Boeroer

It's way too expensive with 2 Mortification for my taste. Escape is the better alternative imo. I need Mortification for other stuff. If you pick Riposte and consider the increasing returns of high deflection (and also keep in mind that Tuotilo's Palm gets +1 deflection/+1 reflex per wound) it's a crime not to use it imo. With Adept Evasion and Tuotilo's Palm + Weapon and Shield Style you will get missed by almost all reflex based AoE spells. ANd of course overcoming your deflection will be very hard. At the same time Tuotilo's Palm's damage is not that important if you apply stuff like Toxic Strike or Ring the Bell or use Forbidden Fist (which is a primary attack anyway). Imo the greatly increased defenses are totally worth the bit of dmg los. Also a bash from Tuoltilo's Palm (or any offhand weapon for that matter) that Triggers Swift Flurry or Heartbeat Drumming will proc attacks with the main hand weapon anyway - so in case of Swift FLurry/HBD chains it doesn't even matter what you are wearing in the offhand. And Tuotilo's Palm not only has Precision Striker (+5 ACC) but also the modal which gives you +15 ACC for your next attack - should enemies miss you (which they will). Also a shield means +1 engagement. With Persistent Distraction you will have 2. Nice to have with Parting Sorrow imo. Especially if you want to use Ryngrim's RV. Absolutely worth it in my experience. One of the few cases where I actually use Tuotilo's Palm. If one uses Shattered Pillar then Whispers of the Endless Paths is also great. Offensive Parry generates wounds for the Shattered Pillar. Riposte won't but it procs the cone attack which isn't bad either. And of course the cone AoE with Turning Wheel is quite big which makes stuff like Efficient Anguish lots of fun. With Morning Star + Envenomed Strikes + Stunning Surge you can lower enemies' fortitude by 45 points and then use Efficient Anguish (targets fortitude). This procs Swift FLurry/HBD quite often then. Also the Willbreaker has the enchantment "Make them Flinch" (25% miss to graze) which - combined with Gauntlets of Greater Reliability (also 25% miss to graze) is very good against enemies with very high deflection (in order to easily apply Body Blows even if you otherwise would miss all the time). Miss to graze is such in undervalued conversion imo.

It will. With Forbidden Fist an additional feature is that you can use something like a sabre in one setup, a spear on the other - and still have a crush alternative with your forbidden fist ability (which doesn't use your weapon but has its own crush base dmg). So enemies' AR or immunties will be no problem a all.

One reason is there's no drawback when your AC gets knocked out - because it's a summon. You won't suffer Bonded Grief and can just summon it again (for 1 Bond). Also cool: just dropping your Animal Companion behind sombody - or in places a normal AC couldn't reach easily. Drawbacks: you can't have AC + summons. Your AC has a duration and also the act of summoning costs a bit time and a bit of resources. Also your AC can get dispelled (because it's a spirit). But that rarely happens (if ever).

Mediocre MIG, mediocre CON, above average DEX, PER, INT and RES. If Forbidden Fist: max RES. From the top of my head (not in that order, didn't count if too many): Fist (and a non-crush weapon as backup, for example a sabre) + Tuotilo's Palm (Balanced Shield + Precision Striker), Weapon & Shield Style, Two Weapon Style, Escape, Dirty Fighting, Riposte, Arterial Strike, Ring the Bell, Toxic Strike, Adept Evasion, Persistent Distraction, Deep Wounds, Deathblows, Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes or Swift Flurry, Efficient Anguish, Thunderous Blows, Enervating Blows, Parting Sorrow, Heartbeat Drumming. If Forbidden Fist also Crucible of Suffering and Clarity of Agony. My preferred armors would be Casita Samelia's Legacy with max Intimidation or Nomad's Brigandine. If nobody else desperately wants them then also Cloak of Greater Deflection and Bracers of Greater Deflection. If Forbidden Fist then Stand of Favor and Cabalist's Gambeson and all the RES gear you can find (including the Evee pet dog and food with -x% to hostile effects duration). I think Forbidden Fist/Trickster fits quite nicely because Forbidden Fist wants high RES to make his curse as short as possible - and deflection bonuses have increasing returns: the more the better - so the high RES is great in combination with Mirrored Images and additional deflection stuff. MIG can be at 10 anyway. Trickster gets plenty of damage bonuses. IN case of Forbidden Fist it also holds the self damage at bay. Forbidden Fist is not that easy to play in the early game because you will have slower wound generation as with a normal monk or Shattered Pillar. But it's very rewarding after some levels imo. The Forbidden Fist ability is very strong. Enfeebled prolongs all hostile effects on the enemy by 50% and prvents healing completely, +10 INT from Turning Wheel adds 50% more duration. So stuff like Ring the Bell or Toxic Strike (good raw dmg DoTs) last for a very, very long time. You can "escape" to an enemy, punch him with Forbidden Fist + Ring the Bell (or Toxic Strike), zip to the next, do Forbidden Fist + Stunning Surge (very long stun), zip to the next and so on. It can be mad fun. And you won't have to bother about getting damaged too much because you will be sturdy and tanky enough. Also off-tanking is no problem.

Yes, the "directly damaging yourself" might be the thing that breaks it. Who know... I'm too lazy to search the game files for that.

Soul Blades - like all Ciphers, can cast Borrowed Instincts which raises all defenses by 20. It stacks with Monk's Crucible of Suffering btw. So defensively it's good. The combo lacks healing but as long as you're with a party that can be solved. Instead of a normal Monk you could also try out the Shattered Pillar. It generates wounds via auto-attacks. So you can punch which not only raises wounds but also focus - and then release it via Soul Annihilation. SInce you are using mods I would recommend the Community Patch then. It not only has unique icons for all passives (which makes it easier to distinguish them) but also a lot of sensible balance fixes - among them the un-nerf of the Shattered Pillar's max wound count from 5 back to 10. Or maybe I can interest you in a Trickster/Monk. It has enormous offensive potential but also good defensive capabilites due to Mirrored Images. And Escape (Rogue ability) is a very cheap way to zip around on the battlefield. Also Monk's Turning Wheel (+10 INT) works well with stuff like Toxic Strike, Ring the Bell and Arterial Strike. Paladin/Soulblade can be a good mix of offense and defense. Ascetic: never tried as melee guy but more as caster (with Helwalker). Devoted/Soulblade will work and is quite uncomplicated but is a bit boring for my personal taste.

Smoke Veil doesn't break on DoT ticks, Brilliant Departure does. So it depends on what you want to do (DoT or CC) to determine what's better I think. Shadowing Beyond is stupid imo (unless TB mode bc. free action). I tried Shadowed Hunter recently but tbh I completely forgot what the results were. Since I forgot it must have been nothing special. I think it worked like Smoke Veil. Does BrillDep also break on Alacrity's self dmg?

Yes, that's a fun setup. Also because the increased PEN of St. Omaku's Mercy stacks with Devoted's PEN. +3 PEN (+4 with Ring of the Marksman) on a dual dmg weapon is great imo. And Galawain's Harry makes the -10% action speed way less punishing. I also tried it with Berserker/Ranger (PEN, higher attack speed, Blood Thirst etc.) in order to profit from Saint's Grace more (bc. self damage). Also nice. Even Monk/Ranger worked well. Enduring Dance + Thunderous Blows + Lightning Strikes was cool, too. Chanter/Ranger with Killers (to get the 25% crit conversion) + Sure Handed Ila etc. was a little too much fuzz for my taste. All in all I think Devoted/Ranger is the most "hands-off" approach and works nicely with very little interference and also nicely runs on AI.

Why the heck does Blood Sacrifice break invisibility? Wild...

Beacon doesn't remove TDC. It's just so that if you have both applied the Beacon's dmg bonus doesn't get listed in the combat log, only TDC. I guess it gets suppressed. Or it was some glitch when I tried last time, no idea.

I think Inspired Beacon and Takedown Combo don't stack. But yes, also nice.

Sunlance crits are pretty cool. Combine with a Paladin or Ranger to apply Inspired Beacon or Takedown Combo first: 🎶 death laser from the sky, sha-la-la-la-la 🎶

Actually dmg wise +25% duration is much better than +25% dmg. The additonal duration is a multiplicative dmg increase - while the latter is only an additive one. And since Disintegrate does raw dmg PEN isn't an issue. +crit dmg effects indeed do nothing for DoTs. I prefer to use a Debonaire/Wizard to nuke on the enemies whom a Cipher or Chanter charmed for me. It removes most PEN issues (because crits = PEN*1.5) and also the Wizard has many friendly fire spells. They will flip back of course. But that's okay if the charm was about to wear off anyway (especially withc Chanter since the charm is rather short-lived).

Glad you asked that question Boeroer. I quickly loaded up Deadfire and tried this and indeed: you can stack both charms on one enemy (if the second charmer is confused) and give that charmed enemy the body inspirations as well as the bonus damage. Cheers! Edit: Confusion is cool. For example it also allows a paladin to cast exhortations on charmed enemies (which would otherwise be impossible). Buffing up your charmed guys like there's no tomorrow, yeah! 😄

You mean Roguish Charm. But I guess OP was talking about Whisper of Treason (or Ring Leader) since the Debonaire Charm only works on kith. Something else: dominate doesn't work with the Debonaire passive - only charm does. Speaking about Roguish Charm: would it be possible to apply both the Roguish Charm (inspirations) AND the upgraded Chanter charm (30% bonus damage) to the same target utilizing confusion?

You are correct.

For a backline caster or shooter I will drop CON and RES to 3 most of the time (there are exceptions, but as a rule of thumb). It's a bit more challenging of course once you get attacked - but I like that extra thrill. But in turn based I would also dump DEX to 3 most of times (judging by what I hear about TB mode). So that leaves room for a little bit more RES or CON. I guess I would raise both a bit then, but doesn't really matter that much I guess.

That's not great to hear. It worked quite nicely right after release of the Debonaire- and was the first thing I tried with him.

...aaand a raised bed for vegetables, a little greenhouse for tomatoes, a rabbit hutch, a wardrobe, two loft beds... busy busy busy! After painting nearly all rooms in my house I'm currently sanding & resealing the floor. That's not that exciting... Next: tree house, chicken coop & carport. Should be more fun. 😅 I'm not working that much atm though. Because somebody has to look after the kids who currently have very little teacher-to-pupil learning time but more homeschooling - and kindergarden is closed, too. My wife cannot reduce her work time (she goes at 7:30am and returns after 8pm on a good day). That's why I have more time for such home improvement projects.

Maybe you just remember it that way because first you will shoot late in the round - and then you will be the first to shoot in the next round. It can feel like two shots in a turn because nobody else takes action in between. But after each shot your action point is gone - and thus there's no way to shoot twice in one turn I think.

Because it does not do much for you if you have a reliable source of healing. If the healing outweighs the damage you receive then it doesn't matter whether your health pool is 200 or 300. And if your healing is less than the damage you receive then +100 health will just postpone the inevitable. That why I think (generally speaking) that CON is the least important attribute. But not for a Bloodmage in turn based combat as Haplok pointed out. If you expect to receive a lot of burst damage between heals (for example via Blood Sacrifice) then a bigger health pool (via CON and/or stuff like Amulet of Greater Health and/or Tough) is good to have. Besides that it's nice to have high fortitude (and CON contributes 2 points of fortitude per point of CON) - but I usually would first raise MIG before I think about CON. But also in this case (Bloodmage) it's something else - because Blood Sacrifice's self damage scales up with MIG, too. If you use Blood Sacrifice multiple times in a row (bc. free action in TB mode) with high MIG and low CON you will kill yourself - which is not that much fun.

Heavy armor, sure. But why would you dump RES on a Wizard who's going to use a lot of deflection buffs?

I just loaded up Deadfire and switched to TB mode - and it seems that indeed the Red Hand doesn't enable you to attack twice per round.

I wouldn't interpret Backstabs from stealth as "auto attacks" - so you might have a point. I didn't know that Red Hand can fire twice per round due to my lack of experience in TB mode. Which is obviously pretty sweet (firing twice per round I mean, not that I have no xp in TB mode...)

Ah yes. Good point. I again forgot we are talking about turn based. Please dismiss what I said about sweet spots (there might be some in turned based, for example with INT/durations) and DEX maluses then and dump DEX to 3. And since Blood Sacrifice is a free action (iirc) high CON + Tough might be totally worth it, I agree. But I wasn't advocating for dumped CON in this case anyway so I wasn't talking total nonsense.