Search the Community

Something really cool in this game is the way some of the mechanics, quests, and storylines surprised me. The direction(s) the game took instead usually make a lot of sense, too, but go against what a player used to typical RPG patterns. Examples!: Romance - As a disclaimer, I'm not really into the romance feature of RPG's generally. I've been listening to that content and the negative rep conversations post-facto because I wanted more PoE content and I've already beaten the game, and probably won't ever go the routes needed to see the content naturally. That said, although I know it upset and disappointed some people, I really liked that PoE2 doesn't make the whole party deeply in love with you and champing at the bit to date you. The romance mechanic kept in mind the people in your party, their personalities and personal interests, and determined if they'd ever be interested and, if they are, what kind of relationship they'd be interested in/okay with. It actually adds a level of depth that's really neat! I'd say every companion handles it differently, but the most notable examples that drift from the typical RPG set-up that I can think of are Serafen, Eder and Pallegina. Serafen is completely cool with flirting and casual sex, but doesn't want a relationship. Eder and Palegina are no where near an emotional place to even be interested. And even Aloth, while technically romanceable, won't ever engage you himself and will reject you unless you're in a specific situation. There's no magic way to make them change their minds by just being charming or the main character, either. --- Maia's Quest - This is one of my favorite examples (I've seen someone else mention this earlier, too). RPG's have ingrained the idea that every companion needs help with something personal, and that helping them out is the nice and right thing to do. Generally, if there's a gray zone or a questionable moment, you're usually given the chance or expected to correct your companion's direction. Usually doing otherwise is the evil or wrong thing to do. Maia's quest completely manipulates you and those assumptions into potentially doing some horrible things. It comes off as banal and helpful at first, but there's obviously something wrong, there's no way to get anyone to admit what, and there's no way to stop Maia from doing it altogether or change her mind before she's already done something horrible. You have to either already know the consequences or go off your own suspicions to decide to go against the objectives, which completely goes against the player mentality. And you have to pretty much be a **** about it - which at least in my case, is extremely uncomfortable. The way the quest objectives and its story works does a great job at showing how the RDC works and thinks, and how Maia works and thinks. And it's especially fitting that a quest that manipulates player assumptions like this comes from Atsura. --- Eothas's Storyline - This one is a little more finnicky. But I really liked the ethical issue his storyline brought up, in part because it felt like a storyline a main character in an RPG might do. Eothas is trying to do the ultimately right thing, in his eyes, by giving kith the opportunity to see what the gods are and gain independence and freedom from them. But the actions he's taking to make that goal are morally reprehensible - sacrificing and killing hundreds (thousands?) to do it, with no choice or say on their part, and potentially dooming the entire universe without anyone else's say. It's interesting, because that's the kind of thing a player character can and often does. To some extent. Often RPG's give you morally gray or questionable choices for the ultimate greater good. Often getting the best result involves killing several people. This, and Wael's comment about how the main character, "reaps, but on a smaller scale" like the gods, made me start to feel a lot more uncomfortable with the choices I was making for other people and the people I was hurting or killing to get an end positive result. I have at least one more example that I like, but this is already kind of a wall of text, so I'll hold off on that.

I know this is a spoilers forum, but I thought I'd mark this thread anyway to help those who might accidentally wander in here. Anyways, onto the topic at hand... I cleared my first game last night, and am now looking to start a new playthrough as a Templar multi-class. I'm mostly playing for the dialogue and roleplaying potential, but I'm terrible at builds, so I thought I'd come and ask some help from the wonderful peeps here. I'm thinking about playing a Death Godlike Pal/Priest of Berath, or a Pal/Priest of Eothas for any race. Any advice on what talents or abilities you guys would recommend??? I tend to favor more melee oriented builds, so that's why I figured a templar would be better than just going straight up Priest, but what do you guys think? What's the difference? I'd appreciate any help offered. Btw, the Blackend Plate looks like it would be sick for a templar of Berath!

This is just my theory, at some point we are going to be contacted by one of the many "Gods" in the game, they are going to tell us that we are going to need to make the Godhammer Bomb again in order to kill Eothas. We've already created "God" weapons, such as Abydon's Hammer in White March Part 2 using The White Forge. The Godhammer Bomb was Magran's work which Durance was a follower of and he helped create it so did 11 other engineers, but Magran was working with Woedica to kill Eothas. So i believe that one of these "Gods" will contact you in some way to try to get you to create the Godhammer Bomb. Any other theories are welcome.

Hello. I beat the game once, and I'm wondering these things. Anyone can help with answers or theories? Thaos As I understand it, Thaos dies each life and is reborn with his memories intact; but does that mean he is always reborn in the same body? How does that work? In all visions of him, he looks the same. Also, there's an option when you kill him where you can let him keep his memories... Isn't that the same as having done nothing? Other than having stopped his plan, I mean. He's going to come back, isn't he? Eothas Did Eothas really want to stop the whole plan from the beginning? That's what I understand; but I didn't find much confirmation. Since the gods aren't really gods, could Eothas have died by something so mortal as a bomb? Wouldn't that only kill the vessel? Why isn't Eothas' symbol in the place where you talk to all the gods? Is that confirmation of his death? The gods I see Eora is somehow atheist and not atheist at the same time. xD I didn't see that coming! How could the Engwithans create gods? What are they made of? Souls? Do the gods' powers have reach over all the world? How did every civilization know about them? Does every civilization know about them or are they just known in the Dyrwood? I don't know if these questions aren't supposed to have an answer, or I just simply didn't get all the information (or didn't pay attention), so I ask for any explanation or theory anyone has. I haven't played the White March expansion, yet; so if there's any more information about this in there, just say so and don't spoil it, please.

Hello, I know this is jumping the gun given that the game doesn't have all of the expansion packs, and given that a modding framework hasn't been devised yet(and may be difficult given certain design choices). However, I know that a lot of people have wanted romantic options in the game given the lengthy romance threads, and it seems likely that if romances will exist in Pillars of Eternity, that modders will have to add them at some point. Because of this, it seems reasonable to maybe start thinking on the groundwork of this, particularly the idea of modding a Durance romance. After all, Durance has a lot of the qualities needed for an interesting romance: complicated emotions, deep internal struggle, passion, you name it. There has never been a character more ready for romance in any IE style game in history than Durance(Look at all of the problems the BG2 chicks and Anomen had). Here's what I'm thinking: Requirements: -Female (I'm getting more of a traditionalist vibe from him) -Orlan (obviously) -Priestess of Eothas (again, obviously) Major themes would likely be his deep abiding love of Magran, and his sense of guilt at killing Eothas, where the romantic protagonist helps Durance overcome these feelings and find peace in switching over to becoming a priest of Eothas(I'm not sure how hard that'd be to change, or whether gameplay-rp separation would be necessary). Obviously any suggestions would be helpful. (My apologies if this is the wrong forum)

My main character is an Eothasian priest, I only just recruited Eder. In my conversation with him we talk about his faith in detail, yet I am given no option to tell him that I not only share his faith, but that I am in fact a priest of his church. That felt... weird.