[Gogan]

11 hours in. Man, this is a really good game. A bit text heavy, but I guess that's to be expected. Really love the depth they allow in character creation and progression. The adjustments they made to the stat system (e.g. might increases power for all characters, int increases aoe radiuses, etc) are so much better than the traditional system and make for some interesting playstyles.

I just picked up the ranger companion. I like her, but I see what you mean about the debuff on pet death. That's pretty crippling. Chanters seem terrible, at least so far (lvl5). Soon as I got the ranger I ditched that Chanter. I created my own rogue companion early on. He's a badass, but pretty squishy. It's great having someone that can always disarm traps and open locks though. Having two priests in the party has been pretty nice. The talent that causes burn damage on Holy Radiance is great. And I'm starting to enjoy the wizard mechanics, although it's really easy to cause friendly fire, so that's tough to work around. The fighter is kinda meh... I need to learn how their taunt mechanics (engagement) work. He never seems to keep an enemy's attention when others are in melee range.

Anyway, this is a beautiful successor to the Baldur's Gate series. The game engine is really fantastic. I hope they make more games based on it.