Update #78: The Leaders of the Band: Chanters and Priests

[aluminiumtrioxid]

clerics paladins should be able to be fallen. Its goofy in badlurs gate 2 couldn't you kill servants of your god in the temple district and still have access to your gods powers. And you could do this in icewind dale series also probably. 

 

Dunno, their powers in PoE are innate, not granted by their deity. There should probably be some sort of consequence, but complete loss of powers? Nah.

[Sensuki]

By the way Ineth, here is some more insight into how scripted interactions work: 

 

I have a question regarding Scripted Interactions. Is the PC always the character who "interacts" with the world through Scripted Interactions, or does it work for whichever character you have selected ? Also for group actions such as "Climb a cliff", "Swim through an underground tunnel" and "Jump over a Bridge", does the one character's check count as a pass for the whole party, or is each individual character's attribute or skill checked individually?

 

It depends on the interaction. Sometimes it's a single character, other times it's the group and individual members of the party can become injured by being below the threshold. "Injury" in this case means a penalty that lasts until the next time you rest: twisted ankle, swollen eye, etc. Similar to the Dragon Age injuries but less... long-term-sounding.

So attributes and skills of individual party members are taken into account in group actions.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Sensuki

[rjshae]

 

clerics paladins should be able to be fallen. Its goofy in badlurs gate 2 couldn't you kill servants of your god in the temple district and still have access to your gods powers. And you could do this in icewind dale series also probably. 

 

Dunno, their powers in PoE are innate, not granted by their deity. There should probably be some sort of consequence, but complete loss of powers? Nah.

 

The Cleric's Holy Radiance and the paladin's Faith and Conviction abilities should drop to the bare minimum as a result of their fall, then rise thereafter. Their reputations should also suffer.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

The Cleric's Holy Radiance and the paladin's Faith and Conviction abilities should drop to the bare minimum as a result of their fall, then rise thereafter. Their reputations should also suffer.

 

 

Sounds reasonable *shrug*.

[Lephys]

By the way Ineth, here is some more insight into how scripted interactions work: 

 

 

It depends on the interaction. Sometimes it's a single character, other times it's the group and individual members of the party can become injured by being below the threshold. "Injury" in this case means a penalty that lasts until the next time you rest: twisted ankle, swollen eye, etc. Similar to the Dragon Age injuries but less... long-term-sounding.

So attributes and skills of individual party members are taken into account in group actions.

 

... YESSSssssss! *evil hand-clutchy gesture* >8D

[Bryy]

YOU racist bastard! next you'd be asking why those dwarfs are short or why the elves have pointy ears

No, no.

 

Why are all Elves gay?

[curryinahurry]

 

The issue I have with the priest isn't so much about power or flexibility (we don't know yet what other directions the class can be nudged) as it is about uninspiring class mechanics.  Compared to the other spell slingers, the Wizard and Druid, the Priest seems to be a bit generic.  The most interesting aspect of the class, the faith based power scale, it shares with paladins.  Not that it's a bad thing, but if there was a way to make faith more integral across the board for the class, it would go a long way towards mndeaking Priests interesting to me. 

 

Will Paladins will gain Priest spells? I don't recall that being stated, and if not that's a significant differentiator. The writeup on Paladins explains the other differences between the two faith-based classes.

 

 

I think you misunderstood my point.   I'm not concerned that the priest class will be too similar to paladins or anything else; my concern is that the priest is fairly dull in its class mechanics when compared to other classes like the Chanter.  The underlying class mechanics for the Priest should be beefed up so there is an intrinsic liogic for why the priest has the abilities it has.  

 

Also, as others have nicely pointed out in this thread, the use of 'faith' as catalyst for class mechanics could be a fairly deep mine for fleshing out the Priest and allowing for a variety of builds based on the god one might choose to follow.

[Sensuki]

The PE Priest seems similar to a low-level D&D Priest to me, just with less melee capability.

 

A few classes in PE have a little bit of that inflexibility though. Fighters are not great at ranged in PE, whereas in D&D they were pretty good at ranged combat.

 

Fighters, Monks and Barbarians are pretty much all dedicated melee classes.

 

Chanters, Paladins, Rogues and Ciphers can do both (Rogues and Ciphers need to be close-ish range to be most effective).

 

Wizards, Clerics and Druids are dedicated ranged classes in PE, although the Druid has some limited melee capability with the Animal Form.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Sensuki

[Zwiebelchen]

YOU racist bastard! next you'd be asking why those dwarfs are short or why the elves have pointy ears

 

In terms of elves, nope. I'll just keep slamming their heads into trees and yell "why do you hug trees? why do you hug trees? why do you hug trees?"

 

I have no prejudice against dwarves, though. Unless they forget to bring beer. You ain't going nowhere without me having some beer, midget!

Edited May 21, 2014 by Zwiebelchen

[curryinahurry]

The PE Priest seems similar to a low-level D&D Priest to me, just with less melee capability.

 

A few classes in PE have a little bit of that inflexibility though. Fighters are not great at ranged in PE, whereas in D&D they were pretty good at ranged combat.

 

Fighters, Monks and Barbarians are pretty much all dedicated melee classes.

 

Chanters, Paladins, Rogues and Ciphers can do both (Rogues and Ciphers need to be close-ish range to be most effective).

 

Wizards, Clerics and Druids are dedicated ranged classes in PE, although the Druid has some limited melee capability with the Animal Form.

 

Also Rangers seem to be ranged-exclusive at the moment.  

 

Highlighting in your text something that is bothering me about the way the classes are being set up; not so much that some classes are flexible and some are not, but that some classes have an underlying constraint, mechanic, gimmick, what have you that drives the logic for their necessary inflexibility (ranger, monk) while others (cleric) have none.  If classes have no such underlying mechanics, then we should have some flexibility in how they are built.  I don't mind a priest being a support character, but if I can't make him/her useful at melee on occasion, there should be some type of reasoning, not just, "because priest."

[Sensuki]

Well Josh said he would look into melee options for Rangers, but Rangers have their Animal Companion which IS essentially a melee option.

 

You'll be able to melee as a Priest in PE just like in the IE games, but it'll be a bit more like the 2E games as Priests won't have the greatest Deflection score (or probably inherent HP progression).

 

That said something like Spiritual Hammer or Shillelagh would be cool.

[Kjaamor]

The PE Priest seems similar to a low-level D&D Priest to me, just with less melee capability.

 

A few classes in PE have a little bit of that inflexibility though. Fighters are not great at ranged in PE, whereas in D&D they were pretty good at ranged combat.

 

Fighters, Monks and Barbarians are pretty much all dedicated melee classes.

 

Chanters, Paladins, Rogues and Ciphers can do both (Rogues and Ciphers need to be close-ish range to be most effective).

 

Wizards, Clerics and Druids are dedicated ranged classes in PE, although the Druid has some limited melee capability with the Animal Form.

 

Such inflexibility is rather amusing, given how much Josh has harped on about why 3.5 was better than 2 for the flexibility of classes. Personally, I could care less because I rather like inflexibility in class design - if you're not going to be inflexible why bother with classes at all? I'm also a massive fan of 2nd edition because of "Priests use blunt weapons because", particularly in the first BG where decent blunt weapons are in a minority.

[Valorian]

There are 11 classes in PoE. 

I like that some classes are (much) better in melee combat than others. Same for ranged combat.

 

If a game has only 3 classes and differentiates them by not allowing class 1 to ever dual wield weapons or use ranged weapons and by forcing class 2 to forfeit shields and never use anything heavier than daggers... then we're talking about the realm of beyond ridiculous.

 

 

[Lephys]

You've gotta have some rigidity to counteract the flexibility, or you'll just end up with goo.

[rjshae]

It's no different than in D&D. Rangers in D&D also bumps to their ranged abilities. Did that prohibit Fighters from being archers? No.

[Lephys]

I think people forget that "better" is a relative term. Just like when that whole "heavy hitters" update came out, and everyone started going "OH NO! NO ONE ELSE WILL BE ABLE TO DO ANY DAMAGE!"

 

Or, you know, any other time anything was ever announced regarding anything at all unique to any given class.

[Tsuga C]

I think people forget that "better" is a relative term. Just like when that whole "heavy hitters" update came out, and everyone started going "OH NO! NO ONE ELSE WILL BE ABLE TO DO ANY DAMAGE!"

 

Or, you know, any other time anything was ever announced regarding anything at all unique to any given class.

 

Without bothering to go back and review that particular brew-ha-ha, I think the objection was equally "What the <bleep> happened to my traditional stealthly, thiefy rogue?"

Edited May 21, 2014 by Tsuga C

[ManifestedISO]

What a great name for a beer ... Brew-HaHa. And a Latin version, Brew-JaJa.

[Lephys]

*shrug*. Personally, I'm more inclined to evaluate the design at-hand, than arbitrarily associate negativity with the fact that it's different from a traditional design.

 

"Whoa... we were just dragging sleds through the dirt roads. WHO PUT THESE ROUND ROLLING THINGS ON THE BOTTOM OF MY WAGON?!"

[Ineth]

If I am not mistaken, the chanter is an Aumaua, who are semiaquatic humanoids and have shark-like teeth.

 

I find it interesting that the two Amauna portraits that have been published so far, show a very different number of teeth:

 

 

  

 

 

Humans, and most other real-life species, have very little variation in teeth numbers, don't they?

 

[Lephys]

^ I'm not sure, but I think different species of shark have varying amounts of teeth. So, maybe that's it? Or it could've just been a purely stylistic/aesthetic choice... the number of teeth in both portraits, that is. OR it could just be that one portrait was done, then the design of the Aumaua was subtly changed, then the second portrait was done (with more/fewer teeth).

 

Let's ask Mr. Owl! Don't bring candy, though... he'll steal it and eat it. >8(

[rjshae]

Maybe they keep growing, then are lost and replaced like shark's teeth?

[ShadySands]

sexual dimorphism?

[Forlorn Hope]

One is a coastal and the other is an island aumaua?

[Sensuki]

That was my guess as well, although not because of the teeth. The Coastal Aumaua portraits were all done a while ago.

Edited May 22, 2014 by Sensuki