LadyCrimson

Yeah, I get the feeling the later convos with them are largely about determining what "ending" they end up with. Still...I liked having them. Even without their quests, their banter and lines during big moments are round out the game, for me, (like all the endgame boss fight talking and god-favor convos), vs. the big empty space of nothing you get with all hired adventurers. And yes, Eder makes a very nice tank.

They're in your Stronghold hireling hire/fire menu list. Basically they're new hireling types. If you already have 8 original ones hired, you have to dismiss one to hire the new one.

With all the fancy hats and capes, I keep wanting to make The Three Musketeers.

Fighting the dragon: I was level 11 I think, and it didn't do much damage to my party most of the time (eg stalemate of just surviving wasn't hard at all), but I kept getting those "Extraordinary Defense" messages constantly (first time I'd seen that) so it took a while before I figured out how to deal with that, with my non-optimized party. It's the one time I actually had to use some Priest/Wiz specific spells/talents that increased accuracy of party and decreased the defenses of mommy dragon.

I promised Berath I'd return them to the cycle, which makes the most sense to me (I don't like the idea of returning damaged/traumatized souls to people...), so I did. A promise is a promise and I didn't like most of the other choices all that much. I almost went the route of returning them because Eder obviously wanted that, but oh well, sorry Eder.

I dunno. The quests themselves can be short but if you keep Eder/Aloth in your party to the very end, they seem more and more like "people." A lot of lines tossed in during big moments, a few more "I want to talk to you" interactions, and so on. Can't speak to the other 4, but Eder/Aloth/Durance/Kana all felt like my buddies by the end. So to speak. I still can't stand Durance personality wise, haha. But that's why I can't make myself switch companions in and out in games, just to get them all in one playthru - I become too attached/have to see them through. They're not as fleshed out in PoE as other games I've played, but I still liked the end results. And yes, OP, you're supposed to get XP if their quests are actually completed. Sometimes you may have a final short task before it's actually completed, like someone above mentioned.

I made some white choc. macadamia nut cookies. Am now eating said cookies.

Well I finally finished Pillars. I still had the last few bounties and the 2nd half of the Endless Paths dungeon to do, but by then I was so Op'd for Normal difficulty that I just went "screw it" and ran to the finish line. I can always reload an older save to check out the rest, if I don't get that far again with other chrs. Anyway, I liked the very end section...was fun and the companion comments/dialogues were nice to go through. Total time listed on the save file: about 71 hours. Ended game with about 80k in funds left. But I'd like to say, that putting a certain fun item in the game at the very end so you only get to use it briefly, is kind of ... not fun. Come on, could've put it in a little sooner. Not sure if I want to play more Pillars (mostly to goof off, not serious playthrus) or move on to something else for a while.

I think when this happens it's because the party members can't all be the same distance away from the same enemy (eg, they can't all stand on the same exact spot), and it seems to me that the closer you are, the faster that circle timer runs. Although I could be wrong. It's just what I make of my observations. I went and tested this via friendly NPC's and having chrs. approach one at a time, and I think you're correct/I was wrong. Eder with 9 Stealth, his yellow circle took about 3.5 to 4 seconds to fill up (something like that, I didn't timer it). Aloth with 4 stealth was way faster to fill. So I guess I thought what I thought because Aloth is always in the back, so he isn't in detection range as soon and I'd be focusing on Eder (in front) and only notice Aloth as he dragged along in back. From that brief test tho, I'd say Stealth needs to be pretty high to be useful in tight quarters. 4 stealth really isn't much time at all. Aloth was the only one left who didn't have at least 7.

I think when this happens it's because the party members can't all be the same distance away from the same enemy (eg, they can't all stand on the same exact spot), and it seems to me that the closer you are, the faster that circle timer runs. Although I could be wrong. It's just what I make of my observations. The thing about those health skills is that for the precious point used, once your chrs. have way way way more than 200 health, it'll feel like a wasted point. And yes, for my other chrs you could always choose a skill later, if you still want it more than the next tier up ones, at the moment, instead.

True about the minor health talents. That almost no one wastes their points on once they've tried them once. Kana in my game has 13 Lore (no bonuses). I think the only cap is the number of points available through clvl 12. (I don't think there are high level scrolls to go with it, however...again, I dumped points in it because they had nowhere else to go, lol)

Moving...

1 - highest chr. applies, not lowest. Stealth can be used to avoid trash-mob combats (can't avoid scripted dialogue triggers) but overall it's application in the game doesn't seem particularly awesome. I don't think most are pumping it to high levels. I did eventually, only because I had nothing else to put the points in. 2 - not sure - at least 4 I'd think. I know at 8 I was able to scoot past people in smaller rooms/hallways (vs. the wide outdoors) because the time of the rotating yellow circle increased, allowing you to get past before being seen. Still didn't feel terribly "sneaky", however. 3 - pretty sure you can devote all your points for those if you wish. If you don't spend all 6 pts each level, they carry over to the next time you levelup/use the screen. 4 - There's a few ways you can get permanent bonuses to various things, but that's spoilery. Might want to do a Search in one of the spoiler forums, or look in a wiki. I know nothing about Barbarians, so... 7 - chanter phrases are level ups, no skillbooks or anything like that in PoE 8 - wizard - low level, fan of flames and the CC ones are popular. High level, all the CC ones. Wizards have a long growing pain period, especially if you don't like friendly fire management. Priest's are mostly handy for healing Endurance and combat buffs and also have growing pains but get some decent spells later (eg, around level 8 or 9 Priests/Wizards can suddenly go from "useless/ok" to "sorta awesome"). That said, Priest debuffs are largely useless/not required at all, ever, imo. 9 - if you hire a higher level rogue/adventurer at the inn, you create/they join party at lvl1, then you keep hitting the level up button to make them their max available level. 10 - the only way to replenish HEALTH is to sleep/camp. (edit) Health and Endurance are two separate things. Endurance is combat health. 11 - there are console command cheats for attributes, but that (and the others) will disable achievements. Fine tuning small mistakes would require a mod.

Dragon had to die. I wanted the dragon meat. ...well ok not really, but I didn't have much sympathy, since she invaded/killed to begin with, vs. trying to talk to them (since, hey, y'know, she can talk) and going "hey I need a cool place to raise my kid, can I stay here, I promise not to eat any villagers, just boars and deer." She gave a nice sob story, but ... nope, not buying it.

Yes, it's been posted before and the original one was Indexed already. I don't think we need two threads open. It's an awesome/handy piece of work, tho...thank you for doing it, PBJam.

Sleepover guests! Relatives from IL. ...we did a BBQ and stayed up late playing ... RISK. And some poker. Because that's how we roll around here. I didn't win. Ok, we took them to the coast too for a few hours too, because that's what they wanted to see. Came back and now going for an early dinner then drive them to the airport. Then I can snooze.

No official tools, nope.

Yes, I'd agree. Better they bunch up then you can tell them where to go vs. them dashing off to who knows where. Plus it's more funny.

I used to be more hardcore, especially regarding oddball challenges (speed runs, for example) that required a lot of planning. These days, while I still have some of the mentality/desire, I usually don't have the actual patience such requires. Depends on the game, really. Sometimes I'm moreso, sometimes a lot less so. Now I'm somewhere inbetween hardcore and casual. A coreasual. Yeah, that's it.

I have most of their post-content pages bookmarked.** They don't tend to have 10000 posts so it's not that difficult to keep up that way, when I occasionally want to find/refer to an older post. **not that I'm stalking them or anything

Hm. So far all I've had is the dream that described watching his staff (he doesn't actually talk to you during those), whereby his quest log then tells me to "talk to him about his staff" - I thought it was glitched because he never had anything to say about it no matter how often I slept or how long I waited before trying to talk to him again, but I finally had a 2nd dream and that got it rolling again. But he's never really initiated any random convos. Just the scripted comments while I'm in the middle of dialogues with other NPC's. I've been meaning to try Mother - I just don't like shuffling party members that much. Maybe I'll snag her my next run instead of Kana.

I completely agree. I've known lots of gamers and crpg'rs that want the combat to be super easy/relaxed precisely because they want to see every single nook and cranny of the game, but don't want to have to deal with "all that combat" just to do so. Their main interest is not in outwitting or conquering tough combat challenges, but they may still spend 100's of hours doing whatever it is they enjoy. You can be "hardcore" about many things re:games, it's not only about super punishing combat or number crunching. I don't really like the term that much, even as I use it sometimes. Edit: As to fixing the conundrum...outside of giving players, more often, more control/many more individual difficulty options (not just "normal/hard/superhard), it's pretty tough to "fix." 7 Days to Die has so many options in this regard it's crazy. One reason I like it, even when I don't generally like "zombie" games. And even with all their options, you still have some saying it's either too hard or not hard enough.

Hi. A couple people offered suggestions re: GoG's installer in this earlier thread. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/77884-cannot-install-104/

Might want to check out this earlier posting...a couple people offered suggestions re: GoG's installer. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/77884-cannot-install-104/

Quick curiosity question .... you know how Eder occasionally shakes you awake when you camp? I absolutely love those interactions. I wish there were more bits like that - it brings companions more to life. Wondering ... if you do not have Eder, do any of the other companions do something similar? Not necessarily shaking you awake, but something along those lines? I have Eder, Aloth, Durance, Kana (the others just sit in the Stronghold, mostly...). There might have been one time Kana said something right after camping, but I can't remember at the moment.