards you and at night you notice you are becoming ill and loosing health because he is slowly poisoning you. Charon a freed slave and now friend has stuck with you through thick and thin and in order for you to live sacrifices himself. Charon a freed slave has follwed you for months and realises you are evil and must be destroyed. Charon a freed slave meets an NPC that converts him to be a follower of the atom and he guides you to do their work As you can see the different gameplay would offer various and unfinishing quests and choices. You would need a few writers to come up with the various courses of life that could take place it would offer DLC's in abundance and create a new form of gaming evolution. I would love to hear from all of you about this and hear what your thoughts on the matter will be.

I really liked the dog in Dragon Age, it was the only companion I'd always take with me. The other companions were between the annoying and the creepy, and I'd take them along only as cannon fodder or for a specific ability/ies lacking in the main character (or if I had to). Besides, the dog in DA reminded me a lot of my own dog, whom I miss dearly. Same size, same face, a thinner neck tho. So, I'd like a dog as companion. Possibly a pitbull/moloss-like dog, but I'm not too picky (if one could have a choice of how the dog would look like, it would be best), as long as the dog has a personality of his/her own. Heck, if there's a backstory and stuff like that, I'd love it (no romance option, tho.. please.. really, I mean it, don't go there). Besides, which adventurer wouldn't want a dog around?

Yeah ... What is you favorite summoner and that do you think about summoners/ fammiliars in general ... I realy liked Ifrid from FF7 ...

In vast majority of RPGs the only way you could change or affect your companions is by making them better, turning them from the "dark side" or persuading them to abandon their evil ways. Could we do the opposite as well? Let us corrupt our companions. Make paladins fall, priests abandon their gods, vigilant betray their comrades. We already had it to some extent in KOTOR2 and DA:O. In Dragon Age it was called "hardening" - making companion more cynical, harsh and selfish. In KOTOR2 via your influence and certain dialogues you could turn companions to the dark side, like "helping" Atton to accept and be proud of his past as a jedi murderer. We already have seen companions in PE like Cadegund - a priestess of Magran. by corrupting her we may have option either to shatter her faith or push her into more sever actions - more like "kill them all, Magran will recognize her own"

In the real world, we all know both likeable and annoying people. It's an inevitable part of life. And so on paper, it would make perfect sense to bring that rationale into the game world. We don't always like who we get to work with, or who we have as a companion by our side while adventuring. However, I would now suggest that we turn that rationale on its head and punch it in the spleen. Hard. If you consider all the playable companions in past IE games, the NWN series, and any other franchise for that matter, you will know which characters stand out from the rest, either for being likeable, or a right royal pain in the wotsit. Some players aren't bothered too much by it, but from reading game forums over the years, it's clear that many players will actively avoid certain companions, even to the point of foregoing side quests just so they don't have to listen to them. Now I know it's still a player's choice as to whom they have in their party, but my suggestions is this: if having a full range of character traits in the game world is inevitable, then consider making the less likeable types as true NPCs, such as commoners, quest-givers, plot characters, villains, and other enemies. And for the record, a likeable character doesn't have to be good and morally upright. Take Hannibal Lecter for example. Yes, he will eat your liver, with some fava beans and a nice chianti, but he is also highly intelligent, and in conversation is a perfect gentleman. To me, he's a likeable, memorable character. Would I like him in my party? er....I'll get back to you on that. Now having said all that, I actually think that some amount of bickering and moaning between companions can be quite entertaining....if it's done well. There's a fine line between someone who complains a lot and someone who is constantly annoying. Maybe it's partially down to voice acting, and partially down to the script. Writers don't always receive credit for the work they do. And those among you who have studied creative writing will know how daunting it can be. I think my overall point is if there is a perceived disincentive NOT to have certain companions in your party, then convert that into an incentive to confront undesirable NPCs. Sometimes bringing real world rationale into a game world has an unintentional negative effect on the gaming experience itself. Does anyone have any examples, or thoughts on what we should learn from likeable or unlikeable game characters?

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this before, so apologize in advance but, will your companions / adventurer's hall characters get to level up with you even when they're aren't in your company? Let's say you've been adventuring with Aloth for the last 10 levels and suddenly you decide to use Forton instead. Will he have gained extra levels or still the same ol' when you first met him? Since different companions have different skills, if you decide to change companions after playing into the middle of the game it'd make switching NPCs for certain quests/skills kinda tough.. it'd be more like an escort mission for said companion. Thanks!

I'm interested in hearing what others are looking for in strongholds, so I'm copying my post from another thread: "What I'm hoping for in the stronghold is customization and the ability to upgrade how you want, possibly through side quests. For example, maybe you start off with a wooden wall for your stronghold and have to clear a quarry of a monster infestation so the miners can get in to mine the stone, allowing you to create stone walls and buildings. Or maybe before you even start your stronghold, you have to help a group of loggers establish a camp in a forest, possibly by clearing out monsters, or alternatively through helping the loggers set up defences and traps. In the start, your party and companions recruited may all live in a single home, but as you upgrade your keep, maybe the companions gained through the story will gain their own homes, which they will upgrade and customize how they want, possibly by you doing side quests for them. The stronghold should also be a place where you can send your companions when you don't want them in your party, so you don't have to memorize where you left them, and perhaps they can do useful tasks for you if you have the right buildings in your stronghold. For example, if you build a library, companions (especially wizards) will be able to do their research there, and maybe you can do side quests and buy books for it, the research will be more efficient and if it is a good enough library perhaps it can give your party a slight intelligence bonus. If you build an obstacle course/training ground, your companions will be able to train physically, learning new fighting techniques and skills, and maybe your party gets a constitution/strength bonus. Similarly, a zen garden for monks and ciphers to meditate at, and for everyone to relax at, a temple for paladins and priests to worship at, and for companions to pray at, and a bar for entertainment and honing charisma. Maybe there can even be side quests to recruit NPCs to improve these buildings, such as getting a bartender for the bar, a librarian for the library, a drill master for the obstacle course and training grounds, guards for your stronghold in general, etc. Perhaps we can even build buildings that effect the game play. For example, if you build gardens, recruit gardeners, and bring them seeds, they will grow the plants for you, and you won't need to go into the wilderness and harvest the herbs for crafting. Similarly if you build a mine within your stronghold, you will be able to get miners to get you stones and ores for crafting weapons and armors. Perhaps if you live on an ocean or river, you can build a dock and hire a dock master so you can have fast travel between ports, or build a fishing boat and hire fishers to give your stronghold a source of food. Or you can build a stable for fast travel on land, and later build caravans to allow for trade between your stronghold and other communities. The point is, you build and upgrade your stronghold how you want, and the time you invest in this gives you greater rewards, both aesthetically in how your stronghold looks, and in terms of game play by giving you better companions and talents, and how the game can be played."

Given that the NPC companions will be of an engrossing nature with their own personas and agendas, how severe can we expect conflict and consequences arising from derision to be? There was a moment in BG: ToSC when my party was deep within Durlag's Tower near death and out of resources, I attempted to rest before gracefully exiting that death-trap when an argument broke out. Khalid and Jaheria had decided that Montoron and Xzar weren't desirable company anymore, which resulted in my party hacking itself to bits in a squabble I had no ability to stop. It was an absolutely exquisite moment. Baldur's Gate II followed up these conflicts well with many other characters ending in irrevocable impasses where the PC had to make serious choices that could result in party members leaving forever or dueling to the death. I am very excited at the prospect for these consequences; particularly in a no-reload environment. Is this an aspect that anyone else looks forward to?

Hello friends, my first post here and i hope that is a "new topic/discussion". I hope u enjoy the poll.

I've always thought it strange that, in party-based RPGs, while lots of time is spent recording dialogues and conversations, there's always only a tiny pool of audio cues that are used when selecting them / giving them orders. Why is this? A large percentage of the player's time is spent clicking on their portraits and giving orders, so why is it that we're stuck with hearing the same 'I stand ready' phrases over and over again? Given that OE don't need to worry about full voiceover for companion dialogue in PE, what I'd like to see (or rather, hear), instead, is greater variety and nuance to the audio cues we hear when giving orders to the party. Here are a few examples: Location specific: relaxed quotes when in Taverns, wary ones when in a new and threatening area, urgent when in battle, whispers when in a crypt, that sort of thing. Emotion-affected: It always jars for me when I've had, say, an argument with a party member in a conversation, or an emotional reveal has taken place, and then when you're back in gameplay, you're back to the standard sets of chirpy responses. It would be amazing if sometimes that could affect the voice sets as well. 'Huffy' or 'distance' responses after an argument, for example, or cheerful after a humerous exchange. If you wanted to be really interesting about it, you could use this as a cue to the player as well. If a companion's audio phrases suddenly sound pensive, or sulky, talking to them might open up a conversation. Level / story affected: This is a big one, but wouldn't it be good if, say, a character's voice set became more confident as the story progressed / levelled up. A character might join the group and be quite non-expressive and professional when being given orders, but as time passes and he's travelled with the group and becomes more relaxed, his tone may change. Or a cheerful character, after being witness to an evil player character's awful deeds and derision in conversation, would become more downbeat. When you've got the voice actor in the studio, given the lack of need for extensive recording, I wouldn't have thought it would be too hard to get them to instead spend a bit of time recording different nuances of responses? I asked about this in the reddit Q&A, but unfortunately didn't get a response. What do you guys think?

Hello Forumites and Members of the Obsidian Order. Given what has been revealed about the world thus far and the overall theme of the playable races revealed, it is to my understanding that we will be given a pallete of tolkien-esque playable races that may or may not be flavored in ways to make them interesting and not generic. Obviously if all the playable races were something odd like bug men, alien like slugs with psedopods for vocal speech with multiple eyes, ghosts and ghouls, or anthropomorphic/magical Animals like Gnolls, Dires Tigers, and Werebears [oh my!], then the more hard core RPG players from the 70s to early 90s will most likely drop the project altogether. Not to mention it would make it exceedingly difficult to make a compelling story centered around your actions as said creature in a different type of game world. So with these little tidbits of exposition in mind after that huge run on sentence that would make most editors consider the euthanization of such a person as I, consider the companions. Several Companions have been revealed to us already, all of them human or human looking, though the guy that looks like a mage may not be human [he kinda reminds me of the scholarly Illum from D&D]. Other than the basic and predictable backstories following human mercenaries looking for work with a troubled love life, or perhaps the scholar with his own agenda after professing interest of some sort of otherworldly quality of yourself, what sort of stories and interesting perspectives may be expressed by these companions? The Baldur's Gate Series, the Neverwinter Nights Series, Even Dragon Age have all, very successfully I might add, made me care deeply for the campions I chose to travel around with. But even then, I began to grow bored of the fact that they come from the expected and tried and true backgrounds [other than Minsc]. This Brings me to my actual point of this poorly worded Dissertation, Companions. Dragon Age Origins: Pebble[That Pessimistic Golem Statue thing with the lisp and odd sense of Humor] NeverWinter Nights 2: Neeshka[Had to Mod her to give her the Tiefling Tail] Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer: That Ghost Wraith Thing of Evil Doomy Doomyness Neverwinter Nights 2: Storms of Zehir: The Lizard Man that Guides you to his Chief Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark: Mother Fracking[the kind where you use high presure of water to break of rock for oil] DEEKIN [The Kobold Bard of awesomesauce that may or may not multiclass into Dragon Disciple and become a winged Kobold of fire breathing goodness] Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker: The Solar outsider, The WereRat What do all of these companions have in common? They are all Non Human and Come from very different baackgrounds. Why do they matter? They bring very interesting, if sometimes humorous, perspective on things in general. They allow you to view their race or their circumstance with a perspective that is otherwise unavailable when fighting their patron races be they lizard men, golems, undead, kobolds, were creatures, and planar outsiders. I feel Project Eternity can greatly benefit, story telling wise, with a companion that is not any of the playable races and is out of the Tolkien "norm." I am currently not quite sure how it would fit with Project Eternity Lore, or how awesome the team behind making the companions actually are in creating interesting and memorable characters. Creating Companions based off of class or racial stereotypes can indeed railroad the character of that Companion into a specific path, but I for one believe that creating exotic and very different companions can add more to the game than it would detract. I am not sure how my thoughts will be viewed/praised/flamed, but please talk away, I am happy to discuss things as long as things stay civil. P.S. I am not crazy nor on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Just trying to express myself after being subjected to days of boredom and instant insanity puzzles [Look up Instant insanity puzzles and realize my dilemma] P.P.S. Thank you for reading, I hope you had fun.

I couldn't find a topic addressing the question whether people want to have player-generatable companions, so I'm starting a new one. Personally, I can't think of a reason how having mindless drones as companions can be justified by having control over thir stats/race/class.

I took the time to sum up all of the classes, companions, etc. that will be included in the game BESIDES the amount of content (quests, areas, NPCs, etc.) that is also included. I thought some people might be interested in seeing what we are getting without the need to search for the info. At $2,5 million we will have (summed up): 6 races (human, elves, dwarves, godlike, ??? and ???) 9 classes (fighters, wizards, priests, rougues, rangers, monks, druids, barbarians, ciphers) 8 companions (edair, cadegund, aloth, monk dude, dwarven ranger chick and 3x ???) Tell me if you find a mistake.

Hey, a new forum to spoil with another tilted poll. So you'll meet potential companions. Do you want all to be equal in their abilities (within their class). Examples are incorrect, I don't remember the stats or levels or characters or stuff. That was largely the case in BG and such, the girl from next door is basically the same as a master assasin you come upon later. Granted, the girl is level 1 and the assasin is level 5 (but so are you and the girl when you meet him). Now this pretty much worked and didn't bother me much at all. All were D&D adventurers afterall. But I kind of would have liked some characters, like a finest swordsman ever, to have had significantly better luck with stat rolls. Where it really bothered me, were NWN2, DA:O, MotB. When I get a humongously powerful blade golem... well I was a bit disappointed it was just about exactly as effective as whatever fighter type I'd have around. Less so actually, given how fighters would have souped up weapons. DA:O, Sten and the Golem. Both are storywise presented as absurdly powerful creatures, yet they don't have anything to show for it. Neither is stronger than just another fighter, the golem is actually pretty weak compared even to alistari. MotB, bear gods and ancient devourer creatures... are just as powerful as any other companion. Now, I understand there's game balance to be considered. If some companions are more powerful than others, there's this minmax need to take the powerful ones. But if I get a demon from hell as a companion, I don't want him to be another Fighter: Level 8 Nor do I want him to be just at the same powerlevel as my childhood sweetheart. Opinions?