Which class did you start with?

i tried a normal / ironman run at first, but stupidly stepped on the first trap i came across to see what it would do, and it wiped my whole party.

luckily it was right at the beginning so i rerolled the same character and started a new game on hard / expert, seems maybe the better option for my first run, and it's going well so far, i like character creation a lot, and love that it's available at inns for npc's.

went fighter, with polar and explorer backgrounds, then grabbed adventurer weapon spec with my first point, so i'm using a warbow at the moment, as that was the only weapon in that group available in the first shop, which is fine by me, I'll be dual wielding flails as my alternate set.

Paladin, Kind Wayfarer, Male, Human, White that Wends, Aristocrat (i didn't like mystic and i was looking for +lore). 18 might, 3 constitution, 5 dexterity, 18 perception, 16 intelligence, 18 resolve, basically from a rp point of view he suffers from the very real risk of constantly stepping on his cloak and breaking every bone in his body just by falling :D . Pumping into Lore primarily and then athletics

But i went almost immediatly to the tavern and "hired" a female Wood Elf rogue (i get angry if nobody can open locks :D) with the intelligence score of a cat. She's been shooting around like a madmen from a western with her pistol, but i just got a nice blunderbuss and i'm torn between giving it to her or the Grieving Mother.

Also i'm very tempted to create a priest because so far i'm not liking Durance as a character at all

I'm a Death Godlike Monk. Worked out well so far.

Can't wait to post in this thread in 2 days when I finally settle on a class and background, haha. The troubling combo of amazing lore and my need for my character to fit into it and have a bio.

I made a monk 'cause characters that punch people are the best.

I went with Cipher because I liked the lore about it the most. :)

It's been pretty fun to start with, I picked the power where you turn a foe over to your side for a while. It's been really useful and I can see it continuing to be good unless enemies later in the game have resistances against it or something. So I'm thinking about continuing on with getting more cc powers like that.

I'm really more of a puckish rogue.

I'm a Death Godlike wandering rogue who is stabbing the shit out of people and it's working splendidly.

Fire Godlike Cipher has been working out for me thus far. Ciphers have a lot of good crowd control spells and don't have to worry about resting because they replenish their "mana" resource at the end of every combat. Also they're not half bad fighters, though a bit squishy, which is why I took Psychovampiric Shield.

I am so bad at deciding. Cipher sounds cool as shit, but so does being able to punch people into walls as a Monk. In fact out of the 11 classes there are about 8 which I'm torn between.

I went with a Ranger because Rangers have animal companions, which is fucking cool.

Godlike (forgot the exact name - neither Death nor Fire), Cipher, because I liked the idea of a mage/fighter hybrid.

I'm the first to vote Druid?! You duders are letting me down.

Sword/shield fighter. Annoyed that the first real teammate you find is the same class/style, but whatever.

Ranger. He's got a big ass arbalest and a feathered hat.

By no means one of the better classes in the game, but I think I'm going to stick with him for my first play through.

I started with a Monk. I immediately learned that I don't like the Monk fighting style because you WANT to get hit to use your abilities and... I don't like getting hit. I immediately went "Sod it" and switched to a Ranger. Kinda sad I couldn't get a Spider companion though.

I usually play as a sword and shield fighter in RPGs, so I decided to play as a wood elf ranger with a wolf companion. It seems like the damage output is pretty decent so far, and I like have the extra character in my party via the animal companion.

All you need to open locks/spot traps/disable traps is the mechanics skill. I started with a rogue because I heard there's no rogue NPC's (that don't immediately die) but as soon as I realized anyone could do that I rerolled a barbarian. Barbarian is cool if a bit simple... the collateral damage (called Carnage) is very nice when fighting groups of grunts. The main reasons I went for the barbarian is because my rogue was getting OWNED in the first parts of the game, and barbarians are pretty sustainable without compromising damage output. Also I don't think there's barbarian NPC's. And I'm playing a barbarian in my current D&D4E campaign and I was curious how the two compare (turns out that they're pretty similar).

@clush: i know, my writing is a bit confusionary; what i meant is i wanted to hire someone to train him/her immediatly in mechanics to open every lock, and that one happened to be a rogue since I have a main paladin and needed more of a dps character. Since there are no barb, monk, or rogue companions i went with the one of the three that is more viable ranged and that also has a starting bonus to mechanics.

I'm rolling wizard first time, getting smacked around in the beginning because of course I am.

What difficulty do you play on if I may ask? 3 CON seems craaaazy! :D How does that even work?

I want more pictures so I can live vicariously through you guys.

I'll not be getting the game until later this year but when I do I'll be a paladin. Ever since learning what paladins are in FFIV as a kid I always choose that class when possible.

@clush: been toggling between hard and medium, nothing extreme. 3 Con is bad at the very beginning, but the paladin's Faith and Conviction and high Perc and Res give me plenty of defenses, especially deflection. I use him as an off-tank with a two-hander, but if i'm being swarmed i just switch to a one hand with Draining, since i don't have the natural regen of a fighter, and shield. Plus i have an enchantment +1 Con on my chest and a chain +15 endurance, and if i know i'm going through a dungeon i make sure to rest somwhere that gives me an extra bonus to Con and bring the proper type of food. Right know at lvl 6 naked i have a 40 endurance gap with Eder, but it has not been problematic. I plan to get the aura with +3 dmg reduction and a defensive (not modal) talent in case suddenly things get unbearable, but the most tough encounters so far have been when i suddenly find a bunch of casters grouped together, so not too often (motherfucking feral druids all with Returning Storms, they pound through my plate armor).

When i created my main i choose to pick high stats on Perc, Int and Res to be able to have access to most dialogue options; since the Paladin has so high defenses Con seemed like the natural candidate to reduce (and a bit of dex, since i already knew i would have gone for the slowest armor and weapons). The only disappointing thing is that i picked a Kind Wayfarer talent that restore some endurance every time i use Flames of Devotion, but the amount restored is laughable if i need to use it in dire situations.

I am playing a male woodland human cipher who is from aedyr with the drifter background. I prefer him to be in melee and he uses an estoc with a war bow for those times when I need him to not be so up close and personal. Stat line was 18 might, 12 con (he is a melee cipher, trust me you don't want to be in melee with low endurance period), 12 dex, 10 perception, 16 int, 10 resolve.

As an aside since I know almost everyone doesn't get this and will be wrong two big things.

1: Anyone can unlock stuff and disarm traps. ANYONE. Just put points into mechanics with your chosen character. You do not need a rogue to pick locks, at all. They just get some bonus points in it, and it is not anything game breaking by not having those couple bonus points.

2: There is no such thing as a "dialogue character". Obsidian tracked the stats used in dialog and "interactive" events by hand and balanced it so every stat and skill was used about the same amount of times. If you make a high perception, high int, high resolve character purely out of some concept that this would make you dialogue god all you did was gimp yourself for no reason. Seriously, pick your stats based on the character you want to play, not some concept of "rp = being good at dialogue = best outcomes every event". Most stat or skill based dialogue choices don't even lead to "better" outcomes, they just result in more background information or maybe getting pointed to an alternate quest option instead of having to find it yourself. This is not Planescape I hope you have 18 int and wisdom if you want a good ending Torment.

Lul trust me Rorie, later in the game you will be clapping yourself on the back over your choice. I almost wish I had gone that road at the point I am, having 1 real tank and 1 sorta okay tank is very dicey in some of the hard fights.

I very much disagree. I'm more than 20 hours into the game, and unless things suddenly change, the "physical" stats (Might, Con, Dex) have always been used in scripted interactions (scaling, prying bars open, swimming, etc) where you can usually pick a companion to do it for you, while in conversations it has almostalways been Perc, Int and Res. Sometimes you get a Might option (like putting your hands at someone throat and threatening him) but not even once i got a Con dialogue option, and only one time it was Dex if i remember correctly. Skills, dispositions, class and race get also frequently checked in conversations, except for stealth. I'm well aware that the game was designed to not give you the "best" dialogue option by having a stat check: i created my main character like that because it is not about having the best option laid in front of you, but to have the majority of options available and be able to decide based on what i feel or want to act

Since you played the beta extensivly, i will make an example you know: with the ogre in dryford crossing you can avoid combat if you play it smart with dialogue options (rational,etc) but you can also access an option with 18 Int that will get you immediatly attacked by him, effectively making the situation identical as if you picked "attack" right away. But it's perfectly fine because what i want is to see which options are hidden behind the stats check so i can play as i want, not to have the best course of action presented to me in a clear way. I love that they designed the game this way, more options even when they lead to bad results make me really happy :)

@conmulligan: What companion did you go with? I went with the bear as it's basically just designed to soak up damage, so I can focus more on damage dealing and buffing with other characters.

@sbaitso: Wolf! I'm mostly using him the same way, although he often goes down pretty quick which can be frustrating.

I went with a bear ranger. Mostly because it always makes me giggle that nobody seems to mind a large bear walking through town

can anyone answer a question about how Ciphers regain focus? I'm not sure if it's based on number of hits, or damage dealt.

I've spec'd one out for two handed, but I'm unsure whether that's hobbled me in the focus regen stakes.

I went Rogue because you never get a companion that is one.

@conmulligan: Yeah, the bear can soak up a lot of damage, but I don't think he dishes out quite so much. I've still had him go down a number of times over the 10 hours I've spent with the game so far.

@cagliostro88: I can quote Josh Sawyer himself on it if you like. There are also ways to talk around that conversation you spoiler that don't require a stat check at all.

@karkarov: I know what Josh Sawyer said, but he included scripted events in it (in wich you can use companions) and not only dialogue. I invite you to see for yourself in the game how many times Con or Dex are checked in conversations (or Might not in Aggresive option), versus Perc, Int and Res. And i know there are ways to talk around that example, i wrote so myself! I also said that going with the statcheck you end up fighting like nothing happened: i was pointing to the fact that having high "dialogue" stats doesn't necessarily lead you to the best solution, but only that it gives you more options, which is what i like

This makes me feel a lot better about spending the money on a hireling, who I made a rogue. Loving this game so far.

Hearth Orlan Cipher with 3 Con (which isn't as bad as it sounds, -20% health and endurance or something) on Hard. It's not going great so far, but I think it'll work out once I fill out my party and find some guns.

I went rouge. "There’s a lot of face and neck stabbing, if you like to stab dudes in the face and neck. There’s one really good move where you will stab a dude five or six times super quickly, shank style, like,uh uh uh uh uh, just jabbing—and that’s oddly satisfying.”

Edit. I really miss Ryan.

Ok finally got my character rolled after pouring over the Almanac and Collector's Book (literally at least 2 hours played in the creator)

I wanted my character to be someone relatively young and well-read but wanting to see the world he's learnt a lot about but not really experienced.

He's ethnically Thyrtan (Meadow Folk) and his parents we born and raised in Old Vailia. With that nation's decline and descent into war his parents immigrated from bygone Old Vailia to the relatively young colonies of Rauatai to start a new life and family in a place ripe with opportunity. This is where Hadrian was born and raised. Although surrounded by the peoples and culture of Rauatai his parent's stories of Old Vaila's past instilled in Hadrian an boundless interest in the world beyond his doorstep. He fed this interest with books and became a scholar of history and a practitioner of magic. Eventually Hadrian set out from Rauatai to see the world he had come to know so well and experience it first hand.

I settled on the name Hadrian because Vailian names are based in Italian roots mainly I figured Old Vaila was the root of the Valian Republic I went to the root of Italian and used a Latin name.

I made a moon godlike wizard and hired two companions, a tank barb named Doc Holiday and a rogue I named Wyatt Earp. After messing around I realized the dwarf looked exactly like Val Kilmer from Tombstone so I had no choice.

Barbarian. Really liking it so far, dish out tons of damage while healing up tons of endurance each encounter.

I went with a Godlike Death Wizard. It just sounded too cool. I'm rolling with the elf mage and the fighter you find in the first city. I had some difficulty in the first dungeon (the one with the priests), but I eventually settled on my awesome tactic of put the fighter in the doorway and have the two mages blast everything in front of him to hell and back. It worked pretty well.

I also love how the recruiting works in this game. After the first dungeon, I went in an made me a barbarian just to have more meat between the monsters and the casters.

Human male rogue.

He's out to get his, but he's not gonna be, like, super mean about it.

I almost always play a male dwarven fighter in these types of games. This time I decided to change it up and play a female Godlike wizard. Those first few hours were a learning experience.

I went with a dwarven ranger running around with a wolf companion. It's been a real good time so far--I like having a sneaky person who also serves as a good ranged attacker leading the party, plus she can actually wear some decent armor.

I also hired a fighter, because I wanted more than one dude able to knock people down.

Dual-wield Rogue then Ranger then Ranged Rogue then Fighter then back to Ranger then Dual-wield Rogue again... I hate myself.

I made a priest of Magran, because in D&D games I usually like war priest types who mix it up with the help of their spells. From a tactical level it's been pretty rewarding, though PoE doesn't have the same level of sublcass specialization as D&D does, but I do sort of regret my decision for two reasons:

1) Durance is also a priest of Magran, and while I have no problem leaving him out of my party, the interactions with him really do not account very well for the player being just as much an expert on the subject of Magran as he is.

2) The "disposition" stuff is totally impenetrable without so much metagame information turned on that the dialogue starts to feel gamey ala Mass effect. I suppose it's easy enough to take a talent to override it all, but this stuff is just handled really poorly. "Clever" turns out to mean "glib" and "aggressive" means "rude and impatient". Furthermore the idea that all eight of these largely independent dispositions are mutually exclusive is kind of silly. You can't be both diplomatic and clever, or benevolent and honest?

@veektarius: I'm with you on the dispositions, wish they were a little more blended instead of clearly bordered. I end up finding myself opting between clever, diplomatic, and honest for my interactions because of the delineations.

Human Ranger but my next character will be either a Rogue, Monk or Barbarian. Basically anything that you can't have as a companion.

Pale Elf Wizard

It helps a lot if you go into options and turn all that stuff off so you don't even see them in conversations. Then you just pick what feels best for your character and if a pattern forms so be it.