Kriber22

Didn't this ring originally (pre-patch) give bonuses to defence when prone or stunned? Or am I remembering incorrectly?

Most of the time they're fine, but sometimes they cut off early. And a couple of times they've gone about halfway through and then started up again from the beginning.

Not off the bat. The level 7 thing was in a video interview with Adam Brennecke (someone posted a link in one of the threads here), and the adjustable scaling has been mentioned in pretty much every preview video that's been posted.

The expansion is initially meant for a party of around level 7. However, if you're going into it with a higher-level party the game gives you the one-time option to scale the expansion to your party's current level.

I remember Eder getting Weapon Focus: Ruffian way back, before patch 1.03(?) - the one that changed around the NPCs' stats. I haven't seen him with it since, though.

Hear hear.

Even more isometric goodness to look forward to.

Pallegina is fairly easy; go with Weapon Focus: Adventurer to get Estoc and Pollaxe (covers slashing, piercing and crushing damage, all two-handed, all in a single weapon focus) and Two-Handed Style. For her Paladin abilities I personally like Zealous Focus, Sworn Enemy, Reviving Exhortation and Lay on Hands. Kana is a little trickier to build. If you're going to have him stand in the back and use an arquebus you need Marksman and Gunner talents, as well as Weapon Focus: Soldier. Take the chant that increases reload speed as well. You can also build him into a fairly decent frontliner with the Sword and Shield style and some chants that buff the party and debuff enemies.

Given that they divided the expansion into two parts "so players wouldn't have to wait six months for an expansion", you'd think that after nearly 4 months they'd at least be close enough to release to have an approximate date. Otherwise, what was the point?

Why didn't they just make it so you can choose any class to soulbind it to? Sounds very limiting. Probably because each Soulbound weapon has a number of special abilities that unlocks with use over time. It would be extremely annoying to bind your two-handed sword to a Wizard only to find out later that its abilities weren't at all suited to a spellcaster but very useful for a front-line fighter.

Wait, it does? You get the bonus for Single Weapon style even if you're holding a shield in the off hand?

That pretty much sums up what we know, I think. I certainly haven't read anything more. A more important question to me is whether hitting level 13 will make 3rd-level spells per encounter instead of per day.

In my current playthrough I'm using Eder as a tank. I've given him the Knight focus group (heh... focus group...) and also gave him Weapon and Shield Style. For his tanking duties he's using a sword-and-shield setup, giving him good Deflection, a boost to Reflex and a weapon that does slash/pierce damage. In his other slot he's using a morning star. This is a two-handed weapon, but it does crush damage which would otherwise be lacking. He only switces to the morning star when up against something that absolutely requires crush damage or when attacked by something that doesn't target his Deflection or isn't dangerous enough that he needs the shield. So far it's working pretty good.

While out-of-party NPCs gain some XP, they don't keep up with the active ones in the party; like you've noticed, they lag behind some. Apart from the quests that pop up in the keep I haven't seen any way of giving them more XP (aside from "cheating" with the console or somesuch). To me this isn't much of an issue, since I like to mix it up and occasionally swap out one NPC for another just for flavour's sake. Unless there's someone you really detest having in your party I'd suggest you just bring the under-levelled ones along for a while.

Not to derail the discussion or anything, but I'm a little confused as to how Focus gain from attacks are calculated. Do you get Focus at a flat rate per hit, or is it a percentage of the damage dealt, or some other formula?

I suspect there's going to be some interactions, though I obviously have no proof of this whatsoever. I'm badly jonesing for starting a new playthrough as well, but I'm worried that some of the changes and improvements might not be retroactive, so I'm a little wary.

I was going to come in here and post that this doesn't sound like something I would enjoy, but then I saw this post and thought, "hey, that could work". Each random encounter could have a Stealth/Survival value attached to it, and if you met or exceeded that value you would have the option to either avoid the encounter and continue, or maybe stage your own ambush (beginning with your party in stealth mode just outside visual range of the ambushers). But a straight-up random encounter function isn't something I'd vote in favour for.

Yes, what huang said above. I'll probably set my companions to auto-attack and use per-encounter abilities, but I'll keep my hand firmly on the controls of the per-rest spells and abilities. It keeps down the clicking between characters for ability use, especially in the less important encounters, while still letting me micromanage the stuff I personally feel needs micromanaging. And those who want more (or less) personal control can simply adjust the settings to reflect this. A win-win scenario in my book.

Since we've diverged somewhat from the OP's question I don't feel too bad about asking this; does equipping a weapon that gives bonuses or penalties to Accuracy also affect the Accuracy of spells and abilities? If I give Durance a firearm, will that penalty also affect his spells? And vice versa with a Fine weapon?

This happens after you've swapped party members in and out of your party. Just click on any one of the other formations, move the party, and click back on the custom formation. Everything works as normal again.

Does anyone know if Heart of the Storm influences the damage dealt by Essential Phantom? Since EP is a spell one would think so, but then the damage is technically caused by something (someone?) other than the character with the HotS talent, so I'm thinking this could go either way. Has anyone tested this?

Yep, this happened to me as well. No save game, I'm afraid, but I remember it clearly. I tried clicking on him, but he had nothing to say.

I'm guessing you either have a 32-bit operating system or very little RAM (or possibly both). You can keep trying to enter the area - eventually you'll make it, although you may have to restart your computer a few times first. Or you can follow the steps outlined here: http://windows7themes.net/en-us/32-bit-use-bcdedit-set-increaseuserva-to-increase-ram-used-by-single-application/ I've used the process outlined here with no ill effects whatsoever, but I can't guarantee that your computer won't run into issues.

Yeah, I remember reading an explanation for this a while back. The DR variations against different damage types isn't a flat number but a percentage, so sometimes you get some counterintuitive results. It's not a bug, just a poorly explained mechanic.

I'm running at 1680x1050, default font, and the window size remains the same when I load a game. Interestingly, though, when the game would crash on me before (due to the 32-bit issue) the log window would reset to default when I started the game up again. But not when I exit the "proper" way. I have no idea why, but this might indicate that some setting wasn't being saved properly.