14 DAY TRIAL // I still remember the build that I never managed to actually finish Baldur's Gate 2 with: a dual class sword saint and mage, a character designed to be able to improve his defense and attack with magic while using the most powerful blades in the game to vanquish his enemies.
The plan was to go dual class somewhere around level 9 or 10 and to build the entire party around his capabilities, creating a force that could deal relatively easily with even the toughest of the included bosses.
By the time me and my friends came up with the Kensai mage, I had already finished Baldur's Gate with three other characters, and I remember that I was simply unable to get through the quests once again.
For Pillars of Eternity, I am determined to finish the game at least twice, and for both characters I am planning to avoid min-maxing and to be as true to my character concept as possible.
Min-maxing refers to the practice of choosing classes and races so that unimportant characteristics are minimized as much as possible, and the player has points to invest in the advantages of the combination.
This tends to make the game easier while also eliminating some of the actual role-playing aspects of a title in the genre.
Pillars of Eternity discourages the practice
The development team at Obsidian has made it relatively hard to adopt this kind of approach.
The core characteristics of a build tend to all be important, and it seems to be easy to create dumb mages or weak fighters and still get working protagonists that can deal with the combat and the conversations in unique ways.
The development team has also introduced typologies for all the characters, and via dialog, each player will create a profile that they can stick to as the story progresses.
Gamers can also tweak Pillars of Eternity via the options panel to hide some details in order to make future campaigns more interesting.
With min-maxing under control, it's much easier to focus on the world of the game and the interactions with the NPCs.
As long as players carefully use the character creation system, they will be able to enjoy Obsidian's title while also developing a clear personality for their character, which will infuse his combat moves and his dialog lines.
