A Cipher would almost certainly be Dex/Int MAD, but that's hardly a combination that would be a tough sell to players. What I imagine would happen in practice in a TTRPG is that a Cipher character would alternate between building up Focus in one battle and then spending it in the next. I could see allowing them to chant two Phrases per round, though.Ĭiphers I'd be inclined to keep pretty close to the video game: regular attacks build up your Focus, then you unleash it to use your class abilities (which are a mix of Psychic damage and Save-or-Sucks) those abilities get cooler at higher levels but blow more Focus to power. The issue with trying to do them 'as-is' in the video game is that combat in 5E tends not to last long enough to make their whole 'build up Phrases over time in order to cast spells' thing viable. There are only two classes I'd need to design: Chanters and Ciphers.Ĭhanters I might make a Bard variant, since that's the obvious analogue. I don't care if the power sets don't match all that well the concept is what matters.

With the caveat that most of the classes I'd leave as-is in terms of mapping to their 5E equivalents. The main things that I would want to keep, that are *not* purely fluff but actually have mechanical implications, are as follows, in descending order of importance: Now, although I love the game's mechanics as well, there are quite a few things that are essentially artifacts of it being a video game, and not particularly integral to the game's story or the world's themes, so I'd throw those out. One really cool thing about the game is that it only examines a small slice of the world, but gives you enough info about the other pieces of the setting that you'd have a nice basis on which to build. I particularly love the setting / world-building, and have been thinking about what a tabletop game set in that world would be like. An obvious and worthy successor to BG/BG2. Pillars of Eternity is my current video game obsession.

Pillars of eternity races