globalCooldown

Oh. Well, jeez. No wonder I have 200k pand and nowhere to spend it.... Thanks for the info. I'm beginning to think I should just pm you my questions, as obviously you know all the answers! Edit Pfffthaha. Happy to help.

I think they're just automatically converted to dyrwoodan pand (i.e. the base currency you use for everything). They're just money. They're useful because they're money.

Thanks! PCMR for life all the way! Thanks for the explanation, it totally clears up my confusion. Seems like a Chanter has the potential to be a pretty powerful member of your group if you manage them properly. Indeedily do, fellow member of the PC Master Race. I have at least one save file where I have Kana and a PC Chanter stacking their tasty buffs.

Too true. It hasn't happened to me in PoE, but I've gotten myself into some interesting situations by assuming one game works like another.

Back on the topic of Pillars of Eternity's story: it's heavy stuff! Heavy and thought-provoking! It's intelligent, it's fleshed-out, and there are worthwhile themes to take away from it. It will make you get up and pace around the room and really think, and I love it. Let me fangirl alongside your fanboying.

Yyyyyyep. So after you clear the second half of White March, feel free to fling yourself into that Pit as many times as you like.

I find it hilarious that, at the time of writing, everyone's seen enough of the Dyrwood and wants to go elsewhere.

Here's to throwing my two cents in here! I'm pro-romance, so long as it's optional. It has happened where I play a game, and none of my character's potential love interests, well, interest me. *looks pointedly at Carth from KOTOR* My other requirement for romance is that you would have to work for it. Gain that character's trust! Make them want to be around you! If you're too much of a **** to a character, you'll always get shot down when you go for the flirt options. Basically, romance that feels good, feels natural, feels earned. I don't want Obsidian to write me a smutfic, or jam pixels together, or draw me any Witcher-style sex cards. If I want wish-fulfillment romance, I'll write a goddamn fanfic. As for those who'd like to see some sort of mechanical benefit from having a love interest: what if, every couple of rests, you and your LI could slip off for a few minutes to spend time (which may or may not be sexual in nature, probably best left vague) and you both come back with a minor buff, similar to what you get from the courtesans at the Salty Mast? (You'd probably have to pass a skill check to convince them in certain situations, though. I don't think anyone wants to bang in the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.) All this being said, if Obsidian has to make a choice between writing romances and writing more actual plot or character development, I think I could sacrifice romance in exchange for a better all-around game. Finally, a recommendation for OP: if you're looking for a good place to gush about Aloth, consider making the pilgrimage to Tumblr. The majority of the Pillars of Eternity tag simply cannot hold their feels for the NPC companions.

First of all: I approve of your choice of forum avatar. Just wanted to get that out of the way. Now, as for chanters, the big thing about them is that their "chants" happen automatically over the course of the battle. Some are buffs, some are debuffs, some are weird shenanigans. Chanters should focus on maximizing the AoE of their chant coverage, and position themselves so they can buff/debuff the most allies/enemies at a time. But as long as a chanter is, in fact, chanting, they're doing their job. If you select your chanter, you should see a choice of prepared chants, and the ability to Edit Chants, which lets you throw together verses (the buffs/debuffs/shenanigans) in a particular order. In battle, the chanter will then recite those verses (cast the buffs/debuffs/shenanigans) in that order. For added flair, I recommend naming your new chant a name that is indicative of the kinds of verses in that chant, and/or a highly amusing name (I delight in every start of combat, where the log informs me "Kana begins chanting and hip-thrusting vigorously".) Anyway, the second part of Chanters is their invocations. As the Chanter recites verses in their chant (in my example, the "and hip-thrusting vigorously" chant), a little gold counter will be accumulating in the corner of their character portrait. When this number gets high enough, you can use that little number to power the invocations. These can be buffs, debuffs, damaging effects, summons, or other crazy effects. Be aware, a lot of invocations are cone AoEs, so position your Chanter to make the most of that cone! While chanting, Chanters can do other useful stuff like use items or scrolls, or auto-attack to their little pixel-y heart's content.

1. Expand on Stronghold. Make it more useful somehow, or tie it into the plot more. Caed Nua was just kind of...there. 2. We can enchant armor and weapons, so why not capes and hats? I want an enchanted Duelist's Hat! The one with the feather! 3. This may sound weird, but how about being able to participate in party banter on rest? I'm firmly rooted in the "I Love All My Companion NPCs" camp, and would love to have more of a reason to talk to them.

INT should increase the AoE of chants, correct. The AoE is large, but it does have its limits. To maximize it, I like to give my chanters an item with Over...something. Oversee? It's an enchantment that increases AoE. Couple of rings have it, or you could steal Aloth's armor to get it. In more spread-out battles, my chanter Watcher often ends up moving toward the center of the battlefield, to get as many allies and enemies as possible within radius.

I, too, enjoy the baby Sneak Attack. The fighter regen is also a personal favorite. And to everyone who thinks the skeletons suck: yes, but you should be using them for flanking and distractions! Once, I had Kana, chanter Watcher, and another party member with the mini-chanter talent all use their skeletons at once. Eight skeletons, all at once. Every enemy ever was flanked, and wasting time hitting skeletons while my party happily wailed on them. It was glorious.

Question: for a melee wizard, why are you dumping CON? Do you intend to just buff yourself out with gear and spells at the start of combat? Otherwise, you're going to be incredibly squishy for a frontline combatant. Related question: are you prioritizing DEX for action speed? It's useful to get spells off a little more quickly, but heavier armors could basically negate that action speed gain. I think RES is the most commonly used stat for dialogue checks, but don't quote me on that. (I've personally never rolled my main as a Wizard; I'm genuinely curious about your stat array decisions. If I help you think more about what you want to build towards, hey, why not?)

First of all: if you took out the adra dragon for the first time, congratulations! It's a tough boss! As for getting out of the Endless Paths: go up one floor to the tomb level, and check your map. There should be a "master staircase" that, if you go that way instead of just up to the last level, will give you this big ol' map of all the Endless Paths and will let you fast-travel between them, or even back up to Caed Nua.

Why do you need a "safe" container, first of all? If your Stash is getting full up and/or confusing to navigate, you might consider just selling useless items and/or using the Stash's sorting options. (And if you didn't know about the Stash, you should totally check it out. It's cool.) As for .ini or .cfg files, no idea. I don't know where the modding community for this game hangs out.

I personally enjoy having a fighter on-hand as a "fire and forget" tank. Not totally forget, of course, but when a fighter has enemies occupied, it frees me up to more intensely micromanage my other party members. Especially my casters.

Hold the diddly darn phone, THAT'S how you split item stacks? I couldn't figure it out for the life of me!! THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.

*angrily bursts through the wall* Watchful presence was my frickin JAM mid-game my first playthrough! Blizzard is great when you can spam after level 9! WALL OF FORCE CAN BE USED TO BISECT BIG CLUNKY BOSSES THAT DON'T MOVE MUCH AND DO BOATLOADS OF DAMAGE!!! *bursts through another wall to leave, screaming*

You seem to be misunderstanding. If what he is saying is true, then they don't SEEM to outright cheat--they ARE outright cheats. He's claiming they literally have more abilities, stat points, etc. than is actually possible to build. If that's true, then it's not a case of "making a challenging enemy". It's a case of breaking the ruleset to generate overpowered enemies as a cheap and lazy way of creating challenge. On the other hand, this isn't exactly unheard of in IE games. BG's enemy wizards and their five contingencies, NWN 2's beserker boss with Deathless Frenzy (which player barbarians don't get), etc. Huh. Yeah, I can see what you guys are saying. There ARE ways to avoid outright cheating--the easiest being, rename the buffs they're using so "no, no! they totally aren't the same ability! look, the name is different, and they stack with things that the other ability doesn't!" The other thing to note is, I don't think NPCs have the same six-stat array that player characters do. So stats being higher than usual may just be a result of "uh gee what's a good endurance value for this guy? maybe this? yeah this."

Your English actually gives me hope for humanity. Too many Americans who grew up speaking English can't write as well as you! Always interesting to hear someone else's take on the game, too. Thanks for sharing! Few notes: If you feel gimped by being forced into playing Rogue and/or dumping points into Mechanics, you might want to consider passing off trap-disabling duty to one of your other party members. My Chanter PC was a Mechanics whiz, and she still had plenty of points for all the other skills I cared to buy for her. No, you're not going to be able to disable every single trap--sometimes you're going to have to find a way around, or in extreme cases, make your tank deliberately set it off and soak it up while the rest of your party hides around the corner. I would REALLY dig a map of Eora at character-creation when you're picking your background. First playthrough, I was so confused on the backgrounds of races when they kept talking about Dyrwood, Readceras, and the Vailian Republics when those weren't background options and you had no way of reading anything about them, even something as simple as "you're not supposed to know what these are, you are a foreigner to these regions". I never found Aloth annoying in the least, though you're right about the Leaden Key arc not having satisfying consequences or payoff. You at least get -something- if you decide to bring him to the final dungeon, though. I felt Sagani's backstory was very interesting, and helped flesh out the world, especially the culture she comes from. Then again, I am ACTUALLY A GEOGRAPHER IN REAL LIFE, so of course I'm going to be eating up worldbuilding. Aside from that angle, though, her quest was really just kind of depressing. I looked up her various endings after I beat the game for the first time, and it really says something when I like the ending she gets from NOT completing her quest better than some of the endings you get for her when you actually put in the effort! If the ending from not giving a flying f**k is one I like better than the depressing stuff she ended up with in my playthrough, well, that just feels like I wasted my time and effort. Pallegina needs more writing about *her*. I've noticed most of her companion banter is her commenting on other peoples' issues. I really enjoyed Hiravias, though it should be noted that my standards of humor are bizarre and often immature.

Ditto what basically everyone else is saying, and probably will continue to say. Craigholdt is endgame material. They may be powerful enemies that seem to outright cheat, but you have the advantage of equipment and tactics. I don't really play on as high difficulties as many people on the forums, but at level 12 I made it all the way to the final boss (whom I've affectionately nicknamed "Wizard Senpai," given Aloth's reaction when you receive the quest). I would often have multiple party members dropping each encounter, and in the mercenary camp outside, those guys have no complaints about walking into your fight and aggroing on you! It's a fun little dungeon, but not for the faint of heart!

Well, thanks for all the ideas to play with! I really think I'm leaning toward a Ranger PC (Kind Wayfarer pally's heal on kill sounds nice, but I'm supposed to be -avoiding- combat). Definitely keeping around Pallegina for buffs, Sagani for Itumaak, and Grieving Mother for CC. Once I get some money to my name, I *may* look into buying a fridge to stuff a steady stream of wizards into (link goes to tvtropes).

IMHO, Devil's a bit of a loose cannon and doesn't quite gel with my goody goody two shoes chanter. I'm sure she'll get along great with my former pirate barbarian, though! Besides, she's sassy, and her name could theoretically be shortened to DoC, for all your Looney Toons reference needs. Mechanically, my only complaint is having to enchant her armor myself. I mean, it totally makes sense in-universe, but I kind of wish I could use one of the many Unique armor sets I've accumulated over my 100% completionist frenzy to give her something other than the standard "Exceptional + Stat Boost + DR" package. Zahua, well, go figure that his quest is in the second half of the expansion. :| I am enjoying having a monk on the team, at least, and he DOES give out occasional backstory cookies if you keep him around through the White March. In the meantime, I'll amuse myself with all the stoner jokes I can muster. Give this man some Mountain Dew and Doritos!

I, too, am amazed that this can happen. Then again, I prioritized Security over basically everything else....