Boeroer

If you give him the proper spells he can. Also with his mortars. But he will also have access to some really fine CC/debuffing spells that I wouldn't skip (Secret Horrors for example). Ciphers get Borrowed Instinct which stacks with PER inspirations. So he won't miss much. Miscasts are extremely rare. If you look at the actual effects of his WIld Mind subclass you can see that it's balanced towards the positive effects. A Miscast can a lso be used as offensive tool by the way. If you have it while sourrounded by enemies you will wipe them and not your party.

Stat spread is good. Unarmed combat is good, especially for single class monks. That's because Tanscendent Suffering scales with Power Level - and single classes can reach higher Power Levels and also reach them sooner. Nature Godlike is also good: your assuption is correct and also you gain scaling for your fists (since they scale with Power Level as I said). All active abilites scale with Power Level as well. Most notably all damaging abilites gain 5% base damage per Power Level. Usually you don't want to pick all the different attack abilites since they will be competitors for your resource - but twith a Monk it's not that much of an issue since wounds are replenishable. Still - my recommendations would be Force of Anguish-->Efficient Anguish because it targets fortitude and can be very handy when you meet enemies with low fortitude but high deflection (some spirits and stuff). It's also very cheap and scales well with Power Level (because it's a level-1 ability it will have gained +45% multipl. damage at Power Level 10 for example). If you take Envervating Blows and use Stunning Surge you can even lower enemies' fortitude by 20 points and then use Force of Anguish for great effect. The two most impactful abilites by far (for a SC Monk) are Resonant Touch and Whispers of the Wind. Other good ones are Stunning Surge and - as in PoE - Torment's Reach, especially Raised Torment. Although it's a bit expensive it's still no problem since healing is very potent in Deadfire and wounds are easy to come by. But to be honest: once you gained Whispers of the Wind you can as well retrain and only take other non-attack abilites because you will only use that from that point on. Or mostly. That and Resonant Touch.

As I like to point out from time to time: Dead can Dance - but they can't deal damage.

45%? Which class/culture combo allows for 25 MIG? And 33% additive damage (at absolute best with a starting value of 21 compared to 10) is indeed marginal if you instead raise your PEN and DEX. Both will also increase your damage dealt - be it via better accuracy and thus hit quality or by increasing the casting speed. Since the Blood Mage doesn't need to squeeze as much dmg as possible into one cast (because he has unlimitd ones in theory) DEX is a multiplicative dps stat for him. It's not that you take the 11 points of MIG (at most) and throw them away... And even if you want to put them into CON that's not too bad. You trade 30% of damage for +50% health - which can make your Bloodmage a lot sturdier and prevents one-shots which can happen if you use Blood Sacrifice and then get attacked. If you like that approach better it's no big deal.

But the damage you lose is pretty marginal, given that it's just a 3% additive bonus per point, especially if you are putting the points into DEX or PER instead. Or it's safer if you put it into CON (may prevent a one-shot right after using Blood Sacrifice). I mean I like the risky approach, but maybe others do not. You will also not start with all that regen gear.

10 MIG is not dumped. It's neutral. Bonus dmg of MIG will multiply with the bonus dmg from Power Level. And if you rely on third party heals as well and not entirely on self healing it can be benefical to not raise MIG.

Barbarian is the obvious choice. Because high attack speed and especially Carnage will help to proc Firebug more often. Heart of Fury as well. Heart of Fury also helps a lot with achieving all those dmg related soulbound upgrades. Barbarian's Carnage is also the case why the proc chance of Firebrand got nerfed so hard. Firebug-kills trigger Blood Thirst - you you could even try a single dagger or dagger&shield setup (is faster with Durgan Steel than single weapon). Unlabored Blade + Bagradr's Barricade ist also a great combo (less procs of Firebug, but also procs Thrust of Tattered Veils quite reliably and often). Drawn in Spring is great, especially with the high MIG of Frenzy. But with two daggers you'll only have slash damage output. So maybe keep some backup in a second weapon slot. Since Unlabored Blade works with every weapon focus you are free to pick. Spelltongue can be used to prolong your buffs, including Frenzy and Bloodlust.

That shrine is highish level content iirc. 12 Religion is rel. high, but not high enough for that shrine. But you can profit from party assist in this case: if anybody else also has Religion (even if it's low) he/she can assist in the skill check.

Check out Honey wine Hen (-15% dmg), Yolk Bowl (+1 healing per 6sec and -10% dmg) as well as simply Rice (-10% dmg). But I guess the most benefit is using food which improves healing received (Fresh Fruit +25%, Glazed Chops +30% and so on). That bonus is multiplicative with stuff like Physiker's Belt and Bone Setter's Torc. You can also use Cadhu Scalth and high Metaphysics to reduce the self damage even further - if you are willing to suffer the -8 accuracy while casting. It also depends on your recovery time. A slower caster will have less problems with killing himself than a very fast one. Especially if you also use Deletrious Alacrity (which might be not the best spell to use as a spell spamming Blood Mage unless you have good and constant healing sources). And if you are only spamming one particular spell (e.g. Bounding Missiles) the refund is also less random. Since low spells scale with Power Level they don't necessarily do less damage than a high level spell. So you can always pick one spell that matches the resistances/AR/positions of the current enemies perfectly well and then stick to it for the encounter. That makes the use of Blood Sacrifice a lot more manageable. I also like to use Corrosive Siphon a lot (if enemies' fortitude isn't too crazy) since it has a healing and a damage component. I doesn't stack in parallel on enemies but it can still be a nice spell to use in tandem with Blood Sacrifice. Also keep in mind that you can prolong healing over time with Draining Wall. So a Lesser Lay on Hands (Healing Hands gloves) suddenly becomes a nice ability to have.

I believe it does not stack. But trying it out doesn't hurt. Anyway Desponent Blows can be nice in combination with deflection/defense buffs and PER debuffs.

SC Bloodmage, packed with regeneration and healing bonus items (Three Trolls Stiched, Ring of Greater Regen, Ring of Regen, Fleshmender armor, Physiker's Belt, Bone Setter's Torc) can spam his best nuking spell (e.g. Ninagauth's Shadowflame) non-stop because he heals faster than Blood Sacrifice can kill him. Of course even easier to pull off if you have other sources of healing in the party or put Barring Death's Door + Wall of Draining + Salvation of Time on him (hello Xoti). I would say you'd have a hard time doing that much damage with a summoned weapon - although Kalakoth's Minor Blights and Spirit Lance are truly great for Wizard/martial multiclasses. But for SC Wizard I'd go the casting route. Also because summoned weapon sscale with char level, not Power Level. Serafan's Wild Mind Subclass can make him extremely dangerous for your party. On average his wild mind effects have a positive outcome, but one "Miscast" (AoE shock dmg againast Will - height of remaining focus) at high focus can wipe your whole party. So I would give him high AR, especially high shock AR (so no plate armor), high Will (ciphers can have extreme high Will defenses) and not let him cast too near to your party. Or simply live with it and reload once he wipes your guys. Most of the time his effects are benefical or at least not too bad. Miscasts are very rare. And if you have low focus at that moment they don't matter much. As a cipher you can let him use his mortars. Focus generation will be awesome with Draining Whip and if you control enemies to one spot (e.g. lure them from stealth with a Dazzling Lights from Aloth - not hitting the enemies, only luring them), then let the tank engage (all enemies will attack him and stay close) and then shoot them with mortars --> max focus most of times. If you use Heaven's Cacophony you can uise Avenging Storm 1/rest. It procs off of the AoR hits, of Blinding Smoke and of Chain Shot. It's very powerful. Shared Nightmare (PL9 cipher) also works for the AoE of the mortars by the way - giving you a ridiculously large mortar AoE and focus gain. Being bloodied is by no means necessary to make a Barbarian effective by the way. The only thing he gains is 25% additive dmg via Blooded. That's not really class-defining. One of the best debuffing spells is Chillfog - you should give Aloth that instead of Curse of the Blackened Sight. Just my opinion though. The rest seems good.

Yes, it stacks with most other debuffs that reduce accuracy (via PER affliction or even direct PER reduction - see Miasma of Dull-Mindedness). But I never tried if it stacks with Devotions (which also has an ACC debuffing component). Mostly because I tend to cast Devotions right at the start where it's hard to hit enemies with it anyways. Which is maybe suboptimal...

I guess you would need a ton of meta knowledge, lots of unguents, the right items, notes of every skill check and Berath's Blessings (double skill bonus on startup) to achieve this with a fixed party (if it's possible in the first place - don't know). Since you can swap out party members and every party member can have a different skill maxed it would be doable this way - but I think not many people like to play this way.

Why don't you simply look up your reputations with the factions on the character sheet - reputations tab? And check which flag you are flying in the ship menu.

I also have another question: Once you get Scordeo's Edge and you triggered and prolonged Blade Cascade: why is nobody switching to some non-unique Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts then? When using Attack Abilites your weapons will not break - and if they do you can then use summoned weapons or fists or whatever. But by then you will have stacked a crazy amount of DoT instances on the enemy that last for a fairly long time (way over a minute with decent INT). And they will continue to tick while you cast stuff or have to run around, helping Vela out and whatnot. What am I missing? Or is it just not worth the hassle?

Bit of a LOL moment when Dorudugan enters the stage with his earth shaking signature jump and your Cleric just casually says "No problem!".

By the way: for tricky stealth passages you can use Necklace of Fireballs to lure away hostile npcs. So you don't waste precious spells (before getting the Brilliant Cloak or whatever). With a Tactician/Skaen you can also use other spells that can be cast outside of encounters (Desponent Blows for example or even a Repulsing Seal). Since you can get resources back when going invisible the loss of a spell shouldn't be such a problem as for other class combos. If you have 2 Necklaces oFB you can even cast 8 Fireballs per encounter - and then after encounter replenish by stacking them in the stash. I wonder why nobody used this so far...? Doesn't it work with Woedica's Challenge? Since it's an oversight in th first place I don't think so. You can also stack two Ivory Wurm Figurines and thus cast that summon in every enounter. At least that worked last time I tried it. Not that it's powerful or so but it gives you a free distraction in every encounter.

Well we can guess what's going on...

I once did it the other way round: accepted Raedrics quest to kill Kolsc, then also killed Raedric. He returned. I believe the only trigger that's needed is to kill him.

Afaik you can add any NPC to the party - even dragons. So that should be no problem. I don't know how they behave with XP gain and leveling though. I have no idea if npc priests may have other "subclasses" than the usual playable ones. I don't think so. But you can check with Marshal Eldrid Wenfeld for example. Lore-wise he should be a Priest of Abydon.

Crookspur slavers attack anyone anyhow. About the rest... let me get this straight: When sailing around you are getting attacked by Huana, Rauatai and also Principi ships. But then on the other hand not every ship. It's only some Huana and Rauatai ships. I guess this makes perfect sense after some malcachoa...? Anyway: you will get attacked if your reputation with those faction is bad (or not good). This may happen if you sail around a lot very early in the game without making friends first. Or by stepping on the toes of several factions via dialogue and actions. If you don't want that you can change the "colors" of your ship (the flag you are flying, not the actual hull and sail colors) to match the one the pursuing captain is flying. They will then not attack you. Afaik They did not patch aggressive ships.

Then my congratulations! Which class did you use and what did you do and so on and so forth? I guess I won't have time to watch the whole season.

Does that mean you're starting it or that you already completed it?

Absolutely doable. Always remember that official companions are +1 lvl above hirelings which gives them an advantage in the early game. And once you gained some levels it doesn't make that much of a difference anymore that their stats and classes aren't minmaxed. Pallegina can also be a Herald. I mention it because it is considered to be one of the best tank/offtank class combos if you don't like to micro all of your party members all the time. You can stack Exalted Endurance and Ancient Memory. This makes for a great passive healing aura for the whole party. She will have less engagement slots than a Crusader though. Tekehu can't be played as a summoner. His subclass "Stormspeaker" loses all summoning invocations. However... he gains Avenging Storm at PL 8. If you are open for unusual suggestions: try him it with Hand Mortar (Blinding Smoke) + Fire in the Hole (Chain Shot) and Sure-Handed Ila (maybe combines with Mith Fyr if you can manage to neatly overlap both with lots of INT). It's absolutely devastating. Mostly because Blinding Smoke - although not doing damage by itself - triggers Avenging Storm. And you will proc a lot of Blinding Smoke rolls. Especially if you use Killers Froze Stiff (crit conversion) and Ben Fidel's Neck (-10 to all defenses). Guns + spells is a great combo anyway since you can always skip reload and cast a spell immediately. Deltro's Cage will improve his shocking invocations just fine (including Avenging Storm). Of course this nice combo comes late so you have to make sure to find some fun while getting there. But since he has some great offensive invocations that shouldn't be hard. Corpse Eater is a bit underbalanced because of that +1 Rage cost (which doubles the cost for his go-to ability Frenzy and also the PL9-shouts which otherwise would be extremely cost-effective). But in encounters with kith and wilders it's good. I think even with 2 Rage Driving Roar is still plenty good if you combine it with Blood Surge and Blood Thirst and of course the +2 Power Level from forbidden flesh pie and such. Afaik the Corpse-Eater-only bonus to Power Level stacks with universal Power-Level buffs. You could also play a Monk/Corpse Eater by the way. For example Forbidden Fist/Corpse Eater. That way you can attack with wound-driven abilities but use the Rage for Frenzy and then the nice passives of the Corpse Eater. You can use a Morning Star (apologies - I suggest that a lot) - it works very well with Barbarians (Brute Force) and also Monk. Monk has Force of Anguish which targets Fortitude. Morning Stars lowers Fortitude by 25 points. Monks can also weaken with Envervating BLows - Forbidden Fist can enfeeble with his base ability. Lowers fortitude by another 10 points. And finally the Barb can use Spirit Frenzy to stagger opponents on hit, lowering Fortitude by another 10. Your opponents will have -45 fortitude and then you can use Force of Anguish to target that. Combine with Swift Flurry (and later Heartbeat Drumming) to generate a lot of additional attack rolls. Once you get Brute Force you can do that with all attack abilites. The Willbreaker is an awesome weapon in general. Also Force of Anguish + Carnage have that werid synergy where the target gets hit by FoA first and then again by Carnage (because the victim gets pushed into the Carnage AoE). This actually raises the dps of Force of Anguish quite a bit.