Nobear

I wonder if it got nerfed, or if my party just became really powerful at that point, at max level and with all the gear from a completionist run. If we are talking about level-appropriate fights, I'd say several of the Act 1 fights with spirits (not bosses) were harder for me than Thaos. He was maybe on par with the ogres in Od Nua level 3 with a level 6 party, and about as challenging as the average bounty with a level 10 party. A few of the bounties were harder than Thaos for me, having taken them on at level 10 or 11. Any fights with multiple Fampyrs were at least as challenging for me as Thaos, particularly undead Raedric and the fight at the end of Od Nua level... 8 IIRC.

Nice, I'm very glad of this. Boeroer ended up nailing it. Which spider pit are you referring to? Lle a Rhemen? There upper entrance is beneath a lake which should now be drained. The lower entrance is through a cave. The most notable loot it has is Cladhaliath, which is only the most popular spear in the game, since you can customize it with two enchants that are different than (and stack with) the normal enchants you can put on weapons. You might want to keep a save from just before you enter Lle a Rhemen though, because it is possible to make decisions in that dungeon that will not allow you to enchant the spear.

Funny thing is, I wasn't even aware that Thaos could transfer himself into one of the guardians. I mean it makes sense that he'd be able to, I just never saw him do it. Is that fight supposed to be significantly harder than it was for me? It honestly didn't even feel like it was in the top 10 most difficult fights in the game, and the only time I fought him was on PoTD with a full companion party. Adra Dragon, undead Raedric, and a few other fights were much harder for me than the final boss.

Right. Even just considering gameplay and not RP, the "best" options (e.g. for the greatest possible quest reward) are not always the ones that require checks. That said, some of them are. Passing checks gives you more options in general, which includes both "good" and "bad" options, gameplay-wise and/or RP-wise. No stats or skills will drastically change the game in terms of checks, but some checks will allow you to avoid certain fights, acquire additional gold or items, or other mildly useful things. Some, conversely, will just piss people off :D. Pretty cool implementation IMHO.

The only other thing I can suggest is to check your quest log, but I can't think of anything else you might have missed off the top of my head. I would recommend posting this in the Technical Support forum, including a link to your saved game and log file on Dropbox. The Technical Support forum is the only forum regularly checked and answered by devs.

First, I have still not found the time to play the expansion, and I myself would like to know if there are any new attribute checks higher than 19, or any new skill checks higher than 10. Basically, these numbers (19 and 10) were the upper limits pre-2.0. This post will give you an idea of the relative breakdown of which are most/least common, and of which are most/least "necessary" in the sense of actually being a gameplay advantage vs just affecting RP flavor a bit. The example you gave of 14 Int and 3 Int both equally failing a 15 Int check is spot-on. The lowest attribute checks will be 11, so dumping stats is not penalized in terms of dialogue. Also, if you have 17 of any attribute, you can easily get that to 19 with any of food, an item, an inn resting bonus, or another temporary buff whose source I won't mention since it would be a spoiler. You could pass the check with an even lower base score if you combine these buff sources. The same bonus from multiple instances of the same source type won't stack (for instance, only the highest of each attribute score across your gear is counted; the rest will be labeled "suppressed" on your character sheet), but you can combine bonuses from multiple source types. Each source type will typically give about a +2 bonus, give or take a point. The various skills also vary greatly in the difficulty of their respective checks. Most skill checks are well below 10, but there are some Mechanics checks (e.g. to disarm very deadly traps) of 11. There are gloves that boost Mechanics, but they are a "random" item, and can only be reliably found by breaking the fourth wall and referring to a certain thread someone made explaining how to reverse-engineer the "randomness" of these items.

Ok fair enough. As I said, to each his own, but I can see the appeal in what you have expressed. To be fair, I would probably feel the way you do about optimizing party members, if the game let me to it without console commands. The way I think about it to ease that urge is that I have optimized as much as the game legitimately lets me. Of course, if you don't mind using console commands, that's personal preference and certainly a valid sentiment. The console commands have, however, been unreliable in my experience since long before 2.0, and my temptation to use them got the better of me at one point until I discovered this. If you feel strongly about this issue, you may want to start a thread in the technical support forum. That's the only forum that devs regularly check to answer these sorts of technical questions, suggestions, or bug reports.

I haven't checked out your saved game, but the party composition you describe can certainly be played to good effect. If you are playing with the latest version (2.0), restarting wouldn't help you, because now you can respec in any inn if you want to change the stats/skills/abilities of your main and hired adventurers, or the skills/abilities of your companions. That fight at the end of Level 2 of Od Nua was also really hard for me the first time I played. What I didn't realize is, all of those Endless Paths below Level 1 are meant for coming back to at a much higher level. They will not advance the main quest, only offer side content with separate challenges, unique items, and story that's completely optional for beating the game. Once you make it to Defiance Bay, Act 2 starts and you'll be able to gain a good amount of XP with a ton of quests in the city that barely require any fighting. You can then come back to Raedric's Hold, but don't expect to be able to clear many levels of Od Nua at a time until maybe Act 3 when your party is even higher level. Since you've gotten to Level 2 of Od Nua, that means you have taken the stronghold. Get the first stronghold upgrade (it's free), which enables you to proceed to a new forest area, and then I think there's just one more to get to Defiance Bay. You can skip any fights that might give you trouble on this route, and come back later if you're a completionist.

I still haven't found the time to actually play 2.0 yet, but from what I've been reading, this type of party composition might be even better now than it was before. My pre-2.0 PoTD party had two tanks and four ranged who almost never got hit. With enemy AI improvements, having the two slightly less squishy melee DPS in place of two of your four potential ranged might not be a bad idea.

I'm not 100% certain, but I think you might have to revisit Lady Webb after Thaos' attack. Not to spoil anything, but things might be a bit different and game-changing at this point.

So that's how Marking works eh? Just one ally, being the next one that happens to attack? I think I remember reading somewhere that it also had a range, so that it might not count a ranged ally standing too far away. Can you confirm these things? Also, about the Outworn Buckler (Herald) effect, is anyone still experiencing that it doesn't stack with Deflection- and other defense-boosting items? This was a bug that only some players reported (myself included). To be sure, I would check your character sheet a few seconds into starting combat, as it would sometimes take a moment for the Herald effect to activate. Can we be certain that this bug has been definitively resolved in 2.0?

TBH that sounds really time-consuming and risky, but to each his own. The game was beatable by most players (myself included, and I consider my skill to be about average) even on a PoTD completionist run with all companions pre-2.0. IDK how the expansion difficulty compares, honestly, because I haven't had time to play it yet. Edit: Also, I have a strong feeling the inability to respec a companion's stats was intentional and not an oversight. Their spreads are done mostly with RP considerations in mind, and I believe it was intended to be a tradeoff between RP value and the ability to customize and min-max a hired adventurer.

If they didn't change the companion stat spreads, I'd think some might actually be improved in 2.0, like Grieving Mother who had a previously almost useless high Perception.

And, probably even more importantly, are you planning to solo or play in a party? You say you're rolling a second character, but some people just focus on their main and kind of forget about the rest of their party. The only general advice I can give based on your limited info is that, unless you're soloing, you should consider the synergy of your whole party.

I'll put in the caveat that I have gotten busy in RL and still haven't played 2.0, but did beat the game on PoTD pre-2.0, and was keeping up with the changes in 2.0 up until about a week ago. That said, I don't think much would change about my philosophy that, if you want an optimal party overall, your DPSers are going to get much more bang for their buck from the same DPS stats that you could give to a tank, and tanks will conversely get more bang for their buck out of tank stats. You can see that especially if you consider enemy DR: some enemies will just take a whole lot of damage stacking to even start making a significant dent, so I'd rather have some party members specialized for damage and/or CC, and one or two specialized for tanking, which aids with consistent and controlled fights. You could enable your tank(s) to dish out some damage to certain enemies that don't have too high DR, or you could make them better at tanking all enemies. As for Int, I'd still try to have high Int on my paladin tank, so her Zealous Focus can cover my entire custom formation. Note, though, the new respec feature, and also there's a necklace from a vendor in Dyrford Village that increases paladin aura range by 20%. I'll probably prefer to have high Int (which grants other benefits, like longer buff durations) and something potentially better in my neck slot, but it is one option. Since I am not against min-maxing and will try to keep my paladin tank- and support- focused, I will probably dump Dex and keep Per at 10 (more to avoid a super-bad Reflex score than for its DPS benefit) to allow me to have as good of tank/support stats as I can. Keep in mind, Flames of Devotion has +20 Accuracy built-in, unless they reverted that change in 2.0 or something, so you could still use that effectively for a bit of burst damage twice per encounter (especially to finish off an enemy) and/or to trigger an order talent.

Are you playing in 2.0? They changed a lot, though IDK specifically about console commands. That said, there's a legit respec option now. Especially considering the risk of messing things up with these console commands in general (which I experienced every time I tried to use them pre-2.0), I'd certainly recommend sticking to the legit respec option that's been added.

I consider myself to be an average player skill-wise. I've beaten the game on a completionist run pre-2.0 with a full party of companions and only my main (a paladin tank) min-maxed. After Act 1, there were only a small handful of fights that were truly challenging to me in the sense that I had to reload several times before beating them, or even come back later. I tried soloing PoTD on Expert mode (but not Trial of Iron) relatively briefly after that, also pre-2.0, and found it to be a much steeper jump in difficulty than going from Hard to PoTD. I did try to optimize my stats, although in some cases min-maxing may not be the best way to do that when you're soloing. I tried a melee wizard and a melee cipher. In general, I found the melee wizard to be more powerful and tanky (despite less tanky stats). On both characters, I hit a brick wall when trying to take the stronghold toward the end of Act 1, despite completing as many other areas as I could first. On the cipher, I saved up enough gold to buy a summon figurine from the blacksmith in Gilded Vale, and I still couldn't beat the fight with all the phantoms in the stronghold. I think there's a decent chance I could have beat it on my wizard if I'd acquired the same figurine with her, but I'm by no means certain. In general, in a solo PoTD run, I found myself needing to bust out all the guns I had at my disposal, including stacking multiple food buffs. IDK if they still stack in 2.0, but if they do, only similar effects will suppress each other, meaning you can boost multiple stats by eating multiple types of food. I have no reason to doubt that other more skilled players than myself have gotten through Act 1 soloing without cheating, and without playing a rogue who can vanish and skip that really difficult fight toward the end of Act 1. But, TCS is considered the greatest challenge in the game for a reason. There's no shame in having your first solo run be non Trial of Iron, or Hard instead of PoTD, to practice. But if you're looking for the biggest challenge, keep at it, have fun, and good luck!

I'm not an expert on the forum rules, but I don't see why not. However, while devs in the tech support forum often ask for savegames, even helpful players usually don't bother to open one up when you could easily share more info if you really want the help. At least tell us whether you're playing on Easy/Normal/Hard/PoTD and the levels of your party members. All I can say with the info you've provided is that both of the areas you've mentioned are skippable, and you can come back to them later in the game. Also, if the game is too hard for you in general, you can always change the difficulty unless you're playing PoTD (which I wouldn't recommend if you're totally new).

The penalty for Penetrating Shot is less significant for gun users than for bow users, since gun users spend most of their time in reload, not attack. For war bows, though, Penetrating Shot may not be worth it. In fact, one argument I've read for a war bow cipher is that there is at least one talent point "saved" that you can use for something else, compared to just about any other weapon choice.

Can anyone confirm whether this seems to be the case in 2.0 live? Specifically, are Hold the Line and the Guarding property now considered potentially worth it, in actually having an effect on holding enemies in place?

I would agree with Raven on this. With the caveat that, though I've beaten and fairly extensively played the game, I have not yet played 2.0 due to real life demands (aka school), it really seems to me that Con would be the more important if you feel a need for any increased survivability on your ranged cipher. TBH, when I come back to the game with 2.0, I would probably start by no longer dumping Con on any characters due to its increased effect, and fine-tune (if I discover the need) with the respec option. The main rationale I'd use to justify this for a ranged character is that the bulk of the damage they'll take will probably be in the form of AoE (that usually targets Reflex, and only rarely targets Deflection or Will). All this said and done, I still point out that I found the game quite beatable on a completionist run pre-2.0 with all companion characters aside from my main (who all had sub-optimal stats), and that Suppress Affliction will probably save your butt a lot more often than a few extra points of Con on your back row will.

LOL That'd be OP and pretty funny too.

Wow I've been away for a while, and probably won't be on much in the near future since school started again for me. Even if, when soloing, Backstab would only stack with Sneak Attack, that's still 150% bonus damage, bringing your first hit up to par with the damage of your subsequent Sneak Attack + Deathblows hits. I'd think that still might be worth it for certain encounters if you're playing a stealth assassin. I could see it making the difference, for instance, between one-shotting and two-shotting many enemies. This could significantly increase the number of fights you'd be able to survive by taking out one to a few enemies at a time before using Shadowing Beyond. This might be an even more attractive play style with 2.0 (since you'd be deadlier but squishier), although honestly I don't know when I'll have the time to buy the expansion and play it with school now, let alone get around to soloing lol.

That sounds like a logical justification for it stacking (i.e. both potentially taking effect in one encounter), but this game has quite a few inconsistencies, so I wouldn't count on it 100% until I tested it lol, just saying. You're right that you normally wouldn't need the effect even once per encounter, let alone twice, but then there's Adra Dragon. lol one fight I know, that can actually pose a threat to a well-built tank. Maybe there will be more such fights with the 2.0 tankiness nerfs and/or the expansion content.

I've heard Backstab referred to as a "trap" before, implying that it sounds way better than it actually is. I realize that, in a party (before 2.0), it's not practical to have your rogue regularly open out of stealth. For soloing, Shadowing Beyond seems too useful as an escape tool to regularly blow for different purposes. I also understand that, even when soloing with high Stealth and move speed, there will probably be some enemies that detect me before I can open on them from stealth. There will be, however, many occasions when I can successfully sneak up and open from stealth - probably with most enemies in the game. So, is Backstab really still a wasted talent, knowing and understanding the above caveats? Suppose I play as follows: I open up and assassinate most enemies with the first hit (Blinding Strike), some maybe with 2 or 3 hits at the most, I use Shadowing Beyond as soon as I'm about to die, I come back to the fight with less enemies standing, and rinse repeat until they're all dead. I know I'd be resting a lot, but I don't really mind that for a PoTD solo run. Am I missing something? Does Backstab not stack with Sneak Attack? Deathblows? Blinding/Crippling Strike? Even if it doesn't, wouldn't that still make my character a significantly better stealth assassin until level 11?