Braven

Well, the "bonus to creature type" ones and "bonus to damage type" could easily be exploited to gain a situational advantage for a specific fight and then changed when the fight is over. The one I really wish could be changed is the +Stat armor bonus. I hate to enchant my armor with +2 and then suddenly find an item that has the same bonus and doesn't stack. Not only does it get suppressed and can't be changed, but now I just lost 4 enchantment points which often means I can't increase the quality later on. As a result, you have to really plan out what items you want to get later on and map it all out in order to optimally enchant. The other thing I really dislike is the fact you can't override a +1 stat with a +2 one - even if it is the same stat. You can with quality, so why not with a stat enchantment? As a result, I never use the +1 stat enchantment, unless there is no enchantment space for the +2 one. It would be also nice to be able to remove an enchantment in order to get the Legendary level. It seems a waste to not enchant just because you might, someday, maybe get it. Maybe only your own enchants, not the unique ones, otherwise players will remove the useless ones that just take up enchantment space and that might unbalance some weapons/armor.

I have played the game quite a lot and have never, ever seen Azzuro. To me, his items don't exist.

Nice job. I haven't seen ACT 3 since they changed the encounters around. Most of the time I re-roll before even getting there. At least Noober will have access to "superb" equipment in Twin Elms. Noober doesn't want to take a holiday break in The White March first? Get some Durgan Steel? Or a soulbound crossbow? I wonder how much of that area could be done with just sneaking around.

On a related note, which is better: Nose or Ears? It makes a whole lot more sense that nose would be better, but who knows. Maybe nose is more risky, but higher payout and ears are more reliable?

Appr. Sneak attack I think is best for "alpha-strikes", aka, starting battle from stealth with a really big gun (or crossbow). Because it is passive (and sneak attack works the first 2 seconds of combat), it is good if you do shoot and run tactics (or just shoot and kill). Other abilities are better benefit-wise, but do take at least a little action time.

I disagree with constant recovery (or veterans) being labeled as worse. Sure, it used to be terrible, but it is great now that it was buffed and now there is a lot of item synergy to make it better, at least if you have high might and intelligence. 50% damage, is really only like 20% later on because of the additive math. On the other hand, being able to stay on your feet twice as long is always 100% more damage (well, maybe more like 70% because of additional DR from attacking more times). Further, because the battle lasted longer, your allies had way more time to deal damage too. Regardless, the relative merits of talents depend a great deal on your stats, class, items, and play style. Without knowing that, it is impossible to say if something is good or bad. Sneak Attack would be better on a low INT character, just because intelligence doesn't help it at all. However, something like outlander's frenzy is much better with a higher intelligence because there is a duration component. It also does +15% more damage (among other things) because of the might buff.

To fit the fire theme, you could try out those gloves from the Knights that creates a (limited duration) greatsword of pure flame. It does 100% fire damage and could synergize with your goal of a fire paladin and works with scion of flame.

My hunch is that Perception and/or DEX serve as modifiers (it would make sense), but we need more data. Someone should try retraining to the extremes 3 PER, 3 DEX and then 18 PER, 18 DEX, and then maybe 3 and 18 of each and see if it impacts win-rate.

Did the chanter have a different stat particularly low? I wonder if DEX could play a role. I love DEX, so I never dump that stat. Or maybe I just got really unlucky/lucky...

Does Perception or DEX benefit playing the knife game in The White March? I could swear that my character does far better with a high perception and wins almost every time. With a low perception (3) character, I almost never won and eventually gave up trying to get the talent. I have only noticed this with the perception stat, but I haven't tried other combinations to test. Also, I usually pick the "nose" instead of "ears", but I am not sure if that actually matters. For dozens (dice game), I haven't seen any connection between stats and winning, but I haven't really tested different combinations. Thoughts? Side Note: This is part of the reason I wanted a decent Perception score for my knife-wielding fighter this time around.

I found the belt of bountiful healing early in The White March. It is great! However, after the Monk bounty quest (and getting spell tongue which greatly extends constant recovery and other buff durations, thus being able to support more health), I am starting to think that CON and RES should actually be a bit higher than 3/4. Not a lot higher, but that extra little bit will help more than it hurts I think. I am also noticing the concentration problem now that I don't have the belt of chimes on. Even though those monks can easily be split-pulled, the point of the character is to run head-long into battle and not do any cowardly acts while still being a DPS fighter. Hopefully Triggered Immunity and human racial will not suffer much... we will see. I think it will still be low enough to work fine. I choose Perception to lower since it does very little for this build. Interrupts don't matter much with knockdown and the fighter still has plenty of accuracy to hit things without any problem, given the long-lasting/never-ending Disciplined Barrage. Sure, slightly less crit damage, but not dying is better. (the other reason I want to retrain is that I picked up Outlander Frenzy too early and am regretting it. With the belt, I have Sanguine back on which does not stack with frenzy. Need scars before getting that.) New Suggested Stats: Str: Max Con: 5-6 Dex: Max Per: leftover stats (~8-10) Int: Max Res: 8 Will see how it goes and determine if it is a little better overall. Con is tricky since ideally I want it to be just low enough to trigger immunity and the human racial, but high enough to not die from high burst damage.

Ciphers, though they seem to have low defenses, are actually quite hardy if you choose the right powers. The first level blindness is basically +20 defense against an enemy. Second level has vampiric shield which provides +25 deflection for a long time. With those, your defenses will be better than a fighter or paladin. However, you are wasting attack time casting the buff. You could go with high resolve and those powers and basically be a tank. Only downsides is that ciphers have a lower endurance pool and also, every stat and talent you place to increase defenses, the less "focus" you will generate while attacking so you might not be able to cast powers as often. Some have created builds around retaliation to solve that problem since that generates focus, but that is very item-dependent. Also not needed for an off-tank cipher. Since you don't even care about off-tanking, the blindness or CC powers and vampiric shield should alone solve the problem.

A solo, or low member party, will have a harder time getting the conditions to trigger sneak attack all the time. You might need to focus more on flanking, or picking powers that cause the needed status ailments. Finally, 15% extra damage is not really As much as it seems. Because of the way damage work, they just add up the percents first, 15% is actually more like 3-5% later in the game once you have weapon enchantments and other % damage increases. Also note that it is better with weapons that have a high base attack. It is 15% before strength or anything else is applied. Faster, low base attack weapons would gain much more from vulnerable attack and should grab that early instead. Finally, there are many things that effectively increase damage without actually saying damage. Like DR bypass, accuracy boosting, lower enemy defenses, and attack speed. Even defensive abilities can be considered to increase damage, long term, because a fallen character cannot swing a sword or cast a spell. I actually think that talent is better later in the game (if ever). Really depends on class and equipment. For example, cipher and ranger have much better talents for quite a long time.

If they don't attack you often(because you are in the back), that shouldn't be a problem. It is pretty common to leave con and resolve lower for pure ranged characters. I agree with focusing on the stats that you did; it is a nice spread. Most cipher power have pretty good range. Also, though rare, there are items that can shore up concentration. I found one pretty early in my play through, but they are random items.

Interesting. I thought it used to be lower. I personally want to try out a high INT monk like that. And get all the powers that can stun and prone.

It is about time the game got a morning star that was not completely worthless. Did anyone ever use a morning star before this expansion?

I think the best combination is Monk (focus on CON and RES) and Cipher (focus on high MIGHT, DEX, and PER) because of 4 powers the cipher has: Amplified Thrust - This actually creates more focus that it costs to cast, does a ton of damage (over 50 per cast), and it is a "fast" cast, so you can spam it very quickly over and over and over again until everything is dead. The only condition is that you have an ally (which you do with the Monk). It is available really early, as a second level power. Intelligence doesn't help this power at all and you can consider keeping that stat low. Defensive Web - Your cipher can gain all of the super high defenses of your Tank monk. Something Knives (can't remember the exact name) - This will turn your monk into a killing machine since it stacks his unarmed fighting bonuses and it also generates more focus for the cipher than it costs to cast so you will never run out of focus once you get this, no matter what powers you want to use. Detonate: This deals something like 400 damage if you have max might. This is your trump card for really hard bosses, like dragons. Really, this combination is completely and totally broken, it is so good. Healing doesn't matter because everything will die so fast before that is an issue. However, it is kind of one-note since it is focused around abusing a couple poorly designed cipher powers that got really good in the latest patch. I see a nerf coming.

Just make sure you save before you try the dozens. I will be very impressed if you pull that off. There are teleporting shades all over the place and the particularly nasty paralyze ghosts. Also, there is a section where you must fight spiders with their insane DR bypass in a very, very small tunnel with absolutely no place to flee or kite since you are right up against a zone loading entrance. In my (not so extreme) solo, I was able to slowly kite the ghosts, one by one. The spiders, I just had to power through the first group with scrolls. The remaining groups can be drawn and picked off one or two at a time. Then the boss... I fought him and it was a really, really hard battle, but maybe there is a conversation way out that will still allow you to complete the quest, I think, but not get the spear. I never tried that option. Edit: There might be a way to just bypass the ghosts all together. I was trying for the spear, but now that I think about it, maybe there was a hallway that allows you to skip past most of them.

Why are you fighting them? That battle is completely avoidable with conversation, I thought. In fact, I don't know how you even trigger a battle there and have tried a few variations of the dialog options. How did you get your invite to the Mob family? I always do it with the quest at the trading building in the docks district where you find the paladin NPC (can't think of the name). That should be an easy fight since you don't actually need to fight at all; you can just sit back and watch the Domenels clean house after you deliver that guy's package and align yourself with the Family. The next quest will then just require you to talk to the thieves and ask them for the letter.

In my opinion, the dozen's quest line is way, way, way harder than the other two. I don't know if it just got harder with the last patch, or was always insane. I had a hard time with a leveled up ranger and had to use a lot of items and a lot of reloads. There are a ton of unavoidable, powerful creatures you have to kill in order to get the Spear and end the final quest. I recommend you pick one of the other two factions. The easiest is the mob family since it requires basically no fighting. You have to fight one slow paladin which you can kite all day (not that you need to - he is weak) and that is it. Also comes with something like 15k in gold. Besides, I can see Noober joining the Mob (they could use him to harass the authorities), but I don't think the dozens would want anything to do with him.

Besides unlocking talents and abilities, leveling up doesn't really do -all- that much to make you more powerful. You get more endurance (doesn't matter if you don't get hit), +3 to defense stats (again, doesn't matter if you don't get hit), and +3 accuracy. It does not increase your standard attack damage output at all. So the only thing you really need to be concerned about is not getting hit and having enough accuracy to hit things. A couple good items (like those bracers and enchanted weapon) and a high initial Perception and accuracy can easily make up for several levels. I think the original game (pre-expansion) was designed to be beaten at around level 10-11 which is only about 30 accuracy you need to make up for, half of that covered with your class pick and stats.

Yeah, it is hard to explain the allure of the computer roleplaying experience if placed under the lens of rationalism, but I think the roleplaying magic is still there in much the same way as it can exist in a fantasy novel, as long as your mind is open to it. I guess we all kind of fill in the missing pieces with our own imaginations and just ignore parts that run counter to our own heroic version, a realm where anything is possible and mundane matters do not persist. As people get older, I guess some of that magic is naturally lost to adult reasoning and cold logic. But we must cling to whatever remains and trap it in a bottle lest it leave forever. The thing I like most about Pillars of Eternity is that it reminds me so much of Baldur's Gate; a game I played and enjoyed very much. Probably a lot of people feel that way, at least who are old enough to have played those games.

Glad you liked it. The post was mostly in jest, but also to poke fun at how we rationalize things. Most people think of resting after each battle as a "cheesy meta game tactic", but it actually makes perfect sense that a fantasy character would do just that. The fact is, in a more realistic fantasy world, there simply wouldn't be nearly as much combat. And why is there a rush to battle through tons of (non threatening) foes anyways? Because you want to collect some minor loot on a long dead corpse? Or perhaps you want to gain "experience" which is also a meta game construct added to reinforce the combat side of the game. Really, you are killing tons of innocent fantasy creatures just for the sake of "practice" so you can get better at -murdering- other people in the future. How awful. The PC doesn't seem to be in any particular rush to actually complete the original main quest anyways, given the expansions and stronghold management duties which are encouraged right in the middle of his quest which will probably take months to complete.

You don't need a talent to get the +12 accuracy. It is just built into the game's mechanics when you hold a one-handed weapon with no shield (to make up for the fact you have no shield or second weapon). Ironically, it is better to just have nothing than an unenchanted shield, if you consider deflection and accuracy to be equally important. And I agree, stick to the ranged weapon. The one-handed weapon was more of a joke suggestion. Nice choice with getting the exceptional weapon. Since you can't enchant your weapon (due to level requirements), you need one that already has the best quality enchants.

What kind of play style do you like best? I think most combinations are equally viable. Being familiar with the game, knowing where everything is at, and knowing the proper tactics to defeat different kinds of enemies are much more important. There is not that much of a difference between the power levels of any given two classes.