Boeroer

There is no release date. When he had less busy times at Obsidian he would write for the TTRPG during work hours as well, but at the moment Josh is writing it in his free time. Which I appreciate. The last "update" on it was on a Twitch stream some days ago where Josh showed what he was working on and took questions etc. Imo it's looking great so far (especially the lore parts but also the meta-rules which allow you to build your own abilities/spells etc.). But lots of work left I guess.

That is good to hear.

Eh, sorry, I forgot the word "often". Some things do indeed scale. Some things even scale very well (Spiritshift weapons, Animal Companion, Battle Forged...). Still Veteran's Recovery doesn't make such a big difference in the late game as it makes one in the early. Other stuff like Prestidigitator's Missiles or Enigma's Charm etc. don't scale at all which is too bad. Deadfire's Power Level mechanic is a big step forward in that regard. 3 INT is indeed strange for a Chanter. His linger time will be very short - and if you don't really want to use phrases and invocations I don't know what you pick a Chanter for. But if it works:

Prestidigitator's Missiles is only worth keeping in the later game for a Rogue - because Deathblows works with it (+100% dmg). Most of the cross class talents are better in the early game than they are in the late - even Veteran's Recovery. Reason is because PoE <edit> often </edit> knows no scaling of abilites/talents so naturally low level stuff falls behind the higher level abilities/talents.

If always the caster gets hit I would suspect spell reflection. If also other party members get hit I would check for confusion. Yes, in Deadfire most often active spell effects do change when the caster changes: if you lose Power Level while a spell is working it will drop in potency immediately. If you gain ACC while a pulsing or jumping spell is active the next pulses/jumps will have higher ACC and so on. With Confusion it's the same: a pulsing/jumping spell which is still working will immediately change from foe-only to friendly fire. I use that "feature" in my favor when I have a Berserker with Grave Calling and a Chanter with skeletons (can be the same char): you kill one of your skeletons which produces a foe-only chillfog, you retreat from the AoE of the Chillfog and only then trigger Berserker-Frenzy. And suddenly the Chillfog's pulses will do friendly fire, killing more of your own skeletons which will proc more Chillfog's etc. As soon as I remove confusion all the Chillfogs are foe-only again.

Iirc Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack can be active at the same time - but I'm not 100% sure anymore. Confident Aim has that 20% bonus to min damage - which essentially is a 8% dmg increase. Doesn't sound like much (besides the hit conversion which is good) - but it's a small hidden gem because it raises your min BASE damage. So it's actually a 8% multiplicative dmg bonus. I would drop Gauntlets of Accuracy as soon as I got Gauntlets of Swift Action.

That does explain why it procs SF/HBD chains so well.

I have no idea. One reason why Outer Worlds might have a lower user score could be the Epic exclusive deal thing. Lots of (potential) players were quite pissed by this and I guess some might have given bad reviews just because of that (regardless what they actually think about the game itself).

Deadfire didn't sell well. PoE did. Besides that: it's difficult to judge games' quality (or if it was liked by the buyers or not) by comparing sales numbers - especially if said games are from different genres or have little overlap in target audience. Even in the seemingly same genre there sometimes isn't much overlap. Compare D:OS and PoE: only 40% overlap of players - although most would say it's the same game genre (CPRG). Then you have to take into account if there were console releases right off the shelf - and if the game works well on consoles to begin with. Sales numbers, contemporary critics and even user reviews are bit unreliable tools to determine whether a game is objectively "good" (if that's even a thing) or even if you (personally) will like it. Often it helps, sometimes it's misleading. Popular example from the world of movies: Citizen Kane. But anyway: maybe it helps to not only display the meta score but also the user score to see if a game was not only received well by critis but also by the audience (regardless of sales numbers) - i find the results quite interesting: Pillars of Eternity: 89/8.3 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire: 88/7.8 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: 85/8.5 South Park: The Stick of Truth: 85/8.6 Fallout: New Vegas: 84/8.8 Neverwinter Nights 2: 82/6.6 The Outer Worlds: 82/7.3 Tyranny: 80/7.8 Dungeon Siege III: 72/4.7 Alpha Protocol: 72/7.5 It seems like Hurlshot's assessment of Outer World's popularity is not entirely correct. It wasn't rated extremely well (although 82 is still good) but also doesn't seem to be liked that much by its players - less than for exampe players liked Deafire. Although def. more people bought Outer Worlds than they bought Deadfire.

Spell reflection: good point. Also confusion maybe? Once the caster becomes confused Eld Nary will target friedlies with its jumps as well. There are a lot of Scriveners with Nemnok and they are all high level Wizards - so getting hit by Confusion or running into Arcane Reflections might happen.

Because of the added Flame Shield?

Monks in PoE fuel their abilities with pain like medieval monastic Flagellants did (where there "ability" was to purge sins with pain). Hence all the ability names with Mortification, Flagellant's Path, Suffering, Agony and so on. There's complete lore behind it, Zahua shines some light on that whole shebang and I think the designers/writers embellished the whole wound mechanic quite nicely. Anyway: Temple of Eothas is not a good performance benchmark for a build. Some which will become really great will struggle there (e.g. some Barbs, Priests etc.) while others do quite well there but never really take off (nost Fighters for example). Novice's Suffering isn't that bad early in the game especially because grazes are not as punishing and crits are not common that early in the game anyway.

Don't know why PoE Monk wouldn't feel like it - but whatever. Monk is one of the strongest martial classes (I'd argue the strongest overall) and if you want a character with most effective unarmed attacks then you should pick the Monk. Everything else is inferior in terms of unarmed dmg - but viable. Cipher with Novice's Suffering can indeed have some D&D Monk vibes due to some powers the Cipher can cast. Soul Whip's damage bonus only applies to the base damage of weapons (and thus picking Biting Whip would be a bad idea for a Cipher with Novice's Suffering since the base damage is so very low). The focus generation of Soul Whip however takes a fraction of the whole damage you roll, including NS's flat dmg bonus, dmg from all additive bonuses + also lashes (not damage over time lashes like Wounding though). Therefore Draining Whip would be a good pick for a Cipher with Novice's Suffering because it doesn't apply any bonus dmg that wouldn't work well with NS anyway - but instead increases the fraction of the dmg roll that gets turned into focus. You should have a weapon set with non-crush damage as backup. Something like a pair of hatchets or spears or so (same weapon focus, different damage types).

Kris Kross were objectively great --> argument destroyed! Yeah people enjoy doing drugs while posting in forum is objectively bad. Lol. Clown is for the emphasize of lol.

Soul Whip does only boost the 5-8 base dmg. The flat bonus is untouched by it. So additive dmg bonuses do work, but only for the tiny fist base damage which makes almost no difference. Novice's Suffering isn't a weapon you can ROFLstomp things with. Because of its special mechanics it's a god pick for builds that want to go into melee and do decent dmg but at the same time don't want to/cannot afford/don't have access to ACC and additive dmg abilities. And who want to spare resources, too. Chanter with NS will still not be a melee monster, but it's viable as a melee addition to his chants and invocations. Once he gets "Their Champion" it should be pretty cool though. With a mix of Mith Fyr and a few short phrases in between he might be able to cast Champion and get to 0 recovery and then fit in for example Hel-Hyraf before Champion wears off. In combination with Vulnerable Attack Hel-Hyraff can be a great way to crack open high DR foes. +10 dmg per attack is great if you have fast attack speed. With 20 DEX and Gauntlets of Swift Action a Chanter with Champion and Two Weapon Style can have 0 recovery with fists even when activating Vulnerable Attack and will punch every 15 frames (with 5 DR bypass which is like a flat +5 dmg bonus against everything with 5 DR or higher). With Hel Hyraf it's a bit like a 10 DR bypass. Imagine punching tough enemies with respectable dmg and 10 DR bypass more than once per second... without having stellar ACC and without having invested in enchantments and melee abilities.

No, it would not gimp the build. A slightly different allocation of attribute points also won't have any noticable impact.

Of course: Carnage is really nice with weapons that proc something on hit or crit. But still: the Barb is a good pick if you want to use Novice's Suffering to begin with. Until lvl 10 (without Accurate Carnage) the accuracy of a Barb is not good compared to other martial classes like Rogue, Fighter, Monk and Ranger - and therefore Novice's Suffering works quite well for him - on top come attack speed buffs like Frenzy and Bloodlust that work very well with NS - as well as the hgith MIG of Greater Frenzy (one of the few cases where I would pick Greater Frenzy). Soul Whip is an additive dmg bonus like Sneak Attack. Therefore Cipher is not an obvious pick for Novice's Suffering. I did a buildwith Novice's Suffering on ciphers and it works, but it's more like a theme-build that tries to emulate a cipher/monk multiclass.

Yes, there are several builds that are good with Novice's Suffering. The weird mechanics of those "special fists" make it so: You will keep the teeny-weeny base damage of your fists (5-8 iirc). But you will gain a huge flat dmg bonus on top. This flat dmg bonus doesn't get influenced by any dmg modifications except Might. Since that flat damage bonus is quite big the impact that might has is substantial. That means that grazes, hits and crits will nearly do the same damage which makes this weapon dish out very consistent damage. Since crits will not do a lot of additional damage and grazes will not do a lot less it's possible to have good dmg output even with rel. bad accuracy. It also means that additive dmg bonuses like Sneak Attack and so on don't so that much because they only get applied to the teeny fists damage, not the flat bonus dmg. Barb is indeed a good pick because: first of all he has access to higher MIG (Frenzy/Greater Frenzy) and also because his starting base ACC and starting Carnage accuracy are both rel. bad. Carnage's ACC does scale with level but it will take you 10 levels (without Accurate Carnage) to reach the Barb's base accuracy which isn't too great to begin with. Another good pick is Priest (who would have guessed?): a Priest can reach very high MIG with Minor Avatar/Champion's Boon + Aggrandizing Radiance (stacks with everything). So besides casting his usual stuff he can also run around and punch enemies really hard. A Chanter can use Mith Fyr to gain a burning lash for his fists. Lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses and do work with all the damage you roll (including the flat bonus) so that's good, too. They also can raise their (and others') MIG via invocation. Basically all builds that can reach high MIG but don't want to invest into accuracy and damage bonuses too much are good picks. High attack speed is good for Novice's Suffering, too (e.g. Barb's Frenzy, Ranger's Swift Aim and such). I even did a Wizard with Novice's Suffering focused on touch spells like Jolting Touch, Draining Touch and so on and it worked well enough ("I cast 'Fist'!" ) Unfortunately Novice's Suffering stacking with Druids' Spiritshift weapons was patched out (was too good). But Novice's Suffering can be a good backup for Druids when their Spiritshift runs out and they don't want to put effort into upgrading a normal backup weapon. Another bonus of Novice's Suffering is that it costs nothing to scale it up. This frees up resources for you part members' gear. Enchanting is expensive and needs rare resources sometimes. The cons are: no lash enchantment, no durgan steel.

Yes, it is a talent which every class except Ranger can pick (because Rangers get the "original" Wounding Shot ability). Same as Veteran's Recovery, Aspirant's Mark, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, Rhymer's Summons, Enigma's Charm, Outlander's Frenzy, Acolyte's Radiance, Prestidigitator's Missiles and Gallant's Focus.

Duality of Mortal Presence will go up to +10 INT, not only 5. As a Nalpasca it's pretty common to be at max wounds often (if you combine drugs with Enduring Dance and Hylea's Talons for example - self damage doesn't influence Dance of Death).

Chilling Grave does indeed not proc SF/HBD. By the way: Grave Calling's Chilling Grave + the paralyzing effect of Grave Bound can help a lot with generating crit-chains (because Paralyze gives you +25% hit to crit) - another option for a SF/HBD setup - for example if you have a Chanter (or even Beckoner) with Ancient Brittle Bones in the party. A lot of enemies wil be paralyzed after some pulses of the Chilling Grave Chillfog once you killed one or two of the skeletons.

I personally would use a bit less MIG and a tad less INT and put something into DEX (best dps stat imo) and maybe also PER - just to make the early game more enjoyable where you tend to miss a lot and won't have access to Ring of Focused Flame, Enduring Dance etc. yet. But it will also work fine like you posted. My ability picks would be a bit different - but there's always retraining so I would experiment. Thunderous Blows is very good (it also works with spells etc.). Because +2 PEN is - and the added MIG is also not bad.

iirc the Wael Titan can indeed march towards Ukaizo and attack Eothas, but doesn't the wheel get smashed anyway (maybe they fall onto it while struggling, don't remember to be honest)? Still cool option though.

Iirc it only lauches the burn head attack witzh Swift Flurry/HBD. If the frost head is implemented like Chilling Grave etc.: would it still proc Swift Flurry? Afaik spell-like abilites like for example Forbidden Fist will not...?