Character choice

[Dropman]

Hi guys,

 

I just bought PoE and I'm thinking about how to build my new hero. I'm not newbie in RPG games (I played Planetscape Torment, BG2, Icewind Dale2 and many more) but still I'm little afraid of character choice. So many mistakes can be done here...

 

So my questions: How important is speaking skill in PoE? I still remember how important was having high Int and Wids in  Planetscape, playing it with fighter was like playing completely different game...

 

How important is having healer in party? I remember priest being the most important character in Icewind dale, party without him was much weaker. The fights were often won just because priest was able to keep the party alive long enough.

 

At the moment I'm torn between priest, druid and mage. I always wanted to try druid - I never did it, because druid was usually imho average caster, average healer and average fighter. It was usually better to choose dedicated specialist than jack of all trades...is it same here?

 

I would appreciate any hepl with this. I'm person who is able to spend hours just by creating the party and every information can be important:)

 

P.S: English is not my native language, sorry for not perfect grammar.

[Cantousent]

I would say that having a priest, and a priest of one of two specific gods, is going to open things more for you. I still prefer a wizard and I think a lot of folks would suggest that a druid is the best idea from a powergamer perspective. However, the thing I would suggest most of all is to play the character and class you like the most. That's the best idea from any perspective.

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

 

Well, they can all be made to do similar things, so their differences will mainly be their spells.

 

Priest - Lots of heals, buffs, debuffs, very few direct damage things (but has some and they're good), slow to cast everything.

 

Druid - Some heals, some buffs/debuffs, more direct damage spells.

 

Wizard - No heals, tons of direct damage, a lot of condition buff/debuff spells.

 

So it depends on what you want.

 

Personally I just played through with an all martial team (no wizards) and just a single priest. The priest's heals and buffs are excellent at getting over the hump.

 

Very best,

[AndreaColombo]

Druids in PoE are a lot more powerful than druids in AD&D, imho. I never wanted to play a druid in the latter, but I certainly enjoy having one around in PoE. They have a lot of very good AoE spells.

 

Wizards are also pretty good, though more single-target oriented (they also have AoE spells, though.)

 

Priests are almost purely a support class. Very handy to have around (some of their higher-level buffs are crazy good) but not particularly good at anything else.

Edited July 24, 2015 by AndreaColombo

[Nakia]

I am currently playing a Priest of Berath and she is my support melee combatant so I think a priest can be pretty powerful at least the main character one who gets some additional talents as the Watcher.  The way PoE is devised I think all the classes can be built to be pretty powerful.  So as antousent said just choose your favorite class or try one of the new ones.

[jsaving]

You can complete Pillars and experience nearly all of its content no matter how you design your character.  You do not need to worry about missing huge chunks of the game because your wisdom was too low (like Planescape).  Nor do you need to worry about poor choices seriously gimping your combat prowess (as could happen in Baldur's Gate). 

 

The first thing to realize is just how similar this game is to 4th edition D&D.  If you understand 4e, then you won't have a tough time jumping into Pillars. 

 

The second thing to realize is that Pillars can be completed with any party composition.  This isn't BG2 where you're crippled unless you have a thief and a negative-plane-protection caster, for example.  You can be successful with an all martial team, or an all caster team, or anything in between.

 

That said, the game's classes do play differently from each other and you will likely find yourself gravitating toward some of them (and away from others) over time.  One party-building strategy that would let you experience much of this variety would be to start with a "sticky" tank whose main purpose is to dish out small amounts of damage while physically blocking (through the game's engagement mechanic and by taking advantage of map chokepoints) as many enemies as possible from rushing your casters.  You'd then add an off-tank or rogue to actually take down those enemies, a wizard for crowd control, a cipher for stun-locking individual foes, a druid for regeneration and elemental damage, and a priest for healing/raising/symbols.  Until the expansion's companions are introduced, you'd probably be best off creating a rogue or barbarian as your main if you went this route. 

 

Or you can try something completely different and beat the game with six rogues (great synergies), six wizards (ditto), or anything else that sounds good to you.  Just be aware that there is only one joinable NPC per class so if you're the kind of player who enjoys intra-party banter, a more diverse party might be the better option for your first run-through.

 

Good luck!

[Nobear]

New players of this game (myself included when I started) often get caught up on the choice of their main character's class. That actually makes very little difference in PoE if you plan to play with a full party of six. The only notable exceptions are priest and paladin, who each have an ability whose power scales in proportion to how your dialogue choices align with your chosen diety/order, and this mechanic only applies if it's your main character. A paladin, for instance, can get up to +6/12/12/12 to their defenses if it's your main, as opposed to a companion or hired adventurer paladin. In addition, the companion paladin's order lacks unique talents. Each of the orders you can choose during character creation grants access to two unique talents.

 

A popular choice for a main character, for an optimal party, is either a Darkozzi or Shieldbearer paladin tank. I'll have to say, now having a max-level party on PoTD (the hardest difficulty), that Shieldbearer has been somewhat underwhelming and I'd probably choose Darkozzi if I were going to start over. They get access to a talent that allows you to grant a party member +10 Accuracy twice per encounter, and it can stack if applied to the same character. That's pretty significant for a CC or DPS ally, the way this game's mechanics work.

 

There is a companion you meet on your adventures for each of the caster classes, including priest, wizard, and druid. Some people feel a strong personal attachment to their main and this factors into their decision, but if you are asking what's optimal, you can certainly have all the caster classes you want whether your main is a caster or not.

[Tequilaman]

speaky skills are mostly centered around resolve and perception which would make for a more tanky character since they are both tanky +deflection attributes....a paladin or priest seem to be the classes with more dialogue options..l

[AndreaColombo]

In the upcoming patch, PER is likely to become a DPS (+Accuracy) stat.

[Nobear]

speaky skills are mostly centered around resolve and perception which would make for a more tanky character since they are both tanky +deflection attributes....a paladin or priest seem to be the classes with more dialogue options..l

 

If you want to build a main that's optimal for both combat and dialogue, yes. A caster main could get pretty high Resolve if they max Str Dex and Int and dump Per and Con, but the lack of Per would make him significantly less, well, perceptive, in dialogue. Int I'd say would come next in dialogue importance after Res and Per. That's another thing speaking in favor of a paladin tank main since they can get high scores to Res, Per and Int (and benefit greatly from these both in and out of combat), and they don't have to dump Str or Con to do it, just dump Dex.

 

That's not to say the physical stats are never checked in dialogue, they just tend not to be necessary to get optimal results through dialogue. There are, by comparison, cases where you can get a better quest reward, for example, by passing a high check on a mental stat. The significant physical checks in the game seem not to be in dialogue, but in scripted events where you can select the party member you'd rather have perform the action.

 

Stepping back, though, no such differences in dialogue have such a drastic effect on this game as to make it seem like a completely different game, as was the OP's experience with Planetscape. You wouldn't be totally crippled by making your main low on the mental stats, you'd just occasionally have to deal with something "the hard way" or not get quite as good an outcome for a quest.