hk79v1

Because it kind of chaps my biscuits, I gained a TON of experience after hitting the cap trying to finish off quests and now I found out it was all wasted time. Odd enough, Eder and Pallegina actually got enough XP to level though because I ran with one main frontliner and a backrow of artillery(spells and guns).

They don't seem to outright cheat, they DO. Take the Mercenary Brawlers for instant, they have nearly twice as many talents as should be possible for that class and stats way higher than possible. And I swear, the ability to use Monk abilities without having to incur wounds at all. Considering I roll with one main frontliner, two mid-liners and a back row of artillery for the most part, they tore through both ranks making a speed of light b-line to my Aloth and company. Of course, they've changed the way the game behaves since I last played it so if I went in there with more pure "frontliners" I probably wouldn't have had that much trouble with them. But they do outright cheat in their stats, abilities and talents. BOSSES and MONSTERS I can understand but not NPCs that are the damn same as the random mercenaries we can build! How are they MAGICALLY stronger and faster and tougher than any other possible Dwarf/Elf/Human? Without having magic items equipped to boot! You seem to be misunderstanding. If what he is saying is true, then they don't SEEM to outright cheat--they ARE outright cheats. He's claiming they literally have more abilities, stat points, etc. than is actually possible to build. If that's true, then it's not a case of "making a challenging enemy". It's a case of breaking the ruleset to generate overpowered enemies as a cheap and lazy way of creating challenge. On the other hand, this isn't exactly unheard of in IE games. BG's enemy wizards and their five contingencies, NWN 2's beserker boss with Deathless Frenzy (which player barbarians don't get), etc. Thank you, that's what I am saying exactly. I used the console commands to check all the mercenaries and enemies out. Oh and the Ancient Death Knights? An infinite usage 'Finger of Death' that does several hundred Raw damage in a few seconds against Fortitude with an accuracy of 75 and the games penchant for rolling sub-50 on OUR saving throws... Also just because IE did it doesn't mean Obsidian should continue the trend of "enemies that break the in-game rules".

NPC class enemies have stats far higher than possible, along with having nearly twice as many talents and abilities than possible, not to mention DOUBLED UP ABILITIES. If that's not enough, many of the enemies are level 15 when the level cap is only 14. Just...WHY Obsidian? It's not enough we're usually outnumbered 2 to 1 in the fights here but the enemies have more available talents and higher stats than possible AND doubled up passives that stack? I'm looking at YOU Mercenary Brawlers!

A support class who's crux is pre-battle buffs? Sounds like a good idea to me. Eh, it's just as soon as I try to get one spell off, the enemies superior numbers overwhelm my blockers and rip apart the spellcasters in milliseconds due to superior accuracy and damage. It's just, you need EVERY advantage to win in combat in Path of the Damned. And why not more than one trap for someone with a high Mechanics skill? Oh hell why not a TALENT for the Ranger or Rogue that lets them set up extra traps?

it's really aggravating, ESPECIALLY on Path of the Damned as we can't actually prepare for combat, we just rush in and hope our buffs actually have a chance to go off and our debuffs hit.

I've had them launch right at me, ignoring the wounds mechanic and using tons of abilities quickly. Honestly, I think they're broken.

It's all about accuracy, not how much damage you can cause but if you can consistently hit them. Besides, higher accuracy means you'll get critical hits more often and even with taking the Fighters specific damage boosting talents, it's only going to be around a 35% increase overall for the cost of two abilities. But if one is forgoing Vigorous Defense then maybe Critical Defense could be switched out to make them a bit more offensive. Other than that, with 1-handed weapons you're NOT gonna be doing a lot of damage at once, you're going to be doing more consistent damage.

This *really* needs to be made more clear in the actual expansion. The way it's worded is ambiguous at best, and players who head to Cragholdt right off the bat are in for a *VERY* rough time of things. I've never seen that kind of targeted "kill the squishie" obsession in enemies before and it was....surprising. It *almost* frustrated me enough to stop playing. Not only is it high level, it's got enemies at LEVEL 15! Crothar the Ogre is level 15, Concelhaut is level 15 and the Class/Race NPC enemies ALL have more abilities and talents than are possible to have(for us). For monsters I can understand they're not bound by the same "rules" the creatable NPC classes are but come ON that's just unfair.

Okay I did the looking and I know what it is, the A.I. pre-empted their abilities WAY faster than a human could micro managing. That's all there is to it, also SOME HOW they were able to accrue several wounds in the span of a few seconds despite not being struck once. And I checked through their ability lists, they have NOTHING that allows them to self-generate Wounds. They do have around 300+ Endurance each though at level 14 and really high stats. I'm gonna try and replicate the Human one's scores and skills. Update Edit: NO their scores are BROKEN. The Human alone has +14 attribute points over the possible allowable amount. Come ON Obsidian the MONSTERS breaking the stat caps I can understand but NOT NPC races we can make/emulate. That's BULLCRAP and you know it! Update Edit the 2nd: And they have MORE ABILITIES to boot. Okay you know what? Making it challenging is one thing but outright making them better in all regards to anything we can make is a bit much, you know? Like, the deck is stacked enough that they're not worried about surviving or burning through their abilities AND outnumber us but come ON. NOTE: I just realized this check was done on Path of the Damned, just...WOW I was not expecting outright "Yes our characters built from the same system are NOT bound by the same rules are you in any way, shape or form". I'm gonna try and check them out on a lower difficulty since PotD outright stats they have better stats and more abilities. Still though.. UPDATE TO ALL THINGS: Yeah, their stats are THE SAME on Normal. MORE ABILITIES, MORE STATS. Same Race and Class we have access to, WAY TO CHEAT OBSIDIAN!

Well considering that +9 Deflection really isn't THAT much, it's more than viable to re-spec later on to lower RES and boost CON. Since re-speccing is an in-game option now.

Good point, maybe re-spec that once you get to level 13, otherwise per rest skills shouldn't really be taken into consideration.

With the nerf to Deflection stacking and Defender, remaking an optimal tank and frontliner seems to weigh more on them being able to hit the enemy and having fairly high Deflection and DR. Weakest defense for this build is Fortitude but far as I can remember not a huge amount of enemy abilities still strike at this defense. Race: Hearth Orlan Background: The White That Wends Stats: Might: 10 Constitution: 10 Dexterity: 9 Perception : 21 Intellect: 9 Resolve: 19 Level 1: Knock Down Level 2: Weapon and Shield Style Level 3: Confident Aim Level 4: Hold The Line Level 5: Vigorous Defense Level 6: Cautious Attack Level 7: Unbending Level 8: Bonus Knockdown Level 9: Critical Defense Level 10: Weapon Focus: Peasant(or any with a 1 handed weapon with a natural Accuracy bonus, I chose Spear in Peasant for simplicity's sake) Level 11: Unbroken Level 12: Apprentice's Sneak Attack(if you have a Paladin with you with their Accuracy+ Aura); Gallant's Focus(if no Paladin); Novice's Suffering(stacks with Peasant bonus AND practically negates Large Shield's Accuracy malus) OR Bear's Fortitude(to help shore up that weak save) Level 13: Into The Fray Level 14: Check Level 12 for recommendations. To note, Novice's Suffering gives you a dual-wielding high DR, decent Deflection Fighter with 102 Accuracy and 18-21 Crushing damage(and if I remember correctly, most DR's resist Crushing less generally). Picking up the Sneak Attack means you can get bonus damage in the first few seconds of combat and when you knock enemies down with Knock Down or Into The Fray. Gallant's Focus just makes it so you'll hit more often on average. Yeah, this build still has a weak Fortitude save(69 even if you take Bear's Fortitude unless my characters page hasn't updated properly) and so-so Will but overall they'll work better because they can actually HIT THE ENEMY and do damage. On some suggestions from other posters, once you hit level 13 it would be quite a good idea to re-spec and take something else in place of Vigorous Defense(if you travel with a Priest) and switching Resolve up a bit for more Constitution(RES 14 and CON 15 should be fair) since the loss of a few points of Deflection at that high of a level is not that much of a hit compared to earlier levels when EVERY.POINT.COUNTS.

Yeah but in 2.0?

He attacked me on sight, no dialogue. I tried to enter the camp peacefully and while one soldier was like "Oh CRAP it's the Lord of Caed Nua" the other was like "F*** off we got orders, CHARGE!". And thus the rest of the camp followed suit in groups of 3 to 6 and varying degrees of difficulty. You know what's funny? The mercenaries leader at the end was actually the EASIEST fight in the whole scenario. Barely took any damage, used only a few high level spells.