Boeroer

Also the combo of Enfeebled + Puppet Master + 10 INT (+ eventually crit) can be really impressive. Punch an enemy and then dominate them. They will be yours for a really(!) long time. At the same time they can't heal and will be no problem once they flip back (and are still alive). Also Enfeebled+Whispers of Treason and then cast Disintegrate on the charmed enemy works well because Disintegrate will not flip the charmed enemy back to hostile. I tried a Forbidden Fist/Beguiler for some time and I really liked the combination of Enfeeblement + Mind Control and that you can just fill you focus up with some Phantom Foes or Secret Horrors at the start of battle.

In order to combine melee with casting nothing beats Helwalker as second class imo. But there's no special freeze/corrode stuff there - only shock and burn. But +15 MIG, +10 INT, +2 INT and +12 ACC from the Monk's side are very, very good. As second class that can specialize in Decay, freeze and corrode there's the Druid of course. Druids have the fitting spells - and for melee you could use Spiritshift. With Wildstrike Freeze or Corrode I guess. You can also pick Secrets of Rime and Spirit of Decay then (like Wizard below). Wizard has some nice, fitting spells, too. Like Draining Touch, Corrosive Siphon, Freezing Pillar and whatnot. Melee wouldn't be too exciting though I guess. Stalker could be another thing. The high ACC (Hunter's Claw etc.) can be great for spells and melee alike and especially Takedown Combo is great with good single target dmg spells like Divine Mark or so. But overall I'd say Helwalker still.

You are comparing stuff that happens to a companion with stuff that happens to a galaxy with regard to the "usability" of a game world like Eora - and claim that both things ruin any attempt to really make the game feel like a TTRPG? The latter is a debatable goal anyways and not one that seems to have been aimed at by Obsidian or even the old IE games - see PoE's attack resolution or IE's Real Time with Pause - which aren't like TTRPGs at all. Let's think the first claim through and ask: how about every prominent boss you kill - or let live? Would this make the world "unusable", too?

Imo summons are always worth it. Summons nearly always have a big impact because you add additional bodies to the battle. Think about them as "living" CC effects that take out enemies who attack them for a very long time compared to other effects. Even if their dmg is not super good Dichotomous Soul twins are still very useful because they are rel. sturdy dudes and you get two for one cast. Necklace doesn't make their dmg better on average. It's just fun but unreliable. If they both get a ranged weapon they can't even tank properly. I guess giving them some +engagement gear could be useful maybe?

I don't remember if Shod in Faith Boots triggered Consecrated Ground once per encounter or more often. I believe it was twice per encounter. However, Consecrated isn't just one single heal. It's a pulsing healing spell which lasts for some time. And when I played this it wasn't just intended to heal me but also the party members around me, including my wolf. But I think you can totally play this with high Resolve. Maybe even switch to Drawn in Spring (also wounding) at some point, retrain and get a shield in order to amp up deflection even more.

Rofl sorry, I accidentially wrote down the ACC of the Rotghast that attacked, not the deflection - which was 88 in my case.

Ha, that's neat.

I will always oppose cooldowns. They are unelegant imo and also require additional attention.

Because it's an ability that has its own base damage (your current weapon is not used when executing FF) you can also use Lance of the Midwood Stag in order to get 2 additional power levels via "Lord of the Forest". You'll hold the pike in your hands but you can still use the FF ability and it will still use the Unarmed bonuses and will scle with 2 more PLs.

They don't attack with "real" fists so they don't need Transcendent Suffering. Instead they have unique fistlike weapons which scale with level. The ice summon has a weapon called "soul freeze" and the fire one has "soul burn". They have the same base dmg as fists (14-19) and it's correct that the dmg they deal is not very high because the summons have no special ability to make good use of those weapons. Usually they deal around 30-40 dmg per strike at lvl 20 (legendary + MIG bonus + some crits eventually). ACC is 108, PEN is 11. That's not superb but yeah well - it's okay. As I wrote above you can use the Necklace of Unlocked Possibilities to give them unique weapons - but that's not necessarily better. Like Essential Phantom they can't be controlled but run on AI. Their deflection is pretty bad (49 88 at lvl 20) so you can use stuff like the Ragged Cloak or Sysipho's Stone to profit when they get hit or crit.

It does work: both summons get a random unique weapon.

Does anybody know if the Necklace of Unlocked Possibilities works with the Monk's summons? I know that it works on Essential/Substancial Phantom - but it's not super interesting there because those can have the Wizard's weapons.

I like that as a general idea. It solves more problems than it creates I think. The rest of the Brillant buff (+1 PL, +5 INT) would still apply for the whole duration. But since ths will male Brilliant weaker I would give +3 PL instead of +1. Also because the RES-afflictions cause a -3 PL malus so the number 3 doesn't seem too outlandish. Tactician: maybe one can make it so that a new appliance of Brilliant only prolongs the duration of an existing Brilliant inspiration - and then gives you no resources. Only if you are not Brilliant already you'll get the resources/spells. Sure, one can try to get Brilliant, then unflank an enemy -> Brilliant stops - reflank -> Brilliant again... but it would be a lot of hassle and maybe that's enough already?

The first problem for me is that casters profit way more from it than other classes. The second problem (that is connected to the first) is that Brilliant lets you regain uses of Wall of Draining and Salvation of Time which both can be used to prolong Brilliant again - which is an OP cycle. I guess we all agree on that basically. Now there's just the question how to solve this. Anyway: my question regarding "foe-only" Brilliant was answered. So thanks all.

Yes, max RES, +RES items, items and consumables which reduce hostile effect duration (Mohora Wraps, Strand of Favor, Cabalist's Gambeson etc.) and of course your ability Clarity of Agony. Use Psychovampiric Shield to get +5 RES on top of that. It's a great spell to apply before Disintegration anyway (because then the Disintegration will last a lot longer on the enemy). That way you can also wear Hylea's Talons very safely because the DoT it might put on you will be very short. And you'll get a wound if it expires, too. The Ring Voidward is also good since it reduces the damage per tick significantly. You can pair that with regeneration gear. If you line all that up you can use the Forbidden Fist ability all the time because the curse will often be shorter than your recovery. This leads to very little self damage and lots of wounds.

And one can't create an effect like AttacksTargetEnemies or whatever and apply it in the same way?

What I said above is only my guess - from looking at that code. It may be that an offset get calculated - I don't know Unity classes and what their methods really do. i only know C#. Could also be that Obsidian used their own Random class or whatever. But if I had to bet I would say that the hash from the char name, the position of the container and the day determine the item you'll find in the container.

India has a region where people either elect the local socialists or the communists - and it's the region with the best overall figures afaik. Calling India fascist is pretty wild, even if rising nationalism is a concern. But then you need to call all western democracies who currently see a surge of right wing populism and nationalism fascist countries. That would include Sweden, Poland, Hungary and Germany as well I guess... My wife is a rel. high ranking diplomat with the German Foreign Ministry (currently with a minister of the social democrats - so basically a younger Bernie Sanders ;)) - and while Germany doesn't share the US' general attitude towards China, our governmant also has its own insights and concerns. What China's leaders do is def. not all honest, benevolent and altruistic... Thing is they do it quietly most of times: buying foreign companies for much more than they are worth (so every owner/shareholder says "Oh hell yes! YES!"), sucking up the know-how, rebuilding similar facilities in China and then closing the foreign company (sending the workers home). China then has all the knowledge and can produce way cheaper, selling the stuff back to foreign countries AND the foreign country has lost an asset AND the workers are angry and without jobs, turning to nationalists and right wing populists and so on and so forth. It's very effective and - one must admit it - smart. Also they really get **** done...

I find SC Arcane Archer extremely impactful in three different setups: As CC setup with Imbue:Web from stealth followed by an immediate Imbue: Web (or the other way round), Watershaper's Focus and Driving Flight - which gives you 6x AoE damage from Blast + high chance of Ondra's Wrath happening + 3x Binding Web + 3x Pull of Eora with insane ACC. It pulls the enemies very tightly together and they can't move on their own. Perfect setup for further nuking. As AoE dmg setup with Hand Mortar (Blinding Smoke) + Twinned Shot + Driving Flight + Avenging Storm: Blinding Smoke gets triggered unbelievably often because of Driving Flight and two shots at once. Blinding Smoke, although not doing damage, does trigger Avenging Storms. I had over 1000 hit rolls with this on a group of 5 or 6. It's instadeath against mobs. Second weapon set with Fire in the Hole for imbue shots (one more projectile bounce = one more imbue proc). Also works with other Ranger subclasses of course. You just won't have the tools to pull enemies together yourself to hit more enemies at once. Also works well with Whirling Strikes - if you put a melee weapon into your offhand. As another AoE dmg setup with Current's Rush + Twinned Shot. High Tide procs off itself(!) so once you get a proc of this and have enough enemies in the AoE it's very likely to proc a chain-reaction where High Tide procs other High Tides and so on until every enemy in range is dead. Obviously Imbue:Eora helps to pull enemies together so this works better but as with the previous setup it's also doable with any other Ranger subclass. Also works with Whirling Strikes + melee weapon but I had better results with One Handed Style + Twinned Shot. And of course my beloved Bleak Walker/Arcane Archer with Spearcaster. But that's a multiclass. With Frostseeker is another option of course, but again better with multiclass (e.g. Cipher or Helwalker).

If you want some of the potential unique items from the stronghold adventures then better build quickly. But otherwise you can take your time. I personally try to up the security first because those stronghold attacks are quite annoying.

I would argue that Goldpact Knight would be even sturdier (highest armor is the most effective dmg mitigation in this game) - but Shieldbearers have +1 engagement which is useful for a tank, too. Paladins don't have as many engagement slots as Fighters but you need some to prevent enemies to just run past your tank towards your backline. Shieldbearers get 2 engagement when wearing a shield which is good but not enough imo. You should also pick a weapon which gives you more engagement (spear + modal comes to mind - also Shattered Vengeance or Kapana Taga). There are other items which can add engamgent, too (e.g. Reckless Brigandine). If you pick an Island (or Coastal) Aumaua from the Deadfire (so basically a Huana) for this Shielbearer and get Reckless Brigandine, Kapana Taga and Cadhu Scalth you can have a very fitting package overall since all those items help with tanking AND have the 100% Huana look. Imo very nice touch. Besides that: I know you said no multiclassing but an Unbroken/Shieldbearer would be even more sturdy AND better offensively AND would have way better engagement mechanics. Just so you know. One advantage of the single class Paladin can be that Devine Retribution (comes at Power Level works with killed summons! This can be very good because you will not run out of Zeal and can use Brand Enemy, Flames of Devotion, Exhortations, Lay on Hands etc. forever. BUT you have to have somebody who can produce a lot of summons for cheap to really get an advantage out of this. For example a Beckoner or a Troubadour are perfect for this. I personally would go for Troubadour. Use "Ancient Brittle Bones" and later also the chant "Many Lives Pass By" to put a lot of weak summons onto the battlefield which distract enemies and get killed a lot. You Paladin will never run out of Zeal then. I personally would dump the Ranger for the Chanter then. Chanters can be quite good at ranged combat, too. Grab an arquebus (the Red Hand for example) or the Essence Interrupter Bow and use Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr + Sure-Handed Ila and you'll do very good ranged damage while have a lot more utility with the summons and other invocations than a Ranger (unless you pick Arcane Archer which can also have a huge impact with the right weapon(s) - but about that we could talk maybe later if you are more interested in a Ranger than a Chanter). IF you go for the Paladin/Devine Retribution/Chanter thing I wouls also recommend to run your Berserker with the sabre "Grave Calling" at some point. Second weapon set should include Modwyr (immunity to intellect afflictions). Enchant the sabre it with "Chilling Grave". Because there's this immensely powerful trick Berserkers can do with that weapon IF you have skeleton summons in the party (hello Chanter my old friend... ;)): First the Chanter summons Ancient Brittle Bones (while singing Many Lives Pass By). Then the Berserker goes into Frenzy. He will attack one of the parties' own skeletons (only one) with the sabre. The sabre wil kill the skeleton and that will proc a Chillfog from the sabre. That Chillfog has friedly fire because the Berserker is confused (from Frenzy). So that Chillfog will also hit and kill the other skeletons - and this will produce more Chillfogs which do the same to the new "backup"-skeletons that emerged from Ancient Brittle Bones. Meanwhile the skeletons from Many Lives pass by will run towards the enemy, getting killed as well, producing even more Chillfogs. This all leads to a ton of Chillfogs on the field that will not only kill your enemies quickly but can also paralyze them (see the second enchantment branch of the sabre Grave Calling). And meanwhile your Paladin will get all the Zeal from the skeletons dying! If your Berserker has Blood Surge he will also get a lot of Rage back from this. You can see that this overall package of Paladin + Chanter + Berserker can be incredibly powerful and also... cool. And the additional trick: if you don't like the Chillfigs to cause friendly fire anymore - so that you can run into the mess and hit the enemies yourself - just switch to Modwyr and *pouf* all Chillfogs will do foe-only damage all of a sudden because your confusion is gone. I would pick a Pale Elf and I would wear the Pale Hide, Stormturner Cloak later also Brooch of Inevitable Winter. This is because you can get hit by all the Chillfogs - and you don't want to die from that I guess. Pale Elf + those items gives you ridiculously high freeze AR so the Chillfogs will only tickle you. You can still get blinded by it but you can prevent that with Acina's Tricorn (looks funny though with the Pale Hide) or by the Priest casting Blessing on you after you get out of the Chillfog (would be my choice should it be necessary). Wizard Evoker can totally add to that and shower enemies + skeletons with AoE nukes. But he should also have some debuffing options up his sleeve. Stack absurd amounts of Power Levels with Sun & Moon + Magran's Favour and grab Otto Starcat if the Evoker is your main character. You will get up to +5 Power Levels to all fire spells. Get the Ring of Focused Flames and receive +10 accuracy for your fire spells. Grab two Stones of Power necklaces (there's more than one in the game) and use them 1/encounter to gain an additional Power Level. After the fight stack them in the stash and they will regain their charge without resting. Alternatively you can use two Necklaces of Fireball and do the same trick: if stacked in the stash they will regain their charges: 8 Fireballs in every fight extra! Wear the Firethrower Gloves for even more Evocation Power Levels. Max MIG, PER and DEX. Wear Rekvu's Fractured Casque. Then knock out yourself with Necrotic Lance out of combat: you will gain an Acute Rash injury which isn't so bad - but you will be immune to all interrupts then because of the helm. This lets you use the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry without any drawback! You'll have +1 casts per spell level now which is a huge advantage. Make sure you have some non-fire spells as well for those enemies who don't care about fire damage (for example Ironclad constructs and so on). The Priest should focus on buffing and healing (the Berserker first of all - or use Barring Death's Door on him + Salvation of Time) since you have more than enough damage potential in the party already. So my recommended party based on your wishes would look like this: Huana Shieldbearer Pale Elf Berserker Priest of <whatever you like best>, maybe not Magran though (Evoker already has a lots of fire spells) Troubadour Evoker

Oh I feel you... I remember... Wait until no. 3 comes around.

The code above def. looks like the "randomness" is indeed influenced by character name. I don't know what "base.transform.position" refers to - player position or container position or camera or whatever position. I firmly believe container position. The code is pretty meh - why temporarily storing the float and vector3 variables? The whole stuff could have been: private void SetSeed() { Random.seed = (int)(base.transform.position.x +base.transform.position.z) * GameState.s_playerCharacter.name.GetHashCode() + WorldTime.Instance.CurrentDay; } But anyway: The Random class(es) of C# and Unity will produce the same set of numbers each time you call for them if you don't change the seed. You could change the seed via system time or guid every time you called for a random number - and get a truly random set of numbers then - but either the dev here didn't know or didn't want to. For example maybe to get an even spread of items over the course of the game so the player doesn't end up with too many of the same "random" items. Or so... don't know. Before this character name thing was done this led to the known situation where everybody had the same set of random numbers/random items depending on the in-game day of the month. So those sheets with item/container/day could be shared. Now every character name gets his own set of "random" items. It would work like before if everybody had the same character name. So if everybody's character would be named "Steve" you could go, check out all items in random containers at every game day (of the month) again and then share the info with the other Steves. Why this weird solution? No idea. They could have stored the system time or guid at character creation instead and then you could have had a good spread of random numbers but every character would have a different distribution so that even share among same char names wouldn't work anymore. "No honor among Steves" it would have been. But somebody chose this name thing. So Steves unite!

Cool. But wow, manually that would be too much work imo. But if the naming patterns and ability structures were consistent then one could write a routine that does this automatically. But I fear that will not be the case. Has anybody knowledge about how Confusion causes everything to become friendly fire? I guess there's an overarching effect at play and not an implementation like above?