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It was simply designed with CP in mind and tested with CP installed. I own no right on the CP so I cannot include its files within my own file. So to get the intended experience : - Download and Install CP - Download and Install my mod files. - Check the mod menu after the game is launched. The files should be loaded after the ones from Community Patch, so they have to be lower on the list. Small note : there is only 2 abilities for which I "cancelled" CP modification : Sacred Immolation and Heal Companion, because I wanted to change these abilities in different ways (for reasons of Class design consistency). The content is almost complete. Next Package will be about Druids and Priests (apart for summons). Final package I plan to collect and address a couple of minor known issues, and of course make a complete updated list of changes (rather that the not very convenient various posts in this thread). Don't hesitate if you have any further questions. If you play and encounter any problems, don't hesitate to tell me

The LEGENDARY classic:

Our school had a leftover Siemens server with BS2000 on it. So happily we set off learning that the single best way to crush the hopes and dreams of any 14 year old who really wants to learn how to make software is being taught how to do that on a mainframe operating system in COBOL. I swore to myself that I never will do that for a living, and look at me now, almost 25 years later I'm doing the next "best" thing, working as ERP dev. I guess I can say at least it's not SAP, right? That's got to be worth something. Right? DISPLAY "Ain't all bad though, I get to crack jokes with one of our developers at work because... well, because our old warehouse management software was actually developed in COBOL. Yeah, it's a bit, say, outdated but still in use." UPON TERMINAL STOP RUN. Oi, and one valuable lesson that I've learned was that some teachers are just bastards who revel in being unfair and soul crushing. We had one of them horrible witches. She actually stood there and said something like "A good developer knows the intricacies of the language they're using" and I did just that for an exam we had. COBOL is a bit verbose. And by a bit I mean it's literally like writing an essay. All commands are written in plain old English. Except for exentions to the language that were made with quality of life in mind. To be honest I have no idea how modern COBOL looks like, what we learned was COBOL-80, and that came out, you guessed right, in 1980. So anyway, what we had to do among other things was doing some typical school stuff, changing units of measurement from one into another. Temperatures, as it were, that's one of the basics right after Hello, World!. In quite frankly any other iterative language you'd just write F = C * 5 / 9 + 32 to convert a proper temperature scale into something completely random and silly and be done with it. Not so in COBOL, nah. That would look like: MULTIPLY C by 5 GIVING C DIVIDE C by 9 GIVING C ADD 32 TO C GIVING F DISPLAY F UPON TERMINAL Or of course you could read the language documentation and find out that someone in the past noticed that this is ridiculous and added a COMPUTE statement. So what did I, knower of intricacies do? Of course: COMPUTE F = C * 5 / 9 + 32. (Notice that . there. It's necessary for COMPUTE but not for the other statements. Now that's a WHOLE OTHER can of worms). Yeah, so that test, guess what? Failed it. I should have demonstrated my knowledge of basic COBOL verbs, not the intricacies of the language. Silly me.

A few occasional suboptimal bashes won't ruin your playthrough. If you want to use weapon and shield and use primary attacks often then bashing shields are a good pick.

After toying around with the idea of a true one-hand dueling build for the player who wants some Riposting musketeer / spellblade flavor here is my Friday and Saturday evening results. Adding to next release of MOD which is scheduled for 5/15/2020. Rapier- Best or Pierce / Slash damage- Restricted to main hand only Holding a weapon or shield in the off-hand will cancel Duelers Bolero and Grandmaster's Flamenco. May dial down Duelers Bolero and Grandmasters Flamenco by 5%. Need to test on POTD.

I have decided whom I am gonna vote for President. I am writing in "Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho" for President!

I went to Kroger and the Covington package store today. It's only the second time I've left home in six weeks. Other than on foot that is. Kroger was fully stocked and not crowded I'm please to say. Not that I needed much. The liquor store was the opposite. The best bourbon they had was Maker's Mark. It's OK, I guess. I made a pitcher of whiskey sour using that, lemon juice, corn syrup, and grenadine. You are supposed to garnish that s--t with orange peel or lemon wedges. But I'm the only one here. Who the f--k am I trying to impress? I'm sitting on the porch smoking a full rack of beef ribs and power drinking. Some days you just need to get trashed.

Except it has little to do with environment and a lot to do with environmental movement. And as nutty as those people can be, this is just a predictable attack on technological solutions to climate change. Something you'd find in a badly researched denialist blog.

Thanks you ! Indeed I have just completed a change to Wildstrike Frenzy. It procs on Crit with Spiritshift attacks instead of kills now. I don't think shifter as a subclass needs special care though. There was an excellent thread about how to use Shifters, which underlined it should be mostly considered as a caster, with added versatility of spiritshifting almost at will. Also I like to underline that the greatest feat of Spiritshifting is not the weapons but Armor. It's basically equivalent to a plate (only 8 base AR, but non weakness) with 0 recovery penalty. Also note that CP added elemental keywords to their Wildstrike... Which enable getting +1 PEN through elemental talents. But that's not the whole story : I have also changed Entropy from 3 to 5 procs (and the charges are not spent by Graze and Crit as they were) and I've added 3 base Bounce. So it will enable getting a lots of procs from my version of WS Frenzy. I hope too. But as I am currently teleworking with a 16 months child due to pandemic, I only have a couple of hours to grab here and there. I have hope for next package next week end, maybe complete version 1.0 in a couple of weeks...

I can't see how it's desirable for the difficulty to swing from 'extremely difficult' to 'cakewalk' based on foreknowledge; that just seems like bad game design. Consider the Soulsbourne games - learning your enemies' moves and abilities is vital, but the combat doesn't become trivial because these are action games that depend on your hand-eye coordination to utilise your foreknowledge. That obviously isn't the case for CRPGs. If preparation is all that makes the difference, the combat is pointless.

Thank you! I think I'll wait for the complete package then... I hope it will come soon!

Awesome mod! Do you have any plans to look at Spiritshift? I especially think single class Shifter could use some sort of buff either to the subclass directly or to a Wildstrike Frenzy.

I like it that you won't find a Carsomyr +5 in Deadfire and immediately know that you have to reroll a Paladin right now.

That's something I strongly disagree, but again - it's preferance. Deadfire item system is my gold standard of item design in an RPG like that - having such a wide range of weapons to choose from and compliment your character build from mechanical and roleplaying reason is a superb thing for me. I found BG1s breaking weapons and rare magical weapons somewhat appealing but not a right fit for the game's structure.

I'm game-mechanics-sensitive. This mechanic is not pure. It will ruin my playthrough.

Yes, it's good for that (and the FIre Shield) but in general not good for your damage output at a certain level/advancement. So, bashing shields are only bad because they don't scale their offensive stats properly (except Tuotilo's Palm). Would they scale they would be pretty good (again, in general). BUT: if you use primary attacks mostly (like Clear Out, Soul Annihilation, Force of Anguish, Knockdown and so on) they can be really good. Because you are executing those attacks with the main hand anyway but still gain the recovery bonus of Two Handed Style and the defense bonus of Weapoin & Shield Style. In this case they raise your damage output significantly while making you more sturdy. Especially Soul Annihilation and Force of Anguish are good cases because they have unlimited uses due to resource regain. Same if you are using a ranged weapon (pistol, blunderbuss, scepter or wand) with a bashing shield (and mostly attack from afar). Weird setup but better than just a melee weapon if you only want to attack with the main hand (e.g. to maximize procs from unique weapons).

This is amazing thank you. What would you suggest as starting attributes? Low con? High might? I'm going with the SC monk you suggested with dual blunderbusses

Monks with guns are very viable. But instead of pistols I strongly advise to use blunderbusses, espcially the Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole (from Serafen). Even more so if you are playing a Single Class Monk or a Shadowdancer (Rogue/Monk) especially Streetfighter/Monk. For several reasons: Hand Mortar and Fire in the Hole have an automatic AoE which scales with INT. Duality of Mortal Presence gives you up to +10 INT Both target reflex insted of deflection (with the AoE) which is very easily debuffed by several spells (see Miasma of Dull-Mindedness and such). Both have pierce/slash damage which is very good for a gun. Usually they have pierce-only damage and that really can screw you against stuff like Skeletal Warriors or all sorts of Risen Champiuons, Mages and Armsmen. In general pierce AR of enemies is often high. Those AoEs work with CC effects - like from Stunning Surge: every enemy in the AoE can get stunned. They also make it easy to get a Mortification refund for Stunning Surge: lots of AoE hit rolls result in a crit easily. Same with blunderbusses since they have 4 projectiles (four chances for a crit) Flagellanth's Path will fire a dual mortar shot at tha trget and not result in a reload animation but recovery. With Lightning Strikes and Two Weapon Style you will be recovering pretty fast althoug you just shot guns. Powder Burns (the weapon proficiency of blunderbusses) causes Flanked which unlocks the Streetfighter passive without actually getting flanked by enemies Resonant Touch stacks up to 4 stacks with a single blunderbuss shot on a single enemy. With Hand Mortar/FitH it applies stacks to several enemies at once. Whispers of the Wind is an AoE attack that triggers the AoE of Hand Mortar/FitH with every of its attack rolls. It's AoE * AoE hit rolls which results in an ridiculous amount of Resonant Touches. Make sure enemies stay close ot each other (use a tank to cumulate foes or stuff like luring enmies from stealth and then use Pull of Eora etc.). Like Flagellant's Path, Whispers of the Wind has no reload animation but recovery only. Also Rogue affliction strikes (Crippling, Blinding etc.) all work with the AoE of Hand Mortar/FitH. Normal bluderbusses have a high chance of applying the affliction even against touch to hit enemies. Here's a SC Helwalker with Hand Mortar/FitH in action: In general I consider single class gunmonk (or mortar monk) to be better than a multiclass just because of Resonant Touch and Whispers of the Wind. Also stuff like Razor's Edge is really good. Stunning Surge comes a lot earlier, too. But they early to mid game can be more interesting with a multiclass combo like Streetfighter/Monk because you get some early nice stuff like Crippling-->Arterial Strike and Sneak Attack. Also a more sneaky approach can be more fun (like applying Gouging Strike in an AoE and then vanish with Smoke Veil and let them bleed out). Still, SC Mortar Monk is so much fun in the later game for me that I'd recommend that over multiclasses. A pistol Monk can make sense if you go for Ranger/Monk. Pistols are pretty good with One-Handed Style because the Rushed Reload modal gives you an awesome 50% recovery reduction while the single handed use gives you +12 ACC (and good hit-to-crit conversion) which counterbalances the -15 ACC from the modal. It's actually better dps than dual wielding pistols. Then with Driving Flight and all the ACC shenanigans you can make a really reliable crit-build with Thundercrack pistol (Overload that paralyzes on crit) or Scoredeo's Trophy (+25% crit damage). Backup can be Eccea's Arcane Blaster which does raw + elemental damage. It can be fun because the reloading speed is pretty great (especially with a few shots from Scordeo's Trophy). But it doesn't have the raw power and CC capapilities that mortars have. At least on PotD difficulty where you meet more foes than in lower difficulties (and thus AoE is a good way to control more). Ranger's Wounding Shot don't work with the AoE of mortars by the way. I can't see a particularly awesome arquebus monk build. Dragon's Dowry is great for Assassins and its self damage could get exploited by Monks (getting wounds). So maybe there is a cool Assassin/Monk build seomwhere with Dragon's Dowry, but I neither tried nor tested. Red Hand is always good. But I don't think it's especially good on Monks (compared to like - let's say a Rogue/Ranger).

One important thing to note about Bash Shield is that they are BAD (except Tuotilo's Palm). The reasons are that : - they don't benefit from weapon quality enchant, so their damages, accuracy and PEN are ultimately very bad as endgame weapons. - Since 1/2 of your attack are made with the bashing shield, it will actually lower your DPS even with the speed increase from Dual Wielding ! Tuotilo's Palm is the exception because it benefits from Transcendant Suffering or Monastic Unarmed Training. Weapon + Tuotilo's Palm DPS is around half way between Sword and Board style and Dual Wielding. That's the only bashing option to consider with the unmodded game. Magran's Blessing and Best Defense are not worth considering IMHO. Shameless plug to your Shameless plug : yesterday, I've tweaked Magran's Blessing and Best Defense so their DPS would be around the same as Tutotilo's Palm. For Best Defense, I've added +16 Accuray to its roll, and attack is now 11-15 base damages with 11 PEN. +16 Acc ad 11 PEN are because it's supposed to be a legendary item. To calculate "11-15" damages, I've taken the damage of a medium attack speed 1-handed, I've applied the same damage reduction factor as Tutotilo's Palm compared to Monk Fist (x 0.55) Then to compensate for the absence of +60% damages bonus from a legendary weapon, I've multiplied the result by 1.5 (not 1.6 because base damage increase are better than additive % damages). For Magran's Shield, I've added +8Accuray to its roll, and attack is now 11-15 base damages with 9PEN because it's supposed to be only exceptionnal. Since you can't upgrade it, I've let the same damage as legendary Best Defense. I've also added Fire Keyword to the attack so it can benefit from Scion of Flame and Ring of focused flame. That's a way to compensate the absence of upgradable quality. But Maybe you can do something cleaner since you have better knowledge than me about Items. Have a look at the files if you want. Also I've tweaked Magran's Blessing Passive shield to +10 Accuracy and 10 PEN since it's a passive and contrary to Flame Shield abilities, it does not scale with level and was stuck at 7 PEN. That's the only magical items I've modded because I think the way Bash Shield works is bad and tweaking it increases build possibilities. gn.items.magran_blessing.gamedatabundle gn.items.best_defense.gamedatabundle

Based on your post about riposte fun I made this Rapier. It is main hand only and the ability attached to it only works if the character is wielding it with an empty off hand. Holding a shield, melee weapon or ranged weapon in the off hand cancels the effect. Tested and working.

I have a problem, it has been two years and I keep making new characters... Dwarf, Human https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WlfniMfMZLQBssLgDOUT8AYexWkcjG5b?usp=sharing

I've never used the AI, because on these games I'm a control freak. That said, this is just a personal Preference. I've enjoyed both PoEs. It's just that things have gotten bigger over the years (which oft applies to tabletop systems too). If I should make a comparison: Back then I'd much prefered Myth with its distinct but few types of units over any of those Command&Conquer clones that tried to beat the original at its own game by introducing ten times the amount of units (all of which a slight variation of one another). Eventually, there may come a point where you wonder how many shades of healing abilities do you need and how many gradually buffs to to-hit chances stacking on top of another? I'm the same in terms of itemization etc. too. Back on BG1 finding your first useful armor (wasn't even magical) was a moment to cherish. Now the supposedly "unique" stuff depending on the game can be all over the place, same as the inevitable level-up to reward the player at every opportunity. On Deadfire, you've barely escaped from Monkey, er, Tutorial Island and already went through that process a handful of times per character each. Eventually, if everything is supposedly some slightly differents kind of special -- nothing truly is. edit: That said, to bring that back on topic, going that approach of more and bigger should if at all be a boost to sales though.

It's super unlikely to happen. It was for a while, but it is especially now when Obsidian isn't an independent company. Assuming Bethesda would be willing to do something like that, they would not be hiring Obsidian - they would have to come to some agreement with Microsoft. And Microsoft has no incentive to work on someone elses IP and share profits, while they can have Obsidian work on their own stuff - like TheOuterWorlds2 for example.

I really like Soulblade/Trickster with Whispers of the Endless Paths. With Borrowed Instincts + Mirrored Images (which stack) you'll have plenty of defecltion to trigger Offensive Parry and Riposte which will generat focus while you are recovering and you can then apply the cumulated focus with Soul Annihilation in an AoE. You can combine this with Nomad's Brigandine which can turn Disengagement attacks against you into 100% misses with the enchantment "Tactical Withdraw": Just disengage for free damage and focus via Offensive Parry and sometimes Riposte. Gipon Prudensco has the same enchantment available. It also has another one which makes you immune to flanking (bad for a Streetfighter but good for a Trickster). But it's mutually exclusive with th disengagement enchantment. At the same time another enchantment of it lets you gain +1 deflection and +2 Reflex every time you get hit (stacks to +10/+20). I usually pick Nomad's Brigandine because it has better AR and is easy to get. Not a great concept for Soulblade/Streetfighter though since the deflection in general would be too low. Here I would go for Sun and Moon etc. like Kaylon saidf. It's a nice combo. Also in the early game it happens very often that you miss your Soul Annihilation due to a lack of ACC buffs and rel. low ACC/enemies' Deflection ratio. A one handed Rapier + modal (=+37 ACC!) helps a lot to land those important SA-hits until you can get some more ACC and/or the flail and the shield. By the way, talking about shields: there's a large shield named Shining Bulwark that gives you +10 deflection against flanking attacks (basically negating the deflection malus without lifting the affliction itself). If you combine it with the Pale Hide (+8 deflection while flanked) you can have the equivalent of +18 deflection while flanked and still triggering the passive of the Streetfighter. Of course both items look ****ty together and well: it's a large shield - so not really a massive focus on dps. You can also use Nomad's Brigandine (can have +10 deflection against melee attacks if you don't leave your party members) or Casita Samelia's Legacy (~+10 deflection via Intimidate) or Gipon Prudensco (up to +10 deflection after some hits). Once you get some ACC buffs and Sun & Moon it works well with the primary attack of Soul Annihilation and you'll be quite tanky (for a flanked Streetfighter). Coming bacl to Shadowdancer: there's the flail Sungrazer which has an enchantmet that triggers if you kill with a crit and does pretty substancial AoE dmg then. Usually it's hard to trigger because how do you want to ensure that you are killing with a crit. But a Shadowdancer (or any Monk) can combine Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming with it. Usually, when those proc it's a kill. And usually it's a crit-kill. So compared to other classes it's rel. easy to proc it. You can use it with One Handed Style + Dirty Fighting in order to maximize procs. Streetfighter has short recovery anyways while flanked so you get decent attack speed as well. It's not superreliable (you can't trigger it willingly) but really great fun and a great mob clearer. Its even good with a Shattered Pillar because you can use autoattacks mostly (which generate wounds quickly as Shadowdancer).

After Deadfire Josh (from Obsidian) spoke to Swen (from Larian) and they found out that the overlap of D:OS- and PoE-players is only about 40%.

This is essentially a free 2-ish hour demo for the game coming out in a few months, It's unremarkable, but perfectly functional turn-based cRPG. Check it out if you're looking to kill a couple hours.

Good time to know COBOL. Guess sometimes "It works" needs to be measured against "We can maintain it"

If you bind the robes of the Weyc to your chanter then you get this ability at lvl2 (it triggers when you empower an invocation - which can be done every fight with Sasha's scimitar)

Meteorologists Describe ‘Gargantuan Hail’ From Epic Storm in Argentina Wow. Now that is hail. Meanwhile in Siberia:

Gaemz:

SpaceX aces final parachute test ahead of historic May 27 crew launch.

It's time for the Summon Rebalance Part of the mod ! After analyzing the current status of all summons in a separate Thread ( https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/114591-mechanics-the-summoners-tables/ ), I'm able to present a new version of my mod with a complete rebalance of many of the game summon spells. This would be included in a dedicated package of my balance mod. Weapon & Armor Scaling : The biggest change is now that all summons weapon and armor scale with level (as Animated Weapons, Summoned Weapons, Companion Pet's Weapons and a handful of other summons already do). They all follow the rules of the table in the link below (+1 PEN, +4 Acc, +15% damages for their weapons and +1AR at level 5, 9, 13 & 17) https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/non-pl-scaling (Only exception are some of the Tier IX Summons because you get them after level 17. But most of them will have legendary quality weapons, or strong enough weapons anyway. ) Other Balance Changes : If a summon is too low on the power curve compared to the ressources it requires, il will seldom be used. This is true for every ability, but it is even more true for summons because you can only have one at a time. For each class, I've tried to adjust the respective powers of their summons. Sometimes, a summon has unique ablities, so its raw power is less important. But in many cases, I had to buff them so they compare more favorably to others. In some rare case, I've nerfed summons to they don't feel OP, especially after I've added the common scaling. Nerfs are indicated in red below. I think I did not makke OP changes, but feel free to tell me if you think they are. Wizard & Monk : Wizard's summons and Monk's Twin already had weapon scaling, and their level of power felt suitable for me. I've made no changes about them (in a previous version of the mod, I've set Conjurer's Familiar summonig to almost instant). Druid : Druid will have access to a huge variety of summons, even if the tanking potential of Call to the Primordials was tuned down a bit. Ondra's Whip, Watery Double, Lashing Vine : no changes. I think these abilities are balanced as they are (and they all scale at levels 5, 9, 13, 17 ).Summon Sporelings :Added Weapon & Armor scaling. These summons are very tanky for their spell Tier, with very good duration. They are subclass-specific so I feel it is legit if they are a bit stronger. All Blights Summons :Added Weapon & Armor scaling. I think these spells needed a bit of a buff, so Weapon & Armor sscaling felt suitable. Call to the Primordials :Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Reduced the number of oozes from 3 to 2. Reduced the duration from 30s to 20s. Bog Ooze removed from the list of potential summons, replaced by Lesser Bog Ooze (but with the added scaling, it's actually somewhat stronger).This spell already feels too strong so I want to seize the opportunity to make it more in line with other summons. It still benefits from Weapon Scaling, so penetrating with Ooze attacks will be easier.Fire Stag : (Weapons and armor already scaled) (minor) Change its fire shield so it procs on "damaged" as other fire shields, and not on Hit/Crit. Set Engagement limit to base 3, so it can be more focused on being a decoy. Adjust base damages to 13 - 19 with PEN 8 (equivalent of a sword with +2 PEN and fast attack rate), so it feels better for a summon of this Tier.Explosion is now triggered by death instead of ability activation. That means Barring Death Door will prevent it from exploding and doing any damages. But when Fire stag is killed by foe, it explodes as if the ability was triggered. Fire stag can still kill itself to trigger the explosion. Explosion has been set to foe-only.Aspect of Galawain :(Weapons and armor already scaled) Adjusted base damages to 13 - 19 with PEN 8 (equivalent of a sword with +2 PEN and fast attack rate), so it feels better for a summon of this Tier. (Wolf gets higher base damage, and Lion has bonus attack speed). Adjusted armor : - base 5 AR -> base 8 AR, - 25% recovery -> 0% recovery. Bear gets +2 AR on top of this. Added an Interrupt on Hit effect to its base attack so it feels like a living Concelhaut Crushing Doom (or Animated Pike and its plentiful Knockdowns). This is meant to be similar to pet's takedowns since the ability is already based on Ranger's pet. Priest : Priests aren't meant to be top tier summoners, but spiritual ally is a well-rounded summon. Incarnates have been mae more user-frinedly, even if the spell still give a PL penalty. These non-controlable summons are all really strong now, even if a bit unconvenient to use.Spirtual Ally :Added Weapon & Armor scaling (its armor scales up to equivalent of legendary plate). Tune down duration to 25s because scaling weapons make him much better at high level and it was already a decent summon. In practice, Spiritual Ally seldom dies in battle so lower duration will makes it last less. It will poke much harder, but it will not change his non-weapon abilities (heal & corrode cone). Incarnates : Changed -5 PL for 35s into -1 PL (stacking if used multiple time) for 120s. This counts as a hostile effect and is decreased by Resolve and similar feat. This is supposed to make using Incarnate once not too bad, but using it several times in a row (especially thanks to Brilliant) more punishing. I could have made it last the whole battle, but I wanted to leave hope for Megaboss encounters, especially for a High Resolve build. Now for specific Incarnates : - Eothas : Equipment set to Legendary Quality. Replaced one of the priest incarnate by a copy of the first since it had an infinite recovery and could only act once. Duration reduced from 35s to 20s (triple summons would be too strong for 35s). Still arguably the best incarnate. - Berath : Equipment set to Legendary Quality Duration reduced from 35s to 25s (double summons would be too strong for 20s). - Magran : Weapon and shield set to Legendary Quality. Buffed to be a defensive juggernat : Set her CON to 25, RES to 25Armor changed to 14 AR without weakness apart Cold and its Recovery would be lowered from +67% to +34% (this value is the one from a Fighter with Armored Grace wearing a heavy armor. - Skaen : added +2 weapon PEN, +10 Acc, damages set from 14-20 to 18-25 (fast attack speed). +2 AR. (Basically similar to a scaling from Exceptionnal to Legendary.) - Wael : get scaling bonus (+4 PEN, + 16 Acc, +60% damages with weapons, +4 AR). Wael's Incarnate is basically a greater blight with better stats but without greater blight ultimate ability (it is limited to normal blight's ones), so it needed this. I also gave him +10 CON so its health pool is more in line with other Single Incarnate, albeit still the frailest. I also added +5 DEX, +5 PER : since Wael is basically only auto-attacking, let's make him good at it ! Feels like an auto-turret now... - Rymrgand : No changes to this monster. Chanter : One thing to keep in mind with Chanters is that all their summons share the exact same pool of ressources. So if each one has not a clear role, it will be completely useless (meanwhile a Druid may sometimes cast Lesser Blight only because it's his last Spell Tier with a Summon). That's why I tried to define a precise role for each one and balance the summon toward this role. Skeletons : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. They start as poor so they have "exceptionnal" weapons at level 20. Role : Skeletons are here for their numbers. They're fine at it (and have much combo potential). Note : "Many Lives..." phrase skeletons don't really scale anyway. Phantom : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Phantom upgrade duration : 25s -> 60s. Role : with such a duration, Phantom will be design as "summon and forget" for those chanters that don't like summons but still want an extra body. He's cheap, he stays for long so I think it's a good niche for him. Wurms : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Base Duration lowered from 25s to 18s. Upgrade cost : 4 phrases -> 3 phrases (I have already aligned all chanter upgraded invocations with the cost of their original ability ; I want to keep this principle : an upgrade should be a strict upgrade, as for all other abilities / classes) Role : Wurms are cheap ranged brute force. If you look at the table, they have pretty good attack strength for their phrase cost, especially when upgraded. That's why I believed I had to tune down their duration. Wisps : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Role : Wisps are utility-based summons and I think they are in a good spot for Interrupting / Distracting. Full scaling won't do much for their lowish attack but will at least bring them to 11 PEN. Ogres : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Set their active abilities to 1 per encounter. I didn't want them to be better than Drake at AoE or better than Wisp at Interrupting. Changed their "Down the Hatch" ability : it doesn't provide Tenacious and Robust anymore : this would have lead to too much AR and PEN if added with the scaling. Now "Down the Hatch" is renamed "Ogre Defiance" and only provides 10 health per 3s for 20s. Disoriented drawback has been removed. I added 2 PEN to their attack abilities to compensate for the loss of Tenacious. Role : Tanks with damage dealing potential. With a bit of armor scaling, they will become tougher than Animated Weapons. Oh, and they have this wonderful 3 base Engagements and self-heal, as well as some AoE attacks (the upgrade provides an Immobilizing effect). Drake : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Duration 25s -> 35s. Added : Ground Immunity, Fear Aura and Dex Resistance that all other drakes have (Dragon Summon gets an improved version of Fear Aura). Knockdowns : - 2 per Encounter -> 3 per Encounter - Damages set to 15 - 25, base PEN set from 7 to 10. - Only affects Hostile Fire Breath : - 1 per Encounter -> 2 per Encounter - PEN set from 6 to 9 Role : Drake is on a weird spot : it is basically a lesser version of Dragon Summon, but is not that much cheaper. It comes alone (well till its death), but its barely OK stats don't really give him an edge over multiple summons (Ogres or Weapons for example). Its upgrade require it to die to be useful, which may not happen reliably. That's why I think it deserved a good buff. I added the classic resistances and fear aura of other Drakes. Even with this, I doubt that it matches the raw power of Ogres and Weapons, that's why I want to increase the number of uses of its AoE abilities, to give him an edge over them (especially Ogres who have a bit of AoE themselves). Even with all this, Drake remains a weaker dragon. That's why I wanted to emphasize its longer duration side since its the only logical edge he can get over a grown-up. Also, the Drake that the upgrade summons upon Death does not count as a Chanter Summon, so you can have another Summon Active alog the second drake. The result, I hope, is a well-rounded summon who can tank a bit, attack a bit, have some AoE and utility, has an average summoning cost and last for a decent duration (but less than hey phantom). Dank Spore : Added Weapon scaling. AR already scaled, but I aligned it with other summons progression. Duration 25s -> 35s. Foul Thing explosion on death : - added 40 - 55 raw poison damages - set Sickened affliction to Infinite duration as announced by the ability. - only affects Hostile - corrected a bug that prevented the Sickened affliction to be displayed. Role : Dank Spore is an utility summon, but still a bit weak since its charm ability has a long casting/recovery and its upgrade's explosion on death is tricky to use and only proc 20s Sickened. That's why I improved the Explosion on death : it's a Tier VIII upgrade, so it has to be a bit strong. Animated Weapons : Are currently already fully scaled. No change. Role : Summons so good I had to analyse all other summons to make sure they could be relevant in front of them. Great brute force with a bit of Prone attacks from Animated Pike. Dragon : Will receive the benefit of full weapon / armor scaling. In addition to scaling, I'm going to change Dragon stats because they currently don't make sense, with a bottomless pit of health but lower AR and attack than the drake ! - Armor 7->10(+4 from scaling) with resistance to Fire and Slash and vulnerability to pierce. (Based on the (scaled) version of the Drake, +1 AR) - Health 200 + 50/level -> 100 + 30/level - Attack : 16-22 CRU/PIER, 7 PEN, normal attack speed -> 20-26 CRU/PIER, 9 PEN, fast attack (+scaling) (this is based on the drake attack, but slightly improved) Role : the ultimate summon, but not the best at everything. Its defense will be good, and HP the best, but multiple summons could still have more total HP and AR is not significant vs everything in PotD upscaled. The Dragon is mostly about AoE. It is also good at tanking but it has a rather low duration (less benefit from PL). I don't think improving its auto-attack is that significant because the dragon should mostly use its special attacks. But a 7 PEN attack was not noble enough for this creature. Its fear Aura (causing Frightened) also brings a bit of utility. Miscellanous Other Changes : Fire Godlike Fire AR : 2 -> 4 (so they have as much as Pale Elves...) Martial Casting : 15% Action Speed -> 100% Action speed when casting summoned weapons. Since Summoned Weapon only require to be cast once every minute, the previous value was a bit unsignificant. They also only had 3s cast time without recovery, so 15% didn't help much. Halving their cast time saves around 1.5s per cast so this Talent would be an equivalent to Quickswitch for casters. Quick Summoning : 15% Action Speed -> 25% Action speed when summoning. Same as for Martial Casting, you can only have 1 summon active, so 15% Action speed didn't save much. But Summoning spells have higher casting time so Quick Summoning didn't require to be boosted as much. Updates from previous versions : - DoT added to Shadowed Hunter on first pet attack : 16s raw damages per 3s for 30s -> 20s raw damages per 3s for 30s (this is a Tier IX ability after all) - His Laughter Rang Through the Hall : Dazed for 8s -> previously 20s -> now 30s. BalancePolishingModBuffs.zip BalancePolishingModNerfs.zip BalancePolishingSummonRebalance.zip

Yeah, since a Beguiler usually has plenty of focus at most times and Whispers of Treason you almost never use Rogueish Charm. It's more about the 100% crit conversion.

Made another attempt, using the nexus guide and adding some photocopy filters. Think it turned out a lot better.

That would be my apporach as well: make less "bombastic" games (Full VO, ridiculously elaborate VFX, localisation for xyz and whatnot) with a small but dedicated team, concentrate on the worldbuilding, the story, the companions (less the relations and reaction systems and all that difficult stuff but rather their character development) and nice abilities. Keep the engine and the underlying mechanics (they are nice, maybe cut down the exceptions), graphics are absolutely fine as they are. I'd even like simpler ones (not that D:OS comicy-style though). Indeed Josh is currently working on a small project with 4-5 team members. It's some non-violent game so I presume it's not a classic CRPG but maybe something more along the lines of Disco Elysium or such, but who knows. Josh said that it's a good time for smaller projects now because Microsoft wants to have a broad and diverse portfolio for the Game Pass. They found out that lots of people try out much more games outside their "niche" when they can try them for free (not really, but basically). So Microsoft encourages smaller projects as well. This may be a chance for a PoE3 with a smaller team. At least I hope so. This niche may be small, but the players in it are also quite loyal and invested once they like something. They need to do better ports for consoles though. I won't ever play such games on any console, but the bigger sales market makes it easier to justify producing such games in the future. Josh also said he'd love to make a Pillars of Eternity Tactics game. Feargus wants to make Skyrim on Eora. So I'd would be very surprised if we won't see more of that IP in the future. Heck, I'd even buy Slay the Spire on Eora. Card Deck builders are rel. easy to make, can be released on all platforms and usually sell very well.

The number was deduced by people who took the returns, researched the fig terms and finally said it's not exact but gives a fair approximation. As I said that was some time ago. I didn't dive into the details. It was confirmed by several Obsidian devs, most notably Josh Sawyer, that Deadfire sold way worse than PoE. And PoE sold somewhere around 1 million copies at that time iirc. That doesn't sound like 700k at all. It was also said that Deadfire wasn't a financial desaster but very disappointing. If you assume a certain budget (let's say double the fig campaign's amount) and assume 200K copies then it may have covered the expenses. But of course then you have gained nothing for budgeting your next game. Tyranny was a similar story. It hurts. Both are not bad games in the slightest. It just seems the niches were too small. Which is unfortunate because it's exactly my niche.

Being able to read is an extremely large part of this game lol... If you can't finish this "wall" quickly then maybe your lack of reading skills and/or dislike of reading is trying to tell you something very important about yourself

Imgur is acting up again, not finding my images. No Mordheim today.