Boeroer

In PoE this was balanced with the fast casting speed of Fireballs. If you could stack a lot of Fireballs uses per rest you could spam them all the time in quick succession which made them somewhat powerful. But the damage alone is nothing to write home about. In Deadfire an empowered Fireball is ouchy though. Also did an empowered Fireball from stealth with an Assassin/Wizard - ouchy as well.

Stuff that can be influenced by Power Level is duration, number of projectiles, damage, healing, accuracy and penetration.

Right. Some combos are still very powerful despite lower Power Level and/or less ability points. Look at cipher/rogue with the stacked damage bonuses of Sneak Attack and (Biting) Soul Whip. Add high MIG and it's still crazy. Some multiclass combos who don't have nice synergies are now weaker than single classes - but that's ok. It can't all be equally good - that would be boring. As multiclass player you have to put some effort into char building. Now the warning during character creation at least makes sense.

Aaand they touched the cupcake again! Fabulous!

You gain Power Levels by leveling up (multiclass chars have reduced PL compared to single class chars), by having special racial abilites (see Nature Godlike, Death Godlike...), subclass abilites (see wizard subclasses like Evoker for evocation spells, druid subclass like Livegiver for rejuvenation spells...) and the Empower function which can be used twice per rest to boost a single ability use by +10 Power Level. Maybe there will be other source for Power Level such like items or drugs/food.

What level are you? Because Crägholdt Bluffs is high level stuff and should be tackled after the White March (Stalwart and so on). Although it came with the White March expansion, Crägholt Bluffs is not part of the White March region but part of its own little plot that will be continued in WMII expansion but has nothing to do with the White March region and the questline there. Usually your steward also warned you that the Torn Bannermen are to strong for you (yet). So if you are below lvl 10 it's normal that you can't hit the fighters there. Even lvl 10 is tough... Inside Concelhaut's Tower things get even tougher - way tougher. In Stalwart Village there's the Ring of Changing Heart (you can loot it after the initial battle). It will give you +3 RES. You could also enchant your armor with +2 RES.

-20ACC and -4MIG in Deadfire - if I remember correctly. It's still a spell that makes you want to bring a priest.

Only because it stacked with stuff like Disciplined Barrage (also +20), Eldritch Aim (+15) and so on in my opinion.

But only when...

Yes, lvl 8 is more appropriate.

Yes, if duration bonus from power level is multiplicative with duration from INT then it all fits.

Wait... the beat drops? When I do it the bass drops...

@Doppelschwert: Eh? I would do the same with less passives if I was min-maxing. The situation of active abilites hasn't changed at all. Only now you are not forced to take competing actives as a single class character because you already took all passives so far (if you had any to begin with). Now the situation is FAR better for single class characters and the level-ups are far less boring and frustrating. Also more passives add more build options which is always good in my book - even if a lot of players won't touch several of those new passives.

But then it would be additive and not multiplicative...? It would be 8 + 0.8 from Power Level and +8 from INT (16.8 ). Not 8+ 0.8 from Power Level and then 8.8 * 2 from INT (17.6). Or is the bonus of Power Level multiplicative with other duration boosts?

No, it doesn't. In PoE Devotions does not stack with itself and it also doesn't stack with Borrowed Instincts. The only ACC bonuses that stack with themselves in PoE are Inspiring Radiance and Inspiring Exhortation. Both were considered passives and thus stacked with everything. Both are gone in Deadfire. PoE's Devotions stacked with stuff like Zealous Focus or Blessing because those were universal ACC buffs while Devotions "only" raised melee and ranged ACC. The stacking rules of Deadfire are rel. simple compared to PoE (besides bugs/oversights): all passives stack, actives only stack if they don't address the same value. An inspiration from a spell like Blessing raises PER, not ACC directly und thus stacks with Devotions which raises ACC. Two PER inspirations don't stack - two active ACC buffs (like from spells) shouldn't stack either.

Yes, you are right. I checked ingame and it "secretly" prolongs summoning duration. Secretly because you can't hover over the duration for a tooltip that explains the composition - but once you set INT to 30 or 40 via console you can see that the duration clearly raises. It also gets influenced by something else, because I get a duration of 8.8 instead of 8 with 10 INT. With 30 INT I get 17.6 (8.8 * 2). That's kind of weird.

I would also be happy if I could just skip that stuff and simply board the enemy ship. Doesn't matter if the fight is a lot harder then.

Invocation recovery pauses chanting at least till now - haven't tested in beta 4). Without chanting you get no phrases on your counter. Without phrases no new summons. Since when does INT prolong summons' duration? Is that new?

Somebody did it again!

DEX is not really a dump stat as Beckoner because you can't keep up summons all the time if your casting time and recovery get prolonged too much (durations of summons is reduced for Beckoners).

In my experience the skeletons do better damage than the wurms and also do engage (with disengagement attacks). They also split in two once they die. So I keep them up all the time, poke the enemy with my pike + modal in order to lower deflection by -10 so that the skellies can hit better. I usually send them all on one enemy who usually collapses after a few seconds. Worms have the advantage of ranged combat though - no movement required. If you are tanky they are good, too. The Ogres are also good but look so ridiculously tiny with a Beckoner that I never use them. I couldn't test drakes properly yet because they were heavily bugged in beta 3. My stats were fairly balanced. I need MIG for FoD and healing for example. PER is not that important though. FoD has +20 ACC and healing needs no ACC. I guess White Flames could be nice to heal your summons without switching to healing phrases or using Lay on Hands.

As far as I know Devotions and Borrowed Instinct do not stack. So no ACC +40. I would leave Devotions and Borrowed Instinct as is because that makes them stackable with PER inspirations. Stacking ACC is already more difficult than in PoE (no Inspiring Radiance, no Inspiring Exhortation, no marking or Coordinated Attacks so far). It's good to have some buffs that don't use stat based inspirations but directly boost ACC. Wild Leech is a bad joke.

Right. A fighter (who's all about Discipline and effectiveness) could be played as an open-minded warrior when it comes to new technology on the battlefield. Especially a Black Jacket (get 4 slots and quick-switch arquebuses) or Devoted (get additional +2 PEN with a gun of your choice).

It doesn't bother me - I just find it amusing. "Ouh... a poll!" *votes* "What's it about?" "Huh? How am I supposed to know?"