katie

Thanks so much for your response, and for all of the responses actually. None of them were rude, so that's a really good thing I am level 5 at the moment, and I'm playing on normal difficulty. I don't really want to drop things down to easy. I guess it's good to know that the quests are designed to be hard then, and that might not be my fault. I could go off to do different quests. Most of the quests that you listed as safe to do for low-level characters I have completed. I think there's only 2 on that list that I need to do. Thanks for the overview of the mechanics. It does seem familiar to me when I read that, so I guess I am not totally lost or stupid. I just think it's super hard to leave the game for several months. I will admit, I wish building characters was not so difficult. And I will also admit, I have no idea what most of the spells do. And to be honest, even with reading them, you still don't actually know if they are useful or not. In the Wizard's case, foresight is absolutely required if you don't actually find the spell on a grimoire since you're pretty much picking blindly on level up. And even the grimoire's have an investment too - you need to spend gold (and re-spend the gold when you respec), which punishes learning and experimentation. Maybe I've grown so casual over the years, but the more complex a game is, the more forgiving and mutable the character builds need to be to make corrections. Perhaps if there's a way to get nearly unlimited gold - lol - then respecing and relearning spells wouldn't feel like it's making a sacrifice to your financial well-being in the game. For all I know, experimenting with builds means I can't buy any the best armor or weapons down the line - I have no idea what the consequences of that are. Which is why I think games should just give free respecs, especially when they are complicated. And while I'd love to think that all choices are neutral, they never are in these games. I sort of get the sense that the dev's could just remove all of the bad options that nobody picks to help new players from making mistakes. Maybe I just don't know what I'm saying, but information in terms of guides is so hard to come by with this game.

I have pre-ordered Pillars of Eternity, and so I've had it for awhile. I've never really had a 'ton' of time though to really get into the game. I have a really demanding job, and even if I have some kind of a vacation, there's still other things I need to be doing, so I only really get a day's worth of gaming in. Of course, the game just sits on my hard disk for months before the next vacation, and I try to get back into it again. We're at the end of December, and that trend has been a constant. But I will be honest, there are other reasons why I don't finish. I don't think I'm actually able to get into a game like this - which is so odd for me to say, because I've actually played all of the older style games from Black Isle and Bioware. In fact, I used to be really good them, knowing the mechanics, spells, and everything inside and out. In fact, I had even written a few power gaming guides about them. One of the reasons I tend to stop playing is the combat - I really just don't like the combat. Sure, when the encounter is manageable and I know what's going on, it's fine. But when it gets difficult? I have no idea what the hell is going on. Part of that has to be that I take too long of breaks between play sessions, yet try and continue from where I left off. But I also think the game is too unforgiving, and it's easy to feel frustrated and even a little pissed off. For example, I'm trying to get into the game today, and I was in the middle of the lighthouse quest. Naturally, it's impossible as my tanks don't seem to be any good at tanking, so all of my casters are just dropping like flies. I figure, why not try other tasks? So I do. I try the Missing Sentries task, and I get to the last encounter of that - the ghost person - and again the fight is basically cheap and impossible. She/it paralyzes everyone, most of your party's health drops to 20% or so, and a few characters die in a matter of seconds. And I just have no idea what the hell I am supposed to do, or even what's going on. I honestly don't know or remember the mechanics for this game, but clearly a deep understanding of everything must be required to succeed. But it's so hard to know what all of the spells do, or what the mechanics do, etc. after these long breaks, but it wasn't ever exactly "easy" to get into in the first place. And when it comes to builds, I will admit, I have no idea what I'm doing. I could pick things that sound reasonable to me, but naturally it's wrong and experts on these forums would have done things very differently. It's a shame. I just wish there was a cole's notes guide that simplified everything, so you could be 80% effective without having to know 80% of the depth, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Even when I watch these "guides" on youtube, they are so technical and exhaustive, and they even assume so much from the viewer, that I just feel lost. The truth is, it's so much to take in that I think I must really be stupid and/or have gotten used to such casual games. And that saddens me. But this game is really hard to get into for these reasons, and it's frustrating. And then there's the story - I just had a conversation with Durance... and I have no idea what the hell he's talking about sometimes. And I find a lot of characters are like that, and I honestly could care less to spend the time to figure it out to get any enjoyment out of it. And if that's the case, I wonder why bother with it? So... I'm pretty much at the point where I am about to uninstall the game, which is a point I never thought I'd actually come to, especially for an award-winning RPG, and especially from a game made by Obsidian, a developer I quite like. But I guess I'm just not the target market for this game. I could spend the next 3 days really learning the mechanics and stuff, but I'm going to get nowhere with my game progress, and then my vacation will be over, and I won't be getting another go at it for quite awhile. Kind of sad that I've come to realization, and I just needed to vent. I hope not to make anyone angry, and in things are salvagable so that I could enjoy the game without dropping to loser difficulty mode, then maybe I'll give it a go again - because I do want to enjoy it actually - but it's just not working out

What is a good level 4 Talent to take? Maybe cautious attack?

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Weapon Weapon are best matched to their corresponding damage types (piercing, slashing, crushing) against the specific strengths and weakness of your opponent armor type. Personally, I like the estoc as it is essentially bypasses armor to a good degree. I am having trouble against Forest Lurkers. My Paladin does like 1-6 damage - so that can't be right. How do I match the weapon with the foe? I'll try the Estoc now too (EDIT: I don't have one, haha)

I am a bit overwhelming by all of the weapon types. I'm a Paladin, and so I am trying various weapons but the damage is pretty mediocre - still early in the game though. Are there any guides out there that talk about weapons?

I must say that if you buff the damage of the powers and just scale the HP of the monsters, the game actually would feel very similarly. Have you never played diablo 3? Despite all of the difficulties in the game, each one feels exactly the same if you are appropriately geared for it.

Sweet. I actually did go for the weapon and shield style earlier I am glad I don't have to respec him now!!! Thanks!

What is a good talent to pick at level 2?

Well, I think if I put mechanics on an NPC, then I would probably always take them along I think the Paladin may be a bit point starved for the first few levels. So I'd have to decide amongst the first few member that join your team.

In your opinion, what NPC is a good candidate to max mechanics?

My point was that I don't even know what the scrolls do, or if they are even worth using or not. I have no idea. Not everything built into a game is balanced or useful. It is very common - especially in a complex game like this - that certain things are valued higher than others. In my Dark Crystal example, let's say some skills give you 10 DC's or 50 DC's and that fiagamagig gives 1000. But what if everything you could make with the DC's are totally irrelevant to the game? Yes, you are making the "maximum crystals" - that is a fact about those choices - but that doesn't mean you're winning at the game or that it was a good decision to get them. There was no judgement. Another example: You have a potion that can restore all of your health. It's the best potion in the game. Other potions in our hypothetical game only restore 10% or 25% tops. But in this game, you can increase your defence so high that you never take damage - making all of the potions worthless. You see, everything is related. And to someone who doesn't know what the consequences are to those relationships, it is very difficult to know just how good or bad something is by maxing it - especially with such limited skill points. I do understand the points about lore and what-not. And I thank you for that. But my point was that without an actual judgement call and just stating something that the game gives you, it pretty much means nothing to a new player who does not know what the consequences of these decisions actually are within the game. "Picking the white faeries gives you the most glitter." But what does that mean? Is glitter useful? So it's important to get the most glitter? What if it wasn't useful, but you spent a lot of resources getting it anyway at the cost of other useful things, like sparkles? This is what I mean.

If your pally is going for maxed lore (lvl 10) Go for either Artist or Autocracy instead. The +2 lore they give saves you more points in the long run. Choose your region and background, and go back to edit your stats. As long as you are not going to for base stats that break 18, background will not matter much. I don't even know if I was going for max lore. I'm not "going for" anything, as I have no idea what the values actually impact. I mean, if you only needed 6 lore to get all of the relevant dialogue options, then going for max lore would be nonsensical to do, but if you needed max lore to experience a lot of cool differences in the game that give some unique benefits, then maybe it is worth doing. The thing is, I have no idea. I actually want people to sort of tell me. I guess what I'm saying is that I really have no concept of the consequences of my decisions. And unfortunately, I am very busy these days - I'm older and work a lot - so I don't have a lot of time to experiment and learn slowly what other people already know. I really need to rely on other people's experience for information. For this point in time, max lore (or rather lvl 10 lore) enables you to cast the highest level scrolls. Thats one reason to "max" it. Okay... but I don't even know if those higher level scrolls are worth using. You see what I'm getting at? I mean, I can tell you choosing the figamagig will enable you to get 1 million dark crystals by the end of the game - but if there are no good uses for the dark crystals, then it's a waste of time to pick the figamagig. Does that make sense? I have no idea what the consequences are.

If your pally is going for maxed lore (lvl 10) Go for either Artist or Autocracy instead. The +2 lore they give saves you more points in the long run. Choose your region and background, and go back to edit your stats. As long as you are not going to for base stats that break 18, background will not matter much. I don't even know if I was going for max lore. I'm not "going for" anything, as I have no idea what the values actually impact. I mean, if you only needed 6 lore to get all of the relevant dialogue options, then going for max lore would be nonsensical to do, but if you needed max lore to experience a lot of cool differences in the game that give some unique benefits, then maybe it is worth doing. The thing is, I have no idea. I actually want people to sort of tell me. I guess what I'm saying is that I really have no concept of the consequences of my decisions. And unfortunately, I am very busy these days - I'm older and work a lot - so I don't have a lot of time to experiment and learn slowly what other people already know. I really need to rely on other people's experience for information.

Is there a stat distribution that would be better than the one I listed above? I am definitely not claiming any kind of authority with these numbers - it was just what I was messing around with And actually, even if I had the option to have a beard, I'm pretty sure I would not select it - haha. Especially on my female character! I will definitely pick that culture for the bigger armor - thanks for the tip! And I will get Lay on Hands if it's good. I like healing anyway, and I'm glad that it's a reasonably powerful ability. I remember it was not so hot in Baldur's Gate.

I have read some posts from people, and there's a lot of information that seems disjointed in a lot of places. Moreover, there seems to be more than 1 way to build a paladin, and without having much context or knowledge about the minute differences between them, I am a bit lost actually. I guess the way you distribute stat points matters a great deal depending on what "end game" you're going for, but I just don't have that kind of long-term vision, or knowledge of what would work best for me right now. Let's say I want to make a tank - because I get a sense that other party members can be spec'd more for damage anyway. And this seems to be alignment with dialog options. I think going with the Shieldbearer Order makes a good deal of sense - it would fit nicely with the Role-Playing dialogue options I would likely find myself picking. From there, there are some choices - Lay on Hands or Flames of Devotion? They seem like such competing abilities, that I am not sure if you will have points to get both, or if this is the first major decision point. Flames of Devotion seems like a good offensive skill - not so much for the burn (I have no idea if that effect is marginal or relevant for most encounters), but the +20 accuracy seems huge. I have no idea if 56 Endurance is good for Lay on Hands, and I'm not sure how this skill looks throughout the game. For stats, I have no idea. I was toying around with Might: 14 Con: 14 Dex: 10 Perception: 10 Int: 13 Resolve: 16 That distribution is for a Pale Elf - the racial ability seemed like it could be okay for a Tank, but I have no idea what is best. I guess Going with Old Vaila to get the Int to 14 as well would have been my next pick. I have no idea how Culture affects things. For background, mercenary seems okay - Athletics seems like a good skill for a Paladin and Lore can help with dialogue options But really, I have no idea what I'm doing, and no clue how to even go from here.

That's actually super helpful! It gives me things to search on for sure! I will read both of those threads and then search up stuff written by our resident Pally expert ) Thanks so much Nobear!

I thought something similar. As someone who doesn't actually know if things changed or didn't change for each class with the patch, there is no way for us to know if the guide is irrelevant or not.... and so the base assumption is that it probably is irrelevant and incorrect now.

Hi everyone, I have tonight until Monday night to play the game. I was thinking of starting over, and someone had said that a Paladin character is a great character to make as your main because it aligns well with the story and dialogue options - and that actually is kind of important to me. What is a good build for such a character? Thanks! Katie

So Cipher should have 18 in INT, DEX and PER and 10 in all of the stats and 3 in Res?

I must admit, I am much better at fashion and my current job than video games these days, lol. I used to be one of those powergamers that loved to figure out how the game's worked. I wrote a bunch of FAQs on a lot of RPGs. And someone crafty enough might be able to figure out which ones were mime, lol. I must admit, these games are hard to get into when you don't have the time. It is the kind of game that you need to breathe with and play at a slow pace, over 150-200 hours to both enjoy and explore the content but also explore the mechanics for oneself. Now, I just want to rely on the hard work of gamers who have more time than I do (I hope that's okay). I did contribute back in the day for what it's worth Thanks Boeroer for all of the help! I'm going to try these suggestions tonight and next weekend I didn't end up getting a chance to play today. I was too busy running errands, picking up my jeans at the tailors (who did an amazing job hemming them!). So sad Katie for not being able to play. But the jeans look hot though! lol http://i.imgur.com/xlaY2d6.jpg

1 point in Per? What do you mean exactly? Your lowest base attribute score is 3 (2 for certain races, 4 for others). Do you mean 1 above dumped, or 1 above average (11)? And are you sure this video was for version 2.0+? Because Per went from being a dump stat for ciphers to being a stat most players max on a cipher. Accuracy is good for anybody, but for a cipher in particular it's helpful so that your CC (e.g. Mental Binding) will more often land (even against tough bosses), and more often crit rather than hit or graze, so it'll last much longer on average. If you're really playing on Normal, which you can check in the options menu, you could get by with just average Per even if it's not optimal. In PoTD, enemy stats are higher, including defenses, so accuracy is even more important for PoTD than for the lower difficulties. I mean 8 points into Might (18), 8 points into Int (18) and 1 point into Per (11). The rest are 10. He seemed to think that Per was less important, and he had 1 version that maxed it also at the cost of Res. The video had 19 points in Might instead of that 1 point of Per, BUT, I had selected the wrong race and/or background when I created my game. So I couldn't follow his guide exactly. The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4UqltmSKaEeCbgMY7nx2U0kngJ77wwhX If these videos are wrong, then this was my fear - wasting time watching stuff that takes away from gameplay - and the worst thing is, it was just wrong information. Thanks for the heads up! Katie

I was thinking about this, but that probably means by the time Monday comes, my new save will probably be earlier than my current one. This is definitely a game you need to do all at once. I wish I had the time to just play games like I did when I was growing up, playing BG2 and such. I even wrote guides for those games, as well as IWD2. But that was then.

Thanks so much NoBear for the great response! I am not sure about the patch version, but my save is probably from June. You see, I pre-ordered the game and then never actually played until June-ish. I then got into the main city and had to stop. So the game has been put on hold for many months. I am probably just playing on Normal difficulty level. I did play a bit today with the AI turned on, and you're right - I did not like it. I don't mind casting things by hand - that is part of the fun. Right now, my Cipher has more points into Might and Int with 1 point in Per. I dunno if that's right - it's what someone on YouTube said to do. Katie

I'm level 5, and I just completed act 1. I didn't play this game for a very long time - I'm sort of a career woman and I work a ton of hours. But... I have some time to play. I noticed that my party is spec'd very badly now due to all of the patches. Is there any place that I can look at a glance on respecing advice? I don't want to spend 12 hours reading about stuff, or sifting through 1-hour long videos about each class. I realize that's important for these kind of games, but if I did that, I'd have to go back to work on Monday and I wouldn't play at all - then I'd forget everything I learned anyway by the time I got the next chance to play. So I'm more looking for a very brief guide on what skills are worth using, stats that are important, weapons that are good fits, etc. Like a cole's notes type of thing. My main character is a Cipher.

Oh wow, the respec option is such a welcome change! I'm so happy they implemented this!!! Thanks so much for your response! So now I just have to figure out who I may need to respec based on the changes.