Crucis

Pallegina Order Abilities > Protagonist Orders Abilities And you get Sacred Immolation at level 13, that's way too late, that's almost near the end of the game and so we can safely say that protagonist paladin is pretty much reduced to zealous aura and the exhortation.......and honestly i don't find exhortations appealing....... so its basically zealous aura that they are sort of good for......I find this class quite underwhelming, don't see any reason to play it..... I think its a bad class design, some think its good but I find it quite bad and unappealing.............not my cup of tea, an utter disappointment for me...... There's more to paladins than just auras and exhortations. 1) Lay On Hands/Great Lay on Hands: Better than any heal spell a priest has for some quick, 1 on 1 healing. Also good because it gives you some backup when it comes to healing team mates. 2) Sworn Enemy: Once per encounter. +20% damage and +15 accuracy against a single enemy for the duration of the battle. In battles against enemy grunts, it may not seem worth the trouble to use, but when the enemy has a one bad guy who is a lot tougher than the rest, it's definitely worth it. 3) Reviving Exhortation: Once per Encounter. How can ANYONE not find Reviving Exhortation appealing? Seriously??!!! 4) Aegis of Loyalty: Yes, priests have a protection spell against charms. But what if you don't have a priest? Or what if the enemy has cast its charm spell before your priest could get that protection spell up? And so on and so on. It never hurts to have a Plan B for dealing with enemies who charm, dominate, or confuse team mates. And that's where Aegis of Loyalty comes in handy. 5) Righteous Soul: Never hurts to increase a pally's personal defenses against poison, disease, charmed, dominated, frightened and terrified effects. 6) Healing Chain: Not spectacular, but another useful healing spell you can use as a backup to a priest. 7) Sacred Immolation: Available at level 13. And if you're a completionist in this game, you can reach the level cap of level 16 even before starting WM2. So there's PLENTY of game left to make this a worthwhile ability. Brim, the more you write in this thread, complaining about paladins, the more I'm convinced that you just don't like paladins and don't WANT to like paladins, no matter how hard we try to convince you that they're a lot better class than you give them credit for. And since this seems to be the case, why bother playing them and then whining about it? Just play some other class instead, and don't bother coming here and wasting both your time and ours when you seem so bound and determined to not accept what so many people are trying to tell you. Just a suggestion, BTW.

The Pale Elf's racial ability isn't spectacular, but OTOH, it is a good solid ability that will always have some value.

Honestly, I found that as you got the SH's security and prestige ratings really high, over 40 and then over 50, you started making more than enough money to pay for your retainers. Anyways, there are some items like the Main Keep and the Bailey that are pre-req's for building other items. So build those first. I would suggest not putting off building the barracks, because my experience has been that the security personnel are worth the cost. They may not be able to reliably repel attacks on their own, but as you get your security rating high, they're more than able to keep the raiding on your taxes rather low. IMO, they pay for themselves after not all that long. Personally, I've never really had all that much trouble keeping enough gold in my PC's balance and have always been able to keep a SH build project always running (until I ran out of things to build). Early on, I might have to choose to do the cheaper projects over the more costly ones. But in the long run, they all got built regardless. The Warden's house is very good for the bounties, though I wouldn't be in a huge rush to get it built because those bounty fights are often fairly tough and if you build it too early, your party may not be up to the challenge of those fights quite yet. Other things can bring you more value than the Warden's house if your party isn't ready for the challenge of those bounties. ALSO, one of the first 4 bounties occurs in an area that is only accessible after Stormwall Gorge has opened up (at the end of chapter 2, IIRC), so that's another reason to not rush to build the warden's house until you're near the end of chapter 2. (And until you've finished the first 4 bounties, you can't get the next set of 4 bounties.)

Fireballs, using Durgan on armor is worthwhile, IMO. As someone pointed out when this was a concern for me, while you might change weapons from time to time, once you find the best sets of armor, you tend to stick with them, even if you switch them between party members. And durganizing armor is cheaper than doing it for any 2H weapon. As for durganizing weapons, hilfazer is correct. Weapons with on-crit effects tend to be the ones that get the most out of durganizing, as you have probably noticed with Tall Grass. Durganizing a weapon increases its chance of getting crits, therefore weapons with on-crit effects will gain the most value from this. The Hours of St Rumbalt great sword is also a great weapon to durganize (and increase its basic enchantment to Exceptional or Superb), since it has an increased crit damage multiplier and an on-crit Prone effect, same as Tall Grass.

I do think that not having a portrait for Lady Webb was a terrible mistake. Duc Avar, not so much. After all, he only showed up in a single scene. But Lady Webb showed up repeatedly. As for Renegild, honestly it seemed like a waste to have gone to the trouble of producing a portrait for her, and then effectively writing her out of WM2. Also, I'm not really sure why Galvino warranted a portrait. You only really need to meet him once in WM1, and IMO, he didn't really seem like all that important a character in the WM1 storyline. That said, I like seeing significant NPC's having portraits. I wish that the female Aumaua who ran the Salty Mast had a portrait. Heck, it wouldn't have bothered me if every innkeeper had a portrait, since you do meet them a lot more often than many other NPC's. Another NPC who could have been worthy of a portrait was Lord Raedric. (Maybe two, if you know what I mean.)

Flavor comes from the imagination, not from some special racial abilities. The attribute differences would remain and therefore the differences would never be just cosmetic. The bad thing about the different and unbalanced special racial abilities is that they make some races far more preferable to play than others. They button hole some races into roles. Why would anyone play a wood elf melee character for example? Or why would anyone play a Fire GL non-melee wizard? THAT is why those special abilities are bad. Button holing of races into certain roles is a VERY BAD THING because it limits how races are played. The optimal situation would be for all races to be played in all roles in roughly equal numbers.

I gotta admit that the Boreal Dwarf ability is extremely powerful at times. I was running a new party through a certain location that was very heavily infested with a certain small race of wilders, and it seemed like Sagani was hitting just about everything with crits. For what it's worth, has anyone checked to see of the Boreal Dwarf racial accuracy bonus stacks with the new survival skill's racial accuracy bonuses?

Honestly, I think that the fact this this question is being asked, and seeing the answers, is why these special abilities for the various races were a bad thing. I mean, if you're building a ranged character, you will have a hard time coming up with a reason to not use a wood elf. A melee character is not quite as cut and dried, but there are some clearly better races there, depending on what kind of build you're aiming towards. Island Aumaua are great for the extra weapon set. Fire GL's are great for retaliation builds. And so on. For me, it takes a LOT to not want to use an Island Aumaua for a melee character, because I greatly value having a 3rd weapon set in all my non-monk melee characters. Personally, I wish that there were no special abilities for the various races and that all characters selected one talent at creation instead. (GL's might need to be an exception or adjusted.)

He may hit like a truck ... if and when he hits. That low of a PER isn't so good. All the Might and Dex in the world means little if you can't actually HIT what you're aiming at. At a minumum, I'd drop DEX to 14 and raise PER to 14. As Kdubya pointed out it might not be such a problem with the rangers accuracy bonuses. You could also do a similar build concept with Drawn in Spring which would get you +5 ACC from dagger and +4 from Flick of the Wrist. Use Little Savior for a massive defensive boost. Mocker, I don't like the idea of depending on Stalker's Link for one's accuracy. Oh, it's nice to have once in a while, but there WILL be times when the Ranger and his pet will need to engage separate targets for the good of the team. And in those times, it'd would be really nice if the Ranger could actually hit stuff without needing the pet's assistance. BTW, what is this Flick of the Wrist thing that people occasionally talk about? I take it that it's a WM1/2 thing, but beyond that I have no idea.

With Driving Flight and Twin Arrows it's a bit higher than 10% No, it'd still be 10% on a PER HIT basis. That wouldn't change. It would change on a "per attack" basis, since prior to those abilities, you'd only have one chance for a hit per attack. (BTW, when I say "per attack", what I mean by "attack" is each time you fire the bow.) But with DF and TA, you are increasing the potential number of hits per attack. Two potential hits from TA alone. And who knows how many from DF.

Don't care. To me, it's an annoying term. It seems to me that the people who complain about so-called "trash mobs" are just too lazy to deal with them. "Wahhhh!!! Why do I have to deal with these little guys? Why can't every fight be big boss fights? WAHHH!!!" The game shouldn't be about one boss fight after another. All armies and groups have their grunts. Your so-called "trash mobs" are often those grunts. And heaven forbid that it takes you an extra rest to clear a wilderness area. You want to play PoTD, then you should put up with the extra difficulty of everything thrown at you. Cry me a river. I personally wish that some of those wilderness areas would have some monsters respawn in them every so often. Maybe lesser monsters. And I wish that there were random encounters that occurred when you traveled from area to area, like in BG1/2. Heaven forbid that you get waylayed traveling through Defiance Bay by some muggers, or between areas in Twin Elms by some unruly Fangs. Or between wilderness areas by who knows what. And heck, I wish that there'd be random encounters when/if you try to rest in the wilderness. I want more of these monsters roaming the wilderness and so on, not less. The Dyrwood shouldn't be like some nice tame inner city park. It should be wild, and traveling should be risky.

He may hit like a truck ... if and when he hits. That low of a PER isn't so good. All the Might and Dex in the world means little if you can't actually HIT what you're aiming at. At a minumum, I'd drop DEX to 14 and raise PER to 14.

That Stormcaller build was for people who don't want to respec a companion for either role playing or cost reasons. As you said, Sagani won't have Stormcaller for a decent chunk of the game, so I usually start off with a normal firearms build (which includes penetrating shots), then respec into the final build when I pick up Stormcaller. Frankly, I wouldn't let a 10% proc on a bow dictate whether or not I took a talent like Penetrating Shot. P/S will still work just fine with Stormcaller, though if the 20% speed reduction really does get one undies in a bunch, just turn it off or respec. In the long run, I don't think that it's worth NOT taking just for a bow you get later in the game. But to each his own.

Was there really a need for rudeness, though? His point was merely that patch notes would assist in getting the patch out sooner. Yeah, actually it was and IMO was justified. I don't like people tell me (or other people) what they should or shouldn't care about. To *me*, THAT is rude. But the beta's patch notes are now out and for the people who care about them, enjoy. For those of us who are going to wait for the released version, I'll care about the patch notes at when the update is released.

Looks pretty good, Jerek, though I don't think that I could build any paladin without taking Lay on Hands (and later on, Greater Lay on Hands) and Aegis of Loyalty. But I suppose that that's just personal taste.

You can say that you were talking about something else. But as long as you use the term "trash mob" or "mobs of crap", you will annoy the living hell outta me, because you are feeding the devs this line of bull that mobs of lesser enemies are a bad thing and perhaps need to be removed from the game, neither of which are true, IMO. Those terms tick me off. And I'm sick of people using them.

Teioh, I guess the problem for me is that it gets annoying seeing lesser enemies called "trash". It gets further annoying when the devs pull some of them out of the game because some people are perceived as complaining about "trash mobs". They just don't bother me. What's more, those mobs of lesser monsters are often found around some big boss, and can be some seriously annoying cannon fodder that can do real damage to your party on occasion, if you're not careful (and sometimes even if you are).

I'm not bothered in the LEAST by your so-called "mobs of crap". Indeed, I'm sick and tired of reading all the complaints about them. As for Knockdown, it's useful as a means of breaking engagement, though I can see the value of the Barrage ability as well.

I'm not a spell spammer. I'd like to play Hard mode's increased difficulty without the 2 camping supply limit.

If I was going to want a mod along these lines, it would be a mod that increased the # of camping supplies while playing on Hard difficult from 2 to 4.

FYI, it's not a tent. It's a pile of wood stacked for a campfire.

No, the basic special ability of pollaxes is that they are dual damage type, Slash or Crush weapons.

Well, you definitely need Twinned Arrows and Driving Flight to maximize Stormcaller's proc rate.Stalker's Link and Stunning Shots are pretty much mandatory too. Those are actually Abilities, not Talents, For actual Talents, Marksman and Penetrating Shot seem like must haves. And for Stormcaller, I presume that Heart of the Storm is a definite must take (as long as it works with the lightning lash and Returning Storm proc, of course). One other suggestion. Though Sagani does come with a Hunting Bow of her own, I might suggest NOT taking the weapon focus Peasant group. Why? The best one handed melee weapon in that group is spear, another piercing weapon. And experience has shown me that it's a bad idea to have a character too dependent on a single damage type across the various weapons he carries. IMO, it's better to have a slashing or crushing weapon as your HTH weapon if you're primarily a ranged character. Oh, yes, Sagani could use a staff or a hatchet. But staffs are 2H weapons so you can't use a shield (if you'd want to) and hatchets are rather low damage weapons. And going hatchet and shield seems more like a "I desperately do not want to be in melee, so I'll stack up the most DEFL I can" combo. Of course, I suppose that the way to get around this would be to pick a couple of weapon groups so that she could wield a hunting bow (before getting the universal Stormcaller) and another group that gets her access to some other 1H weapon type that you'd prefer over the ones in the peasant group.

Durance is pretty straight forward. Because he's a priest of Magran, you absolutely want to take the Inspired Flame talent which gives a +10 accuracy bonus with Sword and Arquebus. And because much of the time, if he's not casting a spell, you'll have him hanging in back using the gun, Marksman and Gunner are fairly important picks as well. With Durance, I tend not to pick a weapon focus talent because unfortunately his two Magran preferred weapons aren't in the same group. Still, I can see some people who might like to pick the Soldier group to get the +6 acc bonus for the gun, or the Knight group for the bonus to the sword. One might consider taking Penetrating Shot, but since he is firing an arquebus, which already has 6 DR Bypass and a high damage range, as well as Durance himself having a rather low DEX, I'm not sure that reducing his attack rate is really worth it in this case. I'd suggest picking Superior Deflection and Weapon and Shield Style to boost his DEFL. When you get him well equipped and with at least one or both of these 2 DEFL enhancing talents, Durance isn't terrible in melee. Oh, I wouldn't want him charging in there most of the time, but if he's in good armor, with a good small or medium shield to go with his sword, he's not so bad. Midgame, I like equipping him with the Whispers of Yenwood sword that has the anti-spirit effect and a boost to CON on it. Makes him rather useful against spirits. All in all, this is a pretty good sword to keep around, particularly if you upgrade its general quality to Fine or Exceptional. As for the Arquebus, I give him the best one I have at any point in the game, since he's the one who is going to be using it most often in any given battle, as opposed to a front liner who might only use it for an opening alpha strike before switching to a melee weapon. In fact, early game, the moment I pick up Kana, I give Durance the arquebus that Kana starts with. Other talents to consider are the class talents that enhance a priest's Holy Radiance ability, and the ones for bonus spells at spell levels 1, 2, 3, or 4. I personally don't take the extra spell talents, but i could see going with the one for level 3 or 4, as those contain some useful spells. One other talent that I think is worth considering for Durance is Field Triage. If you're a player who rests extremely often, then this talent probably isn't of much value for you. But if you're more of a role player who likes to stretch out the time between rests, you might find the Field Triage talent useful as a way to give a very badly wounded team mate some extra Health in a critical situation. Oh, and one might consider taking the Scion of Flame talent since some of a priest's best offensive spells are flame based.

Aw, hell. So are the only two ways of completing this quest are either to use a cruel dialog path or to kill the inhabitants of the house? Oh frickin' joy.