Madscientist

@Foxd1e I do not know what other people think, but at least I do not care who made the game. I just want a good game. I have played lots of adventures and RPGs, both JRPGs and western ones. If I only play things from people I know I would have never played Pathfinder or Disco Elysium, some of best games lately and I have never heard of those studios before the game was on the shop page. The people you mentioned are famous among gamers, but even they have started their career at some point. Several crowdfunding games were funded made by a single person or a small team nobody ever heard before. If players buy only stuff they know there would never be new successful games. If you want a good RPG you need one thing patience. Unless you want to be a beta tester wait some month after release before you start playing. RPGs are the largest and most complex type of games and more complexity means also more potential for bugs.

Does she act significantly different if I give the souls to her in PoE1? If I ever play the game again I will probably use my steel garrote/trickster tank and role playing wise it would make sense if a paladin of her has supported her in the past. This is a really big IF. I have a full time job, I like doing sports, there are so many games in my library I have never installed, soon Trails of cold Steel 3 will be released, I am interested in BG3 and I have just backed the new Pathfinder game.

In PoE1 she was not there and Thaos wanted to use the souls to bring her back. I did NOT use the souls for her, I strenghened the souls of the dyrwood for Galawain. In PoE2 she is among the other gods and the other gods seem to accept her as one of them, like she was never gone. Also she explains all kinds of things to me via the book and she is not angry that I killed her best agent even though she is the god of vengeance among other things. By DnD standarts I would consider her lawful evil. Even if she does not kill me because I am the herald of Berath, I expected her to hate me unless I gave the souls to her at the end of PoE1. She is even very nice to me considering how her followers deal with heretics and that I do not agree with her about anything. I think Eders comment at the end of PoE2 is correct: The gods are not greater beings, they are a bunch of kids who mess up things while the parents are gone.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/112610-armchair-theories-on-why-poe2-didnt-sell-super-well/ Here you get 13 pages of speculation what other people think about it.

Update: I did not get all achievements I had before. I got only all achievements I did in my current playthrough. All achievements from former playthroughs (such as finish the game with huana and VTC) are gone. After finishing SSS as champion of the slayer, I can select the fight to become champion of the survivor, but not the other faces. Not sure if this is related to the freeze bug.

Version 5.0, Windows 10 PC I have defeated the huge crocodile at the end of SSS. Then I traveled with my ship to port Maje. When I arrived I selected the tavern on the city map, the map loaded and the game froze. The computer did not react at all and I had to reset it. I loaded the latest save (quicksave somewhere on the ocean) and the next minutes I was flooded with one achievement message after the other. I did not get any new achievements in this playthrough, I have already got them long ago, shortly after all 3 expansions were released.

She also gets some lines in BoW, in the beer brewing quest. I guess she drinks everything as long as there is alcohol inside.

Thanks for your answer. I don´t want to get answers NOW and I do not care who gives me an answer as long as its correct. When I read interesting stuff in the forums I realize that there are many other things I do not know. I guess that many other players do not know this as well and it would be helpful for them, so I ask. I am a scientist and thats science: There is a question, somebody finds an answer and this answer produces tons of new questions.

I do not play PotD, especially not up scaled with mega bosses. At the moment I play turn based on normal for the first time and its very easy. Maybe I use this char on veteran next time. I lack the masochism to make my life harder just to say that I have beaten a game on the highest difficulty level. Having high defenses plus some form of passive healing should make things easier in any case, that why I made this build.

some questions about barbarien/cipher: - Does carnage generate focus? - Does blood thirst remove only recovery for the attack that killed the enemy? I am confused by the "for 10 seconds" part in the description. 10 seconds (plus int bonus and maybe power level) without recovery sounds extremely powerful. - Does brute force work for all attacks against deflection, including spells? - Do the frenzy upgrades (bleed on crit, staggered on hit) work with spells? If yes, does it work for spells that do not deal damage? If the usual berserker problems (self damage + low defense in melee) plus casting in melee range does not kill or interrupt you, berserker/ascendent looks good. Off topic: While writing this I came up with a different question: Does self inflicted damage (berserker frenzy, sacred immolation, maybe something else) generate wounds for monks?

In this game the rule of thumb is that passive things stack and active things do not stack. Passive is everything on the right side of the skill tree (except chants) and passive bonusses from equipment. Active is everything on the left side of the skill tree and everything that you use (potions, scrolls, per rest/encounter abilities from equipment). What about conditional effects on equipment? Things like: - effect xy happens when your char gets bloodied ( 1x per encounter) - effect xy happens when you hit/engage/being hit (there are effects that can happen once while others can add or lose stacks of an effect).

Yes, the gladiator sword would be a good idea for early game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regarding defense: If I understand you correctly, high defenses (def, fort, ref, will) are more importent for survival than armor? Of course, when the enemy cannot hit you your armor does not matter. I do not know the maximum defense this char could get and I do not know the maximum acc of endgame enemies, but I guess it would be hard to have 100 more defense than enemy acc in every case. A paladin combined with a full caster (wizard, priest of wael) might get even more defense but they lack the ability to heal themselves just by damaging engaged enemies. I guess it is very useful to be able to heal yourself without spending resources, but you still have to hit and damage the enemy to do so. If you play with a full party, I guess it will be hard to give every char very high defenses and sometimes enemies are intelligent enough to attack chars with weak defenses. When there are many enemies its almost impossible for your tanks to block the path for all of them and there are enemies who can teleport themselves or abduct your chars. Well, often they just run after the first thing they see and block each others path in doing so. My record of enemy dumbness was a ship combat where the enemy walked to a char at the other end of the screen and died from getting 3 disengagement attacks from 3 different chars in a row. (in turn based, so my chars were just standing there).

Thanks I guess stats go down the same way for easy and story mode. ( I don´t know, classic is easy for me, next time I try veteran) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What does level scaling do? I guess each enemy has a default level and they get +3 acc and defenses and some HP per level. Is there more than this?

Can you remove all buffs from enemies? I just fought the dragon at the end of BoW. It casted Llengraths Saveguard while it was healthy. Idiot me used arcane damper twice without effect and I had already used my lv9 spell. When the drogon was at 50% health the buff got activated and I made almost no damage until the buff ended. I played on normal difficulty so I was able to survive that long, but it was very frustrating. Can you remove buffs before they trigger? In another fight I used arcane damper too. When I put my mouse over the enemy I saw buff effects and arcane damper effect. I am not sure if the enemy had this buff at this point. I would hope for a message buff xy (suppressed) when I put my mouse over an enemy after using arcane damper.

In PoE1 enemies always had the same stats and the number and kind of enemies changed with difficulty. Only PotD had increased stats for enemies. How is this in Deadfire? In game I can only see a text that it is easier or harder but no number and the wiki says nothing at all.

According to Boeroer, dagger modal and mirror image stack because dagger is against melee only while mirror image works against everything. I did not test this. I changed the cloak Equipment in the build.

WOW, I would never expect that you suggest barbarien/ranger for a ranged character, Boeroer. I thought that barbarien + ranged weapon is one of the really bad ideas in this game because lots of barbarien stuff is melee only. Barbariens are good in melee AoE damage, for other things it should be possible to find a better char. Some useful barbarien stuff triggers only on kill and without carnage or even heart of fury it seems hard to get many kills in short time.

Thanks - According to the wiki ( I do not know the location of all items) you can get the cloak of greter protection only if you activate the merchant from Beraths Blessing and there is no ring of greater deflection. At least I did not find a ring of greater deflection so far, only the minor one. For the cape, +7 deflection against everything is absolutely better than +5 against ranged attacks but I was not sure if it is fair to add stuff you can only get via achievements. - Is there any reason NOT to wear heavy armor in this game? Having 3 more AR than PEN means -75% damage taken. Unless you know exactly the PEN of every enemy it sounds like a good idea to maximize AR. The armor you mentioned looks good. It can even make a counter attack when being hit with slash weapons, which fits nice to this build. - If you have a melee weapon in one hand and a ranged weapon in the other, do you get the defense penalty because ranged weapons are unfit for melee? Personally I stick with weapon+shield for the style, even if other things can be useful too. Plus I got an old PC. - Dagger or hatchet with modal would be very defensive, but you have to kill enemies to win the fight, surviving is not enough. Are modals that reduce damage just another modifier or does it reduce the total damage ( first you add all damage and then you reduce this number by x%) or does it even reduce base damage?

- The equipment and other info is taken from the wiki, so it could be wrong or incomplete - Thanks for everyone who gave me advice, especially Boeroer and Thelee - I am not the ultimate expert, so I am happy about any feedback I get PILLAR OF ETERNITY, the engaging riposte rock The idea is simple. You stand there like a rock. You engage as many enemies as possible. They try to hit you but they miss and you get many riposte attacks. Almost all of your attacks heal you. Version: 5.0 Difficulty: I never played PotD, but I hope it could work solo: high defense + lots of self heal, it could work (not tested) class: steel garrote paladin / trickster rogue race: wild orlan ( resolve is your main stat, so you don´t want to lose it) background: Aedyr, select skills dependent on your equipment stats: mig: 14 con: 8 dex: 8 int: 14 per: 14 res: 20 talents: lv1: Flames of devotion, crippling strike (apply affliction without casting) lv2: deep faith lv3: lay on hands lv4: paladin auras, weapon+shield style lv5: inspiring triumph lv6: divine purpose lv7: eternal devotion, riposte ! lv8: dirty fighting lv9: escape lv10: exhalted endurance, persistent distraction ! lv11: tumbling lv12: adept evasion lv13: rightous soul, deep wounds lv14: iron gut lv15: clear head lv16: virtous triumph, slippery mind lv17: bears endurance lv18: snakes reflexes lv19: stoic steel, deathblows ! lv20: bulls will profiencies: large shield, spear, club equipment: weapon1: Kapana Taga (club, crush/slash damage, daze on hit, +damage per engaged enemy, +2 engagement, immunity to flanked) weapon 2: stalkers patience (spear, +1 engagement with modal, hamstringing, wounding, extra damage against flanked targets (just engaging flanks them, scales with stealth) shield: Akola´s Apex Ward or Wintertide Bulwark (both can proc an attack when missed in melee) head: Blackened Plate Helm (+engagement) or Champion´s Helm (+riposte) Neck: Token of Faith (+2 resolve) armor: Reckless Brigandine (+engagement, +attack speed per ennemy engaged, Into the Breach (damage+AR up when health down) rings: Entonias Signet Ring, Ring of Protection shoes: Boots of the Stone, Boots of speed if you wish to provoke disengagement attacks cape: Cape of greater Deflection hands: Bracers of greater Deflection belt: Upright Captain´s Belt pet: Nalvi (+1 resolve, reduced armor penalty) Why??? Steel Garrote paladins heal themselves when they damage a target that has any affliction, rogues are good in causing affliction and with persistent distraction you afflict them just by engaging them. Paladins have high defenses and Tricksters can improve defense even more with wizard spells. If you get missed in melee you can have a riposte attack, an instant full attack without recovery. If you have several sources of riposte like effects, all of them can proc on a missed melee attack (talent, champions helm, shield). So I chose to maximize my defense and engagement slots to engage (and afflict) all enemies around me to provoke riposte attacks that heal me. The club (Kapana Taga) is fantastic. Two damage types, +2 engagements and immunity to being flanked (-10 deflection) and the club modal reduces will. You could use this to terrify enemies around you to provoke disengagement attacks. For enemies with weaknes to pierce attacks use a spear+modal and stalkers patience is the best spear. The spear modal penalty (- walking speed) is meaningless because of large shield modal. You cannot move, but you take 50% less damage from ranged and reflex attacks. Thanks to the belt you cannot be moved by enemies and stoic steel improves your AR when standing still. You can still move a bit with escape and this does not count as moving, so protective effects do not end. If you wish to be a bit more active you could move around to provoke disengagement attacks from enemies. If they miss they can proc riposte from you. If you think your defense is high enough without shield you could equip Whispers of the endless path and upgrade it to defensive parry. You attack several enemies at once and attacks that miss you proc AoE riposte from you and all of these attacks can heal you. I selected the talents and equipment as defensive as possible. On lower difficulties or if you still feel save without them you could replace some defensive talents with more offensive ones. I am not sure if sacred immolation would heal you much if several enemies around you have an affliction. You need guile for wizard spells so there is no need for active rogue abilities. Paladins may want sworn enemy and abilities that assist the party. Practiced healer does NOT increase healing from drain effects, like Steel Garrote attacking afflicted enemies. It is strongly recommanded to play in rtwp mode. In rtwp enemies need to roll a 31 to graze, in turn based a 1 is enough. Edit: Changed cape because you can get cape of greater deflection also without Beraths Blessing.

Thanks More questions: 1.) Are weapon modals active or passive? Most importent, do they get overwritten by buffs with the same effect? Like dagger/staff modal + mirror image, +2 penetration with tier 2 strengh inspiration and so on. 2.) Riposte is called full attack, so I guess you do this with your equipped weapon. Are disengagement attacks also done with your weapon? I ask because of on hit effects, both from modals and the weapon itself. 3.) Should I switch from mirror image to llengraths displaced image when I get it? Mirror image gets more deflection and lasts longer but it get reduced on hit (lowered by how much? On hit means not on grazes, I guess) Llengraths displaced image gives less deflection, but it gives also reflex and hit -> graze.

some more questions: - Like PoE1, 1h weapon + bashing shield does less damage than 1h weapon + normal shield because shield damage is low. Is this correct? - When using Tuolitos palm and upgrade it to counter attack, do you attack only with the shield or is it a full attack? The description says :"20% Chance on being Missed by a Melee attack to strike back instantly". If it was a full attack, this would be the first opportunity in this game to have a riposte attack. If it is just the shield attack, I can ignore this shield. - The medium shield modal where you can block attacks, does it count as miss (can cause riposte), does it cout as hit ( activating stuff that starts on being hit) or is it something different?

Nice So you can do up to 3 different free attacks every time an enemy misses you with a melee weapon and each attack can heal you if they have an affliction. Maximizing engagement slots would be the best way to afflickt enemies around you. As a perception affliction it reduces their hit chance which improves your riposte chance, good. Except crippling strike and the AoE spells I have no way to apply a second affliction for deathblows. Or is distracted enough because it also causes flanked? Crippling strike was the only special attack I used with my rogues ( 1 guile, full attack, +25% damage, +2 pen, can interrupt) I played around with character creation and my first guess for stats would be: mig 14, con 8, dex 8, int 14, per 14, res 20 (human or orlan from Aedyr). I do not like dumping stats. I have to look later for the skill trees.

Thanks - When you have large shield modal on, can you move by using abilities like escape? - When using abilities like escape, does it end other effects that end when you move? - Can different riposte effects proc from the same missed attack or do they roll one after the other until one procs or all do not proc? According to the wiki, there is the riposte skill, whispers of the endless path, 2 shields (Akolas Apex Ward and Wintertide bulwark) and the champions helmet. - I guess all retaliation effects (automatic effect on the attacker when you get hit) can proc at once because every item or skill produces a different effect.

I had an idea for a build and I want to ask if this makes sense. My inspiration was to create the main char from this game: Virgo vs the Zodiac She is a self rightous over zealous fanatic on a crusade to restore order (or what she thinks of it). Everyone with a different opinion is a heretic that needs to be purged with fire and steel. Default equipment is spear+shield but she can use other weapons too. The game is a lot about defending and counter attacks. My idea was to have a steel garrote paladin/trickster rogue. Steel garrote heal themselves when attacking an afflicted target. I guess this means the enemy needs to have any affliction. Rogues have persistent distraction, so I should heal myself every time I attack an enemy engaged by me. Paladins have high defenses and tricksters have wizard spells like mirror image to increase defense even more. With such a high defense enemies would miss me often so I can riposte. With a large shield, spear modal and persistent distraction I should be able to engage 3 enemies. With large shield modal on, heavy armor + stoic steel I should have very high defense and I take very little damage, but I cannot move. So I am a pillar of eternity. I stand there, enemies try to attack me but I avoid their attacks and stike back, healing myself with every attack. I upgrade the paladin aura to have constant healing. I use my guile for wizard buffs and my zeal for sworn enemy and eternal devotion. questions: - Is it true that steel garrote + persistent distraction = self heal with every attack? - With paladin defense + wizard buffs, will enemies miss me often so that riposte makes sense? - Can you riposte every time? Usually I attack or I am in recovery. Does riposte cause recovery? - Does practiced healer increase healing from all sources, including the steel garrote+persistent distraction stuff? - What stats would you suggest? Max res for defense, but you also need some mig for healing+damage and probably per because your acc is low with a large shield. Con seems unimportent because you are hard to hit and you heal yourself all the time and dex seems also not so importent because you are slow anyway. Not sure about int, it would be mostly for buff duration. Role playing wise she would be human, but a wild orland may be better for min maxers. - I will not solo the game, but it could be one of the better chars for this. You are hard to hit and you heal yourself all the time. But you are quite slow and immobile.

OMG I think I regret now that I once said this game is easier to understand than DnD. For BG2 (my first RPG) I had to read the manual to understand whats going on and I had to do tons of reading again to understand the basics of Pathfinder: Kingmaker even though I played NWN2 in between. In PoE/DF its easier to understand the basics, so reading the tooltips and using some commen sense should be enough to finish the game on normal with a full party. But if you dig deeper it will get so complicated that everyone except complete nerds will get a headache when trying to understand things. PS: I have never played PnP so I can only talk about computer games.