This is my first CRPG; some specific questions on building a character.

[Ninjilla]

So this is my first real RPG outside of JRPGs and games like Oblivion and Morrowind. I'm of a few minds on how to develop my first character, so I have a few specific questions to help guide how I make my first character.

1. I'm sort of torn between a smart-ass rogue type, a magic/sword battlemage type, and a strong-silent-punchy monk...

1a. Will leveling up dialogue type stats bust the game open? I love passing speech-checks in games like Fallout, but it can become an easy-win option sometimes where there's no more challenge because you simply talk through it all. Is that possible here? Or can characters hate me so much my speech skills don't work?

1b. I see Monks need to be aligned with good. What happens if I do mean/evil stuff? Does that effectively block me from being able to experience a free-flowing story where I can do what I want?

2. How much flexibility do I get in boosting/draining stats throughout the game?

3. Are there any combos of race/class/stats that are simply stupid and make for a bad experience? Since this is my first dice-rolling RPG, I'd hate to make a character that's unable to get stuff done, or is SO specialized I am locked out of a lot of stuff (I don't being mind locked out of things generally, just don't want to have too narrow an experience).

4. Is it possible to be a summoner type? I know I can be a lich, but outside of that?

[Cutlass Jack]

Lots of usage for Persuasion. You'll get much use of it throughout the game. You'll be happy.

Monks need to be Lawful, not good. They can be Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil.
So doing evil stuff isn't a problem. Just stay away from (Chaotic) options.

[Sneep Snorp]

Most of youre questions have been answered but when it comes to magic Id suggest looking up how old school crpgs do the system its... a little restrictive early on. That being said in the mid to late game magic users quickly go from dying in a singular hit from basically anything to this is their world and youre onliy living in it since theyre allowing it. And yes, you can summon, not enitre armies at once most of the time but your familiars can become quite the beasts later on as long as youre willing to tolerate having a literal stray cat or raven for a dozen or so hours as your magnum opus

[Silyon]

1.) The only social stat is Persuasion, which gets used for bluffing, diplomacy, and intimidation as well. All of these are options in dialogue trees that rarely have major story impact, but can give you bonus experiance, gold, or items. Sometimes they can simplify encounters before the fighting starts by making enemies defect to help you out or simply run away. Persuasion's always worth investing in, but won't short-circuit the game like fallout ones.

2.) Buffing and debuffing stats is the core of the game; you won't get very far into chapter 3 or 4 without a caster or two applying buffs and doing crowd control. The game gives you three casters as party members out of the gate that can fill this role (though two of them are missable), or you can hire custom-built mercenaries to cover the role. That's of course presuming you're not playing a caster to handle the job yourself.

3.) There are optimal builds and sub-optimal builds, yes, but pretty much anything should be able to scrape through on Normal difficulty so long as they're being fairly through with exploration and dealing with side quests. Every bit of XP helps, and every trash item can be converted into funds for a shiny new headband or something. Stay away from Core and higher until you're more familiar with the system's mechanics.

4.) There's summoning spells for wizards, clerics and druids, yes. Of them, the best is probably Druid, though Wizard/Cleric gives more flexibility I'd say. There's lots of feats and items that further buff summoning up, but none of them are going to give you more than 2-4 creatures per spell. No one-man armies in this game I'm afraid, it's all about quality over quality.

[Ninjilla]

You all are awesome, thank you so much!

[Gracey Face]

1) If you have never played the D&D ruleset before you should go martial. A fighter is best, a monk will be a bit complicated for a new person unless you're following a build guide. Basically because this ruleset rewards specialisation and punishes generalisation the more spread out your class is the less effective it will be unless you have a very specific build in mind and stick to it. And playing non martial classes involves interacting with more mechanics than martials do so it is more to keep track of if you are unfamiliar. You have companions that do the other roles and you can get used to them through your companions, but your MC is the one you have to do the early game with (and the early game is always the most challenging part) and is also the one all of the story based buffs get piled on to, so if you're new you want something that will just work.

1a) Speech skills and skill and stat checks are situational and can allow you to bypass things, but none of them bust the game at least that I am aware of.

1b) With monk in the actual ruleset this game is based on what happens if you don't have the right alignment is that you stop being able to take any more levels in monk, but all of your previous levels still work properly. This is different than some classes like Paladin or Inquisitor where you lose access to all of your abilities when you stray too far alignment wise. Unfortunately I don't know for sure what happens in game as some of the rules work differently.

2) Draining your own stats? Almost non. Boosting your own stats or draining enemies? It's one of the pillars of the way the game's combat works. If you have a team that is nothing but martials you can bumrush things and it'll work but buffing and debuffing allow you to get through fights without spending as much resources potentially (if the debuffs hit). Buffs however are basically 100% reliable and needed at higher difficulties.

3) Yes. It is very easy to make bad builds that do not function well if you are unfamiliar with the ruleset. That is why in the answer to 1 I suggested just going with a basic fighter or with a genderme cavalier (slightly more complex to play but more powerful and basically as foolproof). This game allows you to respec so it isn't as much of an issue as it might otherwise be but if you really don't know what you're doing you're liable to respec from one non functional build to another.

4) Technically you can be a summoner but practically no. Because of the way the ruleset works even tiny differences in stats or levels can cause one enemy to completely outclass others and none of the summon spells summon things which are level appropriately threatening. Summons only function as distractions effectively (with Creeping Doom being the best summon spell in the game for this because they are swarms and so immune to most damage). This is doubly so since it isn't worth casting a lot of buffs on summons (due to their weakness and your limited spell slots) so not only are they innately too weak to do much but then will always be entering combat "half buffed" at best. You need your actual characters to do the work.

The exception to this is animal companions, if you want to consider that as summoning, animal companions are essentially extra fully level-able party members that are slightly weaker than real party members but are powerful enough that especially when built correctly they can put in as much work as a full fledged character.

[Raikon]

Summons are good. You can do pretty much anything you want in this game. Just dont go crazy on the difficulty on your first playthrough.

If you are going summons, I would reccomend Aoen, over lich.

[Swordman_Red]

Originally posted by Ninjilla:

So this is my first real RPG outside of JRPGs and games like Oblivion and Morrowind. I'm of a few minds on how to develop my first character, so I have a few specific questions to help guide how I make my first character.

1. I'm sort of torn between a smart-ass rogue type, a magic/sword battlemage type, and a strong-silent-punchy monk...

1a. Will leveling up dialogue type stats bust the game open? I love passing speech-checks in games like Fallout, but it can become an easy-win option sometimes where there's no more challenge because you simply talk through it all. Is that possible here? Or can characters hate me so much my speech skills don't work?

1b. I see Monks need to be aligned with good. What happens if I do mean/evil stuff? Does that effectively block me from being able to experience a free-flowing story where I can do what I want?

2. How much flexibility do I get in boosting/draining stats throughout the game?

3. Are there any combos of race/class/stats that are simply stupid and make for a bad experience? Since this is my first dice-rolling RPG, I'd hate to make a character that's unable to get stuff done, or is SO specialized I am locked out of a lot of stuff (I don't being mind locked out of things generally, just don't want to have too narrow an experience).

4. Is it possible to be a summoner type? I know I can be a lich, but outside of that?

I didn't notice anyone else pointing out one thing in their answers. Concerning your third question: i recommend staying away from assasin prestige class and most, if not all, spells/abilities with "poison" descriptor, since atleast from the middle of the game every single dude and his mom will have poison immunity.