Crucis

Why is that at all clear? The talent says it works when using a single one-handed weapon. It says nothing about ONLY using a single one-handed weapon. Why shouldn't it work with a shield? Because there's a sword&board talent? That's not a good enough reason. Also, it can't be overpowered on a Tank because (with a very few exceptions, Barbarians, Rogues, and Ciphers notwithstanding) their job isn't to do damage. And you're using two talents to have both. I emphatically disagree. It is the job of any combatant that chooses to go to the front lines to do damage. A combatant whose job is strictly to go to the front line to abuse the game's AI and tie up enemy warriors without any real intention or capability to do damage is total cheese. A legitimate "tank's" job is not only to block the enemy from getting to your party's squishier members, but to act offensively as well.

I use 1H all the time, with the Jolting Touch stiletto that procs on Crit. I admit i do switch to DW once it procs however. English please. "Procs"?

While this is true, there are no greedy, despicable, yada-yada-yada pre-made NPCs. In other words, no evil pre-made NPCs. One doesn't have to have a strict good/evil alignment system like in DnD to have characters that most people would easily see as "evil". An "evil" NPC in this setting could get fed up and leave the party if your PC's reputation started looking too goody-goody for his taste. And visa-versa, a "good" NPC could leave the party if it felt that the PC had gone too far down the dark path. It would seem that NPC paladins would be particularly sensitive to this, given that they have their own favored and disfavored behaviors. Of course, this is not an original idea, given that it was basically used in BG2 within the DnD alignment system. Or can you imagine if you had a particularly greedy, selfish NPC who interjected himself into a dialog at the point where the PC was about to make a choice between accepting a reward, telling the character to whom he's speaking to keep their reward, or demanding more? The greedy, selfish NPC could step on your leadership and demand the greater reward before you even had a chance to make that decision, or you still get to make the choice, but if you override his stated demands, could anger the greedy NPC. And think of the dissension this could cause in the party! (and of course, the reverse could be possible as well.)

I can agree that it doesn't exactly FEEL like the Watcher (i.e. the PC) is going mad. But then again, how does one do that without making the character useless? If anything, maybe too much was made of the Watcher going mad (or people are making too much of it). As for the world, I think that you might be asking too much. The world of the BG and IWD series was built up over more than a decade, which means that the creators of that world had a LOT of time to be building its foundations and adding tons of background that became the history and lore of that world. It's a bit much to think that PoE's creators to even come close to that much background in the short amount of time they had. After all, it's not like they can take a decade to build up a world and its background before creating the game. Real life does have deadlines and budgets, and the devs have to deal in the real world when it comes to those things.

1. Why does small shield matter? Are there some hidden modifiers that affect shield using characters' skills? 2. Are you able to fully cast a spell while under Stealth without offering the enemy a chance to interrupt? 3. Where's the Dracogen Inn? The name doesn't seem familiar. 4. Athletics really is useful if for nothing more than making sure that every character in your party is "in shape" and won't wilt into serious fatigue after only a small handful of battles. I've recently picked up Kana and he started with 0 points in Athletics, and he gets fatigued much too quickly for my taste. So it seems to me that at least 3 points in Athletics is fairly important if you don't want to have to waste camping supplies or run back to an inn unnecessarily. 5. There is something about having non-casters with some Lore to allow them to cast some spells in combat. I tend to be rather cautious with Aloth when it comes to exposing him so that he can case certain spells, like those with cone-based AoE's, rather than circular ones (like Fireball). But someone like Kana or Pallegine who's more than sturdy enough to be on the front lines and cast something like the 1st level flame spell is a different thing altogether. They may not even have any one between them and their targets.

I'm not sure that the guns are OP. Pistols and Arquebus seem on par with the damage you get from Arbalests. That said, I have no problem whatsoever with the stance that guns don't belong in a fantasy setting. If that floats your boat, more power to you. As for the game's difficulty, I'd say that one of the roots of your problem is that you're using custom NPC's rather than the pre-made NPC's. The pre-mades aren't optimized for maximum potential and efficiency, and usually custom NPCs are. In my current party, I'm using a cipher PC, 4 pre-mades, and a custom (but only mildly optimized) Hearth Orlan Rogue. I really wanted a rogue for traditional rogue jobs, i.e. dealing with traps and locks, but really wanted to try out a cipher PC.

Changing the talent to change hits to crits instead of grazes to hits would be a huge improvement. I agree that giving the "I have high Accuracy" weapon style a talent that mitigates the effects of having low Accuracy is really stupid. I wouldn't mind it doing both; 20% Graze-to-Hit and 20% Hit-to-Crit, while having in mind that an attack that's been converted once will not be converted again (so a Graze can't become a Crit). I'm not sure how that would play out, but at least I'd consider it. Luckmann, that's one way to enhance the single weapon style. Another would be to change how weapon and shield, as well as single weapon work. So that the weapon/shield style enhances the offensive side to offset the accuracy penalty you take for carrying the shield, while having the single weapon style get a deflection bonus to enhance the player's defenses. The deflection bonus would represent increased training on how to use a single weapon to parry enemy attacks as well as simply be more difficult to hit. Of course, one could argue that the end result would be having users of the two styles moving closer together with each offsetting the penalty for using or not using a shield. OTOH, it would certainly seem to make each style more useful in a decent way. Just a thought.

I have some sympathy for the minmax distaste, but not for this. Are you saying the enemy is supposed to know he can't hit you? Are the mobs reading the accuracy rolls? I mean you could also argue your rogue shouldn't get too much offensive power. Not talking "at the expense of defense" even, just too much per se. Because then they could oneshot vulnerable enemies like wizards. And they would be stupid to engage you because they will lose off that instakill. This is a thread about optimization and I think three times now it's been posted that you shouldn't get so much deflection that you're unhittable because that's not fair to the AI. Without carefully rereading, I'm gonna take the risk and say that you're stretching the facts out of all proportion here. I don't think that anyone has said what you claim. It's got nothing to do with "being fair" to the AI. It's all about being nothing but a cheesy rules lawyer by creating an all-defense, no-offense character that abuses the "rules" of the game (as built into the AI), because you know those "rules" and the AI can only obey them. In any pencil and paper RPG, the GM would teach you the error of your ways in a heart beat in any number of painful ways. But in a cRPG, the GM (i.e. the game itself) can only do what it's programed to do. And is often (usually?) incapable of coming up with counters to rule-abusing, rule-lawyering players.

If said character is so incompetent that it can't hit the broadside of a barn from the inside, you betcha it's cheese.

My disagreement is more fundamental than this. I don't accept the definition of a "tank" or "tanking" as one which is solely about being impossible to hit merely to suck in enemies to attack you for no better reason than you're abusing the game's AI. My definition of a "tank" is one where the character tries to be difficult to hit or, at least, damage while at the same time being a respectable offensive force as well. To me, there's nothing whatsoever "hybrid" about a fighter that is capable of dealing a respectable amount of damage while being able to defend himself. To me, that's what they're supposed to do in the first place. EDIT: Regarding whether a so-called hybrid requires more micro-managing, not necessarily. I played Eder in the style I've been discussing here and he lead my first party in damage on my first run, though not by a huge amount. That said, I will concede that if he was more closely managed he might have done more damage. But honestly, I wasn't all that concerned with him doing amazing levels of damage. I was happy with what I was getting out of him. And saved my micromanaging for the spellcasters.

The reasoning for being in the caravan could be as simple as fleeing the law. I think it is Deadfire Archipelago that has a Raider background. You could be a pirate "AARGH" I agree with the ruffian group, pistols, blunderbuss, stilettos and sabres sounds like both a good roleplaying choice and a good game mechanics choice. The single weapon style is pretty lackluster in what it brings, but on PotD where monster deflection is much higher the graze>hit mechanic might start to shine. I actually created a swashbuckler, though I'll probably only play it when I want to take a break from my cipher which is a lot further along (though still in act 1). My swashbuckler is a female pale elf fighter named Nya, from the Deadfire Archipelago with a Raider background. I promise that I didn't read your post before making her. We just ended up thinking along the same lines. I didn't even know there was a raider background, but it was perfect for what I was looking for. For what it's worth, I chose Pale Elf for a number of minor reasons. First, I just wanted to try something different. Secondly, I wanted to use that Female Pale Elf pic. Third, when one uses a normal Elf, it's hard to not want to take advantage of their innate talent for ranged weapons. But a Pale Elf doesn't have that ranged weapon affinity, so it's easier to be willing to play a Pale Elf in melee without having this nagging little voice in the back of my head saying "Use a bow! You know you want to! All real elves use bows! Elf up and grab a bow!" I haven't gotten her out of the initial dungeon yet, and, IIRC, it'll be a while before she can get a pistol or blunderbuss, so she'll just have to settle for a box or xbow. Probably xbow because I'm having her act as more of a melee fighter with the xbow being an opening shot. (As an aside, I find that the highest damage ranged weapons are great for front line fighters who only intend to fire a single shot before charging into melee. Not that it's any great revelation. It just makes sense. Bows are better for dedicated archers who intend to stay back and pew-pew-pew the enemy.) As for single weapon style, look at it this way. If you go single 1H weapon, you get an accuracy bump for simply wielding the 1H weapon without anything on the off hand. And when you then combine that with the 1H weapon style, you have an increased chance of getting stronger hits. Come to think of it ... if you have a high base acc to start and you add in the single handed weapon wielding, you may not see all that many grazes (maybe?). And if that's true, then 1H weapon style's converting grazes to hits begins to look less valuable. Might have been better if it converted some natural grazes into hits and some natural hits into crits. In truth, I'm not nearly as committed to only using a single weapon as the OP of this thread, and could see going with dual wielding. Dual wielding a saber and dagger/stiletto would be perfect, except that to get any defensive bonus from the off-hand weapon, it really needs to be a hatchet which seems a smidge non-swashy. Back to single weapon style.... I was just thinking about the 1H style vs weapon/shield style. I realize that it's almost certain that the devs didn't want the styles to have the same benefits. Makes sense. Then it occurred to me that maybe having the weapon and shield style give a shield defl bonus may have been the wrong thing to do. Maybe it should have given an acc bonus to offset the penalty you take for using a shield in the first place. And then give the single weapon style a defl bonus instead of the current benefit, on the theory that the single weapon style teaches one not how to use the single weapon more offensively, but how to use it more DEFENSIVELY, as in how to parry your enemy's attacks better and so on. Just a thought.

Some thoughts on this concept. 1. A Swashbuckler type of character could use a saber as easily as a rapier. Also, I could see such a character using a dagger in his off-hand, though unfortunately there are no daggers that I know of that give any sort of defensive bonus, which is one reason why I envision swashbucklers carrying an off-hand dagger in the first place... to use as a defensive "weapon" rather than offensively. In the context of PoE, it'd have to be a hatchet, or nothing at all. 1a. I'd suggest taking Saber over Rapier so that you could most efficiently use the Weapon Focus Ruffian talent, which includes both Saber and Pistol (as well as blunderbuss). A saber and pistol seem like a perfect match for a swashbuckler. 2. I think that one could play a swashbuckler character as a Fighter class, as long as you made certain to make the most of the defensive talents available to the fighter class to enhance his deflection save as much as possible. For talents (fighter-specific or otherwise), I'd suggest Defender, Wary Defender, Weapon Focus Ruffian (for sabers and pistols), perhaps Weapon Mastery Ruffian. Possibly One Handed Weapon Style. Basically any talent that will enhance the character's deflection defense. 3. Obviously, plenty of points in PER and RES would be good for the base deflection save. And some INT would be good for the PC's chance for diplomatic/INT-based dialog options. A few points in Might would seem useful so that the PC wasn't too anemic offensively. And a good DEX would be good for the attack speed if the PC was going to run around in light armor. Of course, this sort of build seems rather stat intensive with few places to save stat points. 4. While the OP stated that he wanted to play the character as an elf, I think that the build could be done with many different races. Culturally though, it'd seem like the Deadfire Archipelago would be the region to come from, since it sounds the more likely place to breed swashbucklers, at least to me, though I suppose that Ruratai is also a possibility, particularly for Aumaua PC's. I think that if one wasn't too, too hung up on sticking to the stereotype, I could also see a swashy wearing something like a breastplate, though probably nothing heavier. OTOH, I could also see enchanting regular "clothes" to be a form of uber-light armor, if one wanted to go to an extreme in the other direction. This sort of build seems possible. I don't know how viable it'd be, though it probably could work. I'm half-tempted to try it out myself. About the only glitch I see is this question. Why would a swashbuckler character have been in that caravan in the intro in the first place?

KDubya, looks like a nice balance between offense and defense that was clearly capable of kicking butt and taking names. The dumped INT was a bit cheesy for my taste, but I've seen far worse when it comes to cheesy min-maxed stat builds. Kudos for a nicely built Fighter! Speaking those Boreal dwarves' bonuses, one of the problems I have in the game is knowing what's what when it comes to those categories. Kiths are easy enough. They're essentially just people. But it gets dodgy knowing what's a beast and what's a wilder and what's a primordial, for example. Still, I suppose that having 2 of the five (?) categories is a pretty decent benefit. From the wiki In the traditional lands of the boreal dwarves, primordial creatures (oozes, sentient fungi and plants) and wilder (ogres, skuldrs, trolls, vithracks, and xaurips) have long preyed on isolated hunters. Generations of conflict with these creatures has given the boreal dwarves inherent Accuracy bonuses against them. I encounter the above a lot more than poison or disease damage which is for mountain dwarves. A pale elf makes for a good choice as well, cuts down on the friendly fire from your wizard. Regarding the intellect dump - you can cut from resolve and place into intellect. Your will save stays the same, you lose concentration, deflection and gain some duration on abilities. If you have house rules on how low a stat can be the base concept still works just won't be as efficient. My personal house rule is to not use the godmode race. If I need to use one to make it work I'd rather drop the difficulty. PotD will be the next challenge, will see if my play style works there or not. I agree. it does appear that you'd get more value out of Boreal Dwarves over traditional mountain dwarves. Kind of a shame. Not that the Boreals have a decent racial bonus, but that the mountain dwarves' one seems so weak. As for Pale Elves, it seems like if you're not looking to play any sort of ranged combatant with an elf, Pale Elves are the way to go. It's hard to turn down that regular Elf racial ability and not use a ranged weapon. But with a Pale Elf, it's a non-factor. The racial benefit may not be spectacular, but at least you don't feel like you're giving up something useful. As for stat dumps, I'm not fond of going below 8 or 9. Particularly when it comes to INT. The idea of a min INT character that has the intelligence of a fruit fly doesn't sit well with me. Or a min Resolve character. Seems to me that the first time an enemy said "BOO!" to the min resolve character, he'd be running for the hills!

KDubya, looks like a nice balance between offense and defense that was clearly capable of kicking butt and taking names. The dumped INT was a bit cheesy for my taste, but I've seen far worse when it comes to cheesy min-maxed stat builds. Kudos for a nicely built Fighter! Speaking those Boreal dwarves' bonuses, one of the problems I have in the game is knowing what's what when it comes to those categories. Kiths are easy enough. They're essentially just people. But it gets dodgy knowing what's a beast and what's a wilder and what's a primordial, for example. Still, I suppose that having 2 of the five (?) categories is a pretty decent benefit.

I disagree with all my heart. One of those in front and five glass cannons in the back. I "sacrifice" even more on my fighters. And I disagree with you completely. Creating a tank whose only purpose is to suck the enemy into attacking him uselessly to "protect" the glass cannons behind him is total cheese in my book. All you're doing is turning the AI against itself. Any "realistic" enemies would quickly realize that trying to attack the unhittable tank was pointless and just turn to go after the other party members. Frankly, it's not that hard to create a tough to hit tank who can also deal respectable damage as well. For crying out loud, Eder fully armored up with a 1H weapon and a shield and various other buffing items can be a very difficult to hit tank while still making most enemies who dare to engage him pay for doing so. And he's a lot more "realistic" in my book than some excessively min-maxed, next to no offense, aggro magnet tank whose only purpose is to abuse the AI. What you are saying makes no sense... In EVERY IE game, the tank is the damage soaker. How is that cheesing? No, that's not the job of a true tank. A true tank is not a character that's nothing but a damage sponge. A true tank goes to front line, tries to be as tough to hit as possible while at the same time dealing a respectable level of damage to those attacking him. Characters who are nothing but damage sponges are just cheese-tanks. Well, that's a point of view. In my book, a tank is primarily a "damage sponge" and utility character. If you want to build yours with more DPS, that's fine, but don't try to turn your opinion into more than it is. Glasny, a pure damage sponge, no-offense fighter is nothing but a rules-lawyering, uber min-maxing cheese build. (But if that's what you want to play, so be it.) As for me building characters with more DPS, I don't. I just don't think in those terms. I'm thinking in terms of creating a fighter or an archer or whatever the character is meant to be within the context of the RPG environment.

I disagree with all my heart. One of those in front and five glass cannons in the back. I "sacrifice" even more on my fighters. And I disagree with you completely. Creating a tank whose only purpose is to suck the enemy into attacking him uselessly to "protect" the glass cannons behind him is total cheese in my book. All you're doing is turning the AI against itself. Any "realistic" enemies would quickly realize that trying to attack the unhittable tank was pointless and just turn to go after the other party members. Frankly, it's not that hard to create a tough to hit tank who can also deal respectable damage as well. For crying out loud, Eder fully armored up with a 1H weapon and a shield and various other buffing items can be a very difficult to hit tank while still making most enemies who dare to engage him pay for doing so. And he's a lot more "realistic" in my book than some excessively min-maxed, next to no offense, aggro magnet tank whose only purpose is to abuse the AI. What you are saying makes no sense... In EVERY IE game, the tank is the damage soaker. How is that cheesing? No, that's not the job of a true tank. A true tank is not a character that's nothing but a damage sponge. A true tank goes to front line, tries to be as tough to hit as possible while at the same time dealing a respectable level of damage to those attacking him. Characters who are nothing but damage sponges are just cheese-tanks.

He's suggesting that it is completely unreasonable for a sentient creature to mindlessly attack a target it cannot possibly hit. Basically the definition of insanity. Similar to how you can run back and forth from enemies, until only one or two of them engage you. Exactly. My Eder was very hard to hit, though not entirely impossible, with his DEFL at slightly over 120 near the end of the game with a good set of armor, shield, and other defense-enhancing items, but not counting any temporary spell or ability buffs. Also my point was that one can make a very difficult to hit tank without completely sacrificing a respectable level of offense. Of course, given the level of hyperbole here on this board, some peoples' definition of "respectable" may require one to generate near godly amounts of damage. Mine does not.

And is your Edér such a painbringer that it still wouldn't be sensible for me to ignore him and go for your backline if we fought? My druid's doing ten times my tank's damage and is twenty times squishier. Weapon Focus and a few points in might/dex isn't going to make any player think "Oh jeez, I have to eat a disengagement attack to get to the druid? NO WAY, staying here." I didn't say that he was an offensive monster. Only that he held his own and was a contributor to the team's overall offense, not a friggin' cheesey aggro magnet. Also note, if the enemies want to try to get around him, they're more than welcome to try. The fact is that I don't usually play in such a way that there's a single tank in front of 5 ranged combatants (whether physical or magical). I usually have 2 tanks up front, and will use a third (or even a fourth) to create a wall to block the enemy from getting into my party's rear and attack my most valuable and squishiest spell casters. I will not only put those additional characters in the wall, but I'll micromanage them to intercept and block enemies from trying to go around them. "You shall not pass!" I don't trust in aggro magnet cheese. I do what a real warrior would do .... get my characters physically between the enemy and those I'm trying to protect.

I can't tell you how to enjoy the game I'm just saying it pays off. I would like it if there were some threat system so that tank damage wasn't almost irrelevant, and so that the tank could keep melee safe too. Fine. Enjoy your cheese, cuz that's all it is.

I agree 100% that sorting this way is FAR more useful than the color coded system used, which I found more distracting than informative. I want to see the best items grouped together, not the items in the group in alphabetical order with color coding, though if you want to sort the items within each rating group (best, above average, average, below average, worst) alphabetically, that's fine. Also, the "why" you (the OP) thinks that things are good or bad is at least as important as whether you think that they're good or bad in the first place. After all, we may disagree with your reasoning. But if you don't say why, then your opinion carries less weight.

Yes but i found you rarely need more than 2 weapons. The arquebus opener can help in certain parties, yes but that also means you have to wait for recovery to act again, also i prefer opening with a rogue or someone who has higher damage than me. I have to disagree. I tend to think that any front line combatant can benefit from having a 3rd weapons slot. Firstly, I'm of the belief that all party members should carry a ranged weapon, because I believe in firing off a single volley at range as the enemy charges at me, before my front liners switch to melee weapons. Thus, this requires one weapon slot. Secondly, I think that it's worthwhile to have a couple of different melee weapons that have different damage types, i.e. crush, slashing, piercing, so that if you run up against an enemy with a particularly high defense in one, you can switch to another weapon. And if you're carrying a shield, this would require a slot for each weapon. Of course, you could just dual wield 1H weapons of different damage type, but only at the cost of a shield's defense. Third, it can also be worthwhile to have a 2H melee weapon (in addition to one's 1H weapon and shield slot) for the occasional really tough enemy that needs that little extra punch to get more damage past his DR. Frankly, I think that having a 3rd weapons slot is VERY worthwhile.

I disagree with all my heart. One of those in front and five glass cannons in the back. I "sacrifice" even more on my fighters. And I disagree with you completely. Creating a tank whose only purpose is to suck the enemy into attacking him uselessly to "protect" the glass cannons behind him is total cheese in my book. All you're doing is turning the AI against itself. Any "realistic" enemies would quickly realize that trying to attack the unhittable tank was pointless and just turn to go after the other party members. Frankly, it's not that hard to create a tough to hit tank who can also deal respectable damage as well. For crying out loud, Eder fully armored up with a 1H weapon and a shield and various other buffing items can be a very difficult to hit tank while still making most enemies who dare to engage him pay for doing so. And he's a lot more "realistic" in my book than some excessively min-maxed, next to no offense, aggro magnet tank whose only purpose is to abuse the AI.

Honestly, I'd rather that the stronghold went in the other direction. Rather than become a lord (or whatever title) of a large tract of land in the Dyrwood, I wish that the PC's "stronghold" was really just a house in a small town (Dyrwood Village or whatever its name is, i.e. to the east of Defiance Bay) or a townhouse in Defiance Bay itself (though that could present some issues for a short period of time during the main story line). My view of a stronghold would be that it's really little more than a place to hang out and get a free night's rest. No merchants. No dungeon under the house. No steward. Just a place to get a free night's rest with no stat bonuses. That said, I suppose that with a nice townhouse, you could have some upgrades that could grant stat bonuses to your rest. Add a small library (or buy books to restock an empty library), get a bonus to INT and/or Lore. Upgrade the kitchen or hire a housekeeper who cooks better meals for you, get a bonus to CON (?). Another possible way that SH's could have been simple would have been for each of the three factions to give you a room of your own in their HQ after joining the faction. And the room might have had a resting bonus that was apropos to the specific faction. The Knights' bonus could be related to, say, Resolve, Lore, and Athletics. The crime lords' might have been related to Mechanics, Stealth, and Perception. And the Dozens' bonus might have been related to Con, Survival, and Athletics (?). (Making them up on the fly. Don't get too picky.) Basically, minor bonuses related to the nature of the faction. Anyways, just so thoughts...

Well, I can see your point to a degree. I'm not sure why the lord of the hold should have to run to see the warden. He may have his own home outside the walls, but shouldn't he come to you (let's say) if you tell the Steward (throne) that you'd like to speak to him? And I suppose that the same argument could be made for the other merchants. If you want to speak to them, the Steward chair has only to summon them to the great hall. As for going to Brighthollow, well, no lord (to my knowledge) has ever told his steward or chamberlain or whomever that he wants to go to bed and has his bed brought to him. You have a home and a bedroom. You need to go to it. It doesn't come to you. That said, I wish it wasn't a 2 story building that required 2 load screens for you to finally GET to that bed. One more, if you want to count loading the main stronghold map, before heading over to Brighthollow. The entire Stronghold seems designed (not necessarily intentionally) in such a way that it's generally a pain in the butt to use, due to all the walking across the SH map to get from one location to the next, and all the additional map loading. The one feature in the Stronghold that actually IS convenient, relates to the dungeon which I'd rather not elaborate on, since it's a bit of a spoiler. (This thread really seems like it should be in the "Stories" subforum, since it can be difficult to properly discuss the matter without hitting on some spoiler-y details.)

You don't want to be having to run to the nearest inn after every single or every other battle just because your characters are out of shape and can't manage a few battles without taking a nap that often. Like others have said, about 3 points in Athletics is sufficient to solve this. As for Stealth, I actually think that it's worth having everyone have around 3 points in, because it'll let you get at least moderately close-ish to an enemy. Close enough that most, if not all, of your party will be in range for their ranged weapons, though you may have to be careful that your squishier backliners don't step in front of your front line tank, due to range differences in their ranged weapons, if you have the entire party fire off a volley. As for Survival, I barely touched those out of combat food buffs in my first run through the game, so I'm somewhat tempted so say that they're hardly critical. OTOH, I don't doubt that they can be useful. I'm going to try to use them more on my second run.