So I just bought Pillars as it was on sale and have played it for about 10 hours now. I haven't even left the first town yet because there are so many characters I want to create that I keep getting drawn back to the 'New Game' button. Within the game there is so much customization, it's actually pretty incredible so I'm going to talk about that for a bit.
There are 6 races which unfortunately include Dwarves but also have these shark-people and fawns which are really cool but the highlight has to be the godlike race which take on an aspect of death, fire, nature or moon and have disfigurements attuned with their aspect...Weird but awesome. Even the relatively plain human/elf/dwarf/shark-people/fawns have different nuances within the race, for example the dwarves can be either boreal or mountain and so have a different RP and slightly different stats. So there's some differentiation there which is not usual for modern day RPGs (yeah I know IceWindDale and BauldersGate both had this type of thing but hey). After selecting what you are, you choose a class. The DnD classes mostly make an appearance with Wizard/Priest/Paladin/Fighter/Rogue/Druid/Barbarian/Ranger/Monk being more or less as you'd expect. The other 2 classes (chanter and cipher) are a little different with the chanter being a soul-calling bard who imparts the emotion or wisdom of certain souls into the party to make them braver/better fighters etc whilst the cipher directly attacks an enemy's soul with a kind of innate magic that few possess. This talent also begets fear and superstition which is probably not all that unexpected.
After that you choose where in the world you're from with each area having different customs and trials (snow areas make a character hardier, the bight metropolitan capital makes them smarter etc)
but it's all a matter of a single point, not enough to make a huge difference but something to make the choices matter a little.
As a nice break away from common procedure, any class can use any combination of weapons and armour which is the part about this game I love most. There's no skill requirement or strength requirement, heavier armour makes you more durable but slower and lighter armour lets you move about more but doesn't do well at resisting certain types of attacks.
Also, each class uses every attribute. You can make a combat Wizard with high str/con who uses spells to buff him/herself and ignore the usualy intellect, or you can use an intellect build Barbarian who uses his wit to find weakness in the enemy defense and increases the area and potency of his/her auras and shouts and buffs to make a really effective support character.
The thing about magic in this game is that it's all like a science, or at least it's discovered with methodology and experimentation as opposed to direct willpower like some other games. I'm quite ok with this, it fits the rest of the world nicely and works in tandem with the more material technological advances like gunpowder and advanced masonry.
One last thing, the druid is usually my least picked class, I don't know why, I just don't like them...Actually it's likely because they remind me of hippies....Anyway, shapeshift in this game is so well done. I chose stag as my animal spirit and so I can turn into a stag and do battle as that, I was thinking 'how the hell is this going to help me at all?'. Well it actually turns you into a minotaur-like creature with stag horns and little else resembling the mostly docile four legged cervidae.
This game is a must buy for anyone who likes smart, high minded, socially and culturally aware RPGs or you can ignore that stuff and just turn into a deer-otaur and kill everything.
11/10