Raven Darkholme

You might not want to go back to 6 man, time will tell.^^ The good thing about all games be it PoE or BG or even Dark Souls, when you reach a point where you know the mechanics you play for fun and maybe discovery (my main reason for playing most games).

True, but mods like SCS and Improved Anvil makes you think and spend time on each fight even if you know game mechanics. The latter mod more so, but it's quite controversial in the community, many feel it makes the game ridiculously difficult, which is right up my alley That's why I was kinda sad to see such drop in difficulty in PoE. Does the mod you pseak of remove Spell Immunities? If not I stand by what I said about SCS as soon as you have spell Immunity Abjuration the game just gets ridiculously easy especially when you get even more spells to strengthen that base like spell trap and Timestop. No encounter in all Poe is as easy as a fully prebuffed mage class in Baldur's Gate.

You and the monsters have less options in PoE than in BG. Unmodded BG is hilariously easy because of this, SCS modded BG can be very challenging. A party is very op in PoE, but so it is in BG, I have soloed SCS for a long time because of that and I don't see a huge difference between both games in that regard, the AI will never cope with organising among the characters as a human organises his party. But once you get to the defensive powerhouse spells like SI: Abjuration SCS BG is easier than PoE at least if you have access to mage spells. I think the spells are way better balanced in PoE.

Well apart freom specific ranged accuracy, yes. (Like in the talent or the wood elf racial, those only affect spells and mind abilities)

Stats look good. Remember that paladin's main damage will be Sacred Immolation on level 13 and to use your pistols with FoD at combat start.

I just remembered ow annoying other fire resistant creatures are which are almosat all weak to freeze. Freeze might be pretty decent on normal fights too I guess.

It is also affected by potions, spells, PE, resting bonus, you name it. Wizards spells are also affected by ranged accuracy buffs.

Yes.

Freeze should be slightly better in terms of dragons, only Alpine is immune to it and for the bog dragons it's the weakest defense. But personally I think corrode is still really good, although Sky dragon is also immunte to it. At the end of the day the choice of lash is not gonna affect the outcome of a boss fight.

Your stats would work great as a tank with shield, not two handed. Less Resolve more Dex.

Let's not forget Attack speed malus does nothing against Sacred Immolation the paladins main damage source.

Cautious Attack stacks with Superior Deflection, I always take both.

Yes you also need accuracy but there isn't any talents for acc which prevent you from maxing deflection.

This, is what I'm trying to get across, too. I play chanters totally without invocations once I get to level 9 so I wouldn't stick to them being his only strength it's just not true.

You get BR earlier than 16 it just increases in usefulness with levels.

When I played WM 2 I couldn't get the two fingers to work on the chanter himself, so if that's still the case (was 3.02) it's useless solo. I guess if you run at the start of the fight and get the invocation before you engage shatter the schackles is really good, but once you reach level 9 you might not want to use invocations anymore cause of stacking dragon thrashed.

I don't think you quite got Boroers point, stacking chants has nothing to do with invocations and you only need a few seconds for it with BR. Also if you don't use a party a chanter would also be useful on lower difficulties, it's just hard to notice the awesome effects of the chanter if you instakill every encounter anyway.

Yep. In D&D step 1 to succeeding with a bard was to pick a kit that removed as many bard-like qualities as possible. Ikr. In solo you don't even use the song. That's why chanters are so awesome in PoE you can almost do anything while chanting.

I remember playing and enjoying pretty much everything Neverwinter Nights (all sequels and expansions), but no part of the story in any of them was memorable enough for me to remember any details now despite having played them multiple times.... Same with Kotor. I do remember parts of the Mass Effect storyline though. Unlike say... BG2, who's antagonist will forever remain in my memory. Even when I'm old and senile I'll still remember that SoB. Yea Irenicus was just beyond any antagonist in any game I ever played. Excellent voice over and character.

Bards sucked quite a bit in BG even tho I loved my solo blade. Chanters are the most powerful class in PoE and the Brisk Recitation was quite unnecessary. Level 1 Phrases and Invocations are op.

Yah as soon as you piled some bodies it's awesome that's another reason I try to aggro instead of just slaughtering countless phantoms. But if you aggro too many too early you still die.^^ So it's just not for ToI.

True but that took too long for me.^^ As you said not worth it you get level 5 w/o Radric. Does the reload chant apply to attack speed for melee, too?

Yeah the problem for Toi is sometimes the phantoms aggro either none of the enemies towards the chanter or if you trihard to aggro 1 all of a sudden all of them rush you, dead. That's why it's not safe for ToI at all. If you send the lone phantom in the mioddle of the enemies it gets butchered so its substantial to separate them. If I test something out for my ToI save I never am satisfied with one successful try but always test several to make sure I don't get killed on ToI.

Didn't have too much time, still in Act 1 but only Caed Nua and Raedric left. On my test char I beat Raedric but on reloads it seemed unreliable so I don't want to risk it on the ToI save. From today on I have 20 days holiday tho. :D

Nice. :D