3E multiclassing was broken as fuck, but more flexible than 2E, for sure.
Yeah, it was super easy to abuse, that’s for sure.
As for PoE multi-classing, one could always not pick different classes for the NPC’s, or just create your own characters (it sounds like only NPC’s have the multi-class option).
I’m okay with systems you can abuse. That can even be fun.
I’m just not okay with overly complicated systems.
That reminds me of a funny D&D experience in a CRPG. I wanted to abuse the shit out of NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer. I wanted a really strong character. So I took recommendations from Qt3 on what character was so strong it was almost broken, and found a similar character build on GameFAQs. I spent hours following the instructions to a T. I slowly leveled up a new character and multiclassed in the ways prescribed, choosing exactly the parts the build wanted me to. After spending all that time, I finally started MoTB, and started playing. In the starting village, there’s a boss fight, and try as I might, I was never able to beat that fight. The boss was immune to most of my attacks and I could never beat him. Not even after turning down the difficulty to easy.
I just thought that was hilarious looking back. Spend all your time trying to abuse D&D rules, only to find I couldn’t even get past the beginning of the game. (I did finish the base NWN2 with a bard character, but I lost my save game before I got to the very end).
Totally agree, abusing broken systems is a classic CRPG trope. I fondly remember multiclassing in Wizardry.
I’d kind of rather not have multi classing personally.
I’m a super power gamer and enjoyed messing with build plans and such in NWN, BG, pillars, etc, but even i didn’t multi class THAT much in these games.
The reason i dislike multi classing is that it is very easy to tank your character if you don’t plan ahead which leads to people who don’t know what they are doing making mistakes and then CONSTANTLY complaining about it. One of my friend’s did this with BG2 and now every conversation involving the game comes down to “you need a masters in D&D because i broke my character multi classing.”
I always thought multi-classing was a spitball to get around a too-restrictive character system.
It was definitely that in 2nd Edition AD&D. I don’t know if I believe that’s what it became later in 3rd Edition, especially 3.5E, however. There were a lot of really interesting builds you could pull off by dabbling a few levels here or there, the way it worked was really cool I always thought, especially being able to quickly throw a few Barbarian levels on an Ogre or a few Sorcerer levels on a goblin, for example, for a little extra spice and challenge.
That and “I would like to be objectively more powerful than single-class suckas.”
Which, y’know.
I fondly remember my BG 2 kensai/magic user. I could pull off 9th level spells and slice and dice like a fiend.
I was going to fund this as well, but the RTWP combat in Pillars 1 had me pulling my hair out at times.
As soon as a large group attacked, I had no idea what was happening and what was fun tactical combat turned into a giant mess with spells/buffs coming and going so fast that it was impossible to keep up even with combat slowed.
I would have sold a kidney to make this a turn based game.
Anyway, I have yet to try Tyranny. Did they find a way to fix the combat at all?
Thanks!!!
Just went through my various save files for PoE. I have 144 hours logged with the game. I think I’ll have to back Deadfire, especially for the lvl 18 level cap.
It was never broken…
But if it helps, you only control 4 characters in Tyranny. I still don’t think you’ll click with it though, sounds like.
Yup, to each their own. I really enjoyed the combat in Pillars and Tyranny.
The pace of combat in Tyranny is much slower and smaller party size makes things more manageable overall. It actually helped me get over my distaste of PoE’s combat and I ended up loving it once I returned to it after my short stint with Tyranny.
I do agree with that. Tyranny lowers party size and also SIGNIFICANTLY lowers enemy group size. This makes things more manageable.
I do think it still works nicely in pillars though personally.
I dont think combat was broken necessarily but as Bateau says, would you not agree that things are difficult to follow when you are fighting a large group of enemies?
I guess Pace is the description I am trying to get across. In large battles, I felt I had no control. Like there were a million things going on.
I enjoyed it much better when it was a smaller group of enemies, even if they were more powerful.
Bateau perhaps ill try your idea and give Tyranny a try and then come back to POE.
Sorry, haven’t been following the Tyranny stuff, is combat the exact same as PoE, just a smaller party?
It’s similar. It’s certainly the same ballpark: Real-time with pause, D&D-like…
But it also feels simpler to me. I don’t think it’s just the smaller groups. I felt like the abilities were simpler, less status effects, etc. Characters have abilities that are based more on their personality rather than the class of their character. Character creation in general feels less involved, which I think plays into there being less going on in combat. I spent a lot of time in POE looking at the log (which I enjoyed), but didn’t find myself doing that much in Tyranny.
Ruleset is mostly the same but there are some deviations - for one, you can see all the talent trees right from the start and they’re fairly thematic (melee dps, ranged dps, healer, etc). And your main abilities all have a cooldown instead of PoE’s per encounter system. Also, I think there’s no friendly fire at all.
IIRC you can also disable friendly fire in PoE.
I left it on myself, the spells that featured it were usually the highest damage/most powerful, and the ones that had “FOE Only” were kind of a kick to get your hands on more when the stakes were a bit higher.