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On level 12, Itumaak has 168 Endurance and 16.5 DR with Resilient Companion. What exactly did you expect ?????????? An animal that can outtank Eder ? It's a helper, not a tank barrier. I guess I'm the only player skilled enough to use animal companions without having them knocked out all the time. The trick is to engage only a single enemy at a time. Stay with your bears. They have some bad stats that need updating ASAP: 60 Accuracy, 60 Deflection, 0 Athletics on level 12. If they were bumped to 80 they would be fine.

Version: 1.03, but I don't see it in patch notes. I don't feel like downloading several GB from GOG at the moment just to test this. I frequently miss banter between companions because when I enter a new town zone, the screen is centered around something else. I must QUICKLY click on one of character portraits to hear as much as possible. This is on Debian Linux (Jessie).

Version: 1.03, but I don't see it in patch notes. I don't feel like downloading several GB from GOG at the moment just to test this. When you recall a companion who is on an adventure, you don't get the prize for it. But if the companion is currently escorting a bad visitor, you can recall the escort and the bad visitor is gone ! This exploit allows to trivially get rid of bad visitors with no effort.

Version: 1.03, but I don't see it in patch notes. I don't feel like downloading several GB from GOG at the moment just to test this. 1. Recruit an adventurer in an inn. Make sure it's a Ranger. 2. Set Animal Companion's name during creation 3. In game, it will be listed as "Boar companion", "Lion companion", etc. The desired name is not used anywhere, not even on the Character screen.

Animal Companion stats have been updated in patch 1.03 . Here they are: -------- Might, Constitution, Dexterity, Perception, Intelligence, Resolve, Sum Boar 11, 16, 8, 10, 5, 15 |65 Antelope 10, 10, 14, 15, 5, 9 |63 Bear 15, 12, 9, 13, 5, 10 |64 Lion 13, 13, 12, 11, 5, 11 |65 Stag 13, 10, 12, 15, 5, 10 |65 Wolf 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 |60 Itumaak 10, 8, 15, 15, 5, 12 |65 Comments: - Wolf is the only one that can do a decent Takedown. It knocks enemies prone for 5 seconds, as advertised. Other animals: 3.8s, including Itumaak (games started after 1.03). Wolf is also described as dealing more damage. - Bear supposedly has more Damage Reduction. - idiot intelligence affects mostly Lion (roar duration a little over 10s instead of 15s) and Stag (reduced area). - I checked accuracy on some of them and it seemed to be 60. - I don't know what the base damage for each animal is. - Animals have no Athletics, they get tired very easily but their health can't be lowered. - Itumaak is the master of interruption attacks.

I would go with Spears, definitely. Battleaxes has increased crit damage, yes, but Spears gets that nice bonus to Accuracy, making you crit more. And if you're one-handing, you're all about stacking that Accuracy. The fact that Cladhalíath can be made to stun on crit is just a wonderful bonus, too. But how does that work with Stun ? Like this ? 1. I must pass an Accuracy vs Deflection roll to crit 2. I must pass an Accuracy vs Fortitude roll to stun With Battleaxe, I think it is 1. I must pass an Accuracy vs Deflection roll to crit

I'm torn between Battleaxe and Spear. Cladhalíath can be modified to stun on crit.

I saw someone saying that Speed enchantment currently does nothing at all on ranged weapons. Supposedly a bug.

I am not sure what your point is here. Shouldn't evey class be able to win solo on Path of the Damned? I'm not bothered by the Paladin's power level. The Paladin just feels pretty bland and non-interactive in combat. Also, he makes a relatively poor tank, it seems, compared to the Fighter, which seems a little out of concept. For tanking I'd expect Paladins and Monks to be tier 1, Fighters and Barbarians to be tier 1 or 2. I am sure that there are some power games who can win with Paladin on PotD. The question is the relative difficulty - plus I would not want to balance classes around solo plays - I would rather that they are balanced to be in a party and contribute meaningfully enough that it becomes a hard choice if people drop a paladin (or any class). Lots of paladin abilities are not very fun now. I would like some changes: 1. Replace the on-kill abilities with something else. Reason: you can't expect a support character to also reliably kill. Its a perfect character then. 2. The paladin is described as someone who buffs individual (compared to the cleric buffing groups). I agree - but give the paladin some good solo buffs - which improve attack speed, might, action speed, whatever. (Not stuff which just delays effects, and is very defensive). 3. Give the auras for free. Let players choose which one to use when - increases player decision, makes it a more active class. 4. Make Paladins / Clerics in the party affected by Reputation too - both positively and negatively. 5. Give them some useful per-encounter abilities (like Holy Radiance for Clerics). Apart from Lay On Hands. My point was: a class whose good side is support can win solo on the hardest difficulty. Surely it can't be worse with a group ! ad. 1) I can agree with this proposal, but not with your reasoning. So what if it's a support class ? There's more than one way to build a paladin. The trouble is Paladins' base accuracy, which is among the lowest. So does anyone have an idea for a replacement skill ? ad. 2) Paladin already has a few things you mentioned. Hastening Exhortation increases attack speed. It's hard to describe Liberating Exhortation as something that delays killing! The problem is the limited number of effects which it clears. ad. 3) This could be good. ad. 4) I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. Reputation already affects paladins in the party through Faith&Conviction. ad. 5) Like I said above, paladins have abilities which work even outside combat - those auras. Besides, giving paladins something cast before combat would slow them down. One of their strong points is they can charge into action at increased speed.

For some reason PoE has very few spells that are single target only. So much area damage!

Dungeons & Dragons is designed for tabletop games, with humans calculating everything. It's quite bad for realtime games. You could never have Intelligence increase enchantment duration by seconds in D&D. Time is measured in rounds, all measurements are based on small integers. PoE system just works better. Sure it needs some work and balancing, but it's a very good foundation for a computer game. How much did Baldur's Gate 1 sell back in the day ?

Or you could wait until your Recovery bar is down to 0 and then target the spell.

I think the main questline should be much harder on very hard difficulty settings like Potd. On easier ones, it's the path of least resistance because they want the player to be able to finish the game. But no one is going to play his first game on PotD. You're asking for a challenge, so you should have it. On the topic of monster upgrades, on Normal Magran's Fork has a pack of boars. On Hard, there are two bears + delemgan. I think the boars are harder, they are fast and there are so many of them. Area attacks are not exactly optimal, because wounded boars do more damage. By the time you get there it's relatively easy to weaken or slow the bears.

I checked out Bestiary, and the list of monsters which have lower Fortitude than Deflection is staggeringly small. It's most spirits, not even all of them, and kith (humans, elves etc). So much for Threatening Presence + Brute Force combo.

+12 ? Sorry. This really makes me want to try a single weapon. Also, because I'm a scrub, I forgot that a very common source of attack accuracy is weapon enchantment. Fine: +4 Exceptional: +8 Superb: +12 "Accurate X" enchantment, except those on rapiers and spears, gives +4 Accuracy per level. It's generally worse than Fine/Exceptional/Superb, but it doesn't use as many anvil points. Unfortunately the highest I can craft is Accurate 2, while it's possible to find weapons with Accurate 3. 1. Make sure you are not wearing a medium/large shield, that will still affect spell accuracy. 2. You can use Potion of Eldritch Aim (cheap to craft), Inspiring Brilliance from a priest (talent), Zealous Focus aura (Paladin), one of early Priest spells, I believe Blessing. 3. You can lower monster stat which is used to defend against your invocation. If it's the stunning wave, you need to lower monster Fortitude. I think effects like Weakened and Sickened do that. One of the green cloud traps does that. Various druid plague spells can do that. If you have Interdiction talent on a priest, you can take one more talent to add Weakening effect to it.

The cave in Valewood contained a bear AND a young bear, so I assume it worked. Also I didn't remember any shades in the temple of Eothas. I was kindly introduced to them by my first, early stronghold raid: "Shades and lurkers". The Leaden Key ambush (Kana) on the way back from Endless Paths was pathetic. It probably should be, because the party may be wounded without camping supplies left, but still...

So you can get the silly ranger ability Defensive Shooting, and get +20 Accuracy in melee without any penalties, really ?

No, no base stat increases it. Accuracy is affected by many things. - your class provides the initial value - you gain +3 per level - you gain +6 for "weapon focus" talents available to everyone - you lose 4 for using a medium shield, 8 for a large shield - you gain 5 for using a one-handed weapon without a shield - some weapons get inherent +5 accuracy bonus, including spears and rapiers - Eldritch Aim spell, potion of Eldritch Aim is cheap to craft - many spells and class abilities temporarily or permanently increase it. For example Sagani should have a talent which gives her +15 accuracy against targets engaged by her animal companion.

As for enduring the damage itself, you can use potions of Bulwark against the Elements. Also, in the same zone as those druids, Shields and heavy armor won't help you much against the druids. Shields won't improve your Reflex except with Weapon&Shield Style talent. In fact, some of the heavier armors are vulnerable to Shock damage. Leathers and 2-handed weapons should make short work of them.

Why stop there ? Why not have your character scale to difficulty ?

I want to try all of them.

Many people, myself included, think the game is too easy on higher difficulties once you get the hang of it. We rarely use potions or scrolls. In my current game on Hard I only have one constructed character - my PC Monk, and I haven't run out of camping supplies yet. The limit on Hard is 2. I can count on the fingers of my hand the battles where I actually saw the message about needing to reload. Usually I call it a screw-up if I have a companion knocked out in a fight. Instead of complaining, let's do something constructive. Let's compile a list of zones which are embarrassingly easy. Let's see if there's consensus. Don't list areas which were too easy because you visited them overleveled, or with too many companions. I'll start. (My playthrough is not complete and I made a beeline for 6 companions immediately, so the list is short) ------------------------------------------------ On my second playthrough (Hard): * Heritage Hill, and I went there as fast as I could. I didn't notice the increase in monster quality or numbers. * Caed Nua. I just cut through the area like a hot knife through butter.

Last time I heard, 3% finished the game according to Steam stats. I can't confirm, I'm GOG only.

There are reasons to believe nobility can be bought in Dyrwood.

What are those xp issues you are speaking of ? The only one I can think of is the MASSIVE profit from Warden bounties.