It is out today. Has anyone bought it and given it a try yet? It is on my To Do list of games. But I was hoping to hear a bit more about it. The Reviews are solid. It sounds like a modern successor to the classic Baldur's Gate-style rpg games, with a new fantasy setting, an isometric view, party of characters, lot of races and classes to choose from.

Somebody I know on a small, private forum (so I won't repost ) has just written up his impressions after about an hour or so of play, and he's extremely impressed. This is a guy who really loved BG2 and PS:T yet also enjoys more modern games. So.. bodes very well indeed. I'm seriously considering picking this up for my new machine, though I also want to grab Dragon Age: Inquisition.. and Witcher: The Wild Hunt when it comes out.... and I need to buy clothing (badly).. As the Brits would say... Bugger!

It's so nice to see that isometric games have made such a comeback recently! Hell.. I still sometimes fire up the BG series, PS:T and even the IWD games.

One thing I am really interested in hearing is how the new stats work. For example, I read that there is now a Might stat. But it is not simply how physically strong a character is. Instead it is the base for how much damage they do. Any kind of damage, be it with weapons, spells, etc... Likewise Intellect is supposed to govern how large area of effects are. So a mighty wizard and an intellectual barbarian can both be good build options.

You can really see the BG influence in the shots and bit of footage. I wonder if normal mages will have to memorize spells the night before - I always found that a very clunky part of D&D.

But I´m not done with Oblivion and Fallout 3 yet..!

Don't have time to post, really. As one of 77000 backers, it's my solemn duty to enjoy this game rrrrrright now!

Since it is on sale at Gog, I decided to finally buy Pillars of Eternity. I installed it and started it up to make sure it works, and created Persephone as a God-Like (it is an actual race!). It looks really good, and what little I have done so far plays just like the good old RPGs of yore: Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate, etc...

The Nexus has some mods, and I downloaded a bunch of portrait packs. Naturally I also created a custom portrait for Persephone, using a screenshot from Skyrim (I have one I use for all the other games she appears in). It was really easy to make. They have to be in the .png format. There are two pictures you have to make, a small and a large one. The small one needs its name to end with _sm, and the large with _lg. The small one has to be 76x96, and the large 210x330. Finally, the go in your Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity_Data/data/art/gui/portraits/player/female or player/male folders. Like the BG games, you can change both your portrait and voice any time during the game just by clicking on your portrait.

Speaking of voices, there are about 7 or 8 to choose from per gender. You can also select no voice. They are not as cringe-worthy as in the old NWN games. But I still only found two that I really liked, the Smooth and Stoic ones. I see a Morrigan voice mod on the Nexus, so the voices are definitely moddable.

There are a lot of options in character creation. Besides sex, race and class, you can pick where you came from, which seems to determine your starting equipment. You also pick a background, which gives some extra bonuses. I also found an item list on the Nexus, which should make it easy to use the console to add things. I will probably try giving Persephone a greatsword to start with.

Okay, I just tried that. You open the console the regular way, with the ~ key. But then you have to press the Enter key before you can type things in. You have to go to Cheat Mode first by typing in iroll20s. Then you can use the Additem code to add your item. Then you disable Cheat Mode by typing iroll20s again. Apparently so long as you are Cheat Mode, your achievements are disabled. Like I could give a crap about that. But apparently some people do. I have no idea what the other cheats are. The add item one is probably the only one I will ever use.

So far it looks really nice. But I think I am going to hold off on actually playing it for a while. I still want to play Persephone in FONV, and have that Mad Scientist/Lich idea for FO3 as well.

I also forgot to add that it starts out exactly the same way as Baldur's Gate, with a narrator giving you a brief introduction with a backdrop of a still picture. I am positive it is even the same man doing the narration that did it in BG1.

Speaking of which, the very first NPC you talk to is played by the same voice actor that did General Vargas in Wasteland 2. I also recognize the voice the second NPC as well, a female fighter who teams up with you. I am not sure where I remember her from, but I have definitely heard her before. Ok, I looked her up. She is played by Cindy Robinson, who did Astrid in Skyrim.

Thanks for sharing your impressions, SubRosa. I know we have a common frame of reference (BG/NWN) and that makes it easy to follow your thoughts. Let me know when you learn if it uses the D&D spell mechanics of having to memorize spells the night before.

Okay, since you forced me, I spent the evening rolling several different toons to experiment at pwning the game with.

The first I tried was an Elf Wizard. Wizards can only cast the spells that are in the grimoire they have active. I am not sure how many spells you can put in a single grimoire, but I know you can have more than one of them. You can cast any spell you want from the active grimoire however, up to a certain number per rest period (read per day in the old D&D days). Once you reach your limit, your master of arcane magic spends the rest of the time bashing things with a club or hurling pointy sticks, as befits one of great mystical power. My Wizard had 2 spells per rest period, which meant she spent most of the time not casting spells.

So it is basically just like the old days of D&D. Well almost. Every class receives a special ability that they can perform once or twice per combat. This refreshes between fights, so you can use it over and over again without resting. The Wizard gets one called Arcane Assault, which is a basic magic damage ranged attack. So you will always have that to do twice every time you fight, even when you are out of spells.


Magic works a lot better than I initially realized. I believe all Wizards start with an implement (a wand, rod, or scepter). These are not melee weapons as I had initially thought, but ranged weapons. They are like the staffs in Oblivion or Skyrim. A Wizard's spell casting is still limited by per rest, but they can use their implement indefinitely for a ranged magical attack. The damage is comparable to the starting one-handed swords, daggers, axes, etc...

If you take the Blast Talent (which I believe you should), attacks with your implement get turned into a small area-effect blast with a 5 point DR bypass (armor-piercing). Add the Penetrating Blast Talent, and that turns into a 10 point DR bypass. So you have a continual source of magical attacks with your implement that are nothing to sneeze at.

Finally, IE Mod allows you to change how many spells you can cast per level, how many your grimoire can hold per level, and whether your spells are castable per rest or per encounter (also selectable by level). I highly recommend IE Mod, not just for spellcasting.


Concerning resting, you can only do it in an inn, or if you are in the wilds if you have camping supplies. So far I have not come across either one, so I have not been able to try resting out.

I also tried a Druid. Their special ability is to Shapeshift once per combat. You can choose from half a dozen different animals, each with its own special buff. The bear has a lot of extra endurance and a frightening howl. The wolf can knock enemies down, and so on. The Druid also gets spells, but unlike the Wizard you don't have to fool around with any of that grimoire business. You have access to all the spells of your class, without having to memorize them. But there is still a limit to how many times you can cast them per rest period. For my starting Druid it was twice. She spent most of the time shapeshifting into a bear and beating on things, which I admit I found very satisfying. Outside of that she had a couple of times she could strategically use a spell.

Finally I tried out a Paladin. The Paladin gets to pick one out of two possible special abilities. Either a Lay on Hands that heals people, or a Flaming Weapon that gives you extra damage for one attack. I went with the latter. Otherwise the Paladin played like a Fighter. I think they have some passive abilities that improve their defenses.

The first NPC that joins you is a Fighter, so you get to play her as well. Fighters get a Knockdown special ability that they can use twice per combat. It is nice, as putting someone on their back means they cannot attack you until they get back up. It is handy for crowd control, because you can knock one baddie down, then run to the annoying archer shooting you from a distance and clobber him before the first one gets back up.

Here are some observations on the nuts and bolts of how things work:

Might is how much damage you do. It is sort of like Strength, but is all damage, melee weapons, ranged, or magic. So Might is good.

Dexterity improves your Action Speed, which I think means how quickly you can attack. Your armor seems to also slow down your attack speed, based on how heavy it is. So a low Dex, heavy armor character does not get a lot of chances to do anything.

Perception is your chance to hit (not Dexterity!), and to Interrupt your target's actions (see below).

Constitution does exactly what you think.

Intellect affects area of effect and durations. Not just for spells, but special abilities as well. I am not sure how many non-spellcaster abilities there are with aoe or durations though. I didn't notice any to start with.

Resolve seems to be a lot like the traditional charisma stat, in that it is used for threatening or persuading people. But it also adds to your Deflection some, and a lot to your Concentration. If you are hit while performing an action, be it casting a spell or swinging a sword, you can be interrupted. Concentration is your defense against that.

PoE is a little weird in that you have two health stats. One is Endurance, which completely refreshes between every combat. If your Endurance goes down to zero you get knocked out, but not killed. After the fight is over you get back up and get all your Endurance back. Health is the other stat, which only recovers from resting. You have a lot more Health than Endurance. One of my characters had like 55 Endurance and 170 Health.

Attacks damage both Endurance and Health. So you are going to get knocked out before you get killed. Unless you have been fighting a lot without resting, and your Health has slowly eroded. I saw my characters taking Endurance damage a lot more than health. But of course it completely refreshes after every fight.

So stats to pay attention to are Might for damage, Perception to hit, and of course Constitution to stay alive. Armor slows down your attacks, so tanking up on the heaviest armor is not necessarily the best idea.

Wow, thanks for such wonderfully detailed observations. Sort of too bad about the wizards - they were always a pain to play or fight against in BG II.

Forgot to include A pic from my Druid's game. It will look familiar to anyone who has played the BG or NWN games.

The biggest difference in the UI is that the character portraits for your party are the bottom left. When you click on a character's picture, it automatically brings up a line with their abilities, spells, and weapon sets above. That makes it easy for spellcasting and using special abilities. Like the older games, you can have several weapon sets, starting with two. That makes it easy to switch from something like a sword to a bow on the fly.

By default the game automatically pauses at the start of every combat, and you can pause at any time to issue orders to your individual party members. So just like with the older games. There is also a slow time option, that lets you keep the action going without pausing, just slower. But I think I prefer the old way of pausing best.

There are basic AI routines you can assign to your party members for them to do automatically, like attack everything, attack only those attacking you, etc... Just like in the old games.

The races are interesting. Besides the standard Human, Elf Dwarf, they have an aquatic race called Aumaua. They kind of are the orcs of the world, in that they are bigger and stronger than others. But not green or tusky. The Orlan are smaller, so might be similar to Hobbits or Gnomes. But they seem half-animal, with horns, fur and so on. I made my test Druid an Orlan. The Godlike are the most interesting new race. They seem to members of the normal races that have gained Divine mojo, which has altered them physically. They come in different flavors, like Nature Godlike, Death Godlike, Fire Godlike, and Moon Godlike. Each has their own special abilities.

Besides picking a race, when you create a character you also pick the Culture (not race) they came from. Basically it is the area they grew up in. Each confers a +1 bonus to a different Attribute, and determines what equipment you start with.

Then you pick a Background. Basically what you did. This gives you a bonus to one or two skills. Not all backgrounds are available in all Cultures.

You can change your character picture and voice at any time during the game. You can even use the voices of the opposite gender if you want. You can also change the primary and secondary colors of your character's gear at any time during the game.

The PoE Wiki is a handy place for all sorts of info on the game.

The screenie looks great. As you say, quite familiar looking. But better, sharper and crisper - very nice. In fact everything you describe sounds like minor tweaks to BG - which is a good thing. I liked the pause stop and start during combat since I'm not the best at quick clicking combat. Neat!

I did some digging, and found a list of helpful console commands.

I experimented, and the Rest command does force a rest, even if you do not have camping supplies. Like the old games it takes you to a short vid of a campfire while you rest. Then you pop back to the game with full health and spells. So this is one way you can make a mage viable, so long as you do this between every battle. Though that would probably get tedious.

As with the Additem command I used before you first have to open the console, and type in IRoll20s to enter cheat mode first, and then do the same after to disable cheat mode.

I was thinking if you simply modded the spells to be per combat rather than per rest, that would eliminate the craptacularness to playing a mage. But modding Pillars does not look as easy as Bethesda games.

I found some mods that alter gameplay, and tried reverse-engineering to see what the modders did. But so far no luck. Obsidian has not released a game editor like the creation kit. I think people are just using hex editors to open game files. Though I could be wrong. I used Notepadd++, and while I saw a lot of stuff, I was not sure what I was really looking for.

Pillars is using the Unity Engine, so I think I will try looking for ways to edit that in general as a starting point. This thread from last year talks about a Unity Editor which might be just the thing, but it seems to need some custom extensions to handle Pillars of Eternity.

Ok, here are some basic console commands that work. Remember, start by entering iroll20s into the console to enable cheats:

AttributeScore Player {attribute} {Final Value} = This changes the player's noted attribute to the value you put in. It is always Player for the PC, no matter what name you gave yourself. With Companions it is the Companion name. But it is not the name you see in the game, but the game's internal name for them. They start with Companion_***. It looks like they each have a file in the Pillars of Eternity\PillarsOfEternityData\Assetbundles\Prefabs\ObjectBundle folder. So Aloth is probably companion_aloth, Grieving Mother is companion_gm, etc... You could also use the FindCharacter code (see below) to get the name as well.

AddAbility Player {Ability Name} = Again, get the ability names from the same ObjectBundle folder above.

AddTalent {Talent Name} = same as before, except it seems to automatically work on the player without having to specify a character.

Skill Player {Skill Name} {Value} = Gives you the given skill at the value you enter.

Additem {item name} {amount of items} = Uses internal item names, automatically gives them to the PC. Again get the internal names from the ObjectBundle folder above. Most are simple: Great_Sword, Great_Sword_Fine, Sword, Sword_Fine, etc...

SetZoomRange {minimum zoom} {maximum zoom} = I find SetZoomRange 0.2 1.2 works good.

ManageParty = opens the party management screen

GivePlayerMoney {Amount} = does what it says

AddExperience {Amount} = again, does what it says

AddExperienceToLevel {Level} = Gives the entire party enough xp to reach the Level specified. If a character already has more than that, they are unaffected. This is good for bringing hired Adventurers up to the same level as the PC.

Rest = Forces a rest period, even if you do not have camping supplies.

HealParty = Automatically heals all party members.

UnlockAll = Unlocks all the containers on the map.

FindCharacter {Name} = Displays all the internal names matching the name you give. This is handy with other commands like AttributeScore.

Kill {Internal Character Name} = Kills the character you list, get the internal name from the command above.

AdvanceTimeByHours {hours} = Moves the clock up by the number of hours you specify.



There are some new commands only available in the latest version of IE Mod:

Ctrl + Y = Inflict 50 000 damage to whoever is under the cursor (Party included, be careful with that one)

Ctrl + S = Restore Spells and ability uses

UnlockSoulBond = Fully binds all equipped soul items for the selected character.


ChangeClass {name} {Class} = Respecs the named character to level 0 in the class given.

Warning: do not attempt to transition/quit/save game while your character is level 0. You need to level him up first. Do not attempt to open your grimoire, etc. Just immediately proceed to leveling up.

If you're respeccing into a Paladin or a Cleric, you'll need to manually assign yourself a Paladin Order or a Deity. Use the following console commands:

AssignClericalGod {simple name} {god}
Charname should be that actually displayed in the game, and not the internal name used in other commands. Possible values for godame: None, Berath Eothas, Magran, Skaen, Wael.

AssignPaladinOrder {simple name} {order name}
Possible values for order name: None, BleakWalkers, DarcozziPaladini, GoldpactKnights, KindWayfarers, ShieldbearersOfStElcga, FrermasMesCancSuolias.

I can see that if I ever pick up PoE, I'll be coming back to this thread, your notes and that link you provided.

If you ever pick it up? Does that mean you are actually considering it?

I rolled a new toon tonight. Oya is a human barbarian ocean-folk. I am trying out something I noticed in last nights tests. I invested most of her attribute points in Dexterity for the higher attack speed, and Perception for the hit bonus. Then in Constitution to stay alive. Then I went dual-wield with her, using with weapons that have a Fast attack speed.

Weapon speed is either Fast, Average, or Slow. The slower ones obviously take more time between your strikes.

I also noticed that weapon damage is the same for all weapons of the same speed. So daggers do the same as rapiers, clubs, flails, hatchets, and stilettos. I think the real difference between them is that there are also three different types of damage. Piercing, Crushing, Slashing. Some critters have better defenses against one type, but are weaker against another.

Each weapon also has a bonus. Oya's hatchet gives her a +5 Deflection bonus. Stilletos bypass 3 points of Damage Reduction (armor).

So anyway, my thought with Oya was instead of concentrating on a high Might attribute for damage, to try going for a very fast, flurry of attacks style. So far it is working really well. I cannot believe how much faster she is attacking than my previous characters. She is taking down bad guys a lot faster too. So less damage per hit, but more hits in less time, is really working.

My only concern here is that Damage Reduction reduces your damage per hit. So far Oya has only been going against baddies with a moderate DR. When she runs into tougher creatures with a high DR, it might be that not much of her damage gets through. I could perhaps invest in a couple of stilletos for those occasion, for the armor piercing effect they have.

She is also my first time trying a Barbarian in this game. Like other games the Barbarian has a Frenzy ability that makes them tougher in combat. It gives a bonus to Might, Constitution, and attack speed, but reduces their Deflection. It is usable once every combat, so is a real workhorse. Unlike other games, there is no penalty to her stats after it wears off. So it is pretty awesome.

As a Barbarian she also gets an ability called Carnage, that gives her automatic attacks with lower damage against every baddie around her. So very handy when being mobbed. And lets face it, in these games you are always being mobbed by three or four times your own number.

Oh, and something I have been forgetting to mention. If you press the Tab key, it highlights all the objects on the screen that you can interact with. Just like in the old games (notice how often I am saying that?).

I bring glad tidings from the world of Pillars. I played some more with Persephone today, and leveled up twice. So now I can share some things about leveling.

I have already mentioned Abilities and Talents. Every time you level up you get to pick one. On odd numbered levels you get an Ability, so level 1 (when you start the game), level 3, 5, 7, etc... They appear to all be class-specific, and there are not that many to choose from. It looks like you get two or three new ones added to the available list every time you hit an odd level.

On even numbered levels (2, 4, 6, 8, etc...) you pick a Talent instead. There are a lot of Talents. A handful appear to be class specific. But the vast majority are ones that anyone can take.

So these are like the Perks of D&D 3.0 and other games since. There are lot more of them than you can ever take, so here is where you really customize your character.

So far I have not had the chance to increase any Attributes. So it looks like in D&D 2.0, where you were stuck with whatever you started with for the entire game. But I am only 3rd level, so I could be wrong.

Today Persephone also came across a dog that she was able to adopt. It was just added to her inventory like any ordinary item. To make it appear in the game she had to equip it (there is a specific equip slot for pets). So now she has a Black Hound following her. From what I read there are other pets you can get, and they do not fight, or get attacked. They are just there for looking at.

I have also discovered what appears to be a bug with the latest game version (2.00-something). There is a little 0 on my character's portrait in the hud. It doesn't seem to do anything, or signify anything. It shows up on every character I create from the very first moment of the game. It does not appear on any of the NPCs in my party. I asked around the official forums, and it looks like at least one other person has it too. Apparently it is a bug. Though granted, not a serious one. It is just strange.

Thanks to your reviews, I downloaded Pillars for the Mac (on sale in the Mac App Store, too, for 33% off). So I haven't yet fired it up, since I'm deep in Skyrim with my newest toon. But someday . . .

Yay, another forumite has been Pillared! Since everyone had it on sale with the same amount off I am guessing it was Obsidian that decided to put it on sale, and not any one individual store.

I discovered something new today. Traps are detected and disarmed solely using the Mechanics skill. So it is a good idea to have at least one character invest heavily in that.

Some other thoughts on skills are:

Everyone should have 3 points in Athletics. Apparently combat adds fatigue to your characters. Atheletics at this level reduces that fatigue by 90%. So this way your party won't need to rest as often (at least because they are tired)

Survival increases the amount of time that potion and food buffs last.

Lore is needed to use scrolls. I just tested it, and anyone with a high enough Lore can use scrolls, not just magicians. Lore also unlocks more info on the monsters you fight. It also adds extra dialogue options in some cases.

Stealth is what you think it is.

With this in mind I am going back and using those cheat codes to redistribute my party's skills...

Oh, and Pillars is very Alt+Tab friendly. I just Alt+Tabbed from it to go back to my Desktop right now and post this.

I went and bought The White March expansion pass. Right now only Part 1 of the White March is available. You buy it standalone for about $15. I decided to buy both parts from the link above since I have played the game enough to know I am going to want Part 2 when it comes out, and this way it saves me about $5 overall.

It also came with a preorder bonus. It turned out to be a ring that adds Endurance twice per rest period, and a giant miniature space piglet pet. That is Miss Piggy off at the far right of the pic.

The expansion also adds a couple of Companions. One is a Rogue, who I am already looking forward to finding. I was surprised that there were no Rogues in the original game. Except for the Adventurers you hire at inns. The other is a Monk, who I am not sure I want to bother with.

Boo has been replaced by a piglet!

Because my new Skyrim toon is in the midst of the Civil War quest line (she's a Stormie, but getting tired of hearing the rhetoric), we took a break from schlepping all over with the Biggest Nord that Ever Walked Out of Skyrim. Yup, she's got a companion, a custom voiced mod named Valfar. I'm thinking of renaming him to Valdimar, because he reminds me so much of that bigger than real life Nord. Voice to match, too.

But we digress . . .

So I stepped over to my MacBook Pro and fired up PE. Currently SeJin is a Ranger (it seems that these are my preferred play style) with a Bear companion. Just leveled up to 2 and made Ursula a Faithful Companion. Working our way to the first town. Thinking of customizing the portrait, I'd have to do a little digging around first. Not sure if I can do so on the Mac.

Acaidan: I was thinking of Boo as well! Hamsters and rangers everywhere! Rejoice!

haute ecole rider: Valfar looks creepy. Like an Aryan Brotherhood enforcer. I prefer a nice, friendly zombie instead

I have not tried a Ranger yet. But from what I read they seem to be a viable class, unlike Dragon Age, where they nerfed archery. I hear that with version 2.0 of the game, they fixed some issues with the animal companions not leveling up, so now they are a lot more potent.

When SeJin leveled up, I didn't notice if Ursula leveled up too. I'll have to go take a peek.

The Mac App Store versions tend to lag behind the PC versions, but I'm on the lookout for the White March.

I haven't played this kind of RPG in over ten years. It's bringing back tons of memories for me. Namely one called Pillars of Garendall, a Mac-only RPG that let you play as a Fighter, Scout or Wizard. I always liked the scout/ranger class best, as I prefer to take on my enemies from a distance but can go toe to toe if necessary. The Wiz always died if a puny little mud crab moved to the tile next to him, while the Rocks-for-Brains always had to get up close, even when he was outclassed, before he could deal some damage.

So that's what I tried to do with POE. What I do like about this is that I can customize my character, so that's really much nicer than POG. The graphics are good, too, though I'm so used to Oblivion/Skyrim.

What I hate about this game is pretty much what I hate about these types of games - namely the top-down view (I guess you call it isometric?) which doesn't feel all that immersive for me. But that's okay, the story line is already pretty intriguing.

I like the isometric view. It works better for strategy style games, where managing multiple characters and positioning is important. One reason I never use companions in Bethesda games is they always run in front of you when you are shooting, or they shoot you in the back. That kind of thing doesn't happen in isometric games, because you can control the actions of not only yourself, but your companions.

Since you forced me to, I created a Ranger to try out, and took a lion companion. Turns out the Lion has a roar power that frightens enemies and gives them penalties to things like their accuracy. The trouble is I am never sure if he has done it yet or not, and if I miss it he just stands around doing nothing until I realize I need to make him attack again. So I think I will create a new character with a different companion.

But I did think the ranged combat worked out well. Wounding Shot worked very well at hobbling most enemies and slowing them down. I noticed that the Rogue class gets a sneak attack on all enemies that are hobbled. So it looks like a Ranger and Rogue would be a deadly combo.

I am now wondering how a ranged Rogue would do? I think the devs intended the Rogue to be mainly a melee fighter, but it seems most of their abilities and talents work at range as well. Except I know their Backstab talent only works up close.

I just tried it out with a Hearth Orlan, and a Ranged Rogue is very powerful. All Rogues automatically get Sneak Attack, which does an extra 50% damage to enemies who are blinded, hobbled, flanked, prone, etc... It also works on all attacks in the first two seconds of combat. So a Ranged Rogue's first shot is always going to be a sneak attack.

The Rogue picks from Hobbling Strike or Blinding Strike at character creation. If either one hits it insures a Sneak Attack on all your hits afterward. Hobbling Strike seems ideal for a ranged character, as it slows your enemy down. If you have a Fighter with you (and you should!), their Knockdown will also provide you with more Sneak Attack opportunities.

The downside is that unlike the Ranger, you don't get that Animal Companion to run interference for you, and you definitely don't want to be alone with this character. The upside is Sneak Attack makes you a beast with a bow. I was dishing out far more damage with the Ranged Rogue than the Ranger. The downside is that I also drew more fire, and when I got hit it really hurt. This is definitely a great idea for a glass cannon type character.

Drawn in by all this talk of ranged combat, animal companions and glass cannons. . . .

I think you should give buying Pillars some serious thought. I think you would really like it, given how much you enjoyed Baldur's Gate II. It is definitely an archer-friendly game (unlike Dragon Age), and a glass cannon type character can work really well here so long as they have a Mazoga to run interference for them.

For me the biggest difference between Pillars and the old BG and NWN games is the Attributes, and what they affect. In the old games if you wanted a Fighter, you put your points in Strength and Constitution. If you wanted an Archer you put them in Dexterity. If you wanted a Mage you put them in Intelligence, etc...

But Pillars changes how all that stuff works. For example, Might is important to almost all characters because that is your damage bonus for everything, melee, ranged, and magic. Constitution is what keeps you alive. Nuff said there. Dexterity is important because it is what reduces the time you spend doing nothing between attacks. Perception is important because that is your To Hit bonus. Resolve is important because it adds a small bonus to your Deflection, and it is your defense against enemies Interrupting your attacks, and finally it is your Will save vs mind attacks. Intellect is the only true dump stat for some characters, in that it affects the range of area of effects and durations. For Fighters not a real big deal. But for a mage it makes a big difference.

I am finally getting the knack of distributing points around, and which ones are important for various classes. Like a lot of games, you really don't get enough points to spread around, considering how just about everything matters. So I started using the console to add another 8 Attribute points after character creation. That seems to work well, without making a ridiculously overpowered character.


I tried a little more of the Ranged Rogue with a Wood Elf this time. What I have observed is that Sneak Attacks are what makes this character work. That first shot in combat that is a guaranteed Sneak Attack always does a lot of damage. So do the shots following Hobbling Strike and your team Fighter's Knockdowns. But once those Sneak Attack opportunities are gone, your damage output really drops. So the longer the fight goes, the harder it becomes to hurt the bad guys.

The Ranger OTOH, is a lot more balanced. She doesn't do that walloping damage to start with as a Ranged Rogue. But when you add her animal companion in, she's no slouch either. Unlike the Rogue, she's just as good after all the Knockdowns and Hobbles have been used up. Plus her Companion runs interference for her, meaning she needs less armor, which in turns means faster attacks.

Now that I have played through the beginning "Tutorial" section of the game I have learned a few things as well. The Culture you choose determines your starting weapons and armor. But don't pick a Culture just to get a sword or a spear. There is a merchant right by you when you start, and you can sell the weapons you start with for anything else you might want. Don't bother buying armor unless you want something heavy to start with. If you explore the map you can find a dead body in the south east with a suit of Leather, which is a good medium armor. Then once you start fighting bad guys, lots of suits of Hide and Leather will become available.

The following is very spoilery, so don't read if you want to find it all out for yourself: (spoiler quotes don't seem to work!)

When you have the big showdown with the bad guys who have taken Heodan hostage, you will probably have a lot of dialogue choices. Most of them don't really change anything. Don't lower your weapons, because you will still have to fight, but with your bare fists instead! Most of the other options seem to turn out the same, with Heodan being crippled and knocked down and a fight starting. The Lore option worked the one time I tried it, allowing Heodan to get away clean and start the fight without any wounds and debuffs. I did try sneaking in and avoiding the dialogue entirely by shooting the bad guy leader with a bow. That just resulted in Heodan automatically dying, so don't do that! (Though it is possible I targeted him by mistake!)

Once you run inside the ruin to hide from the storm, you will get some camping supplies and a dialogue choice to rest or not. If you rest, Calisca will run out on you while you are sleeping. So you will have to do the dungeon without her. If you don't rest, Heodan spends the whole time with some serious penalties from his debuffs that only rest can heal. If you try to be clever and say we'll continue on without resting in the dialogue - then rest anway a little while later - Calisca still deserts you. However, if you use the console to force a rest, the game doesn't seem to realize what you did, and Calisca stays, and Heodan gets healed. Finally, if you manage to get Heodan through the battle outside without any crippling injuries the dialogue choice between pushing on immediately or resting never appears. You can then rest and Calisca will remain with your party!

But no matter what you do, both Calisca and Heodan die once you exit the ruin. So don't get attached to them.

That's great news. As you can imagine, I gave Dragon Age Origins an epic fail after trying very hard for about six weeks to like it. The sneaky rogue glass cannon or ranger behind a big critter both sound great for bowgirls. Do the rangers have any degree of druid type magicks?

The White March dlc adds in some new Talents you can take starting at Level 2 that mimic some of the Class Specific Abilities. There is one called Aspirant's Mark that you can use 2 times per Rest. It mimics the Druid spell Nature's Mark. It is an area effect spell that reduces all enemy Deflection, Reflex, and Will defenses by -8.

That seems to be about it. There is no true multi-classing (yet at least). And Rangers don't get spells like in D&D. Most of their class abilities are geared toward either archery or their animal companions. But I do see an ability in there called Binding Roots that is similar to the old Entangle spell.

I just rolled another toon to experiment with. This was a Wood Elf Ranger named Skadi with a Wolf companion (Fenrir). She worked out really well, so I think I will be keeping her. I maxed out her Dexterity at 20, and she is pretty good with a bow. I noticed that the Wolf dished out a lot of damage. I have seen people say that it is one of the highest DPS animal companions, and I can definitely see that. It doesn't have any special abilities you have to manually activate, so it is pretty simple to manage. Just point and it bites.

Oh that sounds fabulous - a wood elven bow ranger with a forest critter and a tangling vines spell. That really is exactly the 'druidy' stuff I was hoping for and both those abilities are ideal for an archer.

There are some things I have figured out about Defenses, and how combat works.

There are four types of Defense in the game. Deflection, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.

Deflection is your defense against physical attacks, be they melee or ranged, and I think a lot of physical spells.

Fortitude is used against things like poisons, and resisting knockdowns.

Reflex is your defense against area of effect attacks.

Will is your defense against mind-effecting things.

When you attack you roll a 1d100 and add in your Accuracy bonus. The defender's appropriate Defense score is subtracted from that. If the end result is a 5 or less it is a clean miss. If it is a 6 - 50 it is only a Graze, and you do half damage. If it is 51 or higher it is a Hit, and does normal damage. If it is a 95 or higher you get a Critical Hit, and do an extra +50% damage.

So what I see here is that Accuracy bonus you get from Perception not only helps you hit in the first place, but can be the difference between getting a Graze or a Hit, or a Hit and a Crit. The same is true of any Debuffing spells or powers that reduce your enemy's Deflection, like Aspirant's Mark.

Of course once you do hit, you roll damage based on your weapon, with your Might stat adding to it. Then the defender's Damage Threshold subtracts its amount from that, and you inflict what is leftover in damage. Usually Damage Threshold is a straight number, but armor, talents, and items can give bonuses or penalties to certain types of damage, like Burn, Freezing, Crushing, Piercing, and so on. Weapons and spells usually do one of those specific forms of damage. For example an Estoc does piercing damage. Some critters might have a higher than normal resistance to Piercing, and others a lowered resistance to it.

I agree with all of these points - it really helps to plan out the attack before hand and to be able to tell your companions which enemy to go for. I was able to send Calisca and Ursula (my bear) to attack a bandit chief while I took out the bandit archer. It worked well - the two of them took out the more powerful enemy pretty quickly, and I was able to redirect them against the archer, by which time he was pretty hurt.

I forced you to create a Ranger?


Now that give me an idea . . . I had initially considered going with a Rogue character (that or a Druid), but settled on the Ranger as that had more Might.

Thank you for all the info. This is really my first D&D based RPG - and I had never played D&D, so I'm totally unfamiliar with all the terminology and rules. But I don't care beyond having fun following the story. However I do want my character to live long enough to get through the storyline! So your information breaks it down into more manageable chunks for someone like me.

The downside to the isometric view that you might be feeling is that it feels less personal than the standard third/first person games that Bethesda does. In Sky, Ob, FO, and so on, you get up close and personal with your character. You see their face. In the games like Pillars, Baldur's Gate, NWN, and so on, you are withdrawn from your characters. You watch down from on high, like a distant deity manipulating their actions. The character portraits help alleviate that somewhat, because they give you a close look at each character's face. But for the the most part they are little squiggles on the screen. And I am sure that can be dissatisfying for many.



That's like talking about having a great chicken salad, or pizza, or a cheeseburger. After hearing that, can anyone listening do anything other than go out and eat one themselves?




I have been playing D&D style RPGs since, well, since playing actual D&D! Most computer games simplify the rules, even the ones that use them. Or at least they hide most of it behind the screen so you can just play the game. Pillars is actually lot simpler than the old pen & paper D&D games.



I have talked a lot about the nuts and bolts of the game and classes and how to make a character. But one thing I have not mentioned yet is the world itself. One thing that h.e.r. mentioned is how she liked the setting. I do too. It is mostly your basic fantasy setting, with very European-looking buildings and armor and clothing and weapons and social systems. Though unlike most this is more equivalent to the Renaissance Era than the Medieval. There are firearms in the form of arabesques and blunderbusses, which from what I read are really awesome first strike weapons, but are so slow to reload they are useless after the first shot.

I will admit that the idea of any sort of firearms in a fantasy game turns me off. But the truth is it is no different than the Sengoku period of Japan, or Hideoyoshi's invasions of Korea, or good old Western Europe in the 14th and 15th Centuries, when plate armor reached its zenith precisely because it was the only thing that could stop a bullet. Movies and books set in those periods are fun, and I have to admit that playing a game set in one would be too.

Anyway, on top of the generic Fantasy world they do some really creative things with souls, and a naturally forming crystal called Adra. Adra absorbs the souls of people who have died, and in time transmits them to the Spirit World. Then after a while they return to the physical world born into new bodies. Basic reincarnation with some crystals acting as the duct work. Where it gets interesting is that there are scientists called Animancers who study souls, as well as rare people called Watchers who can actually see souls. There are also cases where souls become "Lost" and don't go on to the afterlife. Worse, there is a growing problem of the Hollowborn, babies born without souls. Sometimes the Lost Souls even find a home in these Hollowborn children.

The player character is a Watcher, and the game has some really neat stuff once your Watcher ability turns itself on. You start seeing the souls of people long dead, and reliving past events in the lives of people who are still alive. It is some very cool stuff, and it all fits together really nicely. I don't know where it is all going as I am still only at the very beginning of the game. But it really like it. It is a very welcome change from fantasy worlds I loathed, such as those of the Dragon Age and Witcher games.

I also like how the choices you make in the dialogues open up some decision trees and closes off others. It has a major impact in how the game progresses and how the NPC's interact with the player.

So SeJin and her party just died. In Black Meadow. Fighting something called a Forest Lurker. After fighting two Forest Trolls one after the other. Guess I should have rested the party after that second Troll . . .

So I'm taking a break from this and going back to Skyrim for some im- im- immersion!

Can you tell I'm off from work today?

Yay for staying home and playing computer games instead!

I figured out how you can tweak the stats for your animal companion. This is after Skadi's wolf got knocked out in a fight with some Shadows. A 60 Endurance just doesn't cut it for a front line fighter.

You use the same line as when tweaking your player character, only you have to change the name Player to the animal's name. Of course it is not as simple as the name you see in the game. As with the regular companions, you have to find the internal name the game uses. Which of course is going to be vary with each animal companion in every game.

So start with:

FindCharacter {Name}

Use the name you gave your animal companion. It will spit out the internal name. Probably something like CRE_Wolf_Companion(Clone)_6. Then use that name in the AttributeScore code.

AttributeScore CRE_Wolf_Companion(Clone)_6 {attribute} {Final Value}

Raising the animal's Constitution will also raise up their Endurance, and your companion will last a lot longer.

I can see this thread will be a great resource for anyone looking to play. Thank you for posting all these wonderful bits of helpful goodness as you discover them.

After reading through this thread and some reviews on the Internet, I'll probably start PoE soon, especially if it's a successor of Baldur's Gate, which was my favorite game when I was younger.

My only concern is that I'll find it too difficult since I had many troubles with BG and so I cheated at times. But since I'm mostly interested in storyline, cheating from time to time probably won't ruin my experience with PoE.



Very much this!

So in the TES games, you cheat by opening the console with the tilde key. But in POE, how do you go into cheat mode? Noob question, I know, but I'd like to buff my party up a little more.

The exact same way. Except that once the console is open you also have to press the Enter key before you can type anything in.

I started PoE today -> my character is a human monk called Mowrin. So far he made it to the Gilded Vale and is currently resting inside the Black Hound Inn. Alignments seem to be gone but that's not necessarily a bad thing, I intend to roleplay Mowrin as more or less a good character.

I felt funny when I started playing PoE, at the same time memories from playing BG came back but I felt an urge to go play some Fallout since I haven't played any game from an isometric view in years. But in a few minutes I was hooked.

I was nicely surprised inside the ruins where you have to take shelter from the windstorm and Mowrin was capable of disarming most traps on his own and quickly found the exit. I haven't explored the rest of the ruins but I assume that disarming traps was a shortcut of sorts. And since his Athletics is high, he managed to act fast enough to save Heodan (one of tutorial companions) from the bandit chief in the camp before, I like it when skills and abilities have an impact during dialogue.

To reach Gilded Vale, he crossed Valewood where he killed the bear but also found out the sad story behind Perly's death and now intends to punish Perly's traitorous friend. From Valewood he finally arrived to the Gilded Vale and met Aloth, one of the possible companions but for now refused to travel in a company.

I'm still getting used to the game, so far I have tutorial messages enabled, I play on the easiest difficulty and I didn't really study the combat in depth yet. Upon leveling up, I chose the Veteran's Recovery talent, which recovers Mowrin's endurance by itself or something similar and I invested points mostly in Stealth, Mechanics and Athletics.

SubRosa, IIRC, you said that you didn't find camping supplies yet. They can be found on the corpse which you encounter immediately when arriving to Valewood.

EDIT: Is it possible to alter skin color and hairstyle mid-game?

Another Pillar of the community!

Mowrin looks like a pretty ferocious man of spiritual enlightenment!

Disarming traps is purely based on your Mechanics skill. So you must have at least one point. So too is detecting them, though I think you have to be in Sneak mode to find traps.

Wow Mow killed the bear all by himself! That was one tough ball of fur.

So am I the only one who sees "Valewood" and thinks "Valenwood?"

I did find more camping supplies by now. In fact, as soon as you get in the cave from the biwiac storm you automatically get 1 set of camping supplies added to your inventory. If you follow the cave left from the entrance, there are two more sets of supplies in a crate.

I don't think you can change your hair or skin once you start. But I am not positive. I know you can change your portrait and clothing colors.

There is a Respec option you can select at any merchant. It is mainly for redistributing your points, abilities, and skills. But it might let you change your appearance as well. Nope, I just tried it, and it does not allow you to change your hair or skin.

Skadi and Fenrir

Fighting Kobolds Xaurip

Slugging it out with a gang of Goldpact Paladins

Battling Forest Trolls

How do you manage to get "so close" to your characters?

Wow, forest Trolls look tough and ugly.

--

I want to change the hairstyle because Mowrin in game has shorter hair than on the pic but if it can't be done, I'll get used to it. Perhaps I'll find a more fitting portrait online and swap it. I have some good portraits with short hair but the skin is too bright. EDIT: Found one that fits and changed it. Now he looks much less ferocious but more similar to his in-game appearance.



Surprisingly his stats say that the hardest enemy he fought so far, was a young wolf that he killed together with Calisca in the tutorial.

Now I'm about to do some reading regarding the Monk class before I'm off to work. IIRC they couldn't use any weapons in BG but supposedly they can in PoE.

Great shots! I was looking on those sites you linked earlier in this thread and am quite intrigued. I really like the concept of an elven rangerarcher with a furry familiar. I was pleased to find that such a character (unlike in BG) can function as a real scout because they can learn to handle traps and locks.

This means that we can expect to see Buffy joining us soon?

Lopov: I used the SetZoomRange {minimum zoom} {maximum zoom} console command to get the camera to zoom in so close. I don't know what it isn't that way by default. I find SetZoomRange 0.2 50 works good. Though I might try reducing the second number, as I find the game looks kind of hazy when I am zoomed out that far. I changed it to SetZoomRange 0.2 1.2, as a just a little bit of the second number goes a really long way.

I took on that Bear alone with Persephone, and it killed her about three times in a row. When she finally did manage to defeat it she has used up all her potions and was down to just a handful of Endurance.

From that giant miniature space piglet, I see you sprung for the White March too! Let us know how the Monk works. I have not tried playing one yet.


Acadian: One nice thing about Pillars is that picking locks, disabling traps, and so on are not solely dedicated to the Thief/Rogue class. The Mechanics skill is all you need, and anyone can raise it and become the team lockpicker and trapfinder.

I hope this does mean that we will see a blond bowgirl joining us soon!

Maybe the bear wasn't that difficult because I play on the easiest difficulty? I enjoyed playing Monks in Baldur's Gate but at low levels it was very difficult to survive on your own while in PoE (for now) this doesn't seem to be the case.

I actually didn't know that the version without the WM exists too, though I haven't tested the piglet yet. I was busy trying to find out how to drop items on the ground and then I read online that it's not possible.

BTW, can you eat ingredients that you pick up? For instance, in the tutorial your objective was to find some healing grapes but once picked up, they move to Stash instead of Inventory and the only interaction possible is to read its description but you can't actually use them.

I play on Average, so maybe that is why the Bear was harder for me.

I had to buy the White March separate. It must be because you are in a different region it came bundled with the game where you are.

To use an ingredient you have to move it to your Quick Items bar in your inventory. I had the same problem until I figured it out.

I think you can drop things. Look down at the bottom of your Inventory page, next to the Stash. There should be a Drop button there. I have never used it though. It is probably something that added with one of the patches. One thing I realized after looking online for answers is that a lot of posts people have made about the game were made when it was in Beta, and this game has changed a lot over the time it has been out. 2.0 - the version we have now - is a lot different from the previous ones.

Today I tried out IE Mod which has a beta version for Pillars 2.0. It does a lot of things, but what got me interested is that it incorporates other mods that do things like change the number of spells mages can cast between rests. There is even an option to change them all from per rest to per encounter. So that makes playing a wizard a really viable option.

There is another option to allow you to use items that are regular inventory and not just in your Quick Items bar. It also lets you switch items between characters during combat.

One thing I like is Fast Scouting Mode, which allows you to move at normal speed while in Stealth Mode. That makes it easier to find hidden and trapped things, by being in Stealth Mode all the time.

It does other things as well, such as allow you to customize your UI, and change a lot of game elements like the circles drawn under the characters to be more like the old BG and IWD games.

One thing that has not been mentioned for the benefit of folks who have not bought the game yet is Engagement. It is similar to D&D 3 and up where you got attacks of opportunity on opponents who tried to move past you in melee. In PoE, you can Engage one opponent by default, and more with talents. When you Engage them, the two of you are basically stuck in with each other, and they cannot move away without taking an immediate free attack from you that comes with a huge bonus. Naturally it works both ways, and the monsters will engage you as well.

Here is an example. The Wicht in the middle of the screen has engaged Fenrir, my Ranger's wolf companion. The red line that arcs from her to him shows that she has engaged him. Likewise, Fenrir has engaged her as well, so he has a green arc going to her. Finally, to the right of the Wicht is the party fighter Eder, who has also engaged the Wicht. (green is always for good guys, red for the enemy)

I kind of like it. It ensures that enemies "get stuck in" with your front line fighters, and keeps them from just running past them and attacking your squishy mages in the rear. That is what is going on in this pic. The front liners on both sides are engaged with each other in the center, while the squishies in the rear are flinging spells and arrows. So tactics and thinking really works, it isn't just a bunch of characters rushing around pell mell hacking everything that moves.

Granted, it is not so fun when the front line has to step to either side when the mage uses an area spell that would otherwise fry them as well - like Rolling Flame - and the baddies get at the squishy mage before the front line can get back in place. Then the mage is stuck in melee with an enemy slugger. But it should cut both ways, and it makes the game interesting.