mazeltov

*enemy spams Empowered infinite proc combos on your party* *enemy spams summons at every opportunity* The horror. The horror.

My general rule was heavy for tanks, up-armored medium for tanky DPS, and light (typically up-armored Leather) for casters and ranged. It's not worth it to run naked/robes and subject back liners to +30% damage for little gain. I don't use squishy melee as a matter of principle: even Ydwin as a Cipher/Rogue will get Devil of Caroc breastplate or similar.

One big question is: why would Gaun go rogue and try to bring down the system not once, but twice? Was dismantling the system has was designed to manage part of his programming? Do the gods have some sort of self-awareness beyond their prescribed roles (i.e. do they learn or "evolve")? Did some ancient Engwithan engineer of the "Pantheon Project" have second thoughts about the wisdom of their enterprise, and set a killswitch to trigger in Eothas at some future time, or under certain conditions?

Party Assist pools the points from all assistors (i.e the characters not actively making the check). For dialogues, the MC usually makes checks assisted by the other party members, so the strategy I'm using for a second playthrough is to pick four or so main skills to focus on in dialogues and have each party member bump one of those skills up to 11 or so by the mid game, yielding +5 PA to the MC in dialogues. Then I spread the MC's points around among the chosen skills. There are lots of ways to manipulate individual checks with gear, resting bonuses, pets, etc. Plus training for each skill, all of which goes onto the MC. Another strategy is to dip into your character bench and level additional dialogue passives on them, with the intention of subbing them in during key conversations. A little gamey, but whatever.

Don't remember where I got it in game. giveitem figurine_jade_tiger Seems to have really nice combat stats too.

His fighting style struck me as fundamentally defensive, so I'd use Fighter or Fighter/Barb with stuff like Vigorous Defense and Guardian Stance. Barb has some decent tanking talents, and there was that weird animalistic trance/state that Dman sometimes went into. There's always Paladin, but this is Drizzt. There is a figurine that summons an Elder Tiger, as an alternative to using a Ranger companion.

No party wipe, but the closest we came was a surprise splitting slime fight shortly after arriving in Nekkytokker. The only fight where Empower was used. There was one game over though, when my main walked into a small dungeon room with 3 Injury ping pillars. Instagib.

Yes! It scales with PL, Might, Practiced Healer perk, etc. in addition to having a very high base regen rate and +1 Armor rating to boot. I combined it with the regen aura from Lethandria's shield on my pally tank. You could probably go all in on regen with Chanter healing aura and other stuff all stacking together.

As the events of the game unfolded I often wondered about this pre-Wheel state; about the pre-Engwithan paradigm with regard to souls. If there is a natural order independent of the Wheel that works well, it hardly matters which decision or which faction the Watcher chooses in game. Eothas only ends up hurting the gods. But if destroying the Wheel has catastrophic consequences for kith that only dedicated activity by kith can fix or mitigate, the choice of which faction to give privileged access to Ukaizo becomes much more urgent, keeping in mind that the player/Watcher has very incomplete information going into the endgame sequence.

With the dialogue passives one strategy would be to either push one to 10 or so (on your main, modified), or ignore it completely, since a check around 5 or 6 won't get you far past the second half of the game. There are lots of Intimidate checks, probably way more than the bunch I saw since I didn't do the crime/pirate/slaver quest lines. It's certainly an alternative to Diplomacy for resolving many situations, though it will jack up your Aggressive Disposition score (probably Cruel too), though, if that matters.

A key, key point. Far more important than which faction achieves political/military supremacy and by what means. My Watcher ended up not throwing her weight behind any of the factions and sailing to Ukaizo alone to try and settle the Wheel crisis. From the perspective of not really knowing the ramifications of Gaun's actions at the Wheel before he takes them, the decision of which faction to back with regard to the Wheel crisis is an agonizing one. My feeling is that the VTC (and back of them, other scientists and researchers in the more liberal Vailian Republics) has the best chance of using Ukaizo/luminous adra as a springboard to not only figure out the Wheel, but potentially to rediscover all manner of Engwithan knowledge or technology that could lead to a Renaissance or even a golden age.

Yes the old empires: Aedyr, Vailia and Ruatai. It makes sense that the colonial civs have the most advanced naval tech, and that the farthest frontier regions have low populations, since those lands don't support large scale agriculture.

I'd probably do Devoted/Soulblade for a good mix of tanky frontline DPS and magical combat tricks. Most of Geralt's magical abilities are fast tricks and "mini" spells and such after all, rather than full blown spellcasting. And it feels right to have a witcher's swordplay directly empower his magic, like Ciphers do by gaining Focus with weapons. Would probably look into the Devil of Caroc breastplate medium armor from Neketaka as well (PoE 1 history has to be set a certain way).

It's refreshing to have a sort of naval world rather than one dominated by a supercontinent, like Faerun or Tamriel. That said travel must be relatively quick and easy between the different cultural areas in order for all regional options to be available for character creation in both the Eastern Reach and Deadfire. Naval technology is pretty advanced in the setting, and forces like weather magic, geomancy, and watershaping should make travel even more efficient.

Yep. Feel like that's the right solution.

There are obviously some conditionals at work that cause the interaction I mentioned. But it's out there now in case anyone else runs into the issue and gets perplexed.

Weeeeeelp. All playthroughs on hold until Balance Man finishes getting his act together. Welcome news all around!

Not for nothing, but if you try to recruit Tek with Rekke in the party Rekke spits out a gibberish line and Tek doesn't get added to the party. Works normally if Rekke isn't in the party at the time.

The only other place I've seen her is standing in the street about halfway between the VTC HQ and the docks.

I suppose Maia's damage was not 100% Piercing like I claimed in that thread, if a portion of it was Raw damage tacked on by Wounding Shot, and some Burn added by the unique rifle during the last quarter of the game. Also, not sure if Ishiza's damage gets added to Maia's total or not.

FWIW, the "Dark Times" premade history gives the pieces of both swords.

You mean without getting caught? Easiest way is the use the key from the back of his shop, hide in the southeast corner while he checks the chest, then creep up the right side as he moves back, until about 5 ft away. Unlock and loot, using normal walk speed and judicious pausing. Just did it with 1 Stealth Ydwin.

That first rush of exploration is great. Better than ripple sponge. Eventually it wears off, but boy is it fun while it lasts and there is still fresh content to be wowed by. And there are many wow moments in this game.

Yeah. There are 3 main quests: Hasongo, Magran's Teeth, and the final zone. Reroll on PotD and do Hasongo at lvl 6, Magran's Teeth at 9 and (final zone) at 11 or 12.

No, the game was rushed out the door without balance passes is all. If you're level 12 things only get easier from here. Level scaling won't help much, the only thing you can really do is pile on self restrictions like avoiding level ups, avoiding consumables, avoiding Empowering, summons, and broken combos etc. Alternatively you could check back in 9 months or so after the DLC has been released and had a couple balance passes.