Lamppost in Winter

buddy have i got good news for you Everything in Deadfire is per-encounter except item spellbinds and Empower, a universal per-rest resource that supercharges your abilities or restores per-encounter resources.

I'm hoping this just means they finally implemented Power Level scaling for Sneak Attack and other passives.

Yes.

Is it possible they've finally fixed Sneak Attack so it scales with Power Level?

One of Wael's extra spells is Gaze of the Adragan, which I believe Blinded characters can't use, so you might want to change that as well for release. Cool stuff, though.

This is an observed and documented behaviour that People Will Do That. They will actually feel bad about doing it but they will also feel bad about knowing a way to do something that is better and not doing it. You can sit there and shout "just don't do it" all you want but that doesn't change anything on a population numbers level. Human nature is human nature and you can't argue people out of it. If as a developer you know about degenerate game mechanics and you know about this behavioural trait that people have what are you going to do. Change it. Changing it is the only reasonable option. Good video on this topic:

I think you misread my post; I was asking if there was much point in choosing a Rogue, Ranger or Barb without a subclass over a Assassin, Sharpshooter or Berserker if you played those classes more or less "traditionally". To me those three subclasses strike me as "the base class, but better", and the drawbacks don't do much to make the base class more attractive.

If you play, say, a Rogue, Ranger or Barbarian "traditionally" (i.e., sneaky stabby Rogue, ranged + pet Ranger and Frenzy DPS Barb), is there much reason not to choose Assassin, Sharpshooter or Berserker over the base class, RP aside?

Something like the way DLC worked in Dragon Age: Inquisition would work for me; where DLC areas (excluding Trespasser) could be tackled freely during or after the main campaign. That would probably require a playable endgame of course, and no info on whether Deadfire has one.

Just checked this with Wily Step + Unstoppable, doesn't stack.

On more Obsidian employee twitter related stuff, I've been enjoying Lindsey Laney's sassy gamedev tweets

Effects that scale with non-combat skills are pretty cool. One nitpick I got from the stream was that you could just pick up generic "Legendary" items, which seems...contradictory. I feel like that epithet should only apply to uniques.

I believe in the stream Josh said they have a bit "here and there" but nowhere near as much as a full companion.

From latest stream: you'll be able to immediately choose to rush to board the enemy ship in ship duels instead of doing it manually. You'll still take damage and crew injuries.

From latest stream: you'll be able to immediately choose to rush to board the enemy ship in ship duels instead of doing it manually. You'll still take damage and crew injuries.

Some people I talk to about games and RPGs are under the impression cRPG means "classic RPG". Arguably a more useful definition, at least for us, since we and probably most people assume you mean video games when you say "RPG".

You don't have to have any ability hotkeyed. When cheats are enabled, Q, K and a couple of other keys I can't remember will trigger instant damage (25% of target health for Q, instant kill for K) on the moused over target. Problematic for me since Q is my favoured hotkey. Nice for clearing encounters quickly, but I think targets killed this way don't net bestiary XP unless you do the killing blow with regular attacks/abilities.

Pedals of Eternity

The game is being heavily plugged on Critical Role as well. I kind of hope they do a promotional one-shot like they did for Shadow of War, that was a lot of fun.

That's from POE1 obviously, they may have changed it, don't think so though Deadfire Sneak Attack triggers on any Affliction (or Flanked).

Is there an archive of the stream somewhere?

I find the in-game character models as portraits somewhat sterile compared to something drawn. I do have friends who resent not being able to have their exact character's face shown in the UI unless they draw it themselves or commission a portrait, but it's not like even the Deadfire CC is robust enough to really have a huge variety of faces anyway.

They're probably going to be playing assorted roles but a Vox Machina-based pirate crew all voiced by them would tickle me.

Also drink anytime he says "cool"

I like both the incoming Crit>Hit or Hit>Graze conversion or Recovery reduction for Swift. If it came down to it I'd choose Recovery reduction for Swift and maybe give the Crit>Hit>Graze conversion to the Corageous (the tier 3 immunity to Interrupt bonus is of questionable usefulness and it would be nice to have a nice defensive buff for Resolve).