Boeroer

But even if more and bigger does sell more copies: it also costs a lot more to make.

No, it takes several hits/crits until it's gone. I don't remember the exact number of hits. 8 or 10 or so. In Deadfire it's 10. The description is really bad. Note that grazes do NOT count. So if you have high defenses (e.g. via Mirrored Images) so that enemies mostly graze you then the Iron Skin lasts forever basically. Only hits and crits count.

I really like Soulblade/Trickster with Whispers of the Endless Paths. With Borrowed Instincts + Mirrored Images (which stack) you'll have plenty of defecltion to trigger Offensive Parry and Riposte which will generat focus while you are recovering and you can then apply the cumulated focus with Soul Annihilation in an AoE. You can combine this with Nomad's Brigandine which can turn Disengagement attacks against you into 100% misses with the enchantment "Tactical Withdraw": Just disengage for free damage and focus via Offensive Parry and sometimes Riposte. Gipon Prudensco has the same enchantment available. It also has another one which makes you immune to flanking (bad for a Streetfighter but good for a Trickster). But it's mutually exclusive with th disengagement enchantment. At the same time another enchantment of it lets you gain +1 deflection and +2 Reflex every time you get hit (stacks to +10/+20). I usually pick Nomad's Brigandine because it has better AR and is easy to get. Not a great concept for Soulblade/Streetfighter though since the deflection in general would be too low. Here I would go for Sun and Moon etc. like Kaylon saidf. It's a nice combo. Also in the early game it happens very often that you miss your Soul Annihilation due to a lack of ACC buffs and rel. low ACC/enemies' Deflection ratio. A one handed Rapier + modal (=+37 ACC!) helps a lot to land those important SA-hits until you can get some more ACC and/or the flail and the shield. By the way, talking about shields: there's a large shield named Shining Bulwark that gives you +10 deflection against flanking attacks (basically negating the deflection malus without lifting the affliction itself). If you combine it with the Pale Hide (+8 deflection while flanked) you can have the equivalent of +18 deflection while flanked and still triggering the passive of the Streetfighter. Of course both items look ****ty together and well: it's a large shield - so not really a massive focus on dps. You can also use Nomad's Brigandine (can have +10 deflection against melee attacks if you don't leave your party members) or Casita Samelia's Legacy (~+10 deflection via Intimidate) or Gipon Prudensco (up to +10 deflection after some hits). Once you get some ACC buffs and Sun & Moon it works well with the primary attack of Soul Annihilation and you'll be quite tanky (for a flanked Streetfighter). Coming bacl to Shadowdancer: there's the flail Sungrazer which has an enchantmet that triggers if you kill with a crit and does pretty substancial AoE dmg then. Usually it's hard to trigger because how do you want to ensure that you are killing with a crit. But a Shadowdancer (or any Monk) can combine Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming with it. Usually, when those proc it's a kill. And usually it's a crit-kill. So compared to other classes it's rel. easy to proc it. You can use it with One Handed Style + Dirty Fighting in order to maximize procs. Streetfighter has short recovery anyways while flanked so you get decent attack speed as well. It's not superreliable (you can't trigger it willingly) but really great fun and a great mob clearer. Its even good with a Shattered Pillar because you can use autoattacks mostly (which generate wounds quickly as Shadowdancer).

It may be that Story Time has a an auto graze-to miss conversion for the party (not sure). If that's the case then I suspect that this log-message gets shown accidentially instead of "[Aila Braccia ->]". There is the same problem in Deadfire where a Debonaire Rogue (who has 100% hit-to-crit conversion on charmed targets) never sees that conversion message like [Deboniare->] in the combat log but instead always [Dirty Fighting->]. So maybe this is a similar problem. To be sure you'd need to test some more. But the graze-to-miss conversion of Aila Braccia itself is normal behavior on all difficulties. I never had the difficulty setting accidentially change in PoE ever and also never read about that in the bugs subforum. So I find this unlikely - although not impossible I guess.

After Deadfire Josh (from Obsidian) spoke to Swen (from Larian) and they found out that the overlap of D:OS- and PoE-players is only about 40%.

Doing everything by hand surely leads to a better result or one with more character (like with all handmade things I guess). But also it's a real pain if you need to make some changes. This whole event/listener system is also called "inversion of control" in programming and it was invented to be able to couple things loosely. So instead of Xoti triggering Aloth directly (hard-wired) during her dialogue he now only listens to certain events (no matter if emitted by Xoti or Klaus Pumpernickel). That way you could remove Aloth's answer (or Aloth completely) and Xoti's dialogue would still throw no error (because if done the hard-wired way there would be something missing and the call to Aloth or his reaction piece would fail). But it feels too "mechanical" in my opinion. Doesn't matter at all in normal software, but in a game (which is also art and entertainment, not only programming and logic) it's a bit. But I guess I would also have though it's a brilliant idea initially.

No. Aila Braccia turns all grazes of ranged attacks into misses (and then reflects them). Wouldn't make much sense to get damaged by a graze and then reflect it (like - did you pull the arrow out of your armor and threw it back? ;)) - so it converts them to misses. Actual misses don't get reflected. No matter the difficulty. That's why it is the best item against Lagufaeth (and pretty darn good in general - it's like a 100% graze to miss vs. ranged weapons + reflect). Lagufaeth come in different shapes, forms and stats. It depends on the map. For example the Lagufaeth in Longwatch Falls are much harder than the ones you meet in Russetwood.

No, it's not only visual. Some lines of dialogue get tagged with certain dispositions (like "Antireligious" or "Progressive" and such). Let's call them disposition-events. And those events got added during and after dialogue was written. Adding tags/events to text which is read out of context... I guess it's hard to get the connotation or the deeper meaning (and sometimes also maybe who's the receiver) every time and so it's understandable that some events gets picked up the wrong way. It might make sense to tag a certain line as progressive (but it's actually not in greater context) if you don't know who's the listener or what the history between party members is. All companions have a set ot favored and non-favored dispositions and if they are in the party they "listen" for those events. Josh thought this was a neat system which might save his writers a lot of time because they wouldn't have to hard-wire reactions but instead couple them loosely with this events/listener system. That way you could also always add or remove characters without breaking the dialogue of the others participants. In hindsight he said it wasn't a good system and that he wouldn't repeat it since it didn't work out so well. Doesn't feel as natural as manually added reactions and still was a lot of work to setup.

Party size per se has not much to do with RTwP or Turn Based Mode? Only indirectly: The problem with "modern" RPGs in combination with real time is that every character is supposed to have active abilites that make him interesting to play. Even the most plain fighter build will have some abilites like Knockdown or Vigorous Defense, a Taunt or whatever. Now the problem is that active abilites require smart decisions to be effective in combat - especially if your enemies run around and act while you are acting. Smart decisions need some thinking and also anticipation. Some thinking can't be done without pause, so there's RTwPause. But the pauses get longer and longer and more frequent the more every character needs to get micromanaged because of his active abilities. Those abilites also have a ton of VFX nowadays, especially the AoE ones. Also players want more tactical depth and so there are interrupts and different defenses against different attacks and different armor against differet damage types. Result is a screen with tons of parallel VFX stuff and pausing every second (or even more frequently) because so much is going on that needs processing and planning. It becomes messy and tedious. This was one of the main criticisms with PoE. Older games like BG2 have a lot of classes that don't have active abilities (or very few) but ,ostly feed off of passives. So having three or four of those doesn't really make a difference in terms of micromanagement. So - reducing the party size and/or the number of combatants in general seems like a totally reasonably idea - like it or not. Another approach is better AI setting. Deadfire did that, too. Was well received. The alternative would be to make characters like in BG2 again: little to no active abilities for martial classes and such. Enemies: same. But I let you take a guess what RPG players would think about that... Turn Based Combat doesn't have those problems because you have all the time in the world to plan you next move. And every (active) action, including its VFX takes place on its own. Not superimmersive or realistic but a lot easier to manage. Because that apporach needs a lot more time per enemy usually the encounters are a lot smaller (but maybe enemies tougher) and often there are less encounters because even smearing easy trashmobs will take a significant amount of time and that can get boring. I don't know where you get the "pedantic combat" though from. It's just devs tyring to make sure that the combat is not overwhelmingly messy. It's not like they sit down an plot something like "Ok, how can me make combat more appealing to pedants and how can we piss off Ontarah the most?"

Good question. I didn't actually test that. I assume the old one gets cleared and the new one takes over - or the higher one supresses the lowers - but I can't say for sure. Let me test... Edit: I had 6 phrases (max) when I cast "So Singt..." (costs 5) and got the +6 PL Bellower bonus. Then I waited until I had 3 phrases again and cast "The Shield Cracks" (costs 3). When looking at the PL bonus it was still at 6, not 3. So it was not replaced. In order to check if they stack if you are not at max phrase counter yet I did the following: I started a new battle, waited until I had 3 phrases only and cast The Shield Cracks: got +3 PL. Then did the same again and still only +3. So they don't stack at all. Suppression seems most likely. But no matter how it's done internally: you can't stack the Bellower bonuses but keep the highest individial one.

They stack.

Shadowdancer (Rogue/Monk) is a good multiclass in terms of damage. With Blunderbusses (and the weapon proficiency) it's very easy to get your Streetfighter flanked (via distraction) without actually getting flanked by enemies. But since Monk and Rogue both have abilities which help with movement (Long Stride, Flagellant's Path, Escape) it's also no big problem with melee weapons. Single Class Rogue can get the abilities "Vanishing Strikes" and "Gambit" which are very good if you build towards them (in case of Vanishing Strikes that means Backstab and maxed INT as well as everything that prolongs duration, Gambit wants high ACC and crit conversion). That will take some time though. On the road towards Power Level 8/9 (where you'll get those two abilities) it will be less exciting than a Shadowdancer.

It's fun. If you use it with a Shattered Pillar you'll get wounds from Imagined Pain and from the Offensive Parry (does count as "auto-attack" and generates wounds for a Shattered Pillar). So getting 10 wounds* by running past some guys is easy. *10 wounds on Shattered Pillar with Community Patch, else only 5 max.

Yes, they do stack and proc separately from each other, so an Offensive Parry + a Riposte getting triggered from the same miss is common.

No, Riposte works as usual: only a certain percentage of misses will trigger a Riposte. Offensive Parry however will proc 100% of times.

Hello, Nomad's Brigandine has an echantment named "Tactical Withdraw" that makes you immune to Disengagement Attacks. While I always thought this means immune to Engagement I now realized that this is not true. Instead you will still trigger Disengagement Attacks - but they will miss 100% (with a combat log message like "[...] but <charname> is immune!"). I just made a Monk with Nomad's Brigandine and Imagined Pain. Running around some Xaurip Champions to fill my wound count to max in a matter of seconds. Also Riposte and Offensive Parry do trigger on those "misses" (might be a way to make both worthwhile in Turn Based Mode). Have fun with this info!

Yeah, since a Beguiler usually has plenty of focus at most times and Whispers of Treason you almost never use Rogueish Charm. It's more about the 100% crit conversion.

Hauani O Whe and Dorudugan are immune to INT afflictions, charm will not work. The others are not immune afaik.

There are only two mortars: "Hand Mortar" and "Fire in the Hole". Both are Serafen's guns. He comes with Hand Mortar and after finishing his quest he'll get Fire in the Hole. Fortunately Serafen's quest is very easy to complete and also quickly done: Go to Fort Deadlight Open the chest in the room which is right north of the harpsichord, this will give you a hint to go to the Luminous Bathhouse Go to the Luminous Bathhouse and talk to Undyne Go to Sayuka and find Remaro not far from the harbor (northeast up the stair) - he will give you the gun. Cool cool cool cool no doubt no doubt Enchantments: for Hand Mortar I usually pick Blinding Smoke because it triggers Avenging Storm (which I get from Heaven's Cacophony helm). But it does friendly fire so be careful. However: i think it's the better enchantment even though Point Blank does work pretty nicely with Whispers of the Wind and Flagellanth's Path. So if you are not using Avenging Storm it might be a good alternative. For Fire in the Hole it's Chain Shot. It adds a projectile jump which includes the AoE. There is no question that this is better - especially because with WotW and Flagellant's Path you are not actually reloding (only recovery) - so the alternative enchantment doesn't even work well. Also double AoE is better for Stunning Surge because more chance to crit = refund of mortification. Key abilitiies are: Lightning Strikes (Swift Flurry doesn't work) : +15% lash works with ranged weapons Two Weapon Style Duality of Mortal Presence (INT - Turning Wheel doesn't work with ranged weapons) : the AoE of both mortars will grow with INT Enduring Dance (more ACC = more crits and auto-wounds) Thunderous Blows (PEN) Stunning Surge (lots of hit rolls -> high chance of crit => refund. Also AoE stun effect of course) Flagellant's Path (no reload but recovery, fires both mortars with AoEs at target) Razor's Edge (more ACC) Resonant Touch (every AoE hit roll will add a stack of Resonant Touch to enemies) Whispers of the Wind (every jump will fire the gund + AoEs which leads to ridiculous stacking of Resonant Touch - best if enemies stand near to each other!) Against single targets you can use normal blunderbusses or summon the Long Pain. Most important item for Whispers of the Wind is Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak. Ring of the Marksman is nice. I also used Ring of Overseeing and Aloth's armor - but other stuff also works fine. I tried to stack a lot of INT, too.

Or maybe not even Troubadour but Bellower - prolonging dat PL boost?

löl

Hallöchen, I never though about this much but today I fought around a bit with Tekehu (Stormspeaker) and Aloth (Wizard, wearing Cap of the Laughingstock) and used Wall of Draining with Aloth while fighting off two Risen Soldiers. It prolonged the chants just fine. So I tested it out more and gave Tekehu a chant that was composed of a lot of different support phrases: they all got applied to Aloth (as expected) and stayed there with his Wall of Draining active. Which is quite hilrarious. I'm now thinking about a Bloodmage/Troubadour who uses Brisk Recication to scat a lot of different support phrases quickly while prolonging their effects with Wall of Draining. Main advantage would be that you wouldn't need to actively cast self buffs but just stack them passively while casting other stuff (like CC or damage). Sounds good or silly?

Ancient Brittle Bones skeletons from Beckoner are indeed of normal size (not the small ones).

It's a tankish nuker I would say. The beauty (or convenience) lies in the fact that you can deal weapon damage, cause dazed, heal (drain) and cast spells at the same time. You seldomly have to stop casting because of low health or because you get annoyed by melee attackers or so (I use Hands Of Light against interrupts). But maybe that feels less awesome in Turn Based Mode where timing/speed/recovery are handled very differently - I mean it's bad in TB anyway since Offensive Parry doesn't work well there (at all). Arcane Knight in general can be a rel. "hassle-free" combo. And works right from the start usually. More damage and (way) less tankyness you can get with a Sage, most notably Helwalker/Bloodmage. Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming in combination with Draining Touch/Club/Miasma does very powerful single target damage - and Spirit Lance with Stunning Surge (especially when using Instruments of Pain) is a very effective, spammable CC/damage combo. Spells gain +2 PEN from Thunderous Blows and +30% dmg from Helwalker's passive at 10 wounds. And all AoEs and durations enjoy the +10 INT from Turning Wheel. I believe it's the most recommended Wizard multiclass. Battlemage/Clear Out: what also works with Clear Out is Minor Blights in the main hand and a bashing shield or melee weapon in the offhand. Clear Out uses Minor Blights then. Can be a nice alternative if you run into enemies who are especially vulnerable to elemental dmg (or especially resistant to pierce and crush). Also Karabörü with Disciplined Strikes and Infuse with Vital Essence and Merciless Gaze can be real nice. The (bigger) AoE cone or Karabörü triggers fairly often then. Disciplined Strikes and Merciless Gaze don't stack their crit chances additively but still: you'll get a ~36% chance to convert all hits to crits which is decent. Maybe nice backup to Spirit Lance if your spell uses are depleted or so. What is also really nice is Keeper of the Flame with Clear Out. Sungrazer (with both AoE enchantments), too.

Steel Garrote/Bloodmage is very good if played with Whisopers of the Endless Paths and Offensive Parry (enchantment). oYou can reach very high deflection via Paladin passives and Wizard buffs which leads to a lot of misses in melee. Every miss will trigger Offensive Parry. Offensive Parry causes daze on hit which not only leads to severe underpenetration from enemies but also immediately unlocks the draining for Steel Garrote. Such an Arcane Knight can tank and dish out melee damage while healing and casting at the same time. The auto-healing part is good to counter Blood Sacrifice. It's also not correct that a Paladin can't enhance casting capabilities: he can raise ACC with Zealous Focus (although I think Exalted Endurance is better) but nore importantly he can add a 10% burning lash to all his damaging spells via Eternal Devotion which works with spells as well. Inspired Beacon can be used to increase some high-dmg spells like Piercing Burst for example. Such an Arcane Knight is hard to kill (since he's draining health while parrying) and can cast non-stop at the same time. With Inspired Beacon his parries also do significant damage. Here's a high-level Steel Garrote/Bloodmage: HOWEVER: While Offensive Parry is very good in RTwP mode it is bad in Turn Based mode. That's because in Turn Based mode there's only a very little chance to miss. And Offensive parry only triggers on misses. But you can play a Steel Garrote with other weapon setups - for example use the grimoire switching trick to keep Concehaut's Draining Touch for the whole fight and use it with a shield. It will drain health by itself but because it also weakens it will also unlock the Stell Garrote's draining: double drain and very high dmg. Even better if instead of a shield you use a club + modal which lowers Will by 25. That's because Draining Touch targets WIll and not Deflection. You can take Scion of Flame and Spirit of Decay and get +2 PEN for Flames of Devotion if used with Draining Touch and raise your ACC with FoD by 10 with Rig of Focused Flames. So if your club hits and lowers Will by 25, then you cast a Miasma and lower it further by 40 and then use Draining TOuch you attsck with the equivalent of +85 accuracy which leads to a lot of crits. You could also use Spirit Lance - but that's indeed better with a Battlemage, for example Devoted/Bloodmage or so. Mostly because of Clear Out + Spirit Lance.