Trius

I know I’m in the minority, but I really dislike how they moved away from the vancian magic system. I like how in the vancian system you can have spells that are only really useful in niche situations. I find it more flavorful, wizards coming up with magics for all sorts of specific things. It works in a vancian system since most classes aren’t locked into specific ones. I think most games with it never went far enough on the rp side by not adding spells that are more useful outside of combat. Enemies can also be tailored to have immunities to a wider variety of status effects or elements. Spells can specifically target enemies like the undead. I guess what it comes down to for me is how it removed a lot of the playfulness and experimentation I would get with magic. From the start I had to look at all the spells and really plan out what this character will do. Made all the spell casters feel like sorcerers from BG or other dnd games. Aside from that there is a certain story point which triggers a point of no return with the different factions which I found extremely annoying since I hadn’t finished their side content yet. I can’t even speak to the respective faction leaders without triggering a choice siding with them. I didn’t even think I was that far at all into the main story and figured that at level 14 and after more than 10 hours of mucking about I should go ahead and do another story quest. Big mistake and I didn’t have a back up save to fix it. It just wasn’t really telegraphed at all before that point and it was so soon into the main story. I never thought it would really be that short.

Am I the only person who did not have a problem with the engagement system? I never really felt like it was a huge disadvantage because of it especially with the abundance of effective AoE crowd control. The only enemies that regularly were able to harass my back lines were ones who could teleport in. Generally it was easy to maneuver my party members when necessary to properly use their abilities. I played through the game with 1 tank (eder) on hard with the rest of my party using ranged weapons (the whole party consisted of the provided companions: Aloth, Hiravias, Grieving Mother, Kana, and my pc which was a priest). What I found most annoying was how confusion worked as it would cause my buffs/heals to be applied to enemies when they were under the status effect (confusion should not = domination). In the end I never bothered with the confusion abilities as they were inferior to other forms of CC. Also how my party would auto attack dominated companions, which felt really weird and to me was immersion breaking. I wish I could prebuff against status effects before entering combat as it would they would often be the first spell cast against my party with a faster cast time than I could buff against them. The lack of prebuffing felt more pronounced as time went on and there were more spells available making it so many spells simply never got any use (fights were too short to stack). I suppose it does add some strategy, though I did miss being able to feel more prepared for an encounter. Then there is that one fight where your whole party can get wiped from one AoE even at the level cap. I agree that the story was a bit underwhelming given the high bar set by other obsidian titles, there were some memorable moments though. Hopefully the expansion content will be better in this regard. Obsidian tends to do a very good job with their DLC. PoE has been the best new RPG I have played in quite a while and does a good job of setting a foundation that can be improved upon in the future (especially when it comes to the story). All in all I had fun with it and it was well worth the money.

Okay ty everyone. When I reloaded to the auto save from going to the stronghold it got rid of it.

I was fighting some Ogres and my party was hits by this spell. Now that the fights over it wont go away. I've gone all the way back to my stronghold and rested numerous times and still I have some party members (including the PC so I can just switch everyone out and in to get rid of it). I figure this can't be intended. Is there any way to fix this or do I have to revert to an old save? Edit: It was a tough fight so I saved right after it and now I see that my last save before this was hours ago

My character's accuracy changes depending on the weapon I use does this affect spells? How I can I determine what my spell accuracy is exactly? Thanks

Custom map markers Improved stronghold mechanics (add more NPCs making it feel more alive like a town). New environments Just more POE

Yeah that's strange it might be a bug. I haven't had any problems using them yet. Good news is that while they help you can definitely get through the game without them (I've only used them a couple of times mostly for fun). You should make a post on the technical support forum since this is a persistent issue. Edit: Try to include a screen shot or video showing that they are still unavailable for use when in combat.

Are you putting them into your quick slots? They should be working. Could also be that some of the scrolls are combat only like other spells. Hope this helps.

I was wondering if a feature could be added where we could add points of interest to the map ourselves. There will be times I go into a dungeon and either can't access an area or find something that isn't useful at the moment, but will be in the future (mainly camping supplies when I have a full stack). It would be really nice to be able to our own custom markers for those instances. Another example is a door I can't open yet or trap I can't disarm. If this is already in the game and I haven't figured it out yet, sorry for the post. Also I'm having a blast! Thank You.

Are you using your AOE disables? They make big fights so much more manageable. Slicken + Repulsing Seal will keep an entire group on lock down for a long time. Also focus down the squishier targets first especially any caster. They go down a lot more quickly and won't be able to support the more tanky mobs and/or reek havoc on your back lines with AOEs. Also opening with slow reloading heavy hitting ranged weapons helps a ton. You can normally take out at least one mob before the fight even starts (and then switch to your faster weapons, I haven't tried loading up on multiple sets of ranged burst yet). Use bottle necks to keep the focus on your main tank/s. I currently have Eder in fine full plate, large shield, with a mostly passive tank build. He doesn't hit that hard, but can take a huge beating. If you see that your tank has most of the aggro his him with pain link if you have a Cipher. I've only been running with the companions that I find (took a while to get six) in an optimized party. My main is a priest and I currently have the Cipher, Priest, Wizard, Fighter, and Chanter companions (missing dps). I think I'll switch out the priest companion with the druid one when I find him. I have Eder as my main tank using the chanter companion as an off tank. It's easier than I thought it would be on hard. The first dungeon was a big challenge though, but I did that first with just a party of 3 so that may have been it. Anyways I hope this helps!

I just got through that area on hard. It took a bit of time (I had to go back to the inn to rest and get supplies), but I got through it. It felt great too! It's really rewarding. Here are some tips:

How would you build a priest of Eothas? I'm going Death Godlike for RP purposes. I was thinking at least 16 might and 16 intelligence. From what I understand priests aren't exactly like clerics where they function well in melee, but the bonuses to weapons for priests of Eothas are for the flail and morning star. Originally I wanted to use flails with a shield and medium to heavy armor. Would the penalties from the armor hamper my recovery speed too much? Would letting the front line fighters engage followed by the priest flanking work? For talents I was planning on focusing mainly on the priest ones, plus the accuracy bonus to flails (whatever group that's in) and the sword/shield style. Edit: I'd also like to avoid any penalties. I see some builds which take severe ones, but I'd be worried about how that would effect my chances during the story book instances. There are also the penalties to other defenses which could have a big impact later on in the game with tougher enemies who use a lot of spells especially AOEs.

I don't understand this comment. In BG and the other IE games you had a quick bar for all of your spells and combat abilities.

I'm a non backer and I have no problem with the $45 price tag. It actually seems to be on the cheap side for me when compared to other games. The game looks gorgeous and from what I've seen the game play looks to be enjoyable enough (what concerns me most in a rpg is immersion/story which I know obsidian does very well). If the game is able to keep my interest for at least one or hopefully multiple playthroughs it will be well worth the money (considering each playthrough will be around the 100 hour mark). I love the option of being able to create my own custom party too, it'll be a lot of fun to mess around with. As far as the interface is concerned, I just finished running through the BG saga (first time), the UI in Pillars of Eternity looks like a big improvement in comparison. The BG UI was pretty clunky and certain tasks (such as finding spells at higher levels and inventory management between characters) was a bit of a chore. In Pillars of Eternity spells appear a lot easier to access as they are clearly separated by level (instead of one long list where the position of spells would change depending on what you chose to memorize) and the inventory UI looks great making it really easy to manage items between characters (probably the thing I liked doing the least in BG). I know there are complaints about the stash, but you are able to restrict it if you like. I don't really see any difference between it and bags of holding/gem bags/potion cases. I never used AI in BG since I prefer to issue each order so that aspect doesn't really effect me.

Magran gets Arquebus, making it the best priest choice IMO. But yeah, you'd think they'd be a bit better in melee than they actually are. I would wait a bit and buff the party before going into melee, and flank things that are already engaged. Just don't fight toe to toe with your priest against any serious melee enemies. Morning Star doesn't have extra reach, although 2h in general may have a bit longer than 1h. Pike is the main reach weapon though. Sounds good thanks for the help.