Crucis

I don't recall ever see this item. Darn, I'd have snatched that one up in a heartbeat for Durance! EDIT: Knowing that skill bonuses are sometimes part of an item's enchantment, I checked to see if possible for a player to add skill bonuses thru enchantments. Unfortunately, you can add character attribute enchantments, but not skill bonus enchantments. Oh well. It was worth a look.

Honestly, it doesn't seem cheesy to me to have the pathfinding algorithm require party members to walk around SPOTTED traps. To me, it's cheesy, or rather just plain dumb, that the characters are so utterly freakin' stupid that they'll just waltz over a spotted trap that their party trap-master pointed out for them. As for working on mechanics, like I said before, I did level up Durance's mechanics skill as best I could without utterly ignoring other useful ones. Maybe that was my mistake and I should have had him spend every single skill point on mechanics without exception. Of course, it'd have been nice if one of the pre-made NPC's had been a rogue. (Actually, one was.... the male NPC that joined you at the very start for that first dungeon and got killed moments after leaving it, along with that female fighter. Why oh why couldn't he have survived? ) I guess that I didn't need any reminding that traps are dangerous, because I go through any unfamiliar area in scouting mode looking for traps. Old habit from BG1/2 and IWD1/2. It seems to me that the reminder that traps are dangerous should be for those who waltz around an area NOT in scouting mode without a care in the world. Those people are pretty much begging to run right over a trap.

And why would you do this? At least give a reason why you'd take a Paladin 'in a heartbeat' over a Priest or Druid? You'd pick a class who's support pales (and is rendered moot) in comparison to either of those classes to do exactly what? Fill a role in a group that a fighter will perform noticeably better? Please, either retire from the thread or at least stop trolling. I already gave my reason a while back, if you'd bothered to read it and remember. But here, I'll save you the trouble of looking.... Oh boo-hoo. So paladins aren't the best at something. For crying out loud, that does NOT mean that they're not ill-suited to being in a party. Everyone on a party doesn't have to be the best at something. Jeez. I have Pallegine in my party. Would I be better off with another Fighter instead of her to be a second tank? Maybe yes, maybe no. Would this supposed second fighter be a better pure tank, similar to Eder? Probably. OTOH, he wouldn't be giving the party the various bonuses that a padadin can constantly provide. Is that enough to justify using a paladin rather than a second fighter? Perhaps not to some people, but a second (particularly a custom made) fighter in a party that already has Eder would seem boring to me. Seems to me that if you want a second tank in the party, it should be of another class, whether that's a paladin, a barbarian, a monk, etc. And it's also about play style and role playing preferences. I happen to like paladins and like having them in my parties. They very well may not be the most powerful or efficient choice, but I still like having a paladin in my part regardless. Other people may love monks or barbs in this slot. And if so, good for them. And I will NOT retire from the thread and I am NOT "trolling", whatever that means in whatever context you're saying it. I am giving my honest opinion without any hyperbole (to the best of my ability) or foul language and as respectfully as possible. If you can't handle that, that's your problem, not mine.

I think that it was possible to opt out, though it's been long enough since I chose to do it that I can't be certain. It seems to me that the problem with not accepting is that you will miss out on the Game Warden's bounty missions, and you might possibly get locked out of the Endless Paths dungeon (at least I've read someone here claiming to have gotten locked out for unknown reasons), both of which are great for earning lots of XP and money.

I'm trying to remember when I last heard such a call for moderation being said on the internet, a place that is famous for being anything but. Usually, the one that can shout their point the loudest in the most drastic language wins in that at least they get vastly more attention from either side of a debate. So this truly impressed me. In an ideal world it shouldn't but in this one it does. besides which you werent really overstating it tbh. The stronghold is useless, the only thing ive enjoyed it for is the endless paths but over than that its actually just a money sink nd a rubbish one at that. Mine is almost fully upgraded and it still feels dead as hell. How much effort would it be to drop some NPC farmers and villagers to make it fell less like an empty castle. Dont even get me started on hirelings lol. I utterly disagree that the Stronghold is "useless". That's rubbish. Does it seem less than great? Sure. I can accept that in a heart beat. Less than exciting? Yep. Seems difficult to get your investment in the repairs back? Yep. But useless? No way. This is what I mean by hyperbole. If you got nothing other than access to the dungeon and the game warden bounty missions, it'd still have value. Even if you got no resting bonuses at all, it'd still be a free place to rest when you wanted to crawl up out of the dungeon, before heading back out to do other quests. Even if the merchants had literally nothing to sell, even a single merchant where you could sell off your loot from the dungeon or various other quests would have value. Saying that the SH is useless is just plain wrong. Saying that it underperforms and could be better, perhaps much better, would be entirely fair.

Oh really? Let's look at this again, shall we. I'd say that the above comments in red are overly dramatic, wiith the comment about a blind, lobotomized monkey being ridiculously so. Regarding point #1, yes, I agree that it's lame that the bonuses aren't better compared to what you can get at some inns. Agree 100%. That said, earlier in the game, those meager bonuses aren't so bad when you may not want to spend any more than necessary to rest. Later on when you're rolling in money (mostly because you've completely upgraded the stronghold, or at least decided to not sink any more into it), 200cp for a room that gives you a number of +2 bonuses starts looking like chump change. And it does seem a little silly that once you've fully upgraded your stronghold that somehow an inn can provide better, more restful, more bonus worthy accomodations than your own home. But that still doesn't qualify as a "complete waste of time"!!! As for point #2, there are only 4 merchants in the stronghold, so there can hardly be anything vast about them in the first place. And while their inventories ae hardly inspiring, that doesn't qualify as "offering nothing of worth". "Exceptional" grade weapons are hardly worthless. Bland and uninteresting? Yeah, I'd agree with that. But worthless? Not at all. At least when you mentioned the hirelings in point #4 you said that they SEEM like a waste of time, which is a reasonably fair way of stating whether true or not. Also in point #5, I'm not sure that I'd say that "nobody interesting" shows up at the stronghold. I think that some of the characters that do visit might be very interesting, if, as you later suggest, you could actually talk to them. In short, you seem unable to criticize without resorting to excessive hyperbole, otherwise known as being a drama queen. If you toned down the hyperbole and stuck to the logic of your points, you'd make much more convincing arguments.

I'd do it in a heartbeat and it wouldn't take a million years to decide to do it.

Yknow I do it over-the-top specifically to annoy people like you who can't take a joke worth a damn? I'm 100% serious here. You want jokes, go to a comedy club. I'm not here for humor. I'm here to discuss this game. And people who do things just to annoy other people are pretty pathetic.

What is the paladin's niche and how does he excel at it compared to other classes? Also, why is any critism or suggestion for change drama? I would consider your exhortation to be much more dramatic, though probably not rising to the level of actual drama. It's not the criticism I'm criticizing. It's the totally over-the-top nature of the criticism. It's one thing to say that something's not good enough and you wish that it was improved. And it's quite another thing to say that the because it's not good enough that it therefore SUCKS or is trash, or any other of the various over the top ways that I've seen in posts on this forum. For crying out loud, just because something's not the best or isn't perfect doesn't mean that it sucks. Just as in the same way that a player who's not an all-star in baseball or basketball (for example) also doesn't suck, simply because he's not an all-star. Or put another way, the way that the drama queens criticize things, one could say that if you're not an "A" student then you suck ... when anyone with a clue KNOWS that that's ridiculous. There's a difference between honest and measured criticism and over-the-top, "it's perfect or it sucks" criticism. A vast difference.

Ridiculous. Saying that they don't have a "distinct role" is just another way of saying they're not the "best" at something. So friggin' what!!! They are NOT a detriment to anyone except someone who's looking to min-max their way to a way over the top, totally OP party. This is why you see the developers of PoE and BG/BG2 before that include NPCs that weren't perfect, over the top OP characters. Every class and every NPC doesn't have to be the best at something or a paradigm of perfect stat-hood for the game to be entirely playable with those NPC and those classes. Every character in the party (every player on the team) doesn't have to be a freakin' all-star!

Oh boo-hoo. So paladins aren't the best at something. For crying out loud, that does NOT mean that they're not ill-suited to being in a party. Everyone on a party doesn't have to be the best at something. Jeez. I have Pallegine in my party. Would I be better off with another Fighter instead of her to be a second tank? Maybe yes, maybe no. Would this supposed second fighter be a better pure tank, similar to Eder? Probably. OTOH, he wouldn't be giving the party the various bonuses that a padadin can constantly provide. Is that enough to justify using a paladin rather than a second fighter? Perhaps not to some people, but a second (particularly a custom made) fighter in a party that already has Eder would seem boring to me. Seems to me that if you want a second tank in the party, it should be of another class, whether that's a paladin, a barbarian, a monk, etc. And it's also about play style and role playing preferences. I happen to like paladins and like having them in my parties. They very well may not be the most powerful or efficient choice, but I still like having a paladin in my part regardless. Other people may love monks or barbs in this slot. And if so, good for them.

Gromnir, great post! Not quite sure I agree with every detail. Regardless, I have a hard time with the concept of a priest character who isn't somewhat of a combat cleric, particularly if you already have a wizard in the party. Oh, sure, I suppose if you don't have a wizard, you could have a really squishy priest taking on that role. But that seems like the exception to the rule for me. Mind you, when I'm thinking of a combat-capable cleric .... er, priest ... I'm not thinking of a full time tanking front-liner. I'm thinking more of a well armored and armed warrior-priest who is ready and willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with his or her fellow fighters on the front lines if necessary, but would prefer hanging back using ranged weapons and casting spells. That said, while I was playing Durance in my current and first run-through of PoE, I selected only a single talent that wasn't class related, the weapon and shield style, because the way I look at it, Durance isn't on the front lines (when he is there) to be a major offensive force, but rather to hold the line and protect my backliners. As long as he can avoid taking major damage when tanking and dish out the occasional hit, I'm happy. And to that end, I prefer that he use a shield rather than a 2H weapon or dual wield. I want him to have as much deflection as possible. I will say though that the idea of picking up a weapon focus, particularly if your own priest's diety specific weapon talent doesn't include a ranged weapon, is not a bad idea at all. Personally, I'd suggest picking a weapon focus that included one of the hard-hitting, slow firing weapons, i.e. arbalest/crossbows or guns, rather than bows, since IMO bows are best used by classes with higher accuracy ratings. And picking a WF that synergizes with your diety's weapon "focus" just stacks those accuracy bonuses (or at least I assume they do), which is a good thing indeed.

Your fighter gets beat up a lot? You must be doing something wrong then, because my Fighter, Eder (the companion NPC) is practically untouchable in melee. Of course, I will say that I've consistently been giving him all the best armor, shields, and other items as well as defense talents (i.e. Defender, Wary Defender, Weapon and Shield style, Hold the Line) that help improve his ability to be untouchable. Currently (near the end of the game), Eder's deflection rating is at 125 when using a weapon and shield. Pallegine's deflection rating isn't as high, because she doesn't have all the same talents and items, though with a weapon and shield, she's still at 103. That said, I've recently been having her dual wield a pair of battle axes, rather than go with only an axe and shield. And since she's usually second into the melee, she's able to engage many of the enemies that are paying more attention to Eder and chop'em to pieces. And even at a mere 83 Defl with the dual axes, she tends to take little damage. I think that Eder's the better tank, though it might be possible that if I'd chosen more defensive talents for Pallegine, she might have been able to be Eder's equal in this regard. Still, I'm not unhappy with how Pallegine's turned out.

By no means would my suggestion for defense make them superior tanks to Fighters. Fighters would still offer endurance regen, superior engagement and superior support control (knock down, aggro pull). That's the point: you can safely apply almost all of these suggested tweaks without Paladin becoming superior to the classes they compete with in that area. With my defense suggestion, Paladin would be the superior class for raw defense, but not neccesarily the one for keeping your squad alive, or even for staying up for that matter since endurance regen and knock down can be useful for a lot of different things. My offense suggestion wouldn't break Paladins either, nor would the support ones. The point is Paladins are abysmally sub-par across the board, to the point where minor tweaks could be made to everything across the board and they'd still be balanced. You lose me the moment you stop speaking plain english and start speaking computer geek. What the heck is "aggro", FFS???!!! The only aggro I know relates to farming, not computer games. (And I've got nothing to do with agro related business whatsoever. Just some comon knowledge.) Aggro = aggression. It means if I have an enemy go for my Cipher or Wizard, Fighter can pull the attention away with a skill (forget the name) without even needing to move. No other class can do this. MAYBE Monk could rush that enemy down and knock them on their ass quick, but aside from that, no one else offers this. Oooookay. I don't meta-game this strictly speaking. I'm not hoping that my front line tank is going to use some special ability to prevent a charging enemy after a back liner. I just plain get him out in front and block them. Now, this may end up being functionally the same thing in the end. But for me, it's a matter of perspective and role playing. It's the job of my front liners to form a meat shield to physically block enemies from getting at my back liners ... my spellcasters and archers (well, now including "gunners" too). I use Eder as my primary tank, but tend to send Pallegine into melee pretty quicky as well. And if there seem to be too many tanks for those 2 to handle easily, I might add Durance to the meat shield, though I prefer not to. Come to think of it, my Ranger's wolf animal companion is often the 3rd "person" in the meat shield. But Eder is the heart and soul of my front liners, since except against the very toughest enemies, he's nearly untouchable in melee. In short, it's Eder's job to tell the enemy, "You shall not pass!"

By no means would my suggestion for defense make them superior tanks to Fighters. Fighters would still offer endurance regen, superior engagement and superior support control (knock down, aggro pull). That's the point: you can safely apply almost all of these suggested tweaks without Paladin becoming superior to the classes they compete with in that area. With my defense suggestion, Paladin would be the superior class for raw defense, but not neccesarily the one for keeping your squad alive, or even for staying up for that matter since endurance regen and knock down can be useful for a lot of different things. My offense suggestion wouldn't break Paladins either, nor would the support ones. The point is Paladins are abysmally sub-par across the board, to the point where minor tweaks could be made to everything across the board and they'd still be balanced. You lose me the moment you stop speaking plain english and start speaking computer geek. What the heck is "aggro", FFS???!!! The only aggro I know relates to farming, not computer games. (And I've got nothing to do with agro related business whatsoever. Just some comon knowledge.)

What I've been finding annoying lately is this. I use Durance as my party's trap specialist. However, I probably spent a few too many skill points on other things and thus his mechanics skill isn't totally maximized, only at level 9 in Mechanics (and he's maxed out level-wise). Ok, fine. I can deal with that. He's not perfect, but he's plenty good enough to spot the traps. The problem I have is that the pathfinding AI for party members is ridiculous when it comes to spotted traps. For crying out loud, the traps are spotted! WALK AROUND THEM, you fools! Yes, I could manually pathfind each and every freaking character around the traps, but should that really be necessary? Must the characters be such morons that they can't walk around a SPOTTED trap without my micromanaging? My patience wears thin when I have to micromanage all 6 characters around a couple of spotted traps that Durance can't disarm. And I don't like intentionally sending some sacrificial lamb to trigger the trap just for my personal convenience. It doesn't sit well with me from a role-playing perspective (though Eder does seem to have a knack for triggering traps and avoiding any damage).

Why should Paladins be as good at tanking as Fighters? If they were, then why would anyone bother playing Fighters? Every class needs a niche. Furthermore, enough with the drama queen routine. Just because something isn't perfect does NOT mean that it sucks for crying out loud!!!

I have my ranger using Penetrating Shot and Vicious Aim active at the same time. His rate of fire is a little slower, but he seems to hit a good deal harder. He also has that ranger talent that allows shots to hit additional targets beyond the first one, though that one's worth taking in the long run. Envenomed Strike is definitely worth taking. You only get 3 uses per rest, but it is a very useful ability against tougher targets because, IIRC, it's raw damage that ignores all DR. But since you only get 3 uses per rest, I'd suggest saving it for critical situations. I'm currently in Act 3 (I suppose) and Eder leads my party with about 50k damage, and my PC is easily #2 at about 45k. And I only have my Ranger PC in melee if there's no other choice. I'd much rather have him raining arrows down on the enemy, since that's where his true talent lies.

Something to consider for Durance is that as a priest of Magren, he has a special class talent that you can eventually select that gives him a +10 accuracy with Sword or Arqabus. They're not in the same Weapon Focus, but what the heck. (I think of it as the special Magren Weapon Focus!) So I have Durance using Sword (and shield) and an Arqabus. If Magren wants to bless him with a +10 accuracy with those weapons, who am I to turn away such a blessing?

You don't need to rationalize it. Firearms are great in PoE, but as a Priestess of Eothas.. well.. heard of the Godhammer? Magran? No? You will. I have not played a Priest much myself, aside from the CNPC that you can pick up (which I recommend, he's an awesome character) but I can tell you that your Holy Radiance is something that you'll want to use every encounter. It only has one use Per Encounter, but you'll be using it consistently. So it might be a good idea to pick up Inspiring Radiance and Brilliant Radiance. One makes enemies take burn damage - and Vessels (basically non-incorporeal undeads and anything infused with a soul through artificial means; not to be confused with Spirits) take extra damage - and the other gives all allies a bonus to Accuracy for 15 seconds. As a Priestess of Eothas, your Holy Radiance will become better the more Honest and Benevolent you are (and worse for Cruel and Deceptive, without a Talent). It might not feel like very strong choices, but it's consistent and will be useful in every single encounter. Another thing to consider is that Holy Radiance is the PoE rough equivalant of DnD's Turn Undead. While Luckmann is entirely correct about its value, you should also remember this. If you are in a battle against the undead ... er, vessels ... don't fire off your priest's Holy Radiance until the enemy vessels are close to you. You want them to be inside the spell's area of effect so that it can hurt them as well as help your characters.

I haven't found Durance to be all that squishy. I won't say that I want him on the front lines in every battle, but he usually seems to hold his own reasonably well when I feel the need to get him into melee. Of course, some of this may be due to Durance's less than optimized stats which just happen to be making him decently functional in melee. It may be that player made priest may be more squishy due to more optimized stats. Regardless, for a ranged weapon choice for a priest, I'd suggest a high damage, slow reloading weapon. Faster fighting, lower damage ranged weapons seem to work better for characters who have high accuracy skills, whereas characters with lower accuracy skills seem to work better with the slow firing, hard hitting weapons ... because the high damage weapons will get more damage past their target's DR with that high damage, while high accuracy characters will have a greater chance of getting crits (if I understand the combat system correctly) and will be able to make better use of their high rate of fire to produce excellent damage.

How and where do you get the mission to go back to check on Raedric? I'm well into Act 3 and have not seen any such mission.

I found the Ogre bounty difficult the first two times I did it. The way to deal with large groups of Ogres is to use mental spells. The level 4 Wizard Confusion spell works wonders! When facing a mob of Ogres, cast no other level 4 wizzy spell other than Confusion. Basically the best spells to use against the ogres are those that will get them to attack each other, be it charm or domination spells, confusion, or some other spells or cipher "spells". There are usually too many ogres who have too much health for you to deal with using only brute force. Getting some of the ogres to switch sides and start attacking each other makes these battles a LOT easier. And a tactical tip. If by chance you happen to get every single ogre confused by a single casting of the spell, target one of the ogre druids with ranged weapons to get him to turn red again so that his still confused buddies will start attacking him (or vice-versa). And when it seems like they're just about to become unconfused, have your wizard ready to zap'em with another confusion spell. Confused ogres are a very, VERY good thing! === The bounty battle that I had the hardest time with was the Vithrack bounty. A mob of Vithracks are absolutely murder! They'll just paralyze, stun, frighten, and/or terrify you, and you can never seem to get the right buffs active before you're disabled. I remember in the Endless Paths dungeon that running into a single Vithrack wasn't a big deal because you could focus fire your entire party's ranged weapons on it and take it down fast. But a mob of them is a completely different story. I ended up crushing them on my 3rd or 4th try, though I don't really know why I succeeded. What I did was split off my PC, a Ranger, and put him far to the side of the rest of my party. And when the combat triggered, I was having him fire arrow after arrow after arrow into the V's from max range. And for some reason, it worked wonders. One thing that did occur to me about trying to deal with the V's was this. They're all about mental powers and their Will defense is very strong. So trying to attack them with Will based spells seems like it wouldn't be a good idea. The best way to deal with them might be to spread your party out, a lot. Enough that a single area effect spell can't get more than a single character. Then send in your toughest tank to trigger the battle, hoping that they'll focus entirely on him, while the rest of your party is hitting them with ranged weapons or spells. You might want to switch around some of your party's items to try to give your sacrificial tank the best Will save possible to give him some chance of resisting those mental attacks. Pallagine might be the best choice here, if her base Will defense is greater than, say, Eder's. Anyways, just a thought.

There are 11 or 12 bounty missions, in 3 sets. The first two sets the warden gave the PC had four bounties each in them. And IIRC, the final set may have had only 3 (though I'm not 100% certain about that).

Agree 100%. Where's the fun in getting the final level on your characters right before the final fight?