Lamppost in Winter

How do the companion bonuses to skill checks in dialogue work - e.g., does every companion contribute, or just the highest score?

Do you mean this? Doesn't have a toggle mode or disable pausing while its active, but it's there. Shift can already queue up actions but it's a bit clunky, would be nice to have a KOTOR-type UI that shows actions queued.

Josh also made a point of Fighters being good at Interrupts, which sounds like they'll be the go-to for harassing casters or anybody about to let off a dangerous ability.

Like I said in the other thread; injuries reducing max health alleviates one of my concerns about the new system, but I still like the granularity of the old one. Empower being able to restore action points sounds good. I may be coming around on the system, though I'm still not entirely convinced.

Injuries also reducing max health alleviates one of my concerns; though I'd still prefer the old system.

Deadfire still looks 95% the same, UI-wise, as Pillars of Eternity, so I am not worried (for now). Nothing against bringing the game to consoles if the original is still made with PCs in mind. I shall, of course, be disappointed if a possible PoE3 breaks from this, but I like to think Obs has more sense than that. I am quite curious to see how they adapted the game to suit consoles.

Can't find the post now, but I believe in the new system, if a character gets three injuries (i.e., gets knocked out three times without resting), they die. Prefer Health/Endurance system for the granularity, so I hope they come back to that.

There's also Strong, Fit and Quick (from Luminous Essence effect - sidenote: I also like how active effects tooltips also show what effect it has rather than just listing the spell name). Frenzy grants Strong and Fit by default (as Josh mentioned earlier this year), but the Beserker Frenzy replaces them with "Tenacious" and "Hardy". The concealed health bar while Frenzied also seems to be a Berserker thing now instead of default. Libertating Exhortation also grants "Steadfast" in addition to suppressing afflictions, which I assume means extra defense against incoming afflictions. I noticed "Concentration" popping up along with "Aware" whenever Eder used Disciplined Barrage. It's not indicated on the DB tooltip so not sure what exactly it is.

Please don't eat St. Ydwen's Redeemer, Eothas.

Wizards always know all their spells now. When you equip a grimoire, you can cast the spells in that grimoire in addition to the ones you already know, but only while you have it equipped, so no learning spells from grimoires anymore.

From the same video: companion subclasses for their base classes are probably going to be fixed, but a class they multiclass into will have free subclass selection.

I loved doing this in Divinity: Original Sin. Distract someone with a companion to talk to them while another sneaks and searches the place.

Josh stated on a Q&A stream that they were experimenting with replacing Health with Injuries, but it's not set in stone yet.

Spell combos, à la Dragon Age: Origins. Makes magic feel more 'alive'.

I'd like to see Paladin Orders be treated in a similar fashion to backgrounds in dialogue. Odd that a class devoted to a particular cause or way of life wouldn't mention their work protecting caravans, or engaging in brutal warfare, etc., when discussing their past.

Disagreed with most of this because I generally like interacting with companions in these sorts of games, but agreed on this part. RPG dialogue tends to be one sided, with the player mainly saying "Tell me about X", or generic options that just continue the companion on whatever topic they were already going on about. Dialogue where the companion initiates and asks the player questions and between each other would be welcome. I believe they're tracking companion reputations with each other and interjections from them will also have more of an impact, which is promising.

They're still experimenting with the system, so we may well just see Health/Endurance again.

You seem to have a reputation among them. The idea of spells being harder to cast, but more powerful, is one I'm on board with. Still not sold on Empower, but we shall see. I'm not sure they're going to be that much more powerful if you don't use the Empower though. I was going off his comment that spells will "take a little longer, but will feel a little more influential".

My board game group are toying with the idea of getting into tabletop role-playing, so the timing is fortuitous. That wading animation looks great, too.

You seem to have a reputation among them. The idea of spells being harder to cast, but more powerful, is one I'm on board with. Still not sold on Empower, but we shall see.

JS said in the stream that Orders and Deities are going to be similar in scope of change to Pillars, and all previous Orders and Deities are supported. No plans for new ones, at this point.

Might as well give it a shot Does Accuracy still target every defense? I liked the absence of mandatory "epic" battles in the main quest of PoE, apart from the final boss, and how the Watcher's importance wasn't due to to their combat prowess. Without spoiling too much, can we expect Deadfire to follow this model? Again, without spoiling too much, can you say if Deadfire will have more varied ways to resolve main quests, and if so, will the characters recognise how the Watcher may prefer to solve problems, whether through combat, diplomacy, stealth, etc.?

They made a point of mentioning the Ghost Heart pet is a spirit, not a beast, and therefore vulnerable to Abjuration, but not Charm Beast. I can't recall any time a druid or paladin cast those spells in PoE, but I hope that means that they may do it more often in this game to try and mitigate the advantage from our summons/pets.

One thing I liked about the PoE critical path was the lack of plot-related fighting. Apart from the final boss, combat in levels was always incidental, and had nothing to do with what you wanted to achieve, so the Watcher's importance was never due to being a combat powerhouse, while all the legendary boss battles were optional side content. I hope this is also the case in PoE II, though that is dampened somewhat by The White March being more action-packed than the vanilla game.

The Fig update refers to Paladin orders and Priest deities as "required subclasses". I just wonder if they're similar to the PoE deities/orders, and have the extra two subclasses, or if they preclude further subclassing but are more varied than PoE.