What class for your main character in PoE?

It's kind of weird that I developed an aversion for duplicate classes. I had no problem with it in the IE games. I even once made a full Monk playthrough in BG2 (ok never finished it but I went through like half the game with just monks in my party).

If I go Orlan, I need a fanmade portraits though.

Originally Posted by azarhal
It's kind of weird that I developed an aversion for duplicate classes.

Same, but I have come to terms with it and am specifically looking forward to meeting the cipher companion, in order for us to learn from each other, so to speak. Ciphers really need to pick and choose their powers, so I'm hoping they can either complement or enhance each other with different builds. That is, if I can still customize her a bit and she isn't too high level when I find her.

I made a human monk. humans get a boost once their endurance is below 50% which is something you can expect monks to be at as a only class that needs to be hit to power special abilities.

Wow this thread is moving fast

I am playing a Ranger with a wolf companion. Even though I dislike ranged attack my love of rangers and animals has me very much interested in this as a character. I was very tempted to be a rogue but when I found the animal is life-bound to the ranger that really made up my mind to go with Ranger - love that aspect. Means the companion won't be used as cannon fodder by people.

I like rangers for the idea of survival in the wilderness, exploring the wilds, and being somewhat in tune with nature. Plus the wolf. Enough said.

For companions - I love companions in a game so have no desire to make my own. I will pick my companions based on what I like about them and how they interact.

I plan on playing on easy so I don't have to worry much about min/max aspects of the game and can maybe make a few less than optimal decisions for my ranger and role play him in a certain way. Likewise won't have to worry about my companion choices as much and take a more casual approach to equipment. Would prefer my Ranger to be dual wield or sword and dagger but the abilities are really focused on ranged so will just have to embrace being a bow person for a change. Wish he did have some access to melee weapon skills though.

I went with a rogue myself, little chickie can really slice stuff up at level five. All I need is my tank dude (Eoder I think his name is) to start the fight, then my little lady sneaks in behind and finishes it

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
Would prefer my Ranger to be dual wield or sword and dagger but the abilities are really focused on ranged so will just have to embrace being a bow person for a change. Wish he did have some access to melee weapon skills though.

The Ranger ranged abilities are basically just the stances, everything else work in melee. Rangers actually makes nice tanks.

My favorite part of RPGs is making the characters. I still haven't made it past the creating screen, but I'm leaning strongly towards a human female barbarian, all Red Sonja like. Maybe with a splash of native american.

Sounds like fun to me.

I play Tapio, a Nature Godlike Druid (spiritshift wolf), with his Giant Miniature Space Piglet companion. Character creation took only an hour

Originally Posted by azarhal
The Ranger ranged abilities are basically just the stances, everything else work in melee. Rangers actually makes nice tanks.

Really? Thanks for this wonderful news. I only had about an hour total to play last night so didn't get into deep. Then I will buck the trend and make sure he does a fair amount of melee. This was nice to read today.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
Really? Thanks for this wonderful news. I only had about an hour total to play last night so didn't get into deep. Then I will buck the trend and make sure he does a fair amount of melee. This was nice to read today.

There is like 4 abilities that require a ranged weapon: Swift Aim, Vicious Aim, Driving Force and Defensive Shooting (this one require you to be in melee with a ranged weapon though).

That leave plenty others to take (you can only take 6 total if you reach level 11).

Threads like this one are about the best RPGWatch has to offer, along with the news and interviews.

Regarding conversation skills, I suggest boosting intellect. I've talked my through some dangerous situations so far. I think it helped.

Really liking no XP for kills. Allows for non-violent talky or puzzle solving solutions to quests without penalizing XP.

My character is also a Cypher. Gives me a +1 lore, mechanics, and stealth boni, which I like.
Race is Death Godlike for the +1 dexterity and +1 intellect and damage bonus on enemies with low endurance, though he is rather ugly.
Background is The Living Lands - Scientist for the +1 might, mechanics and lore boni. I will use him for lockpicking. So far he's had no trouble with locks. The lore bonis already opened up additional dialogues. I love that stuff.
I picked the Scientist background, hoping he will find a good fire arm. Already, the dialogue reflected my scientist background which was nice flavor text. I hope the dialogue choices to further flesh out the background have some consequences later in the story.
Playing a ranged bowman for now though. To use his spirit powers he needs to move a bit into medium range, so it adds a degree of trickiness to the play. Can't just stay long range and fire off abilities and arrows. He has low endurance and health so it's not easy. He's already been knocked out once.

Stats

Might 15
Constitution 11
Dexterity 14
Perception 10
Intellect 18
Resolve 10

Bit of a glass cannon smart and sneaky mind-based spellcaster/bowman. Hope he survives.

By the way, does anyone know what you do with the little animal companions that appear in your inventory? I have a minature dragon (of some sort) and the piglet.

As far as I can tell, those little pets are simply aesthetic. Cute, but that's about it.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
By the way, does anyone know what you do with the little animal companions that appear in your inventory? I have a minature dragon (of some sort) and the piglet.

Put them in the pet slot of your main character, bottom left. It'll follow you around. I found a dog. Want a cat.

@Carniflex Yeah, that's what I figured. It would be nice if they had some gameplay aspect besides taking up an inventory slot.

@Arhu. Thanks! OK so they get in the way of pathfinding. Do they do anything else during combat? I'll try it out.

Yeah I wish the pets did something….even if they were just guards it would be pretty cool. If they actually do anything, then I've yet to figure it out myself.

I went with a Pale Elf Fighter with balanced stats.

14 MGT
14 CON
14 RES
14 per
12 int
10 dex

Doesn't do a lot of damage but he's a good tank. Great defenses.

Weird Stat distribution.

But as long as you are fine with it

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Weird Stat distribution.

But as long as you are fine with it

Yeah, I thought so too. Not really in line with the min/max characters I built in D&D and other games, but it seems like all the ability scores actually do something for fighter. 14 str and con isnt really low but its not really high. I don't have penalties to anything. Bonus' to all saves. I can't really see how I can work any more Deflection into it.

Yeah, I dunno. How would you distribute the points?

Really depends on what role he should support in the group. For tanking I might have put even more points in Perception and Res, for Damage more in Dex and Might, less in Con, Perception and Res. About int I am not so sure as I am familiar with all the fighter abilities. But if it's just for knocking down opponents I guess it heavily depends on difficulty. On Path of the Damned the fights take so long that the knockdowns down really make that much of a difference (at least not enough to rise int just for that purpose).