mazeltov

Funny story. I was trying to rush Rekke early in a playthrough, and couldn't find the flotsam in the ocean at its usual location. Turns out there has to be a crew member of your ship in some slot to trigger the flotsam to appear (only had the imp navigator at the time, and that apparently isn't good enough). Hired a random crew member for a deckhand slot, and Rekke's flotsam appeared normally.

I'd say the occurrence of mental stat checks in dialogues is roughly: Per - high, Int - medium, Res - low. Gear bonuses stacking now makes it easier to buff up low scores. Just going by gear I stumbled across while playing, there are several +2 Int helms, at least one +2 Int amulet, and a +1 Int ring. Boots of Res +2. Per cloak and ring +1 each. Foods +2 . Drugs (e.g. Ripple Sponge, Svef) can give large bonuses, especially with high Alchemy. Pet +1. I was so paranoid about this issue that my first character had 18 in all mental scores, with the intention of hitting 20s relatively quickly through buffs (someone had spooked me with talk of multiple DC 20 checks before release). Just so happens this approach meshes very well with a Paladin tank, just like in PoE 1.

Wouldn't classify Maia's romance as 'hot.' She seemed more enthusiastic about oppressing the local yokels and talking about her pets than getting busy with the protagonist.

They're just covering the bases. Ultimately player weapon choice comes down to what the good uniques are, not which modals are marginally better or which weapon gets +5 Acc. Hey, at least a relevant weapon type for the setting like the Arquebus got a decent modal and decent unique. I consider that a stroke of luck. Incidentally the soulbound weapon my tank was using got taken away by a quest, and when I stuck another weapon type on her her performance basically stayed the same. Part of that was due to the fact that weapons hardly matter for tanks, but another part was due to the fact that quality upgrades, gear amps, and abilities matter a lot more to performance than any inherent properties of the weapons characters use. Certain edge case builds excepted, of course.

Completed PotD with Eder, Maia, Tekehu, and Shorty. Did a number of optional bosses but not all of them. Eder - Swashbuckler. Heaviest armor, transitioning to DoC breastplate when able. Aggressive auto attack. Dual damage weapon type. Set up AI to always have Disciplined Strikes up and to use Gouging Strike on the nearest target. By the time he runs out of Guile fights will be almost over and he will AA the rest of the mobs down. May wish to manually target spellcasters in some fights. Maia - Pure Ranger. Her signature armor, upgraded. Aggressive AA on her and Ishiza. Rifle or other powerful long range weapon. Set up AI to cast Marked for the Hunt on enemy >90% Health, prioritizing lowest Pierce armor, then to spam Accurate Wounding Shot, prioritizing Marked enemy. May wish to manually target spellcasters in some fights. Tekehu - Pure Druid. Upgraded Leather. Passive AA. Set AI to cast foe only AoE attack spells (e.g. Chill Fog) on enemies targeting anyone in melee, prioritzing greatest # of enemies. Manually move behind friendly frontline at the start of combat and cast Returning/Relentless Storm with several enemies in range, AI package handles the rest. Can set up Moonwell to be cast on greatest # of Bloodied allies, if you get attrited often. Shorty - Pure Cleric (lol first playthrough). Upgraded Leather. Passive AA. Set AI to cast .5 second healing spells on Bloodied allies, prioritizing lowest Health. Manually cast Suppress Affliction as needed. Manually cast Devotions on a mixture of yours and the enemy's frontline shortly after combat begins. Personally I focus on tankiness and healing redundancy, so having AoE regen from Endurance aura and Lethandria's shield (sp), in addition to Constant Recovery and three healers made most combats smooth sailing.

My favorite Priest spells are from PL 1: quick heal and suppress affliction. If I could trade all 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th level spell slots for more 1st level usages, that would be great (though 2/fight was always enough). In theory you could make a Burn damage style Priest like in PoE 1. Is it optimal? No, but optimization isn't needed to easily clear content and play fun builds.

Nah. Pure ranger Maia blew the rest of my PotD team out of water for dps over the playthrough. 100% piercing damage from a rifle the entire time. Eder came in second at 45k with his corroding paralyzing morningstar (crush/pierce is a great damage profile).

There is a surrender option. The enemy captain demands X amount of your supplies.

Nearing the end of my PotD run, I don't remember switching weapons in the heat of combat even once. The idea was there, to have everyone with a backup ranged weapon in the off slot, in case a situation came up where that was needed. But that situation never came. So, I think in my second run I'll just put torches in my party's secondary slots and mass switch to them to better explore this game's gorgeous and truly atmospheric dungeons/dark zones.

Along with Empower and a dozen other things. Summons are there to cheese solo runs, they are complete overkill in a party situation.

Neither because one is bugged and for the other you have to let Shorty succumb to the pull of the dark side.

15% chance to Hit (roll 86 or above on a d100), the rest is made up of Graze and Miss chance.

Marofeto Liano, on the northwestern side. My understanding is that one of his dialogue options leads to an amulet (and no training), the other opens up skill training.

>Bugsidian >testing Pick one. No but seriously, now they can make a major balance overhaul another selling point for the forthcoming DLC. Twofer!

Tarn's - Uto's Gunsmithy, Neketaka Beza's - Vailian corpse, Poko Kahara Ruins (sp) Grave Calling - Crookspur shore merchant

At some point while playing BG2 I realized that instead of utilizing the multitude of options my large party gave me every encounter, the most efficient and straightforward way to clear stuff was to stack a bunch of strong enchanted gear on a high strength fighter and use the rest of the party as buffbots to empower this individual. Improved haste + various CC immunity spells trivializes most content in the base game, from golems to beholders to archmages to dragons. In PoE 1/2 it feels different because combats often involve huge packs of enemies, so AoE becomes king. Ekera, Tekehu has carried more fights than any other party member just by casting Returning/Relentless Storm at the start of combat.

A number of abilities key off the day/night cycle. Like a shield with an enchantment to double its regen aura at night, or weapons that deal bonus Burn damage during the day, and bonus Freeze damage at night.

Medium shield? I thought the one at the Dark Cupboard looked interesting. -Crit Damage taken and regeneration aura. Not sure about its enchants, though.

I tried it out and the note system supports standard copy/paste functions (e.g. ctrl-c, ctrl-v). I was able to get the contents of one note to paste into a journal entry of another character, and even a text document outside the game. One strategy might be to create notes for categories of things, then edit each note to add another entry to that running list. Then copy the notes individually to another character or whatever. *Treasure Chests *Bounty Locations *Power Items *Key Dialogue Checks *Creature Weaknesses *My OP Build etc.

Initial thoughts from playing up to level 9 on PotD, with suggestions aimed only at that difficulty: Make Empower only restore class resources, not enable busted ability usages. Possibly have the use of Empower apply an Injury as another poster mentioned, giving your party an edge in one combat, but straining their ability to push farther that rest period. Bring back camping supplies, limit them to being purchased in ports/towns, and possibly allow a limited number to be stored on your ship (insert something about cargo space upgrades here). Lower casting times on most spells that have a 4.5 or 3 second casting time. Very few spells justify glacially slow cast and recovery. A handful of very powerful ones (e.g. Devotions, Moonwell) should stay slow cast, but if a spell has both a mediocre effect and long action times, as many do, it gets instantly passed over without a second thought. This could make enemy casters more dangerous as well. Make sure enemies not only continue to scale Penetration, but most of them should probably be using dual damage weapon types (including monster natural weapons), to make it harder for players to get tanky versus a wide spectrum of attacks. Stuff like Scepters, Morningstars, Warhammers, and whatnot. Maybe add an additional elemental weakness to armor (2 total) on PotD. Tone down consumables of all kinds, and their scaling. Starting to see absurd figures at just 7 Alchemy. Again, initial thoughts. Not sure how feasible all of them are or whether they will hold up through a more complete playthrough of the game.

Handsome fellow. Does he have the Bluff/Diplomacy package to lay on some thick roguish charm? I was thinking about a pistol/sabre buccaneer build for a future chaotic neutral playthrough. I'm sure half the other players are thinking about doing that build too, but it's just too darn thematic to resist. There's even a pistol with melee weapon synergy.

It's the Bugsidian way: release a flawed gem and then polish it for a few years while working on the next title. Anyone who's seen this show before realizes that the final picture of 'balance' the devs hit upon won't be reached for a year if not longer, and certainly long after all the extra content has been released and bugfixed.

Just started tooling around Neketaka and picked up plate armor for my front liners. Really enjoying the game so far!

Deadfire background is checked quite often.

Aloth (Berathian Priest Robes [Raedric's Keep]) Eder (Exceptional Full Plate [Crucible Knights HQ]) Durance (Berathian Priest Robes) Sagani (Berathian Priest Robes) Grieving mother (Berathian Priest Robes) Is how I do it, increasing the base properties through the enchanting system. Then again, I usually don't hunt down uniques for particular builds/characters.