Boeroer

Huh? Never had a problem with retraining. Granted I didn't use it on a regular basis.

Well, they have Stormspeakers (Storm pose no threat as long as a tribe has one), plumbing wasn't a thing in most western civilizations until fairly recently, Huana invented the Voyager which is not a canoe (and it is said that the war canoes of the Wahaki are a frightening and impressive thing to behold) and are scattered around the Archipelago since some foreign dudes came, build some wheel and annihilated their ancestors who build the largest and most advanced empire on Eora and fed them to soul constructs they now call "gods". Also that's the same argumentation that was used by colonisation forces in Earth's history - and look how well that turned out. If other people have it worse than you (in your opinion first of all) it's a reason to offer help (not to force it on) - it's not a justification to dominiate. Of course this is a rather progressive viewpoint in the scope of the history of man. Surely you made that statement from the perspective of the RDC.

With a normal blunderbuss (instantly applies four stacks of Resonant Touch on a single enemy) or the Long Pain. Normal fist attacks also still work of course, it's still a Monk after all.

Yes, it does. Turning Wheel doesn't (without community patch). Yes, Whispers of the Wind will do AoE-attacks (+ Powder Burns) with both mortars on all jump points. You can have more than 6 jumps - they scale with Power Level. If you for example use Empower you'll get more jumps. If you use Avenging Storm from Heaven's Cacophony you will also create an unbelievable number of procs due to Blinding Smoke triggering all the time. This works extremely well with Resonant Touch as one might guess. Every hit will add a stack of Resonant Touch. So if somethings still standing afterwards you just rigger Resonant Touch and that's is usually: Those are CRE_Dummies who have very high health. Usually "normal" enemies don't survive this. THe more crowded the enemies are the better. Best to lure them with a spell from stealth - or let a tank engage them.

Unfortunately a marking Darcozzi doesn't work in Deadfire because a) Inspiring Liberation is no more, b) Coordinated Attacks is no more and c) marking weapons don't exist (at least not like in PoE). Also Darcozzi is maybe the worst Paladin subclass in Deadfire. Bilestomper would still work - kind of. Other items of course - but you can still follow the principle of raising fortitude and defenses against disease and poison into the sky and make you basically immune to such spells. There are still spells like Fetid Caress, Noxious Burst, Malignant Cloud and Death Ring. Due to multiclassing there would be a whole lot of options. For example you could combine Helwalker-Monk with Wizard. Helwalkers can get +10 MIG and +10 CON at 10 wounds which would mean +40 Fortitude. If you already start with 20 MIG and 20 CON (Mountain Dwarf) it's even +80 at ten wounds. Or you can go Paladin/Wizard and use the paladin's resitances and especially Righteous Soul to make you completely immune to such spells. Wizard/Chanter could also be a thing. There are "Bile"-themed chants and invocation that fit pretty well. I guess Paladin/Wizard would be the most straightforward combo. It's also awesome defensively so that you can still tank very well while casting. Then you have items like Cauldron Shard, Voidward, Rakhan Field Boots, Mundane Shell, Cadhu Scalth, Iridescent Scale and such things. You could use Concelhaut's Draining Touch as summoned weapon: if you cast it from a grimorire and the switch the grimoire to one which hasn't that spell it will stay with xou for the rest of the fight (drains health and does corrode damage and targets will instead of deflection, also weakens enemies on hit).

Cool.

Sorry but that name's taken by Wizard/Rogue.

Steel Garrote/Skald. Do boom-boom and sing-sing.

I have not tested it lately though. Best to try it out before casting it aside. You can use your early game, open the console, type "iroll20s" and then "giveitem great_sword_u_whispers_of_the_endless_paths", "addexperiencetolevel 20" and level up your monk and equip him with WotEP. With "spawnprefabatmouse cre_dummy" you can spawn a non-moving enemy with lots of HP but nearly no dmg output. If you use arrow-up (on your keyboard) in the console you can repeat that last command so that you spawn lots of those. That trigger Swift Flurry and hit them. Don't overwrite your savegame with this session because calling iroll20s cancels achievements/berath blessing points and you don't want to save that over your original savegame.

Nope, it does not, only the initial attack roll afaik. Also Swift Flurry/HBD only repeat the actual single attack roll, not the whole AoE attack.

Since I like AoE: Single Class Monk with Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole. It's superb. Duality (INT), Lightning Strikes, Stunning Surge, Flagellant's Path, Resonant Touch and Whispers of the Wind are key abilities. Also works very well with Monk/Streetfighter. Here Powder Burns triggers the Streetfighter Passive all the time. Duality (INT), Arterial Strike (AoE), Toxic Strike, Stunning Surge, Flagellant's Path. SC Streetfighter with Gambit and dual mortars. Same as above. At PL8 you can spam Gambit endlessly vs. mobs and at PL9 you can use Vanishing Strike (invisibility doesn't break) in combination with Backstab+Gambit. Before that Arterial Strike and such with the AoE is very good as well. Gambit builds up guile per crit and gets then capped at 4. But while it's executed "internally" there's no limit. Gambit's dmg gets boosted by remaining Guile. So gainst lots of enemies with your AoE you will crit a lot which will in some cases lead to +200% dmg bonus for some attack rolls in the AoE. SC Fighter with melee weapon or bashing shield + Fire in the Hole or Current's Rush: Clear Out, Clear the Path and Clean Sweep all work with a ranged weapon if you have a melee weapon equipped as well. Results in AoE*AoE hits which is pretty devastating. Fighter/Ranger with the same concept, but with Driving Flight and only Clear Out. Comes together later but you can make better use of ranged weapons earlier. SC Ranger with the same concept but Whirling Strikes. Very powerful. Ranger/Wizard with dual mortars and Driving Flight, Essential Phantom and Combusting Wounds. Cast Essential Phantom and Combusting Wounds and then shower those enemies with mortar shots from two chars. Self Buffs, Miasma (Reflex debuff), Pull of Eora, Slicken etc: very good to keep them close together while hitting them. SC Furyshaper with dual mortars and Heart of Fury. Blood Ward, Blood Storm, Panther's Leap, Barbaric Retaliation, Blood Surge, Driving Roar (or the other one). Before later levels use Frenzy Ward, then Fear Ward. Blood Ward drains life from DoT ticks as well, so Blood Storm will provide constant healing ticks. Retaliation also works with mortars. SC Fury with Deltro's Cage and dual mortars or melee/Hand Mortar. Shock spells, Heart of the Storm, Avenging Storm (!). Hand Mortar has the enchantment "Blinding Smoke" which triggers an AoE cone with every crit which leads to a lot of hit rolls - all triggering Avenging Storm. Until then (PL8) you can use Taste of the Hunt with Sun & Moon or Spiritshift, focusing on the casting. Later dual mortars with Avenging Storm destroys mobs. Blunderbusses have short range and thus you are kind of forces to be close. One mortar can be exchanged by Current's Rush or/and a melee weapon. Best if used with Heaven's Cacophony (Avenging Storm). Mortars also work with Riposte if you have a melee weapon or bashing shield. So things like Tuotilo's Palm + Fire in the Hole with Monk/Trickster and Riposte or so can be a thing. Or Fighter/Trickster (Magran's Blessing) or whatever has high deflection and Riposte. Especially if you stack deflection against Disengament Attacks and then run around wildly, triggering attacks that will miss which triggers Riposte.

Yes, they would. Generally speaking. There might be buffs with a cap (like Scordeo's Edge's Adaptive) that don't stack above that cap. Bit I didn't test. Also: if you have items with limited charges you can "recharge" them when you stack them in the stash. For example two Rings of Reset can be used to have one in the stash and the other one worn. If the worn one is empty you stack it with the full one, divide them again and both are full. Also works with necklace of fireballs, missile gloves, figurines and so on.

@Lunateric: Yes, Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming can still chain-proc. As said you need high ACC vs. low defenses. Having additional hit-to-crot conversion also helps of course.

You always have the option of retraining in any tavern - and you don't need to be at lvl 20 for any of the DLCs. You need (player-) experience though and I can see that if you kind of rushed through the game or didn't pay too much attention to certain mechanics (e.g. interrupts) then it's going to be very frustrating on higher difficulty levels. It not only doesn't do a great job with that, but really an utter crappy one.

I have the feeling the next games from Obsidian will be no CRPGs in the classical sense. We will most likely see TOW2 and Josh's project (which is non-violent and thus also not a classic CRPG). Also he seems to be the only writer so maybe it isn't very big in the first place.

That's why I suggested the Whale of a Wand to you. The rest of the post was an answer to @AeonsLegend. Another stat stick for casters can be Griffin's Blade. It's only 10% additive spell dmg but better than nothing (and one handed so there's room for something else in the offhand - like Whale of a Wand).

I just use any savegame and use setClasslevel <char_name> <class_name> 20 false and addAbility <player_name> <ability_name> It's a matter of 5 minutes to "console" any char you have into a level 20-something/something with xyz abilities. Hiring them and leveling them up manually takes a lot more time. Only disadvantage: you can't empower abilites you added via console.

Maybe have a look at "A Whale of a Wand". It has the enchantment "Sea Stories" that has 10% chance to charm an enemy with spells you cast. Didn't use it myself though, so no idea if that's really useful in an actual playthrough or just "nice to have". Waterhaper's Focus is one of my top ranged weapon choices. Especially on Scouts. Ondra's Wrath (enchantment) profits from Sneak Attack, Deathblows and weapon quality and so on. The Blast of rods because WF has a jump (eventually combined with Driving Flight it has 2) and procs Ondra's Wrath very quickly. Ondra's Wrath was nerfed so it doesn't proc more of itself, but it is still very good. Also triggers Deep Wouds... Current's Rush (enchantment "High Tide") is also very powerful, but since scepters have no AoE it can take longer to proc it. But: if it does on a group of enemies it's really deadly. Because it does a crush AoE attack which itself can trigger more High Tides which gain can trigger High Tides, potentially leading to a deadly cascade (didn't get nerfed like Ondra's Wrath - maybe because I got smart and didn't mention it in the forum when it was introduced. ). Very, very potent IF enemies stand very close to each other (so you want to use luring with Sparkcrackers or Dazzling Lights or whatever spell you can cast from stealth that makes some noise and then maybe Pull of Eora or Binding Roots etc.). Also triggers Deep Wounds. This is from one shot that triggered High Tide in a group of CRE_Dummies (done with a lvl-20 scout) : Watershaper's Focus can do similar things. Note that Ondra's Wrath as well as High Tide can both trigger Avenging Storm (which I didn't use in the screenshot)!

Some time ago I tested this and no matter how many enemies I crit with a spell: Obfuscation never went off. But with Driving Flight, Accurate Wounding Shot and the ACC of a Ranger it procs pretty often on the scepter's attack. So I guess it's safe to say it's only working with the attacks from the scepter. It may be that "Illusive Spells" (which get triggered from scepter crits as well) would proc Obfuscation. Because spells that proc off of weapons often count as weapon attacks themselves. Since you can never know if it was the scepter attack itself that triggered Obfuscation or the Illusive Spell that followed it's hard to tell. But anyway: you can't trigger Obfuscation via usual spellcasting, sorry. But did you know that "Illusive Spell" applies that random illusion spell effect not only on that one enemy - but it actually indeed casts a proper spell with AoE and all? Like you hit one enemy with the scepter, it procs Gaze of the Adragan and all enemies around your target become petrified as well? With Driving Flight I sometimes have two procs of Illusive Spell at once (for example all enemies in range were blinded and also dazed from Curse of the Blackened Sight + Dazzling Lights).

Considering that you love that team it's surprising how profoundly you butcher their names.

Unfortunately, once damage reductions get incorporated, things usually become much more complicated than that - due to double inversion and such. Best thing would simply be to quickly create a lvl 20-Herald via console and just try it out. All the theorycrafting might be futile: if we only make one false assumption it's not going to be correct. For example: is it correct that "Come, Sweet Winds" profits from healing bonuses? Is Voidward's dmg reduction going through double inversion as all the other ones (graze, underpenetration) which would make it much more potent? Did you account for the fact that high RES makes the self damage duration a lot shorter while it doesn't influence the duration of the outgoing burn damage effect (which is the best way to make it all worthwhile in my opinion since it's a multiplicative reduction with potentially high numbers)? So better test it right away I'd say. After that one can still see if one can deduce the correct formula from that. Having said that: I don't really bother using SI - although I think one can make it work. If not self-contained in one character then with the help of the party. For example "Take the Hit" could be great (if it works with SI's self damage in the first place) because a party-wide heal like from that Healing Wall char would apply to all party members the same (doesn't get split) - while the self damage would be cut in half. You basically double the healing/dmg ratio. By the way: did anybody ever check what happens when you have two fighters with "Take the Hit" in the party? Or one with Take the Hit and another char with Furrante's Breatsplate?

It wasn't multiplicative in PoE either. Works exactly the same in both games.

Let's just call it "sushi".

+50% addtive base damage. Basically like if you get hit with Deathblows. So if a sword hits you with an auto-attack (no PL scaling) it's 8 extra damage. If it's a Fireball at PL 3 (no PL scaling yet, normal penetration) it's 21 extra damage. And so on. Power Level scaling adds to base damage, so with higher PL of spells and attack abilities that hit you it's getting worse. A Fireball at PL 10 would do 29 more damage to you if you had 10 wounds. All that isn't so bad if you can make attacks graze and/or underpenetrate though since dmg maluses weigh in a lot more heavily that damage bonuses. So if you go high AR and/or high defenses and combine it with some other damage reductions (Death's Maw for example) it's not as bad as it sounds. That's why I think that Iron Circle is quite good on a Helwalker. You will have the higher AR and CON excactly when you need them most (when incomning damage is highest). But sure, it makes you more squishy no doubt. You can prevent that if you don't sit on your wounds of course. But then you will profit less from stuff like Turning Wheel and have less MIG. "Screw the self damage" doesn't really work because the 50% damage bonus and the MIG buff both apply to it. So instead it screws you.

It looks somewhat familiar...