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I couldn't defeat Thaos at lvl 10 when I first descended into Breith Eaman. I had to load the point of no return save and complete the bounty quests first. The bounty quests give a lot of experience and I reached lvl 12 before finishing all the bounties.

The reason I suggest the Friedrich Nietzsche influence is because unlike other atheist philosophers that have been suggested in this thread Friedrich Nietzsche chose to use a story about a prophet named Zarathustra similar to how Pillars of Eternity's story is about a prophetess named Ivora.

I would have liked a better dragon fight than was featured in the game. Most strategies including the strategy I used involve petrifying the dragon to stop the dragon from using it's instant death attacks and to score hits despite it's awesome defence. Perhaps the expansion will include some better dragon fights.

Has anybody thought Pillars of Eternity's story is reminiscent of Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Frederick Nietzsche? Ivora is very similar to Zarathustra preaching gods do not exist the same way Zarathustra preaches god is dead. It's ironic Ivora preaches the gods do not exist when you communicate with the gods on several occasions and priests use the gods power to invoke spells. It seems her objection is more semantic as to what word to use besides god rather than the existence of entities known as gods. How do you feel about the conclusion of the story? Did you feel like you had to kill Thaos even after several friendly discussions with him reliving past lives? I thought Obsidian should have abstained from the friendly interactions between the protagonist and Thaos because by the end of the story I felt sympathetic towards Thaos and didn't want to fight him. Especially since Woedica seems like the most noble of the gods being the god of promises and justice.

This feature has been demanded and I don't know why. The stealth system that is already implemented is sensible and works fine. A single character going into stealth made sense when only thieves could stealth in D&D however in pillars of eternity all characters can stealth so all characters do in stealth mode.

The paladin ability liberating exhortation relieves plague of insects. In my previous post I confused suppress affliction with liberating exhortation.

My tactic for defeating the adra dragon is to betray the adra dragon by warning the dragon slayer and receiving scale breaker first. Then approaching the minions of the adra dragon while the adra dragon is off screen and quickly defeating all the minions before the adra dragon comes on screen. Once the adra dragon is onscreen I use scale breaker (the duration is too short) and get Aloth to cast gaze of the adragan on the adra dragon while scale breaker is in effect. With luck the adra dragon is petrified and you can crit the adra dragon while it is petrified. With some more luck the adra dragon will die from its injuries before petrification wears off because your characters tend to do many crits while the adra dragon is petrified. If not cast gaze of the adragan again hoping you don't miss after scale breaker has worn off. Fighting the adra dragon where it first appears is bad because the adra dragon immediately uses it's breath attack at the beginning of the encounter. If you manoeuvre to a more advantageous position such as where the high priests are guarding the entrance to the adra dragon's hoard you can get lucky and the adra dragon doesn't use it's breath attack until later in the encounter. In any case you must be max lvl to defeat the adra dragon and having all your melee characters wielding superb weapons is also recommended. I leave the adra dragon for the last encounter before Thaos. The sky dragon isn't as difficult and can be defeated earlier and the valuable dragon meat can be prepared as the dragon meat meal to prepare your characters for the adra dragon encounter. The 45 extra endurance from the dragon meat meal helps save your party from dragon breath giving your party the opportunity to use heal potions immediately after the breath hits.

Plague of insects and psychic blast are the raw damage abilities that make the most difficult encounters in the game. Naldred the wise and Lord Exarch Sserkal are the most difficult encounters besides the adra dragon. Like you mentioned suppress affliction works for saving low endurance characters like mages that are annihilated even with constant healing due to limited heath to replenish endurance. I don't know about any way to dispel plague of insects so suppress affliction is the best you can do with despite it only having two uses and limited to target.

The boots of speed are bugged. The boots of speed work when they are first equipped however after the first encounter they fail to work until they have been reequipped. A similar problem occurs with the gloves of archery. When first equipped the item functions however after the first encounter the item fails until it is reequipped.