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The Paladin is by far the class I've played the most, and since paladins are generally the class I favour the most, it is also the class that I have the most thoughts on. The Paladin class has a number of outstanding issues that I'd like to raise, but first, let's go through what the Paladin gets, level per level. Character creation. At this point, the Paladin gets to choose between Flames of Devotion, a 1-per-encounter Ability that does Weap.Dmg.+100% Burn Dmg. and Lay On Hands, a pitiful 3-uses-per-day HoT (Healing over Time) Ability. The Paladin also gets Faith and Conviction, a passive bonus to all defences that depend upon your Behaviour/Reputation; the Paladin also gets to choose an Order that defines what Behaviour improves or diminishes the bonus from Faith and Conviction, however, what disposition is celebrated or condemned by each Order is not actually explained or expanded upon, which is just all kinds of odd. Finally the Paladin gets +1 Lore and +2 Athletics, which strangely implies that the Paladin is more Athletic than even a Fighter. Skill Points and a Talent. Nothing special, which makes perfect sense and it's alright. All Paladins get to choose between a number of unique Talents, same as any other Class, really. Skill Points and a Class Ability. Apart from the aforementioned Flames of Devotion and Lay On Hands, the Paladin now has three more Abilities to pick from; Zealous Charge, Zealous Focus and Zealous Endurance. All of these are Modal Abilities that can be toggled, with a incredibly short range of 2.5m, acting as Auras, and as of v392, only Zealous Focus is remotely worth considering. Skill Points and a Talent. Nothing to see here, same as everyone else. Move along. Skill Points and a Class Ability! This time, the Paladin adds the following to his list of choices: Inspiring Triumph, a passive Ability that triggers a defensive bonus to all allies within 5m every time the Paladin downs an enemy; Sworn Enemy, a once-per-rest Ability that targets a single enemy and gives the Paladin (and only the Paladin) a damage and accuracy boost until that one enemy dies; and finally, the first "Command"-style Class Ability, called Liberating Exhortation, a once-per-encounter Ability that lets a single ally ignore Hostile Effects for 15 seconds (they will resume afterwards). Skill Points and a Talent! Skill Points and a Class Ability, go figure! Again, the Paladin gets to choose from all the previous Abilities that hasn't already been chosen, and adds Deprive the Unworthy and Reviving Exhortation to the list. Both are "Command"-style Abilities, but for some strange reason, the offensive Deprive the Unworthy does not follow the same pattern of being named as an Exhortation. You'd think they'd at least come up with something analogous, such as Depriving Judgement or something. Anyway, Deprive the Unworthy is a straight-up offensive version of Liberating Exhortation, and it suppresses the Beneficial Effects of a single enemy for 15 seconds. Strangely, the Paladin only gets two-per-rest of Deprive the Unworthy, whereas Liberating Exhortation is once-per-encounter. Reviving Exhortation, also added at this level, is also a once-per-encounter "Command"-style ability that allows the Paladin to revive a fallen ally with a modest amount of Endurance restored, much of which will be taken away from him after 15 seconds. Guess what. Skill Points and a Talent. Booyah. Skill Points and a Class Ability! Another two Abilities are added to the list; Righteous Soul, a underwhelming passive Ability (why are passives even offered up as Class Abilities?) The exact nature of this passive is questionable, because the wording of the Ability is ambiguous at this point, but it supposedly makes you resist all Poisoned, Diseased, Charmed, Dominated, Frightened and Terrified Effects, as well as reducing their duration by 5 seconds. Potentially powerful, but again, why would passives even be offered up as Abilities? Passives are by their nature and definition passive, and even if powerful, definitely not contributing to interesting choices in combat. Second, Reinforcing Exhortation, a twice-per-encounter Ability that increases the Deflection of a single recipient ally for 20 seconds. Another "Command"-style Class Ability. Skill. Points. And. Talent. Skill Points and... Class Ability! This time, only a single Class Ability is added: Hastening Exhortation. This is unsurprisingly another "Command"-style Ability, but this time it's three-per-rest, and it multiplies the attack speed of a single ally by 1.2. Final level. Skill Point and a Talent. Final stop. Everyone get off the rapetrain, it turns out that it's got brakes after all. Now, after going through all that, let's take a look at the available Talents as of v392: Critical Focus; Improves Zealous Focus. Deep Faith; Improves the defensive bonuses of the Order-dependent Faith and Conviction passive. Greater Lay on Hands; increases the healing of Lay on Hands. Intense Flames; Increases the damage of Flames of Devotion. Untroubled Faith (Paladin); negates some of (removes?) the negative effects from Reputation on Faith and Conviction. At the very least, this should be renamed, because it really stands out with that "(Paladin)", since no other Talent is class-marked like that. There are also several Order-dependant Talents, all which affects either Flames of Devotion or Liberating Exhortation (for some damn reason), or triggers on kills: The Black Path, Bleak Walkers; similar to the Inspiring Triumph Class Ability, except it Frightens all nearby enemies whenever the Paladin kills someone. Remember Rakhan Field, Bleak Walkers; nearly identical to the Intense Flames Talent, except it adds 50% Corrosion Damage instead of 50% extra Burn Damage to Flames of Devotion. Inspiring Liberation, Darcozzi Paladini; affects Liberating Exhortation, and gives the target ally a bonus to Accuracy in addition to the normal effects. Fires of Darcozzi Palace, Darcozzi Paladini; affects Flames of Devotion, giving the Paladin a Flame Shield upon using it. Enduring Flames, Goldpact Knights; causes Flames of Devotion to also cause a Burn-dmg DoT equal to 50% of the total damage. Bond of Duty, Goldpact Knights; whenever the Paladin uses Liberating Exhortation, the target ally also gets a large defensive bonus against Charmed, Confused and Dominated. Strange Mercy, Kind Wayfarers; again similar to the Inspiring Triumph Class Ability, except nearby allies gain Endurance every time the Paladin kills someone. The Sword and the Shepherd; Kind Wayfarers; every time the Paladin uses Flames of Devotion, all nearby allies heal a trifling amount of Endurance. Shielding Flames, Shieldbearers of St. Elcga; similar to the Kind Wayfarers ability above, it grants a small deflection bonus to nearby allies every time the Paladin uses Flames of Devotion. Shielding Touch, Shieldbearers of St. Elcga; again, the target ally gains an Accuracy bonus when the Paladin uses Liberating Exhortation. Yawn. Now that I've gone through all of that so that everyone gets a more or less clear picture of what the Paladin has and can get, several thoughts and ideas have occurred to me based on playtesting paladins in v392 BB. In no particular order of importance, here are some issues and potential solutions. Mileage may vary. • First of all, the paladin suffers from a lack of combat options. This is particularly glaring for the first 5 levels, which in the context of Pillars of Eternity is a figurative eternity. The fact is that at the moment, Flames of Devotion doesn't just appear to be a default assumption made by the developers that the Paladin is expected to have (judging by Talent support, more on that later), but it completely obliterates Lay on Hands. So while every (almost?) other class gets either multiple uses per encounter of one ability or another, or gets something that hinges on being deployed tactically, the Paladin gets a once-per-encounter ability that is swiftly blown (because there is often no reason whatsoever to not use Flames of Devotion almost immediately, or even attempt to initiate with it) and is then relegated to autoattack. At level 3, when the Paladin gets to pick a new Class Ability, all that is offered up are auras. Now, likely to inflate the sense of combat options artificially, Auras have been turned into a "Combat Only"-Ability, but it doesn't functionally change the fact that it is completely passive. It is not until level 5 that a Paladin can even think about doing anything in combat that isn't healing 3 times per day, or use flames of devotion once per encounter followed by auto-attack. • Second, the supposed core abilities of the Paladin is seemingly lost in translation. It is my understanding that a few aspects of the Paladin was intended by be part of his core concept, primarily Commands (Exhortations + "Deprive the Unworthy") and Auras. Due to the way ability gain has been modeled, however, it is entirely possible to opt out of these things completely. This isn't necessarily something bad, and it depends largely on what the developers want to do with the class, but it is definitely something that should be discussed. What is the concept of the Paladin, what assumptions are made? This ties into a third point. • Third, the Order-specific Talents are somewhat out of whack. Why is it that the Order-specific Talents all favour either Flames of Devotion or Liberating Exhortation specifically? There are two notable exceptions, The Black Path (Bleak Walkers) and Strange Mercy (Kind Wayfarers), both which gains on-kill bonuses to nearby allies. It is still a very strange, lop-sided favouritism that seems to assume that these two abilities are part of any Paladin's core skillset. The Paladin-specific Talents need to be looked over, and spread out to apply to more or different Abilities. Not a single Order-specific power affects Lay on Hands, for example, even though you'd think that such a thing would fit the Kind Wayfarers like a glove. Even though there only exists two different Paladin abilities that can be taken on creation - Flames of Devotion and Lay on Hands - only one of them is consistently affected by Order-specific talents. This is very odd and jarring. This also goes double for Liberating Exhortation. If Flames of Devotion seems to be a default assumption of the class that can conceivably be missed, it is currently very unlikely that anyone would. Liberating Exhortation, however, enters the scene when there are multiple possible abilities to choose from, and it is entirely possible to build a Paladin completely without picking up Exhortations. • Fourth, the oddity of the 2 Athletics, 1 Lore starting Skills. It is odd that a Fighter would be notably less Athletic than a standard Paladin, but I also think that there is a missed opportunity at play. I would suggest that instead of cementing the starting Skills of the Paladin, make the starting Skills 1 Athletics, 1 Lore, and 1 Order-dependent as such; http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69902-v392-class-skills-starting-skills/?do=findComment&comment=1553094 • For some concrete suggestions, partly based on personal preference and interpretation: Revamp and look over all the Order-specific Talents, to diversify them based on more open-ended assumptions. It should not be assumed by the entire system that you end up with very specific Abilities, unless these Abilities are specifically granted. There are many Exhortations, why only favour one? There are two starting abilities, why only favour one? Lay on Hands need to be considerably buffed. In earlier versions, healing was stronger than it is now, and it was supposedly nerfed across the board. I do not think it would be inappropriate for Lay on Hands to be a premier healing Ability that blows others out of the water; it is per-rest, and potentially a core ability of the Paladin class as a whole. It should also not be a HoT; it should be instant. The Greater Lay on Hands Talent could add a HoT to the Lay on Hands ability instead. For some reason, there is no "Extra Lay on Hands" or "Extra Flames of Devotion" Talents. This should be rectified, and the former should add two additional uses of Lay on Hands per day, and the latter should add one extra use of Flames of Devotion per encounter. It is not interesting, but it is useful and consistent with what other classes can often get. Make Auras a core part of the Paladin concept; on Level 2 or 3, allow the Paladin to choose one of the three auras independently of other Abilities. Additionally, there should be Talents to support all Auras, not just Zealous Focus, an aura already well-known to currently be the only worthwhile one. Rebalance the auras. Especially Zealous Charge is utterly useless due to the Engagement system's current implementation making movement in combat largely meaningless. Also, auras as "Combat Only"-abilities (if "Combat Only" is to be a thing at all, rubbish as the concept is) is utterly ridiculous, an artificial buffer at the initiation of combat meant to inflate the feeling that the Paladin is doing something worthwhile besides auto-attacking. Stop it. Auras are passive modals that should be on at all times if the Paladin wishes it to be so. Rework the Exhortations (including the oddly-named Deprive the Unworthy); ideally, they should similarly be part of the Paladin's core skillset in some capacity, possibly being granted outside of the regular choices offered to the Paladin. Additionally, they should all either be Per-rest (preferably not) or have a similar Per-encounter use (preferably). Them being so conceptually similar as to share names almost across the board, but mechanically dissimilar feels odd and contrived. Instead of making the core functionality between them different, balance them based on the assumption that their functionality is conceptually similar, such as "2 per encounter", "1 per encounter", or "3 per day". Create the framework for how the concept is meant to work, and balance it based on those assumptions afterward. If all Exhortations would be offered outside of the normal Paladin Ability choices, all of them would ideally be offered up at once, instead of the odd progression that they go through. There is no conceptual reason why Liberating Exhortation should be offered before Reviving Exhortation, and I believe this to be a vestigial holdover from a time when the Exhortations were granted at given levels, rather than as a choice amongst a plethora of different abilities. Righteous Soul is terrible. Complete passives should never be offered up as full-fledged Class Abilities. This feels much more like a high-level Talent than anything else. The Paladin already suffers from combat option(s) starvation, and while flavourful and perhaps powerful, this is a bad choice not from a player perspective, but from a development perspective; it should not be offered like this at all. Inspiring Triumph should be made into a Talent. There are several Paladin-only Talents with the exact same functionality, but with different effects, and this has no business being a Class Ability to begin with. It would be much better served being turned into a Talent. Doubly so not only because of it's relation to how other Paladin-specific Talents already work, but also because of the aforementioned "passives are bad as Class Abilities, especially for Paladins"-issue. That is it for today, and I hope that this doesn't read as an enormous wall of text. I did my best to avoid it, but I'm not sure how successful I was. I hope the relevant developers take the time to read this brick, and any thoughts not just on my thoughts but also on the Paladin class in general would be greatly appreciated. It is not uncommon for large posts to kill their own threads, but I hope people instead see it as cause to discuss the Paladin class and possible perceived issues with it. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and is just some thoughts and notes on my perceptions of the Paladin class and issues I've discovered during play or from subjective analysis.
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Paladin is unable to move unless Zealot Charge is activated
CR88 posted a question in Backer Beta Bugs and Support
Description of the issue: -My main paladin character is unable to move unless his Zealot Charge ability is activated. The rest of the party can move freely with or without that ability activated, but my main character is stuck on the ground. When ZC is activated, however, the rest of the party moves faster than he does. In other words, he's either stuck (ZC turned off) or moving slowly (ZC turned on). How to reproduce the issue: 1) Load the attached savegame 2) Try to move your selected party without Zealot Charge 3) Notice how the main character is stuck 4) Toggle Zealot Charge on and try to move the entire party. 5) Now it moves. Expected behavior: -Main character should move normally without ZC activated, and move faster with ZC activated, like the rest of the party does. Other comments: -This wasn't the case from the start. Happened randomly after loading my save after booting the game and hasn't stopped since. -If this isn't a bug and it's just me being absolutely dumb... well, I'm deeply sorry -I tried to attach the saved game and didn't let me ("you aren't permitted to upload this kind of file"), so I provide you with a dropbox link to the same file. I hope this isn't forbidden (and I'm just doing it 'cause, again, I was unable to attach it normally) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/36334833/197d2f48607c47ee90556b7cfd4a3754%20DyrfordCrossing%207690114.savegame -
Flames of Devotion: Incorrect Tooltip
LightPhoenix posted a question in Backer Beta Bugs and Support
Flames of Devotion lists +10000% burn damage on hit. I assume this is supposed to be +100%, as stated in the more verbose description. -
I would first like to say hello to everyone. I've been lurking around the forums for a long time but I've only made a few posts. I thought that a party composition discussion would be interesting now that we have all of our class updates out of the way. In the IE games my PC would usually be on the front line as a fighter, paladin, multi cleric/fighter, or something along those lines. So I was really looking forward to update 80. How do you think paladins will compare to fighters in a tanking role? A damage role? Do we know if the Paladin abilities such as coordinated attacks, zealous march, and inspiring triumph will stack if more than one paladin is in range? If these abilities do stack would it be better to have a few paladins in a group working off of each other rather than having a mixture of other classes on the front line? For my first party I was considering having 2 paladins and a barbarian up front. If the barbarian's accuracy can be boosted by both paladins then his/her carnage ability might put out some crazy damage. What do you think? Do you have any other ideas for possible synergies? I'm sorry if some of these questions have already been answered.
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Update by Josh Sawyer, Project Director http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgvxu8QY01s Today, we'd like to talk to you about one of our more recently-implemented classes in Project Eternity: the paladin. The paladin has been a staple of fantasy RPGs for decades and it was one of our most quickly-funded stretch goals during the Kickstarter campaign. As one of several melee-oriented classes on our roster, paladins presented some unique challenges for us and we'd like to share their development process with you. Paladins have a strong tradition in FRPGs. While the class represents different things to different players, it often conjures images of legendary European figures like the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne, El Cid, and the Knights of the Round Table. Players who like playing paladins often think of them as devoted, principled, brave, and unrelenting. They stand out because of their single-mindedness and unwavering dedication to their cause. In Project Eternity, we wanted paladins to maintain their sense of selfless passion and zeal without being bound to concepts like "alignment" or a universal moral code. We also wanted their mechanics to be distinctive from the other classes while reinforcing their role in the world. Area designer Bobby Null has always liked the marshal class from D&D 3.5, which is conceptually similar to the warlord in 4E: combat leaders who are at their best when they are augmenting their teammates. This is the approach that I took when developing Project Eternity's paladins. They have persistent modal auras, strong single-target healing and buff abilities (contrasting the broad AoE effects of clerics), and can passively grant bonuses to teammates in close proximity. In the game's lore, paladins are zealous champions of a cause that may be religious, philosophical, or cultural in nature. The "foundational" paladins in this part of the world were the legendary elite guards of Darcozzi Palace in the Grand Empire of Vailia (now Old Vailia). They set standards for selfless dedication, unwavering loyalty, and inspiring leadership that have become the pillars for similar orders that have sprung up in the two millennia since they were founded. Even among orders where the chosen cause is perceived as bleak or malevolent, paladins always place the cause ahead of their own personal interests. In Defiance Bay, recent experiments performed by animancers and ciphers suggest that paladins' souls are continuously "burning" wellsprings of spiritual energy that are overflowing their physical vessels due to the paladins' fanaticism. When ciphers have tried to directly perceive paladins' souls, they have described the experience as uncomfortable or painful, not unlike gazing at the sun. All paladins currently begin with the following abilities: Reviving Exhortation (Active) - Paladins can command an unconscious ally to awaken and get back up with an immediate spike in Stamina, though the target will lose half of the regained Stamina after a short duration. Zealous Barrage (Modal) - The paladin and all allies standing within 3m have their attack and ability speed increased. Cannot be used with Zealous March (below). Faith and Conviction - Paladins have an inherent bonus to all defenses (Deflection, Fortitude, Reflexes, and Psyche). As they advance, they gain additional abilities in the same spirit, such as: Coordinated Attacks - The ally closest to the paladin attacking the same target as the paladin has a bonus to Accuracy. Shake It Off (Active) - The paladin can command an ally to temporarily ignore existing Hostile effects for a short duration. The effects are suspended; they do not lose any of their duration and will resume as soon as Shake It Off expires. Inspiring Triumph - Allies within 4m gain a temporary bonus to all defenses when the paladin downs an enemy. Zealous March (Modal) - The paladin and all allies within 3m have their movement speed increased. Cannot be used with Zealous Barrage. In playtesting so far, our test paladin has been very useful in combat, with the melee group often centering around her to gain the benefits of her Zealous auras and Coordinated Attacks. While several other classes have Stamina healing abilities, the paladin's Reviving Exhortation can turn the tide if party members start dropping late in a battle. However, using it too early can spell disaster for the revived character if the granted Stamina boost runs out in a long fight. Optional Talents for the paladin will focus on shaping the passive or active bias of the character: widening the effects of Zealous auras; granting additional uses or increased potency for targeted commands; or giving paladins more direct offensive and defensive capabilities if players want to boost their paladins' personal viability. Wild Orlans - What Do They Look Like? Though we've previously shown one concept of a hearth orlan (the "orlan detective"), many people have asked and speculated about what the other orlans, the so-called wild orlans, look like. Wild orlans have the same general range of stature and build as hearth orlans, but are almost entirely covered with hair. Though they can be found on a few continents, wild orlans in this part of the world are typically found in the deepest forests of Eír Glanfath. In recent centuries, the biases of surrounding colonial cultures have driven them even farther from new settlements. Considered savage and uncontrollable by many Dyrwoodans, Vailians, and Readcerans, wild orlans often find interactions with outsiders strained if not outright violent. Many colonists pre-judge all orlans as untrustworthy and bloodthirsty, but within that vein of racism, they often classify wild orlans as "the bad ones". Given the difficulty of concealing their hirsute bodies and faces, prejudice follows them in most colonial areas. We'll continue to develop the paladin more over the next few months, but we'd like to hear what you think of the concepts and mechanics we've come up with so far. Similarly, we hope you like the less- and more-"beastly" branches of the orlan race. We developed the different appearances based on widely conflicting player (and developer) desires for the race to be both more and less wild. What do you think of the direction we're taking? Thanks for reading!
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Paladin - Male Priest - Female Wizard or Sorceror - Male Witch or Sorceress - Female Barbarian - Male Amazon - Female Now, these would be the same in skill set and such, but it could imply lore into the classes. Meaning you could have a frenzied Male Barbarian throwing spears like an Amazon. Likewise, having a strong Female Amazon that you play like a close combat Barbarian. Barbazon Mainly about Barbarians, but I see them as stemming from some sort of Barbaric culture (bandits and vikings). Orcs are an excellent example at a "civilized" strand of Barbarians in my opinion. "Stronghold" in Heroes of Might & Magic as well. An established Barbarian society. I've always viewed the women of these tribal Barbarian settlements as something less masculine, namely something more akin to Amazon. The hunters of the strong and proud male dominated Lion pack. Unisex, but: Barbarian Fighter or Soldier? The rest of the classes feel to me pretty unisex. Fighter doesn't really say "Male/Female" about it, but it could be a part of the aforementioned Barbaric culture. Unless "Fighter" gets a different title, such as "Squire" or "Soldier" or whatever else is fitting the role of the Fighter in the world. About Squire: I absolutely love the feature in the original Final Fantasy for the NES, when you meet Bahamut for the very first time and it's "Oh snap". Then you do a long quest for the Rat's Tail, which you then return and you become "Knighted" (Fighter becomes Knight). Can Factions help you grow in status among the people? Or hide from their sight? What's the difference between the Barbarian and the Fighter and what is it that makes the Fighter a Fighter and the Barbarian a Barbarian? Wizitch Wizard and Witch, to me, feel pretty granted as is. A female "Wizard" does, however, sound a bit odd. The skillset wouldn't differ between the two, only their titles. And whenever "Class" is mentioned it accounts gender as well in dialogue? So the result becomes "Witch" instead of "Wizard" if you have a female "Wizard". The same goes for Barbarian/Amazon, they would both have the same tools as the other in terms of character building. Palaest Paladin and Priest, would not be the same skillset (A Paladin is a Paladin, a Priest is a Priest), but only female can be Priest and only male can be Paladin. I'd like to advocate for dialogue options if you create a female Paladin, meaning it wouldn't be "off limits" at character creation, but lore-wise for your own party it could be something interesting. With few male Priests in the world, having one in your party is like having a Paladin "defect" perhaps. Trash, in their "Glorious" eyes, even if you can woop their ass right on the spot. Of course, reputation should play a big part too. Thoughts?
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Reading the description, PE's "paladin" is basicly a warlord. A charismatic general. That's it. It really doesn't have the "feel" of a paladin at all. They might as well simply call the class warlord of something else. Of course, you might ask what makes a paladin a paladin? Divine powers? Well, not necessarily. At least to me, being part of a religious order, a brotherhood with oaths and rules to follow - that gives more of a right "vibe". Think Templars on DA:O. They weren't paladins. Yet they felt very much like them.