mazeltov

Of a piece with Afflictions being too strong in general. For all the flak Balance Man got for supposedly hating Wizards, nerfing them etc., it sure is easy to trivialize most of the combat by using their CC judiciously.

Every class in the game has spells, by investing in the Lore skill and/or items of Spell Holding. Edit: Spell Binding, w/e.

- brilliant - touches my soul - classic - magnificent - perfectly synchronised Sure is euphoric in here. Still better than Codexian edge and overplayed cynicism, though.

Crits give a large bonus to Interrupt rolls, so Wood Elves' +5 ranged Accuracy and Orlans' Hit-to-Crit chance would help. Both of those races also have higher starting Perception caps. For abilities, the lvl 1 Wiz spell Thrust of Tattered Veils is interesting in that it is fast cast and features a 1s Interrupt rating, equivalent to a morningstar.

Good advice for the novice. Upboated.

They get the baseline F&C bonuses: +5 Deflection, +10 to the other Defenses. These bonuses remain stagnant, and do not increase or decrease with Reputations the way a PC Paladin's would.

First playthrough on PotD? With story companions? Sounds like a fun time. For maximum dialogue options, I'd drop Dex (and a tad of Mig) in favor of Int. Not much use for Dex on a tank. Int also synergizes with Pally support stuff.

So Deadlands: Eora Edition? Technology would have to advance a bit to go from early pistols to six shooters. Personally, I want to explore the Aedyr Empire in greater depth. My hopes aren't high, though, having a history of shattered dreams from Bioware's avoidance of Tevinter in every DA expansion. "Here's a ruin, here's a statue." Bioware is just a tease. These large, cosmopolitan empires are the most interesting thing for me. What a treat it was to actually visit the Imperial City/province in TES: Oblivion! Edit: Suppose I should add that I was grateful for the opportunity to visit Orlais, and some very intriguing locations within Orlais, during DA:I. That said Tevinter beats Orlais by a cool factor of at least 4.

Yes, as I mentioned near the start of the thread, an immediate consequence of the OP's change would be that tanks would put down their shields and pick up greatswords, making up the Defense loss in other ways. If the most upboated suggestion was taken, to overhaul combat AI with respect to Engagement mechanics, adding tons of new conditions and checks and whatnot for the entire player party, we're getting far away from the "simple" fix promised by the thread title.

Re: no pausing tank playthrough. Can I do it on slow mode? I could probably do it on slow mode!

Huh. Kana could have been replaced with an autoturret on a tripod in my playthrough, and I wouldn't have known the difference. Talk about low maintenance. Probably used ten invocations over the course of 80 hours, most from accidentally glancing at his Phrase meter. Priests are wonderful, of course, but that's mostly due to the fact that a handful of their spells are too good, greatly overshadowing the rest of the support options in the game, including Paladin's, which are piecemeal by comparison. Unlimited rest exacerbates the problem even more. "How about +20 Accuracy and some Might for my party and -20 Accuracy and some Might for their party, for the whole fight, with the cast of a single spell?" "Sounds balanced."

Why don't I go ahead and have the stroke now? Players would really have to step up their game with no pausing. Seems acceptable, since I'm not doing Trial of Iron on these playthroughs.

Yeah it's about time to start brainstorming novelty playthroughs, though I hesitate to fully commit to any until at least the 1.05 balance patch. -- The Interrupters, AKA the "Imma Let You Finish" build: Several characters with very high Perception, one or more ways to decrease enemy Concentration, and ideally, ways to deliver steady AoE attacks to cause mass Interrupts. Mine has a core of three Blast Wizards. Tanky Flank: Six tanks at the same time, man. Three Fighters with weapon & buckler, for adequate protection while still delivering steady damage and tanking. Three Paladins, each of a different order, in plate with 2H'ers, each with a different Aura running, flanking the Fighters and gibbing enemies to activate on-kill Pally support abilities. Elven Warband: Typical "six of one race" playthrough. Rather balanced party, green/brown color palette, elven themed classes. Mix of Wood Elves, Pale Elves. Good for roleplaying. Maybe they were sent to investigate Waidwen's Legacy. And of course, all playthroughs on PotD using up to seventeen voluntary restrictions intended to tone down the inherent poor balance and cheesability that PoE is rife with.

They probably should, especially high Endurance enemies who could soak the Disengagement damage even if it was significant. That said, this sort of change would lead directly from the current full tank meta to a tanky DPS meta, where enemies could end up killing themselves even faster through Disengagement. Things would have went very badly for monsters trying to soak Disengagement attacks from my Eder wielding a +12 Accuracy greatsword that Prones-on-Crit. A couple minor shifts in buffing strategy would be needed to make up for the Deflection and Reflex loss from not using shields. I do think some monsters should use the "bonus Defense vs Disengagement attacks" mechanic, and get special flanking logic to ignore Engagement in some cases. Pack swarmers like Darguls, for example.

3 - Ten is the most you need in a skill, except for Mechanics, for a couple of level 12 traps/locks. 4 - A few, but they tend to involve "evil" quest resolutions, if that matters to you. 6 - Yes, a few levels later. 8 - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76463-priest-spell-ratings/ Priest 9 - There is no companion Rogue to meet. Has to be the main character or created at a tavern. 10 - Don't take Field Triage or Wound Binding, just rest at an inn or camp.

Good question. Tried them earlier and Fatigue level didn't seem to drop (or if it did, the debuff symbol was still there). Another one for the bug pile, probably. Re: Expert Mode, no spell radius. Woof. That's a tough one. I actually have a character currently using Expert Mode, but I'm so afraid of friendly fire that I only use Foe AoE spells.

For anyone trying the rest restriction from post #3, another way to do it would be to keep a tally of Camping Supplies looted/found as "rest tokens." These could be spent like a currency to rest anywhere. This allows the player to make use of inn rest bonuses, for example. The overall goal of limiting total rests to the number of Camping Supplies spawned in world containers is maintained. Besides making Athletics, Field Triage, and Wound Binding valuable, this challenge would also make things like Goldrot Chew valuable, as a way to stave off Fatigue between rests.

Really appreciate this work. Thank you.

It truly did seem to us that a majority of encounters, which is an even higher standard than "many battles," required little input from our side at all as far as selectin' and targetin' the abilities o' the various classes, many o' which we continued to use not by necessity, but by ingrained habit formed over time. We used Hobbling Strike (one of the two non-situational activated abilities available to our Rogue), we used Knockdown on an engaged foe, we caused an opponent to stand still, but for the most part such actions were not found to be over impactful to the ultimate outcome o' the encounters. Were exceptions. Much is made o' the fact that some Paladin support options are situational. Such is typical the nature o' support, to be a salvation in times of dire need, though some types of buffs are more universal in constant desirability than others. Accuracy and Defenses, for example, which a Paladin may increase either as part of an activated ability (the likes o' "Lay on Hands"), or as part o' a concerted effort to provide such buffs through killing blows. One type o' Paladin can even Frighten foes upon a killing blow, which affliction is almost always beneficial to apply when possible. Such cannot be achieved when playing on autopilot, though. Or rather it can be achieved, but not with the consistency most o' the gaming community would expect and demand. We further continue to be skeptic o' the 15 seconds figure as a useful rhetorical device. Does not align with our experience. To reiter... to say again, we don't compare the boringness o' playing another low-maintenance class to a low-maintenance Paladin. We compare it to playing a Paladin controlled with an eye toward micromanagement and attentive use o' the full range o' personal and party resources at his or her disposal.

Paladins can be played as a low-maintenance class, and be very effective when played that way. That point was never in dispute. What was disputed was an erroneous attempt to portray them as only effective as low maintenance auto attackers and part-time buffbots, with support abilities that rarely come into play. Such is not the case. We is of the opinion that on-kill abilities were dismissed out of hand by a sizable percentage o' the gaming population, on account o' being "too hard," "too microintensive," "out of our control," "taking 15 seconds," or other dubious assumptions, many on display in the current thread. Moreover, in our experience every class "borders on approaching auto-pilot for many battles," which is a problem with the game in an overall sense, not with Paladin as such. We struggle to search our mind for a class more passive, boring, and low-maintenance than the stereotypical PoE Fighter tank. Paladin support, especially when actively engaged and off autopilot, seems to us a veritable whirl of activity in comparison.

If battles frequently don't involve the need for healing, cleansing, reviving, Defenses, or Accuracy, then Paladin support abilities will not have much to contribute to most battles. Because those are the effects Paladin support abilities, both passive and active, provide. However, we found those benefits to be worth our Paladin's company. We also observed during the course of our gameplay that Durance, with his plethora of versatile support spells, frequently had no cause to use them.

As far as the main thrust is that Rogues are generally easier to play and easier to realize the potential of than Paladins, we are in agreement. This implies that to the extent a killing blow using Paladin is desired, more, and more effective, micromanagement has to be done. It is more work, and probably for not much more payoff, depending on how badly your party composition needs the extra healing, or Defense augmentation, etc.. That said, a micromanagement heavy style is available for Paladin players who are able and willing to use it.

"paladins is most effective when using killing blows, we must needs always be aware o' what enemies is unhealthy enough to make them attractive targets o' opportunity. move 'round the battlefield to get the right target takes some consideration." All non-caster classes have few active abilities, of which this few a significant portion is situational. Those abilities also tend to be usable more frequently, on an encounter-by-encounter basis, than the per-rest spells of versatile casters. At least, that was the presumed intention behind limiting spells to per rest. Is a quirk of poor implementation that caster spells are effectively per encounter, if the user is so inclined. There do exist certain snowflake classes which possess alternative methods o' action economy, but they is in the distinct minority.

People will make up their own minds about what constitutes boring gameplay, but I can say that my (tank) Paladin had a wider range of active abilities to use, and the ones available took more thought to use, than the Rogue I also had along with the party. Yet I don't observe the same level of derriere distress in this subforum about Rogue being a boring class with one or two core actives and a couple of other situational ones. "Rogues is boring." "Priests is boring ('cause out of 50 versatile spells we uses a standard rotation of five or six of them)." "Chanters is boring ('cause we uses Ila Knocked Her Arrow constant, and summon invocation after 20 seconds)." And so on. This line of thought isn't productive. Paladins can be played in more or less boring ways, according to player taste. Stationary tanks with a self heal, or frenetic, roaming, Zealous Charging, estoc wielding, scroll-using, last-hitting supporters and damage dealers all in one. Or some combination. Potential is there, but different players take advantage of that potential to different degrees. Is an elementary point.

http://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-tabletop-rpg-and-card-game-in-the-works/ Card game, tabletop, books.