Merina

Oh ... attempts at avoiding engagement would not be an improvement as it would result in the same old kiting again, wouldn't it? It's worse enough with Fampyrs already and not enough room to retreat and regroup.

More important, larger areas, please. Every area seems so small. And then an ambush every few steps. I would love running around in an enlarged Anslög Compass area, travelling along the coast and exploring much more. Same for Northweald. All these maps concentrate on steady encounters and a few places to visit. I had hoped for more exploration in the style of Cliaban Rilag ... finding the occasional traces of something, such as a tent or camp fire and meeting more Kith.

A wizard in heavy armor, why not? ... It slows down the wizard's actions, though. Just like it does with everyone else. And not every class receives a bonus to thieving skills. Too early to judge about it. Read about the Engagement system. It really makes a huge difference compared with BG2 and makes real blockers and tanks worthwhile again. You don't need to run towards the enemy. And not all enemies run towards you either. Ranged attackers will wait and attack you from the distance. You can do the same with yours. Endurance and Health are two different things ... you may need to read up on them to understand it. During combat, you may want to keep Endurance up to avoid knock-down. You don't cast "healing spells" to increase Endurance after battle. After only five hours? ... Priest and Paladin are very different with what they can do. Revisit this decision when you're finding traps with difficulty 9 or 11 or more. Will your Paladin be able to handle them? Will you spend all points on Mechanics, neglecting other skills completely and still failing to compensate the Rogue's skill bonus? A lot of fun! Scouting and sneak attacks, high damage abilities, invisibility to avoid engagement ... Play up to entering Defiance Bay ... it's a really well-made city in my opinion ... and especially when the NPCs start talking to eachother.

At which location are you?

Stealth and Backstab early on? ... Stealth is useful for scouting, finding traps, but sneak attacks bear a huge risk. The standard tactic for rogues really is to let someone like Eder engage enemies and attack those from the side. Then you can drop your defenses and enable everything that increases accuracy and damage. Sure, if there are more enemies than you can engage with Eder, you are in trouble when facing a bunch like Raedric and his guards. That's why fighters can learn how to engage more enemies than one. Where that still is not enough, a larger party can be the key ... NPCs or hired adventurers. Build a good fighter as a second true tank. Or a ranger with animal companion. Use spells like Slicken to prone enemies. Sending a Rogue into the fray, and you can get knocked out in a second due to the engagement system. Rogues are best if wearing robes or less armor to reduce recovery times. Perhaps you've chosen a scale armor only out of fear ... against Raedric. It's kinda heavy and slow for a rogue. Two stilettos do only piercing damage. Two different weapons would do different types of damage. It can be very helpful to enchant weapons as early as possible and add burning damage, for example. It's not a waste to do that. You will find enough weapons or get a chance to buy replacements. Gear alone won't make the fight against Raedric easy at level 3 ... infiltrating a guarded keep with just four level 3 heroes is a strange decision. It sounds as if you've travelled there with haste and ignoring the warnings or the risk.

Character attributes and level are not everything. To judge about your Rogue, one would need to take a look at your equipment, too, ... and the learned abilities/skills/talents and your combat tactics. CON 10 is okay, but one can clearly go much lower than that ... if playing a Rogue that aims at not getting engaged andl dealing damage to enemies engaged by a defensive Eder or another companion. PER 18 would need an explanation, too. It increases Interrupt. Which weapons do you use? Perception also gives a bonus to Deflection and Reflex. Does that match your playing style? And for certain encounters it can be helpful to equip armor with more damage reduction instead of going for light or no armor for faster recovery. About Raedric at level 3 ... that seems a very low level for Raedric's Keep. After all the quests and tasks in and around Gilded Vale and near Durance, usually one reaches level 5 before entering the keep. And you can hire adventurers, too. Or get Kana and Sagani.

It's ... strange! It could be that at Defiance Bay one is supposed to travel to the Brackenbury Sanitarium with haste ... for Aldoth ... and afterwards get to see the "Dunryd Row Messenger" with the option to ask him "What's Dunryd Row?". Even visiting the Temple of Woedica and the Record Archives ... for Eder ... beforehand, would be okay. But exploring Copperlane district means one will meet Osric. He even mentions a cipher "in Dunryd Row", which could be a village reference ... as "in Dyrford". Or entering Hadret House in Brackenbury district house before exploring Copperlane? That would be strange ...

The Cyclopedia entry "Equipment > Stash" tells: Also look at: Quick Stash One cannot click it, because only the work "Stash" is a link back to "Stash". It's supposed to link to another section, "Tips > Quick Stash".

Question still stands ... I'm playing an Orlan Rogue and am interested in the first opportunity to learn about the connection between Hadret House and Dunryd Row. When entering Defiance Bay, Copperlane district, Rowan tells about the districts. About Brackenbury he says: "Other than a lot of has-been nobility, you've got Hadret House, where Lady Webb and her spies operate, and Brackenbury Sanitarium, the main cesspit of animancy in the city." Is there another one to give an early hint? ... Perhaps a book one can find somewhere? Osric refers to "... in Dunryd Row" ... Sure, when I explore Defiance Bay further and enter Hadret House, I can find "Dunryd" people and references from Kurren about "Dunryd Row", but where is the earliest explanation?

It's still the same in 1.6.0.xxx ... is that not worth fixing? ... It really looks dumb if ya ask me.

No idea... I agree with Xaratas that it could cause some temperature thresholds to get reached, leading to an emergency shutdown of the computer. The character creation screen caused a high-end gaming machine (quad cpu, an expensive graphics card with two fans) to create noise and constant cpu usage of 60%. Reducing the max frame rate in PoE helped only a bit.

I've returned to PoE 1.0.6 after taking a break due to the early bugs and patches ... and It's very high cpu usage for me, too, even in the character creation menu or when sitting and watching the party standing still. This is annoying, because it drives the computer's fans up to insane levels. What's the reason?

A hard copy of the manual? ... Has the original PDF manual been updated after all the patches that have changed the game?

Will any of these (and previous) changes be documented in the manual, too, ever?

It's not the original Steam folder. It's not "the Program files x86". Eventually, I told Steam to install a game onto a separate drive, ... and E:\SteamLibrary\ is what that resulted in for Icewind Dale EE and Pillars of Eternity.

That cannot be it. For me it's E:\SteamLibrary ... I didn't get this error, and the folder EmptySteamDepot is empty actually.

It count it as a quest you're not supposed to complete immediately. Return later when you feel you're strong enough. As in Baldur's Gate 2, where you return to some nasty enemies at a later time, too, such as after leaving the Underdark. At normal difficulty, my entire party is at level 9 only. Durance knows two level 5 spells, not the level 6 spell that could be helpful. It took around 10 seconds for the Fampyrs to eliminate Durance and Aloth while keeping two others charmed. It could be that at increased difficulty the party would have gained more experience and would be at a higher level. Of course I noticed their low Burn damage resistance, but the fight was lost too soon, I decided to quit and not retry.

What a big bucket of nonsense! I could imagine that if I created may own party of hired adventurers and tried cheesy tactics such as luring away a single opponent from a group of enemies (you can read that in several places, but it doesn't seem to work for me), it would become easier ... but with just my monk and 5 NPCs (Eder, Grieving Mother, Durance, Aloth, Sagani currently with Kana on vacation) ... at normal difficulty ... there are enough fights I cannot win at all without a lot of micro-management. And no, I'm not a power-gamer who finishes the game on the day of its release, ... and all my heroes don't just use fire-arms. Take for example the Ogre Druids and Ogre parties on the Elmshore maps. 5 or 6 enemies. At level 9, I won't wait to find out whether Eder would still stand after they have knocked out all the others with sunbeam, insect plague and other nasty spells. I reload once I fear more than 2-3 knockdowns. Combat is so fast paced, for me that means I need to pause it most of the time and cannot keep up with reading the combat log to prepare counter-spells and give instructions. I could retreat and return to such locations when my parted has advanced. A bit as in BG2 where you would not attack a lich or a dragon early either. But I refuse to rush through the game (as some self-proclaimed experts do it on Easy mode) for a first overview only to play it again with a party that has been adjusted to what will be required. There are other fights that are just dull ... I let Eder do his blocking and equip the other five with ranged weapons without giving them any instructions. Sometimes I like this combat system, sometimes I'm still undecided.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73463-sickness-and-bonded-grief-bug/?do=findComment&comment=1611089

I've just run into Sagani with a permanent Bonded Grief, too. After a fight against a mixed Ogre party in Elmshore Cave. I had rested when I noticed the bad status on her. I rested again out of curiosity. Didn't clear Bonded Grief either. Then I reloaded the saved game... that has helped. There's a bug.

Don't be silly... In a role-playing game ... I need a better description of what I hold in my hands. It's an item with a graphical representation that is the same as "Wymunds Notebook" found in the same temple. Keep it? Show it a person later? Read in it later to complete the missing details of a puzzle? Is it the original diary? Or a transcript? ... Probably impossible to tell, because my heroes don't know, ... if there's no info on who is the publisher. Unlike Anne Frank's diary, which in its sold form is easy to tell apart from the original. Is it a complete book or just an excerpt? ... The description should tell me. It does that for other books ... up to the detail of mentioning whether the single section is considered the only important one of many pages. An example is Wymund's notebook. There are other examples in the game.

A real book? ... Hard to believe. According to its contents, it is a small, personal diary written by someone called Jonas, left behind by him before sacrifying himself. It reads like a private letter from Jonas for his son ... or his family ... but it also reads much like Jonas didn't have any way to send it to his son other than leaving it behind. If that is not true, the developers should give some background somewhere ... a villager could talk about that journal or offer one to the party.

Version 1.0.3.0530 I've found three of those journals meanwhile. One in the tower of Dyrford Village. Two more in the dungeon. There should only be one!

That way I lost the Dunryd Psion guest during manual resolve. In the earlier try he attacked me and had >125 deflection and other high defenses.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/72937-how-do-you-kill-op-shadows-in-the-lighthouse/