jedikrem

Sorry for not responding until now! Life can get quite hectic at times!! Thank you for the replies! They are much appreciated. To answer some questions, I'm planning on playing on normal difficulty to start. I'm completely new to Pillars of Eternity, but I've played these kinds of games before. I like the idea of being able to do both melee and range with the cipher, and I actually do like the idea of grabbing Weapon Focus Peasant and using the Hunting Bow and Quarterstaff (I like bows for ranged damage and staves for melee damage typically in games). Would I have a lot of troubles doing this on Normal difficulty? I'm not sure on race entirely. I like elves, but I think elves in this game look a bit.. meh. Humans are Aumua look pretty nice and have 1 and 2 might, respectively. Godlike would be the other race with decent stats, but good lord those heads. So I'm mostly looking between Human and Aumua unless Elf grows on me. As for stats, I was thinking of trying 19 Might, 10 Con, 17 Dex, 3 Perception, 19 Intellect, and 10 Resolve. That's as a Human going with Old Vailia for culture. Would that be ok, to dump Perception like that? And just one last question... which abilities should I start out with at level 1 with the Cipher? I like Soul shock and mind wave, but should I go with 1 damage and 1 cc instead? Mind Wave is kinda both in 1, though. Any thoughts? Thank you so much for the responses, everyone!

So I just got this game and am looking for some help on creating my first character, which I've decided to make a Cipher. I've been reading up on different classes, and I was between a Cipher, Druid, and Wizard. Since I can get a Wizard NPC early, it came down to Cipher and Druid, and the Cipher description just sounded really cool so I figured I'd try one first. According to their description, they sounded like they could play as melee mages, in a sense, but many threads I've seen have made them sound too squishy really to play melee all that much, and that ranged weapons are King with a Cipher. Is it possible to do a hybrid build where I can use both ranged and melee options? I'd like to be able to start out ranged in tougher fights, throw out spells, and then move into melee range or something like that. And with easier stuff just be able to melee. If this is possible, what kind of stats should I start with? For ranged, it seemed to be to max Might, Dex, and Int, and put the rest into Resolve I think? Which means dumping Con and Perception. But would that make me extremely terrible in melee? I really have no idea what a good way to distribute my stat points would be. Basically, I'd like to use both melee and range, and sling spells for CC/damage. Any thoughts/ideas/advice would be greatly appreciated!