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Question for you guys: Do you use all of the main NPCs like Aloth and Eder in your party? I'm only level 4 but just now I'm noticing that some of their stats and skills are pretty bad. It feels like a bit of a crisis because I'm naturally a min-maxer but I'm stuck with a wizard that has 16 points in Perception for some reason...
I know there is another 3rd party program that can readjust these but I feel like its cheating. On the other hand I could just buy companions early on and train them myself...but the problem is I lose *all* of the interesting dialogue that comes with having these companions.
This seems like a pretty large oversight on Obsidian's part...I don't understand why they gave a wizard 16 perception, when they explicitly tell you that the most important stats for that class are intellect and might. So I'm stuck with a gimped character, who I don't want to get rid of because I am interested in what happens in his backstory.
How have you all dealt with this? Do you just roll with it? Can you actually just leave someone like Aloth at your stronghold and then pick him up after a few levels to read through his dialogue, then put him back in the stronghold again? Or do you actually need to adventure with him?
Thanks!
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So far I've been using an all NPC party, aside from my PC (orlan barb), for my PoTD run. I feel like once you level up more and get more/better spells their deficiencies aren't as obvious. Before this run I had started one before with a Wiz as my PC, but restarted shortly after starting Defiance Bay because Normal>Hard just wasn't challenging enough after awhile. I started just attack-moving encounters and didn't even bother to pause to cast things most of the time.
So by then I felt like I had a good enough grasp of the game to restart. I still haven't completely finished, in Twin Elms atm, but so far I haven't had much issue with not using min-maxed chars. Since I never completely the game originally, I knew I didn't want to miss out on the additional story and dialogue, because the NPCs just bring so much to the game. My best advice is just play the game how you want. If you want the extra experience that the NPCs bring, I'd say don't let their sub-optimal stats hold you back from using them, especially if you're on lower than PoTD! For as much as people talk about min-maxing for PoTD I haven't really felt the total need to do so, granted my PC is totally min-maxed (18 might/dex/wis 10con drop per/res), him alone feels like enough. That said I've never experienced how much easier a complete min-maxed party would be over what I'm using, but I don't suspect it'd be as big a difference as people make it to be. Point being, play the way that you'll get the most enjoyment!
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Unless you're playing on potd, the normal npcs are more than enough to take every fight with relative ease. I'd say take the npcs with you on your first run through the game.
Most of the npc sidequests you can do them whenever you want (provided you are sufficiently far along the storyline). I think some sidequests have certain in game triggers though + Show Spoiler [affects] + and/or have to be completed before you go too far forward in the story + Show Spoiler [affects] +. For some of the quests, you just have to camp with the npc a few times and then talk to them to complete them.
As for conversations, most npcs will have something to say after a major quest is completed. You can just pull them out of the inn to converse with them if you like.
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I want to hear their story, but not suffer the horrible statting and builds if you get them late, so I use the IE mod to enable more console commands and use the ChangeClass command to respec each of them from level 0 whenever I meet them, then I use the AttributeScore command to restat them (keeping the same total amount of points). Some probably will call that cheating, but it's a single player game, I don't give 2 hoots.
Btw, difference between a fully minmaxed tank and vanilla Eder (non bugged) can definately be felt in my experience.
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I don't know, from a RP perspective, it makes more sense to me to roll with the characters as they are. This is PoE, not D&D, and there are very few "trash" stats for a class. Yeah, you probably wouldn't build a Wizard from scratch to have high perception, but he can still utilize that, and it's not like the game is impossible without min-maxing every single member of your party.
Obviously it's a single-player game, and you do what you need to do to have fun, but I feel bad for people that try to min-max on their first playthrough of PoE because it seems like they are missing the point.
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I don't enjoy playing characters that aren't "mine". As in, if their talent choices and such simply make no sense, I have no urge to play them. Like that heal on rest talent that seems to be on every follower if you pick them up at later levels...
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On April 18 2015 01:20 ZasZ. wrote:
I don't know, from a RP perspective, it makes more sense to me to roll with the characters as they are. This is PoE, not D&D, and there are very few "trash" stats for a class. Yeah, you probably wouldn't build a Wizard from scratch to have high perception, but he can still utilize that, and it's not like the game is impossible without min-maxing every single member of your party.
Obviously it's a single-player game, and you do what you need to do to have fun, but I feel bad for people that try to min-max on their first playthrough of PoE because it seems like they are missing the point.
Well to be fair "the point" is a bit subjective, everyone gets something different out of a game and we all prefer out respective genres for that reason. I mean some people like me feel a very strong urge to make the most of their characters while also appreciating the storyline, which in this case are in direct conflict.
But regardless thanks to everyone for the replies. Now that I know it isn't a big deal, especially since I only play on hard, I feel comfortable going back to my characters and playing through it as normal. Going to uninstall that IE mod (I found it too daemir!) because I was already thinking of altering the stats. This is no real argument against using it but I still feel better for some reason keeping everything as the developers intended, even if they may have made an oversight.
On that note I think I read that the lead developer was considering adding in some kind of respecing option that allows you to modify most stats except the most fundamental ones like class and race. But apparently this is more of a side goal so I won't hope for it in the near future.
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I've been avoiding too much discussion of this game, but I have one thing that is puzzling me, so hoping someone might help me figure it out. The game is brilliant, btw, one of the best I've played in recent years.
This will contain spoilers for the story.
+ Show Spoiler +So once you get to Act 3 and the part in the Elm tree where you are tasked to ask divine favors, when doing the quest for the God of Hunt (Galathawan something), if you have Durance in your party, you learn that goddess Magran plotted with Woedica to kill the Eothas and that Magran killed all the apostates that were involved in using the Godhammer, expect Durance. But Magran then says, and I'm paraphrasing: "Woedica and Thaos take to the Olden ways. They hate the change. But the people have change, and why wouldn't they, when they saw even Gods can be killed. So they took to the animancy...".
So that part gets me. Why plot to kill Eothas when that would only lead to change in human society and beliefs, when you hate the changed and want the old order of things to exist? Or was the plot to have the people start using animancy, so Thaos and Woedica could collect all the souls?
Usually I don't see the need to min max in these kind of games, unless you are playing PotD. I accept all the NPC's with all their inefficiency, because that's the part of who they are.
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I started a new game on PotD and tbh I can't see what the fuzz is about. There's barely any more enemies than on hard. Stats might be a tad higher on things, but everything that worked on hard still seems to work for me on PotD. Just finished Raedric's and everything before Caed Nua and didn't have any more problems with shades in Temple of Eothas than I had on hard. Just using 1 more -deflection spell per harder pack is all I've had to adjust so far. Get to use 1 more phantom from Kana. Hopefully it gets harder in act2.
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On April 20 2015 04:55 Odoakar wrote:I've been avoiding too much discussion of this game, but I have one thing that is puzzling me, so hoping someone might help me figure it out. The game is brilliant, btw, one of the best I've played in recent years. This will contain spoilers for the story. + Show Spoiler +So once you get to Act 3 and the part in the Elm tree where you are tasked to ask divine favors, when doing the quest for the God of Hunt (Galathawan something), if you have Durance in your party, you learn that goddess Magran plotted with Woedica to kill the Eothas and that Magran killed all the apostates that were involved in using the Godhammer, expect Durance. But Magran then says, and I'm paraphrasing: "Woedica and Thaos take to the Olden ways. They hate the change. But the people have change, and why wouldn't they, when they saw even Gods can be killed. So they took to the animancy...".
So that part gets me. Why plot to kill Eothas when that would only lead to change in human society and beliefs, when you hate the changed and want the old order of things to exist? Or was the plot to have the people start using animancy, so Thaos and Woedica could collect all the souls? Usually I don't see the need to min max in these kind of games, unless you are playing PotD. I accept all the NPC's with all their inefficiency, because that's the part of who they are.
In case you weren't paying attention, Eothas was a tyrant that wanted to create a police-state just like Woedica. He started persecuting and executing worshipers of other gods or anyone that wouldn't bow to him. Magran saw him as an agent of stagnation even more than Woedica. The real question is whether or not Eothas - the machine/computer itself was shut down or not. I think Eothas just went blue screen and needed to be reset but there was no way to dig all the way down to wherever the Engwithans buried them so Thaos just kind of went "meh, I'll do it later."
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Russian Federation1401 Posts
Finally finished the game.
Loved the story, dislike the secondary quests and the general feel of the game. Combat and itemization was uninspiring.
Worse than BG1 and 2 but still etter than skyrim and DA. In my opinion they are going in the right direction but there is still much work to be done.
Something I liked a lot is that there are basically no evil characters.
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My loading times went from sweet, to ok, to uh, to fuck this shit.
I'm not finishing this until they patch it :[
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I can see why you think that. The speed run that is around 40 min is like half loading screens.
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The loading screens are killing me as well, especially since I don't have a SSD. And it is funny since BGEE games have like 1 second loading screens.
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Russian Federation1401 Posts
after finishing the game I feel like another BG run. I haven't done one in years, Should I go for BGEE or BG + tutu?
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On April 22 2015 01:26 SF-Fork wrote:
Something I liked a lot is that there are basically no evil characters.
How's that a good thing, really?
I like my replay value and trying the game from multiple angles.
I thought the evil BG2 companions were also the most fun (well, maybe Minsc and Jan were up there too  ).
And I'm super sad that during my second playthrough of PoE, my evil rogue will have zero support from NPC.
I can absolutely recommand you BGEE. New content is OK. Mod support is there for the must have ones (BG1NPC and SCS). And the experience is really smooth (super slow loading / UI design, scrolling and probably a few more things).
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Russian Federation1401 Posts
I meant characters within the whole game, not companions.
Everything is in the grey area. Everyone has a good reason for what they are doing in their own mind.
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On April 24 2015 20:18 SF-Fork wrote:
I meant characters within the whole game, not companions.
Everything is in the grey area. Everyone has a good reason for what they are doing in their own mind.
That's evil in a nutshell. There's a category for evil characters that don't justify their actions somehow: stupid evil.
Thaos is evil. There is no question about it.
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On April 24 2015 19:31 SF-Fork wrote:
after finishing the game I feel like another BG run. I haven't done one in years, Should I go for BGEE or BG + tutu?
Tutu's kind of old and unsupported at this point. From having set up a BG playthrough recently, Trilogy worked a lot better for me and I ended up settling with using Trilogy.
If you aren't going to run through both BG1+2, BGEE is probably fine (I don't think it's worth the money if you already own BG/BG2, but if you own it, it's a perfectly acceptable option).
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Russian Federation1401 Posts
I've bought BG games three times already throughout the years.
Somehow I never managed to install BG trilogy properly and ended up using tutu. This time I'm just going to play through BGEE 1 and 2
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EPT
