Daemonjax

It would have been a more interesting difficulty layer than just higher numbers (potd).

It's written that way because there's a hidden code inside. I don't want to spoil it for you, so I'll just leave it at that.

Yeah, +50% exp requirement is feeling about right to me so far as well. It makes rushing through caed nua significantly harder... dropped my win ratio for some of the harder battles to like 33%, so I reloaded a previous save and I'm doing some side-quests first ::shock:: -- WHICH IS HOW IT SHOULD BE. Great news, happy to see it's making such a huge difference. I'll probably try it out myself. Are you playing on Hard or POTD? Hard. I don't feel like potd is balanced for normal people like me. I usually don't play difficulty modes that just increase the numbers.

Here's mine for +50% exp req if using IE mod 4.10 (windows): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32777109/Games/Pillars%20of%20Eternity/Assembly-CSharp.dll

Fixed that for you. A class feature that makes you consider shooting your monk in the head as combat starts may require closer inspection. My recommended fix: Monks start combat with X number of wounds, depending on how much health they lost so far (since last rest, of course). X wounds per flat amount of health would work better than a percentage because it would add incentive for putting points in constitution and would inherently scale as the monk leveled. Ditch the endurance to wounds mechanic entirely or lessen its importance. So, when everyone else wants to rest, the monk is actually at its most powerful. It would be interesting. More interesting than what we got, anyways.

Yeah, +50% exp requirement is feeling about right to me so far as well. It makes rushing through caed nua significantly harder... dropped my win ratio for some of the harder battles to like 33%, so I reloaded a previous save and I'm doing some side-quests first ::shock:: -- WHICH IS HOW IT SHOULD BE.

The bug is caused by how all secondary damage is calculated: It's reducing the 10% bonus shock damage using 25% of the target's shock DR instead of just 10% of its shock DR. On the flip side, the bug should work to the advantage of abilities that give more than 25% of secondary damage. Same thing happens with torches, which is +10% burn damage -- the damage is still reduced by 1/4 DR instead of 1/10, making torches garbage weapons. Maybe calling it a bug is being too generous. It just looks more like a coding mistake.

I just use the portraits to select characters. I have to try that! EDIT: I don't like it because it affects all movement, not just in combat. But it's a valid option, so thanks anyways.

They have spider heads for faces. That alone is good enough to kill it without asking questions. I have a fear of being bit by spiders IRL, which causes me to kill them on sight... I guess it translates to spidery things in games, too.

For me, that may as well not even be on the cipher spell list since the nerf. Not that I care, since I could just mod the damage back to what it was if I really wanted to.

True, except it's closer to 2.25% in practice due to the animation transition delays.

Mental binding is pretty great. Anytime I think about using anything else, I have to compare it to just using mental binding. That being said, sometimes I do end up casting something else.

So I decided to test lash myself using a torch (burning lash: +10% burn damage) against the wolves in the tutorial (those poor wolves!): 11.9 - 4 = 7.9 (weapon damage) + 0.2 (burn) ==> 8.1 (total) The only formula I can come up with to explain .2 burn damage is: 11.9 * .10 = 1.19 - (4 * .25) = .19 (rounded for the gui to .2) So it's: (weaponDamageBeforeDR * secondaryDamagePercentage) - (targetDR / 4) Wolves have no special resistance to fire, so it probably uses whatever its fire DR is (in this case it's 4 for every damage type). This matches what Elerond observed: (31.8 * .25) - (11 / 4) = 7.95 - 2.75 = 5.2 Out of all the possible ways they could calculate it, I like this way the best -- except for the fact it subtracts 1/4 of the target's DR even though lash only does 10% of weapon damage. This may have unintended consequences, besides just making torches a garbage weapon. It was probably done differently in other versions. EDIT: I see that Temek said the same thing.

I like moon for monks and fire for barbarians. Wood elf for most other things.

I agree, and here's another thing: There is no such thing as cheating in a single player game. So, feel free to use the console commands to do whatever you need to do to get the most enjoyment out of the game. You can always play it again later at harder difficulties if you choose.

They should just be immune to fatigue or fatigue at the same rate as the ranger.

IMO this just turns companions into adventurers with voice acting you may as well forget any RP value RP means different things to different people, which is why I think this situation is exactly why game mods are popular. It's a lot more fun and feels more in-character for me to re-level the companions when I find them naturally than to rush through the areas to pick up the companions at an early level. Why do I limit myself to those choices? Because the third choice is too sub-optimal for me, and so ends up being even less fun than doing either of the above. I'm not telling anyone to play the way I do, and I'm not asking the devs to re-balance the game around my particular play style (no matter how popular I think it really is). I can modify them myself, so I do. Fun goes up. I'd prefer to be able to choose what their level up path is before I even start a new game -- but that's a mod that doesn't exist yet.

True, I wouldn't disable it for the same reason. It's also works pretty much exactly how attacks of opportunity work in D&D 3.5, so I don't really have a problem with it. There's plenty of ways to break engagement.

Yeeaaah.. no. Have you tried modding PoE? Yes. Yes I have. But my point really was that Obsidian can't win with balance -- whatever they do is going displease people in that regard. What they should focus on, instead, is making it easier to mod the things we'd like to mod.

Assign a different key?

A lot of those rogue modifiers are things any class can get.

Well, that's rather inconsistent. I didn't expect the type to be pure fluff.

Tests that I've seen show that the secondary damage enchantments do an additional 25% of weapon damage done AFTER being modified by DR (so pierce, crush, slash DR applies). The additional 25% of that damage ignores all DR completely, so the enchantment type (fire, corrosive, shock, frost) is only flavor text and has no mechanics attached to it other than the capability of being modified by other talents which increase damage of that type. Example: 40 damage - 10 DR = 30 + (30 * 0.25) = 30 weapon damage + 7.5 secondary effect damage = 37.5 total damage (a 25% damage increase) If you had an ability which granted +20% burn damage, would that result in (30 * (0.25 + .20)) or (30 * .25 * 1.2) additional damage. I don't know.

OSA is currently believed by many to bugged because it gives a +20 flat damage bonus instead of just another 1.2 additive multiplier. So, it's not surprising that any barb build that includes OSA is broken.

How useful (or not) is action speed for Monk? action speed is useful for any party member who wants to deal damage with weapons. attacking more often is good. especially if you dual wield, which unarmed from monk is, as far as i know. besides, don't take monk, for a monk to work properly, you have to send him on a suicide mission. what i mean is, for a monk to use his abilites (besides one or two) he needs wounds. and he gets wounds by getting hurt. so for him to use his abilities, you have to let him getting hit. if you micromanage it well, it can work out, but i recommend to dump the deflection stats (perception and resolve), so that you get hit easier. and then try to only get engaged by one enemy. and have a good healer by your side, because a monk will need it. the current monk is as counter intuitive as it gets, and is pretty bad designed for now. It's usually optimal to have your cipher shoot your monk in the back of the head shortly after combat starts in order to generate wounds for the monk and focus for the cipher... as long as the monk has less deflection than the enemy, it's often the smart play -- which is rather ridiculous if intended, and is a symptom of a class design problem even if not.