Pillars of Eternity: The White March

[Bison]

Well I started up a new campaign last night and am enjoying it with the exception of one small problem.  All of my barbarians class skills are bugged and broken.  :(
They "do" work if I have the AI activated, but then it spams my barbarian yell one right after another.  So basically it's a broken skill.  On the upside it's supposed to be fixed in the next patch, which I could opt into the beta to get but I'm tried of beta play.

[Gusington]

Try playing as something besides a barbarian.

[Bison]

I'm weak.  I opted into the beta on Steam and now the barbarian skills work just fine.  There could be a million other little problems, but the not being able to activate a skill is so painfully obvious.  I just couldn't go on without at least trying the beta to see if it fixed the issue, which it appears from a few test battles to have done so.

[Gusington]

How's the barometric pressure?

[Bison]

It's changing and not for the better.

[Gusington]

Uh oh.

[Bison]

My barbarian led party is not as formable as the one I had led by a Paladin.  It's a fun challenge, but some of the battles are slightly more difficult right now.  Mostly because I insist on using a two-hand weapon with my barbarian and using mail armor, so he spends a lot of time on the ground out of action.  I might go back and experiment with a lighter armor to see if his attack speed goes up, which might solve some of his problems but of course he'll take more damage.  /la sigh/

[Sir Slash]

Who knew Barbarians had so much to think about? I like giving my sneaky character an Arquebus or whatever it's called and having him sneak-up and back-shoot an enemy for about 50 points of damage. The only drawback is he has to get real close to use it and it takes forever to re-load.

[Bison]

The life a barbarian is a complicated matter that the unwashed masses living in civilization's urbanized hell simply cannot comprehend. :)

[Nefaro]

My first, and thus far only, Pillars campaign was with a Sorcerer/Wizard class character.

And the first additional party member you get?  Another damn Sorcerer.  Needless to say, there was much injury being regularly inflicted on my party until finally getting the third, a warrior. 

[Gusington]

There's a rogue class here, right?

[Bison]

There is a rogue class yes.  If all you want is someone to pick locks/disarm traps, you can level up any character's skill to do that task.  I made a rogue and hired her at the tavern, because I like having one in the party.

Anyway I was pretty happy with my party's performance at Raedric Keep.  Fought my way right through the courtyard and main door guards.  Pretty impressive feat.  I think my little modifications to the Barbarians armor and the occasional use of sword and board help tremendously.  I am going to look at enchanting my hide armor and two hand weapons until I can find a good unique weapon, since I think the soulbound weapons aren't available until I start the White March part.  And I'm not even sure they are better then the unique weapons and their higher level appearance doesn't help me right now.

[Rayfer]

There is a rogue class yes.  If all you want is someone to pick locks/disarm traps, you can level up any character's skill to do that task.  I made a rogue and hired her at the tavern, because I like having one in the party.

Anyway I was pretty happy with my party's performance at Raedric Keep.  Fought my way right through the courtyard and main door guards.  Pretty impressive feat.  I think my little modifications to the Barbarians armor and the occasional use of sword and board help tremendously.  I am going to look at enchanting my hide armor and two hand weapons until I can find a good unique weapon, since I think the soulbound weapons aren't available until I start the White March part.  And I'm not even sure they are better then the unique weapons and their higher level appearance doesn't help me right now.

The traps in some of the dungeons make it almost mandatory to have a rogue in your party...sneak/backstabbing with dual wield daggers is good too. The rogue is tough to play because he/she requires a lot of direct management in a fight. If you just let him wade into melee he'll go down really fast.

[Bison]

I've got mine set up as an archer with duel weapons to help protect the mage and chanter if baddies get through the frontline consisting of the barbarian, fighter, and cleric.  Most likely not the best use of her rogue skills, but I try to cut down some of the micro when I can and it generally goes really bad for my rogue really quickly if I do too much frontline action with her.

[Sir Slash]

I've been able to play well enough without a Rogue/Thief. One character has high skills at opening locks and another is really good at disarming traps. Not perfect but gets us by.