Boeroer

It is kind of random. Based on the in-game date you'll get different gear. That's why baldurs_gate_2 said "on day 2". There are spreadsheets that tell you which item you get at which date. There are several of those "random" containers, but not too many.

Joshua E. Sawyer, Obsidian's Design Director

Xoti's Lashing Vines are a hard copy I presume - so you'd have to check that as well..?

Trickster/Beguiler is great - mechanically as well as thematically. Beguiler is my favorite cipher subclass.

You get only XP when fighting enemies you can learn something about. If you fight shadows for the 20th time you gain no xp. You can check your bestiary in the journal: if you unlocked all data for an enemy you won't get any more XP when fighting them. Also XP for fighting is low in general. You get way more XP from completing quests. Doesn't matter how you solve them (as long as you don't fail them). That's why you can avoid fights in the game with stealth or diplomacy or even intmidation and still get the full XP for quests.

Watery Double and other "unique" summons maybe?

You don't need to fight those Shades (they are much more powerful than Shadows). They guard a valve with which you can drain a flooded area which lets you find a key for the shut door. But if you have high enough mechanics you can simply lockpick that door. But after the door there will wait other hard enemies. Maybe it's best to come back later. You can do the whole area + quest with stealth and mechanics. You don't need to fight anything if you don't want to. You'll still get the full quest XP.

Strange indeed.

Yes! You'll need it to not only pick locks and find and disram traps but also to find secrets stashes! The higher mechanics on one guy the better. The easiest way to get high mechanics fast is to hire a rogue adventurer with a fitting background from any tavern.

That's a matter of taste I guess. You are not missing anything as far as I can tell. I like both Spellblade and Mindstalker - but since I generally prefer Wizard over Cipher I'd opt for Spellblade. Infuse + DoTs is nice. Combusting Wounds doesn't work with DoTs though. Only with "pulsing" spells that do a new attack roll every few secs (Chillfog, Walls, Freezing Pillar and such). Pure DoTs only have one hit roll and then it's just ticks. Those don't trigger Combusting Wounds. Trickster/Soulblade is a great melee combo - especially when using "Offensive Parry" from Whispers ofthe Endless Paths: you'll get new focus from parrying and can spend it right away with Soul Anihilation. Not really DoT-focused though. One weapon the Spellblade has access to and which does very high single target dmg plus high poison DoT on its own (which stacks with other DoTs) is Nannasin's Cobra Strike (from a unique grimoire). Spellblade can also use several spells to lure enemies to a spot from stealth - like Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights for example. Anything that makes soem noise, can be cast out of combat and can be targeted on the ground. Makes it a lot easier to catch all enemies in an DoT without using sparkcrackers. Ciphers don't have that. But Tricksters can do it (Dazzling Lights) which makes them very useful for such an approach. Also don't forget Battle Axes with Bleeding Cuts: the modal is very powerful and especially good if you use a Battle Axe in your main hand (and something else in the offhand) and use Full Attacks (see Arterial Strike etc). That way you won't suffer the longer recovery but apply a very strong DoT for a long time that stacks with itself. Speaking of DoTs in an AoE: I would either go with a Scout (Trickster/Arcane Archer + Watershaper's Focus or Streetfighter/Sharpshooter + Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole). May I also draw your attention to a Trickster/Ancient? With WotEP you can apply Taste of the Hunt in an AoE (it's quite strong) and at the same time cast several very good DoTs that also unlock Sneak Attacks and Deatblows and combine them with the Rogue's DoTs. It's unusual but it works and is fun.

Xoti should get Withdraw as auto-pick at Power Level II as shown in your picture. If it doesn't show up in the action bar then something is off. Is "Blessed Harvest" (auto-pick of PL I) missing from the action bar as well? Edit: just fired up the game (PC, not console) and made this screenshot: Withdraw is there as you can see. So on PC it seems to be working as it should. Are you on console?

I mean I would be totally ok if Edér was a ranger. It's just nothing that is mentioned neither in his backstory nor in PoE. Do they even mention a special pet he once had - like a dog on his farm or a cat or something? If so I can't remember (only the milkmaid thing I can't purge from my brain). If he was depicted with ranger-vibes right from the get-go then sure. But introducing it in Deadfire just because he likes animals would have felt a bit slapdash. I think the unlocked pet slot (with the very nice name "Can I pet him anyway?") with BB is a better fit. Something special to him. Adding an additional pets to the party is actually a very good passive (so to speak). Funnily enough you can play him in more different ways in PoE than in Deadfire despite the multiclass feature of the latter. That is because PoE went a (very narrow yet interesting) partial classless route with the "cross class" talents like Runner's Wounding Shot etc. So a rangerish Edér was possible in PoE (with a bit of imagination) but it is not in Deadfire (unless you just pretend and give him a bow and run with a pet like the Bear Cub or something). Regarding the "AC destroys dialogue options" argument: well it wouldn't have been impossible to come up with a special ranger subclass. E.g. one that hasn't a specific AC but is a friend of all animals and maybe can charm beasts as special ability or tame a wild animal and use it as stronger (non-steerable) pet that can also fight. Whatever. It would have been possible. Also sounds great now that I write about it, hehe.

@Zaerisk: great first post, thank you!

Huh? They can't be as great because they are not doing any noteworthy damage anymore. They may be still useful - but logic dictates that they cannot be as good if their weapons don't scale. So skeletons may not be useless later on - but still a proper weapon scaling for all summons - including skeletons - would make much more sense than the current "solution". Not only in terms of balancing but also when it comes to consistency and what the player expects. "Look! The great Chanter Sumonitas calls upon Eora his mighty army of Ancient Wiederganger Skeletons. Behold their awesome... erm... rusty swords... which fall apart while they rush forth..? Huh..."

Turn off AI: tada! It works. AI seems to want to do other things than drinking boring potions. Fun fact: although I have thousands of hours in Deadfire I never encountered this bug. Because I neither use AI nor do I use potions. Double tap!

Not technically, but which player will know that? They are upgrades visually as well as logically. The implementation doesn't matter for the common player. If I pick an upgrade to an ability like Escape which lets me move around in a blink and gives me a x sec deflection bonus - and then the upgrade also lets me teleport around and gives my a deflection bonus (seems to be the same stuff als Escape so far) AND makes me invisible (which seems to be the upgrade, right?) - why would I assume the deflection bonus ends with the invisibility? It's neither intuitive nor logical. I would assume it works the same as Escape with an added invisivility.

They do scale (with char level though, not PL). What doesn't scale is the weapons (and armor) they wear. At least that's the case for some summons - not all.

I think it doesn't really fit his character. Just because he likes animals doesn't mean he's a dedicated ranger. His background story (Saint's War etc.) is pretty clear - and being able to make him a SC rogue is already near the knuckle in my opinion (but being a "Ruffian" still ok). Although he was designed as rogue in a first draft. But being a soldier from a farm and such... don't know. No-subclass fighter seems to be a good fit. You can use Berath's Blessing points to unlock the pet slot for Edér. I think that's a nice feature and for me it's enough to cater to his love of animals.

Attacks from stealth (and invisibility) - the attacks you make at the start of combat out of stealth mode (if you didn't get discovered). Not Sneak Attack (the rogue ability). It works with every class as long as you can't be seen when attacking (stealth/invisibility).

Shadowing Beyond et al. are upgrades of Escape. I would give the upgrades at least the same duration of the deflection bonus that Escape has and decouple it completely from the invisibility. "What they intended" - I guess they just screwed this up a bit.

Power Level means (among other useful things like increased ACC, duration and PEN) +5% base damage. That's multiplicative. It's the reason why low-level abilites like FoD or Crippling Strike stay great throughout the game and work very well with damage bonuses like Sneak Attack and high MIG and such. It also scales fists (and thus can be important to jump from +legendary to +mythic fists for example - which is a big deal). It also scales projectiles for stuff like missile spells and jumps of Mind Blades and Whispers of the Winf or Old Nary's Curse. Prestige is nearly always the best passive pick if you are using some damaging abilites. Especially if you can stack a few more PL bonuses on top of it to reach certain thresholds.

There are sorting options in the stash. Maybe you accidentially clicked one of them?

That is one single use case though. the higher the level/content the more narrower it becomes. But then: If you put the same skeletons but with exceptional weapons against the same soft casters the outcome would be the same. In fights against tough foes in the late(ish) game the skeletons are currently very weak. They will get massacred very quickly anyway (they do scale HP but not on the same scale as enemies' dmg output and PEN grow) - while they don't even scratch them anymore. They are only good as decoy then which is a bit sad. Still great with a SC Paladin and Divine Retribution of course or with Grave Calling (ot both) - but that's not the intended use I guess. It wouldn't hurt at all if they at least could scratch non-squishies a bit before getting crushed. Besides that I could make the argument that Ancient Weapons would also still be somewhat useful if they didn't scale their PEN etc. - if I put them against casters. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to take the scaling away from them. You also called for scaling weapons for wyrms. Still you could use them against casters to some effect... If scaling weapons is a good thing on some summons it should be good for all. Being systemic and coherent and all that... In my opinion it's not okay that they are really good offensively in the early game but only circumstancially useful later on - with Obsidian making sure that low level abilites stay relevant via Power Level on the other hand. They don't scale as well as other abilites do. And I think that was an issue that Obsidian wanted to avoid after PoE. In my opinion it's an oversight that the summons themselves do scale their values but not their weapons. Phantom is a very obvious case, but Skeletons are not right as well. Due to their numbers a normal weapon scaling would be too good, sure. That's why I said their weapon scaling should be somewhat slower or limited. Lvl-20 guy summoning skeletons with exceptional swords doesn't sound too much - but maybe it's too good indeed. So poor - normal - fine could be it. No idea. One would have to test that. A viable ability (for your character) should stay viable throughout the whole game. That's what PL and scaling is supposed to do - but it fails with most summons.

I just reread the description of Voidward and it sounds as if the ring was build to protect against the raw lash of Voidward and not the self damage. I mean lore-wise. So at least it's not as weird as I thought.

So what would happen if you set "max summon to its limit" to two with Essential Phantom?