Blovski

Absolutely. Would especially be good to have some minibosses with particularly exaggerated features and a special ability or two to break up the mooks. As is, in the three leaden key quests in Chapter Two, there are no hugely special fights or challenging individuals to deal with.

The first five levels of the Endless Paths will be challenging on but probably doable depending on difficulty level between level 3 and 6 characters. The loot you'll get includes a moderate amount of gold and crafting stuff. My basic advice is that when you find you're having to go back for camping supplies more than once per level you should probably head off and level a bit first. Anyway, here's the major loot from the first five levels (level 6 has some armour, 7 has a wand, 8 has a crossbow and some stupendous plate armour, but that's locked behind a decidedly difficult fight): Level 1: Oidreacht - Draining Stiletto Level 2: Measured Restraint (Accurate, Guarding Rapier, need to scout to find it), Hand and Key (Preservation Breastplate) Level 3: Rundl's Finery (Lore Giving Robe of Intellect), Llawran's Staff (staff, has some effects but I don't recall what, requires the Resolution Saber from level 4) Level 4: Persistence (Damaging 3 Hunting Bow with a DoT effect, the best hunting bow you'll find until Twin Elms), Resolution (decent sabre, can't remember the precise effects - useful if you're using Eder) Level 5: Ilfn Byrngar's Solace (Exceptional Medium Shield) Basically, my view is that if you can beat Level 3 with the ogres you can beat level 4 easily and level 5 with a little difficulty, and that will get you a Hunting Bow to last til nearly the end of the game, an extremely useful Robe for any of your backliners, a good Sabre if you're using Eder and a great shield that'll last you some time. After level 5 the best loot falls off for a couple of levels, so even if the enemies aren't immediately going to start stomping you, it's probably better to take a break. Nipping down to level 2 for Measured Restraint and some armour is possibly worthwhile if you're not interested in any of that. I only really got stopped at level 8 on PotD, since Fampyrs are generally very tough opponents and you'll want to have done some more of the main quest to get interesting dialogue on that level. Tl/dr, go down to level 3 and pick up Measured Restraint, Oidreacht and Hand and Key on the way. If you can beat the ogres, you're probably able to beat everything down to level 5 to get some good leg-up items. After that, take a little time out and come back having done at least the sewers and Heritage Hill and gained a couple of levels and you should be good up to level 9-10 at least. I think the most satisfying way to do Od Nua is a bit at a time, since otherwise you'll be blowing through trivial encounters for not especially useful loot.

In general the big problem with immunity based systems is that every boss either has to be immune to every munchkin gimmick you can think of or become relatively trivial. In Throne of Bhaal, almost all of the five were immune to backstab but there was nothing you couldn't instakill through traps, if you so desired. In the BG games Undead often seemed to basically operate with an entirely separate set of rules to normal enemies.

Recently discovered this awesome tactic, my cipher and monk might fall in love with each other, works even better with fast runner on the monk (or long stride). Finally got around to doing a run on PotD, nearly done now, so far it's been a lot easier than I was expecting, few comments based on my PotD run... My monk is still tearing **** up per usual, only noticed the change in difficulty level in the early levels (shades and phantoms). Eder is still pretty much unkillable, which I wasn't really expecting because I've read in this thread that his defenses don't cut it in PotD (they clearly do). Kana still doesn't usually have enough time to use his invocations, which is disappointing, invocations are like a rare novelty in this game. He's performing just fine as an offtank though even though it's PotD. Aloth has come into his own due to Eldritch aim. I still don't like the grimoire mechanic, and certain spell tiers feel pretty lacking compared to others. Grieving mother is still great as always, though now I often have to wait for inspiring radiance or other accuracy buffs before I use mental binding. Durance, with his accuracy buffs and other utilities, seems even more necessary than before. My monk thanks Hiravias for his sacrifice to the blood pool.... I'm working on a Cipher/Deflection Rogue double-team, whereby the Cipher casts Ectopsychic Echo on the Rogue, who then uses Escape or Shadowing Beyond to get behind the enemy line and goes to pick on squishies.

I beat it on Hard without a priest. I'm doing OK on PotD without one but I'm aware that one would help a lot.

Good discussion - My view wrt Act 1. On Hard or lower, Wizards, Rogues and Ciphers rule the roost, because damage output is generally pretty reliable. I never really got along with monks but I'm probably playing them wrong. As you amp up difficulty, Ciphers need to generate more focus and Wizard spells need to be considered more and Rogues can't rely as much on having a 100% chance to sneak attack through all of a tough fight. That said, they all remain excellent. Chanters are probably a top tier class early game, since they provide utility options no other class does (move speed chant, phantom summons) and fall off a little late game as the chants become less relevant and the summons take much longer. Rangers are reasonably strong early on, since they come with the animal companion and their high base accuracy and vicious aim lets them hit things a lot. Don't underestimate the fighter-brick-wall. It may not be all that interesting but by god, it's powerful. Darcozzi Paladins are an excellent solution to specific tough early enemies, especially if you go with a Pale Elf, but otherwise I don't think they're really top tier compared to a defensively built fighter. I do think other Paladins are alright, particularly Kind Wayfarers. Bleak Walker flavour seems interesting but I don't think Frightened is a top tier effect and I don't know how long it lasts. Shieldbearers would be alright if their effects lasted substantially longer.

I think the resting mechanic is basically good. The way it's implemented necessitates there being a very time-consuming way to undermine it available. The encounters/areas/difficulty obviously aren't balanced around people resting at will. Your position seems to be that because it's *possible* to undermine the resting mechanic to force through tough areas if you cba with it, doing that should be effortless to reduce busywork. I think you'd have a very different (and worse) game with all abilities being de facto per encounter, so I like the system as is where it is technically possible so players can't get completely stuck but it's discouraged from being a thing that's used all the time.

Don't mistake difficulty with tedium. The game already allows you to fight each encounter "piecemeal" if you really want to go that extra mile (which is another form of tedium in and of itself). After you've finished the game at least once, and know what to expect from most encounters, it gets easier knowing when you should be using your spells and when you should be saving them for emergencies. The problem is, during a first playthrough, a lot of encounters never really need those emergency spells, and they end up not actually being used due to you not having any idea when you're actually going to really need them, and they are so limited in the begining. Or conversely, you could have used them all up, killing swarms that could have been dealt with another way, and then end up not having what you need at the right time. You want to talk about cheese? As much as I don't believe the Cipher is "god mode", they do entirely bypass your argument. Why even bother with a Wizard until you can recruit one at level 9 when another Cipher would actually contribute more most of the time? All I do with my Wizards on most fights is have them use Arcane Assault two times each (which adds up) and then just shoot a bow. On any fight with 6+ enemies I end up using Chill Fog, which ends up being around nine uses total until you need to find more camping supplies. Problem is, I shouldn't have to use nothing but that until level 9+ (yes, I realize they have more than just level 1 spells, it's just that the majority of the time they are either overkill or too limited to use that much). Then, you have other classes like a Rogue, who has multiple per encounter abilities or a Monk, who is similar to the Cipher in regards to being able to generate resources to use abilities every single encounter who laugh at camping supplies. Then there's the Chanter, who is always doing his thing. The game's difficulty starts to rapidly diminish after level 5, no matter the difficulty setting, and it's pretty much gone by level 9. So all of this talk of "tactics" and "depth" only applies to the earliest levels. The game in general is trivialized by many setups, so acting as though limited rests somehow mitigates those problems is just silly. To me it just seems like some of you want to be Obsidian apologists and that no matter what, "the developer knows best". If that were the case, Rangers and Paladins would not be in their current states. Also to a much lesser extent Wizards, Druids and Priests, who should get their first level per encounter spells much earlier than level 9. Even if that means cutting their current amount of uses in half. It's a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Auto attacking most of the time is not really fun. At least not to me. Obsidian have made a fair number of mistakes with this game (abysmal AI, really mixed quality of dungeon design, main quest hook never actually reinforced on the player meaningfully, Brighthollow requiring four loading screens in and out for Stronghold rests, Stronghold prisoner system very much undercooked, bounty XP being off the charts) but I think having persistence across encounters is usually a good choice. Same with shooters with regenerating health. The fact that, if you've the patience, you can brute force past the system is a small problem for it but I don't really see how to avoid that *if* you like the rest limitations. I'm running a tank wizard on PotD. I usually run out of important spells at about the time my fighter's running out of HP. Ciphers/Chanters run on different casting systems to the Vancian casters, which is a big part of what differentiates them. I'd be happy for Wizards/etc to get their spells/encounter earlier with a slightly bigger gap between the levels at which they get them. I'd also be happy with an optional free rest button for people who want it. Difficulty curve is borked, true, but that's almost always the case with a more flexible RPG system, since once you've got the specialisation and role you're building for difficulty will obviously melt if you know what you're doing.

Also, the crafting system undermines quality enchantments, which isn't inherently a terrible thing, but still results in that plain Exceptional stuff being rather underwhelming.

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to. It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part. I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me. Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense? Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty. And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all). You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? "Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!". There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight. No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that. He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish. You misunderstand me. I think the camping system is a soft way to indicate to the player when they're underlevelled while attempting an area. If I need a separate rest for, say, every two encounters on level 8 of the Endless Paths, I realise I should come back later with bigger swords rather than brute-forcing it by eating a couple of wipes, save/loading a ton and hoping my Dominate spell gets the Fampyrs eaten by their friends. I personally tend to find that my tanks run out of health about as quickly as my casters run out of spells, it's only really secondary backrow casters and archers that I don't have that problem with, and even then, only if the engagements are going perfectly. If you take these mechanics out, you have a binary THE FIGHT IS TOO HARD TO PROCEED/THE FIGHT IS NOT TOO HARD TO PROCEED system of feedback for the player, in addition to which you cut out any sense of attrition and make the game somewhat easier. That said, I would support an option to have infinite camping supplies for people who want to play the game like that or anyone doing interesting caster solo shenanigans. there's a perfectly reasonable way to indicate an area is marginal in terms of clearing it, that a bunch of ur dudes are getting knocked out. u don't need a camping system to indicate difficulty. its really, like a lot of the bad things in this game, a 20 year old legacy that they may have felt obligated to include because of the promise of making this "baldurs gate 3" You take the resting out, you get rid of the persistence from encounters, make the game rather easier, especially making it easier to cheese encounters by fighting them piecemeal. It would also make encounters more monotonous because you'd have identical resources for all of them. Same difference as regenerating health in shooters, really. It's not even a BG legacy, really, just a decision on whether you want encounters to have any relationship with each other.

I think the bounties throw this out of whack. I'm OK with that, because I like the idea that an experienced player can take a challenge to have an easier time later on but it is a bit ridiculous. If I ever get round to doing a perkmod Imma cut bounty experience a bit and add some bonuses for completing tiers of bounties instead, if possible.

TBF, Baldur's Gate 2 is much higher-level, relatively, than PoE, which leaves space for a lot more variety in effects. I think PoE has better loot in general than BG 1 did.

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to. It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part. I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me. Why do so many of the comments around here plummet into this "you just aren't good" at the game elitist nonsense? Not liking a specific mechanic says nothing at all about the player or whether or not they are having any legitimate difficulty. And those that criticize those who don't like the mechanic seem to ignore the fact that it penalizes some classes much more than others (some not at all). You also seem to forget that it becomes a non issue at level 9 and 11, so why even have it in the first place? "Oh, here's your reward for tolerating this for so long!". There was an entire thread where someone was asking for a camping mod, and of course a bunch of snobs jumped in and exploded all over him about how bad he was, how lazy he was etc. etc. when his biggest gripe was the fact that for the first 8 levels, his PC Wizard was resigned to using auto attack 80% of the fight. No one in their right mind picks the Wizard expecting to do that. He had already finished PotD with his Wizard, yet was still basically told to "git gud" as though he needed advice on how to actually finish. You misunderstand me. I think the camping system is a soft way to indicate to the player when they're underlevelled while attempting an area. If I need a separate rest for, say, every two encounters on level 8 of the Endless Paths, I realise I should come back later with bigger swords rather than brute-forcing it by eating a couple of wipes, save/loading a ton and hoping my Dominate spell gets the Fampyrs eaten by their friends. I personally tend to find that my tanks run out of health about as quickly as my casters run out of spells, it's only really secondary backrow casters and archers that I don't have that problem with, and even then, only if the engagements are going perfectly. If you take these mechanics out, you have a binary THE FIGHT IS TOO HARD TO PROCEED/THE FIGHT IS NOT TOO HARD TO PROCEED system of feedback for the player, in addition to which you cut out any sense of attrition and make the game somewhat easier. That said, I would support an option to have infinite camping supplies for people who want to play the game like that or anyone doing interesting caster solo shenanigans.

Ring of Wonder from the Vaillian vendor in Ondra's Gift. Grants Second Chance and a milieu of minor stat boosts. Useful on anyone.

Definitely not. Pollaxe that drops off Falanroed is called Half Mast (Half-Mast) Ah, right. My bad.

Daybreak's in a chest in the first level of Breith Eamen (Sun in Shadow), I believe. Is Traitor's Merit a drop off Falanroed?

I sort of agree with you, since Engagement as it stands is basically paralysing for any character who would actually *want* to disengage but then it's also really the only serious punishment for a tank and spank party against the AI right now. Once you throw in a basic AI which engages your frontline then considers trying to hunt down the squishies I think more mobility, depth and options with engagement (reactiveness to reach, lower chance to hit or limitation of the number of disengagement attacks you can do per target in a time period) would be really nice. Some interesting non-robe light armours that emphasised a different playstyle would be nice, I agree, (say, a suit of light armour with a movement bonus or a huge disengagement bonus or something). Arcane Veil is more parallel to the fighter's vigorous defence or something and is kinda meant to be a stopgap, or emergency thing, I think. It works OK for me atm. Llengrath's Displaced Image, which is your key tanking one, has good duration. My theory is that a lot of the problems you highlight - builds, party layout, engagement, armour - are so exacerbated by the game's AI that balancing them independently of it is going to be very difficult. I'd love to see some future build where tank/spank involves luring the AI to chokepoints, a bigger tank proportion with an emphasis on having enemies actually engaged or using summons to beef up the frontline enough that you can whittle down your opponents, as opposed to a more mobile party opening with, say, a kiting Ectopsychic Echo and a hobbling AOE behind your tanks to mince enemies trying to chase down the glass cannons.

So, Freedom to move and engage - the AI does not play the game at all well. This means that they invariably clump around your bait and take damage from your backline, never taking even completely ineffectual engagement attacks, which thus favours minmaxing and discourages the use of CC tactically, instead favouring CC spells being used as plain stacking debuffs. Similarly, the player having two ultra-tanks and four ultra-squishies in response to this means that they will be extremely affected on the occasions where an enemy manages to engage any of the backline. The issue is not with engagement, the issue is that the AI does not use it. This is why tank/damage dealer is such a strong dichotomy, because if you build a brick wall the AI will just keep banging its head against it. Attributes - are clearly somewhat important and I like the level of that a lot more than the IE games where it was either minmaxing or terrible; I like that the game doesn't have prerequisites, which are the ultimate way to restrict builds in this type of system. Accuracy limitations - are completely essential to the game. More accuracy talents would undermine class balance (because casters benefit more from accuracy and have lower base accuracy), game difficulty and become regarded as essential in the meta anyway. Item Groups - as with BG 1, the level of the game probably precludes really cool gamechanging items. I'm fine with some being more important than others atm. Classes/Rangers - Rangers have the highest ranged accuracy in the game, some really good ranged talents and one of my favourite utilities in Binding Roots. There is a big problem with Animal Companions' interaction with fatigue, and I'd like to see some boosts to AC stats from the AC perks. I'm running a POTD CC/Tank wizard at the moment and it's definitely interesting. There are a few wizard spells that need a second look, I'll admit (Grimoire Imprint). Builds - The problem, again, is that the AI's zergswarm tactics favour TANK and GLASS CANNON builds with absolutely no middle ground. So people aren't building anything in the middleground and aren't forced to work hard tactically to make their binary tank/spank groups beat POTD. The most effective way to buff the middle ground builds and to make PotD a more meaningful challenge would be fixing the AI to not sellotape itself to your 100 deflection Orlan when there's a druid in his skivvies just five yards away.

I hate the whole resting mechanic in general in this game, although I don't believe 4x is that bad, but the 2x is just ridiculous, especially on PotD. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not actually fun or strategic, because if you have the patience to do it, you can bypass it by simply abusing Inns if you really wanted to. It just seems like they wanted to add in "depth" with it, but it just makes the game tedious and specific classes a slog/weak until the higher levels where the mechanic doesn't even really matter for the most part. I think it's basically a way of showing you when you're out of your depth and might want to go do something else for the moment. It works for me.

I don't ever use them as just a "CC bot", because it would otherwise be an unfair comparison. I wouldn't however, simply have them doing nothing but damage at all times because it's wasting their utility. A paralyze/root or mass flank is much more important to the group as a whole; which makes it harder to judge their overall contribution. But similar could be said of Priest buffs. And I do toss in Mind Blades and make liberal use of Soul Shock (when applicable). They still don't pull ahead of the Rogue however. But I guess if you want to micromanage the hell out of your Cipher and use nothing but Ectopsychic Echo (which takes forever to setup) just to inflate what they are actually doing, while actually slowing down group progress; more power to you. I understand what you're saying about the Wizard/Druid combo, but on my current playthrough I was trying to use one of the Wizards primarily as a bow Wizard. So far that hasn't really been what he's been used for, yet he's still 2nd place in overall damage done (Rogue is only 8% higher), but that is counting all of the AoE stuff, not single target. Although with haste and other buffs up, he's still pretty damn close. The reason to go Ranged Rogue anyway is because I use it to pull from stealth and because it's simply not worth the effort to use in melee on Hard/PotD compared to a tank and all ranged group. You spend way too much time with micro compared to simply killing. I'm still not sold on the Druid though. Outside of Moonwell, I really just used a few AoE spells, and I would rather start a fight with Chill Fog since it's so much easier for the group to focus fire down enemies that are slowly walking toward you, clustered (and usually just end up on the tank) than it is trying to hit them as they are pushed back. Plus, it's not always easy to put the Druid right next to the tank, especially if you don't want to block whoever pulled on the way back (if it's not the tank). Can you use a Druid as the sole healer? No. Can you use a Druid + Chanter combo to keep the group up? Maybe, but you're just hurting yourself by not having a Priest, and if you have a Priest, you won't need the Druid for healing up until Moonwell. Maybe I am actually being a bit unfair though since my comparison is a full custom group, while not ever using a Druid other than Hiravias. But I simply wasn't impressed by his spell selection. I kept using the same four spells through the entire playthrough with the occasional heal or damage reduction, but those were extremely rare instances. I also had him use an Arbalest or stand behind the tank with the Tall Grass Pike. Even with all of that, his damage wasn't so hot. I'm doing a PotD run with Druid as sole healer atm (Wizard Tank, Fighter Tank, Warbow Rogue, Arquebus/Hunting Bow Ranger, Druid and dual stilettos Cipher). It's working ok. Probably suboptimal compared to priests but at level 6 I've not really had trouble.

No small amount is the variety of damage types druids have available at any one time in any spell level. At level 1 they have Fire, Cold, Shock, Pierce and Slashing. At level 2 they add in Corrosive and Raw (and I think Crushing, unless Twin Stones is third level). Also, healing. Basically a druid can always, always hit the enemy's lowest DR. They benefit a lot from Eldritch Aim potions. Wizards probably have better CC.

Don't binding roots have an attack roll and duration though? Having doubts that ranger would be able to land it consistently enough. Base acc 63 + 12 level + 10 vicious aim + 10 potion = 100. Bout 30% miss chance. Also, how would you do any damage? Even arbalest would mostly just tingle the dragon. +5 Marksman, +5 Wood Elf, I think Eldritch Aim Potion's +15? Targets Reflex, which is the Adra Dragon's worst defence. Base Duration is 30s and you get 5/rest. Three Envenomed Strikes with a high-damage weapon would get you some of the way. Beyond that, you've got probably 2 minutes to just wail on the dragon. I expect it'd work out alright.

Yep. Done that.

This is definitely accurate : good damage dealer , yes , BUT : You can go for fast reload build with ranger and use arbalest for way more overall damage than this hunting bow crap , You can do a quick switch build with 3 blunderbusses and forgiveness for a burst damage that would take you 30 secs to achieve with god damn hunting bow . Dont do rangers with bows Eh, gun quickswitching is a lot of micromanagement, doesn't apply stunning shot or interrupts as efficiently and requires an otherwise inferior race pick and two extra talents (and moreover, if you're taking Blunderbusses, you're not saving on penetrating shot) and means you can't do interesting things like using Spellbindy weapons as your backup. I'm sure it's effective if you've got the patience but it's got a ton of disadvantages. How much can you speed up the reload time on Arbalests and what are you sacrificing to get it? I mean, those things take about as long as an Arquebus to reload. In any scenario where DR is under control, bows perform well.

Double post because internet messing me around. Apologies.