Blackthane

Upon comparing it with a normal pistol from random loot? It has the exact same garbage stats and the exact same bonuses upon enchanting it (on paper, assuming the figures are right and executed properly), and by the time you have enough money and ingredients to enchant either you should have come across better guns. Given its low selling price these days, the only reason you want to keep the Disappointer is that it is a unique item. Well unless it truly has some other hidden property upon completing all of its enchantments?

You're late to the party. It used to sell for 400+ on 1.02, seems they toned it down in 1.03. Legit, no DLC, and no killing of all camp people, you can still get 900+ by looting everything that no one owns (hence no hostiles), Disappointer and a couple of wolf hides. The potions are worth more than the joke gun. And you are not missing much with that "nerf". 900g will net you some level 1 hires (250g each), which isn't something you absolutely need if you're going with companions party. You don't need to buy anything from the shops either once you start questing and looting. Resting at Gilded Vale's inn is free, so is your stronghold and depending on your temporary allies, some NPCs will provide you with rest spots in dungeons too. Dungeons usually provide 1~2 camp supplies as well. tl;dr version: Don't worry.

Is there one? Or it doesn't really matter who I offload my stuff to?

Aloth is extremely useful for clearing ghost types on PotD with Fan of Flames. I think part of the "wizards are weak" mentality stems from druids taking Scion of the Flame (which any class has access to) and ciphers having per encounter abilities from the start. The 3rd factor contributing to a basis conclusion is that the remaining 4 party members are 1 level higher than your first 5 members when you recruit them. So Hiravias will end up having 7 level 1 spells while Aloth only has 4. That doesn't mean Aloth is useless, as his stats might suggest, since I cleared Caed Nua on 1.02. In 1.03 his Cursed of Blackend Sight is foe only, which is a nice no brainer debuff. Personally I haven't used Eldritch Aim on PotD much, though I think that's going to change soon. Thus far, PotD's only hard part was sticking to 5 default members and clearing Caed Nua at low levels to get access to the other 4 members. Once that was done Temple of Eothas and A Mother's Plea were really easy (the spores were near impossible before clearing Caed Nua). Even the level 2 stronghold encounter with wyrms was easy. I'm confident given another month or so players will discover ways to dominate Caed Nua at low levels even further. My main cipher isn't min-maxed either. He has Con 3 and, Int 18 (huge regret here) and Res 9 (doubly so here). Yeah I get lots of duration and AoE bonuses (for a cipher...=/) at the expense of endurance, deflection and concentration. In fact, if I pull through PotD without Eldritch Aim I'm doubting the usefulness of Int for a party wizard. Even if duration spells have their place in PotD, at level 9 once wizard's level 1 spells become per encounter I'm more likely than not to put Int at 9 or 10 on my future wizards. I didn't use food and didn't have the resources to buy camp supplies, let alone enchant equipment. I did get the first summon item from Gilded Vale's merchant and it was useful in being a 2nd tank while Aloth ran around roasting ghosts. And I do split pulling for some ridiculous battles. However, for a scripted ambush involving high level 8~10 bandits, I simply know that I can't do it at level 4 for the time being. And mechanics need to be 7 or 8 to get the Obsidian Lamp. Something I'm working on currently.

Eder, Durance, wizard, wizard, wizard, wizard. Done.

I'm reading from the loading screen tip that events at strongholds, namely tax collection and generation of ingredients occur after completion of quests. Well, if this is the case, won't that mean there is a finite number of resources to be harvested? And are the completion of quests tied to adventures which can bring in some gold and items? Or is it such that after completing x amount of quests, certain events are triggered, and hence forth they are triggered infinitely after x days have passed? To my understanding, tax collection is also bugged that we don't get money but if bandits come and conduct a raid, we have to pay for damages (One way tax! That's how you run a kingdom!). Was this fixed in 1.03? Cause last I checked, mobs don't respawn - short of the ones that raid the stronghold. The devs want us to concentrate on the stories and dialog, but from a resource point of view how do I break PoE's economy in a legit manner so I can finish all my upgrades and get some enchanting going?

Caed Nua is doable on PotD with party of 5 (default story companions) @ level 3. It just takes quite a bit of trial and error (patient with the constant reloads) to get the split pulls, abuse chokepoints + Fan of Flames + Withdrawal + your first item summon, a couple of sneaks past the courtyard mobs (you can take down the flame blights), and the constant sneaking to and fro to rest at the inn if you're low on cash. Oh and avoid the non-essential battles like the library. Of course if you're confident of clearing out the entire courtyard it does eliminate your need to sneak.

Open areas: manually command your caster to flank the mob and use your spells. To avoid having mobs run all over the place so you're maximizing the number of targeted enemies, always let the tank engage enemies or pull off mobs one by one (usually 2 or 4 out of 6~8 will rush your tank). To control the battle and where mobs will position themselves, only one tank will deliver the opening shot and maintain mobs' attention. Dungeons: use tank to hold a position so the mobs can't get through a doorway (aka chokepoints), throw out Withdrawal (level 1 priest spell) and let caster stand directly behind encased roadblock and spam your AoE. Take note your caster can still die from foes' AoE and range attacks, and if you get greedy and try to position a 2nd caster behind the tank, he could get in the line of fire of the 1st caster too. Not being a smarty pants here, the other way is to use ciphers.

Anyway to do this early in the game? Like for clearing Caed Nua with a level 3 party?

You know what? On gaining a bit more experience with dungeons, I'd have to change my view on Withdrawal. It is awesome for tight corridors and doorways as chokepoints, only problem is your tank (Eder) can't dish out damage. The tank encased in protection is just there to hold a static position. No issue, that's what Fan of Flames, Chill Fog and Antipathetic Field is for. Well, and hopefully the mobs don't teleport or burrow around too much. Withdrawal is still garbage in open space skirmishes though. Probably not designed to be used that way...

I'm using a default party (Aloth, Eder, Duance, Kana) and am having little trouble clearing Caed Nua now. The constant backtracking to rest is a little tedious though. Sharing some tricks that really changed my hair-pulling battles to more manageable experiences: i.) real time positioning and re-positioning is everything - I'm no longer using default or custom formations. Aloth's Fan of Fire eats up those 5~6 phantom types easily. Don't be afraid to pause and re-position your casters to get the max range and avoid friendly fire more than 5 times per encounter if that's what it takes to win. So I would imagine knowing all the enemies' elemental weaknesses is why wizards are still viable in PotD - and also why we should ditch the "Slicken works for every encounter" mentality. ii.) kiting is a little controversial as some might view it as an exploit of A.I, but I did use it to break up groups of 6 into 2 and 4. This works since you're essentially doubling the usage of per encounter abilities and restoring your endurance/health in the process. Feel free to cheese it further by taking a trip back to town to rest if you've used up all your wizard spells. iii,) Kana's skeleton summons and figurine summons are useful temporary distractions. They are not meant to deliver hurt since their damage output is pathetic but they can tank for a few seconds and that's all that's needed for casters to rain pain on the mobs. iv.) Withdrawal kind of blows. The moment you use it either on a tank or a dps he can't do anything and the mobs all find another target to rape. v.) Any spell that adds accuracy and DR/deflection to your team while taking it away from the other side are good. Which is also why potions are good. I'm positive things are going to be better once the stronghold starts generating revenue and we can get all the enchantments going on gear. I don't have a min-max main either, I'm going with a con 3 cipher thus far, and as long as he's far in the back doing his mind tricks I don't need to reload often. It is when Aloth goes down that I hit the reload button now - because he's the one that's doing the greatest amount of damage to ghastly types.

According to a post on gaming.stackexchange, when you enchant something it replaces the negative attributes. I haven't tested this myself, but seeing as how everyone is using custom parties on PotD, I'm curious about the tradeoffs early game.

I'm working on the assumption that its penalties vanish after enchanting it, which in theory should make it one of the better starter weapons (of course, if this doesn't work out, then there is no choice to be made). The opportunity cost is 750 gold, or 3 custom made party members at Gilded Vale. On the more challenging difficulties, I'm just wondering which would pan out better for the first few hours?

Topic. Do you guys sell it to Heodan immediately, or hoard and enchant it?

So if I'm interpreting the responses right so far, basically from being a AoE freeze/knockdown/blind wizard, 1.03 changes it such that we're supposed to be blinding enemies from far? While the druid and cipher still outdamages wizard at higher levels? And the cipher doesn't need to rest for spells? edit: Int 21 and Ring of Overseeing for Chill Fog control. Got it.

When I came back to the cave with a party of 5 (4 companions) on PotD, it was 3 bears, not one. How does the game determine the number of mobs in any given encounter? Difficulty, number of party members or a mix of both?

I'm just trying to figure out if I should stick to ciphers and druids, or are there some other better spells later? I get the rationale behind the change to Chill Fog (wizards have FF on for all their spells, odd that a level 1 missed the memo), but I'm not so sure the logic behind a pool of oil being single target has roleplaying as its primary focus.

So what are the new arguments for wizards in PotD after 1.03?

I've restarted PoE about 4~5 times. What has happened before is that if the Watcher dies, my party continues combat until everyone is dead. In my most recent run, even while the 2 party members are still very much alive, as long as the Watcher is dead I get the load screen. Also, isn't expert mode supposed to be a permanent choice during a NG? Yet I can click and mess around with the various options in the tutorial dungeon. Can anyone clue me in on what's happening?

I'm stuck after rounding up the first 5 companions. I've read the guide which says to stealth past the phantoms one by one at Caed Nua (haven't tried this), but I'm still having trouble with these few encounters: i.) the 4 will o wisps at Temple of Eothas (Buried Secrets), ii.) quest: A Mother's Plea, at Anslog Compass. The 5~6 xaurips, the champion and the priest, or the group of 5~6 guls will eat up my party fast, iii.) and the 5~6 bandits at Black Meadow while pursuing The Smith's Shipment. I've tried out cipher (charm doesn't last long and level 1/2 AoE spells are weak), wizard (too fragile as well, spells don't hit hard enough) and druid (bear shapeshift only works on wolves but not humanoids or groups of exotic monsters), but my MC dies at almost every encounter from the tutorial to getting the first 5 companions. Essentially, I have to depend on NPCs to carry me through the fights. After several resets, I could finish off the 4 forest trolls and the 3 bears. I've done all the tasks available up until this point, but the most I could hit was level 3. I've tried rearranging the formation to T formation, but Eder and Kana Rua don't last long as well. Their DRs are only 7~10 tops. So, any pointers to make PoTD a breeze? For instance, equipment enchant, money, or easy quests to level up more? I'm trying to finish PotD with default party members, and since I only have roughly 500+ gold on every attempt by the time I get to the inn, I can only recruit one more hired adventurer, which is something I plan on avoiding if possible. I did acquire the minor cloak of protection at Cilant Lis and climbed up the cliff with Eder's Atheletics 5 skill at Valewood, but after failing 3 times I came to conclude the presence or absence of these items aren't the main reason why I'm doing it all wrong.