Boeroer

If you are using the Unity Console to get items anyway you don't need to export them with a character, do you?

Howdy! Normal difficulty is good for the first time PoE player who has some experience with other RPGs. The mechanics are rather complex but on Normal they are forgiving enough. Keeping micromanagement low for most party members can help to focus your attention on your main character who then can be fun even if he needs to be heavily micromanaged (often casters need to be taken care of more than "simple" melee character). Classes with potentially low micromanagement are Fighter, Paladin and Chanter. Chanters are great - but they feel rather slow on normal difficulty. They don't feel that way on Path of the Damned difficulty since fights last a lot longer there and that's when Chanters start to really shine. On normal diff. often fights are over before the Chanter gets a chance to fire off an invocation. But once he reaches lvl 9 that changes. Because he can get a chant then that's very powerful. Also because chants become a bit faster with every 4th level. Before that one can get the feeling he's lackluster (on normal diff). Fighters are easy to play and start strong. Their power curve doesn't climb like casters' though. Fighters can be used to hold the line and tank and to be reliable but not fanstastic damage dealers. Easy class to play Paladins are a bit similar but have more healing and support capabilities. While fighters do consistent damage, Paladins can deal pretty high spike damage but then fall off. Easy to play. Rogues do a lot of single target damage with weapons but are quite squishy. Thus they require more babysitting. Playing a ranged rogue reduces the babysitting. Rogues start strong in terms of dmg output but don't climb like casters. However: on normal there are less enemies and that doesn't shift the focus to Area of Effect abilites (like spells) that much. Meaning that rogues do better on normal than on higher difficulties. Nor difficult to play but needs attention. Rangers are less squishy compared to rogues but not as sturdy as fighters or paladins. They also come with an Animal Companion that has to be steered. So you get two bodies which is very powerful in itself - but steering two bodies means increased micromamangement of course. As with all classes: playing mostly ranged increases your survivability as long as you have party members who can take the heat. Their role is a bit like that of rogues. Easier than rogue but needs attention, too. Barbarians do automatic area of effect damage called "Carnage". They start off pretty underwhelming because they have low accuracy and low deflection which lets them a) miss often and b) die quickly. That leads many beginner to the impression that Barbs are bad. They do start bad but climb a lot steeper than the other martial classes (except Monk, more below). The Carnage ability of Barbs transfers all weapon effects from single target to Area of Effect. That means that if a weapon causes stun on critical hit it will do in an AoE with a Barb. That can unlock crazy powerful passive crowd control and disabling. Also Barbs gain a lot of heralth and endurance per level. After some levels they squishyness is gone. They are beter against trah mobs than gainst bosses. Hard to play in the beginning, easy later on. Monks are the most powerful martial class in my opinion - but they requite deeper understanding of the mechanics and a lot of micromanaegement in general. They start strong and stay strong. Wizards can be great Crowd Controllers and disablers and/or nukers and/or even great frontliners (using self-buffs). They have a steep power curve - mostly due to the fact that they start with abysmal values and only have very few spells per rest. but with every unlockes spell tier they can use more and more spells in a fight and that has a huge impact. Also the more self buffs you unlock the lesser the bad starting values matter. However, althoug they start weak with few spells: some lvl-1-spells are insanely good. If you know them you can have an easier time in the beginning of the game. Not easy to play but nice as main character. Priests are the strongest class if you play with a party. Their buffs impact the performance of the party so much (once you get certain spells) and later they also get very good damaging spells. Having a priest in the party makes a playthrough easier - I guess nobody would argue against that. They can also heal but are not the only class that does that well. At buffing they are top notch though. They have the same shortcomings as wizards: start weak but grow strong. They have some hidden gems that one should use. Easy to play if you focus on the party buffs first. Truly shine when also used as damage dealer later on. Druids can be a mix of melee + casting. They can be very good at both if build right. Due to their shifting ability they don't suffer so much from the lack of spells in the beginning. spell-wise they are a bit like Wizards. Less self-buffs but Spiritshifting instead. Ciphers turn weapon dmg into spells basically. They require a bit of experience and have to beed both good at weapon damage as well as casting. They are quite effective and have a solid power curve. They tend to struggle a bit in boss fights because they rely on weaoon damage to be able to cast spells - and bosses usually don't get damaged as easily as trash mobs. The early official companions are Wizard, Fighter, Priest and Chanter, a bit later Ranger and Paladin, then Cipher and Druid (you can rush to all of them after the early game so this is not a fixed order). Rogue, Barbarian and Monk only come with the White March DLC. Maybe a Rogue would be a good fit for you. Not only is a Rogue handy to have because he's the one with the highest mechanics skill (search secrets, search & disarm traps and pick locks) but he's also fun because his dmg output is high - and if you watch out a bit it's not too hard or complicated to play. Just don't try to build a glasscannon. But multiple instances of the same class in a playthrough is no problem at all - so you couls also pick Fighter or Paladin or whatever. I'd say stay away from Barbarian, Chanter and Monk for now. I prefer them, but they need a bit of experience to value their strength and circumvent their weaknessen.

Tehehe - I just wanted to write about the same trick. I really like the export function since it allows you to use an item that otherwise would come too late to be worthwhile to build a character around. I mean without enabling cheats in the actual playthrough. e.g. I made a fun little Barb focused on Vengeful Defeat who could get knocked out without injury thrice per encounter because I had two Rings of Reset (if you stack the used one with an unused one in the stash the empty one refills its charge). It's not OP and wouldn't be very viable without this little gimmick.

Greetings! First of all: are you in the right forum? It sounds like you are taking about PoE2 Deadfire and not Pillars of Eternity I. If you are indeed speaking about PoEI: it is not possible because pistols are essentially two handed weapons (because reloading requires both hands). So you can't hold pistol + rapier or sabre or something. This is possible in Deadfire where pistols and blunderbusses are now one-handed weapons. If you still insist that you're on PoE ( ) then you can do something like a quick-hands guy: start the combat with two or three pistol shots without reloading (you will switch from pistol to pistol that's tucked under your belt basically like a proper blackbearded pirate and fire it once) and then draw the sabre and go into melee. You could then even pick a two handed weapon or a dual wielding setup (like Rapier + Dagger or so - single weapon style is good in the early game but later on dual wielding is better in almost all cases). I think the better class for this is Rogue since the Fighter doesn't have too many ranged abilities but is focused on melee but Rogue mostly doesn't care if ranged or melee when it comes to his abilites. For such a build you would need Arms Bearer and Quick Switch (the talents) and optimally the Coil of Resourcefulness at some point (belt). If you pick Island Aumaua: even better since it gives one additional weapon set for one more pistol in the belt. You can also skip the multiple pistols and use the pistol normally (fire-->reload-->fire) and only switch to melee setup once it suits you or once you get engaged. This could also be a Ranger by the way. Rangers are pretty well suited for being ranged/melee hybrids. They can fire & reload pistols quite rapidly. The late game ability "stunning shots" is great with ranged as well (and especially) as melee weapons. If the animal companion doesn't fit your personal story then if course it's a bit off. That's both a viable approach and you wouldn't have a gimped character. But wielding pistol + melee weapon at the same time: nono. About an alternative dual wielding build: almost anything works quite well. Fighters are more sturdy than Rogues while Rogues have higher dps output. Rogues have the most Full Attack abilities (strike with both weapons) so they profit most from a dual wielding setup. They are quite squishy though so you don't want to run into the fray with them like you can with a fighter but rather choose a flanking approach. Besides fighters and rogues every class can make a decent dual wielder. See Ranger. Doesn't need to be ranged but works well in melee, too. Monk is maybe the best overall melee class and does not need to go unarmed. Works with weapons as it does with fists, no drawnback. Also likes dual wielding because Torment's Reach is superb with two weapons. But especially for the classes that rely more on spells the weapon setup isn't that crucial to their overall performance.

I once had a hireling (Livegiver Druid) who would suffer from this in every fight. Kicked him, made the same guy (more or less I guess) again in another inn and it was mostly gone.

Mee, too. When speaking about the endless action-abort cycle then AI off seems to be a problem. With AI on I think that bug doesn't show (as much). Maybe that's just my impression though.

I guess I didn't see it because recently I mainly do test stuff with the console in old savegames and don't really do any proper playthrough. I had the feeling that bug was somewhat "playthrough-related". In some I never saw it, in others it occured all the time (often with casters).

For me the "x" for cancelling your current action worked well then. But I didn't see that bug for a long time now.

For a first time player lvl 5 is pretty low for the initial fight in Stalwart. Same here.

Yeah - +2/+2 for Pale Elf and +4 for Fire Gidlike would have made more sense. I personally like mods that only enhance the UI best. Thus I think the Enhanced UI mod is superb and I wouldn't want to miss it. Obsidian should have bought and integrated that mod right away when it popped up. Community Patch also has an UI aspect: it gives all passives their own unique icons which helps a lot to find and distinguish passives visually. I wonder how drew all those fine icons though... The "fixes" of Community Patch are not pushing powergamimg at all. They alter some stuff so it makes more sense. E.g. Forbidden Fist ability gets properly tagged as weapon ability so that it can generate focus and work with Swift Flurry (doesn't do both in the vanilla game which is odd). More conistency with priest keywords and so on. There are buffs (of unreasonably bad abilities) as well as nerfs (e.g. Blade Turning ending on movement to end abuse with forced disengagment - that change got even introduced to the opriginal game with an official patch). Good thing is you can turn on/off all the individual mini-mods separately. So for example you can only use the passive icons and nothing else. Besides those I don't use mods, especially not those which make classes "cooler" or more powerful.

IIrc Aloth can be annoyed sometimes but wouldn't cause anybody to leave if you are not picking extreme choices. Tekehu/Maia/Pallegina: it also depends how you behave towards the factions. RDC vs. Huana is particulary difficult. Edér, Serafen and Tekehu should be fine as long as you don't side with the RDC afair (Tekehu: nono).

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..."