Boeroer

Minjohr and An Nou fericit from horseback in Romania (dang it's cold up here...)!

I wouldn't say money is unlimited (there's no respawning) but after some levels you usually have more of it than you can spend in a meaningful way. Retraining is rel. cheap - so lack of money shouldn't be a problem.

You can retrain your character in every inn. That means you can set them back to lvl 1 and level them back up. It only costs a bit of money.

You don't have to go back to town, you can camp in the wilderness pretty much everywhere (except in towns where you need to go to the inn). Priests can achieve the same accuracy with certain weapons as fighters can so using a weapon is a valid option. You can look up the "preferred" weapon of every priest. It's a talent that gives them +10 ACC with certain weapons. E.g. Priest of Breath can use a Great Sword or a Mace to good effect. Note that all summoned and soulbound weapons are universal. That means they don't belong to a certain weapons focus group and also work with those priest talents, even if they are not a great sword, mace etc. Also read my answer to your other post - the one you made with the same question basically.

Pretty much. But all casters also have one or two per-encounter abilities which are mostly pretty good an can be used in every fight: Wizard: Arcane Assault (good), Grimoire Slam (meh). Priest: Holy Radiance (great if you upgrade it with Inspiring Radiance), Interdiction (great with Painful Interdiction). Druid: Spiritshift (great) Priests, Wizards and Druids are usually considered to be the most powerful classes in PoE because their spells can have massive impact on the combat and the per-rest mechanic can be used in a way that you can unleash you whole spell arsenal in difficult fights (especially after gaining some levels) while being able to do the easy fights without spells (or only few spells). Wizards' spells can be used very economically if you focus on summoned weapons. They are pretty strong and let the wizard contribute to a fight effectively with only one spell use. Priests have some very impactful party buffs, most notably Prayers and Devotions, that make encounters a lot easier. Druids same. So after gaining a few levels you will have a lot more spells than 2 at your disposal and you can try to only use as many spell as you really need. Spare the rest for later. Of course resting is cheap and if you're not playing Path of the Damned difficulty you can rest 4 times in a row to refresh spells. Also note that Wizards, Priests and Druids get a so-called Spell Mastery. That means: at higher levels you can pick a low-level spell from your arsenal (spell tier 1-4) that turns from per-rest into per-encounter.

Except if the answer is "FTL" of course.

They are equal when it comes to ridiculous outfits though.

Belongs to the 90s: that depends heavily on the implementation of the TB combat. Deadfire's implementation isn't native so it's normal that it doesn't address all quirks. For example the fights have too many combatants in TB mode which makes them take forever. But Turn Based combat is the original way to play all major Pen & Paper Role Playing Games out there (on which cRPGs are based on). So if you "convert" a known Pen & Paper experience to a computer game it's the most natural thing to implement TB there, too. If you don't do it you have to change the ruleset (e.g. the attack speed mechanics). For players who also played Pen & Paper RPGs TB mode should be the most convenient way to play a cRPG. Because they know it. People who started with Infinity Engine games will feel that RTwP is the most convenient way to play. It's about familiarisation and what you're used to. RTwP leads to faster combat of course - especially if you let AI handle things - which is great if you have a lot of enemies and/or party members. But it also tends to be a lot more messy and obscure. That's the reason why Obsidian had to implement stuff like visual effects transparency on pause and take away a party member: it became too messy (higher difficulties with more enemies). One of the core complaints about PoE was how messy the combat was. Why was it messier than the infinity engine games? That has to do with another complaint that many (non-D&D-grog) players had with them: fighters, rogues etc. can't do much besides auto-attacking while casters get all the cool stuff. So in later cRPGs and also PoE those "mundane" classes got more active abilities. But having to execute more abilities in RtWP makes it more messy. You will pause a lot more and you'll also have a lot more vfx during fights. The more active abilites you have to trigger as a player and the more you have to pause the more the game gravitates to TB mode. You'll have dedicated phases for taking action and move and the following vfx fireworks which won't interfere with the movement and action taking of another character. Add some action points or something and you'll also have a more tactical approach vs. the more action-oriented one RTwP gives you. With a good AI you can help RTwP to regain footing: less pausing is needed, you loose less time and the combat feels more fluid again. But the AI has to be good so that the player doesn't feel the need to constantly correct its decisions. I personally prefer Deadfire with RTwP (without AI since it can't compete with my decision-making at all even if the scripting feature is awesome) but I can hardly see why TB combat in general should be inferior. Would Deadfire have come with TB mode as native implementation (and taylored encounter design etc.) I'm sure I would have used that. Because I would have learned to play the game that way right from the start. Here's an example of RTwP vs. TB from the same developer (Subset Games): "Faster than Light" uses RTwP while its successor "Into the Breach" has TB mechanics. It doesn't feel absurd nor like something from the 90s at all. It's just a game that works best with TB mechanics. Imagine "Battle Brothers" with its 12+ party members as RTwP game instead of TB. What a wild mess that would be. It wouldn't work. After all it boils down to personal preference. I guess if you like Action RPG mechanics in general you also don't have much problems with RTwP. If Diablo and stuff is too hectical for you I assume you'd like TB better. Just a random thought though... Deadfirewas build as a RTwP game. That it works ok with TB mode is a sign how robust TB mechanics generally are (or can be due to the rigid slices into which combat gets divided). RTwP can be fun but it's definitely not as robust. A few changes here and there (more abilities, more vfx and more combatants) can make it unpleasant to play - it becomes more chaotic. You have to fine-tune it a lot more then. So any addition to the combat can mean you'd have to tune the RTwP mechanics again. I presume that is difficult and resource-hungry and that may be a reason why developers prefer to implement TB over RTwP (partly answering the question "why oh why?"). I can only speak from my own experience as a software engineer though. I haven't implemented RTwP not TB combat - but I have experience with real time vs. sheduled systems or asynchronous vs . synchronized systems and the first ones aren't nearly as robust - way more prone to errors. Also - and this might be the biggest motivation to push TB in many different games: it plays a lot easier on consoles. RTwP is not nice when played with a traditional console setup (TV + controller on a couch).

It's also good to use opening volleys if you have one (or more) Priests with Inspiring Radiance. It's absolutely awesome to have an all-stackable +10 (or +20/+30 depending on the number of Priests) accuracy buff for everybody - but it's also rather short-lived. My preferred use of the +10 ACC is to apply hard CC of course, but not everybody has that and those who have not can shoot a high dmg projectile with improved accuracy into enemies' bodies to great effect.

"Sounds great on paper" is actually the name of my new membranophone band.

..and asnjas like "I'll take 'absurd change of subject' for $500, Alex!"

Yes. Metaknowledge is very valuable because of that. Of course you can try to equip your characters with a broader variety of dmg types. For example not only give sabres but sabres in weapon set 1 and hammers in weapon set 2. This is often better than focusing on a special weapon type and try to raise PEN via modals (which have drawbacks). Certain character ideas with certain unique weapons may collide with that approach though. But from a mechanical perspective flexibility usually is more valuable than specializing (when it comes to weapons and PEN). Even a Devoted can profit from that because fists do always get a proficiency and can be a good backup option (if you picked a non-crushing weapon as Devoted - like sword or battle axe - and if you take Monastic Unarmed Training). This is from the perspective of PotD difficulty (since enemies' AR is +2 there). On lower difficulties you can get away with less optimized weapon use since you will encounter over-armored foes less often.

Good question. Never used it long enough to have experience with it, but its description reads like it, yes.

Most of the time I don't bother with a ranged volley before switching to melee setup. It is effective (no doubt, especially when using arquebus - or blunderbuss against low DR enemies) but it's also a lot of tedious switching that I try to avoid. I will use it though if I have to take out certain enemies asap in order to avoid even more tedium - like taking out a Lagufaeth Broodmother or a Xaurip Priest before they can cast some stuff that may prolong the fight unnecessarily.

You should see Riposte as a nice addon, not as the centerpiece of your whole build. A rogue with Badgradr's Barricade is pretty sturdy (for a Rogue anyways who else is squishy as hell) but can never compete with a fighter or paladin when it comes to tankyness. You should still play him offensively and not dump everything into defense. Several attack abilities as Crippling Strike and Blinding Strike etc. work very well with a bashing shield since offhand strikes first. By the way: Riposte also gets triggered by misses and grazes from Disengagement attacks. There are some talents (like Graceful Retreat) and items (Nightrunner) that give you a bonus against disengagement attacks that stack with any other deflection bonus. You can then run past enemies, trigger disengagment attaks that will most likely miss or graze and eventually do a Riposte. This shouldn't be used a a core technique but it can make running past enemies in order to reach backliners rewarding.

Adaptive gives you +2 ACC per hit for 30 secs. It stacks up to 10 times (and should stack with everything else since it's from a weapon). Thing is that you basically get up to 10 instances of Adaptive which all last 30 secs. So it's not uncommon that the first instance runs out while you are not yet at 10 stacks. If you are hitting too slowly you can never reach 10 stacks because the first ones already expire. So let's say you hit every 10 seconds (just for simplicity) and add a stack (stack A,B,C and so on, seconds remaining in brackets): sec 0: A[30] --> +2 ACC sec 10: A[20] B[30] --> +4 ACC sec 10: A[10] B[20] C[30] --> +6 ACC sec: 20: B[10] C[20] D[30] --> +6 ACC sec 30: C[10] D[20] E[30] --> +6 ACC and so on. If you'd only hit every 10 secs you'd only be able to stack 3 instances of Adaptive. If you'd be able to attack every 5 secs you could stack 6 instances. On-hit usually includes on-crit when it comes to procs. Flames of Devotions should add their ACC bonus to everything. Also works with Ring of Focused Flame by the way (another +10 ACC). Usually you can check the used ACC per attack roll in the combat log (press shift while hovering over the log entry).

Gods the new forum is so ****ty when it comes to bb-tags. It messes them up 100%. I can't fix the nested spoiler tags above. Hope you can still understand what I was trying to say. You have to click "reveal hidden contents" (of two tags) to see everything. In my case I can't use the overbearing fun-inducing power of hand mortars with Xoti because they are ranged weapons and ranged weapons won't trigger her +3-wound-on-kill passive.

@Madhofd: You're missing everything. The advantages of Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole: AoE weapons: they deal their damage in a rather big area of effect all CC or DoT abilites (except Wounding Shot) get applied in the whole AoE. Example: Rogue's Toxic Strike poisons every enemy who gets hit by the AoE. dual damage: they deal pierce/slash instead of only pierce dmg (normal blunderbuss). This is important against pierce-resistant/-immune foes. targets Reflex instead of Deflection. Reflex is very easy to debuff. Hand Mortar an be enchanted with Blinding Smoke. Blinding Smoke triggers a ton of hit rolls (that distract but don't damage). Although no damage is dealt, every such hit roll will triggere Avenging Storm (from scroll or Heaven's Cacophony) Fire in th Hole can be enchanted with Chain Shot which lets the projectile jump (like Ranger's Driving Flight). The AoE also jumps. As a Scout you can stack Driving Flight with Chain Shot and have three AoEs with only one shot. Hand Mortar will even trigger more Blinding Smokes with Driving Flight. In my case (why I was talking about above) the Monk's very good ability Whispers of the Wind becomes outright ridiculous with hand mortars because you basically get 2* Powder Burns * AoE * (AoE+AoE+AoE) * x Blinding Strikes hit rolls:

They were only "best" in PoE1 when you're not looking at dmg types, lashes and Durgan Steel. Not being able to enchant them was what made them fall behind at some point. Both lashes and Durgan Steel are multiplicative dps increases. Missing out is ouch. Fists were still viable though. In Deadfire enchanting is more limited and you can't put a lash on anything as freely (also there's no Durgan Steel) so that disadvantage of fists has way less impact. Also the Power Level scaling (no other weapon has this) makes them better than in PoE since you can stack a lot of Power Levels and push them into mythic quality and beyond (impossible with weapons). They are great weapons in both games for several reasons, but a monk is in no way bound to use them since every attack ability that works with fists also works with melee weapons.

Those are the dmg reductions when underpenetrating (AR-PEN < 0): -1: -25% dmg -2: -50% dmg -3: -75% dmg If you have -4 or-5 it doesn't matter, it's still -75%. Those are the actual numbers. Also see: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/armor-and-penetration The -70% thing was an early version that got patched into the more granular one you see above. As you can see it's simply -25% per point of underpenetration until you reach -3. Note that this dmg reduction is not a simple additive malus but goes through double inversion most of times (as long as you have any damage bonus as well), meaning the dmg loss is in fact way more severe, especially if you cumulate several maluses. For details see: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/inversions Tl;dr: avoid underpenetration at (nearly) all costs since it's one of the most severe dps losses you can have (besides misses, grazes and hard CC). It also means that having very high AR is extremely beneficial for your survivability. It has a lot more impact than armor had in PoE1.

Of course. Because the best game ever made obviously is FTL.

Nearly all of the monk's attack abilites work with weapons as well as fists. Only exceptions (sort of): The Long Pain: is a summoned ranged fist weapon Forbidden Fist: is not a weapon attack. It has its own base dmg and doesn't even care if you use fists or weapons. It's like a melee spell basically. Inner Death: like Forbidden Fist The last two are not considered weapon attacks and thus don't work with Swift Flurry or Heartbeat Drumming and also will not generate Focus for a Monk/Cipher. As you can see this is not even a fist vs. weapon thing. I just wanted to show the abilites that sound like they are executed with fists or weapons but are actually melee spells that don't care what you carry. So basically there is no attacks ability that would only work with fists and not with weapons. Feel free to pick any (melee) weapon. Ranged weapons don't work with several abilites though: Turning Wheel Force of Anguish Swift Flurry Enervating Blows Heartbeat Drumming Torment's Reach Instruments of Pain Skyward Kick

OP essentially does state it's just his own take - since he introduced his statement with "Anytime anyone ever asks me..." That's totally fine with me. It's nice if somebody takes the time to voice a cheerful opinion instead of a rant (which is more common). He didn't write something like "As we all know..." as some very special dudes in this forum might do (or have done. Didn't see SonicMage for quite some time...).

Anecdote: During my time in Tashkent/Uzbekistan the local Intercontinental hotel lost its brand name due to bad/shady management decisions. So they had to rename the hotel and opted for... *drumroll*... The Incontinental True story.

Great. It also has some nice icons for all passives in the ability tree.