Ichthyic

even if you don't bring them along on your travels, they will occasionally have remarks to make onboard your ship. also? that's a good reason to keep levelling them and giving them your best hand-me-down gear, even if you don't include them in your main adventuring party. because they WILL participate in ship-ship boarding combat, even if they aren't in your party. once you have a handful of those sidekicks, properly leveled and geared, you don't even have to move once when you have a boarding action. they will pretty much wipe the floor with most of those kinds of combats. your regular sailor crew is background noise in comparison. don't forget to also set their AI protocol, and turn it on before you leave them on board your ship. I forgot to do that and the first combat after levelling them they just stood there, doing nothing

IIRC, if you have set a positive relationship tag with Tekehu, the first visit with him to the tavern at the harbor in Neketaka goes a bit... differently.

well, it's not for want of trying. if you follow the detail in the turn log, you can clearly see that destroying, or even severely damaging, enemy sails DOES have an effect on how long it takes them to accomplish turns that require movement, and you certainly can modify distances between your ship and theirs much more easily. it's just that ranges don't mean much given that expert cannoneers can basically increase the effective range of their cannon by a huge margin (just like your crew can), and the game automatically seems to allow enemy ships to fire broadsides from any angle. the effect of torn sails is much more noticeable with a novice crew, OR, if you grapeshot an experienced crew. once you have novices behind the cannons, having torn their sails so you can move around them more easily becomes much more noticeable as an advantage. but then, as people pointed out, with a novice crew you might as well just blast them with cannonballs instead. I think the only times I found using grape/chain shot any advantage, was when fighting very experienced crews sailing galleons with very high hull strengths. THEN, either using chain or grapeshot (not both) becomes a worthwhile strategy. if you can take out at least half their experienced cannon crew on your first turn with grapeshot, you then have a huge advantage. My rule of thumb when fighting experienced crews was always try ONE round of grape/chain shot first. then immediately switch to balls for the rest of the combat. a lucky first round would give you a huge advantage, in both offense and defense (especially), without taking away too much from the damage you could have potentially done to their hulls.

the game does not seem to care what the orientation of the enemy ship is wrt to firing cannons. they always seem to be able to broadside you, even if they are moving forward in the previous turn, even if it is a galleon. so frankly it doesn't matter even if you re-align yourself relative to them by say, turning to put your stern to them and moving away 50m. it only means YOU won't be able to broadside them. I think the ship system needs a bit of detail work frankly, but the potential is there for storyboarded ship combat that could be quite fun. it's *almost* there. just not quite.

it's more of a "let OTHER dudes kill a dude, THEN you kill those dudes" ... and get a weapon I love the textures on that sword, btw. translucent blood red glass. oh, btw, while there is a copy of the book that talks about the cult of sanguine in Arkemyr's library, you can find it as a random book in other places too. I had 4 copies by the time the game was over. you find the clue that you need to read the book if you go to the forest location you mark on any day other than the 16th. also? you can attack as soon as the soul enters the pommel of the sword and it glows. you will catch them a bit off guard and still get the "best" version of the sword. And lastly, you should have show the potential enchantment list for that sword, as some of them were quite interesting. It truly is a very good greatsword, only surpassed by the "Whispers of the Endless Paths" that you can make from the stuff you brought with you from PoE1. well, at least the non-nerfed version of that sword anyway. as of patch 1.1, the Sanguine IS the best greatsword in the game. If this were any other rpg that had alignment systems, that should be a serious push towards changing your alignment towards evil though also? good choice of cape for your main. I modded that cape with all the "death" labeled minor enchantments and it worked out nicely.

I don't ever remember having a character in a game end up evil that I didn't intend to from the start. And in most CRPGs I've played since cross-sequel continuity became the norm, there have been as many or more benefits for being good as for being evil in the vast m as majority of them. the your dms were much much more forgiving than any I played with. steal something, even if you don't get caught? that means more power for you... at the same time it shifts your alignment ever so slightly more towards evil. dms, and games in general, tend to be very soft on alignment issues these days I guess.

using the distraction explosives is a good idea. I rather thought it was an excellent mechanic when I first used it, then about a minute later it seemed, I had no need of doing anything but simply slaughtering everything in the first turn of combat. seemed like there was a huge power jump when you hit around level 10-12.

be careful where you spawn things for testing. i was in the corner on the roof of the palace and spawned the magma dragon to test with, and while I was fighting it, a magma ooze it summoned and I didn't notice... wandered over and killed the queen! game over. lol

funny, but my inquisitor was using time parasite all the time late game. don't know where you got the idea that mulitclassing ciphers don't get that spell. it's level 8, not level 9. and again, right above your post, I made a very detailed argument about how ciphers are a LOT more than just dominate and charm. did you even read it? *shrug* I'll make sure to ignore your response in kind.

well, in the world of rpg, that makes sense. it's why most characters end up neutral/good or neutral/evil in the end. because typically going for more power leans towards the evil side of things.

There was a similar thing in WoW Yeap.Like in PoE1: Adra Dragon is harder to fight with a level 11 party than Llengrath at level 16. Although if both encounters done at max level, Adra Dragon is definitely easier. If I had to fight all encounters at max level on PotD/upscaled, here's how I would rate their difficulty: - 8/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Brynlod Bounty - 7/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Llengrath - 6.5/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Magran's Faithful - 6.5/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Alpine Dragon - 6/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Radiant Spore - 5/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Concelhaut - 5/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Adra Dragon - 3/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Concelhaut - 2.5/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Nemnok - 2/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Lava Dragon - 2/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Menzzago - 2/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Ukaizo Guardian - 1/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Giant Cave Grub - 1/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Engwithan Titan And if I had to order them by the perceived difficulty when I actually stumbled upon them: - 8.5/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Alpine Dragon @ lvl 13 - 8/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Brynlod Bounty @ lvl 16 - 8/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Magran's Faithful @ lvl 13 - 8/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Adra Dragon @ lvl 11 - 7/10 [PoE2.beta4] Engwithan Titan @ lvl 9 - 7/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Radiant Spore @ lvl 14 - 7/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Llengrath @ lvl 16 - 7/10 [PoE1.v3.0+] Concelhaut @ lvl 14 - 7/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Giant Cave Grub @ lvl 8 - 6/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Concelhaut @ lvl 12 - 4/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Nemnok @ lvl 14 - 3/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Lava Dragon @ lvl 18 - 3/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Menzzago @ lvl 15 - 2/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Engwithan Titan @ lvl 9 - 2/10 [PoE2.v1.0.2] Ukaizo Guardian @ lvl 20 P.S. I haven't encountered Kraken nor Sea Dragon in my first playthrough. the adra dragon, without spamming adragan's gaze scrolls on it, was indeed a tough fight. I think I had to try that 4 or 5 times before I got though without more than half my crew dead.

Kraken is what you get if you tell Gallawain to piss off during the quest to stop the mad coral growth at Sayuk. pretty sure the sea dragon is the shadow under neketaka? how did you miss that? thought it was a required quest. you don't have to fight it, but you can. those fampyr gaze attacks can be annoying but there is an easy way around them: solo with a character immune to mind attacks (many ways to achieve this), and keep the rest of your guys in stealth. or... attack with a character that can do a lot of damage in the first round and keep the rest of your team stealthed, then once they are charmed, uncharm them via liberation or other method. liberation will protect from charm for the rest of the fight, and then you can finish the fight with the rest of your crew. worked for me every time. I typically opened with either aloth or fishboy casting a powerful aoe, then once they get charmed, liberating him with my paladin, and finishing off the rest with more aoe.

my favorite fight was not the cave grub, but it was nearby that. it's the fight with the waves of undead that spawn after you empty the pockets of the dead npc you find by the lake down there. hey, there was even a warning note on the body. but yeah, that fight took everything I had at the time to make it through relatively unscathed. Gallawain ruined the magma dragon fight for me

Well, I always had my main character take down anything that was higher level than she was. which means she killed every boss enemy and powerful mob in the game. and you know what the most powerful enemy in the game is, according to the records? Nemnok. LOL yeah, that's right, Nemnok is more powerful than the Engwithan guardian, according to the game. pretty sure that's the devs screwing with players deliberately. "His power level is OVER 9000!"

It has to do with the quest "Final Maneuver" still being active. unfortunately, if you have that quest active, but side with the Huana to blow up the powder house... there is no way to clear it since you can no longer talk to the Hazanui. might be able to use the console? edit: well, I could use the console and the "advancequest" command... but you need the internal name of the quest, and finding that is not easy. also, need to know what stage to set it to so it is marked as "failed". alternatively you can go back to before you blow up the powder room, and talk to the hazanui, then refuse to do what she asks. but then, everyone goes hostile. it's really a bug. the quest should clear itself once you align with any faction. so should the pirate one, which also doesn't clear.

FindGameData is the command.

you need to keep pallegina stealthed until your main damage dealer gets charmed. then use liberation on them and continue the fight as normal. the problem comes from when you try to attack with your whole crew at once, and half or more of them get charmed... including the character than can stop the charm. attack with one character only to start, the enmies will all focus on that character, and when they get charmed, then cast liberation on them. then you should be able to attack with Pallegina and your other characters... hopefully you have some aoe long range magic users, as they are less likely to draw gaze attacks. petrification aoe is really handy here. not sure if spell reflect potions will work on gaze attacks, but you might try those too. I just used the above strategy and all the battles were ezpz on PotD.

None of the conversations at Splintered Reef take into account whether or not you have already destroyed Lucia Rivan. I think they should. would be very interesting to have that same conversation with Menzaggo when you tell him you destroyed Rivan. maybe you WOULD be able to get that undead army... and have it be the distraction to the other factions so you don't have to suffer through the naval battles at all before going through Ondra's Hammer maybe? that would be cool. or maybe you could just take control of the undead faction there and run the economy, etc.? so many possibilities....

er... nope. people who multiclass ciphers apparently only do so thinking of using only one or two skills. ciphers probably have the best overall utility in combat of any caster. they have a lot of spells that disable, cause raw damage, increase your characters stats, manipulate positioning, and best of all, the thing everyone seems to forget for some reason... time parasite. time parasite, by itself, makes ciphers simply the most powerful class to combo with. I guess people just never bother to try it. look... it's an AOE that sucks all the speed AWAY from every opponent around the target, AND gives YOU all their speed for pretty much the duration of combat. it's ridiculous. it end up doubling your speed and halving theirs, or more, for a net effect that you are operating FOUR TIMES faster than your opponents. I don't care WHAT you pair that up with, melee, ranged, wizard... that's gonna leave a mark. the domination thing is only one small part of ciphers. my conclusion is either that people just haven't actually played them past using dominate or annihilation, or else they are lying to try at get the devs to NOT nerf ciphers. *shrug* even with the current nerfs to annihilation, it's still wayyyyy op for anything you are going to run into in this game, and still fun to play because you can play a soulblade pretty much any way you want. I know I do. plus, you theoretically have unlimited cipher spells so long as you keep doing damage. inquisitor (bleak/soulblade) is still a very fun and powerful build.

confirm: "maiming" as an enchantment does not work, period. I experimented adding it to different weapons via unity console, and none of them added any raw damage over time.

I thought those only applied on restart, so I just left them. no?

I was just thinking that completing all the quests to get the explorer's guide should clear the fog from the entire map. after all, the idea was you were just supposed to fill in what was missing. that way, you could see the things you still might like to explore. ITMT, is there a console command to reveal the whole map? edit: nvmd. used unity console to reveal the map.

yup. the last of the special bounty quests is an ogre pirate that you can literally pickpocket her head out of her inventory. surprisingly, she seems fine with that. must be a spare head.

I liked the way they ramped up fight difficulty in BG2. they gave everyone, including enemies, the ability to set combination spells that trigger instantly on conditions. like... iron skin, spell reflection, and mirror image that are cast instantly on combat start, for example. that made a lot of the fights much more interesting, and you had to plan ahead to deal with tough defenses by using counters like ruby ray, etc. so, at higher difficulty levels in PoE2, have the enemy ai be able to instant cast some defensive spells or abilities at the start of combat, and/or when certain conditions are met, like 50% health, immobilized, etc. again, the scripting for this kind of thing is already built into the game... the ai just doesn't do well using it.

You can. use the console mod over on nexus mods, and you can add any ship to your fleet you wish. fair warning... there are three ships you cannot purchase: the ghost ship, the submarine, and the fire ships up near magrans teeth. while you can put any of those into your fleet... they all are completely terrible when not used by the AI. the ghost ship is just a rotted out galleon. the submarine has weak guns and is extremely slow (no sails). the Rathun only have one cannon slot, and few crew slots as it is, it just isn't worth the effort, but as I said, you can grab that mod and then spawn them into your fleet if you want to check them out.