termokanden

So I'm trying to understand how to best use the stronghold. There are some issues that have come up though: 1. Bandits take nearly as much as I earn through taxes even though I have much higher security than prestige. How are the bandits so effective if I have sky-high security? This means that I'll earn something like 50 copper. Camping just once is more expensive than this, and what's worse is that when I subtract the cost of hirelings, I'm losing quite a bit of money. 2. It seems that hirelings are paid per day, but taxes are earned per turn. This means that you can never generate infinite wealth, but you can LOSE infinite wealth. Is that really true? I do like the stronghold, don't get me wrong, but so far all it does is cost me money. A lot of money. I understand that you can get resting bonuses, sure, but for the thousands I spend upgrading the stronghold, I'm sure I could have gotten a full game's worth of resting bonuses from inns. What am I missing here? PS: If it had generated taxes per day, it would have made sense. Sure some nutty people could have gained infinite wealth, but does that really matter?

As usual in this type of game, some designer delighted in spawning enemies around your party to ruin your position. Remember how BG2 liked to spawn level-drainers around your characters so you couldn't properly guard against it? Yeah so I've been trying this fight 5 or 6 times now at level 5 and I think I'll just come back later. Shadows are ridiculously OP. Sometimes they start the fight by all firing straight at my cipher so I die before I can do anything. It's funny, most fights are easy, but once in a while there's a really crazy group of enemies like this. Undoubtedly. It's just hard to control the battlefield when they kill my cipher right away. I don't think a single one of my knockdowns has connected, by the way. Don't get me wrong, I don't really mind it so much as I'm sure I can level up, gear up and come back later, I just think the difficulty is all over the place.

True, but your don't need more than 0 sneak to scout for hidden items. I was hoping at least that if you invested heavily in it, you'd be able to get in some juice backstabs with a melee weapon. So far, sneaking just doesn't seem good enough for that, so I don't see the point.

Well they are a tad long even with an SSD, but it's not a problem for me. Maybe it's because I'm also playing Bloodborne and the loading screens are terrible in that game. Oh, you died? Please wait 45 seconds to respawn IN THE SAME AREA.

Oh wait, Recall Agony *does* work? I thought it did nothing. If what you're saying is true, it's awesome against bosses. +30% damage for > 17 seconds? Yes please! Glad I didn't waste the point then.

So far I'd say Eyestrike, Mental Binding and Puppet Master are must-haves. Haven't tested level 4+ powers yet.

Yep. Can't save her.

This is for real

Vampire: Bloodlines had this system as well, by the way. I think the system is fine, and it reminds me very much of my pen and paper days. I don't think we'd even dream of rewarding our players from running around killing everything in sight, but at the end of each session you'd typically get some XP, even if you hadn't fought anything.

15 hours in. Just hit level 5.

Thanks! Yeah ciphers may be a tad too powerful at the moment. Not that I want them nerfed or anything, it's actually a very cool and refreshing class to play.

It's nice to have that to look forward to. I'm sure it'll make a big difference when I get to level 9. By the way, do druids and clerics also get their starting spells turned into per-encounter or is it just wizards?

There's one in Gilded Vale that you can recruit after resting at the inn and going to investigate the tree. He's right next to the ruins. You could also hire an adventurer in the inn if you need some more help.

Concentration bonus seems pointless at the moment. If your 7 con, low-deflection cipher is getting hit, you have much more to worry about than getting one spell interrupted. If anything, you could trade some PER, RES or CON for MIG and DEX and it probably wouldn't make you much squishier.

Pike lets you attack from a bit of a distance so that's one good choice. However, dual-wielding seems like it would generate a lot of focus together with Draining Whip. Stilettos can bypass DR, and they're in the same weapon category as the blunderbuss (which is also excellent for focus gain).

Cipher is great, but for that AoE damage I'd go with a druid. Much of the cipher's power comes from damage with a weapon and debuffs. They do have AoE damage (and yeah, better than a wizard...) but it seems like druid is king there.

Exactly what I did after trying out a wizard, and it's much more fun to be honest. So far my cipher spells have decent foe AoE and amazingly good debuffs, while I often don't even use my wizard spells at all due to positioning issues. On top of all that, cipher spells can be used as much as you want, while wizards are very much held back by the rest system. Think back to Baldur's Gate. A limited rest system would have made wizards far less powerful there, and even so, the AD&D wizard spells were far more powerful. So yes, wizards definitely need... well, something. More per-encounter abilities would help. So would better AoE.

They are not optimal, but they're not bad either. If you wanted to optimize, you'd be maxing out might, dex and int, but I don't think it's necessary to do so.

I would think rogue does the most damage from what I've seen so far, but I haven't really thought about it much. Ciphers do deal quite heavy damage with Soul Whip + Biting Whip, but you want to be casting those spells, many of which do not deal damage. Cipher is a really cool class and my favorite in fact. I went with a ranged cipher because ciphers are so squishy.

I'm at level 5 now with my ranged cipher and I'm very happy with it. It's very much a glass cannon, but although I hesitate to call it optimal, it's definitely a very powerful build. Race: Wood elf (the accuracy is pretty awesome) 18 mig 8 con 5 per 19 dex 19 int 10 res Really the defensive stats are kind of unimportant with this build. You want to max might, dex and int though. I could have had 19 might and only 18 int, but I feel that it's my cipher's role to debuff like crazy, and for that, int is king. With a nice amulet I'm currently at 21 int, and that makes my debuffs brutal. My latest discovery is how well this works with a chanter in your party just chanting the level 2 chant that increases ranged reload and attack speed. It makes guns very viable even without Gunner or weapon switching. This is important because blunderbuss is great with draining whip. Wood elf helps against the low accuracy of firearms. If you do want to go the weapon switching route, Island Aumaua is the best.

Yep. Now that I see how well it turned out, I'm really glad I backed it. With how much I'm enjoying it and how much I enjoyed New Vegas (and KotOR 2, and Alpha Protocol), I really hope they make more RPGs.

Shotgun type weapons dealing no damage at anything other than point blank range is one video myth I'm really happy not to see here

I went with WF Ruffian and Gunner since I'm a wood elf and won't get those 4 juicy weapon sets. I do think Quick Switch is a no brainer if you're an Island Aumaua, but this time around I'll spend the talents on something else.

I agree, but he's the obvious choice for a a scroll-user if your main character does not have lore. Mine does not, for example. On the other hand, I have mechanics which I'm quite happy with so far.

Fighting Spirit requires low endurance, so I assume it won't be active out of combat. I just tested Constant Recovery though and it is not listed under active effects unless you are in combat.