Crucis

I agree. And part of me wishes that it was a paladin's weapon. That said, given that paladin's can be be either good or evil (regardless of there not being an actual alignment system), it would seem wrong to have such weapon that could be wielded by both good and evil paladins. And within PoE's structure, about the closest I could see this working is having a mechanic for linking one's ability to wield a weapon or item to the character's dispositions. However, IIRC, those dispositions only exist for the PC, so unless the game was going to have some fixed dispositional values for NPCs, such a system could only work for the PCs, which doesn't seem like a workable system to me. Sounds good in theory perhaps, but not workable in the current model of PoE.

BTW, the map that you find Tidefall on is one of my favorite maps in the game, visually speaking. I love the cinder-filled wind, and the overall active nature of the visual environment of this lava cave map. It's impressive.

Without arguing in favor of immunities, I will say that I think that this is a good example of why more generalized builds, particularly for spellcasters, are better than specialists. From a melee perspective, it'd be like building up a warrior who specialized in swords (i.e. slashing weapons) and then coming up against some bad guys wearing plate armor, which is highly resistant to slashing weapons. If you don't carry a single blunt weapon on this character, your swordmaster is going to be in for a really difficult fight trying to use the very weapons your enemy's defenses are strongest against. Whether it's a swordmaster or an fire wizard, eventually you will run up against an enemy whose defenses are strongest against your specialty. And if your character refuses to be at least a little more generalized, those fights will be rather difficult for him/her.

For starters, I wouldn't say that "situation 2" was an IE thing, so much as it's a DnD thing. At least, a DnD thing for the DnD version active at the time. Secondly, remember that big reason that many battles in those DnD IE games could feel like sit2 is that in DnD, IIRC, there were many monsters that REQUIRED you to have a weapon of an certain enchantment level for you to even touch them. PoE doesn't have the requirement. Any weapon can damage any enemy as long as you do enough damage to overcome whatever DR it might have, specific to that weapon's damage type. Of course, some monsters are have high DRs against certain types of damage, and may be extremely difficult to damage if you try to hurt them thru their best DR. Damaging a Fire Elemental with Fire would be a good example. What you do in PoE is simply learn your enemies' strengths and weaknesses and try to attack their weakest DRs, or at least not their strongest ones. This isn't a case of knowing the magic bullet solution, knowing how to beat an invulnerability. Just knowing your enemies' strengths and weaknesses. I will say that it is entirely possible to get spanked in a battle and then come back and spank the enemy due to some insight you gained from the first time. But this usually isn't because you learned of some "protection from XXXXX" spell, so much as the solution to beating XXXX finally came to you. For me, this happened against Ogres when I learned to turn their strength against each other with Confusion spells. In truth, you can do this for many enemies, but Ogres seem particularly vulnerable to this. Also, I disagree that by eliminating situation #2 you also eliminate situation #1. Situation #1 is still entirely in play, since as I describe above, it's not about finding a magic bullet so much as finding and exploiting weakness, or at least not attacking an enemy's strengths. Attacking an enemy's strengths often doesn't end well, whereas attacking their weaknesses often does. The trick is learning an enemy's weaknesses. Frankly, often those weaknesses should be obvious. It should be obvious that Fire elementals' (otherwise known as Fire Blights) strength is Fire, and that the opposite, cold, is probably their weakness. Or that skeletons are probably more vulnerable to crushing attacks than slashing or piercing attacks. And Ogres are probably vulnerable to mental attacks (because their big, strong, and (usually) dumb). Another example is one that's not so much intuitive as it is experiential. If you see some kith in plate, and assuming that your characters are familiar with plate armor, you should know that plate is strongest against slashing and piercing damage and weakest against crushing damage. So, if you have the choice, switching to blunt weapons, i.e. maces, clubs, flails, morningstars, etc. is a good idea against plate wearing enemies. Also, this is one of the things that the game's graphics zoom lets you do. You can zoom in (while paused, of course) and take a good look at your kith enemies and see what armor their wearing and plan accordingly. Anyways, that's all for now.... Learning to attack an enemy's weakness and not his strengths is not the same thing as learning the magic bullet for an enemy that was so prevalent in the DnD based IE games.

I don't think that you can sneak to get it. This is one of those boss fights that starts with a little forced dialog that triggers when your party passed a certain int on the map. I don't think that it'd be possible to sneak someone past that trigger point.

^This. 1000% this. The moment you start getting characters charmed, dominated, or even Confused (IIRC), I have to start aggressively micromanaging the rest of the party to force them to ignore the affected ones. Furthermore, some offensive spells affect enemies only, which means that they'll affect the "charmed ones" as well. Having party members charmed, etc. means that my cipher, Grieving Mother, has to stop casting Mind Blades spells, so that she doesn't unintentionally damage a "charmed one", which is a real pain for her since I love using that spell so much.

Same. With my style of play I need his heals but most of the time he just sits there and sits things. I will turn on his aura at the beginning of battle just because it's an easy click I mostly do the same thing as well. There are a number of good reasons for doing so. First, as a priest of Magran, Durance gets access to a class talent that gives him +10 Acc for swords and arquebus. So just give him an Arquebus and park him in back. Secondly, he can act as a bodyguard to whatever squishier mage or cipher you may also have hiding in back. Third, he can go into melee and fill gaps, if need be. But his accuracy isn't all that spectacular, so it seems like a waste to not keep him available to cast spells from a position of relative safety, while passing the time blasting away with his rifle ... err, arquebus.

A class is only as rest dependent as you make it based on how heavily you use their spells. If you are unable to ration your use of wizard spells when their use is not strictly necessary, then it's really you who are making the wizard more rest dependent than may truly be necessary. Frankly, I've found that in many battles, one can get by with very few wizard spell castings and rely more on them using a magical implement to do damage between castings. I realize that this may not appeal to some, but I find that it can really extend the time between "recharge your spells" rests. (Ditto for priests.) Of course, if you're the sort of player who cannot resist having your wizards and priests casting at every opportunity, then you're forcing them to be rest dependent due to your style of play. And I can see why a cipher, for example, may appeal to you more than a wizard. Side note: I'm using Grieving Mother in place of Aloth in my current party, but not because of rest dependencies. I did it for the change of pace. My only gripe with GM is that ciphers don't get the entire spell selection at each "spell" level, which means that GM's selection of spells prior to picking her up is very important. (It's annoying me that she doesn't have the level 2 spell Mental Binding and I'm not going to give up picking a high level spell at a level up just so I can "go back" and pick up a measly level 2 spell.)

I also missed it on my first run-thru of the game. I didn't go there all that early, but I was using Durance as my traps/locks guy. And IIRC, he probably didn't have enough points in Mechanics to spot it, I'm thinking. Of course, on my current run thru, I have a dedicated traps/locks specialist Rogue custom NPC, and she had no trouble spotting it all ... for which Pallegina is eternally grateful! Tidefall may not be an official "holy avenger" type of great sword, but it's good enough to certainly feel like one in this game!

Honestly, I think that the Skill system isn't all that bad at all. There are some skills where you need to commit heavily to the skill because over the long haul, it tends to be all or nothing. And for other skills, it can be useful to have a few points for all characters. Stealth: Disagree about stealth being "one sided". Yes, having one super-stealthy character is great for scouting duties. OTOH, having 3-5 points in stealth will let you get a character within ranged weapons range more easily than if you have no points in Stealth. If you have 5 out of 6 in the party with 3 or more pts in Stealth but one with nothing, you'll find out very quickly that the character with no stealth stands out like a full moon at night when you try to sneak your party into range for a opening full party volley of ranged weapons. Lore: I look at Lore as being "education". Furthermore, I agree that it can be very useful for many in a party to have enough Lore to be able to cast level 1 or 2 scrolls. Indeed, it can often be easier/safer for a front liner to case a spell like fan of flames than it is for a squishy, back liner wizard. Athletics: I disagree with people who complain about fatigue. I think that fatigue is a great mechanic. To me, Athletics and fatigue represent how in-shape a character is. A character with no points in Athletics is a couch potato who will tire very quickly, whereas a character with about 3 points in Athletics is in good shape for an adventurer, and won't get pooped out after 2-3 battles. More than 3 points in Athletics isn't a real necessity for the most part, though I see it as representing a character who goes beyond being in merely good shape and becoming more of a true athlete. And it probably doesn't hurt to have at least one character with more than 5 points in this skill, for those rare Athletics skill checks. Mechanics: This seems like an all or nothing skill to me, since as you progress through the story line, traps get progressively more difficult to deal with. Survival: While this skill can be useful, you can also play an entire run-thru of the game without needing to use this skill at all. You don't have to extend potion lengths to successfully play the game. Well, I suppose that one could get by without some of the other skills too, but it would be painful or make things more difficult. On my first run thru of the game, I'm not sure that I used a single food potion, for example, and so gained nothing from this skill in that regard. (I just wasn't used to the idea of "food" potions and never remembered to make use of them, and still have a hard time remembering to do so.) I look at all of these skills as something you learn, though Athletics is more of a "physical" education than mental. If I had one gripe with them, it'd be that they weren't modified by one's attributes. It seems to me that each skill, or even specific sub-check within a skill, could be/should be modified by at least one attribute. For example: Stealth should probably be modified by Dex and perhaps Perception. Athletics: The fatigue portions of Athletics should probably be modified by Con (and possibly Resolve as well), while Athletics skill checks for athletic feats should probably be modified by Dex. Lore should certainly be modified by Int. And Survival should probably be modified by Con and Resolve as well, though this one is a bit trickier. Survival dialog skill checks may be something that's more about Perception and perhaps Resolve, while Survival skill's potion extension may be more about Con and perhaps Res. Mechanics skill checks for disarming traps and opening locks should probably be modified by Dex, and perhaps Per and/or Int, while its skill usage for setting traps should probably be more about Per and Int, I'm thinking. Having said all that, I suspect that they'd also have to consider some rebalancing of the various skill checks in-game if attribute bonuses (or penalties) were included. Something else. I think that skills like Stealth and Athletics' athletic feat skill checks should be affected by the armor the character is wearing. For example, it's hard to accept that a plate-wearing fighter isn't going to be less effective than a rogue in padded armor when it comes to stealth, assuming that each has the same number of points in Stealth. That plate armor should make it a lot more difficult to be stealthy than lighter armor. This also gives characters another reason for wearing lighter armor, though if one was heavily meta-gaming, I could see some players switching into light (or no) armor when scouting or even moving close to an enemy, and then switching into their "battle" armor right before triggering the battle. I suppose that one could create some in-game rules that prevent this sort of abuse, but would the cost of this outweigh the negative of the general annoyance of having to deal with those anti-abuse rules? I don't know. So it might be that it's just better to ignore any armor related stealth penalties and keep things simpler. Anyways, that's all I have for now.

Oh puh-leeeeze. If you're annoyed by backer NPCs, you've got bigger problems than them. Just friggin' ignore them. Simple as that. There are zillions of commoners and nobles walking around the city as well. Some might find it annoying that they have nothing more to say than a single line or so. Would you want to dump them too? Seriously, you and the other whiners on this need to get over it. I don't mind them being there because they populate any of the cities and towns and make them look less empty. Well sure, I do ignore them. Just like commercials on TV. Actually nope, it's more like credits going in the middle of the movie. Anyway, the point stays, they are out of place with names and looks (at least godlikes) and do not improve the game in any way. They are compromise done in order to get game funded. Same for not so stellar implementation of stronghold. It needed to be there, due to kickstarter goal, but was never implemented decently. So what? They don't detract from the game either, no more so than any of the dozens of commoners, nobles, and villagers who populate the cities and towns. And what a shock that someone has to live with a little give and take in order to help get something funded. Ever hear of product placement in movies and TV shows?

I actually started my second (and current) run thru as a monk, intending to side with the Domenels. But due to the very confused dialogs with the three factions, I unintentionally ended up with the Dozens, the faction I like least. (I sided with the Knights in my first run-thru.) The factions are rather strange, particularly when you add in their representatives at the hearing. At first, the Dozens seem sorta-kinda OK, though they clearly don't like animancy. But when you're at the Hearing, their rep is a total raving maniac. And IMO, in any sort of rational "real" world, he would have been (A) slapped down for his unacceptable language during a (sorta) public meeting, and (B) perhaps even arrested for threatening armed revolution if he didn't get his way. And possibly ©, may get his entire group booted from the city, though attempting to do so could foment the very insurrection that the Dozens' almost seem to want. The Knights seems rather rational to me prior to the Hearing. More than a little elitist, probably, but generally seemed to have their hearts and heads in the right place. And yet at the Hearing, their rep seemed far too snarky and didn't seem in keeping with the tone of the group in general. In fact, it wasn't exactly clear what their view on animancy was at the Hearing due to the way their rep was talking. And then there's the Domenels. I haven't played a run-thru with them yet, so I don't know what they're really like. But I'll assume some things since they're Defiance Bay's crime family. And yet, when you get to the Hearing, their representative is the only one who seems both entirely clear headed and acts in a manner appropriate to the public setting. So, who's the "best" faction? They all have their blemishes. I think that the decision as to who's the best group for one's PC may be strictly a role playing decision based on the nature of the individual character. On a side note, I found the Dozens' rep's "colorful" language to be more than a little unacceptable. I realize that it helped make him look even more like a raving lunatic, but that doesn't change my view that it really should have no place in a game that kids could play.

Oh puh-leeeeze. If you're annoyed by backer NPCs, you've got bigger problems than them. Just friggin' ignore them. Simple as that. There are zillions of commoners and nobles walking around the city as well. Some might find it annoying that they have nothing more to say than a single line or so. Would you want to dump them too? Seriously, you and the other whiners on this need to get over it. I don't mind them being there because they populate any of the cities and towns and make them look less empty.

Thing is, from my experience, it isn't. I think the restriction is pointless, actually, as it seemed to make no difference at all. From my experience, at least. And yeah, if we're given the ability to enchant items, then I'd like to be able to enchant all wearable items. IMO, limited camping supplies makes a big difference, since it prevents constantly resting after each and every battle. With limited supplies, you have to make careful decisions about how and when to stop, i.e. how much further can you go and stretch your party's health before you really need to stop and rest. Frankly, if there's one gripe that I have with the entire resting thing, it's that it seems like you can rest almost anywhere, at any time, without the slightest risk of being attacked. Personally, I wish that there was a risk of being attacked, though I suppose that if this was done, they might want to increase camping supplies by a little (assuming that if one's rest is interrupted, you lose the supplies expended). As for enchanting stuff beyond armor and weapons, sounds good to me.

Ah, game fascism. You-must-play-it-the-way-I-like-it. Apart from camping supplies (which could easily be on an on / off toggle) I disagree with every single point. You don't *have* to take custom NPCs. The crafting mechanic is very easy to use and it isn't as if there isn't a surfeit of decent magic items. Don't like the stronghold? Ignore it. And so on, and so forth. Edit - has it occurred to the OP that the story-tyme elements are secondary for many of us? I see it as the glue that leads me from adventure 'a' to 'b.' I know, heretical, eh? The loredump aspect of PoE is something I could live without, but I don't for a moment think it 'should be removed.' I'm not sure that you can completely ignore the stronghold. I'm not sure, but if you choose not to accept lordship over caed nua, access to the Endless Paths may be blocked. You also won't have access to the bounty missions. I personally like the limited camping supplies, though only 2 for hard seems a tiny bit low. 3 might have been better, but whatever.

In an interview Feargus Urquhart has said the stronghold is a "core thing of the game". It sounds like Obsidian plans on expanding it. http://www.pcgamer.com/pillars-of-eternity-tabletop-rpg-and-card-game-in-the-works/ <- source "Now, in the future, we look at it as also a great place where we can, when we add content to the game, where we can sort of have these quests, new people can show up. If we have new features, new items and things like that, we can add aspects to the buildings, in which those buildings can do new things with items, so it's definitely a core thing of the game that we plan to grow as we continue to grow the game." <- relevant quote Stronghold will hopefully get the love it deserves. It is still cool though even as it is, owning that place. And in a sequel it could become a true base of operations, around which a whole village/community has sprouted. Honestly, if there was a sequel, I'd rather that the PC (assuming that it's carried over) went somewhere else on the planet for the adventure. I wouldn't fine having the sequel take play in the Dyrwood region nearly as interesting as if you had to travel elsewhere.

Limited camping supplies is absolutely the opposite of "Stupid beyond comprehension". What was "Stupid beyond comprehension" was allowing people to rest after every frickin' battle in the old IE games. Custom NPCs represent IMO, an attempt to merge the natures of BG1/2 and IWD1/2, where the former had pre-made NPCs, while the latter was 100% custom made parties. As for devaluing the pre-made companions, perhaps to a degree. But IMO, not including a Rogue for the party is just about as bad as not including a priest would have been. Some may disagree, but my view is that a party without a rogue is an incomplete party in a dungeon crawl. Strongholds? I'd have also been happy with something far simpler. Perhaps your "stronghold" was really just a room in the HQ of the fact you eventually "chose", though frankly that might have come a bit late in the plot like. A townhouse in Defiance Bay or a cottage in Dyrford Village would have sufficed as well. As for Enchanting your own weapons, I happen to like this feature. But a smith who did this instead would have been a reasonable alternative. And actually, it'd make more sense insofar as the idea of being able to enchant weapons (and armor) while you're out in the field seems a bit far fetched.

I kinda think that the Shod-In-Faith boots work quite well with any front line combatant, since they're the ones more likely to be taking the hits that trigger the boot's enchantment. That said, monk probably synergizes it the best. I have those boots on my monk, IIRC. Well, you have to be crit for them to activate, so they don't do much good on the feet of your tank, but they're great on any other frontline combatants. I have a different definition of tank than you do, I'm thinking.

I kinda think that the Shod-In-Faith boots work quite well with any front line combatant, since they're the ones more likely to be taking the hits that trigger the boot's enchantment. That said, monk probably synergizes it the best. I have those boots on my monk, IIRC.

I don't think that pistols are necessarily that bad. The thing to realize is that their range is low, so using them as a sniping from behind the lines, battle opening weapon is largely out. Pistols seem to fit better into a role where you use them AFTER the battle is joined and ranges drop to well within pistol range (i.e. 8m). If one is wanting to play a ranged rogue who opens most battles with a long ranged shot for the within 2 seconds of battle starting sneak attack, an Arquebus is better for that since their range is 10m (and bows and xbows, better still, since their range is 12m). A pistolero rogue seems to be working at a bit of a disadvantage due to the short range of pistols, which would prevent it from getting those instant Sneak Attacks at the start of the battle. That said, after the battle is joined, I could see the pistolero Rogue being do-able. As for a Cossack themed warrior, I'd think that it might be better done using either the Fighter or Barbarian classes. The Fighter being the choice for a somewhat more cautious, balanced front liner, whereas the Barbarian would be a full-on offensive machine. Honestly, I have no idea which would better suit the OP's vision of what a Cossack should be, but I suspect that either could work.

Disagree. Because then you'd have to have a scale that went into negative numbers to cover animals/creatures, some of which might be even less intelligent that the most mentally challenged human. Thus the reason for suggesting 8 as the floor, so that there's room below it to cover all the rest of the animals/creatures in the game. You can disagree any way you like but it does not change the fact that there is no way to tell how Int 2 compares to IQ. Unless you have some statement from developers clearing this up. Whatever. But when you have a floor INT value that's lower than a number of animals in the game, something's wrong. It's as simple as that.

Skills: Like Moxy said, 3 points in Athletics is essentially mandatory. That said, you shouldn't feel obliged to take them all at once. But do get them fairly quickly in your progression. Below 3 points in Athletics, the best way to describe such a character is that they're out of shape and get tired easily. At 3 points, characters are in pretty good shape and won't tire easily. Don't bother putting points into Mechanics, unless you intend to make the character a traps and locks master. And then you'll need to start pumping something like over 80% of your skill points into the Mechanics skill to be good at it. It's basically an all or nothing skill. It's not a skill that worth putting a couple of points into. I personally think that having a few points in Stealth is useful, though it can depend on one's personal play style. Do you like sneaking around on maps, or do you just boldly go where no one has gone before? If you're into the sneaky method, then having some stealth on everyone is good. And it doesn't hurt to have one character who is excellent at stealth for the sake of being a scout. Lore can be useful for being able to cast spells from scrolls, so a few points in it is useful. It's something like 2 points in Lore for every scroll spell level. That is, if you have only 2 points in Lore, you can only cast level 1 spells from scrolls. Everyone doesn't need a LOT of Lore, though it doesn't hurt to have someone with strong Lore skills. Survival isn't a critical skill, IMO. There are dialog options tied to it (ditto for other skills). And Survival extends the duration of various potions and "food" potions. That said, you can get by just fine without any points in Survival. It's not a bad place to put a spare point or so here and there though. As for Skill points, you get 6 skill points per level when you level up. And you do NOT have to spend them. If you don't spend them, they carry over to the next time you level up, which is important because each point in a Skill gets progressively more expensive in terms of skill points. So after a while, you'll see that it takes more than 6 skill points to by a point in a a skill. So you need to save the your earned skill points for the next level up when you'll have more than 6 and be able to afford that more expensive next point in Mechanics or whatever. As for Companion NPCs, there are 8 of them. A Fighter, a Priest, a Wizard, a Chanter, a Cipher, a Druid, a Ranger, and a Paladin. They're all playable as is, in spite of the claims of others. And IMO, the Paladin, named Pallegine, is entirely playable. Some people seem to have the opinion that unless a Companion is an epitome of min-maxed stathood, then that Companion is useless, sucks, and all other sorts of hyperbole. Don't listen to them. None of the Companions is perfect, but they're all completely playable as is. And yes, a Wood Elf is a very good choice for a ranged Cipher. Heck, a wood elf is a solid choice for any character you intend to be a ranged combatant.

Of eight companions we can get, five are not humans, and that is in the region that is mostly populated by folk. Those five represent every other race there is. What more diversity do you need? A dwarf that actually looks and sounds like a dwarf.

My only gripe with Durance, really. It makes no sense, either. Yes, he's a gruff survivor, but in battle-mode, you'd expect him to act more or less on instinct, being an old warrior, and actually display a lot of battlefield solidarity, even if he'd go back to his brooding I-hate-you-all and my-goddess-is-a-whore-that-abandoned-me afterwards. I have a couple of gripes with Durance. One is that between his voice and his portrait, one would think that he should be a dwarf, but he's not. And honestly, the companions could use some more diversity in its game races, particularly when one such character practically SCREAMS "dwarf". And the second one is that for a priest who was powerful enough once to have been one of twelve to have created a magical weapon to supposedly kill a god's avatar, why does he start at such a low level? This seems like a significant logical contradiction story-wise, one that could have slightly been mitigated by moving him to a location where you wouldn't find him until later. Of course, being a priest (with all that entails), I suppose that it makes sense to have a Companion priest available early on. But the lingering contradiction remains.

Use short phrases to stack up for invocations. Use long phrases for party buffs. I started out with with my rogue going into flanking positions and Durance faffing about in the thick of it, but by the end of the game, everyone except the tank(s) was just standing in the back autoattacking with ranged weapons and occasionally popping an ability, like summoning ogres (or other beasties) for extra smashy goodness. To a certain degree, this is what I already do. Before I picked up Pallegine, I used my monk PC as a secondary front liner, and she was pretty decent at it at least in terms of producing damage. OTOH, in a fair number of battles, she would get pounded on pretty mercilessly. It's difficult finding a happy ground between being able to take enough damage to produce Wounds and not getting pounded into the ground and knocked out too easily or often. With Pallegine now supporting Eder, I can use my Monk a little more cautiously. I've armed her with a warbow to use when she's not in melee, which seems in character for a monk. But when the time seems right, she's more than able to go charging in to kick butt and take names.