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hopeful not a super-spreader event, eh? our two +80 something aunts is spending christmas together but isolated from the rest o' the family as they both have covid. situation is made worse 'cause the older sister is blaming the younger one for ruining christmas 'cause she brought covid with her when she traveled from CA. on the positive side, at least they have the rest o' the family bringing food and looking after them while they recover. the meds they is taking has 'em doing reasonably well but they both say their nights are terrible even if they sound fine during the day. even so, the older woman is 87, so... regardless, merry christmas and happy holidays to all. HA! Good Fun!

Supposedly tomorrow is the deadline for the Serbs to remove the roadblocks in to Kosovska Mitrovica. The ultimatum was given by some western Ambassador, otherwise the Albanian militia will remove them by force. On the other side Serbia is deploying long range artillery and prepping the army.

Merry Christmas (and any other holidays yall may be observing), I hope Santa's Wild Hunt has left yall alone. Here in Texas this begins the tradition of shooting fireworks (and firearms!) off every night before New Years. The rona years have made this a lot louder than normal, and I got to wonder just how much money is being spent on the big boomers and such.

also gonna make the obvious observation that the cost for a human to increase charisma from 19 to 20 is 4 points. math suggests is best for a human to start at 19 charisma as 'posed to 20 but such a choice is most certainly not make or break. one o' the things poe developers addressed were the asinine even v. odd number aspect o' attribute benefits. even v. odd attributes is a silly concern one needs make in wotr. have mentioned previous how greatswords is... fine. is not anywhere near the best or worst weapon choice. am assuming a paladin is taking leader background in part for the greatsword bonus, 'cause two-handed weapons is typical better unless you dual-wield and a 10 dex paladin is most obvious not gonna be dual wielding. regardless, greatswords is hardly a best choice but is more than good enough for core or lower difficulties. however, is worth noting there is only a couple decent greatsword choices in the game, and particular since finnean has been nerfed/fixed, it means that in a game spanning many tens of hours o' gameplay, you is only gonna have a couple greatsword drops which is noteworthy. the paucity o' great greatswords won't make game unplayable or too difficult, but w/o meta is ez to miss the one decent act 3 greatsword. miss the holy greatsword and is gonna feel like you are underperforming based on nothing save fact you made a "bad" level 1 choice. aside, pickpocket is kinda the obvious win background for most builds particular if you play turn-based or higher difficulties. initiative is all too often underappreciated. warrior of the holy light loses spell casting. maybe doesn't sound like a big deal, but paladins get some very powerful buffs. is a serious penalty which may not be obvious at first glance. on core, a heavy armour tank is viable. our first run had a sword & board seelah as a tank and we managed just fine. the holy avenger is a nice weapon and it is gonna be useful the entire game. is also a couple o' shields which is providing extreme useful benefits beyond their ac increase functionality; chances are you are gonna want somebody in your party capable o' wielding at least heavy shields. seelah is the obvious companion for the role. if your main is a paladin and you don't bring seelah along, then is worth considering going sword and board + heavy armour, 'cause none o' the companions is an obvious sword and board choice. some o' the most challenging content is early, so is worth considering taking a level o' sohei, gendarme, oracle or whatever to acquire your mount as early as possible. with one level o' sohei, you may choose the spirited charge mounted feat which will double your weapon damage on a charge and you will maintain max bab... but that will mean your mark of justice comes one level later. regardless, the easiest way to flatten the difficulty curve sans moving the difficulty slider is with animal companions. HA! Good Fun!

Merry Christmas and Heppy New Year, or the equivalents, you are celebrating/enjoying during these times.

Hi, this is another build of mine, he is a one-handed, Gravestep-addicted Hearth Orlan Rogue focused on hits on crits conversion. I think about a build with the greatest hits to crits conversion rate possible, I check if it is viable and in case fix some lacks, and eventually give up some conversion score for more efficiency. If you wanna know about Hits to Crits conversion reached by this build, go to the corresponding paragraph near the end of post. Hope you like it Llunrwald - Hearth Orlan Rogue, The "Handy Thief" "So do you think I can't hit you? We will see..." Name: Llunrwald PoTD: YES - ver. 3.07-1318 LATEST SOLO: YES - ver. 3.07-1318 LATEST - All TCS achievements. ULTIMATE: No, unless you choose another race* and change a little bit talents and abilities choices. Race: Orlan - +1 Res, +2 Per, -1 Mig Subrace: Hearth - Minor Threat* Class: Rogue - +2 Mechanics,+1 Stealth Culture: Old Vailia - +1 Int Background: Drifter - 1 Mechanics, 1 Stealth *PAY ATTENTION! In SOLO, Minor Threat is useless! It works only with companion, it doesn't trigger with figurines, charmed or dominated foes and/or Concelhaut Visage, SO playing solo with an Hearth Orlan it is the same to say playing without race bonus. Because of that, if you want a race bonus, choose another race for this build. Human, Boreal Dwarf and Island/Coastal Aumaua can fit well --- Attributes - final scores with passive bonus Mig: 18 - 18 base, -1 Orlan, +1 Gift from the Machine Con: 10 Dex: 18 Per: 7 - 3 base, +2 Orlan, +1 Hylea's boon, +1 Song of the Heavens Int: 19 - 18 base, +1 Old Vailia Res: 9 - 8 base, +1 Orlan --- Skills score Stealth: 9 - 13 with Rogue, Drifter, Blooded Hunter and Dungeon Delver, with equipment and bonus rest it can raise even at 17 Athletics: 2 - 4 with Angio's Gambeson Lore: 5 - 6 with Hylea's Boon, can arrive at 8 or even 10 with Aldwyn's Boon, rest and equipment Mechanics: 6 - 10 with Rogue, Drifter and Dungeon Delver, 12 with equipment and even 15 with Rite of Walking Shadows Survival: 3 - 5 with equipment After killed Concelhaut, I respeced with: Stealth: 2 - 6 with Rogue, Drifter, Blooded Hunter and Dungeon Delver Athletics: 6 - 8 with Angio's Gambeson Lore: 7 - 8 with Hylea's Boon, it can arrive at 12 with Aldwyn's Boon, rest and equipment Mechanics: 1 - 5 with Rogue, Drifter and Dungeon Delver Survival: 8 - 10 with equipment --- Talents I took talents and abilities focused on Hits to Crits conversion, so i gave priority to those ones. One-Handed Style - +15% Hits to Crits conversion Vicious Fighting - +10% Hits to Crits conversion Bloody Slaughter - +20% Hits to Crits conversion and +0.5 Crit multiplier against enemies with >10% endurance Deep Pockets - we need scrolls, figurines and potions more than other classes Shadowing Beyond - no brain talent for skipping many encounter and split many groups of monsters Weapon Focus: Knight - for +6 accuracy with We Toki Weapon Focus: Soldier - for +6 accuracy with Godansthunyr Weapon Focus: Peasant - for +6 accuracy with Cladhaliath Bloody Slaughter is an underrated talent for almost all players, I pick it for RPG reasons and for initial goal - Hits to Crits conv., but it can be useful in general with scrolls against many very damaged groups of monsters to kill them with more chances; i.e. shooting a fireball versus 5 ogres with low endurance can result in many hit bu no kill and you have another round with 5 ogres alive; with 1 more crit you have 4 alive the next round instead of 4, if you score a crit by yourself they become 3 and with the others our abilities with more hits to crits conversion, they could be 2... And beside that with boss - dragons ecc with many endurance, 10% can mean 60 or 70, and scoring a crit at that point can make the difference between winning or losing the fight - and your life. Not so bad, after all. Fun fact: if you pick Bloody Slaughter, in th combat log ALL Hits to Crits conversion are assigned to this talent; I suspect it is a log bug, that is, the conversions are made by all talents and abilities, but in the log you say only hit - Bloody Slaughter --> crit and no more other talents/abilities The three weapon focus can be much. You're right, I didn't know what to take and I increased my accuracy with my weapons. You can keep only one or two of them - I'd pick Knight focus because We Toki is our preferred weapons, Peasant can be still usefull... see Equipment session for that. And late game, with high Rogue accuracy, weapon focus is not very important. Dropping some weapon focus talents you can choose other talents as Fast Runner, Outlander's Frenzy, Envenomed Strike, Devastating Blow or what you like. If I restarted the game, maybe I'd drop all the three, I'd pick Gallant's Focus and I'd have +4 accuracy and 2 more talents choice. By the way, after killed Concelhaut I respeced with: One-Handed Style - +15% Hits to Crits conversion Vicious Fighting - +10% Hits to Crits conversion Bloody Slaughter - +20% Hits to Crits conversion and +0.5 Crit multiplier against enemies with >10% endurance Deep Pockets - we need scrolls, figurines and potions more than other classes Shadowing Beyond - no brain talent for skipping many encounter and split many groups of monsters Devastating Blow - +2% Finishing BLow damage, it seems low but it is very good in the damage calculation Fast Runner - more speed is always great for a melee rogue Beast Slayer - Alpine and Adra Dragon, Llengrath's friends and so on, you know Abilities Sneak attack - automatic Recless Assault - no-brain for every rogue I believe Dirty Fighting - no way, I have to pick this for +10% Hits to Crits conversion Deathblows - it's hard to find a rogue without it, +100% damage to enemies with 2 or more afflictions Deep wounds - 3 + MIGHT bonus every tick any time we give slash, crush or pierce damage... I like it for rogue Finishing Blow - +5 accuracy, +50% damage and high damage to low endurance enemy with a weird calculation: trust me, pick it, shoot it when a Dragon is near death and you will see damage going to the sky In my video below there are some single crit near 300 damage with a one-hand weapon. Blinding Strike Crippling Strike Fearsome Strike or Withering Strike - I prefer first one because it give 2 affliction for more time even if it is per rest instead of per encounter Other abilities are defensive or replicable with equipment most of the times, so no many words here. Maybe you can try Shadow Step for more damage or Escape/Coordinated Positioning/Smoke Cloud as panic button, but they make no real difference. Talents chosen/achieved through the run The Merciless Hand - +0.3 crit damage, better than other two and with a Rogue, can't we stay with Doemenels? Gift from the Machine - yes, we want +1 Might and more Endurance ; Hylea's Boon - only because we need +1 Per and above all +1 Lore , by the way, Llunrwald is a artist of theft and deceit, you can say that Song of the Heavens - more PER Dungeon Delver - crit bonus, stealth and mechanics ... food and air for us Flick of the Wrist Dozens Luck Blooded Hunter - more stealth Scale-Breaker --- Equipment Most used equipment Weapon set 1: We Toki - Overbearing, Legendary, Durgan-Refined, Corrode Lash, Slaying - Beast Weapon set 2: Godansthunyr - Stunning, +1 Might, Superb, Durgan-Refined, Corrode Lash Alternative weapon: Cladhaliath - Stunning, Vicious - +20% damage against stunned, prone or flanked enemies, Superb, Durgan-Refined, Slaying - Vessel Armor: Angio's Gambeson - Superb, Athletic, Of Constitution 2, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, Slash-Proofed, Durgan-Reinforced Head: Munacra Arret - +12 Will, Whisper of Threason 3 per rest Neck: Cape of Master Mystic - Invisibility when hit by Crit, +12 Deflection, Minor Arcane Reflection Hands: Gauntlets of Swift Action - +15% Attack Speed Finger 1: Gwyn's Band of Union - Blassing, +4 INT, Instill Doubt when endurance above 80% Finger 2: Ring of Chainging Heart - + 3 RES, Dominate 2 per rest Waist: Girdle of Mortal Protection - Reduce damage of critical hit by 27% Feet: Boots of Speed - Moving fast can make the difference Pet: Concelhaut - essential for Llengrath fight Some words about equipments - which take at the beginning, predatory weapons, etc. Predatory weapons - +10% Hits to Crits conversion Predatory weapons should fit well for this build, especially Aattuuk because it is a dagger, so +5 accuracy, one hand, and whole place for full enchantment. I try to use that weapon and the others predatory equipment, but Llunrwald can't go through the game with them. He is too squishy, he need to CC enemy and if he can achieve it via scrolls and figurines, this tattic is frustranntig and, above all, expensive to adopt every encounter, so I stuck with deabilitating weapons. You can play with Aattuuk until you get a stunning or averbearing weapon, and the best for us - one handed are the three already cited: We Toki, Godansthunyr and Cladhaliath. By the way, Aattuuk is a dagger and in my run I've already taken weapon focus for war hammer, so just arrived to Defiance Bay I went to Vincent Dwellier, buyed Haba's Hammer - a simple Exceptional war hammer and enchanted it with Corrode Slash and Slaying Kith - Act 2 is plenty of kith to kill, it got its job well in early game; maybe now I'd pick Aattuuk, but it no so decisive. Weapons selection Yet said that We Toki is the best weapon for a one-handed character because it debilitate opponent - prone via overbearing, prone status last long, almost no monster is immune to prone and We Toki can be enchanted at full 14 points with Legendary, having +15 acc/+55% damage - become +20/+80% against beast and +25% corrode damage at top of that. Very good. Godansthunyr is for the few enemies immune to prone, that's all. Cladhaliath was picked only for one reason: I needed a effective one hanb weapons against Eyeless. So I took Cladhaliathand enchanted it with stunning and Slaying Vessel, with a +5 accuracy on top because it is a spear. It did its job at the best... and from that moment I used it against Vessel, obviously, Woedica final statues especially. Armor At the beginning you have to make do with what you find, middle game I took Wayfarer's Hide but then I think that Athletic and Deleterious Alacrity of Motion of Angio's Gambeson was perfect for Llunrwald. You can keep ready armor with stealth bonus and survive bonus, for different moment and situation. Other equipments used often and not already mentioned Let go early game, I often used Rotfinger Gloves - area damage and two afflictions maker and Ring of Searing Flames, end game they become poor and I wear Gauntlets of Accuracy and as rings Bartender's Ring, Orlan's Bramble Ring, Pensiavi mes Rèi or Ring of Thorns. Gwyn's Band of Union is excellent with +4 INT - afflictions last longer and Ring of Chainging Heart is a good way to CC enemies and make allied, such as Munacra Arret. Late game I dropped Munacra Arret for Maegfolc Skull - +4 MIG for damage and Unbending for healing. For neck slot I used also Mantle of the Excavator, Glanfathan Adraswen - for +2 Lore, or Fulvano's Amulet - for Healing bonus. At waist I used the same old Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer but also Belt of the Stelgaer or Trollhide Belt but I found that late game the best is Girdle of Mortal Protection. For foot I wore Boots of Stability, Cat's Whisper - for Stealth bonus, Fenwalkers, and usual Shod-in-Faith or Viettro's Formal Footwear. Quick Slots I was plenty of figurines, apart form this I used scrolls and potion depending on the situation, you can see some "combination" of quick slots items in the videos at the end. Drugs and food I've my usual combination of food, the one that give +2 almost to every attribute, and IMPORTANT I take Gravestep before every hard encounter. It give +25% of Hits converted to Crits for 600 sec and this is far well of +15% Hits to Crits conversion of Potion of Merciless Gaze AND Gravestep can be drunk BEFORE combat, clearing a quick slot item. -20% maximum Endurance for 600 sec is not so problematic. --- Ok, but, how high this blessed Hits to Crits Conversion is? Finally, we take the stock of this Hits to Crits Conversion. We have theese bonus stacking: Dirty Fighting --> +10% Vicious Fighting --> +10% Predatory --> +10% Gravestep --> +25% Durgan-Refined --> +20% Bloody Slaughter --> +20% So, if you stack ALL and EVERY bonus, the final Hits to Crits conversion rate will be: 10 + 10 + 10 + 25 + 20 + 20 = 95% !!! But some bonus are situational, especially Bloody Slaughter, and we wear predatory weapons almost never, so end game the conversion will be 65%, and early/middle game, without Durgan-Refined and Gravestep we can reach only 30% with 2 talents and abilities and a predatory weapon, or 45% with a potion of Merciless Gaze, and this is not so bad early game, after all! My mistake, I wrote a lot of heresies! I'm going to quote the right calculation done by @Boeroer and I'm sorry about my innacuracy, please forgive me! But the effectiveness of the build is the same also with lower hits to crits conversion and what was written without Strikethrough below Boeror quote it is still valid So with all bonuses, including Minor Threat if you don't play solo, i.e another *0.9 factor to NTC rate it gives about 70% conversion rate with all bonuses together. It is very good and perhaps it could be convenient land a crit with conversion than with accuracy... Actually, Dirty Fighting and Vicious Fighting stack, but, since 0.80 is near 0.9*0.9 = 0.81, above calculations remain valid. Middle/end game you will see almost any hit converted to crits, this PG crits a lot also with low Perception. With low PER I can distribute some poin in CON and RES, better than nothing and this give more surivability to the build. But some foes are hard to hit, so you have to reach at least a "hit", not a "graze", because of that accuracy bonuses are welcome. Also, Minor Threat doesn't work SOLO, but in a game with other characters you can put another +10% bonus in front of others, so the previous rates become 105% - ROTFL!, 75% and 55%, very impressive NO, say above for actual rates. Good to hear, but, is this PG viable? Ok, if you wanna go SOLO, the best Rogue is with two weapon style - We Toki and Godansthunyr and the usual build - see for example @baldurs_gate_2 Ultimate Rogue. By the way I beat every encounter with no so high difficulty, except Llengrath: with one hand/low Perception Rogue it is very difficult and it is the only reason this PG can get Ultimate Solo achievements. If you wann go ULTIMATE with Llunrwald, for Llengrath respec in two handed or weapon and shield style and maybe take different quick slot items than my video below. Also Brynlod can be risky, but you can pull/kite easily at that location. All other encounter, with the right tattic - confusion/paralize scroll, figurines, use of shadowing beyond etc. are quite simple, also Adra and Alpine Dragon. And I have to say that many quests can be achieved with stealth/invisibility - i.e. The Rising Tide with no combat at all, skipping many battles. In "normal" game, with other PG and Minor Threat, this could be a good damage dealer and a great "priority target killer". RPG thoughts I thought about Llunrwald as an abandoned infant from Old Vailia, who grew in a circus or somenthing like learning his rogue abilities and at a certain point of his life he decided to go on his way. A day he tried Gravestep and by that moment he was addicted and he found out that his tricks could be better with it ;). He didn't receive a good education, in D&D terms, he can be a Chaotic Neutral PG. --- MEDIA For these battles, I was inspired by @baldurs_gate_2 Ultimate Rogue and also this run. Brynlod Adra Dragon Alpine Dragon Concelhaut Thaos Llengrath

HA! Good Fun!

Yeah, it's heavily dependent on weapons not having some of the stuff you can use. I think Axiomatic and Brilliant Energy would be good....but as good as Iomeneigh? Probably not. And it takes much more time to come online, while the mount is kicking as soon as you get it. If you go mount, generally it's better to build mounts more as tanks than damage. Dex tanking is probably better than barding, and doesn't require feats. Also a bug, but mounts can apparently wear haramaki armor. Bracers are probably a better choice for most though.

keep in mind, w/o the need to respec, seelah makes an excellent skald, court poet or even oracle. sohei and gendarme is also decent melee focus alternatives. following all the changes from patches and the enhanced edition, skald remains one o' the best possible buffers o' a melee based party and a court poet archetype skald is gonna be an excellent choice for a party which has intelligence and charisma based casters as well as paladins. seelah is not difficult to build as a skald or court poet and with such choices she makes for a viable tank on difficulties up to and including hard. go almost complete oracle after a couple levels o' paladin is a worthy if overlooked consideration for seelah, as long as you focus on healing and buffing spells. seelah won't have the dcs necessary to make use o' most offensive spells, but is plenty of other companions who may fulfill such a role. choose nature mystery will result in you acquiring one o' the best mounts in the game, a charisma based ac bonus and a save buff for animal companions. sohei/gendarme/demonslayer, individual or combined, is also not-fighter options for seelah which make sense and do not require any futzing with mods which may break anytime there is a large patch. at least 11 levels o' sohei gets you flurry with a reach weapon, a horse and mounted feats w/o needing meet prerequisites. order of the ****atrice is a good option for a gendarme build and results in fighter kinda feat progression. a large % o' builds is gonna benefit from a single level o' demonslayer. aside, am knowing virtual every guide for skalds recommends the lethal/deadly route, but enhanced edition changed the seeming unrelated guarded hearth to a competence bonus meaning when you have sosiel initiate a guarded hearth (pretty much every boss battle) you lose the attack bonus benefits from a skald's lethal stance. converse, reckless and inspired ferocity is untyped and functional double resulting in a massive +10 attack bonus at level 16. the beast totem line provides natural ac bonuses which cancel out the penalties from the reckless stance. yeah, the increased crit aspect o' lethal/deadly is a massive benefit and should not be ignored, but that bonus comes late in the game and the added crit range don't mean much if you cannot hit an enemy. untyped attack bonus boosts is not common in wotr and the skald's inspired/reckless provides a particular large untyped advantage. even w/o respec, seelah is highly customizable and potential fulfills many roles. HA! Good Fun!

I think you mean two weapon style ? Anyway, it is a good post and I find it quite valuable. Thanks for your effort.

While that's true, I don't think there is too much they could have done with it for a feature. Just using the poem gives enough for maybe an hour episode in anthology show.

that hat will not benefit (immu to RES affliction) or harm (-10 deflection) char that wores it, you need a summon with it to have a effect (phantom, monk duplicates)

You meet a guy later in chapter iii that lets you relevel and respec your character (over and over). At no cost as far as I could see in chapter iii (he later charged you for it in chapter v iirc)

Started watching Wednesday and liking it a lot so far

A couple of Christmas movies and one random. First is The Wolf of Snow Hollow, which I like much better with the second viewing. It's not the greatest horror, but Jim Cummings is very good at making horrific situations into comedy. Secondly, The Green Knight. Visually beautiful and with a refreshing ambiguous ending. In many ways I think there is a lot more style than substance here, but the style is very good and the substance is a thousand year old story you were probably forced to read in high school. Lastly, Wifelike. A pretty dumb sci-fi flick about robot sex dolls wives (notably no husbandos) and a cop who brings rebellious ones back to get their memory wiped. We've been here, we've done this, and yeah it's not particularly great.

You naughty So the most important thing is to just play the game how you want. I won't make fun of you for playing on a low difficulty, because iirc even the developers play on easy mode rather than face the monster they created. Playing vanilla Unfair is pretty much only for sadomasochists, getting wiped out by ranged attackers who hit like a truck isn't fun for most people. As to the build, to start with I'd have knocked down Charisma to 19 and put the remaining points into Constitution and either Dexterity or Wisdom, or maybe take a hit in either Intelligence, Dexterity, or Wisdom to grab 16 Strength. You get an odd number of attribute increases so in the long run it makes more sense to take a small hit for your main attribute at first and go for more well rounded base stats. Heavy Armor builds don't really have a lot of support in the vanilla game, they will fall behind the unarmored monk dip tanks or animal companions in Ac and the speed malus hurts. Also, if you go mounted you first use the mount's AC, so your heavy armor bonus doesn't contribute to tankiness. To add a bit of insult, imo the unique Heavy Armor options are pretty underwhelming. The big problem with the Paladin is that it is one of two martial classes without access to Bonus Feats. This means Human is a great choice for that bonus feat (and the extra skill I guess), and that you don't want to take builds that are feat starved (no exotic weapons or twf). In general I'd say that Improved Initiative (especially in Turn-Based, so much that i'd rate it as near essential) and your Weapon Focus/Improved Critical are good choices. If you're going mounted there are a few options you'll want to pick up to help out your mount (if you have ranks in mobility?), and the Teamwork feats are always a good choice for melee. And if you have ranks in Persuasion I'd reccomend Dazzling Display and Dreadful Carnage, as demoralization is really good. Longsword isn't as good as scimitar or rapier in terms of base stats, but there are a lot of great longswords in the game so they're a solid choice. I believe there are enough so that if you take Seelah and a sekrit companion* you'll still have some good uniques to spare. In general the weapon or armor enhancement bonus can be buffed by magic weapon (greater) andmagical vestments (?), so don't pay as much attention to the enhancement bonus as to weapon properties and unique abilities. The big exception is weapons with a DC effect, you can count on those being worse than they sound. But really, I'd just play the game in a way that you enjoy. It's a game, it's supposed to be fun. If you want to be miserable just watch NuTrek or Sailor Moon Crystal. *

Doing anything that annoys the backend in an edit gives back the usual response when you're trying to edit a post that is in a locked thread or has been removed. The server replies with a 403 Forbidden for some reason. I'd laugh, but it makes posting really annoying.

There (maybe is) another (issue) with more than one ("parantheses") per line. Edit: Odd, it's hard to reproduce any of the weirder behaviours. Single line within () works well enough, but everything else is behaving weirdly. {{}} "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" Uuh...

It's a problem of scaling. Take your paladin there, for instance. If you slap one of the heaviest armors on him that you can find, you'll get +15 or something AC. Sounds nice, yes? If you take the character you made, add a level of Scaled Fist Monk [CHA to AC, when not wearing armor] and Oracle with Nature's Whispers [CHA bonus works as DEX bonus] and remove the armor, you're now at +10. Essentially, you're starting the game with an Adamantine Full Plate, and the Paladin abilities provide a really nice saving throw bonus. You're wearing your charisma as armor, basically. Your AC is 10 + 2 * CHA-Bonus, and if you spend all your points in charisma and add a +6 item you're looking at 30 CHA (or 32, with a Kindred Half-Elf) without any buffs or other abilities, giving you +20/22 AC, and your smites a +10/+11 to hit against pretty much every enemy in the game that warrants it. There's no armor speed penality on your character, no armor penalty for skill checks and it leaves you open to add other sources of "armor" - like Bracers of Protection or the best option there probably is, the Archmage Armor mythical ability that adds your mythic level (goes up to 10 over the course of the game) to Mage Armor, which adds +14 over the long run and although you're not spending a whole lot of time at Mythic 10, but you're getting to +7 or +8 AC out of that ability rather quickly. Any character can procc Archmage Armor as long as they're the source of Mage Armor, so potions work for everyone. On the other hand, you can just have Lann turn into a Divine Hunter and have a leopard pet, that starts out with 31 AC and can last you for a while. Arguably the entire game on Core if you buff the pet well enough, and here's a tip: treat your pets as well as your characters, they'll be really helpful. But, actually, that's not even what I meant, although it is a part of it. Core was not designed to be played like this: You don't need to go all the way and break the game in every way possible like you would if you wanted to do a full unfair run - like the CHA/AC scaling which you could do simply because it's easy and convenient and you have the charisma for it anyway - but you should have a more than decent idea what you can and cannot do in the game. Play around until you get a feeling for what you want to do. Drop back to normal when the going gets too tough. Enjoy the game. Nobody's going to laugh at you for not playing on Core. Paladins get two different mount choices: horses, and black horses, but that is not bad, horses are good because you can still ride them when enlarged, provided you and your mount are enlarged by the same size factor. PARANTHESES ARE DEATH.

There's something wrong with her design? There's an episode down a ways where a guy starts talking to her and she goes "I'm not as cheap as I look!" and that had in me in tears. I'm not sure that was intended as comedy, but I laughed. Hard.

Happy Christmas! Full house today, 11 of us total.

I also just picked up this game on sale and plan on playing it over the break.

I've been having problems posting too. I've made a couple long responses in various threads that just disappared. So now I'm copy pasting everything first. I thought I was the only one who used those obscure spells like Jernaugh's Equalizing Burst! I like that as a pre combat opener then switch to llengrath's martial mysteries. But yeah the book costs like 13k which is absurd...Unrelated but I also really like the spell "Nannasin's Cobra Strike" which is weirdly sold by the map guy in Snakeskin grimoire. Hard to tell from the description but it basically gives you a 1.8m unarmed two-weapon attack that does massive amounts of poison damage over time. Unfortunately lot of enemies are immune to both piercing and poison so I use the other weapon spells more but it is really cool vs kith, particularly as you can cast it earlier than Citzal's and it has longer duration. But once you get Citzal's there isn't much reason to go back. If I could memorize the spell I probably would but at that point it isn't worth hanging onto the grimoire. Maybe you're right that the mechanics are better in Deadfire. IDK. Haven't played the first one in a few years but it seemed like more classes were viable. There was a bit of an issue where parties could just center around making huge alpha strikes I guess. I liked the 6 vs 5 though. More forgiving in selecting the party. My biggest issue with Deadfire though isn't the mechanics so much as how disconnected everything is. When I first played it when it came out I couldn't get into it because I didn't know where I was supposed to go. I thought the Old City in Neketaka was really cool, though it took me absolutely forever to get through it because I did all the fights and I was bad so lots of reloading. After that though it's like do I go to Hasongo or Motari o Kozi or Poko Kahara or what? Also feels less traditional an RPG, no proper dungeons. I like it a lot more now. The multiclass system is what really shines. With the various subclasses and tons of items there are so many possible builds. Just started playing it a lot a few months ago so I'm late to the party. But like Ngati's Tusks is kind of emblematic of what I'm talking about. I didn't even know that weapon existed. You can't get it until super late game, you have to go way out of your way sailing across the Deadfire for the quest (though not as far as the other SSS quests)... Hunter of Hunters looks like a really good debuff but it requires two antlers. Most playthroughs I'm lucky to get ONE. No enemies drop antlers as far as I know. Only place where you can get two is either get really lucky at Cuitzl's or the scripted interaction on Neketaka Island where you get the Garland's Breath. So like 99% of players are never going to get to use that weapon. -------- Let me ask you a question @Boeroer as you seem super knowledgeable about the game. How do items with "immunity to X afflictions" work? LIke Effigy's Husk with immunity to might or Cap of the Laughingstock immunity to resolve afflictions? I've used these items a lot and sometimes I *still* get might or resolve afflictions. Don't recall where exactly besides Sigilmaster Auranic, I know one of his obelisks seems to bypass the immunity to resolve affliction. Merry christmas everyone

Build buildings that increase your recruitement pool. Don't have more than one army and general until way later in the game, use a sorcerer general and ranged units are better than anything else. When you get the upgrade options, pick marksmen. Recruit marksmen. Win.

Unfortunaltey conversions don't stack like that. In code there will be a list of conversion abilities with their percentages - and the game will loop through that list after the initial hit - to see if any of those conversion chances might trigger. If one triggers the loop is ended with a hit-to-crit conversion. If none triggers there will be no conversion. Because of that the overall chance of conversion is not simply an addition of the individual chances. Instead they will stack multiplicatively and not additively, but not in favor of the player. It's easiest to calculate the overall chance by multiplying the chances NOT to convert: Dirty Fighting --> 0.1 chance to convert --> 0.9 chance NOT to convert. Vicious Fighting --> 0.1 ctc --> 0.9 ntc. Predatory --> 0.9 ntc Gravestep --> 0.75 ntc Durgan-Refined --> 0.8 ntc Bloody Slaugher --> 0.8 ntc 0.9*0.9*0.9*0.75*0.8*0.8 = 0.3499 or ~0.35 chance NOT to convert- substract from 1 and you get the chance to convert: 1-3.5 = 0.65 or 65% overall conversion chance. You can never reach 100% with this approach. Each additional conversion will have lower and lower absolute impact on the overall conversion rate. This is why stacking them at all costs doesn't yield the best results. In some fights the additional ACC is still good in the later game though. It depends on your ACC vs. the enemies defense. Usually high-defense bosses are cases where single handed weapon might yield better results than dual wielding (or two handers) just because you prevent misses and maybe even grazes. But for a Rogue who has several Full Attacks it's almost always better to have two strikes instead of one. Let's determine the difference in conversion rate between a Full Attack with two overbearing weapons compared to a Full Attck with a singe Overbearing weapon: Accuracy aside, the only difference in conversion is the 15% from Single Weapon Style. If ye take the exampl from above: dual wielding: 0.9*0.9*0.9*0.75*0.8*0.8 = ~0.35 ntc for both attacks --> 0.35 * 0.35 = 1.2255 --> ~88% crit conversion chance with at least one of both weapons. single weapon: 0.9*0.9*0.9*0.75*0.8*0.8*0.85 = ~0.3 ntc for the single attack -> ~70% crit conversion chance with tha one weapon. Of course the additional 12 ACC will help with landing crits, too - but overall it's less impactful than having the additional chance from a second weapon - which not only might deal additional damage and add more CC time, but also can apply an affliction which will already count towards Sneak Attack and Deathblows for the second strike. Also, with an overbearing weapon + a stunning weapon (e.g. We Toki + Godansthunyr) you might unlock Deathblows just with auto-attacks, which can't be done with a single weapon (although there is some problem with stunning weapons not counting for SneakAttack/Deathblows because the stun affliction is not implemented properly as an affliction iirc, needs testing). That's why single weapon style is perceived to be the weakest option of all styles in PoE by most (after the early game where the +12 ACC bonus, compared to the general low ACC and defense numbers, has a huge impact and makes "not missing" a lot easier). Of course later there are edge cases, for example when your ACC is just high enough (e.g. from the +12 from single weapon use) so that you cannot miss,graze or even hit anymore and so on. And also classes that don't have Full Attacks don't suffer so much from it (see Cipher). But a Rogue with many of the per-encounter Full Attacks unfortunatley does. So you picked the most difficult setup with one of the weakest classes for PotD. But as long as it works and is fun to play it's awesome of course. And it's cool to see someone actually doing this from start until the end of the game.

Hi! For both spells the duration will not change (it is determined when you cast the spell). Relentless Storm is a pulsing spell while Insect Plage is a Damage over Time (DoT) spell that has so called "ticks"- both behave differently: Relentless Storm when you lose the bonus PL: the pulses of the storm all do individual attack rolls vs. the enemies' defense, so they will lose ACC and damage bonus from the lost PLs immediately. If you regain the bonus PL (for example ending the Spiritshift) they will regain the bonus damage and accuracy. Insect Plage when you lose the bonus PL: the ticks will lose the bonus damage. But since the spell only does one attack roll at casting time and then applies the "status effect: damage over time" the loss of the PL bonus will have no effect on the accuracy. If you regan the PLs the damage per tick will go up again. Tl;dr: Relentless Storm will lose daamage & accuracy per pulse, Insect Plague will only lose damage per tick. Spells that only do one attack roll at casting time and then apply a CC effect with a duration (see Nature's Mark or Sunbeam for example) will not suffer from the PL loss at all.

That's dumb but now I'm angry and I may not come back to the forums ever...

When I was writing I was thinking the exact same thing. The forum bugged out and the first draft of that sentence was posted... I remember the weapon bond thing and how underwhelming it was when you had a good weapon. I'll probably go with a mount this time. As far as my playthrough goes, I arrived at the inn without much difficulties. (random crits still force a reload)

@BartimaeusEverything turned up roses for the Packers. They won and every single team they need to leapfrog lost. Inexplicably, they can still make the playoffs. Aaron Rodgers is going to sneak into the playoffs so that he can murder muh Boys yet again, isn't he?

You naughty Well the weapon bond isn't bad per se, but generally the mount seems to be better because you get better movement and a tank (and more carrying capacity), plus a bug allows you to make full attacks when your mount moves (though this may have been fixed, TTT fixes it by gating it behind a feat that requires 14 mobility, which is pnp accurate). You may also be able to trick the game by using reduce person on yourself before getting the mount and being able to select the wolf or dog instead of the horse, which have more impressive stats but take until you hit level 7 to be able to mount. You may not be able to enlarge the non-horse mounts though, I think TTT fixes that but the vanilla game counts the size increase as a permanent buff that doesn't stack with spells. Yeah, the TTT mod adds a couple of things to help Heavy Armor characters, you go full 20 Fighter and spend 2 Mythic Abilities and you'll get a whopping +11 AC and +14 to the Dex Cap, but that takes a lot longer to come online than a monk dip and has a much higher cost. If you're not a Fighter you can still get +6 AC/+10 Dex cap for two Mythic Abilities....but there are more appealing choices there. It is broken, but you know another way to phrase broken? Unbalanced.

I just used Toybox

That one was such a letdown. As you say it's stunning, but lack the meat underneath.

@majestic@Space KP, Baby@Gromnir The thing about making fun of me for playing on normal was just a joke. I think I mentioned it here before that I dislike difficulty that is essentially just a number increase. If I get the feeling that the enemies are becoming spongy I will drop it back to normal. But the biggest reason I upped the difficulty to normal was because Kingmaker was too easy, the hardest enemy in the game was basically just figuring out to space your characters so they don't hit each other when confused (and I'm embarrassed it took me more that 2 tries to figure that out). I won't even mention the last boss... Re armor: That sounds broken and should be monk exclusive or there should be better armors to match, or there should be a cap to ability scores (this one was a problem in Kingmaker too). edit: I do see now that it is a monk feat. I want to do a pure paladin this time. Re mount: If there are no benefits to not taking a mount I will most likely get one. Re Charisma: Tbh, I didn't not think about that and you guys are right, I'll edit it out, or just mod the save game to relevel the character again. Re greatswords: Tbh there were not that many greatsword choices and I always like to rp the holly avenger. I was toying around with an idea to dual wield longswords, but single hand longsword build was not bad in kingmaker so I wanted to try it again (the caveat being that the kingmaker run was on normal). Re Warrior of the Holy Light: I thought only the Guardian didn't get spell casting as the description only mentions it for that subclass... Welp, guess I really will reload. Re Seelah: I will respec her in to a fighter.

One of the game developers of STALKER franchise (Volodymyr Yezhov), has died defending Bakhmut. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/12/25/7382287/

I spoiled the story already, but I do not play it for the story mostly. I even put it on core difficulty so people don't make fun of me here. edit: My character sheet