Springwight

What difficulty are you playing at? This is important, because if you're playing on Easy, this can be considered a technical issue, since that difficulty was presumably meant for people who don't want to do difficult combat. The other difficulties basically say "this isn't going to be easy", and things like NOT RECOMMENDED, and explicitly state they require optimization and micromanagement. I chose one of the harder difficulty settings because I do want difficult combat, and so far the game hasn't delivered (some of the early levels notwithstanding).

Don't. Really. I have no idea how long it will take to update IE mod (I hope it will take only a couple of days, but I expect something more like 2 weeks). When it will be released, there is a good chance that some of it will still be buggy on some systems. To be honest, another patch is going to come out next week, so I may not release anything until then. I really don't know. So just start playing right now

On Path of the Damned, I generally cast Miasma of Dull-Mindedness until it stuck, at which point you can just lock down the dragon using mind control and paralysis (e.g. Mental Binding). Summons from figurines, the Paralysis scroll, etc. help a lot. Also helps if you inflict Weakened somehow (e.g. Ryngrim's Enervating Terror), since it stacks with Miasma (Miasma inflicts stat penalties, not penalties to defenses). Oh, and eat all your stat food before the battle. And use potions. Might have changed in 2.0 though.

They still have some of the best spells in the game (though not more than other casters) and are generally pretty powerful. I really think this was an oversight or perhaps something they meant to address later, due to practical considerations, rather than part of a grand conspiracy to demean Wizards everywhere. Also, if he said that, he was right. In some other games, Wizards pretty much dominate everything.

Retraining a wizard causes him to lose all his spells known, including spells learned other spell books. It also clears all the spells in your spell book for some reason. This essentially means that to retrain your Wizard, you have to get a bunch of other spell books, write down all your spells into those books, and after retraining relearn them all, paying the potentially very high cost over again. My only solution to this issue is giving you an option to retrain the Wizard without touching his spells, but I feel there needs to be some kind of solution. It's rather unfair that Wizards are handicapped in this way.

Wow. That is pretty damn impressive.

Yeah I'm mindful of that

Try to unsubscribe from the beta. I think it worked for someone else here.

Updating the installer? What? You just download the updates and apply them. You don't need to update any installers. There are no installers to be updated, unless you're using GOG Galaxy, in which case you should complain about that (I wouldn't know). All the patch files except for 2.0 and the White March itself are pretty small, so you should have no problem downloading them. The GOG updaters kind of suck, but I've never experienced the trouble you have. Or been that frustrated about it.

I kind of hope so. It was getting too repetitive. On the other hand, it's a bit unfair to set some classes up for tanking and then make the whole thing kind'a useless.

If the end result is something that harms you, rather than benefits you, those enemies were acting correctly. If it's too difficult, you should lower the difficulty. That said, I'll probably have to change my strategy as well now

Not really I should know, since I'm probably going to be the main guy working on it.

I also have this issue. It occurs in: The log/console The save/load game menus The detailed item descriptions Conversations Doesn't occur in: Most UI labels Most tooltips I normally run in 1920x1080, but changing the resolution makes no difference. Changing the font scale also makes no difference. Oh, and the problem occurs before I load any saves (in the save/load menus). output_log.txt DxDiag.txt

I think there are some good ideas here, but the specific mechanic being proposed has lots of issues. Trying to cram your powerful spells into a single Grimoire sounds like trying to solve a knapsack problem, i.e. not an enjoyable activity at all. I don't think game mechanics should reward the players for doing unenjoyable things. Pissing off monsters and/or glowing by casting the same spell many times sounds kind of silly and contrived, and would be perceived as a way of punishing the player for trying to play the game the best he can. While many low-level spells remain useful at high levels, spamming high-level spells is generally a lot more powerful, and the ability to do so makes low-level spells useless. For example, there is little reason to cast Slicken when for the same price you can cast Gaze of the Adragan. However, I do think the following aspects are interesting: Spellbooks are crafted, like weapons and armor, and can have special qualities. You have a shared pool of spells each spellbook can hold, rather than a fixed 4 spells per level. Special qualities increase the number of spells a book can hold. What about the following system: Each spellbook has a certain number of spell slots. Each spell slot can be used to prepare any spell of any level. The number of spell slots starts out at say 6, and increases by 3/2 (rounded down) each time you gain a level. I'm not sure what explanation can be used for this automatic expansion. Spell books can have a variety of unique special qualities, such as: Overseeing (+10% AoE), Eternal (+20% spell duration), Volcanic (+35% fire damage), of Speed (+20% casting speed), etc. These are found in the uniquely named spell books you sometimes find in the world. You can also buy such spell books. Spell books have more standard special qualities that can be added through crafting, and increase the number of spell slots: Extended (+25% spell slots), Expanded (+50% spell slots), etc. Switching spell books takes twice as long as switching weapon sets, rather than 5 times as long.

I'd recommend waiting a few days till 2.0. It brings about some really welcome changes, like the ability to respec. Hopefully the AI will also no longer wander blindly into your Walls of Fire as well.

It seems I have corrupted my save some time ago while experimenting (dunno exactly when), and now lots of weird things happen This is dangerous work people

That's great Just do what you can. If you're on Windows, get Visual Studio 2015 Community (a free but full-featured version) and Telerik JustDecompile, which I personally believe to be the best .NET decompiler. If you're on another platform, get MonoDevelop and probably ILSpy (which I suspect is the only professional-level decompiler that works in Mono). For this kind of modding, those are the only tools you need. Modding consists of decompiling the .NET DLL files of the game (also called 'assemblies'), finding something you want to modify, and then writing special types in C# using Patchwork and its attributes. Your code will be injected or added into the game, possibly replacing the developer's original code. Bear in mind that this isn't easy. C# is a pretty complex language with lots of features, and professional code uses many of those features without much reservation. If you need help, you can tell me what you want to do, and I'll try to point you in the right direction.

Kind of depends. If it's a very small update, like a hotfix, it's unlikely it's going to influence the mod, so you just need to compile the existing code in a certain way and run the patcher on the new DLL file. Just moving files and pressing buttons, basically. However, if the patch does change things that affect the mod, it's going to require changing the code. Anyone can learn to program, but as far as programming tasks go, this one isn't easy at all. You'd need to know the language fairly well (or another language, or alternatively be very familiar with the Unity engine pretty well). Thank you I appreciate it

Hey guys. Kind of been away for a while. I've managed to contact a person who goes by Delfosse on the Nexus site, and exchanged a few words. Basically, it seems like no one is managing the project anymore. The last person who worked on it was Dan Chieffallo (also called SiliconMage). He doesn't seem to be managing the project anymore. His last update was June 28th (in the Bitbucket repository), and I've so far been unable to contact him. At this point, I don't think I'm going to continue these attempts, because if they're not replying, I'm sure they're busy with something else, or have some other reason. Also, I'm expecting more interest in Pillars of Eternity when White March/2.0 come out. Delfosse gave me permissions on the IEMod Nexus page and to the Bitbucket repository (probably the update you saw, Quantics ). This means I can upload stuff to the IE Mod main, which I will do at some point. I don't remember if I've experienced it, but I'm 90% certain I know what causes it, and have already fixed it as part of doing some other changes. I'm probably not going to release anything before version 2.0 comes out, though, because that requires testing I'll have to redo anyway. On the other hand, I don't expect there to be many problems porting most of the mods to 2.0 and/or White March, with a few notable exceptions.

Thanks for the advice everyone I'll try to contact bwallace. Can you also make it so allies that get charmed or confused can still be buffed with allies only spells like those vs charm and confusion that are supposed to halve the duration of such negative effects and make sure that the charm and confusion affecting them are than halved in duration? Yup, can do. What would you prefer from the following: Turned allies count as both friend and enemy (e.g. you can heal them but also damage them). They only count as friendly I'm probably not going to be able to make it based on the ability used, though. I'm sort of planning to try to do the following. Tell me what you think: Try to make world objects more transparent, so that you can see the characters when they're behind a wall or some trees. Add a widget like the abilities bar that shows you a list of your queued actions.

I know Bester lost interest in PoE but I'm sure he would be happy if all his work wasn't lost. I think he mostly hangs on RPGCodex, and that's probably the best place to get in touch (I try to avoid this soulless place myself I'm sure there are some members here who would help ). Recently someone else (I forget his name) took on the project and wrote a lot of code for the existing framework: https://bitbucket.org/Bester/poe-modding-framework/commits/all You guys should definitely get in touch, I'm sure you'd be much more efficient together. I've sort of tried contacting a bunch of people there, including him. One person replied and said he wasn't really interested anymore, which is a shame; from the others I got no response. I sort of really need help. I'm not really a modder who got interested in Pillars of Eternity, but rather a PoE player who got interested in modding (who also happens to be a developer). To be honest, I fixed up the code and significantly improved the infrastructure, but I really have no idea how the other guys discovered everything they did. That's great I mean that's a shame You could try it out. Just download the repo/fork it and play with it a bit. Patchwork (that's the framework for modifying code) has pretty good documentation, and there are a few examples. IE Mod pw, only the parts I've worked on recently. It should be fully ready to patch (you just need to set your paths in PathConsts.cs). If it's not, give me a heads up. Forking is better if you want to make changes, so I can integrate them. Personally, I got into modding the game by fixing my personal pet peeve, so if you have one of those you could try to work on it at first.

IEModpw Repository | Patchwork Repository Hey. I've recently written a new modding framework for Pillars of Eternity (it started out like that, anyway; now it works on anything). I've ported IE Mod to it, and added a small mod of my own, though I'm not releasing it as a separate mod yet (I'm still kind of hoping to merge the code with IE Mod, or at least to add more mods). The framework allows you to replace the game's code with your own, and add new code. It's a lot more powerful than official modding tools, but in order to use it you need to know C# or another .NET language, and you need to decompile undocumented code to find what to modify (many decompilers for .NET produce almost perfect source code though). In this framework, there are practically no restrictions on what you can accomplish or the language features you can use. It has a number of other improvements over the old IE Mod framework, too many to list. I'm hoping people would help me develop this fork by adding more mods, or help me develop the core framework.

The sheer weight of extremely reliable and large area deflection and reflex debuffs means that it doesn't matter if a creature had even lower will or fortitude originally, unless it was 40 points lower, which is pretty rare. It's a good point that reflex debuffs can hit even harder. Reflex might be easier to target after all. I was actually listing named conditions, rather than specific spells. Regardless, miasma is a powerful Will debuff, but it has a small area, isn't a continuous effect, and isn't that reliable in general (because it itself targets Will). It's not enough to offset things. Oh, I didn't know that. Now I understand why I can't target them with ally-only spells like Ectopsychic Echo. The behavior is still the same though, in that enemies attack them, foe effects don't affect them, friendly effects do affect them, etc. Thanks for pointing it out. I guess I should rate it separately, and add that it's useless if you have a druid in your party. Ugh. That's a good point. I don't see myself playing the game in something other than PotD because PotD is already pretty easy, so I guess the guide is PotD only. No, this argument only works in the case of Tanglefoot and Web. Tanglefoot is a once-per-battle spell that basically makes all your enemies hobbled. You can't hobble someone twice. Sunlight is also much better than Curse of Blackened Sight, but it's not a once-per-battle spell, so Curse is still useful. If you don't have a druid, the spell does become useful, though it's still not very good.

I've compiled a list of spell ratings and some explanations that I might incorporate into a spell guide. I'd like some feedback, suggestions, and corrections. I haven’t rated all the spells yet, just a small selection. These are after the latest patch. It’s from my experience playing Path of the Damned. Things might be a bit different at lower difficulties. Note about defenses When it comes to which defense is the best to target, the general rule is: Deflection > Reflex ≫ Will > Fortitude. 1. Deflection: The best defense to target partially because few enemies have it as a high defense, but mostly because tons of stacking afflictions decrease it, and they are relatively common. Here is a partial list: hobbled, stuck, prone, stunned, paralyzed, blinded, dazed, and flanked. 2. Reflex: Second best, because although most afflictions that reduce Deflection also reduce Reflex, many monsters have high a high Reflex defense. 3. Will: A lot less desirable than Reflex, Will is in third place because few monsters have a strong Will defense, and many have a weak one. Conditions that reduce Will are harder to find, but include: sickened, frightened, terrified, and weakened. 4. Fortitude: The least desirable to target, many monsters have a strong Fortitude defense, and it’s also hard to de-buff. Wizard Level 1 Slicken: 7/10, disables tons of enemies in a large area, but the duration is really short. Chill Fog: 9/10, durable AoE that inflicts blindness, a really nasty condition that slows enemies and inflicts heavy penalties. Also deals some cold damage. As enemies are blinded, it takes them longer to get through the area, thus taking more damage. It should be stacked with Tanglefoot for cumulative benefit. The fact it targets Fortitude makes it not quite enough for 10/10. Fan of Flames: 6/10, deals quite a bit of damage, but you need to watch your positioning to avoid friendly fire. Ghost Blades: 4/10, doesn't have the friendly fire issue, but deals a lot less damage, Hobble isn't very useful at close range, and enemies are probably already Hobbled due to Tanglefoot. Minoletta's Minor Missiles: 4 to 7/10, good long-range damage-dealer at first, but becomes obsolete as DR increases. Eldritch Aim: 5 to 8/10, this one is tricky. The bonus is large, and the duration is decent, but it’s not long enough to last an entire battle. It’s quick to cast, but it’s not worth a spell slot unless you have many other spell slots, or you already have first level spells on an encounter basis. Once the latter happens, you should cast it at least once every battle. Level 2 Binding Web: 2/10, it's unnecessary due to Tanglefoot. You only need one Tanglefoot per battle, so you never have any reason to cast this. Curse of Blackened Sight: 6/10, a lot worse than Sunlight, but Wizards don't have Sunlight, and it's not a once-per-battle spell. Bewildering Spectacle: 6/10, it’s a strong de-buff, but the area is really small and the duration is short. In fact, with this duration, it just suffices to slow enemies down a bit. Necrotic Lance: 6/10, a good damage dealer for Wizards. It’s just a shame it targets Fortitude. Fetid Caress: 5/10, pales in comparison to Cipher's Mental Binding, and the sickening AoE is a problem due to its short range and Average casting time. Friendly fire is almost certain. However, paralysis is a really strong debuff, and while targeting Fortitude is normally a bad thing, some enemies have weak Fortitude. Level 3 Crackling Bolt: 8/10, deals a ton of damage, targets Reflex, fast casting time, can hit enemies multiple times due to the jumping effect. A great damage-dealer, if you can position yourself to avoid friendly fire. The jumping effect is tricky to predict, but it can work pretty well. Expose Vulnerabilities: 7/10, a solid debuff made more useful by the fact it’s unnamed, so it stacks with other conditions. Noxious Burst: 5/10, good damage but targets Fortitude, and the casting time is Average rather than Fast. Use Fireball for most occasions. Sickened is nice, because it’s one of the few conditions that hits the Fortitude and Will defenses, but having to go through Fortitude to get it isn’t very nice. Fireball: 8/10, deals less damage than Crackling Bolt, but doesn’t have the same friendly fire issues, and has good range. It doesn’t have the jumping effect, but it’s tricky to use anyway. Level 4 Confusion: 9/10, amazing spell. Covers a large area and lasts for a long time. Makes enemies fight each other, even if some manage to avoid it, because even when inactive affected enemies become allied to you, thus becoming targets for other enemies. It would be 10/10, but it creates annoying targeting issues that seriously detract from it. Wall of Flame: 8/10, awesome damage dealer. It looks a lot worse than Chill Fog, until you cast it and realize it triggers 10 times as frequently. It might seem situational, but enemies will not avoid the area, and it's really easy to keep them inside it. Oh, and it attacks Reflex. Druid Level 1 Tanglefoot: 9/10, cast this once almost every battle. Absurdly massive area, long range, fast casting time, slows down enemies by a decent amount, hits defenses, and stacks with Chill Fog. Dancing Bolts: 6/10, large area and Foe AoE, but the damage is really low. It has its uses, but harder-hitting spells are usually better. Sunbeam: 9/10, strong burn damage, absurd range, targets Reflex, strong and lasting debuff. Puts Curse of Blackened Sight to shame. Talons' Reach: 7/10, faster to cast than Sunbeam, and the damage is higher, but without the blindness. Rather situational due to its short range, but it’s really good for those situations. Oh, it targets Deflection, which is even better than Reflex. Level 2 Burst of Summer Flame: 6/10, faster to cast than Sunbeam, but without the blindness, and also dealing less damage. Sunbeam is unquestionably much, much better, but it’s something to waste your second level spell slot on. Level 3 Returning Storm: 10/10, this spell is overpowered. I mean, seriously. Stun is just as good as Paralyze, and it's one of the worst afflictions in the game. The damage is quite good in context, the area is huge, the duration is really long, and it targets Reflex. Also, the most annoying spell enemies can cast, period. Level 4 Calling the World's Maw: 8/10, good damage-dealer, giant area, and lasting Prone effect. The damage targets Reflex, which is great, but the Prone effect targets Fortitude, which is bad. Still a great spell overall. Overwhelming Wave: 6/10, again, deals a lot of damage, large area, and a lasting Stun effect, but in this case both the damage and the Stun target Fortitude. Also, the thick line shape creates friendly fire issues.