Boeroer

Stats are ok. Survival got buffed a lot... and fatigue doesn't exist any more - at least you don't get tired from travelling any more. Athleletics now only gives you an ability that can heal you a bit - but it doesn't scale with level and you really don't need it as a paladin if you have Lay on Hands. Survival gives you camping bonuses that stack with bonuses from sleeping in an inn. You can have higher DR, higher ACC against certain enemies, more movement speed, a bonus on the healing you receive, bonus damage against flanked targets and longer duration for consumables. That makes it a very flexible tool and it's very powerful, too. You can get +10 ACC with only 10 points of survival (so, very early if you pick the right background). As I said: if you combine high MIG like 18 (+24% healing) with an item (+25%) and camping bonuses (up to +60%) you will heal yourself with double power - even more if you also buff INT (prolongs Veteran's Recovery and also Lay on Hands). Lore is for scrolls, yes. The prayer scrolls are superuseful - and also some other non-offensive stuff like Moonwell, Valor, Defense and so on. Those which don't have to hit enemies but support your fellow party members are great for a paladin who has not too high ACC but high INT (and MIG). If you take the special talent of the Kind Wayfarers that heals on kill (and mybealso Inspiring Triumph), they can also be a good way to generate kills. A scroll of Maelstrom or a Scroll of Fireball (with Scion of Flame, high MIG and INT) can kill some foes and trigger lots of healing and deflection buffs. Later on your Sacred Immolation can do that for you, too.

I wouldn't advise to try to be under 50% endurance all the time because the Nature Godlike's racial isn't too powerful. It doesn't justify to be unter 50% endurance all the time (unless you want to build around Vengeful Defeat, One Stands Alone and Blooded, paired with dual sabres and a second chance item or a reviving party member - which can be pretty powerful). The Wellspring of Life stacks with everything though - so you can add it's stat bonus to the ones you get from (Greater) Frenzy, which can be nice. But as I said it doesn't normally justify being at 50% all the time. But it can make a bit of a difference when things go bad. With max CON, MIG and INT you can take Veteran's Recovery and Shod-in-Faith boots and also a Belt of Bountiful Healing or Fulvano's Amulet for +25% healing. Add Savage Defiance and put on a fat armor as Loren Tyr said and you will be a very sturdy frontliner - even a good tank if you're not alone. You will still do good damage. Even when you run out of health you can sip a Potion of Infise with Vital Essence - it works with MIG and Healing Bonus and will give you back a lot of health. You can even drink it at the beginning of a fight and it will prevent health loss. Potions of Regeneration also work nicely with those stats. Same with a Scroll of Moonwell. So make sure you have enough lore for that (or a druid in the party). I wouldn't recommend using the survival bonus for more healing buffs, because your ACC is quite low and it might be better to boost your ACC against certain enemies in order to hit better with carnage. If you combine this with dual wielded draining weapons you will be near unkillable as long as you don't get disabled (stunned, paralyzed, petrified and so on). Luckily, your very high fortitude will prevent that most of the time. Draining works with carnage, so if you hit 5 foes you will get healed a lot. It's a great way to create a sticky tank which enemies won't rush past. Like Loren said. Nature Godlikes look great. Especially with Argwe's Adra or any other greenish armor. Even with Blaidh Golan hide armor (one of my favorite barb armors) they look awesome. But their racial could be better. It woul be great if Wellspring of Life would be triggered for 10 seconds or so everytime you receive a crit. Or if you could activate it like Frenzy 1/encounter.

A barbarian has not too good starting accuracy - and carnage has even reduced accuracy values. So maybe you should take a few points from CON, INT and MIG and put them into PER. Maybe something like 17,17,17 and 15 PER. This makes a difference in the early game when it comes to hit rolls and it also lets you do more interrupts, which can be especially powerful because of the AoE of carnage. It's also better with weapons which do things on crits - although one handed weapons with such properties come a bit late. Higher PER is also good for your reflex defense. At the moment your fortitude is very high (which is good), your will is good (not so important as fortitude) but your reflex is very bad. No bonus from PER but a high malus from low DEX. So things like fireballs and dragon breaths and most other AoE stuff will damage you badly. BUT - high CON is nice for barbs because they have the highest base values of endurance and health and the +5% from each point of CON will result in absurdly high numbers, which can be a live saver and also prevents a lot of resting. Half of your endurance can be more than a fighter's full endurance. So if you are OK with the fact that it will be harder to hit things at the beginning of the game you can leave it like that (I'm talking about PotD - on all other difficulties it will be all good). When you find items that give you a bonus to concentration and also Shod-in-Faith boots you might want to retrain and dump RES to 3 and put it all into PER. That way you will have it all.

The most important skill is survival. Then comes lore, then athletics. Stealth is useless for a paladin. And I guess he will not be your mechanic. If you want to be very sturdy even with a two hander then pick Veteran's Recovery and Lay on Hands, boost survival up to 14 in order to take +60% healing received bonus from camping and put on an amulet or belt with +25% healing received bonus. You will regenerate/heal like a boss. Flames of Devotion is a full attack. That means that dual wielders will strike twice with it. That's why some people use two weapons. A two handed one is also OK. Best option for me is always two arquebuses for Flames of Devotion plus a weapon & Outworn Buckler. But that's just me. There are gloves in the game which summon the burning great sword Firebrand which works really well with Flames of Devotion and Scion of Flame. There's also a Great Sword that destroys vessels (=undead) - it's also a good fit for a paladin.

Another early speed weapon is the Sword of Daenysis which you can buy in the Salty Mast. Despite it's name it's a rapier - and also has rending, which is great for fast, light weapons. And there's also Spelltongue. It not only steals attack speed, but also duration for your buffs like Constant Recovery, Disciplined Barrage, Fighting Spirit and so on. Plus: it takes the buffs off of enemies.

That pushes "Overkill" onto a whole new level.

That's why it's a rule of thumb. I have thick thumbs. The first five levels of the Endless Paths are a bit weird because you would normally jump into the pit and then ascend back. The difficulty of those levels is a bit reversed. And also it's very unlikely that you reach the ogres when you're lvl 3. After Maerwald and stuff you will be of higher level most of the time.

Where to go first - it depends. On the items you want to use early, on the level you have, if you like a challenge or if you like to steamroll everything. I personally do the first levels of the Endless Paths (until I get Persistence) and quests in Defiance Bay until I reach level 6 to 9 (depends on the party, 9 tends to be too easy most of the time), then I start the White March - because you get so many new quests which will level you up even more quickly and there's also some nice gear waiting for me that I use a lot (Bittercut sabre, Stormcaller bow, Ring of Changing Heart, Cape of the Master Mystic, Wayfarer's Hide and so on). And then I just go here and there as I like. Before doing WMII I normally start Act IV in order to buy some other neat items in the shop tent in Twin Elms and to fetch Blood Testment gloves or Purgatory. I would never skip the Endless Paths until the late game because then it's way too easy. A rule of thumb is that if your level matches the level of the Endless Paths you're on then you're good. I think The Paths are not meant to be explored in one single rush.

One of the most tedious parts can be the Endless Paths of Od Nua. There are not too many camping supplies and there's also not a master staircase on every level. So returning to town or Brighthollow can be time consuming and boring - especially because of those very looong loading screens. The whole "no resting" thing is mostly about convenience. It's not expensive to get camping supplies or to rest in a town. It's even for free at Brighthollow. It only costs you a lot of time. As Kaylon said all that travelling can be a pain in the back. But it's ok that it's tedious. If it were too easy to get supplies or if we had fast travel options everywhere then all the per rest abilities would be too powerful and the healing talents would be totally useless (atm they are not totally useless with the right build). Edit: and what Raven said.

Yeah - I wasn't sure if the game treats blunderbuss shots as a single hit when it comes to the "highest damage dealt" or "highest crit" (or what it's called) statistics.

Hm, wouldn't a blunderbuss be able to do higher damage than an arquebus? At least in theory? Of course it's more unlikely that you crit with all six projectiles and you need to shoot a foe that has not too high DR - but in theory the damage should be higher, shouldn't it? Or is this not counted as one single crit but six different ones?

Cool - thnaks for testing. Maybe that got fixed or my game had a hickup when I tested this. It was around 2.03. Are special abilities like Blinding Strike now also working with Backstab? Because back then they didn't trigger Backstabs but only did "normal" damage - even if I was stealthed or buggy-cape-invisible.

I tried this some time ago when the neverending invisibility bug of the Cape of the Master Mystic was not fixed yet. So I was able to use Finishing Blow while being invisible. But as I said: it didn't work. I got some really weird numbers then. Somebody should try (with an arquebus) if this is still the case.

Ah - now I get it. That's obviously right. Never thought about it that way.

Jap, I also used it in the Chillfog chanter build when the +100% healing received chant is on. Heals over 130% health then. It's great when you play with high MIG and good healing bonuses from equipment and camping.

It only increases the minimum damage your weapons rolls. So, a weapon with 10-15 damage does 12-15 with Confident Aim.

Wound Binding is more powerful, but requires a talent. A Potion of Infuse with Vital Essence is cheap. That was my main point.

As I said: Finishing Blow doesn't seem to work with Backstab and Deathblows. I got ridiculously low damage numbers when I tried that. Maybe they fixed it - it was some patches ago.

I mean maybe it can be useful to have a lot of engagement slots when you are a fighter and use Overbearing Guard or something like that. But I never had a lot of success with that special build. For the rest of all chars I think it's save to totally ignore your engagement slots. Maybe there are players with other experiences.

It's way better than the Wound Binding and Field Triage talents. Because there's a potion with it. It's a super handy spell for squishy 3 CON blaster wizards who use Dangerous Implement and have 0 recovery.

I never pay any attention to engagement and I'd say I'm doing fine.

I'm usually lvl 5 or 6 when I start with bounties I think. I did a lot of playthroughs and a lot of different party compositions are viable. Things like six rogues might be very very tough, but also doable without a lot of consumables. But generally speaking the more per-rest casters you have the easier the bounties are because you can just spam everything you have in quick succession.

For 1:: That's why monks have a much bigger health pool (with the same CON) than fighters or paladins. If you balance it right you will not rest much mroe often than with other frontliners. A little bit more CON does add a lot of health because the base health is already high and CON adds +5% per point.

Maybe you won't. Guns deal less crit damage than other weapons. I think that Firebrand (has Annihilation) with Scion of Flame should result in higher crits. Sure, it lacks the lash and you can't enchant it to legendary, but it comes with damaging III (like superb) and works with Scion of Flame. Plus: +15% from Two Weapon Style and +20% from Reckless Assault. Ok, that's not so much, but it still adds some damage.

Well, some bounties are not so tough, but others can be mean. Especially the Dweller is horrible if your level is too low: no chokepoints, he's a fast runner (so kiting is difficult) and so on. But bounties like Clyde or those guys at the Esternwood Cemetary are quite easy. The WM bounties can be especially tough. It all comes down to buffing yourself and debuffing the enemy. This is where you can see what proper use of your abilities and a good party synergy can do. For all bounties where you can use chokepoints Chillfog and similar spells that debuff and/or do damage periodically are a good way to win. But it's all doable. I usually build the Warden's Lodge as soon as possible and go for the first bounty as soon as possible - because the XP you gain and also the loot is great.