Pillars of Eternity, Obsidian's new CRPG in the vein of Baldur's Gate

Raign_sl said:

(has anyone playing a DnD based system ever put a single point in Charisma besides paladins...).

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Yea, when I played a sorcerer

Derpa_sl said:

Yea, when I played a sorcerer

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Raign_sl said:

I agree on both points. I like that stats all seem to contribute more fluidly to the character over all vs. DnD, where you stacked your primary attribute and then threw points into dex/con for survivability, never looking at any other stat (has anyone playing a DnD based system ever put a single point in Charisma besides paladins...). Making int impact area of effect, might impact damage etc etc like PoE does makes for more challenging, and ultimately more meaningful decisions.

The armor thing though, yeah. They need to make the spread much larger for plate vs. leather as far as attack speed is concerned or have dex impact the DR of lighter armors. I tried a few builds where I enchanted some superb leather with might etc for a dps type build, but the attack speed increases were simply not enough to offset the loss of survivability given how many ranged and teleporting mobs that bypass the tanks are in this game. Likewise with a shield. Every character I had eventually ended up with one weapon-set being 1 hander+shield -- less of an issues since you have more than one weapon set and can swap in combat, but same principle.

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So much utility in D&D Ability score resulting in Ability mod they collapsed the system in Pillars to make it more simple, but there is certainly complexity lost. Better ? Maybe for some but not myself... but you lose things like swimming, jumping, search and spot, listen, survival being meaningful.. CHA for turning, also for Bards, Pal, src and dialogue ability.

Having played 5 levels of POTD on my barbarian I can safely say Carnage is only a semi-functional ability. Sometimes I have 15 mobs around me and numbers go everywhere. Sometimes I have the same positioning(often the exact same pull when I die previously and reload) and now carnage doesn't go off. Not a huge deal, but anyone looking to play a Barb should be aware. Also, you can 100% play POTD with 3 constitution glass cannon barbarian, it's not even a problem and I'm not using any reach weapons at all. He's my secondary tank and I use him to clog chokes against 20 mobs all the time.

I gotta say though, the way they went with POTD to increase difficulty is kind of an issue for me. It's not harder necessarily, it's just much more tedious because everything takes 9 years to die. 99.9% of the difficulty is choosing the proper place to fight. I feel like I'm pulling North ToV or some shit, my whole team is back around a corner in a doorway and I have one guy running ahead shooting isolated targets and dragging them back to my murderspot.

Derpa_sl said:

Yea, when I played a sorcerer

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Never sleeping, always casting, high five. I miss sorcs.

Raign_sl said:

I agree on both points. I like that stats all seem to contribute more fluidly to the character over all vs. DnD, where you stacked your primary attribute and then threw points into dex/con for survivability, never looking at any other stat (has anyone playing a DnD based system ever put a single point in Charisma besides paladins...). Making int impact area of effect, might impact damage etc etc like PoE does makes for more challenging, and ultimately more meaningful decisions.

The armor thing though, yeah. They need to make the spread much larger for plate vs. leather as far as attack speed is concerned or have dex impact the DR of lighter armors. I tried a few builds where I enchanted some superb leather with might etc for a dps type build, but the attack speed increases were simply not enough to offset the loss of survivability given how many ranged and teleporting mobs that bypass the tanks are in this game. Likewise with a shield. Every character I had eventually ended up with one weapon-set being 1 hander+shield -- less of an issues since you have more than one weapon set and can swap in combat, but same principle.

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I love bards. Also rolled up an Oracle/2 paladin in pathfinder that couldnt be touched.

shabushabu_sl said:

So much utility in D&D Ability score resulting in Ability mod they collapsed the system in Pillars to make it more simple, but there is certainly complexity lost. Better ? Maybe for some but not myself... but you lose things like swimming, jumping, search and spot, listen, survival being meaningful.. CHA for turning, also for Bards, Pal, src and dialogue ability.

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Point I was somewhat driving to though is that the utility you are listing rarely exist in video games so the additional merit of the ability score is wasted in them unless they are the primary attribute of your character. You would never, in a standard DnD ruleset video game, put a bunch of strength on your wizard or sorcerer -- you know you are never going to have to jump across a chasm or use the wizard to break down a door in a video game.

I am certainly not saying that Obsidians system is perfect, but I will say that if you are building an attribute based RPG in a video game, a custom system like what they used is better than standard pen and paper ruleset because of this limited situations individual characters will encounter stripping away the value of most 'bonuses' from attributes.

And for the record, there weren't any fancy-pansy sorcerers back in my day. We only had wizards, Raistlin represent!

Raign_sl said:

We only had wizards, Raistlin represent!

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Wasn't Raistlin that narcissistic neurotic bitch who had his brother carry him everywhere when the whole time he could have just finished everything himself? I remember when he cried when his brother got married because he was going to be alone. Loser...

Beat this game, skipped at least 20 quests or so which is not like me but was determined to beat it before I shelved it pending patches and more info on how to complete the triple crown. As it stands it isn't possible.

Raign_sl said:

Point I was somewhat driving to though is that the utility you are listing rarely exist in video games so the additional merit of the ability score is wasted in them unless they are the primary attribute of your character. You would never, in a standard DnD ruleset video game, put a bunch of strength on your wizard or sorcerer -- you know you are never going to have to jump across a chasm or use the wizard to break down a door in a video game.

I am certainly not saying that Obsidians system is perfect, but I will say that if you are building an attribute based RPG in a video game, a custom system like what they used is better than standard pen and paper ruleset because of this limited situations individual characters will encounter stripping away the value of most 'bonuses' from attributes.

And for the record, there weren't any fancy-pansy sorcerers back in my day. We only had wizards, Raistlin represent!

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But strength gives all that extra holding capacity, perfect for solo runs!

I'm also pretty sure charisma didn't influence how many spells sorcs could learn/cast in IE, so you could just keep it at baseline and max the crap out of dex/con. What did it influence. Turn undead? I just remember hating that druids couldn't go below 15, because that made it impossible to get decent str/con/dex with a fighter/druid (without *Keeper, that is). And that druid in the first BG who wasn't Jaheira was a total cunt (killing her was one of the highlights of the sequel), so she definitely didn't have 15 charisma.

And yeah, Raistlin was a whiny emo loser with borderline creepy attachment to his brother. Sorry, truth hurts.

Speaking of IE and stats, and I know they were going for the whole genuine D&D feel, but one thing I hated was that they tried to keep the "rolling dice" feel to stats. Let's not kid ourselves, everyone clicked that "reroll" button dozens of times until they got the maximum number of points necessary/possible, so all it did was force you to spend ages at the character creation screen till that perfect stat roll came along... and then you click past it because you're not paying attention and smash your keyboard and waste another 10 minutes till you get a 55 or whatever the max is for your class/race combo. Especially time wasting in IWD, when you had to do it 6 fucking times. Even in the EE they gave a counter of how many stat points you rolled in total, making it marginally easier to keep track of which roll was good, but they should have just given the max allowable stats under the rules by default, cause everyone just ended up with that anyway after wasting a ton of frustrating time. There's nothing they could have done to prevent that - if you couldn't reroll the stats over and over, people would make the character over and over and waste more time. I love BG to death, but that was some annoying shit that should not have existed.

Arcaus_sl said:

Wasn't Raistlin that narcissistic neurotic bitch who had his brother carry him everywhere when the whole time he could have just finished everything himself? I remember when he cried when his brother got married because he was going to be alone. Loser...

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That killed all the gods... by himself...

Raign_sl said:

That killed all the gods... by himself...

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In a series written by two fat old ladies about their D&D campaign, on literary parity with Eragon.

I mean I get that it's fantasy, but come on man, havesomestandards.

About to finally get around to starting this. Any recommendations for a good/fun starting class? Was thinking either monk, cipher, or chanter.

Phazael_sl said:

There are only a couple stats that matter, which is somewhat of a flaw in the game. Might is basically the god stat for anyone who is not a dedicated meat shield. Intelligence is right behind it if you are a caster. Resolve is important for classes with the auras, like paladins. Beyond that, you just dump points in what gives you the most deflection and min/maxed resists. You can basically walk around with an entire party with 3 in Con and barely notice a difference, if you are sporting good DR in the entire party. Plate wearing monks are a thing in this game.

As for the Ranger, the main use for him in higher levels/difficulties, is to red shirt the pet by sending it in to a room and having the entire room launch its alpha strike at it. Once they rape it, the monsters use their telepathic knowledge of where the party is to come trickling out and engage you where you have carefully set up your choke point for battling. Maybe now that summons are not bugged, you can do this with other classes. Seriously, whoever said that positioning is the entire difficulty of the game is absolutely spot on. If you cap out might on everyone in a custom group, wear all the plate that drops from buttfucking Roderic, and set up ambushes with suicide pet pulls, the game gets pretty trivialized even at hard. Except for Druids. Fuck those guys and their super nukes with five mile range.

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yeah, con and perception are definitely the dump stats here.

Fatigue is almost entirely trivialized by 3 points in athletics.
Overall health is kindof meaningless. only endurance matters. where, con does have "some" value. but not much.

I'd say con should effect incoming healing. So having con will increase the amount of endurance you get from various sources of incoming heals, as opposed to mights outgoing.
Perception is almost entirely a roleplay stat here.

What I found I hate in my TCS tries is the "casting time" of potions, their duration and the combat only bullshit. I loved the part in BG2 in more difficult setups like solo plays and so on that you could realy prepare for some encouters and had to too. Here its not even fucking possible. Thats stupid and the 5 minute casting time of a 10 second duration potion makes it a kinda obsolete mechanic.
In addition drinking can be interrupted and you simply don't know for like 2 seconds what the hell is happening right now and what your char is doing.

Azrayne_sl said:

In a series written by two fat old ladies about their D&D campaign, on literary parity with Eragon.

I mean I get that it's fantasy, but come on man, havesomestandards.

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Not to further derail, but Tracy Hickman was a guy. I am sure if I read them now, I would agree with the sentiment, but I was 11 when I read the first series and they seemed pretty epic to me in those formative nerd years!

Back on topic, what are peoples thoughts on the triple crown solo achievement. I have got to say, it seems pretty impossible. Maybe a ranged spec'd chanter for summons/charms? I can't see any other class being viable expect maybe cipher. There are some fights would take an hour of kiting and others that would just outright need to be skipped. Doubt I have it in me to try that crap...

its been done by a few. stealth rouges mostly, skipping most dangerous encounters.

Raign_sl said:

Back on topic, what are peoples thoughts on the triple crown solo achievement.

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Tried that with a barbarian. One stands alone is pretty awesome combined with Carnage. Works like charm. Hitting level 5 before you reach Maerwald is doable with that char, but it got alot harder now that they changed the price on the first blacksmith summoning horn from 600 to 6000.
Currently close to level 9 and nearly done with act2. Act3 is not a problem I think. Only parts I can see being a pain in the ass is straight to the endboss and of course then thaos himself.
So far I don't really see a way to beat him with this char simply judging from my group playthrough.

Derpa_sl said:

Yea, when I played a sorcerer

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Raign_sl said:

Point I was somewhat driving to though is that the utility you are listing rarely exist in video games so the additional merit of the ability score is wasted in them unless they are the primary attribute of your character. You would never, in a standard DnD ruleset video game, put a bunch of strength on your wizard or sorcerer -- you know you are never going to have to jump across a chasm or use the wizard to break down a door in a video game.

I am certainly not saying that Obsidians system is perfect, but I will say that if you are building an attribute based RPG in a video game, a custom system like what they used is better than standard pen and paper ruleset because of this limited situations individual characters will encounter stripping away the value of most 'bonuses' from attributes.

And for the record, there weren't any fancy-pansy sorcerers back in my day. We only had wizards, Raistlin represent!

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Not sure i agree. I ran a CC wizzy that used weapons when shit was CC-ed so he had strength. My Arcane Trickster had STR and was a melee backstabber, trapper, CC wizard. My Trapper wizzy had to have dex for traps and used a bow. ( these are all toons on DDO and/or Nwn2 ). Also, the simpler stat thing kinda falls over when you think about multi-classing. Of course this game does not have that but that is where D&D 3.5 gets fun... for me anyway.