Daemonjax

This website is pretty decent for portraits: http://drakonis.org/

I predict eventually we'll be able effectively do what you describe via mods. This isn't something that devs really need to spend time on, except perhaps to help make these things moddable.

hahah The game isn't very mod-friendly, so it will take some time to figure everything out.

Yeah, it would obviously be better to award the same experience for overcoming the obstacle, regardless of the details of how it was overcome. Dunno why that was missed in development.

Yeah, OSA is definitely not working as intended. While rogue does more single target dps (especially at low levels when the 1.5 sneak attack bonus matters more), barb's carnage can't be ignored and is a more interesting mechanic than just more single target dps -- but that's subjective I suppose. Even the cipher can get a 1.4 multiplier at the cost of a talent. The way those damage modifiers work, they have less total effect as you stack them higher (they all work off base damage, as they should). If rogue's sneak attack was its own separate multiplier, the class would have something there.

Well, this game is heavily influenced by D&D 4th edition rules, but even that edition had short rests for martial characters which this game lacks -- everything here is per encounter or a long rest with nothing in between. To be fair, nothing immediately comes to mind for how to implement short rests in a video game. In that case, imo, martial characters shouldn't have any per rest abilities.

Yeah, every cipher ends up getting both draining whip and biting whip anyways. Personally, I like dual wield melee cipher with a ranger backup. Basically play it as a rogue, just with a lot more crowd control. Tenuous grasp is an awesome combat opener for a level 1 spell.

Yeah, it's definitely not working as intended. It makes dual wield barb too awesome compared to rogue. The flavor of it suggests it's primarily supposed to be a defensive ability. Offensively, I think it's only supposed to add yet another 1.2 damage modifier.

If you're going to use 2h weapons, may as well use a barbarian. If you're going ranged, may as well use a cipher.

I'm 99% certain it's intentional, otherwise the spell is useless because the fight is over before the character is healed.

Some cypher abilities are very short range. You can also steal stuff. It would be better if stealth wasn't linked to the whole party, of course. I like to buy three level 1 mercs at the first inn, and one is a rogue to be a lock monkey. There's some chests that have decent stuff in it the requires 8+ mechanics or one less but bunch of lockpicks. I throw some points into his stealth just because. Stealth 6+ is decent enough for everything I can think of.

Here's my plan for a new playthrough: Hard using a 50% increase (EE 02 00 00) in required xp (which is actually equivalent to a 33% reduction to all exp received). ...And this time I'm not going to rush to get the companions to avoid their crap choices. Whatever they choose by the time I get them, they get... And because I'll be leveling more slowly, they shouldn't be too bad off. Actually sounds like fun!

Low is less than 25%. Finishing Blow has its own unique set of rules to it. I think it starts adding some damage around 66% target health, but I'm looking for the breakpoint chart. EDIT: Can't find it. You figure that kind stuff would be in the manual, right? But that's crazy talk. It is in the manual... I must be tired. 45% Health: +65% Damage 35% Health: +95% Damage 25% Health: +125% Damage 15% Health: +155% Damage 5% Health: +185% Damage It would be a solid choice for a per encounter ability. At 3 per rest it's kinda unexciting... would be cool if the effect had a duration, like 8 seconds... at the very least it should be a full attack. In its defense, there's really no limit to the number of times you can camp in this game, but playing that way would be too tedious for me.

I vote rogue if you really want to RP that character.

Good idea. I'll see if that's possible. It would be easier than figuring out how to add a walk/run toggle button YW. I'm full of good ideas, btw.

There are 15 levels, but I'm not sure you're being serious based on the other comment.

While difficulty makes min/max more or less important, I agree that it isn't a necessity. Though this game probably have 2 extreme types of gamers with the majority somewhere in between: those who care mostly about the story and not so much about combat, and those who care far more about the challenge of combat. So for those who combat is a significantly higher focus than the RP experience, it makes sense to min/max stats and chars. While I prefer to have characters with slightly flawed stats (don't mind the companion stats whatsoever) since they make them more interesting and realistic in my mind. I'm still on my first playthrough with an orlan melee rogue whose stats I assigned before I had a proper grasp on how the system worked, she's kinda flawed but still fun to play since it's a challenge sometimes to make things work around those flaws. Eh, then there's people like me who care about both. I don't think I'm all that rare... In the original Fallout games, it was pretty popular to build a smooth talking gunslinger that was both effective in combat and had access to most dialogue options -- including being able to talk the big bad at the end to kill itself. So, for me anyways, I like to try and optimize for a particular playthrough experience... sometimes that means building the most effective death machine possible, but not always. Still requires optimization. The fact that this game allows such extreme min-maxing is a (albeit small) mistake in my book. Lowest possible stat should be either 7 or 8 before racial modifiers not 3, but whatever.

Anything is possible, it's just a lot more work to change the formula drastically. That one modifier is a multiplier, so it's pretty powerful: For example, if you wanted to decrease exp gain by 25%, you would use the integer value 666 (9A 02 00 00). Then, instead of needing 1000 exp for level 2, you'd need 1332. While that's a 33.2% increase in the amount needed, it's the same as a 24.9% decrease in experience received.

Commando. EDIT: Actually I prefer long boxer briefs. And I feel the need to show you guys what I'm talking about in the most graphic way possible: Your poll sucks. WHYNOLONGBOXERBRIEFOPTION!?

How to mod xp level requirements: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76717-how-to-change-experience-per-level-requirement/

I can turn mine off just fine since patch 1.03.524, but I created a new game for the rogue playthrough at that point... maybe the fix wasn't retro-active?

The only auto-pause that's really useful is pause when enemy spotted. I wouldn't let waiting for any other autopause option fix keep you from enjoying the game. You'll need to smack the space bar about 3 times per second anyways.

Wow, thanks! Looks like i can finally go past the beginning of act two now. Gonna try it out in the evening. As for not being retro-active, i imagine respecing characters with ie mod console or something and getting lvlups again should do it. Yeah, I imagine that would work fine.

I just tried out the latest IE mod with the walk speed and faster stealth options. Good stuff... works as advertised. Any chance on making characters/party run on double-click, like in Fallout 2? Or, at least a walk/run toggle key? For sneaking, I think I'm going to stick with the default speed because the animation looks too strange (the sneak animation plays at original frames per second, while moving at a running speed). It is what it is, though. Working as advertised. Would it be possible to remove the redundant semi-transparency effect from party members that are in stealth mode?

For version 1.03.530: I found the hexcode change for modifying the experience requirement per level formula. 1. Go to your game folder: ...\Pillars of Eternity\PillarsOfEternity_Data\Managed 2. make a backup copy of Assembly-CSharp.dll 3. open the original Assembly-CSharp.dll in your favorite hex editor (I like HxD found here: http://mh-nexus.de/e...hp?product=HxD) 4. Search for the following hex code: 07 6F F2 02 00 0A 26 38 0D 00 00 00 02 7B 0C 05 00 04 07 09 6F F3 02 00 0A 12 02 28 F4 02 00 0A 3A B1 FF FF FF DD 0C 00 00 00 08 8C 7F 00 00 1B 6F 1A 00 00 0A DC 2A 00 41 1C 00 00 02 00 00 00 29 00 00 00 59 00 00 00 82 00 00 00 0C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 32 02 02 17 58 5A 20 F4 01 00 00 5A 2A 00 00 00 32 02 17 59 02 5A 20 5. The hex code immediately following the above should look like: F4 01 00 00 5A 2A 00 00 00 13 30 07 00 14 00 00 00 48 00 00 11 02 6F 12 00 00 2B 0A 06 6F 58 07 00 06 03 28 08 00 00 0A 2A 13 30 07 00 27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 28 04 00 00 0A 39 0C 00 00 00 02 6F 0C 00 00 0A 28 DC 06 00 06 2A 72 B9 1F 00 70 28 42 00 00 0A 72 A1 1F 00 70 2A 00 13 30 0D 00 45 00 00 00 Note1: You're only interested in changing the underlined hex code above. Note2: Alternatively, you can search for and find the FOURTH instance of F4 01 00 00 (starting from the top of the file). Note3: This is at hex location 2D88B for me. 6. Change the F4 01 00 00 (which is a little-endian 32-bit integer for 500) to whatever you want (use a programming calculator -- the one that comes with windows works fine for this) For example, changing it to E8 03 00 00 (which is the little-endian integer 1000) will double the xp required per level. 7. Save your changes (obviously). Notes: 1) I use IE mod, which replaces Assembly-CSharp.dll, so this may or may not work for you if not using the IE mod. 2) I'm on Windows, so this may or may not work for you on linux and/or mac. 3) The change isn't retro-active -- it only affects experience needed for your next level. A full restart would be required if you want to see how this affects gameplay. 4) XP formula is: ((currentLevel * (currentLevel + 1)) * 500)