Overview for the uninformed?

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Ok. What I know. Looks like BG...but...

Does it feel like BG?
Races?
Classes?
Profs/Skills?
Most importantly... NPCs?
Spell System... Arcane & Divine split? Elemental? Psionics? Other types?

 

Simple question. Not as simple of an answer, and that answer continues to change somewhat with each release.

Does it feel like BG? - In many ways yes. In many ways no. PoE is clearly going to be its own thing. From a story and character development perspective we don't know yet, though it seems promising. Only a small snippet of non-plot related material is included in the backer beta. The interface has many similarities, and you do have that "isometric RPG feel" (whatever that means). But almost nothing has been copied verbatim from the IE games.

Races? You have some standards like dwarves, elves, and humans, but again, they have a different flavor to them. Aumaua are big guys, reminiscent of half-orcs in some ways, but here they are a semi aquatic race. There is also a small catlike race that is reminiscent of gnomes/halflings in some ways. The god like are much like the planetouched, but again, they have their own new vibe and looks.

Classes? - Again, similar but different. Like base DnD, you have 11 classes. A paladin, fighter, rogue, priest, druid, ranger, monk and barbarian are included.

The chanter effectively replaces the bard. The wizard effectively combines wizards and sorcerers (they have "spell books" but don't have to memorize spells, they simply equip a spell book or grimoire). The Cipher is like a psionicist.

All of these classes resemble their DnD counterparts in the general roles that they fill, but are presented very differently.

Profs/Skills? These are quite different.

Most importantly... NPCs? We don't really know yet. The actual Obsidian created NPCs haven't been shown in detail yet. In the backer beta you just get a group of generic NPCs, BB_Fighter, BB_Rogue, etc.

Spell System... Arcane & Divine split? Elemental? Psionics? Other types? Yes, there is effectively what you might classify as arcane and divine casters. I consider the priest and druid as the divine casters as they both have heal spells. Druids tend to focus more on damage spells, and priests on buffs and debuffs, similar to DnD.

The cipher is like an arcane caster, but he takes power from another's soul and forms that into magic. Accordingly, he's not restricted to a number of spells per day and needs to perform physical attacks to gain the focus for his spells.

Chanters are really cool. They weave small little songs together that each create an effect, often a party buff of some sort. The more of these chants that they sing the more spell power they gain, and they can use that spell power to cast more traditional spells. They are particularly good at summoning spells.

 

Thanks Marc. Sounds right up my alley. How big can your team be?

 

Your created Player Character plus up to five others, just like the IE games.

You can enlist Obsidian's pre-made playable NPCs, who will have their own stories and backgrounds. Or you can create your own NPCs, similar to IWD, from Adventurers Halls you will find along the way (you can't start with a full party, and hiring any created characters will be cost prohibitive early on). Or you can mix and match pre generated NPCs with characters that you create. So, a good deal of flexibility here.

 

Mercer has given a good answer so I'll just add my opinion.
To me it does have the BG feel or IWD feel. I like what I have been able to play doing the Backers Bet. I like the spell casting system better. Combat is still a bit iffy but part of that may be because I sepent the last eight years playing games like the TES games where combat in my opinion sucks.

The little quests in the BB were fun and I think well done. As far as story goes I am pinning my expectations on Obsidian's reputation. I have avoided spoilers and all I know is the player character is refered to as The Watcher.

So far although the voice acting is not bad neither am I impressed by it. I think anyone who enjoyed the Infinity Engine games will enjoy this game as long as they do not expect a clone. There are differences and I believe they are improvements.

The feel is there but updated as it should be.

 

I caught a gameplay video from Obsidian that gave a first look at some of the game areas. I'm on my phone at the moment so can't provide a link, but it all looked really great.

I particularly liked the stronghold related stuff, and the fact that the 13 level mega dungeon is actually under it.

At any rate, we got to see some of the companions for the first time, and there seemed to be a fair bit of fully voiced inter party banter, similar to Dragon Age. I'm really looking forward to seeing more about the companions. I have a feeling that this is one area where the game will really shine.

 

Reading this is making my day. Can't wait for a release!

 

Dis a quick play of the new Backers Beta and a lot of bugs have been fixed. Things look good.

I have been avoiding things that would spoil the game for me. However from posts I have seen people seem to mostly pleased with what they have seen. Comments are mainly positive.

 

Races

Human: 3 varieties, benefits are the same for each variety
Dwarves: 2 varieties, different benefits for each variety
Elves: 2 varieties, different benefits for each variety
Orlan (think halfling): 2 varieties, different benefits for each variety
Aumaua (sorta-kinda half-orcs, but not really): 2 varieties, different benefits for each variety
Godlike: 4 varieties, with different benefits for each


Classes

There are 11 classes. Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger, Priest, Druid, Wizard, Monk, Rogue, Chanter, Cipher.

Priests are just clerics by a different name. Chanters are just Bards by a different name. And Ciphers are "spellcasters" who have psionic powers rather than arcane powers.

Don't expect that the classes in PoE play exactly the same as in DnD. They often don't. Sometimes the differences are minimal, sometimes they're more significant.



Skills

There are 5 skills in PoE. Stealth, Athletics, Lore, Mechanics, and Survival.

Mechanics is critical for dealing with traps, but can be learned by any character of any class, though Rogues do start out with 2 points in Mechanics, while other classes start with 0.

Athletics is useful because if you have 0 points in it, your character will get fatigued easily, which isn't a good thing, because resting away from an inn is now limited by the number of camping supplies you have (which is capped, based on the level of difficulty you're playing). But the good news is that at little as 2-3 points in Althletics is good enough for characters to be in good condition to not get tired too quickly. Beyond that is only necessary/useful for performing certain athletic feats that may be needed in the course of your adventures, and usually only by a single party member.

Lore is fairly self explanatory. Means that you're well read, and able to cast spells from scrolls. Also, some dialog options are triggered by certain levels of Lore.

Stealth is fairly self-explanatory, though the more Stealth you have, the closer you can get to an enemy before being spotted. But be aware that stealth is done on a whole party basis, rather than per individual. Meaning, you can have a single super stealthy scout who won't be spotted until he's in melee range, but if you move your entire party towards that same character, the enemy may not see Mr SuperStealth, but he may see your mage who only has 1 point in stealth sooner, even if he's at a greater distance.

Survival is largely used to extend thebenefit duration of certain food items. It's not a critical skill, but it can be useful ... if you happen to use those items. Plus, there are some occasional dialog options based on Survival IIRC.


Professions

These are party of the character's build and provide bonuses to skills, as well as occasionally having dialog options related to those professions.

In addition to professions, you also select where your character is from, which provides a +1 stat bonus. There are six different possible places where your character can hail from, thus providing a +1 for each of the 6 stats. For example, if you're from Aedyr, you get a +1 to Resolve. Also, the the place you hail from affects the equipment you start the game with. It's not a huge thing, but it is nice. For example, if you start as a Rogue from Aedyr, you'll start wearing a nice civilized looking set of leather armor, with a pair of daggers IIRC whereas if you come from the Living Lands (a more frontier location), you'll look rather more ... rustic ... wearing some scruffy looking hide armor and have a spear IIRC. It's a nice touch that adds a little more flavor to starting characters.



NPCs


There are 8 BG2 style pre-made NPCs. And like the BG2 NPCs, their stats are not optimized, but they are entirely playable. And like with the BG2 NPCs, you can and do talk to them. And they'll occasionally have some banter while you're walking around.

The pre-made NPC characters are of the following classes:

Spoiler

Fighter, Wizard, Priest, Chanter, Cipher, Druid, Ranger, Paladin

And in addition to the pre-mades, you have the ability to hire on mercenary NPCs which are essentially custom made (by the player) NPC's. And by "hire", yes, I mean that you have to PAY to get them to join your party. I've only hired one custom NPC, but IIRC, you can hire an NPC up to one level below your own level.





Spell Systems

Wizard: Arcane
Priest: Divine
Druid: Nature
Cipher: Psionic
Chanter: Hard to classify. Called "invocations".

 

CrucisNH already listed the facts; so let me try to answer the "opinion" aspect of this question:

Wilderness exploration feels a lot like BG1 (but in higher resolution).

Dungeon exploration feels like a mix of BG2 and the IWD games. (Luckily, dungeons tend to be a little more nonlinear and sensibly shaped than the "long ridiculously winding corridor" style maps of IWD1 though.)

Questing feels sort of like BG2, but with a higher proportion of thematically "dark" and serious quest lines, and less silliness / comic relief.

Combat encounters feel somewhat different from the IE games, but out of all of them, closest to IWD2 (which is no surprise, since Josh Sawyer was the lead designer of that game as well )

The story and protagonist are reminiscent of both BG2 and PST, though more subdued. (I.e. the protagonist is not quite as unique as The Nameless One, and the story line not quite as "bombastic" as the Baalspawn wars and ascending the throne of Baal.)

Companions work similarly as in BG2. (I.e. not as flat as in BG1, but also not as deep and well integrated into the larger story as in PST.)


Something I kind of miss in PoE, is the BG2-style mage duels. When you see a mage in this game, you don't go "Oh ****, a mage, what spells/resources do I have left to lower his defenses?", you just attack him like any other enemy. And although there are some meta-magic spells like spell turning, they seem pretty useless here. I guess it's a result of Sawyer's "no hard counters" and "all classes should be equal" policies, though I think the end result is a little poorer for it.

Something new which I really like, are the scripted interactions - they add a lot of flavor.

 

This is very true! There are very few, if any, dungeons that feel like one "long winding corridor".

Ineth, I don't know if you've finished a run through of PoE yet, but there's one dungeon, that at least temporarily, is unlit and you have to crawl slowly because the only light you have is a torch, which doesn't even generate enough light to see out to the edge of your "fog of war". I LOVED THIS!!! And wish that more dungeons were like this. It's always struck me as odd that so many dungeons were so surprisingly well lit. It was great to have to actually move slowly through a dungeon with only some torches for light!

Agreed, though I think that the encounters in IWD2 were actually better. The PoE encounters aren't as complex or challenging. I'm not speaking of the difficulty of the enemies involved so much as the tactical nature of encounters.

In IWD2, you had an underground encounter where you were fairly constantly hit from both the front and rear. There was also that major battle at the bridge early on in IWD2 where it was actually one long running major battle, rather than a crawl over a map looking for minor skirmishes (by comparison). This isn't to say that all fights in IWD2 were this inventive, but at least there were some which weren't a plain ole skirmish encounter.

Unfortunately, PoE's battles all seem to fall into the skirmish encounter category. No major running battles. No battles where you're getting hit on both the front and rear, not counting "teleporting" baddies jumping into your rear to harass your squishier characters.

A difference between PoE and BG2 in this regard is that in BG2, you know that Irenicus is the big bad right up front without any doubt. And your motivation for hunting him down is extremely person (after all, he kidnaps you and tortures you). You might not know exactly what he's up to, and you don't exactly need to care. Irenicus kidnapped and tortured you and that's reason enough.

I'll say the PoE version in a spoiler ...

Spoiler

In PoE, you pretty much think that a certain character is the bad guy before you leave the starting tutorial area. Or perhaps more accurately, you think that he's A bad guy. Whether he's the bad guy of the plot, you really have no idea.

Furthermore, something happens to you, but you have no way of knowing with any certainly that this bad guy did it to you. (I don't think that he did, since IMO doing so would have been stupid.) The PC doesn't seem to have any strong personal motivation for wanting to hunt down this bad guy, at least at the start. It's all a mystery coming out of the tutorial area.

In the final analysis, I tend to think that BG2 is better in this regard simply because the PC and thus the player know right up front why he should care. In BG2, you want vengeance (or justice) on Irenicus. In PoE, there's a big mystery that you have to solve. But if you're a player who sees mystery solving as your motivation, that can be a problem. In BG2, there are mysteries to solve, but they're not a motivation so much as just the path you have to take in your hunt for Irenicus. At least that's how I see it.

One thing that I find annoying is the completely obtuse, overly long spell names for many wizard spells and the incredibly long chant and invocation names for chanters. Maybe I'm just a simple person, but I like having a haste spell being named a Haste spell (or some other suitable, but short synonym for haste).

As for the mage duels, I don't know if I agree with you or not about missing them. But you are correct that they don't exist. Wizard spellcasting is a lot more like IWD2 in this respect.

Two things that I do like about wizards in PoE. One, there's a special ability that gives their magical implements (i.e. wands, sceptres, and rods) a small enemies-only area effect for their Blast damage. This is a nice touch. And two, starting at level 9, lower level spells start converting from being on a per-rest to being on a per-encounter basis. I wish that I'd known this when I did my first run. Aloth, the pre-made mage, would have been a lot nastier had I know this little tidbit.

Agree 100%.

 

To be precise, I don't actually miss the mage duels as they were in the unmodded BG2 game, but rather as they were in BG2 with the Sword Coast Stratagems, Spell Revisions, and Refinements HLAs mods installed.

So mabe it's not fair of me to hold the freshly released PoE to that standard, especially since it is a low/mid-level campaign.