Boeroer

Kind of. Gambit is (unnecessarily) complex: The max refund of Guile is 4. You cannot generate more Guile than you spend. So the best case is that Gambit costs you nothing. The described refund of 2 can happen twice if you dual wield, bc. you have two weapon strikes. It doesn't matter how often you crit during those strikes (for example with an AoE weapon like a rod or mortar - or a multihit-weapon like a blunderbuss or Sun & Moon). If only one of the rolls during that strike is a crit you will get a refund of 2 for that strike. If you do 2 strikes (bc. two weapons) and both of them contain at least one crit you get 4 Guile back. Best case. Gambit shows 100% crit conversion with 10 Guile - but the 4 points of Guile you pay for Gambit itself get subtracted before the conversion applies during striking. So during the execution of Gambit your Guile is 4 less and thus the conversion drops accordingly (-10% per missing Guile). Therefore it is recommended to raise your max. Guile well over 10. Check out Devil of Caroc Breastplate for 2 extra Guile (=+20% crot conversion). You want that big chance to crit with every Gambit roll. This then means free Gambit executions as long as you don't graze or miss (or get interrupted or spend lots of Guile for something else first). A hidden gem: Internally, while Gambit is excutedand the game is calculating stuff, the Guile refund is NOT limited. It only gets cut down to max +2 per strike at the end. But while you are striking and doing crits the "internal" Guile counter can go through the roof. Since the crit damage bonus of Gambit (+20% dmg per point of Guile) relies on the Guile you currently have l, this can mean that you can achieve huge dmg bonus numbers during the execution of Gambit. For example with Hand Mortar+Blinding Smoke and Fire in the Hole+Chain Shot you can roll a ton of crits with every strike/shot and your internal Guile refund will skyrocket, giving you +200% dmg bonus and more for subsequent attack rolls during that shot. Only after Gambit is done it is all cut back to +4 Guile (max).

Wow, awesome.

I don't know. Depends on the enemies. Against mobs some AoE spells are surely more effective in terms of overall dps. But is dps a useful metric in a solo run in the first place? The Assassin/Tactician gets +25 accuracy for his attacks from Assassinate (the damage bonuses don't really matter that much - Kaylin even states that Deathblows isn't worth the trouble - but they are a nice addon of course) which stacks with Aware/Intuitive and the arquebus' modal (+20 acc). In Kaylon's case where he uses Dragon's Dowry (which does fire-tagged attacks) you could even add the Ring of Focused Flames for additional +10 acc and the Ring of the Marksman (+5 acc) and Helm of the White Void (+10 acc if Rogue strike ability) or Acina's Tricorn (+5 acc) which is all very efficient in order to take on enemies with high defenses (bosses, buffed up enemies or simply overleveled encounters). The overall acc bonus adds up to +70 or +75 after a while. It doesn't really matter if it takes a bit longer than casting spells imo - since you cannot get attacked anyway - so there's no need to kill multiple enemies asap in one go (other than getting bored, heh). It's also a lot easier to play. But It may be that it's more fun to abuse this mechanic with a Priest of Skaen or a Wizard instead of an Assassin. There's more variety and versatility for sure. Now that I said that: a whole party of vanishers (Rogues, Wizards, Priest of Skaen) mixed with one or more Tacticians could be really fun to use with this mechanic. Even SC Monk (Whispers of the Wind) as well as normal Priests (Withdraw counts as invisibility) could work at some point. As soon as all party members are invisible the Tactician(s) in the party would all become brilliant. Hm, hm, hm...

Btw.: I didn't test this but Brilliant Tactician should also trigger if you can charm or dominate all enemies. The faulty logic is: if there are no enemies, then zero enemies are NOT flanked -> must mean all enemies are flanked -> become brilliant. This might also trigger as soon as all enemies are friendly. But as I said I didn't try it out.

Yeah, it's a powerful interaction for sure. Maybe because lots of players talked about it in the past, now they ran out of things to say about it. The "turn invisible->becoming brilliant" part only works solo btw. - bc. of a logical flaw in the implementation of the "Brilliant Tactician" passive. Here's a cool solo build by @Kaylon from 2019 that uses this very mechanic: Since the mechanic seems to be unintended by the devs it is considered cheesy by some players - and thus I think they are not too enthusiastic to recommend it nowadays. Same thing with Lover's Embrace/Gouging Strike/Brand Enemy in combination with invisibility: you can solo 99% of the game with just those endless DoT attacks: Just apply the bleeding (and/or burning), turn invisible, hide out of sight and wait until the enemy's dead, combat ends, repeat. You can even kill several megabosses like that. It's super effective (even in a party just to take on totally overpowered enemies in order to get certain loot early for example)... but also kind of lame after a while. I suspect the same effect sets in with (solo) Brilliant Tactician and invisibility: it's very repetitive and may feel cheesy, so I guess some players aren't too enthusiastic about it. It is a very powerful combination nonetheless and if you like it then there's nothing to hold you back.

Hi, I'm sorry to hear that you lost your job. I'm also sorry to hear that you encounterd that situation with your party members. It never happened to me (on PC) during thousands of hours of playtime and I also didn't really read about that problem (or maybe I did and forgot about it) - so I'm not sure how to solve this. But I can understand your frustration. Unfortunately the console versions of the game are more buggy than the PC version is. Originally the Pillars game were done for PC exclusively. Only later the publisher (not Obsidian) decided to port the Pillars games to consoles and hired different devs for that task. On PC I could at least give you some console commands to try to fix this, but iirc the X-Box-Version of the game has no in-game console for typing in commands. The game is old though - so if you read about ways how to solve this issue they might still work, no matter if they are 10 years old. The game hasn't changed in the past years - so what worked then might still work now. Maybe it's also a good idea to search in the Paradox forums (they are the ones responsible for the port): https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/pillars-of-eternity-console.989/ But I wonder: don't you maybe have some save game from before this happened? I mean it sure is annoying to have to replay parts of the game - but better than not being able to fix the issue at all I assume. Sorry that I cannot be of more help. But I thought I'd answer anyway just to bump the thread.

How: Illusionist +2, Eye of Wael +2, Whitewitch Mask +1

Unfortunately Farcasting does not extend the range of summoning spells. Maybe there are a few summining spells that are implemented differently and which do get extended by Farcasting, but the ones I tried with it in the past (all Druid and Chanter summons, Monk & Priest) did not work with it. Summoning spells have a variaty of ranges, Chanter summons usually have a range of 8m, Lashing Vine (Druid, Gaun) even has 10m. Most Druid summons have 6 and so on.

That is correct. Maybe... in this case because it is so easy to trigger Heating Up at will. On the other hand Assassin also applies to the first cast from stealth - that alone can already turn the tides for you. I think it really depends on what you want to do with your Spellblade. If you want somebody who deals great weapon damage and doesn't want to bother with stealth and invisibility too much then I'd pick Streetfighter. Assassin needs more planning and setup imo. Bloodmage/Soulblade can be very powerful in combination with Citzal's Spirit Lance and Wall of Draining. You can keep all the great buffs (and healing over time) for a long, long time with Wall of Draining (including the +10 max focus on kill the Soulblade gets). Spirit Lance applies raw damage of Soul Annihilation to all enemies in the AoE (not the full number though, that's only for the initial target - still every enemy gets some and that's very good). And of course you have two resource pools that are potentially limitless and lots of great spells to pick from: very versatile combo. Psion is great for pure casters, it's not good for melee characters. I think SC Trickster is pretty cool. Gambit with enough Guile (Devil of Caroc Breastplate adds +2 Guile) has over 100% crit conversion and with any dual wielding setup (includes Tuotilo's Palm) you can use it many times - because the 4 refund is almost guaranteed (if you don't miss or graze). Combined with Wall of Flashing Steel (+10 deflection on crit - that's almost always with Gambit), some deflection gear such as Gipon Prudensco, Casita Samelia's Legacy (maxed Intimidate) or Nomad's Brigandine and Bracers and Cloak of Greater Deflection, also Mirrored Images or Llengrath's Displaced Image as well as Riposte you will have a very sturdy Rogue who still dishes out crazy single target damage with Gambit. And if Guile starts dropping so that Gambit isn't refunding reliably anymore you can use the remaining Guile for hefty spells such as Kalakoth's Freezing Rake. I think that is one of my best liked SC Rogues because you don't have to worry about dropping dead and can still be a deadly Rogue (with spells).

Assassin/Bloodmage is excellent as a debuffer/cc caster. But you need Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure for it to be really great. That's no problem though, you just have to finish Arkemyr's quest line to get one of his grimoires that contains the spell. Or you kill him... The trick is that Brilliant Departure makes you invisible - but that invisibility does not break on your hit rolls UNLESS you (personally) damage somebody directly (this includes Blood Sacrifices bc. you're damaging yourself directly). Walls and summons don't count. So all CC and debuffing spells you cast let you stay invisible and profit from the +25 acc the Assassin provides. This leads to a combo that lets you take on encounters (like bounties or ships for example) that are usually way above your "pay grade" - because you can disable and debuff them rel. easily for your party members. Even pulsing spells like Pull of Eora, Sicken and so on will gain +25 acc for all their pulses because you stay invisible. Wall of Draining can be used to uphold invisibility almost indefinitely. The only thing that breaks it then is your own Blood Sacrifice - when you run out of spells to cast and want to get some back. You can still cause damage with all damaging wall spells and Essential Phantom: cast Concelhaut's Draining Touch and then summon the Phantom. In the meantime you debuff enemies' Will defense into the ground with Miasma (-40) and Dazzling Lights (-10). The Phantom will hit like a truck with Draining Touch (bc. it targets Will instead of Deflection), drain health and apply weakened. And the Draining Touch doesn't disappear on it like it would if you used it yourself. If carry a shield or Kapana Taga or something else with +engagement, the Phantom will also have it. Then it can even dish out powerful disengagement attacks occasionally. Like when you cast Ryngrim's Enervating Terror on the poor enemies and they crawl around, breaking engagement. Since you are invisible it's also pretty safe to use the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry without the need for Rekvu's Fractured Casque. If you don't care about Wall of Draining and other Conjurations too much: this also works very well with an Illusionist instead of a Bloodmage. You can get to +5 Power Levels easily with Illusion spells that way which are great for debuffing. And you can use empower to either gain back some spells or empower an illusion spell out of stealth/insivibility with +10 Power Levels and +25 accuracy (which is bonkers). --- Streetfighter/Bloodmage can be an insane single target damage dealer if you use club+modal in the offhand and use Concelhaut's Draining Touch with the Grimoire switching trick in the main hand. The trick is to NOT learn Draining Touch but cast it from a Grimoire and then switch to a Grimoire that doesn't have the spell. That way the draining touch weapon will stay on you until combat ends. It has insane base damage wich works very well with all the Streetfighter's damage bonuses: Sneak Attack, bonus Sneak Attack when Heating Up (bloodied or flanked), Deathblows, extra crit damage when On the Edge (bloodied and flanked) and so on. The offhand club + modal will reduce enemies' Will by 25 points automatically, Draining Touch in the main hand targets Will: perfect combo. Most draining touch hits will go over 150 damage with auto attacks, you will be lightning fast because of the -50% recovery of Heating Up. This recovery bonus can also be used to cast spells a lot faster. Especially if you combine it with action speed bonuses (Del. Alacrity of Motion etc.). And it's so easy to trigger Heating Up: just spam Blood Sacrifice until you are bloodied. If you want to trigger On the Edge right away, too: fire a blunderbuss with modal. --- So, in my case those are two very dissimilar playstyles even though the class combos don't seem to be so different.

Hi, I don't think there's a mod that does this exact thing (but I could be wrong). You can make Grimoires equippable by anyone with the console. But I don't know if this will give you access to the spells (never tried this). And if it does make the spells accessible I don't think the spells would scale with Power Level (because you will have 0 PL as Wizard). Trickster "spells" are copies of wizard spells that then got altered a bit so they cost Guile. Then they got added as direct character abilities to the Rogue class. They scale with Rogue Power Levels. I think doing a mod for this would be possible - but not trivial.

Uh, it didn't even occur to me that players might look at abilities' tooltips for info. I'm set in my ways...

That shouldn't be the case if you raise Resolve but don't raise INT at the same time (Duality of Mortal Presence (INT)/Turning Wheel). If you re-apply the curse while it's still active (using FF while still cursed) that will also prolong the overall duration of the curse stacks considerably. I've done runs with a Forbidden Fist where it was possible to lower the curse's duration to about 3 secs even with decent INT. So usually high RES etc. works with the FF curse. Also note that Clarity of Agony should work, too and shave of a decent amount of the curse's duration while active. Maybe try that out - to see if the duration is still unaffected. If so it would seem that something is wrong with your game (or a mod).

Do we know for certain what "against enemies with low endurance" means in this Death's Usher case? For Bloody Slaughter for example it's 10% endurance left, not 25% as in Deadfire. I don't know if you checked and already altered that (if needed). 10% would be bad. I like that it scales with level! I cannot say though what will be a good scaling. I think a test run would really show how to balance the scaling properly. Keep in mind that something like +70% dmg additive might not be so much with weapon attacks, but for spells it would be very strong.

@Kaylon was that the reason? Or could there be another problem with Empower + Inner Death in the vanilla game that I might have missed?

Omg how did I forget about Edér? He was even in the testing party (WITH a pet). Too bad Amanita comes so late, a corrosive lash in the mix would be cool and the one element that's missing. Something like Baby Boar near Tikawara isn't hard to get and gives the party a 5% slashing lash for melee weapon attacks - which would add to the lash of Hylea's Talons. Overall +10% slash dmg, nice.

The problem I have with Death Godlike is that I would lose the Horns of the Aurochs. +10% freeze isn't as good as +3 PL (and maybe even +20% dmg on top), but it's very convenient to trigger at will with a Monk - and as human I could also gain some ACC and damage via Fighting Spirit. Maybe I could trigger Lord of the Forest (from Lance of the Midwood Stag) and then switch to Xoti's Lantern before using Inner Death in order to get that 1 Mortification back? But does Lord of the Forest stay if you switch away from the Lance? Don't remember... I guess it's worth losing the +1 Mortification refund if I can gain +2 PL for it. Potion of Ascension would def. work for me though.

Yeah, Recall Agony would be very nice. Inspired Beacon (+40%) and Takedown Combo would also be nice things to add. Also thought about Shattered Vengeance. But they all require separate hit rolls against the enemy. I was looking for dmg boosts (I might have overlooked) which can be applied to the Monk themselves - in order to profit from that Empower + Empowered Strikes combo (+100 bonus ACC) as much as possible. Stuff like Shared Flames and Aefyllath require a separate character, but no additonal hit rolls. This seems to be an advantage when you go against bosses. But yes, Recall Agony would add quite a lot of dmg.

Huh? I def. empowered it in the past - even before CP existed. I mean it's like Inner Death was made with Empowered Strikes in mind (or the other way round). But to be sure I tested it again 5 minutes ago. No mods, new char, new playthrough: Inner Death + Empower in the vanilla game works fine for me. See the little vid I made just now: Maybe this is your problem with Empower + Inner Death: one cannot empower any ability that got added with the console. Instead you have to level up manually and pick the ability that way. Then you can empower said ability (if it works with Empower in the first place). I just give the char in question enough XP to level up to 20. Then I set their class level to 19, do the last level-up manually and pick the ability I want to test with Empower. Yeah, I also eyed Vrer Chiora and Mouth Char. They should stack just fine bc. one is universal crit dmg and the other weapon dmg. Will test later...

For the 1000+ dmg strike I used Empower + Empowered Strikes (and the relevant Empower passives) to guarantee a crit. This gives me the +300% dmg from Inner Death which does the heavy lifting - and the +100 PEN for Overpenetration from Empowered Strikes. And with Community Patch some dmg bonuses are a little bit higher. Let's see if I can remember all (didn't save the test character): Original base damage: 40-80 crush. additonal base damage: Prestige (+5%) Empower (+25%) sum: +30% base additive: Inner Death (+300% from crit) Might 35 (+75%) Overpenetration (+30%) Critical Hit (25%) Precognition - Tails, You Lose (+25%) Potent Empower (+20% CP/+15% vanilla) Improved Critical (+15% CP/+10% vanilla) High Harbinger's Robes - Accelerated Decay (+10%) Infamous Captain (+5%) Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak - Bushwack (+5%) sum: +510% additive CP/+500% vanilla lashes: Turning Wheel (+20% burn) Lightning Strikes (+15% shock) Horns of the Aurochs - Winter's Touch (+10% freeze) Hylea's Talons - Raking Grasp (+5% slash) Belt of Magran's Chosen - Linked in Flames (+3% burn) Fjord pet (+3% freeze) sum: +56% multiplicative I think that's it. Lashes had no issue with individual ARs in this test. It was obviously a good, high roll not too far from 80. I think Stone of Power's +1 PL would be a better choice than Precognition because the 5% added base would work nicely with the +475% dmg bonus then - and Precognition only works for the first 2 crits of combat. The cloak isn't really necessary but I wanted to try an be an Assassin without being one. Shared Flames and Aefyllath would be a really nice addition to a party with Inner Death (when CP is installed). If you guys have additional ideas to raise the dmg further please share. I guess there's consumables I could use - and there might be items that are better than what I used in this test.

Right, without CP Inner Death is treated like a spell and not a weapon attack. Most of the lashes won't work then. I guess one could use one or two items that increase overall dmg instead of adding lashes (maybe stuff like Griffin's Blade would work - didn't try, Harley pet instead of Fjord and so on) and raise the non-lash damage a bit more that way. It would still be like roughly 500-600 dmg. It's quite nice with Xoti's Lantern because it gives you 1 Mortification (and 1 wound) back if you kill with Inner Death (which costs 3). If you use Takedown Combo with a allied Ranger and/or Inspired Beacon the results should be impressive, too. Still not as powerful as lashes though. With the Community Patch (which only transforms Inner Death into a weapon attack) it's hilarious. Whispers of the Wind is still better over all, especially in combination with Resonant Touch - but Inner Death is something different for a change and very fun to use. You don't see those numbers every day.

Made him Helwalker (35 MIG at strike), added Fjord pet (3% freezing lash) and Precognition amulet (+25% crit damage for the 2 first crits in combat): Over 1000 dmg. Trollolol

Turning Wheel (2% burn per wound), Hylea's Talons (5% slash), Lightning Strikes (15% shock), Winter's Touch (10% freeze), Belt of Magran's Chosen (3% burn). I think that's it for now. This wasn't even a Helwalker. My Might was only 13.

btw: I'm using Winter's Touch to give Inner Death a freezing lash (together with some other lashes). So here's SC Monk stuff I found out about that triggers Winter's Touch (Horns of the Aurochs helmet): Clarity of Agony (2 Wounds) Dance of Death (2 Mortification) Instruments of Pain (4 Wounds) Mortification of the Soul (self dmg) Blade Turning (2 Wounds) which is very convenient...

810 dmg with one punch...