14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Obsidian is still actively working on its upcoming Pillars of Eternity, but the studio still has the time to offer fans of the project an in-depth look at the design of the frontline classes that all parties will use, the fighter and the barbarian.
Gamers will need to carefully use their abilities and equipment in order to make sure that they stand their ground and protect the rest of the group, allowing it to destroy enemies using long-range weapons, spells or other abilities.
The Fighter is one of the core classes for all role-playing systems and Obsidian is keeping their design fairly standard.
Josh Sawyer, the game director of Pillars of Eternity, states on the forums that, “In combat, fighters are steadfast and stalwart. Even novice fighters enjoy the highest base Deflection defense of any class and the ability to passively recover a small amount of Stamina every second. As the levels rise, fighters gain access to weapon specialization, modestly increasing their overall damage for all weapons in a specific category. These categories are broader than they were in the Infinity Engine games.”
Somewhat unconventionally, they will be able to use handguns to attack at range and their skills will include: Defender, Unbending, Vigorous Defense, Confident Aim, Crippling Guard, Critical Defense and Unbroken.
The Barbarian class is designed to be more reckless than fighters and can deal a lot of damage to enemies as long as it gets the support ad healing that it needs.
Obsidian says, “While fighters rely on disciplined adherence to proven combat techniques to weather difficult battles, barbarians charge furiously into melee and wreak enormous damage to everyone around them. Barbarians are relatively inaccurate, but every melee attack they make gives them an opportunity to strike out at bystanders.”
A barbarian character has more health and stamina than any other, but low deflection, which means that he will get hit by enemies more often.
Their abilities include: Carnage, Blooded, Wild Sprint, Thick Skinned, Brute Force, Heart of Fury, Vengeful Defeat and One Stands Alone.
Obsidian has already said that players will be able to choose from 11 classes in Pillars of Eternity, each of them designed to offer a unique gameplay experience.
The classic role-playing game title is set to be a spiritual sequel to the classic Baldur’s Gate series and was funded using donations offered via Kickstarter.
Pillars of Eternity should be launched at some point in winter 2014.