KDubya

I'd go for a dual wielding Cipher. Ciphers get a huge +40% damage add that will greatly increase damage and focus gain with any weapons which will then fuel his casting with all of the focus. Wizard's do great with summoned weapons like the level one staff and Citzal's Lance, but have no inherent advantage to using any weapon, especially dual wielding.

I'm a big fan of fists only for Monks. As you showed it's only when Durgan steel and max enchantment comes into play that weapons might take over the lead in damage output. The savings in material and the automatic upgrades at level up are much better with fists. Frequently at level four I've not even found a sabre, let alone two fine ones but I will have my fists automatically upgraded with damage as soon as I ding level four.

I don't think you actually meant narcoleptic here, maybe OCD? Narcolepsy with regards to sleeping frequently after every encounter so that all per rest spells were refreshed and ready to use again. Being able to pre-buff every battle would further encourage role playing a serial napper.

I thought PoE had it pretty good for armor and deflection. You could make a great swashbuckler with light armor with high deflection, you just needed to use a buckler and the weapon and shield talent and invest in Resolve. Heavy armor was clearly better in the early game as your defenses were low enough that you were going to be hit and better to use the DR to stop most of the incoming damage. As you gained levels and health you could take more hits so you'd start to use lighter armor to allow for faster attacks. Plus at the end having 32 DR with heavy of 24DR with light made little difference defensively when enemies were hitting you for 60+ damage. At that point the increased action speed of light was clearly better.

No prebuffing! Battles were already balanced completely different in PoE depending on whether you had Vancian casters and how much you were a narcoleptic. Adding in the ability to tediously buff yourself into godmode Gandolph is not needed or wanted. If we can pre-buff, can a Cipher attack the team's Monk to generate both wounds and focus to be able to start combat with the highest tier Cipher Powers? Every fight could then be initiated with defensive mind web or reaping blades cast on the Barbarian using carnage. This would trivialize any sort of fight, currently you had to spend some time to pull off the big power.

What exactly transfers over from PoE?

I last did the BG trilogy with TuTu mod installed, SCS as well as a few others that enhanced NPCs and let you customize the companions by changing class and weapon proficiency. It made for a great experience and going from Candlekeep all the way to the end of ToB with the same character was great. The whole series had a sense of epicness that I've not ever seen duplicated.

If you start DeadFire at level one what exactly are you importing from your high level PoE character? I've not delved too deeply into DeadFire yet, just looked over some of the multiclassing and Vancian caster changes and am generally intrigued by the changes, looking forward to see if they pull it all off or fail epically.

Meh, all this alignment crap from DnD should be pack up and drop into dump, where it belongs. The core reason why DnD have an alignment system is to restrict player actions, if story required it. And not sure what are you talking about, in PoE if people catch you stealing - they treat it like a crime. In f1/2 it is the same, and in any other crpg, actually. In fact, to hell this naive my little pony tier crap in crpg, i pretty sure that overage age of RPG core audience something around 18+. Let be realistic and adult, - no "good deed" should be left unpunished, no "bad deed" should be contrive and arbitrarily labeled as such and not rewarded because "f&k you, we decided so, because our crpg operates in term of kinder garden morale". Or rather both "good" and "evil" should be punished/rewarded equally in term of "action-consequences" in context of story. Player has steal a last coin from a Npc house - npc died from starvation in act 2. BUT in the same time, if player will give 10 gold to the npc, - in Act 2 this npc will try to kill player and steal more, because he has decided to do so/or local gang has ask him where he got 10 gold and forced him/or something else . Action - consequences please, no this contrive bollocks when "good" side is always wearing the thickest plot armor. If story logic dictated that a "good" need to be punished for being "lawful dumb" - then let it be so. Same for "bad" too. In ideal pack up this "good/evil" and throw in the window altogether. I mean in ideal story, only NPC reaction to player "deeds" actually exist, and each player should decided for him/her-self what to make out it. And even more, the usual kinder garden approach to morality is devalued the "good" as concept. Because usually "good" in crpg is nothing more that a carrot on the string for player to follow. For example - Alpha protocol - i beat it once - and there is zero replayability in it because there is no nuance in it - Why you ever not act as "good" (which mean let dangerous individuals to live, with "good" as this, who need "evil") if it has better rewards, better ending, and better all around? What is a value in this "your decisions, your weapon" if there is no way to make wrong choice as long as you "dropping a bone" to writers which obviously played paladins too much? Just act as "good"/follow the carrot - and you will get everything easy without ANY negative consequences, because you wearing some sort "good guy" golden parachute. In short, i guess, an ideal cRPG has no "good/evil" bs in it, but choices/consequence. Those "consequence" may manifest in a wary of ways, but primary in reactions of NPC to player actions. An ideal cRPG is immerse player into game world, and makes it clear about what consequences will player get for his actions. Ideal cRPG (or story) don't enabled consequence free, easy mode, for one of many sides involved in the story, just because the side is a "good guys'. Primary because it is devalued concept of "good'. An ideal cRPG/story/book is just telling a story with charterers, each of which has his own view on concept of moral, and of good and evil, but the story itself doesn't not playing favors. Probably the only reason why usual "good/evil" bs is plagued cRPG for so long. It is because everyone is understand, that if left DnD/usual cRPG "good" and "evil" on even and fair ground - "good" will lost in second, Because what called "good" in this case is usually dumb and unrealistic, and has zero chances to survive in even situation, without it usual plot armor. But this is it! The fun of playing an actual "good", not DnD-ish "good", character is in understanding that your actions can actually make things worst for you/your friends/ or for someone else, and in decision - would you do what is right, regardless of consequences? Im finding this ironic that the real heroes in those stories is usually the "bad" guys, because they actually committing to their course, they have sound and sane (usually) plan, and they are acting on their plan instead, of making bad decisions and acting like a complete "retard-good" and yet thanks for plot armor of "good guys" still get it all in the last moment on wings of the eagles. That what 20+ years of dnd alignment bollocks has done to the genre. ...hmm it seems like my little respond in bad english, has grown to the size of 1 a4 page in words...hmm and it badly derailing from the original KDubya post...hmm should i delete it or make people hate me again...hmmm.........xD I do not want to have DnD style alignments, I merely used 'neutral evil' to convey the concept of doing whatever that gives you the most benefit without thought of others and the fact that everyone would understand what I meant as 'neutral evil'. The OP wanted to get rewards similar to the cruel path from sacrificing companions and feeding the zombie for being 'good'. I and many others posted our disagreement that doing 'good' should also get you more power.

I think that PoE was a sort of 'proof of concept' experiment. - Is there a market for an old school isometric party based fantasy game? The answer is definitely yes. The problem inherited from the experiment was that PoE had to be crowd funded and thus the crowd had a lot of input as to how the game would be made. This led to including Vancian casters and all the headaches that follow. The new resource classes such as Cipher, Monk and Chanter were great. They were fresh and fun and could be easily tuned to allow for challenge throughout the game. Vancian casters, on the other hand, brought with them the same issues of resting abuse and 'god mode Gandolph'. I am looking forward to Josh's and Obsidian's revamp and elimination of Vancian casters. The empowerment resource sounds interesting but we will have to see how it all plays out.

Can a ask, are melee even viable on PoTD? Cause it seems like you can't be a melee and a dps in the same time on PoTD. Maybe only if on main char. All melee is dying in one moment inside of those hordes of enemies on PoTD, or they got paralyses/confuse/dominated/stunned/prone instead, and you need to have at lest 2 priest + scroll in order to keep it from happening. I have Pallegina as tank, all hers pallas defense bonuses + defense talent + items against confusion and affliction, and she STILL catching affectation statues on the first line, if unbuffet by priest. And damage of any melee is so small in comparison to any AoE, that why even bother? Are im wrong, or im right? I honestly tried to make melee dps on PoTD and their performance as dps always was weak, compare to wizard/druid/cleric/ranger or rogue with war bow. I haven't tried barbarian yet. Maybe barbs with their immortality mode would be viable. Most all of my PotD runs have been with melee heavy or melee only parties, all without priests. A Juggernaut 3.0 Monk with high Might and Con and using gear that also raises defenses like the Wayfarer's Hide, supported by a Chanter and a Paladin with Zealous Endurance for the hit>graze will shrug off most fortitude attacks like the fish people's paralyze and those he can't shrug off will merely be grazes and his DR and health regen is sufficient to just face tank what damage occurs. The damage output from a well built Monk with his own +25% lightning lash, a Turning Wheel fire lash of 5-40% and a chanter's +25% fire lash spamming Torment's Reach which adds another +50% crush lash, in a full attack that hits a large cone is YUGE! Best of all you stand right in front of the enemy without fear of getting killed because you are not squishy in the least. Your squishy spell casters or glass Rogues appear to do a lot of damage but you are not taking into account the fact that half to three quarters of your party are tasked with keeping that arcane cannon alive and safe from the enemy. Take away that protection and they go down like a drunk chick on prom night. Melee is sturdy and can survive, all while dishing out damage. Remember that a knocked out character does zero damage.

I hope that there are penalties for doing the neutral evil path that most gamers take with regards to emptying every container in every house and selling the contents. random theft should be treated as a crime not rewarded with financial gain. At least have your companions comment on your larcenous behavior. When you complete a quest you should not automatically get a reward, you should either do it for free cause you're the hero or ask for money like a mercenary. Make it a choice between being virtuous or being rich, not the default save the world and get rich while doing so.

To matter choices need to have consequences. If the multiclassing is like NWN then there will be no consequence to taking a few cheese levels of whatever ends up being the cheesiest. That is what ruins class balance and with that also character building beyond who can be the most extreme min maxing cheese fest like NWN. If Barbarians get Carnage as an innate ability how is it not going to be the easiest choice in the world to take at least one level of Barbarian for Carnage with any melee character? The same for taking a level of Monk to get use out of wounds, I mean you're going to take damage anyway why not get something out of it? Ciphers and focus will fall into the same trap, if any low level Cipher powers are useful to spam why not take a level? People at first complained about how worthless the cross class skills were in PoE but soon enough most every build incorporated one or more of them, even with their watered down strength. If you can get the pure full strength class innate abilities with a single level up it'll totally distort any sort of character balance. Balance matters in a single player game as much as in a multiplayer game. I've replayed PoE many times because of the large number of viable character builds that all fundamentally play different from each other. If in PoE2 we can make a MoPherArian who attacks in AoE, converts incoming damage into outgoing powers and outgoing damage into psionic power how can that monstrosity be balanced against any plain jane class? If building monsters like that are possible then they will dominate the 'learn to plays' and guides and people will quickly become dissatisfied with such an easy game.

I'm quite worried about multiclassing being included. I'm trying to think of a game where multiclassing wasn't the default best choice and I'm drawing a blank. In AD&D (Baldurs gate 2) (where I started back in the early 80's) Kensai/Mage, Berserker/Mage, Ranger/Cleric and Kensai/Thief were all massively better than any single class spell caster or thief. All the disadvantages of the caster, low hit points and few weapon choices, were all mitigated through multiclassing. Now split classes like demihumans had were pretty balanced as it kept you from ever reaching the highest levels of power of either class. Looking at NWN and NWN2 multiclassing became the norm. Adding in a level of Monk, or whatever single level wonder class for cheese became the default choice for all builds. NWN2 made it worse with allowing four classes. If abilities are similar to PoE 1 then how can you possibly balance a Barbarian/Wizard using carnage and a summoned Citzal lance? Anything melee mixed with Barabarian for carnage or Chanter for chants or even Monk to get use of wounds is going to be nigh impossible to balance unless they make it so restrictive that it becomes worthless. Building a multitude of characters that were both viable and unique in PoE was enhanced by the limitation of only having one class to work with. Overcoming a build's deficiencies by allowing multiclassing is going to remove the challenge of coming up with a good character build. Take my Juggernaut Monk as an example; if you let me add carnage to it or focus gain and cipher powers what possible reason would there be to not do it? If Tyranny is an example of how it will be then I'm quite justified in being worried. Character builds in Tyranny are extremely simple - make a tank mage, buff with illusion spells so that you are unhittable, retaliate with elemental enhanced attacks from Magic tree, add in riposte and you can solo the game. There aren't any deep discussions on character builds on the Tyranny forum because there aren't any, while the PoE boards are still active with new builds and discussions.

If its a full attack, such as heart of Fury or Torment's Reach, then dual wielding is the best. If its auto attacking and you have zero recovery than two handed weapons hit harder and will attack at the same speed as dual wielding. For that matter sword and shield (non-bashing) will attack as fast as dual wielding if both have zero recovery. Dual wields advantage is that it is much easier to get to zero recovery but once there its advantage diminishes.

I'd go for Tidefall if you don't have Blade of the Endless available. Estocs are the best but Tidefall has some great buffs. You don't need any weapon that adds crowd control like stun or prone because you have Force of Anguish getting you a 10+ second prone for the cost of two wounds. Here's what I have off the top of my head: Boreal Dwarf - Dwarves are cool and the accuracy bonus is huge. Rauitai - for the con bonus, or go for the Might or Dex, up to you Might - 18 - more damage and healing Con - 20 - more endurance to be converted to wounds Dex -10 - faster attacks, can be increased Per - 10 - good enough, Monk's have high base accuracy Int - 10 - the duration of Force of Anguish is really long so not really needed. Will get +4 from food and an item anyway Res - 10 - don't want to be interrupted all the time The stats could be adjusted between Might, Con and Dex, all of them will help a bunch. The others aren't needed as much but I'm not a big fan of dumping below 10. level one - Swift Strikes - faster attack speed level two - Veterans recovery - passive regen that stacks with the two Chanter auras. makes you Wolverine level three - Force of Anguish - ten second prone at 10 intellect level four - Lightning Strikes - +25% lightning lash level five - Turning Wheel - +5% fire lash per wound level six - Weapon Focus - more accuracy level seven - Duality of Mortal Presence - +8 defense level eight - Two Handed Style - +15% damage level nine - Crucible of Suffering - more defense OR Enervating Blows for weaken on crit level ten - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding level eleven - Flagellant's Path - zip across the field damaging everything on the way level twelve - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding level thirteen - Iron Wheel - +1 DR per wound level fourteen - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding level fifteen - Enervating Blows OR Resonant Touch level sixteen - Savage Attack OR Apprentice Sneak Attack OR Bear's Fortitude OR Wound Binding Basically you acquire lots of wounds to power your Turning Wheel and iron Wheel while using Force of Anguish and Falgellent's Path as needed, otherwise you auto attack with lots of lashes. You'll have +25% lightning lash, up to +50% fire lash Turning Wheel, +25% lash from weapon and possibly +25% fire lash from Chanter. When applied to a hard hitting two hander it will hurt.

Using the Starcaller flail could also be a good choice. It has stunning, an on crit spell attack, a graze>hit and is fast speed so you'll attack more often than slower average speed weapons. You could pair it with Drawn in Spring, which has an inherent accuracy boost to mitigate the lack of weapon focus, March Steel Dagger, in case you need additional speed, or some of the various clubs or stillettos that are in game that no one tends to use. Even sticking with just flails would get you the early flail with the endurance drain or the fire lash flail with the speed enchant. I think there was even one from White March that had a spell effect on it but I can't remember.

Does EK work with 3.03? Because it seems the console reverts any attribute chances I make when I reload. If EK works without a hitch, I'll just use that, thanks. EDIT: Evidently, you cannot change companion attributes in EK either? The mouse pointer changes to a road block sign when hovering over companion attributes. Ah! Yea there's a bug in Keeper that saves nothing if a specific thing isn't changed. There's a workaround for that. Just put a space after a characters name and remove that space. The Save game option should be highlighted then. It probably wasn't before. I've had this happen before and now every time I want to change something I just change and undo a characters name to ensure that the saves are made. Also you need to completely quit the game in order to see the edited game. Humm, I just edited the stats of one of the companions. Can't change them through the keepers main screen (blocked), but can edit the raw value. After editing the raw value the main screen is updated with the new value. Saved the game. Loaded the edited game and nothing has changed. That sucks. Same problem here. I am trying to edit Hiravias' attributes so I can get that idiotic ring from the burning hut, I tried everything else but Eternity Keeper doesn't seem to work either, it says it saves the new attributes to a new savegame but... In game they remain the same. Is there any other editor I can use? IE mod is for different stuff, so it could not help, from what I saw. Wouldn't it just be easier to add it to via the console?

What I did was to make a very durable party of primarily or sometimes entirely melee. Then get a lot of group synergy and regen. My last run was was PotD with a four man team: Juggernaut Monk 3.0 - big damage and big endurance pool. The one who benefits the most from all the buffs from the team. Pellaginna - weapon and shield (the Paladin small shield) and running the zealous endurance aura for the DR and hit>graze. Also uses the anti charm ability and reinforced exhortation to pump up deflection on Kana and Devil. Kana - weapon and shield and using a multitude of spell casting weapons. Running Gallant Focus, the two regen auras, the fire lash chant and the fear chant to debuff enemy accuracy Devil of Caroc - weapon and shield (Starcaller and Balgrdr Barricade), trap monkey Before I could recruit the actual character I'd make up a merc that was similar and replace when I could recruit. Everyone would stay next to each other and within aura range, except when the Monk would go full Juggernaut and zip across the field wrecking havoc. If no one is squishy then there is no weak link to protect. They might not kill as quickly as glass cannons but they are sturdy as can be. Plus all abilities are per encounter so you don't need to hold anything back and rest is only for health. If you want a full six man team just add whomever into the mix, for me I'd add in a Cipher using a reach weapon from behind the phalanx and a Ranger with Stormcaller.

Look at Boereor's Golden Dragon barbarian build. He has a shield (Dragon Maw) and does an awful lot of damage. A Rogue with a shield can still do pretty good, I've had them with Starcaller and Balgdr's Barricade and they did pretty good plus they had a lot of crowd control. Basically once you get Durganized equipment a durgan shield adds attack speed to the weapon. If you get to zero recovery a weapon and shield will do the same damage as a dual wielder as long as it's not a bashing shield.

What I find hard is how game developers keep using male facial structures for their female characters. I mean look at Maneha and tell me I'm wrong.

Take Pellaginna for one of the ranged Paladins, her special attack is great if she is specced up for range attack. With 6x2 = 12 Lay on Hands plus multiple heals from kill it should be pretty much impossible to lose a fight. It might take a while but the outcome should never be in doubt. If you made them Island Aumaua and gave them all two firearms/arbalests for FoD Alpha strikes the initial gun volley will be murderous. Only your PC Paladin is effected by reputation, the rest get their bonuses based entirely on level..

The big problem is expectations based on previous games and names of classes. The name "Monk" makes one think of an eastern martial artist in light robes. Basically Jet Li, Bruce Lee or similar. This was how "Monks" worked in DnD, and in lots of games like BG2. Instead they should renamed the class "Flagellant" or even "Berzerker" because here they take incoming pain and convert it into outgoing damage. Monks in PoE are more like the Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin, big bruisers that fight better after they take some damage. Once you wrap your mind around a heavily armored berserker who punches stuff, you get a character that is lots of fun and really effective. Its how I came up with the "Juggernaut", my first few attempts were traditional robe wearers and they got slaughtered. Not a fan of Rogues in any game, here they seem to suffer from the game mechanics basically working against how a Rogue needs to act.

Offhand weapons combined with fists used to be a glitch, it never had you punch and then swing instead it had you punch only except when doing a Torment's Reach and then it added in the weapon damage. Or something along those lines, it was a bug and an exploit in my opinion. Overall I've never liked weapon use for my monks. In straight auto attack comparison two fists strike basically with the force of average speed weapons but at the speed of fast speed weapons. It's only with maxed out Durgan steel weapons that it changes and even then it is still pretty much the same. Up to the end game though fists are the clear winners and since the hard part of the game is the early part I just like to stick to fists but YMMV.

Yes, you need to go do all the expansion areas before you jump in the pit, that is the point of no return.