Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Game News Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter Update #5: $1.2M raised, Undead playable race unlocked

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,183
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Tags: Divinity: Original Sin 2; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke

The Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter campaign reached 1.2 million dollars of funding today, unlocking the "Undead Origins" - the ability to play an Undead character. The new update, as expected, is chock full of Undead-related lore as well a list of their racial skills. The accompanying video is extra long, as it contains not only that but also a recap of Larian's experiences at PAX Prime, including cameos by Josh Sawyer, Adam Heine, Mitch Gitelman, Annie Mitsoda and (of course) Chris Avellone. Here's the video and the list of skills:



Now that you’ve unlocked the Undead as a playable race, as well as Racial Skills, we’ll be hard at work determining which fantastic skills will come naturally to this curious race of Rivellonians.

Inspired? Share your insights in the comments! Our Skills Wizard Nick has had a little inspiration of his own. What do you think?

Regenerate while Frozen, can’t heal while Burning.
Cold preserves the dead, after all.

Immune to Fear. Immune to Bleed.
There are some advantages to living in the hollow, fleshless margins of the living.

HandFoot Grenade.
Cause you’ve got a bone to pick with those goblins...

Bleed Poison.
There’s nothing life is more allergic to than death.|

Source Addiction. (Passive)
Undead start out with +20% max hp due to ignoring pain and some wounds, but (very) slowly deteriorate to -20% max hp due to decomposition. The bonus can be reset via Source Revivification (Source, Active).

Grave Chill (Active)
Drastically reduce the surrounding temperature, downgrading each status: Burning -> Warm, None->Chill, etc.

Necromantic Command (Source)
Take control of target skeleton or zombie for 3 turns (goes into summon slot, replacing existing summons). It is destroyed at the end of the duration.

Soul Devourer (Source) Suck the soul right from the living body of a character. Without a soul, the target devolves to animalistic instincts, attacking nearest characters until death. Doesn’t leave a body, doesn’t spawn a Faint.
That event with all the RPG developers, by the way, was a panel called "Classic RPGs Forever" take took place on August 30th. Unfortunately it was not streamed, but the fact that footage of it exists hopefully means we'll get to see it at some point.
 

Haba

Harbinger of Decline
Patron
Joined
Dec 24, 2008
Messages
1,872,039
Location
Land of Rape & Honey ❤️
Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
I am not going to lie.

All that strategic Avellone placement.

And smiling, laughing Avellone.

I totally would (TM)

happy_avellone.jpg


unhappy_avellone.jpg
 
Last edited:

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
I am not going to lie.
All that strategic Avellone placement.
And smiling, laughing Avellone.
I totally would (TM)

Yes it is awesome and as i saw i had my laughs. I thought only: Swen you smart bastard! And i had to log in here just to state this.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,896
I skipped through most of this video, but the concept art was gorgeous. I hope the in-game assets live up to it.
 

Drowed

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
1,711
Location
Core City
I'm really enjoying the idea of playing as an undead character - depending on how it's implemented, obviously. I don't think Swen realizes the implications of having to play as a character like that, and how much this should interfere with NPCs, but:

Larian Studios LLC said:
Thewarstore.com said:
I am bit concerned this 'race' will seriously be unbalanced and damage the whole experience. It seems like a 'great idea' but will it have too much of an effect n the feel of the game if everyone is running around as a skeleton? Wouldn't these classes be highly vulnerable to light and subject to clerical magic like any other undead? Also wouldn't some NPC's just attack them out of hand..... think clerics of light etc.
@Thewarstore: We had the same concern when we initially thought of it, but it'll work well within the narrative. You *will* have to hide your identity from time to time though or indeed, everybody will either run away or attack you. But that'll be part of playing as an undead.

One can hope, at least.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
36,566
Annie looked awfully sour while Swen was speaking. :M
 

Drowed

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2011
Messages
1,711
Location
Core City
If they are willing to produce an entire bloodlines-nosferatu style experience, sure why not?

Oh, I don't think that it would be bad, at all.
I meant to say that I don't have much confidence, I don't believe that Larian could really deliver this idea completely. AKA, I don't think that every (or at least most) character(s) in the game will react appropriately to undead PCs. I want to be wrong, of course.
 

Crichton

Prophet
Joined
Jul 7, 2004
Messages
1,218
Ideally, we'd get an NPC reaction scheme closer to the Bloodlines Nosferatu background than Divinity OS Zombie trait. However it's a difficult thing to balance; even the Nosferatu thing was kind of meh because in so many cases NPCs just looked past the monstrous appearance because it was easier to add one line of dialog about the PC being ugly than it was to add an alternative path where the PC could get the same information from documents/recordings/surveillance etc. I think what we'll actually end up with is some sort of disguise which works fine on almost all NPCs and just conveniently fails at a few hand-placed points. That said, what the hell, it could still be fun and trying to do too much to make the monstrous NPC different can backfire; I think I would have preferred a Nosferatu PC walking down the street in a trenchcoat to the skulking around in bondage gear that we actually got.

 

Athelas

Arcane
Joined
Jun 24, 2013
Messages
4,502
They should've made the undead a known and accepted part of the world. This would not only make it easier to script reactivity, but also fit with the humorous tone of the Divinity universe.
 

FrankHamilton

Educated
Joined
Oct 18, 2014
Messages
51
They should've made the undead a known and accepted part of the world. This would not only make it easier to script reactivity, but also fit with the humorous tone of the Divinity universe.
Why would anyone play as an undead then? For aestethic reasons?
 

SniperHF

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
Messages
1,110
Why would anyone play as an undead then? For aestethic reasons?

Racial skills unique to them. Also something that Undead do in D:OS is bleed ooze so you could use your undead character as a walking ooze puddle generator.

They should've made the undead a known and accepted part of the world. This would not only make it easier to script reactivity, but also fit with the humorous tone of the Divinity universe.

They were in Dragon Commander anyway but went back to the usual with D:OS.
 

FrankHamilton

Educated
Joined
Oct 18, 2014
Messages
51
Racial skills unique to them. Also something that Undead do in D:OS is bleed ooze so you could use your undead character as a walking ooze puddle generator.

The Zombie perk has already been mentioned and was used previously. If they are to make it an entirely new race, I would prefer I bit of extra reactivity, otherwise the races are just another perk (which would be fine if advertised as such, but they are clearly implying they want to do more interesting things).
 

SniperHF

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
Messages
1,110
If they are to make it an entirely new race, I would prefer I bit of extra reactivity

I'm sure it will have that. The KS has already shown that type of reactivity for the other races. The bigger question is will it be more than just flavor and maybe an extra quest or two. Especially as they keep adding extra backgrounds.

EDIT: Relevant larian Kickstarter comment:

Larian Studios said:
@Thewarstore: We had the same concern when we initially thought of it, but it'll work well within the narrative. You *will* have to hide your identity from time to time though or indeed, everybody will either run away or attack you. But that'll be part of playing as an undead.

Sounds pretty reactive.
 
Last edited:

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom