Boeroer

I never spend more than 4 athletics on anyone - frontliner or not. I seldomly trigger traps and only one time on the Endless Paths a trap knocked out a character. But I never run long distances. It's mostly stop and go for me (4 or 5 meter steps) if the area is still unexplored. That's because I don't trust the autopause feature when you neet enemies - although it never failed.

Yes - or fortitude if you have Brute Force.

Durance: Inspiring Radiance then Repulsing Seal on Maerwald. Aloth: Slicken, Chill Fog, Slicken. Eder in heavy armor. All besides Aloth (who casts Slicken, remember) and Durance (Radiance and Seal) start the fight with an alpha strike from a heavy hitting gun/arbalest that targets Maerwald. Rogue uses blinding or crippling strike for this. After the seal, Durance casts Iconic Projection through friends and foes. Maerwald should be dead by now. If not, he's prone. Eder goes melee with a shield, trying to tank them all. Rogue switches to faster weapon. Durance shoots his heavy hitter. If Maerwald isn't dead by now, your game is broken somehow. Funny though: I never ever had problems with him. Because I read lots of horror stories about him I always shoot him right in the face at the beginning of the fight and he's always exploding. I think you just have to interrupt him - or be quicker than his spells.

You were right: I just did a quick test with an old savegame in Sun in Shadows. I switched from Little Saviour to Old Gerun's Wall during fight. Sacred Immolation's ACC wit Little Saviour (-0 ACC): ACC 67. With Old Gerun's Wall (-8 ACC): ACC 59. So your best choice for shields (if you want to use Sacred Immolation) would be Little Saviour or a fully upgraded Outworn Buckler since you won't have any ACC malus and still have very high deflection while buffing your buddies. Nice - I learned something new today. Now back to my 6 rogues party...

Argh! So sorry - you're obviously right. So maybe I will just load the old save and switch the the Saviour for Old Gerun's Wall or something - then we know for sure.

So: I know for sure that monk's Swift Strikes and Fenzy don't stack - one supresses the other and it's visible when you open the char sheet during combat. That's because they are two similar buffs from the same source pool (here: abilities). BUT: normally all weapon enchantments stack with bonuses from other sources, since weapons are a different pool. E.g. Spelltongue's speed bonus applies when you're frenzied and so should other speed enchantments. So basically my opinion is: yes, weapon speed enchantments stack with frenzy.

Really? I had Little Saviour when I started to use Immolation and I can't say it did influence the spell ACC. But on the other hand: 2.01 was so bugged...

Right - that's a very important point. Boots of Speed + high stealth = guaranteed backstab. And you can run away afterwards. It also helps a lot when you try to steal things right in front of npcs.

I think the damage output with twin arrows and driving flight might be better. Does wounding shot work in melee? Because Runner's Wounding Shot does not.

Yupp - it's like a dice roll. Graze/hit/crit don't influence that roll since they're modifying the damage anyway.

Yes - go to stalwart first and see if you can win the first encounters there without too much hassle. But I think lvl 9 is OK. Cräghold is superhard at lvl 9. You would have to pull every enemy on its own to fight him 6 vs. one to stand a chance.

If you do White March and Crägholt before returning to the hearings you will most likely be lvl 13. Act III will be a joke for you - including the Master Below and Thaos. I did it this way because you get some nice equipment with the expansion and I wanted to have it as soon as possible to complete my " built ideas". You also get durgan steel which will boost your weapoms and armor even further. So if you want to lvl quickly before going to act III, go to stalwart first and do some quests. If it gets too hard you can always return later.

With cloak of the Master Mystic Backstab becomes quite OK.

Don't be sad - soulbound weapons are not the best anyway. You can't enchant thema and that's a big big disadvantage. If you do White March you can enchant weapons with Durgan Steel which costs no volume points and is superpowerful. Tall Grass is already one of the best weapons in the game - especially for rogues and barbarians - and the durgan enchantment adds even more awesomeness.

With cipher you are right. It may be an OK weapon for a melee cipher - or for a wizard until lvl 9 who wants to go melee with the parasitic staff but doesn't want to Rest too often. It's not that this staff itself is bad (that you get it so early is actually good) - but the weapon group itself lacks a real winner like Tall Grass and so on. The real gold ones have two special enchants that you can't put in yourself and that are very powerful. Great Swords for example have two real stars (H. of St. Rumb. and Tidefall).

Works. Everything with spell binding that is not a weapon works. Forgemaster gloves also work. You can summon Firebrand for your two duplicates that way - but maybe that their fist are better. Spell binding I don't know. Gold question. I also had that robe that casts Mirrored Image when you get critted and never saw that in the duplicates. Things like Ryona's Vembraces (3 DR bypass to every form of attack) also work.

I also think that the ranger is a better ranged damage dealer than the rogue at the moment. But if somebody says that his rogue is not working than I would say somebody doesn't know how to use him properly. That's not a problem though. He/she will find out.

You're doing it wrong! In fights with dragons use Tactical Meld (+20 ACC) BEFORE combat - so it's for free - then at the beginning of the combat cast borrowed instinct (+20 ACC) for a total of +40 ACC. Then turn on penetrating shot and use a pistol/arquebus/arbalest or a blunderbuss with the carow golan drug. If you can't generate focus with that then I can't help you. I like arbalests a lot but it doesn't really matter. Just make sure it has some punch because of the dragon's high DR.

Yeah - I know all weapons. But still: quarterstaffs are a little meh because there's no real Superstar among them. There are several other weapons with speed - like Danyula (spear), March Steel dagger, Hold Wall (arbalest), Rain of Godagh Field (war bow) and so on. So it's not that special. I think quarterstaffs lack the equivalent of Tall Grass or Tidefall or Blade of the Endless Paths etc. And don't dare to say "Wendwalker"...

If your rogue isn't at the top of the damage list and has less than 50/50 hit/crit ratio you're doing something utterly wrong. I'm running a 6 rogue party at the moment (just for the fun of it) and I have to say that it's way easier than I thought - because enemies die so quickly that the lack of CC abilities at the beginning doesn't matter. Later on I will use crit related CC weapons like Tall Grass and so on with every char. Then it will go supereasy. I also have two rogue tanks... and even that works! Just killed Readric and cleared the castle completely with lvl 4 (main) and 3 (rest of the party).

Really? That's funny - in all my playthroughs (= a lot) it was the guy in the tavern in Twin Elms. Until now I didn't even know there are other ways to get that quest. I really would like to know what triggers these things.

Same with some abilities from items, for ex. Blood Testament and Ryona's Vembraces. You put it on but the effect will not show on your char sheet. Put it off and on again and it's working.

Also works on dragons. Must be a bug... I hope...

Nono... your stealth level only influences how quickly you will be detected. The radius at which detection starts will be the same for everybody - but this little circle around you will turn red (=detected) immediately when you have no stealth points and it will take forever to become red when you have 12 stealt points. But you have to use the scouting mode. Without scouting no stealth. If you then take the backstab skill and scout towards your enemy and hit him before the circle turn red it's a backstab-attack that does +100% damage. If you don't have that talent it will be just a sneak-attack (+50%). That also works in the first two seconds oft combat if youre not stealthed. And of course you have to be a rogue...

Maybe. He's standing south of that hot stone in the center and is muttering something when you get near. You have to talk to him. There will be no scripted cutscene or the like.