Lucinius

The XP system, imo, is not very well done. Here's what I wrote in a different thread on the subject in the Character Builds forum; Honestly, I must admit the idea of people simply rushing through the main story line and avoiding/neglecting most, or even notable chunks of side content didn't occur to me. It is a valid worry, especially given my proposed solution in the quoted text as players who rushed the main quest line could find themselves a level or two lower when trying to beat the game. I'm just used to the idea of everyone who plays these kinds of games hitting most (if not all) side-quests because of the rewards therein (usually in these games, the really good loot comes from the very challenging side-quests) to explore the world, bash more heads, get loot/levels and overcome the challenges of the main quest line. Now, ideally you wouldn't have to re-balance anything even with my proposed changes because if you hit something you couldn't beat because you were too low level, you'd just go out, finish however many side-quests to level once or twice and then come back. The design would simply incorporate the slower levelling pace into the difficulty aspect of the game. Just thinking of trying to beat BG2 without doing the vast majority of side content makes me shake my head; just feels wrong, as it means you've lost out on most of the really, really good loot (and, quite honestly, some of the better gameplay/dialogue). But gaming today is different than it was back then, so, like it or not.. it is an issue to deal with. So, if need be, I'd augment the quoted changes with modifying the quest reward curves; MainQuestExp would be increased by ~30% and SideQuestExp would be decreased by ~30%. That would keep those who primarily hug the main quest line afloat in terms of levels and what is minimally required to beat the game (level ~ and for those who do explore more of the side content would more properly pace their levelling experience so that they only cap out closer to the end of the game (you would still cap out, I believe) and the game increases in difficulty, slightly, due to hitting content at a lower level than currently. I'd even consider suggesting it be tied to difficulty level, i.e.; Easy and Normal keep current Exp curve, Hard and PotD use mine. Lastly, I believe another aspect of the problem is in how poorly Pillars gates content through difficulty. For example, in BG2 you had content you could access in Act 2 but short of cheating, exploiting or extreme cheesing, would unlikely be able to even survive (much less beat) until you returned post-Underdark unless you were extremely good at the game and hit it just prior to heading for Spellhold (and sometimes not even then). So far, I've only seen a couple of places that could be similar in Pillars, and most of those are nowhere to the same degree as in BG2. While I hope they change the way the Exp curve works somehow, I doubt it will happen; it really isn't the kind of change you make short of an expansion or sequel. It is too big of a mechanic to just *poof* different! on even your average knowledgeable gamer, much less the minority that browse and post on a game's forum. Personally, I'll just wait for a mod (which may never come, at least while I'm still playing the game; it just doesn't have the same long-lasting appeal as a BG2 or Torment, where I'll play it every year for more than a decade) and until then, use the CheatEngine table to remove 30% of all experience my party gains (still on pace to hit level cap before the end of the game).

With a full-ish party you can do the first level of Caed Nua at level 3. Personally, when I was rushing my last party through the stronghold to get a couple companions past that, I did the first level at level 3 (full party), and found getting to the Main Hall harder than the old man himself. Raedric's Keep can also be done at level 3. Both, however, I believe are balanced/intended for level 4 parties. On Normal, however, it shouldn't be a huge issue so long as you're careful and don't just rush head-long.

Elusive Quarry is one of the abilities she picks up. It grants specific bonuses under certain (combat) circumstances and no bonus the rest of the time. Just go to her character sheet, scroll down to the bottom and you'll see it listed. Clicking on it will bring up the description of what it does (which, if I remember correctly, is +10 deflection from ranged attacks, +3 Percpetion while her Endurance is below 50% and +10 Defense when disengaging when her Endurance is below 50%. As for your first question.. I don't recall. I would assume (and might be wrong) in that they include the racial bonuses.

Right, as others have said there was no real level cap in BG, but instead an experience cap. While they net the same result if the experience cap coincides with the level cap, they are vastly different, as we've seen, in a game like Pillars. The experience cap in Pillars far exceeds that of the level cap, even if you run a full party from the earliest moment possible. That is a sign of poor design, honestly. I understand why they used a level cap instead of an experience cap, however, as it makes encounter design a lot simpler and a lot less prone to the majority of players either face-rolling content all the time, or constantly running up against encounters they cannot beat. By using a shallow experience curve, however, they created a different problem in terms of power capping the player too early. So far I've only seen three real responses to the issue; lower the level cap, things are fine as is, and to modify the exp curve to be steeper. Raising (or removing) the level cap has been mentioned, but, imo, isn't a good fix as it would destroy the game balance. Lowering the cap is somewhat similar, in that it would make the later game more difficult (and there are a number of people who are finding hard and normal difficulties hard, even if we're not) but, imo, would also exacerbate the power capping problem. I feel the only reasonable solution is to modify the exp curve, as I've detailed before. It solves the power capping issue completely, smooths out the levelling curve to be more in tune with the encounters and pushes things to be slightly, but not overly, more difficult. Obviously, any such exp re-work is unlikely at this point, short of being part of an expansion (or more likely, a sequel), but I'm hopefully it may be something modders can work out in the future. Ideally, the entire curve would be moddable (so those who want lower levels could mod the curve so they hit, for example, level 8 shortly before the end of the game, and those of us who simply want a more gradual levelling curve could have it so we hit level 12 shortly before the end of the game). Personally, as someone who's playing on Hard and finding it only slightly difficult (in part because for my first play-through I'm not being even close to min/maxing things, especially in terms of spell picks and party composition; I've just been going for party members I like and spells that sound fun -- my current party, for example, is a dual-wielding warrior pc, Eder, Aloth, Sagini, Pallagina, tank build, and Grieving Mother; no cleric at all) I've taken to using a table made for Cheat Engine to, essentially, create my own exp curve so that everyone in my party levels slower (I've been removing 30% of all experience gained). I'm on pace to still hit level 12 before the end of the game (potentially too much before, sadly, but we'll see), and I've had a full party from the moment I've hit Gilded Vale.

I never said only 1-2% want a challenge. I said only about that many would enjoy/survive on a difficulty level made for those who find PotD a cakewalk. Is that low? Maybe. There are, however, people who already struggle with Normal and Hard. Also, I don't think people backed Pillars to have a challenge. They backed it because they wanted a game that harkened back to the days of BG, Torment and others. As someone who's played those games almost obsessively I can say that in my opinion.. they weren't that hard. Tedious and yet great? Sure, but hard? Only in comparison to the paint-by-numbers difficulty many modern games have. The ideal solution, imo, would be to have the experience curve moddable, so people could tailor it to their style of game play. Regardless of when people are or are not hitting cap, I think we can all agree that they are hitting the cap too quickly, even if they are not exploring every nook and cranny. A slower pace to leveling benefits everyone, as I see it. Working out increases in difficulty should come after fixing the leveling curve, or you could create further issues down the road.

The solution isn't to just reduce the level cap, however. That only exacerbates the problem of gratification. Whether you like it or not, a major reason for games to hold the appeal of the player is the feeling of becoming more powerful over time. It is a massive part of game design and creating a game that is not only "good", but "enjoyable" and a commercially successful franchise. The obvious solution, imo, is what I detailed earlier; you keep the level cap the same (12), but you reduce the rate at which you level (by increasing the amount of experience it takes to attain each level). This has two positive side effects; 1) You keep the player engaged through-out the game in terms of increasing power levels, instead of capping them off half-way through the game (if not earlier) as it is now. Thus, the players can continue to get the gratification of leveling up for a larger percentage of the game. 2) You increase difficulty for the majority of the player-base by simple virtue of your party being a lower level when they hit content. With my proposed changes to the experience curve, where you would be level 8 currently you would be 3000 experience from hitting level 7. Where you be level 12 currently you would be 7000 experience from level 10. This means you have a finer curve of power progression, meaning content later in the game is harder by default, without having to do any kind of balance changes to mob stats, density, loot tables, and so forth. Hard enough for people laughing at PotD difficulty? No, but quite honestly nothing short of a difficulty level that only 1-2% of the player base can even survive on would satisfy that group, and that, unfortunately for them, simply isn't financially feasible for Obsidian to devote resources to. Simply changing the exp curve raises difficulty (across all difficulty levels), expands (massively) the ability for players to see power progression through-out the game's length and will actually make future balance and difficulty changes by Obsidian (and modders) easier, due to a finer curve allowing for more subtle changes creating a cumulative effect on difficulty. As is, the fact you can cap out at 12 half-way through the game (or earlier) is, imo, one of the single largest issues facing the game right now.

Imo, the problem isn't that level 12 is too low of a level cap, but that the experience required per level is too low. Currently, the formula is very simple, every level adds 1000 experience to a growing number tacked on, starting at 2000 when you hit level 2 and is added to the experience required to hit the previous level as shown here; Level 2: 1000 Level 3: 3000 (1000+2000) Level 4: 6000 (3000+3000) Level 5: 10000 (6000+4000) Level 6: 15000 Level 7: 21000 Level 8: 28000 Level 9: 36000 Level 10: 45000 Level 11: 55000 Level 12: 66000 The problem is fairly clear; the amount of experience required as you go up in levels simply doesn't increase enough. This leads to hitting the level cap comparatively early in the game. Now, this probably was done to give the player a constant feeling of progression/power increases.. except it actually hurts that very feeling when you cap out and the only way left to get more powerful is through items. My solution would be to keep the level cap at 12, but increase the amount of experience required to hit it. Something like this; Level 2: 1000 Level 3: 3000 (1000+2000) Level 4: 7000 (3000+4000) Level 5: 13000 (7000+6000) Level 6: 21000 Level 7: 31000 Level 8: 43000 Level 9: 57000 Level 10: 73000 Level 11: 91000 Level 12: 111000 Exact same formula, except instead of increasing the count by 1000, you do it by 2000. As such you almost, but not quite, double the experience required to go from level 11 to 12. Now, this may not work, as I don't know how much experience there is to actually acquire if you run a 6 person group from as soon as possible to the end of the game. But, I would wager it is actually higher than this amount if you were to explore most, if not every nook and cranny. As such hitting the level cap would come much later in the game and the player would retain the feeling of having something to work towards power-progression wise. Honestly, in addition to this I would add a stat increase every 4 levels gained to further the idea of power progression to the player (so, by hitting the level cap you could add a total of 3 points to your attributes). It wouldn't increase the power level of the players enough to be un-balanced, but increases the feeling of having gotten more powerful/rewarded by a substantial amount, as well as giving the player the feeling they can redress some perceived short-falls in their character strengths. Still, this is secondary to the primary issue at hand.

You could use the Cheat Engine table made for this game. Just google; Pillars of Eternity cheat engine and it should be at the top. Using the table you can change rep, stats on your player character and so forth. What the game really needs is Shadow Keeper. Ah, the things you could do in BG2 with Shadow Keeper.

On a U.S. keyboard, the tilde key (`, ~) is located to the left of the 1 key, right above the Tab key.

Is "disable achievements" permanently to a profile or just while console commands are unlocked? I have no idea. I've heard some say that it flags the save when you use the iroll20s command and achievements are then disabled for the entire playthrough, but I've also heard some say that if you save and reload you can get achievements. I'd be happy to test it out and see except achievements aren't working yet for Steam (there are no achievements visible; game is improperly categorized on Steam, I believe). So, until they get those working there's no real loss from cheating even if it does flag the save, although if they get turned on later and it does flag the save you are, obviously boned. Dream1r; interesting. I just tested it out and anything with a space, for me, in the name requires an underscore (_) for me, and does not work if I remove the space; AddAbility Aloth Field_Triage works for me, but AddAbility Aloth FieldTriage doesn't. Odd. Also, you can see the actual names of abilities/talents in the objectbundle folder, apparently. I've yet to go through it and test a number of them out to see if it can resolve my earlier issue, but the folder is Steam/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsofEternity_Data/assetbundles/prefabs/objectbundle if anyone else needs them.

That works. Testing it out I was able to add a few talents to my main. Some I wasn't able to, however, but I'm certain it's a name id issue and not a syntax issue now, thanks.

AddAbility is what is used for talents. I don't get it either, but that's how it is. I used the following two to test and they both worked; AddAbility Lucinius Field_Triage AddAbility Lucinius Wound_Binding In lieu of "Lucinius", of course, you would use whatever the name of your character is. However, in testing most others didn't work and I assume because I didn't know the name the game uses for id. For example, I tried AddAbility Lucinius Sanctifier and nothing happened. I'm guessing that's because while the talent name is Sanctifier, the game adds something else onto it. Additionally, I was unable to use AttributeScore on my player character later in the game (but I did it just fine in the camp after game launch), or on hired Adventurer's. There was no issue in using it on Aloth, for example, multiple times, however. All in all there's a lot left to figure out.

This thread doesn't have any info on console commands? Where can we find a list of the commands? Commands are; AddAbility playername nameofability (i.e.; AddAbility Lucinius Field_Triage will give the player named Lucinius the Field Triage ability) AddItem itemname stackcountamount AdvanceTimeByHour numberofhours AttributeScore playername attributename amount (i.e.; AttributeScore Lucinius Might 18 will give the player named Lucinius a base Might score of 18) SetTime timewanted (with 24 being midnight) Skill playername skillname amount (i.e.; Skill Lucinius Athletics 6 will give the player named Lucinius a base Athletics score of 6) GivePlayerMoney amount RemovePlayerMoney amount AddExperience amount

I tried both shift-# (which is ~) and just the key that~ is on (i.e. #) on it's own, but no console opens Unless you're using a non-U.S. keyboard the tilde key (`) is indeed what opens the console. Should be able to just hit that key, hit enter and type iroll20s to activate console commands. I have no idea what the non-U.S.-standard key equivalent is, sorry.

From a quick look it appears that it is indeed split.