BelgarathMTH

One hint I haven't seen mentioned - you need to give Eder and any frontliners the feats that allow them to engage extra enemies. It makes a huge difference in keeping mobs of enemies from going around your tanks and attacking your back line.

So, I get some interesting takeaways from all these responses. I think my favorite is the one comparing soul energy in PoE to "the Force" in Star Wars, as in "Life creates it. It surrounds us and binds us together," as Yoda says. It's the priest's faith in the ideals represented by her god (light, redemption) rather than the god itself (the construct Eothas) that allows her to tap into soul energy and cast magical priest spells. It's the paladin's devotion to the ideals of a cause or principle (kindness and benevolence, making money, ruthlessness) rather than a god that gives her the ability to tap into soul energy to generate auras, heal, and light her weapon with magical fire. So the focus for the powers comes from the idea of a god, not from the being passing itself off as the god. Again, I'm reminded of the Goa'uld from Stargate the more I learn about the "gods" of PoE.

So, it's become obvious to me after reading a bunch of stuff online and only playing the game up to the beginning of Act III, as well as reading about the beginning of PoE 2, that the "gods" of this setting are completely fake. I'm not seeing the "Engwithans" and certainly not "animancy" as being anything I want to have anything to do with "my" Eora. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, the Engwithans are the "Goa'uld" of this setting, and the "gods" are something resembling the Cylons from the newer version of "Battlestar Galactica". So, my question in light of all of this is, where does magic come from in this setting? The whole setting seems to have a heavy sci-fi tone. But you really can't have it both ways coherently, between sci-fi and high magical fantasy. Most especially, where do priest spells come from? I think Obsidian maybe, or maybe not, was trying to make a sci-fi themed point about theism with the meta story, but I think the whole thing may be kind of an epic fail with regards to D&D style fantasy games. What is going on with mages, chanters, ciphers, and most especially priests in the setting? Go ahead and spoil me to your heart's content, because if this whole setting is as inconsistent and as poorly imagined as I'm worried it might be, I am not sure at all at this point if I'll be buying PoE 2, or maybe not even finishing PoE 1.

I felt the same way as this about the Caed Nua keep in PoE 1. I've recently started a run as a Kind Wayfarer where I'm roleplaying that I have no interest in owning a keep, instead preferring to wander and explore the land trying to find out why I'm having visions of dead people and helping as many people as I can with their problems along the way. When the Doemenals recently attacked my keep, I said to myself "Great, they can have it! Maybe it'll keep them busy and out of my hair. Let *them* deal with all the monsters coming up from the basement." I haven't bought or played PoE2 yet (I'm waiting for them to stabilize it a bit more), but I would expect something similar with the ship situation. From what I'm hearing, I'll need it to get around, and I'll have to do the bare minimum to keep the crew happy enough to keep providing transportation, but I'm not hearing that I'll actually be *forced* to do too much with it. At least I hope that's the case, as I expect to be about as disinterested in the ship adventures as I am with the keep. At least with PoE 1, I've gotten the impression that Obsidian designs way more content into their games than is meant to be played in one run with one character. I think maybe they expect you to choose to do some things to the exclusion of other things. But I also understand how that can be a sticking point to completionist players who become stressed if they feel like they're skipping or missing out on content.

@dreamrider, Thank you very much. That is all very helpful information.

Yes, it is that Yenfield Field battle that left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn't know the name of it. It seemed to me like a real time strategy fight more than an isometric CRPG Baldur's Gate style fight. Or maybe it was sort of like a complicated puzzle - figuring out which units to send in at which times, against which other enemy units, in which sequence, to avoid disaster. I just didn't enjoy it. I think this time I want to see the main storyline through to its conclusion without all the distractions, or else I'm never going to beat the base game, much less see either of the two expansions. I've been enjoying the early game very much so far.

I have a big problem with the food mechanic from a roleplaying perspective. "Hey, it looks like there's terrible danger around this next corner - let's gobble down a piece of pie and and a chicken leg each before we proceed." Magic potions I get. Eating a snack or a meal before each encounter on an adventure, I don't get at all. I think that's just kind of silly.

Hi, this is pretty much what the thread title says. The last time I tried to get into PoE, I got bogged down in the whole Caed Nua stronghold storyline. Not the deep dungeon diving underneath it, but just the keep maintenance storyline itself. It seemed like every time I got to a new map or spent one or two game days trying to do the main storyline, I got some "urgent" message from the keep that I should go back there "immediately." I wound up in some kind of crazy tactical strategy battle that was very hard, that I couldn't win at the level I was, and that frankly, I wasn't all that interested in winning. I wound up getting disconnected from the main storyline, and eventually losing interest in Pillars of Eternity completely. So, I'm currently trying to give it another chance. My question, bottom line, is, can I completely ignore the Caed Nua stronghold after completing the early storyline quests that send me there, without ruining the game? Can I refuse "ownership" of it altogether, or at least ignore it after picking up the chanter and doing the early Watcher quest that forces me to go there?

I'm a noob to PoE, and my only experience with rangers is Sagani. I've found her wolf companion to be a very valuable contributor to my frontline melee team including Eder, Durance (built for sword and board), and my watcher paladin. She has a lot of talents to make her companion even stronger, and also to synergize the wolf with Aloth's and Durance's DoT spells. In an earlier saved game, now abandoned, I had given Sagani talents to improve her load speed and damage with an arbalest or arquebus, and I was underwhelmed with her, because of the long reload times, even with abilities chosen to speed it up. In my current game, I built her for her wolf companion to be her main contribution to the party, and that wolf has been extremely useful to our overall party damage output. So, I think maybe the developers had in mind more that the animal companion would be what would make the ranger class appealing, more so than the slight bonuses to ranged weapon fighting. It also needs to be there for roleplaying purposes, as the ranger class is a traditional staple of rpg's, and many players would be disappointed if they couldn't play one. All the above is merely my opinion, based on having barely started playing the game. I've put in 55 hours, but I've started over several times, and have mostly been in Act I and in the Endless Paths.

I'm sorry if this has been mentioned, but this patch apparently does not fix the bug with the priests' Withdraw spell. It still does not heal endurance as the spell description says. I kind of wish this would get fixed, as Withdraw should be one of the priests' most powerful spells.