Elric Galad

OK, for net version, I'm proud to announce that Strand of Favor (and similar items) exploit will be gone. The duration etension will only apply to effect happening after equipping. Altough I have some philosophical concern about why to mod this. If people don't like the exploit, they can simply not use it. It's different from an overpowered ability that you don't want to use because OP, which lead to sadly ignoring it entirely. I guess I wanted to propose a "legit package". I have some plan for SC Paladin. Currently, their main asset is the kind of infinite zeal they can get from Divine Retribution. They have nice new abilities but nothing really game changing. I think I'm going to buff Hastening's Exho upgrades duration (not the unupgraded version which is available to MC). So it will be 25s of Swift and 25s of Nimble/strong for 1 zeal (taking into account my precedent changes). Also, I'm leaning to add to Providence an effect that gives +10% damages (stackable 3 times) for the rest of battle when knocked out (not only applied to auto-rez knocked out so it has better interaction with Sacred Sacrifice and indirectly promote its use. EDIT : this part is not feasible). I think it will fit very well Paladin fluff. I'm also leaning to rise a bit the damages (both to foes and self) of Sacred Sacrifice (by a factor x1.2) so it has some use when not used near death. It costs a very precious Tier 9 ability point so being very situational compared to Divine Immolation. Even with this change, Divine Immolation would stay the better ability in the general case, but with a smaller margin. Rising damages to self promotes a bit suicidal paladins

Not me, I swear !

For Body Blows ? Well, I haven't time to test but it's weird to read a consensus about something I assumed to be wrong.

Well that is weird. Someone on Reddit explicitly mentions it, but I don't remember anyone ever stating it on this forum. I guess I will have to actually check in game. If it is true, how could we miss it ?

Oh, Never realized that : https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/nmxjtt/how_did_i_not_know_carnage_applies_onhit_effects/ Marauder seems to be a very good candidate for building around it (Strike the Bell line shouldn't work but still)

I guess it depends if there is an actual attack.

Thank you ! Exactly I haven't noticed any discrepancy between damages actually done and damages recovered, so all modifiers are taken into account. By the way, apparently, Unbending has no effect Vs DoT (I guess Pulsating spells do work).

This was wrong. Unbendin does benefit from "healing received", but not from "healing done" For some reasons I thouht Mercy and Kindness chant buffed healing received, but it buffs healing done which does not benefit to Unbending. "healing done" modifiers, positive and negative, alter Unbendin.

Well Ultimate is a very specific experience anyway. Like how may subclasses were able to complete ? 5 ? 6 ? And it relies heavily on various cheese. I personally find some of the summons to be among the very best abilities, mixing offensive and defensive properties. But once again I'm not familiar with the most extreme way of playing. I cap at Party PotD. Dorudugan is again a special case. About 2/3 of abilities are useless vs him. Summons still being relevant as fodders is still better than what most abilities can do in this fight. I had a very good experience with Monk's Twins Vs Hauna O Whe. The simple fact that they deal Fire and Ice damages enabled each one of them to compete with my party's Auto Attacker.

"better" in this case becomes subjective. DnD has tons of spells, many are super situationnal or work only at low level. But is it bad ? Sometimes it's funny to spam Sleep spell at low level and look for something else later on. The design goal of PoE seems to be that all abilities should stay relevant, at least situationnally. I think it's great, more modern, but "better" is maybe an overstatement. Yeah that's why I say the system is better. The implementation was basically cut half-way. I tend to be very biased because I implemented "the other half" in a fitting fashion for my own taste

Balanced is different from being equal to actual creature stats. Animate Dead, Mordenkainen Swords and Planetars/Devas/Elemental Princes are basically the only summons worth using on BG Endgame. I wouldn't call it best summon system. Actually PoE is much better in my opinion.

My own opinion is that in basically every game summons tend to be complicated to balance and are complex spells overall. Most games just to have the budget or time to make things clean and just drop creatures on your summoner face without second thought Deadfire did better by implementing level scaling, but not applied to weapons. Too bad because they already had the ruleset to do so. Consider some example of what I've been through to make summons clean : - One of Eoathas Incarnate trio had an infinite recovery, so can act only once - Berath Pallid Knight has a mundane sword - Dragon with a bottomless pit of HP but less armor than a drake - Ultimate druid summon is basically a pet with big stats. They haven't been tested properly, so balancing them was out of reach ! Not enough time and budget, and too complicated to think about to be on top of the mind of a priority-driven game designer. So yes, it is an oversight, even a classical one (think about how poorly balanced summons were in BG), but the strangest thing in PoE is that it was left middle of the road, not totally forgotten. What makes things worse in Deadfire are : - The penetration system, which makes early game summons obsolete except as fodders - limit to 1 summon. Even classical casters can't ad a Tier 2 summon to support their Tier 7 ones. - For chanter : common ressource pool. Summoning the wurm spend precious points necessary to cast Ancient Weapons.

Pet's weapons have fixed base damages. They scale with character level similarly to summoned weapons. They also benefit from various ranger talents.

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/438 The Summon package of this mod basically implement it, just in case you could be interested.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/114591-mechanics-the-summoners-tables/ Basically yes, they level up but for their weapons it depends : for some summons, yes, for other (like wurms) no.

After checking, Watchful Presence does not work like that. If you go directly from bloodied to knockdown without being Near Death, the knockdown happens.

And also with Whisper of the Endless Paths + Various rogue special attacks

Yep I forgot to end my sentence

I also like Whispers of the Endless Paths. One of its upgrade as a per encounter single target damage ability. It's also good to have an AoE weapons to apply afflictions from Attack abilities on several targets. I also like having street sweeper on a black jacket build for an on-demand buff remover. Modwyr has a per encounter special attack and Immunity Vs Int afflictions is handy. Morningstar/club/flail are nice to quickswitch into.

For the next version of the patch, I'm planning to rework a bit Unbending (Unless CP does it first, since I know they planned to do it anyway ; CP has priority over this kind of stuff) so it provides a fixed % of damages received, most likely only buffed by Healing Received bonuses. Currently Unbending has an easy time healing for about 150% damages due to incoming attacks triggering additional ticks (and Unbending Trunk feels redundant). I'm aiming for 40% for Unbending/Shield and 60% for Unbending Trunk (so 60%/90% with Mercy Chant). I have to check how it works exactly. As a consequence, I felt that Fighters could get a buff. MC Fighters will be fine anyway so I'm mostly concerned about SC. Toughened Fury has a really weird design. Receiving Crit is not the way of a class with such high defenses. So instead of 25% +1 discipline on Crit, I plan to go with 10% +1 discipline on damaged. EDIT : I will tune it down to 8% +1 discipline on damaged. 10% feels a bit too strong. Critical Defenses had a poor synergy with it. Even with the change above, I plan to adjust it to 50% Crit to Hit. Why ? To give SC fighter a distinct edge for defense. Crit resistance is critical with high AR cause Crit PEN bonuses basically make them ignore AR. This passive will probably be "above the curve" but I think it's nice for a class to have a few ability above the curve. This has to be limited to SC though. These are the main "generalist" buff, but I also think SC fighter needs a buff to their Tanking features. Take the Hit is meh. Even with my change which makes it almost instant, I fear that spending ressources just to redirect damages isn't going to be good, especially for a Tier 9. Therefore I plan to make it free. You won't use it every time but it will be there when you need to protect your allies. Unrelentless could be buffed to +5 discipline. Yes, this is huge but the ability is Tier 9 and situational (you'll need to get a wound to get back ressources). The 2 latest changes would work well together to make SC Unbroken nice to play. With these changes, I hope fighters could be the enduring tanks they are meant to be. But tell me if something feels really broken. Edit : also since I have already made many changes and points for tiers 8-9 abilities are limited, picking high tier abilities will require even more careful choices (toughened Fury will probably stay a must pick though). And I think this is good !

It could even be possible to put the trigger on 0% health Instead of Near Death, so it really works on knockdown. I have to try this.

Interesting, I will check this. I doubt the shield would prevent death, but it would be easy to add something like "heal 1 hp" so you can't be one shotted. Another good think with Shield is that even if it can't be monitored, when it cracks you're still left with any healing that has happened for the shield duration. You're less naked than when a Prevent Death effect cracks.

Hi, I'm planning to rework BDD for next version of the Balance Polishing Mod. Given what was discussed above in this thread, my favorite solution for the moment is the following for technical feasibility and mechanic simplicity, but it is relatively far from the original : Replacing prevent death by an infinite duration beneficial effect that triggers once a 200pts (+10/PL) damages shield for 12s (longer than current duration) when Near Death (sort of single target Watchful Presence with a much higher "protection value" but that won't actually heal ; numbers can be discussed of course). Thanks @Powerotti for coming up with the shield idea, even if his suggestion was a bit different. It could be cast preventively and protect for a longer duration but isn't a 100% guaranteed immortality for a duration anymore. BDD in its current form isn't overpowered on its own, but is basically God mode when cast repeatedly. That's why this is a tweak, not a strict nerf. I plan something similar for Shieldbearer's Lay on Hand. That said I'm open to suggestions. JUST BEWARE THAT TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY IS A HUGE CONCERN. So if you make suggestion, try to : - Make precise suggestions about the mechanics - Try to reuse mechanics from existing abilities - Try to check the list below about what is feasible or not. If you have questions about the feasibility of a given mechanics, let me know, I'll update the list. - Try not to make a suggestion that is not too complicated or rely on obscure mechanics for the player. - Try to read what has been already discussed, since some solutions' drawbacks/advantages were already discussed. Things technically possible : Resurrect when knockdown (but with a wound) Resurrect when knockdown and remove all wounds (but this would be Overpowered ) Add x pts of damages shield Condition “under x% of health” for a trigger Prevent death for the next n times damaged Prevent death for the next n Graze/Hit/Crit Prevent death for a duration (of course) Fixed duration (INT and PL not applying), but it will still be prolonged by re-applying Apply an effect a fixed duration (INT and PL not applying) after cast Apply an effect when the duration elapsed (but re-applying will prevent it) Things technically not possible (unless I'm proven wrong by some modder ) : Prevent death for the next n times fatal damages Resurrect when knockdown and remove exactly 1 wound (so +1-1 wound = zero wound) Condition “under x health” for a trigger where x is a specific number (such as exactly 1 health that one reaches with prevent death) Cheers !

In your experience, does respec allow to "reroll the bug chances" ? In that case it would still be minor.

Probably because subclass passives are applied at character creation. So if the mod wasn't active at this point, the passive won't be updated after that.