Ichthyic

Except that's just flat untrue. The Helm Of Balduran is an end-game ToB item. It was not. It was found in the prologue. What a powerful helm it was. I think the person you are replying to meant that it was a helm that remained viable throughout all chapters of the game, unlike most of the helms here, that are barely viable already, let alone real endgame level 30 stuff.

yeah, I probably should have kept my mouth shut until I actually did a full run with it myself.

I almost made my solo paladin a wild orlan Decided on Aumaua for the flat stun resist instead, but I think people are too taken in by the moonlikes when there are other races with very worthy benefits. Its coz wild orlans ability only kicks in in SOME fights, moonlike get twice as much hp for ALL fights. How is solo paladin anyway, i woldnt think you would have enough dps? you'd be correct. there's a fine line, and some battles are just not very winnable on POTD with a solo paly I think. and by not very winnable, I mean, you'd have to crit extraordinarily often to succeed,or else plan way ahead and save up a bunch of the right scrolls to boost damage and reduce enemy resistance, etc. OTOH, there IS a paly build I was thinking of that might be able to bypass DR even with low might. ever notice that a blunderbus fires 6 projectiles at once? you're thinking... "but.. that's even WORSE... each projectile does crap damage against DR!" but you know what does good damage against everything? raw damage. did you know envenomed strike stacks? so... here comes poison-pistol*-packin'-paladin-pete *well, blunderbus, anyway. I tested this against my paladin, with 24DR to physical damage... and it does over 100 points of damage... per attack. the best thing? not only does it stack on each attack, each attack's poison stacks on the previous attack... you can get some insane numbers. earlier today I was running one where I got 120 raw damage per second... yeah, you read that right. so, I might actually try a hearth Orlan min/maxed paly, but focusing on blunderbus and envenomed strike. swap back to shield while the poison melts the target. others have had the also bright idea to do a rogue blunderbuss build.... sneak + backstab + deep wounds + envenomed strike.... I think it might be overkill.

grats! btw, this screnshot has finally convinced me... I have played this game before. it was about 8 years ago, built using the infinity engine, but it had this EXACT map in it, even down to the 3 circles on the entryway. I had been having a feeling of deja vu all through playing this game (have not finished yet), but was thinking it was all in my head, sicne there is also a lot of new content. but this.... I remember this exactly. anyone else remeber seeing artwork, scenes, and maps from this game in a previous game? anyone recall the name of it? was there a cobbled together fan release of BGIII that this was in? seriously, I KNOW I have seen a lot of this game before...

I have had an incredible feeling of Deja Vu while playing this game. certain areas, maps, dungeons.... seem awfully familiar to me. then i saw someone post a screenshot from the end battle area... I HAVE played this before. here's the thread with the screnshot: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76099-path-of-the-damned-solo-achieved/ I played a game with this EXACT same area in it about 8 years ago. I think someone released a cobbled together version of BGIII? really, not sure that was the name of it, but I KNOW I have seen this before. does anyone recall having seen a lot of this game before? like I said, it would have been years ago.

don't care about blame, care about fix. that said, the "engine" is unity. has nothing to do with the dabase for the game code. all that needs to be done is identify confused enemies as still enemies. not hard. confused does not mean charmed. which of course, ALSO means they need to define that charmed enemies are still enemies too. just that you can now choose to cast positive buffs on them if you want. if every single deve team that made a crpg before this one could do it, with far more primitive tools to work with, these guys can too. I really doubt it was a design decision. more likley just an oversight in programming in multiple enemy state levels.

yup. wildstrike only for spirit form. you want the "eye of the storm" ability if you also want shock bonus in your normal form. not sure if they stack... but they actually should, since the elemental bonus things like "eye" are passive. also, as someone mention, you need to click on the actual attack listing in your combat log, it will then open the detail of the attack and show you all sources of damage, and the rolls your attack made agains the defender.

you're not the first to mention that exact scenario. obviously, the game considers you toast if all party members are uncoscious, period, even if it's only for a split second. probably working as intended.

they've already included balance changes in the very first patch. example: arbalests got nerfed, slick got nerfec, ice cloud got nerfed.... I actually disagree with you. I think they need to get the serious bugs ironed out FIRST, and then worry about nerfing/buffing things. as it is, they are breaking things as fast as they fix them, so they need to slow the hell down, get a grip on proper testing of each bug fix, and release a proper patch in a couple of weeks. if you don't like the balances after a month, likely someone will have already made mods to adjust to taste.

I used to buff my "stole" members in BG too. I don't find this bad, it is pretty logical. The spells say "Friendly", a charmed creatures is friendly, so... It is not the best for the combat, so you must be smart. no. it's not the same thing here. here, you don't get a choice. if you are usign a CC buff, all confused enemies AUTOMATICALLY get your cc buff. no, that's plain stupid. the idea of friendly aoe spells is the caster can choose to target who gets them, that's what makes them friendly. the OP is absolutely correct, and there is no game in all of crpg history that treated confused enemies as actual party members before this game. it needs fixin'.

yeah, but ... *waits for person to jump into thread saying they played the whole game and never ever had a single bug* ....because you know someone will. ...and then they'll act like their feefees are hurt because you don't believe them. so, let this be a pre-emptive strike: no, do not say there are no bugs in this game because YOU claim not to have experienced any. you're wrong. you DID experince bugs, you are just entirely unobservant and manged not to even notice, which is scary. if you are one of these people, do not ever get a job requiring attention to detail.

just checking... I'm still using 1.02058 was stacking of deflection/damage reduction/statistics/ etc fixed for people you leave in your keep and send on adventures? I wasn't using the ranger NPC because of the bug with animal companions getting stuck, but I left her with a set of fine enchanted hide armor, and after a couple of adventures, her DR had stacked 7 times to a 15 base. likewise, I had durance go on a single adventure, and came back to find his priest ring had caused his spell casting numbers to stack, his armor had caused his DR to stack, and his necklace had caused his intellect to stack. now the stats I can mod down with the console as a workaround, but not the other stuff. so... was this ALL fixed in the patch? no more stacking of everything related to abilities and stats when you leave a character out of your party, or send them on adventures in the keep? because really... at this point it has gone beyond annoying and into the realm of... "screw this, I'll just not use the companions and create custom characters, even though the stories for the companions are quite good". now this is NOT, repeat, NOT the save/reload on initial hire area bug. this is stats and abilities stacking when you send your companions on adventures in the keep. now, I don't plan to patch until at least the next stable patch version is released, so if anyone can suggest a workaround in the meantime, that would be great.

me? one of the first posts I saw on this forum was one comparing ranged dps between bows. for everything aside from the arbalest (now nerfed), hunting bow won. I use my rogue as a ranged disabler... quick sneak attacks with blind on casters, cripples on chargers; need to change targets quickly and get arrows on them. the hunting bow, having the fastest attack, is ideal for this anyway, even if it didn't have better or equal dps to any of the other bows. I give her enchants to boost her peception, which also makes her a fantastic interrupter. I don't need to run around the battlefield so much. i get to maneuver outside of all the aoes and quickly pick targets. dual hatchets if she gets engaged, plus escape and potions of fast feet. still, it's squishy (padded armor was the heaviest she ever wore; usually wore robes of berath - those quest robes you get in the castle), and I probably wouldn't try it as a solo character. also, you need to invest in the bow. if you don't have a decent unique hunting bow, then you really need to buff up a standard hunting bow as best you can, as early as you can. or buy a fine one from your keep to get the process started. burning lash is really your best elemental boost, as it helps a lot with things like spirits, trolls, etc. you probably will need at least two bows too. one enchanted for kith slaying, and the other for either beast or spirit. hey, if you have the mats, create a slayer for each major creature class. stick with fire for everything but beast, and for beast go corrosive or cold instead because... scaly things with wings (all other beasts have no specific resistances IIRC). there's also a couple of excellent unique hunting bows in the game. Persistence is one, forget the other... lenas er? ?

if the dragon can be paralyzed... can't you just buy some scrolls of paralyze from your chapel in the keep and just spam those? does the level 2 fetid caress spell work? if either is the case, this fight simply cannot be that hard.

actually, you can build a better deflection tank using an Orlan. if the idea is to avoid damage, rather than try to heal from it. as to helmets, again, there is one that specifically makes a maxed perception/resolve orlan even better, and then there is the helm that has charm built into it, but really? nope, youre right that there simply aren't very many good helms, less than a handful, and even those aren't "great". so yeah, AFAICT, there are two helms worth thinking about: Munacra Arret and Pilgrim's Vigil of those two, muncara could theoretically save your ass on any number of ocassions with its huge will save boost. charm might come in handy at some point too, though it does have a long cast time. pilgrim's vigil is really only valuable to a min/maxed tank looking to get their per/res values over 20.

sounds like more stuff to try. it's getting tougher though, as a lot of the passive stuff only applies in real combat, and things typically die so fast anyway, you can't really tell if all that poison stacking is doing them in except on really beefy targets, and there are so few of those. might have to actually look up how to spawn creatures in, and test that way. FWIW, i thought backstab replaced sneak attack if you have the skill and are attacking from the appropriate distance? I never picked backstab, as I had built a ranged rogue for quick targeting casters with blind and cripple. but... a blunderbus backstabbing deep wounds rogue with envenomed strike... I suppose I could make one at the tavern and give it a shot... pun intended.

yeah, Hold Wall is definitely the most brutal weapon you can get in Act 1. was almost sorry to see it get nerfed in the patch. fortunately, I'm not using the patch, so I still get to one-shot nearly everything with it as an opening attack. yeah, it probably did need to get nerfed. still, looking at the stats for the nerfed version, it;s still worth every penny. it's still a must-have weapon for act1. still the first ranged weapon really worth saving mats to enchant.

works perfectly. had it trigger as I was charging a xaurip high priest in the tunnels under the keep... and eder blundered into a trap. on hard, those traps do 100 damage. even a stupid dart trap. so, he gets knocked unconscious by the trap, then bounces right back up and proceeds to lop the head off the priest. I call that a win. you only get "maimed" if you lose all your HEALTH, not your endurance, just fyi. you'd have to be doing something seriously wrong to lose all your health. I haven't even come close to that ever happening, first run through on hard mode. again, it bounces you back up when you get KNOCKED OUT, and you don't get maimed unless your entire health pool was ALSO at zero. so, bottom line, yeah. it's worth keeping. it's decent armor as well, and not nearly as slow as plate. now, if you want eger to actually be a primary tank, instead of an off-tank or dps fighter, then you probably will want to actually dump it for full plate at some point. but really... egers stats make him an ideal secondary tank, and I have had zero problems leaving that armor on him and just enchanting it to make it better.

i find durance's conversation to be the buggies of them all. I myself never got any of the dream sequences. you can use the console to force the quest forward if something is not triggering correctly for you, but I don't know if that would help with the end resolution or not. you can find all the console commands here: http://rien-ici.com/iemod/console

I'm quite surprised nobody suggested just protecting yourself from cold damage. you know, there are ways to do that, right? there's even a second level mage spell: bullwark, that is easy to get and will give you 10 extra dr against cold over whatever else you have. if you have durance, try painful interdiction. weakens their damage still further, and slows them, and makes them easier to hit. in fact, painful interdiction might be my single favorite spell in this game. Foe only, great range, huge AOE, instant cast, per event instead of rest, works to interrupt, slow, and weaken all at the same time. I start every fight with this. if you get an affliction, use the priest spell "suppress affliction", and basically it nullifies everything. got a paladin? are you using zealous endurance? there's another 3 dr against all damage right there. got eder? did you give him "defender"? make sure it's turned on, and those teleporting shades will target him instead. his starting armor has good resistance to cold. did you make some weapons that have spirit slayer and/or burning lash on them? did you let your tanks engage the enemies FIRST? did you cast "armor of faith"? did you give your tanks some scrolls of "fan of flames"? this was a *slightly* challenging fight only in the fact that they spawn on top of you. On hard you get 3 specters besides. it still WASN'T that tough. take a look at what you characters can actually DO.

IIRC, it doesn't trigger until chapter 3?

^^ditto that. I finally gave up and used the console to force-forward to the next quest step. now I'm supposedly at the NEXT dream step, but still.... no dream. sorry chief, but there is definitely an issue with the dream conversations triggering. don't know what it is, but now you have 3 different people reporting it. maybe the next patch. quite frustrating really, as I find Durance's story to be by far the most interesting of all the companions.

yup. I also assume you can stack both effects, but have not tested to be sure. so, you are using a piratey rogue with a blunderbuss.... since deep wounds is passive, and evenomed strike is an active skill.... you should get them stacking on the same shot. I do not know if deep wounds also applies its effects to each projectile, but I'll bet it does. that wold be some serious, serious raw damage if so. edit: sadly, there is no easy way for me to test this, as deep wound effects only apply in "real" combat, like other passive effects. tomorrow.

level 4 on up is where to start examining what you can enchant. level 6 you can enchant from any type of enchant group. some things to consider: damage reduction on armor is always good, and cheap. putting fine on your weapons makes them noticeably more effective, though it's double the cost for ranged and two-handed weapons. IMO, if you only have the mats to to do one "slayer" ability, kith is the one to pick. second would be tied between spirit and beast. again, it has a noticeable impact. things that don't have a lot of impact: "proofing", except for piercing maybe for your casters or others with weak armor. putting "fine" on a shield doesn't do much; if you need to save mats, here's a thing you can pass on. plus, by the time you hit the city, you'll be finding enchanted shields anyway. for elemental damage, burning or corrosive damage are about equal. very few things resist corrode, but also very few things are weak to it. more things resist burn, but there are quite a few common enemies (like spirits) that are weak to it. so, you can custom design a very powerful weapon specifically to deal with spirits by making it burning and spirit slaying. if it's a one handed weapon, this also is quite cheap.

OK. finally got around to testing multiple source stacking today. answer: yes, but they actually can't be at *exactly* the same time, oddly. so, if you have two guys with envenomed strike, delay your second guy attacking by a second. might have been just a fluke, but the 3 times i tested firing at exactly the same time, it did not stack the second shot's poison damage (even said so in the stat panel: "failed to trigger secondary effect". but... if I waited for the first tick of the first stack of poison to go off, before having the second character fire on the same target.... they do indeed stack. 2 characters, both hit 5/6 with envenomed strike on my paladin. result? 88.3 damage... PER SECOND. is what is listed on the character card under status effects. Highest I got in double stacking was 120/s. that's for 12 seconds so... yeah. that's right. that's over 1000 total damage, theoretically. even the superspeed regeneration that happens outside of combat was having trouble keeping up, though she never actually came close to dying. I think it dumps a lot of the raw damage potential once you are outside of actual combat, because I never saw it actually *do* the full 1000 damage. you only get about 3 ticks of it before it turns off sustained damage. IN combat though, it's absolutely brutal. so far, nothing has surived when I've gotten a good hit. I suppose I might actually try doubling up if I run into something that has more than 150 health on it, but that's pretty rare. at level 6, one envenomed blunderbuss shot was taking down elder lions. but yeah, any physical attack that uses multiple hits/projectiles should work with stacking envenomed strike.