PoE What class for your main character in PoE?

Pillars of Eternity
That's actually something which I hated in the D&D system. Well, the D&D system I know from NWN2 - i am not familiar with different editions. I felt extremely locked away as in NWN2 it was "best" to plan out your complete character right from the beginning. Otherwise a "choice" you made on level 3 might lead to the situation you cannot chose a special path several levels ahead. This was due to multiclassing and the hero classes or whatever they are called.

Regarding spells: I have no idea how many D&D spells there are. But if you want to have an overlook about almost all spells in the game you can search on youtube for:
"rpg shack high level". This guy took each class in the backer beta and leveled it through. And there you can also see all the choices.

For some classes they are very limited though. The rogue for example has 14 abilities (you can chose 6+1) and maybe 5 class specific talents + maybe 30 or so to which every class has access to (you can chose 6 total).
The Barbarian looks very similar.

The caster classes seem to have a much bigger diversity though. But as I am not so familiar with D&D I can't say for sure. I normally only look very deeply into the classes I like to play as main.
 
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You will still have that. As dialogues are only done by the main character as mentioned by azarhal. On these scripted story checks however you can also select one of your companions most of the time from what I have seen.
That's very nice to hear, as it wasn't very clear (hah, that rhymes).

Yeah, as mentioned before. I don't see a single scenario where "locked down" paths would have a positive effect. The system how it is just offers more diversity without having a negative aspect if you are "realistic".
"Locked down", as you put it, would probably be too extreme, I agree.

Well, looking at it from a different angle, IIRC the diversity argument came up because of there being only five different skills to choose from. I suppose it would have helped if they were split up some. Lore for example can include lots of things like herb lore, wilderness knowledge, street knowledge, languages, gods & mythology, etc. So a rogue could focus on street knowledge, a ranger on wilderness and animals, a priest on gods & mythology. Right now they'd all put points in Lore and know everything.

For an extreme opposing example, there's Realms of Arkania with dozens of more or less useless skills that were only used rarely, if at all. *) Something between the two systems would have been nice, maybe 10-12 skills or so.


*) For reference and because I'm feeling nostalgic, skills in Realms of Arkania:

  • Acrobatics
  • Climb
  • Physical Control
  • Ride
  • Swim
  • Self Control
  • Dance
  • Carouse
  • Stealth
  • Hide
  • Convert
  • Seduce
  • Haggle
  • Streetwise
  • Lie
  • Human Nature
  • Evaluate
  • Track
  • Bind
  • Orientation
  • Herb Lore
  • Animal Lore
  • Survival
  • Alchemy
  • Ancient Tongues
  • Geography
  • History
  • Ritual
  • Tactics
  • Read/Write
  • Arcane Lore
  • Tongues
  • Train Animals
  • Drive
  • Cheat
  • Treate Disease/Poison/Wounds
  • Instrument
  • Locks
  • Pickpocket
 
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I agree that it felt nice to be able to specialize a character so specific as in Realms of Arkania. It really paints very clear picture of it.
But as you mentioned you will rarely use them and that's what I found kind of frustrating.

Now this is not a problem which comes up in the pen and paper versions of course. Because the Master and the players can just incorporate these. If you go into a pub the players can just start and try to get everyone drunk, even without any incentive to do so. But this is not possible in a crpg. In a crpg each and every event needs to be designed to incorporate different options to "fake" the freedom you have in pen and paper games.

And this is directly related to game length. The bigger the game is, the more options and diversity you can implement. But while Realms of Arkania was very big, still only vers few of the skills and spells were used.
I think another pretty good example is Shadowrun Returns. SR is an extremely small game with just 15 hours or so of game time if I remember right.
Now in SR you had some specific abilities and approaches as well. Like using drones. But it almost felt "forced" if you are heading to an event and already saw "ok, there is the drone shaft, so that I can use the drone approach". Similar to the spikes in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: You saw spikes, that means that an enemy will come in a few seconds which you can kick into them. So a very constructed design, which had to be done, just to make this playstyle viable.
But there are also examples in SR where it worked even less: If you take the charisma skill there, you can chose different etiquettes at certain points. Now each of these etiquettes like "speak like a scientist" or so, only had a hand full of possibilities to be used in the whole game. As mentioned before - not a problem in a basically limitless Pen and Paper game. But in a CRPG of 15 hours it becomes really hard to make this skill and all these options worth something. And imho the first game pretty much failed there. Especially if you decide to increase this skill half way throgh the game and chose another etiquette. All the possibilities to put it to use might already have passed, so that you chose this skill for nothing.

So I think having a couple of additional of these skills would have worked as well, I think having dozens of them or very limited access to them would either limit the player or force the game to do something "unnatural" like the "drone example" from SR.

Edit: In addition you also have games like Divinity:OS or Wasteland 2. I think these intend to do something which is what you liked JDR13, but they didn't succeed at all.
They had a lot of skills, but if you were experienced within the system and knew what you were doing you had a group which had each and every skill so high, that you always had all options available. But especially wasteland pushed the characters in roles and in addition basically flagged characters as "gimped" if they were outperformed by another one. If you got one character and increased science a couple of levels and then got another one with a higher initial science skill (which can happen in the first 5h or so), you basically know "well, I spent all these points for nothing, now I could as well start over and invest them more clever". While some might like it, the effect it had on myself was that i studied all the characters and before starting the game I already knew which characters I had to recruit at what point in the game to increase which skills. And I personally feel relieved that this isn't necessary at all in PoE.
In Divinity: OS basically the same story, and it even affected combat. It had a pseudo-free character system, which was basically a class system just not based on classes but on attributes. You only had two designed npc characters on release, being a tank and a caster with 2 schools. So what to do? Cover the rest, to have covered all, make a mage with 2 of the remaining 3 schools and either a rogue (which is pretty gimped imho) or a ranger. Now you got everything. And even if you don't have a specific skill like crafting, well you can always just get a hireling to "outsource" that part as I did.
So again I felt forced to fill these roles. But I had the possibility to cover all options at every part of the game.
 
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I agree that it felt nice to be able to specialize a character so specific as in Realms of Arkania. It really paints very clear picture of it.
But as you mentioned you will rarely use them and that's what I found kind of frustrating.
It's a double edged sword, certainly. I'll just add that I would have appreciated a little more diversity in skill options, particularly in relation to all the other character elements: 11 classes, different races and sub races — there are even different cultures and backgrounds to choose from. In that light, having only 5 skills seems like a tiny bit too much abstraction.

There goes my productivity for the day.
 
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I'm sort of ambivalent when it comes to the skill approach.

On one hand, I appreciate that they're not locking classes down in ways that seem somewhat silly - as in why would you have to be a "Rogue" to pick a lock? Anyone could potentially do that.

But an aspect of D&D I always loved was the distinction between classes, and how they all had stand-out roles with a unique flavor.

That's why I loved 3rd Edition, because of the flexible multiclass system, as it combined those two approaches.

I'd like to reserve judgment about PoE until I play the full version, as it will depend on how much flavor they've managed to bring to each class. The Rogue seems to have been given more of a dedicated DPS role, but then again - so have a lot of classes it seems, making it more about the nature of the DPS role. Not sure that's an approach with enough distinction, but we'll see.
 
Gonna play a Caster.

Will steam keys be sent out tomorrow or the day after? Anyone know?
 
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Gonna play a Caster.

Will steam keys be sent out tomorrow or the day after? Anyone know?

I haven't checked yet, but I think it's already available from Obsidian's backer portal.
 
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Just read through the manual and there seem to be quite a few ways to distinguish one character (class) from another. One recurring hint was that while all characters can wear everything, there may be "practical reasons why one character might
be better suited to a particular armor than another". Sounds good, actually. We'll see how it plays out. One thing I really like is how all the different weapon types have fitting bonuses.

I now have a clearer picture of my first character. Still going to start with an Orlat Cypher, and he's going to carry a dagger (weapon set 1) and maybe a rapier (weapon set 2) for their accuracy bonuses. While I prefer ranged combat, I don't really feel like giving him a ranged weapon.. it doesn't make much sense to me to acquire slices of the opponents' souls with projectiles.
 
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Yes, I noticed that about weapons as well. A great feature, if implemented with wisdom.
 
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Well...GoG doesnt have any achievements. And it doesnt have preloading.

As I like to have all my stuff on steam it was a clear choice for me.
 
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I'm actually going to need to research this a bit now! Ciphers sound intriguing, I might go with that. I like the idea mentioned earlier about a ranged cipher, but I rarely make the main character (i.e., me) ranged for some reason. It think it might have to do with not feeling like much of a heroic leader, taking potshots while your allies take the real risks.

Yes, I know…that's exactly how most generals in history operate, but I prefer to roleplay an "Alexander the Great" type of party leader ;)
 
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By the way, are there any interesting melee/mage combos, aside from ciphers?
 
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