IE Veteran's feedback

[broknight]

I dont really buy the argument that prebuffs make a game less challenging or tactical. That's like saying you shouldnt be able to use psycho or jet before attacking a raider camp or using buffout to beat the super  mutant in an arm-wrestling match in Fallout. If you want to play the game in a difficult, brutal as Satan's wheel house fashion by all means give yourself the handicaps but why limit the ways to play a game?

[Monte Carlo]

The problem with Bg2's pre-buffs was they became formulaic and mandatory. I can see why the PoE team wanted to change that, I just think some babies got thrown out with the bathwater.

[PrimeJunta]

To be fair, I'm not using rote pre-buffs in BG2 anywhere near as much now that I learned to play it properly. Circle of Protection from Evil maybe, but that's about it. Evertyhing else I use situationally.

 

The problem with AD&D prebuffs is not that they're mandatory, but that they can be used in a rote and boring way, and their benefits are so obvious that many if not most players end up using them that way. 

 

In my opinion all that's needed to fix that is to nerf the durations, which P:E already did. There's no point blowing a half-dozen spell slots on buffs for a single fight, unless the fight is a really climactic and hard one, in which case it becomes cool.

[syarulax]

I'm completely disagree with you, if you really want a game that clone the old IE combat mechanic you shouldn't backed this project, just stick playing the old IE games without looking forward to PoE and try to draw line between them. There are lots of stuff going on with IE especially the BG1+2 combat mechanic which is broken and most of it is pretty much being rebuild into a better, fairer mechanic that PoE has. The vanilla version of BG's  games is the worst mechanic with prebuffing, you can actually beat any encounter with "prebuffing". I don't know are you looking towards cheesy combat with prebuffing or actually you just want to laugh at your AI enemy by blowing them to pieces without much effort?

 

Some known method is to summon skeleton warrior with project image and send them to kill every Illithids in the Underdark part of BG's 2, Play thief/ mage cast mislead and cast invisibility on Mislead clone or send the clone far away from encounter and backstab every single enemy to pieces. Once you get HLA, Jaheira with belm + transform to Earth Elemental with Improve haste can clear every lair in ToB expansion single handed, that's not counting the ultimate killing machine of kensai/mage yet. Some mod like Swordcoast Stratagem did address this cheesy prebuffing by giving the AI enemy precast ability, but that's another thing.

 

What PoE does it to give player to think strategically with encounter, with limited resting camp, it pretty much put Mage and Priest into reserve state unless the encounter is not favoring your side than only start casting spells, other wise just keep them until very much needed, but if you are those kind that like spamming spell, you going to run back and fort from dungeon and tavern all day long, which is super bad, that's the old IE way of playing where pick every pieces on the floor go sell it than comeback pick some more,  . Meh, are playing WoW here running around like doing some errant quest?

 

I can say that Grieving Mother and Kana Rua both are best companions to bring along if you thinking to reserve Durance and Aloth spells in each encounter, The idea behind chiper is that you cast spell as long you have decent focus, which easy to generate them using blunderbuss since each hit is actually +6 hit, and Kana Rua have a chant that can speed up your firearm reload time and he does have summons spell and some really good AOE invocation to use as well. With them you have decent spell ability that you can spam in each encounter without worrying to rest. PoE force you to rethink by not playing cheesy or in short word 'cheating' especially in combat, manage your spell wisely, use trap or lure to choke corridor and door entrance to block melee engagement, position your priest/druid on center to best utilize endurance regeneration spell and read your bestiary and check out what type of armor/weapon/spell best utilize in fort coming encounter, keep at least each type of armor that best use against different type of enemy so that you might offset your speed with better DR, even against kith it best to scout see what type weapon/armor they are wearing so that you might adjust you weapon and spells you going to utilize before battle encounter. that's what I love about PoE it does justice to CRPG mechanic since 2nd Ed DnD rules. If you hate the combat maybe you aught to play this game like the old IE games to much.

[Vadász]

I'm an IE veteran too and while i agree that the combat system ain't great, IE was worse in many ways. I'm not defending the way they implemented the combat mechanics but the ideas behind were good and I'm gonna explain why:

 

Engagement: Has been used in tactical, strategy and even RPGs for a while now, and it's a wonderful mechanic, some classes can evade or shrug the free attacks and classes that are not meant to be trained in melee are penalized for disengaging from a dangerous foe, instead of being able to kill entire groups of melee monsters just by kitting the way we used to do in IE games.

 

No Prebuffing: It ends up being the same, as a designer you either consider players will prebuff and adjust the toughness of the enemies or you do what Obsidian did and remove a time consuming pointless and repetitive activity. Also, there are still ways to cheat the system and prebuff if you want to.

 

Limited resources: I don't think i ever used the 4 campfires in my normal run and even in hard i only used them up later in the game because i didn't do a lot of sidequests and was underleveled/underequipied in the last few dungeons. You just need scout so you know what are you gonna use, when you are gonna use it, and how to position your party (Which is essential wen facing incorporeals for example). Tthen again if you just want to steamroll every encounter without taking a sweat you can always turn god mode on which is kinda the same as burning your whole spell list in a single encounter and resting afterward like in IE games.

[broknight]

I'm completely disagree with you, if you really want a game that clone the old IE combat mechanic you shouldn't backed this project, just stick playing the old IE games without looking forward to PoE and try to draw line between them. There are lots of stuff going on with IE especially the BG1+2 combat mechanic which is broken and most of it is pretty much being rebuild into a better, fairer mechanic that PoE has. The vanilla version of BG's  games is the worst mechanic with prebuffing, you can actually beat any encounter with "prebuffing". I don't know are you looking towards cheesy combat with prebuffing or actually you just want to laugh at your AI enemy by blowing them to pieces without much effort?

 

Some known method is to summon skeleton warrior with project image and send them to kill every Illithids in the Underdark part of BG's 2, Play thief/ mage cast mislead and cast invisibility on Mislead clone or send the clone far away from encounter and backstab every single enemy to pieces. Once you get HLA, Jaheira with belm + transform to Earth Elemental with Improve haste can clear every lair in ToB expansion single handed, that's not counting the ultimate killing machine of kensai/mage yet. Some mod like Swordcoast Stratagem did address this cheesy prebuffing by giving the AI enemy precast ability, but that's another thing.

 

What PoE does it to give player to think strategically with encounter, with limited resting camp, it pretty much put Mage and Priest into reserve state unless the encounter is not favoring your side than only start casting spells, other wise just keep them until very much needed, but if you are those kind that like spamming spell, you going to run back and fort from dungeon and tavern all day long, which is super bad, that's the old IE way of playing where pick every pieces on the floor go sell it than comeback pick some more,  . Meh, are playing WoW here running around like doing some errant quest?

 

I can say that Grieving Mother and Kana Rua both are best companions to bring along if you thinking to reserve Durance and Aloth spells in each encounter, The idea behind chiper is that you cast spell as long you have decent focus, which easy to generate them using blunderbuss since each hit is actually +6 hit, and Kana Rua have a chant that can speed up your firearm reload time and he does have summons spell and some really good AOE invocation to use as well. With them you have decent spell ability that you can spam in each encounter without worrying to rest. PoE force you to rethink by not playing cheesy or in short word 'cheating' especially in combat, manage your spell wisely, use trap or lure to choke corridor and door entrance to block melee engagement, position your priest/druid on center to best utilize endurance regeneration spell and read your bestiary and check out what type of armor/weapon/spell best utilize in fort coming encounter, keep at least each type of armor that best use against different type of enemy so that you might offset your speed with better DR, even against kith it best to scout see what type weapon/armor they are wearing so that you might adjust you weapon and spells you going to utilize before battle encounter. that's what I love about PoE it does justice to CRPG mechanic since 2nd Ed DnD rules. If you hate the combat maybe you aught to play this game like the old IE games to much.

Again with this strategic playing nonsense. It seems like you have a pair of blinders on.   I havent deviated from the block, buff and focus fire strat in my 15+hrs of game time so far. Every fight is pretty much the same. The creature types arent anything really special. You dont need turning from a priest in this game to fight undead for example. You're still buffing urself or neging an opponents buff/DR. Your just doing it after initiating the fight.  Sounds like you're too caught up in all the magnificent bean counting occuring behind the scenes. How is this game fairer or not broken? I use the same tactic that the enemy does like bum rushing mages/casters. 

[broknight]

I'm an IE veteran too and while i agree that the combat system ain't great, IE was worse in many ways. I'm not defending the way they implemented the combat mechanics but the ideas behind were good and I'm gonna explain why:

 

Engagement: Has been used in tactical, strategy and even RPGs for a while now, and it's a wonderful mechanic, some classes can evade or shrug the free attacks and classes that are not meant to be trained in melee are penalized for disengaging from a dangerous foe, instead of being able to kill entire groups of melee monsters just by kitting the way we used to do in IE games.

 

No Prebuffing: It ends up being the same, as a designer you either consider players will prebuff and adjust the toughness of the enemies or you do what Obsidian did and remove a time consuming pointless and repetitive activity. Also, there are still ways to cheat the system and prebuff if you want to.

 

Limited resources: I don't think i ever used the 4 campfires in my normal run and even in hard i only used them up later in the game because i didn't do a lot of sidequests and was underleveled/underequipied in the last few dungeons. You just need scout so you know what are you gonna use, when you are gonna use it, and how to position your party (Which is essential wen facing incorporeals for example). Tthen again if you just want to steamroll every encounter without taking a sweat you can always turn god mode on which is kinda the same as burning your whole spell list in a single encounter and resting afterward like in IE games.

Engagement - sounds good on paper but implementation sucks and doesnt work consistently, these were called attacks of opportunity in D&D. The monsters here dont do special stuff like swallow you like those giant frogs in TOEE if you try running past them. You cant still run past and take the hit with enough DR and buff.

 

pre-buffing isnt cheating. You know what you're going up against and prepare accordingly instead this turns every encounter into a shootout at the ok corral or shield up like in Star Trek before firing photon torpedoes. It just more needless busy work or pretending you're going into a situation blind.

 

limited resources- you better do a fact check on that. the inn prices are so low and camping supplies are abundant in the field that this perception of limited resource is artificial. There are also areas you can rest for unlimited times   Also I havent been ambushed during camping ever, unlike in IE games where some monsters could attack you during a camping attempt. You can camp unmolested in this game. If they wanted to make camping risky than why not have monster ambushes with some party members still sleeping and only 1/2 awake.

[complexmath]

Later on, combat was still very tactical, with prebuffing + summoning monsters and then engagement. It is to this date, some of the most fun fights I've had. Combat involved moving characters around alot, tanking, moving mages out, letting your rogue stand behind and get some backstabs etc. All this while the enemy did lots of nasty stuff. What I remember the most is that certain enemies could only be killed with certain spells and you needed solid strategies for alot of the encounters. Knowledge was power.

 

I think in a lot of cases, knowledge turned out to be too much power.  Encounters could go from impossible to trivial with the right spells (the Demi Lich, for example).  So tactics mostly amounted to figuring out how to shut down the enemy mages and letting your fighters beat the crap out of everything.  A lot of the rest was about exploiting AI weaknesses.  For example, efficiently combating Timestop was a matter of summoning a level 1 monster to be the closest ally to the enemy caster at the start of battle.

 

I jumped into PoE directly from a playthrough of BG2:EE (I'm 3/4 of the way through the ToB expansion), and so far I really like the direction Obsidian has taken this game.  Combat tactics are more dynamic, and I feel like I have more options in terms of what constitutes a winning strategy.  The game may not be as hard overall on Normal difficulty, but I also don't feel like there's such a sharp swing between a winning strategy and everything else.

 

Also, I absolutely love than experience is quest-oriented rather than combat-oriented, because it makes me feel more inclined to find ways around encounters rather than razing a dungeon for the XP.  From a tactics perspective, that provides even more options that I wouldn't have considered before.  For example, in the beginning of PoE there's a cave with a bear and a corpse.  I walked in, solo, and cast a confusion spell on the bear, which gave me enough time to investigate the corpse and escape.  Never would have done that in a BG game.

[Monte Carlo]

I'm still at the beginning of my PoE journey compared to many. What will make me reevaluate some of my views will be the viability of non-spellcaster parties in PoE versus BG2. A very, very valid criticism of BG2 is without high-level spellcasters you are toast in the late game (and, TBH, the mid-late game). Will PoE let you break that mold? Can six melee characters viably complete the game? Or are spellcasters mandatory in your party?

Edited March 31, 2015 by Monte Carlo

[Eurhetemec]

 

Later on, combat was still very tactical, with prebuffing + summoning monsters and then engagement. It is to this date, some of the most fun fights I've had. Combat involved moving characters around alot, tanking, moving mages out, letting your rogue stand behind and get some backstabs etc. All this while the enemy did lots of nasty stuff. What I remember the most is that certain enemies could only be killed with certain spells and you needed solid strategies for alot of the encounters. Knowledge was power.

 

I think in a lot of cases, knowledge turned out to be too much power.  Encounters could go from impossible to trivial with the right spells (the Demi Lich, for example).  So tactics mostly amounted to figuring out how to shut down the enemy mages and letting your fighters beat the crap out of everything.  A lot of the rest was about exploiting AI weaknesses.  For example, efficiently combating Timestop was a matter of summoning a level 1 monster to be the closest ally to the enemy caster at the start of battle.

 

Indeed, this is the great failing of higher-level 2E and 3E D&D - battles can be determined entirely by pre-buffing and spell preparation, and the higher level you get, the more they are (and the more irrelevant non-casters are, especially in 3E).

 

It's not a good model for a CRPG, frankly, especially in this day and age when most of Pillars' players will not be D&D veterans. So what Obsidian did was very smart, frankly.

[Narvallus]

I agree and I don't at the same time. 

 

Something in me really likes the combat in PoE, but I really hate the fact that you can't pre buff and pre-consume potions. Its unrealistic and just plain stupid. I see no reason why they would do that. I just don't use potions at all now. 

[Corivar]

I dont really buy the argument that prebuffs make a game less challenging or tactical. That's like saying you shouldnt be able to use psycho or jet before attacking a raider camp or using buffout to beat the super  mutant in an arm-wrestling match in Fallout. If you want to play the game in a difficult, brutal as Satan's wheel house fashion by all means give yourself the handicaps but why limit the ways to play a game?

 

I've never understood this either. I've seen it brought up time and again about resting, spamming spells, quick saves and reloading, etc. If a person feels it ruins the gameplay, or trivializes something, why not simply make a decision to not do it. Why limit or ask for such limitation on the way others play.

[kozzy]

As a vet of IE games, I love this game, the art design, writing and combat is fantastic.

[PotatoOverdose]

 

Later on, combat was still very tactical, with prebuffing + summoning monsters and then engagement. It is to this date, some of the most fun fights I've had. Combat involved moving characters around alot, tanking, moving mages out, letting your rogue stand behind and get some backstabs etc. All this while the enemy did lots of nasty stuff. What I remember the most is that certain enemies could only be killed with certain spells and you needed solid strategies for alot of the encounters. Knowledge was power.

 

I ask you Obsidian; Why did you change every aspect of combat that I liked about the old IE D&D games? 

Instead of trying to make a similar system, you have made Pillars of Restraints. Camp supply restrain... I don't even understand what the supply limit is for. Should I keep myself in check and not go and restock?

Late game combat in I.E. was anything but tactical. Mirror Image + summon 10 planetars off of your mirror images = win every fight. Or maybe time stop + improved alacrity + anything.

 

Supply restraints are in game to prevent rest spam - winning by narcolepsy was the name of the game in IE games. Don't get me wrong, I love BG 1/2, but the mechanics had many, many flaws.

[Eurhetemec]

I don't even like 2E AD&D, upon which the IE games are based. I like them despite the ruleset.

 

So the idea that PoE isn't BG2 - WAAAHHH! is a fallacy.

 

The design team made a conscious decision to make a radically different crpg ruleset. For me, it was a self-indulgent hobby horse. There were a gazillion ways they could have delivered something different but fresh, for me it isn't. Deal with it, I'm genuinely not alone.

 

You never know, I might grow to love this game *despite* the ruleset.

 

Am looking forward to a Pathfinder CRPG. Would even be happy to see Sawyer on it, as I think he's good at working with existing rulesets. He did a great job on IWD2 with the 3E McGuyvering. I'm just not enjoying his homebrew system. It's like HAL is the dungeon-master (you need to do it this way, Daaaave).

 

 

There are three things I'd like you to explain here:

 

1) You didn't like 2E, but you don't like this. That begs the question, what do you like? Also note that most of the complaints in this thread are "It isn't like BG, rules-wise", which is to say "It isn't like very late 2E AD&D". That is literally the case.

 

2) Why, exactly, are you calling this system a "homebrew"? This is a system developed, tested, modified and much-changed by professional game designers with CRPG and P&P RPG experience, and is not based on their home systems (AFAIK). Thus I can see no basis for calling a "homebrew". So why are you? Do you just not understand what it means, and mistakenly think it means any novel system? It doesn't - it strictly applies to hacked-together systems made by non-professionals. I mean, if this system is a "homebrew", then John Williams is an "amateur composer".

 

3) How was HAL not the DM in BG1/2? They were also "You need to do it this way, Dave", and the BG2 expansion was even more like that.

 

As for arrogance, well, perhaps But there's plenty to go around if you're comparing Obsidian to some random teenage DM, and the other guy was claiming they were unaware of a discussion that's been big throughout P&P and CRPGs.

 

 

The problem with Bg2's pre-buffs was they became formulaic and mandatory. I can see why the PoE team wanted to change that, I just think some babies got thrown out with the bathwater.

 

 

Honest question, because I'm struggling here - can you think of an RPG that handles prebuffing well? CRPG or P&P?

Because I am wracking my brain and I can't, really. Pathfinder, for example, is even worse than 3E, which was worse than 2E. I mean, 3.5E cut down the durations of buffs, and PF changed some of them up a bit, but in practice it just mean "Buff, Nuke, Rest" was even more effective.

[View619]

I'm still at the beginning of my PoE journey compared to many. What will make me reevaluate some of my views will be the viability of non-spellcaster parties in PoE versus BG2. A very, very valid criticism of BG2 is without high-level spellcasters you are toast in the late game (and, TBH, the mid-late game). Will PoE let you break that mold? Can six melee characters viably complete the game? Or are spellcasters mandatory in your party?

 

As long as you have a Barbarian for handling multiple enemies and maybe a priest, I don't see why a melee-focused party wouldn't be viable.

[Monte Carlo]

@ Eurhetemec

Dude I know what a homebrew is and I'm sorry if I don't automatically genuflect to professionals.

[dirigible]

Unless you're gonna call ALL systems homebrews, it makes no sense to call PoE a homebrew.

 

There still is, to some degree, an element of "prebuffing" (that is, preparing your team before a fight). You can chug potions, eat food, modify your spellbooks, and shuffle equipment. Going up against a horde of mean looking trolls? Consider dumping your fast weapons and fort-targeting spells. Going up a gaggle of spooky specters? Might want to put some heavy armor on your squishies, since specters ignore engagement. About to tackle some firebreathing drakes? Consider chugging some potions of Bulwark Against the Elements.

 

In a raw mechanical sense these are still forms of "prebuffing".

Edited March 31, 2015 by dirigible

[Xavori]

The problem with Bg2's pre-buffs was they became formulaic and mandatory. I can see why the PoE team wanted to change that, I just think some babies got thrown out with the bathwater.

 

They were prolly Hollowborn.

[kalel78]

i can understand the argument that spellcasters are basically an auto-attack npc for most fights.  yes they have a couple of per-encounter abilities.. especially as a watcher.. but still.. most of the spells they have access to cant be used in most encounters.. that is unless you want to waste all of your camping supplies early dungeon.

 

the above being said.. thats part of life as a spellcaster in a pen and paper system.  and im actually ok with them bringing that to POE.  back in the day, that IS what baldurs gate and those kind of games were really trying to do.. and IMO, the experience in this game feels  very close to a pen and paper experience instead of a hack and slash video game. 

 

also, there is nothing stopping you from limiting the lore skill to your spellcasters and using scrolls.  now you have spells coming out of your ears that you can use in combat.  also, there are magic items in the game that give you spells that you can use per encounter.  again, there is nothing stopping you from limiting those kind of items to your spellcasters.  now you have even more spells.

 

yes, it sucks you cant have the most optimal buffs every fight, but there are workarounds even here. craft potions and put a few points in survival.  and with the stronghold bringing in income which i hear is no joke, especially late game.. now your characters have buffs... if not every fight.. most of them.

 

so in the end, is it really THAT BAD?  i would argue no.

 

just my 2 cents

[Vadász]

Engagement - sounds good on paper but implementation sucks and doesnt work consistently, these were called attacks of opportunity in D&D. The monsters here dont do special stuff like swallow you like those giant frogs in TOEE if you try running past them. You cant still run past and take the hit with enough DR and buff.

 

pre-buffing isnt cheating. You know what you're going up against and prepare accordingly instead this turns every encounter into a shootout at the ok corral or shield up like in Star Trek before firing photon torpedoes. It just more needless busy work or pretending you're going into a situation blind.

 

limited resources- you better do a fact check on that. the inn prices are so low and camping supplies are abundant in the field that this perception of limited resource is artificial. There are also areas you can rest for unlimited times   Also I havent been ambushed during camping ever, unlike in IE games where some monsters could attack you during a camping attempt. You can camp unmolested in this game. If they wanted to make camping risky than why not have monster ambushes with some party members still sleeping and only 1/2 awake.

 

 

Did you read my post? Because I'm not sure those things you wrote are actually addressing my points.

[Gromnir]

@ Eurhetemec

Dude I know what a homebrew is and I'm sorry if I don't automatically genuflect to professionals.

 

on this we agree.  

 

also, mc is, if nothing else, consistent.  sure, we disagree with mc, but we got some mewling bedwetters in this thread, folks who during the beta had all kinda complaints that the poe classes didn't play enough like the bg and/or bg2 classes, and yet they is criticizing mc for his similar desire to give us more old-timey crpg imbalance and endless fighting... in tunnels. is disappointing.  nevertheless, that is what we get reduced to when the only arguments being posited is feel.  

 

we prefer poe combat to bg, and we got considerable hope that future poe games (if they is ever developed) will improve poe even further. that being said, our one genuine fear is that the developers actual do listen to the fans.  is a particular problem as poe is a kickstarter and rather than building the best game possible, obsidian attempts to mollify segments o' the community.  is few features or concerns that have universal consensus from the fanbase.  build a game on consensus results in a game that is perhaps palatable to everybody, but nobody will genuine love.  we would rather have some segment o' the fanbase feel disenfranchised than have the developers retreat from their ideals.  

 

transparency is good.  actual fan control is bad.  we don't want mc or Gromnir  generating some kinda groundswell o' fan support that manages to alter basic design philosophies.  change mind o' developers 'cause o' rational and reasonable arguments?  sure. change developer group-mind 'cause some large enough percentage o' fans wants changes that developers thinks is bad?  am understanding why, particularly with backer funding, the developers would feel compelled to make such changes, but we mourn submission to the mob.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited March 31, 2015 by Gromnir

[Jasta11]

I disagree.

 

Engagement could maybe have been made less punishing, but no kiting is good design. It also allows the player to use tanks without relying on some sort of obtuse aggro mechanic.

 

Camping supplies is a good idea. It forces you to think forward and not just hurl all your spells and use all your quick items (some of which are quite powerful) in every fight. Having only 2 on Hard is a bit overkill, but the base design is good. I haven't encountered a dungeon yet I couldn't finish with my 2 rests, apart from Endless Paths of course. I disliked how BG2 could be trivialized by just hitting rest whenever you could. Sure, you could discipline yourself but the button is still there.

 

Pre-buffing... meh, never cared for it honestly. It ties in to the above, you won't go into every fight at your absolute best and that's OK. Ressource management and all that.  

[Hety]

Concerning prebuffing - i hope someone will just make all wizard defense spells modals, that will decrease his speed (like -5 or -10 or -15 % for each). Or will drain his might (like -1 might for each). Or we should be able to sacrifice 2 casts of 1st level spells to get permanent shield, for example. Anything will do.

 

For all other classes prebuffing is not so important - you cast spells according to monster types with priest anyway and it doesnt take much time. 

 

Engagement - you can disable it altogether by using IE Mod.

 

Overall my biggest concerns are:

1. Effects. I cant see anything on the battlefield during big encounters. Have to pause all the time. Effects should be toned down.

2. Buff icons should have red and green borders - for debuffs and buffs. I cant memorize all the TINY icons.

3. Friendly fire should be enabled for PotD and Expert mods only. 

 

The biggest difference between PoE and IE games is that PoE is a game of debuffs, while IE games are game of buffs and dmg  mostly. On PotD you cant hit anything w/o debuffing it first. 122 def ghosts? Cmon, not even funny. 

[Jasta11]

I'm still at the beginning of my PoE journey compared to many. What will make me reevaluate some of my views will be the viability of non-spellcaster parties in PoE versus BG2. A very, very valid criticism of BG2 is without high-level spellcasters you are toast in the late game (and, TBH, the mid-late game). Will PoE let you break that mold? Can six melee characters viably complete the game? Or are spellcasters mandatory in your party?

 

Six melee characters will have troubles with bottlenecks and narrow corridors, and some enemies (such as Ogres) are pretty punishing to fight without spells, but since magical protection is far less powerful in PoE and you don't absolutely need someone to dispel them in order to win, I would bet that you indeed can complete most quests as well as the main story with a melee-only party. If it counts you can also give someone in the party high Lore and use scrolls if required.

 

Which was one of my biggest gripes with BG2. Fights with mages were mostly a case of figuring out what protection to pierce, then right-clicking on them with your fighters. because of Engagement, I usually have to CC them in PoE first.