Boeroer

The most fun Riposte builds contain Whispers of the Endless Paths with Offensive Parry for me. Riposte and Offensive Parry do stack. The most ridiculous stacking of deflection for max Ripostes can be done with a Wizard bc. then you can use Wall of Draining to prolong otherwise short items' deflection buffs which stack - for example the +50 deflection from the Mask of the Weyc on top of the +50 deflection from the Escape Cape + 25 Mirrored Images and Llengrath's Safeguard. This is not a good strategy vs. bosses or ranged enemies obviously but good fun against melee mobs. Against bosses, ranged and/or singular enemies best switch to another weapon and do it the "regular" way: with Gouging Strike...

Although I learned French in school (and the wife of my brother-in-law is from the gorgeous town of Dinan ;)) it would be cool if you guys could revert back to English - at least if you want non-francophone users to participate.

It's great. If you go Berserker/Bellower and "accidentally" kill your own Many-Lives-Skeletons you'll trigger Blood Thirst (not working for reloading but invocations' recovery), Bloodlust, +1 Phrase (Blightheart), Blood Storm duration bonus and healing from heal-on-kill pet (self and/or party-wide effect). Also healing from Triumph of the Crusaders will trigger - should you have a Priest with that spell in the party. Makes the Berserker/Bellower almost unkillable if done right. If you have a SC Paladin then you'll get +2 Zeal per dead skeleton at PL9 (Devine Retribution). Btw.: Confusion doesn't affect the friend-or-foe mechanic of chants - fortunately! Doesn't matter with Many Lives anyway - but until then you might want to use other chants and feared the Confusion of Frenzy would make a huge mess - but it doesn't.

Huh? Wow what?

It's still slowish - but for me it was never the fastest experience to begin with. I believe it's better than it was on wednesday/thursday though. Edit: did a bit of manical testing and it's def. better now.

I just load up some random savegame, use the console to create the character in question and then spawn some appropriate enemies.

Besides the question whether the expansions make the rest of the base game too easy or not, level 8 is a good time (I'd say the perfect time) to enter the White March I. Since the expansions are more enjoyable than the last act of the base game (imo) I would not wait with them until the base game is nearly finished. White March I is balanced for parties around lvl 8. Going there at lvl 16 would be a lame experience I think. Also you'll find interesting loot there that is enjoyable - and for me it's better to get that and use it earlier and for a longer time than getting it super late and feel "aw dang". White March II and Crägholt Bluffs are high level stuff and the end of WWII is still challenging at max level (while the end of the base game never was, even without expansions). So my recommendation would be to start WM I now (you can always travel back and forth between the WM and the rear of the game locations), after finishing Durgan's Battery do the last act of the base game until the point of no return, do Crägholt Bluffs and WMII and then finish the base game completely (it wouldn't have been a challenge combat-wise anyway). High level bounties will most likely still be challenging no matter how you progress.

It will totally work - meaning it will be a viable character in Deadfire. But some of the unique mechanics of the PoE-Ploi (namely Coordinated Attacks + single handed marking weapon) will not be available in Deadfire. But nothing will stop you from playing a charismatic/diplomatic Paladin with weapon and shield.

I'm also getting this every now and then:

& Indeed, I noticed the same.

Three Four things that came to mind in addition to what @omgFIREBALLS said: Outworn Buckler - shortens hostile effects' duration and potentially bonus burn AR Ngati's Tusk - its aura "Lord of the Hunt" lowers enemies' defenses based on your Survival skill. It's an auto-hit and the AoE is pretty big. The debuff stacks with everything. It's excellent with enough survival. Cap of the Laughingstock - its pretty big aura lowers everybody's(!) deflection by 10 and grants immunity to Resolve afflictions. If build around it can be very good. The deflection debuff stacks with everything. Thundercrack Pistol - can grant an aura in which armored characters or chracters with shields suffer speed and ACC debuffs.

There's Gouging Strike, Brand Enemy and True Love's Kiss (passive of the unique Dagger "Lover's Embrace"). I usually combine all three when doing a solo Assassin run (whatever Paladin/Assassin). One could say that Soft Winds of Death and Dragn Thrashed (chants) also fall under that category since they won't stop until combat ends (or the chanter goes down). There's also the Blackened Plate which can be enchanted with an aura that does automatic DoT (auto-hit) in an area (that's smaller than a chant's AoE). THis also only stops when the wearer goes down or the combat ends. Then there are some DoTs that don't last forever - but a pretty long time, namely Battle Axes' Bleeding Cuts (modal) and Saru Sichr's (Morning Star) Poison Dipped (poison DoT). I guess there are some more that last rel. long that I forgot. Yeah, that's the strong suit of the Psion. If you build him with small shield, weapon & shield style and generelly with good defenses the "stop generating focus on getting damaged" isn't too bad. If you use summons and/or mind control there's ususally more attractive targets for the enemies.

The virtual incarnation of that concept is the Herald (pref. Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour). Stacking "passive" healing in form of Exalted Endurance + Ancient Memory + Mercy and Kindness for the whole party and offering support and occasional healing spikes. Also Paladins can deliver Brand Enemy, an everlasting DoT that has no hit roll (alsways hits). I guess adding some sturdy Trickster/Whatever with Gouging Strike would add to the everlasting DoT department. Rogues have limited resources, but since Gouging Strike lasts forever this makes up for it. And the second class might have unlimited resources. An SC Shieldbearer, paired with a Troubadour in the party who constantly summons skeletons via Many Lives Pass By chant will basically drown in Zeal points once he reaches Power Level 9, making him the most potent support character in the party who can drop Lay on Hands laced with Barring Death's Door at all times to make the party supersturdy. Besides that everything sturdy with good defense and unlimited resources comes to mind. I really like a sturdy Psion/something. Pain Block for healing, support, neverending resource that generates itself and nasty DoT and good accuracy.

The Counselor build is very helpful for a party and imo a good candidate for a main char who wants to enjoy the dialogue options. Since it's not a damage-dealer but a support & tanking character (and later also good occasional CC) this character doesn't need a lot of DEX. 8 is sufficient if you can tolerate that he will not be the fastest striker. You can totally switch the race and it will still be fine. You could also focus even more on the accuracy support and pick Darcozzi Paladini (with Inspiring Liberation - another +10 ACC buff that stacks with everything) over Shieldbearer for example. Unfortunately some of the cornerstones of the Ploi Paladin (Coordinated Attacks and a weapon with the Marking enchantment) don't exist in that form in Deadfire anymore. However, a little variation that I tried that uses a special unique (and early) Estoc (instead of a marking weapon + shield) and is a Paladin/Ranger multiclass. It fulfills a similar role when it comes to ACC support. If the mind control aspect of the Ploi build (see different items' spellbinds) was more interesting then Paladin/Cipher with the same weapon choice would be a better pick. The Estoc I'm refering to is the Blade of the Endless Paths. It's implemented differently in Deadfire than in PoE but it still allows to improve the hitchances against enemies. In PoE it was done with Marking (ACC bonus), in Deafire it's done with lowering the enemies' deflection. The Ploi build would also work fine with the Blade of the Endless Paths by the way. Less tanky but better weapon damage. Until one reaches the Blade of the Endless Paths (comes pretty late in PoE) one can use an early Pollaxe named "Spectacular Spetum" which also hasthe Marking enchantment. Pollaxes use the same weapon focus as Estocs so it's a perfect backup weapon as well once you get the Estoc. So if you are looking for a smooth character build transition from PoE to Deadfire you should probably make a Ploi-inspired Paladin but instead of Sword & Board with Estoc/Pollaxe. Of course a Shieldbearer without a shield would be weird. In that case another Paladin subclass might be better I think. In that case I would chance the attributes a bit and give a little more DEX (because Estoc with lowish DEX and fat/slow armor bc. of no shield is not that much fun).

For Raedric's Castle I nearly always make sure to bring a Chanter with White Worms (usually that's Kana). As long as you don't reload the map and turn off the "gib" option in the game menu you can "reuse" the corpses of fallen enemies over and over again which is very effective at chokepoints where you can pile them in a small area. So what I will do is to lure enemies to a doorway, kill them there, then lure more enemies to that chokepoint, kill them with White Worms, lure more and so on. At some point whole groups will get one-shot by White Worms' multiple corpse explosions. It's the easiest way I know to clear the whole castle whithout wasting too many resources. I like to loot all the rel. expensive plate armor and other gear (which grants a lot of money so early in the game). I didn't actually try that with a solo Chanter - but I don't see why this wouldn't work solo, too.

Yeah - it's true that PER isn't that important in the long run. After all is done it might turn out to have been the least important attribute (out of the trio DEX, MIG and PER) when it comes to dealing damage. But I still recommend to put points into PER - especially for beginners who want to play offensive characters - because the first impression of your character is very important to how you perceive your char's performance, if you enjoy it or not. In the early game the options to raise your accuracy - and thus to improve your odds of delivering a hit (let alone a crit) - are very limited. At the same time the enemies have relatively high defenses (and also sometimes rel. thick armor compared to your damage per hit). It's one reason why the early game feels so tough for low ACC starters such as Barbs and also a reason why using a single one handed weapon is effective in the early game: it gives you +12 accuracy. If you miss a lot it's superannoyig of course - but also grazes' damage malus have a bigger negative impact on your overall damage than later in the game (where the additive damage malus of grazing gets countered by a variety of damage bonuses) so you barely scratch enemies with somewhat decent armor if you only graze them. This becomes very apparent in Raedric's Castle (lots of armored foes with good defenses). So especially in the early game you can feel a big difference between a character who has like ~10 ACC or even more over the others (be it from single one handed weapon and/or lots of PER and/or flanking the enemies before actually striking). So, basically it's a recommendation that makes it more likely that you won't get frustrated by your (otherwise fine) char's weapon performance in the early game - which will increase the odds that you stick with it and don't drop it prematurely. This is also the main reason why I recommend to take Inspiring Radiance asap with a fellow Priest. It's a short-lived +10ACC bonus - but it stacks with everything (good for the later game) and makes the early game a lot easier. If you know what you are doing you can totally drop PER and be fine. Later in the game there's so many options to compensate for lower PER and a few additional points of accuracy will only get you decreasing returns. But for somebody who's still "stumbling" through the mechanics a bit I'd say it's an easy way to make your har more enjoyable. In that regard I also value DEX over MIG a lot - it's more frustrating to play a very sluggish char than it is to play one who hits a bit less harder imo. But all in all, as was said: attributes matter, but they don't matter too much.

There have been issues with stacking non-stackable buffs when saving/loading a savegame (so some status of the corr. game object is def. altered) and also with items/stolen spells persisting when they shouldn't if you switch the underlying grimoire with the corr. spell. Maybe your persisting weapon effects/abilities have something to do with the quirks that cause those "problems", too.

Oh, convenient! Great job @ whoever build that website.

Wild Strike only affects his weapon damage (so his Spiritshift natural weapons) by adding a lash. It doesn't improve spells etc. I cannot say much about Tekehu's Spiritshift form. I almost never used it besides the early game (without any investment in abilities) because he was so busy casting his spells and his shark form doesn't help much with casting (besides giving decent armor with 0 recovery) but removes bonuses he might get from armor and/or weapon (for example Lance of the Midwood Stag, Spine of Thicket Green, Watershaper's Focus or Lord Darryn's Voulge).

This is really wild - and I never encountered this, despite having played this game for a really long time. So unfortunately I don't have any idea how to fix this.

Sure, you can do that and that is totally viable. Killing dragons will take a high level party though. They are very tough. Fortunately the attributes (MIG, CON etc.) don't have such a big impact as they had in BG or other D&D games. It's more about the right ability and talent choice and so on. Dwarf Fighter with dual war hammers for example can be effective. But not only with 20 MIG and 16 CON but also with 10 MIG and 18 INT. Because every attribute does something useful your character will not be gimped if you allocate attributes in a different way. He will just be better at certain things (for example delivering longer debuffs with higher INT) than in others (less damage per hit with lower MIG). By the way: High INT Fighters can have really great use: Fighters have great accuracy, way better than spellcasters. And they also have a great self buff that raises accuracy further. Because of that they are very good with items that grant spell effects (look for items with "spellbind" enchantments). For example there's an armor that lets you cast Sunbeam 3/rest and an amulat that lets you cast Sunbeam 2/rest on top. A fighter can cast those sunbeams with very high accuracy which makes them very effective casts. So you can essentialy play a sort of Fighter/Mage just by collecting those items (and having decent INT). Add one of the "cross class" talents such as Aspirant's Mark to emphasize the fighter/caster hybrid build further. A lot of fun builds are possible in this game. The classes are not as restricted as in BG. But that also means you have more creative freedom - and more stuff to think about.

just like that --- By the way: the focus generation of reaping knives is not tied to the knives themselves (for example an essential phantom with Reaping Knives who got the weapons from its wizard master generates no focus for the cipher). Instead it's a seperate "buff" on the character you cast the reaping knives on. But that also means that if you replace Reaping Knives with let's say Concelhaut's Draining Touch or Spirit Lance or whatever summones weapon, you still get +5 focus per hit. Or better: per attack. The AoE hits of the lance don't produce any focus unfortunately. Don't know if that's exploitable - I just found out. Edit: heh - Forbidden Fist attack also works for focus generation if you had Reaping Knives cast onto you (at least with Community Patch).

I tried now: doesn't work.

Psion/Troubadour is one of the most versatile builds there is and great for a party. At the same time it's also one of the best solo builds: as the record shows it's viable for the Ultimate challenge (without too much cheese that other combos will need). You can combine summons (chanter side) with constant mind control (Whispers of Treason, Puppet Master, Ring Leader) which means that you can turn almost every encounter into a "many vs. one" scenario easily while not receiving a scratch. While you summon with an invocation your focus fills up. While you cast a mind control power your focus fills up, too. If you run around your focu fills up. Should you get disabled, your focus... you get the idea. ;). I almost never had a situation where I couldn't cast anything bc. of scarce resources. There's always either enough phrases or focus (if you don't try to spam the highest tier stuff nonstop). But you can also go another, less "minion-y" route and spam Killers Froze Stiff (or in cases of immunity Ben Fidel's Neck) and for example Soul Shock all the time at lower levels. It's a nonstop chain of debuff/CC and damage. Jut use Blightheart (bound to chanter) and even get additional phrases if you kill enemies (doesn't matter how). If you add Many Lives later as chant you can even add "passive" summons to the mix. Almost no downtime, great action economy, big impact. Btw.: Death of 1000 Cuts is more effective in combination with Antipathetic Echo than with Mind Blades - if you can use another enemy as anchor. But mobs are common in boss fights. Very cheap and procs an instance of shred 1/sec over 10 secs. It's easy to spam it without downtime. Another cool feature of SC Psion would be Shared Nightmare you can watch your AoE grow by the second. If you have a really fast dual wielder in the party (I tried a Streetfighter/Barb with daggers) then Reaping Knives is absolutely great for a Psion, too. The knives don't actually give focus based on the damage they case but instead a flat +5 focus with every hit(!). If you hit very quickly you'll produce a lot of additional focus for the Psion so that he even can spam high tier powers. I didn't try if a Monk's Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming attacks also produce that +5 focus. If so then that could be used against weak enemies in order to create great focus bursts.

Tried to access the beta but there is none - am I correct that it is only accessible with the Windows version and not Linux? Edit: uninstalled - reinstalling it while forcing Proton, maybe that'll do it. Edit 2: nope - that won't let me start the game at all. Too bad - but I guess this will happen without me. Edit 3: funny - I reverted back to ye olde linux version and suddenly (once I opted into the beta branch) I got the new update. Jucheissa!