Loren Tyr

So the big question now is: what animal companion familiar is most appropriate for the ranger-mage? I'm slightly leaning towards Antilope myself, just feels like a good fit somehow.

Then 'maybe' being intellectually lazy about theism doesn't automatically mean being intellectually lazy overall. 'Maybe' people disregard theism as unworthy of speding their intellectual resourses on, and concider that world would be better if everybody stopped thinking too much about 'gods' and started thinking about things they can actually analyse, study and change. His statement does have some merit though, I think... I mean, can you imagine the effort it takes to make yourself believe the antiquated nonsense spoon-fed to you by your local pope/rabbi/imam/charismatic cult leader/musty old tome? Must be exhausting! Though I prefer ignosticism to atheism, myself.

Stunning Shots works only on weapons, unfortunately.

Stalker's Link works with scrolls as well by the way, just tested it. Didn't do Stalker's Torc, but looking at the prefab files that gives a generic +20% damage bonus so that should apply to anything, including scrolls. I think it works with AOE effects as well (it does for the Concussive Missile AOE, anyway), though of course it will be mostyly useful for the single target stuff. And Marked Prey will work as well, of course.

True, it does suffer from the rather steep default bounce damage multiplier (-50%). I can also now confirm that it doesn't do anything for Bounding Missiles. But even with the penalty, the Driving Flight does serve as a reasonable damage bonus. I mean, get some Concussive Missiles bouncing around in a cluster of enemies, it'll still pack a punch. And there is something deeply satisfying about seeing a Penetrating Shot-ed, Vicious Aim-ed, Driving Flight-ed Barrage of Missiles pouring into a pack of enemies. So it does make for a fun little build I think. Go Driving Flight, Vicious Aim, Penetrating Shot, some Prestidigitator's Missiles for added flavour. The main thing'll be the Ranger's natural accuracy plus Vicious Aim +10 and Penetrating Shot DR reduction, Driving Flight is just an added perk (and more importantly, it looks cool!). Edit: And keep in mind that the high accuracy, including the +10 from Vicious Aim, is going to net you some very nice Crackling Bolts and Fireballs and what have you as well. And as I've also just discovered, you get bouncing Twin Stones if you have Driving Flight . The direction the new stones go in seems a bit random though (and it doesn't appear to have the Pierce damage component when bouncing). But still, having twice as many stones flying about: good times!

I've investigated, the results for Vicious Aim + scrolls are somewhat mixed. The reason for this is that the three status effects have different criteria, as follows: - Rate of Fire penalty: is AttackRanged? - Accuracy bonus: is AttackRanged or AttackBeam? - Damage Bonus: is AttackRanged and autoattack? (note: attack abilities, at least Wounding Shot, still qualifiies for this) For comparison, Penetrating Shot has: - RangedAttackSpeed penalty: is AttackRanged and weapon attack? - DR reduction: when resolving non-AOE attack roll, is AttackRanged? Now, AttackAOE inherits from AttackRanged, so most AOE spells count as AttackRanged as well; so does stuff like Rolling Flame. I've also tested a bit to confirm with five different scrolls: Minor Missiles, Fan of Flames, Rolling Flame, Burst of Summer Flame and Ray of Fire. All of them qualify for the Accuracy bonus. All except the Ray of Fire qualify for the speed penalty as well, however. None of the scrolls get the damage bonus, as the above already suggests. So on the whole, it's effectively a +ACC for -Speed trade-off. It's still +10 ACC though, so still potentially worth it. Quite by accident however, I stumbled on another nice perk for the Ranger-Scrollmage build: Minor Missiles works with Driving Flight. It seems to vary a bit how many of the Missiles actually bounce to another target, but it happens quite consistently for at least one, often two. Works with Stag Horn, Concussive Missiles and Missile Barrage as well (now *that's* a Barrage). I don't think it does anything for Bounding Missiles since it already bounces, doesn't seem to increase the bounce count, but it's kinda hard to tell for sure. Finally, something I never actually noticed before: Minoletta's Missiles scroll has a higher base damage (14-26) than the Mage version (12-21). Not sure why, probably they changed it at some point and forgot to change the scroll. For Concussive and Bounding Missiles, damage is the same though.

Yes, well aware; I'm one of those people, as should be obvious by now. That science depends on mathematics, statistics and philosophy does not make those disciplines themselves a science. And since the demands of empirical study are entirely different from those of studying formal systems, concepts or metaphysics (though metaphysics is bunk, of course), so it makes little sense to put them in the same category. There isn't anything that clearly unifies them. The "scientific method" (insofar as it is well-defined at all) is something particular to (empirical) science; mathematics, statistics or philosophy don't work on the same principle. Though the particulars tend to be rather differ between different branches of science, moving from natural science to social science to the humanities, raising the question of how unified an enterprise science as a whole really is.

It's hardly that clear-cut, it rather depends on how you define science. Philosophy certainly isn't an empirical enterprise and does not study, or generate knowledge of, the world around us. At the very least that puts it in a very different category than the (other) branches of science. Excepting perhaps the so-called 'formal sciences' like mathematics, but for the same reason I would not consider those branches of science either. They're just very different things, and there is no clear unifying reason to lump them in together. It's also a bit of a stretch to say the (empirical) sciences branched out from philosophy. There didn't used to be a very clear distinction between the two activities, they rather bled together and were generally engaged in by the same people. It seems more accurate to say that they branched off from each other, developing and evolving into the forms they have now. Philosophy has undergone quite an evolution of its own, as an activity it is vastly removed from the likes of Descartes and Kant, let alone the ancient Greeks. The Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition at any rate, who knows what the Continentals are ever on about (and let us not deign to speak of Eastern "philosophy"). Philosophy is mostly theoretical science, where people study things by theoretical research methods, although there is also empiric research methods (Aristotle, Greek philosopher was big advocate of empiric research and it is seen as his legacy that empiric research focused branches of science were born). But of course we also have theoretical physics and similar branches in empiric research focuses on sciences that focus mostly in theoretical research. And I would argue that to the extent that his work was empirical, it wasn't philosophy. Just because he is chiefly known as a philosopher, doesn't mean that everything he did constitutes philosophy. And again, there is generally a vast difference between what scientists do and what philosophers (and in the same vein, mathematicians) do. These operate on rather distinct principles, those of science being fundamentally empirical and those of philosophy and mathematics decidedly not. The boundaries between them aren't necessarily always clear-cut, but that in itself is no reason to conflate the different disciplines (the distinctions between different branches of science, or different branches of philosophy, are far murkier, but meaningful nonetheless). Even the more theoretical parts of physics are still aimed at modeling, understanding, predicting the physical world; it may be more distant from the empirical data than other branches of physics, but it is still grounded in it nonetheless. Philosophy and mathematics on the other hand, are not.

I took a peek at the code this morning, going by that I think the speed penalty and accuracy bonus do apply, but the damage bonus doesn't (there was a check on whether it was an auto-attack there). Will look in more detail tonight.

I'm not sure what you're basing this on, to be honest. How does the system not allow for a well-rounded protagonist? Like Boeroer said, a couple of attribute points more or less generally isn't going to make that much of a difference; you don't need to min-max everything to have a viable character. Put 13 in everything, and you're still fine. Unless by 'well-rounded' you mean "able to unlock every dialogue option / good at every aspect of combat" of course. But that would be easily fixed by getting a correct definition of 'well-rounded'. Anyway, in the 'Difficulty' menu you can turn on the option to show the prerequisites of locked dialogue options, so for the most part it is easy to see what stats you need to boost for a given conversation. Mostly they're not *that* high, up to 16 for a stat or a couple of points in a specific skill (though there are definitely exceptions that require more), which should be accesible by putting a point or 4 in every skill and bumping stats with food/drugs/items as needed. I'd say that's hardly more of a pain in the ass than repeatedly running through conversations to see all the dialogue options in the first place, really. Dialogue options based on race/background/culture/class/dispositions are of course a different matter, you can't unlock those (except dispositions, but that requires the Console).

It's hardly that clear-cut, it rather depends on how you define science. Philosophy certainly isn't an empirical enterprise and does not study, or generate knowledge of, the world around us. At the very least that puts it in a very different category than the (other) branches of science. Excepting perhaps the so-called 'formal sciences' like mathematics, but for the same reason I would not consider those branches of science either. They're just very different things, and there is no clear unifying reason to lump them in together. It's also a bit of a stretch to say the (empirical) sciences branched out from philosophy. There didn't used to be a very clear distinction between the two activities, they rather bled together and were generally engaged in by the same people. It seems more accurate to say that they branched off from each other, developing and evolving into the forms they have now. Philosophy has undergone quite an evolution of its own, as an activity it is vastly removed from the likes of Descartes and Kant, let alone the ancient Greeks. The Anglo-Saxon philosophical tradition at any rate, who knows what the Continentals are ever on about (and let us not deign to speak of Eastern "philosophy").

You should check your psychology, social psychology, behavioral science and philosophy books for example, before you make such claims. While the whole "it's all subjective" line is taking it rather too far in the other direction, he is correct in saying that science does not do morality. Philosophy does, but that's not really a branch of science as such. Even if it was, as (almost) any philosopher would be happy to point out, there is a big divide between the descriptive (which science principally concerns itself with) and the normative (the domain of ethics, aesthetics, etc.) that cannot really be bridged; you can't prove an 'ought' from an 'is'. Which isn't to say that the normative is all just subjective and mere opinion (in the pejorative sense), nor even that it cannot be objective in a more fundamental sense; the latter is not a view I would subscribe to, but it's been argued by plenty of influential philosophers (though not so many now, I'd say). But conversely the objectivity of the descriptive, of 'the truth' is rather problematic as well, so in practice it seems more sensible to put the whole subjective vs objective dichotomy aside anyway, and focus on reasoned argument instead.

No, critical +X% damage is additive with all other +X% damage. So for Firebrand that's +90% (or +110%, with Scion), +100%. Firebrand has Annihilation, it gets a bigger crit. Hence, 20 - 30 * 2.9 = 58 - 87. And stuff like the Doemenel talent or the helmet just adds another +X% on top of that.

Yeah, it doesn't show. Does apply though. I just did a quick test, attacking with Firebrand (+45%) with 2H Style (+15%), 15 Might (+15%) and WS Soldier (+15%) for a base total bonus of +90%. This would yield a range of 38 - 57 on hit (28 - 42 on graze, 58 - 87 on crit). Adding in Scion shifts this to 42 - 63 (32 - 48 on graze, 62 - 93 on crit). In a series of 10 hits 3 grazes I subsequently got hits of 57.8 and 60.8 and grazes of 47.5 and 46; this would only be possible if Scion did apply (conversely there were no damage values outside the Scion ranges). Removing Scion and continuing for a couple more attacks, I also got hits of 38 and 40.6 and a graze of 29 (and no damage values outside the "no Scion" ranges). And indeed, the BonusDamagePerType values are also referenced (through a chain of other functions) in the function that handles attack hits, so this will apply generally to all magic weapons and such. As an aside, it is also referenced in the function that applies damage directly to characters, which is used for stuff like Lashes that don't roll to hit. Which, come to think of it, also explains why DOTs don't get the bonus, those run through yet another function. As an aside to the aside, by the way: although the elemental talents work with Stormcaller and Bittercut, they won't work with for example with Durance's Staff and Minoletta's Minor Missiles. The damage amount is calculated for the primary damage type, for the "double damage type" attacks the choice to use the secondary damage type instead is made later. Staff and Missiles have Crush as primary, so would only be boosted by a Crushing boost. Though conversely, Stormcaller and Bittercut get their +20% even if they don't end up doing Shock/Corrode damage.

I have already timed it- I found similar results, but the reload animation in particular did not change. Then you should time it again, because it does. Timing 5 consecutive Arquebus attacks I get an average duration per attack of 10.7 for DEX=10, 8.3 for DEX=20 and 6.9 for DEX=30. Assuming an idle time of 0.2s (thus yielding 10.5, 8.1 and 6.7), this fits very neatly into the duration you would expect if DEX scaled everything: 10.5/1.3 = 8.1s, 10.5/1.6 = 6.6s. If only attack and recovery scaled with DEX, it would be virtually impossible to get anywhere near 6.9 seconds, the attack + recovery would have to be reduced to almost 0 for that to happen. But more definitive still is the source code. In the AI.Achievement.ReloadWeapon.OnEnter() function that is called when reloading is initialized (or continued after interruption), we have the following bit of code: float num = 1f; if (this.m_firearm != null) { num = this.m_firearm.CalculateAttackSpeed(); } this.m_speedMultiplier = component.ReloadSpeedMultiplier * num; The ReloadSpeedMultiplier reflects stuff like Gunner. The CalculateAttackSpeed() function grabs the Dexterity attack speed multiplier (as well as any speed-affecting AbilityMods if the attack is part of an ability being used, not sure this is ever used in practice). Dexterity and Reload Speed bonuses are thus multiplicatively combined in this speedMultiplier. In the same function the reloadTime is set to however much time was previously spent reloading (if any). In the AI.Achievement.ReloadWeapon.Update() function we have: this.m_reloadTime += Time.deltaTime * this.m_speedMultiplier; The reloadTime is thus increased by the actual time elapsed (deltaTime), multiplied by the Dexterity and Reload-specific speed bonuses. The reloadTime is subsequently checked against the intended reload duration for the weapon (there's a bit of wiggle there, related to the animation process). So yes, reloading definitely scales with Dexterity as well.

What thread did you read that in? Don't know what the problem with it would be, Faith and Conviction on the MC can give a bigger bonus than on NPCs. Base is +4 Deflection, +8 for other defenses in both cases. For NPCs it increases with +2 per 5 levels, so it tops out at +7 / +14. For the MC it scales depending on the sum of ranks of the two favoured minus the sum of ranks of disfavoured dispositions (capped at 3!). So this sum S ranges from -6 to 6, giving a multiplier M = 1+S/5, and the bonuses are +4 * M / +8 * M (rounded down!). So for positive S the bonuses are: S=1: +4/+9 S=2: +5/+11 S=3: +6/+12 S=4: +7/+14 S=5: +8/+16 S=6: +8/+17 So at a combined favoured disposition rank of 4 (again, actual individual rank of 4 counts as 3 here) you get the same bonus as a level 15 NPC paladin, and you can get an extra +1 / +3 if you get both your favoured dispositions to at least 3. Obviously for the MC you do need to avoid the disfavoured dispositions, but that isn't prohibitively difficult (especially if you turn on the "show disposition in dialogue" option). And it adds a nice extra incentive to RP properly and stick to the approach of things your order of paladin or priest is supposed to have. Anyway, nothing wrong with Faith and Conviction, and making an MC paladin is certainly not a waste.

Like I said, dexterity speeds up everything (except idle). This includes reloading as well. Time it yourself if you don't believe me (or check the source code). Take, for example, an Arquebus attack cycle. With no attack speed bonuses/penalties and dexterity at 10, this will have an idle time of about 0.2s, 1.5s attack animation, 2.5s recovery, and about 6.4-6.8s reload time for a total duration of around 10.8s. Set dexterity to 20 (30% speed-up), and the duration drops to about 10.6/1.3 + 0.2 = 8.4s. If it did not reduce the reload time, that would be considerably higher, at about 4/1.3 + 6.6 + 0.2 = 9.9s.

I'd say Swift and Vicious Aim are certainly good options for guns as well (possibly in combination with Penetrating Shot, depending in setup), Powder Burns is hardly an automatic pick in my view. Twinned Arrows when using bows is much harder to argue with though (although I still wouldn't auto-pick that either).

To be honest, in that case my suggestion would be: play a different game. You can play around with the AI and such, but at the end of the day tactical party-based combat is an integral part of this (type of) game. There's really no getting around that (the possibility of soloing notwithstanding). You're not playing just your self-created protagonist, you're playing the rest of the party as well; that has nothing to do with holding your comrade's arms to swing his sword. Hence also the top down, isometric perspective; you're not looking at the world from the (1st or 3rd person) perspective of the character you created, because in a relevant sense you're more than just that character.

Could you try starting a new game with a new character, to see if that does work (if you haven't already tried that, since the update)? It's just a hunch, but with all the "filename unknowns" flying around in the log I'm starting to believe that this is a savegame incompatibility of some kind. Looking at the savegame itself, this is an old game you started last year and recently picked up again, and it might well be that for whatever reason the 3.03 version cannot parse it correctly anymore. If this is the issue I cannot quite explain why I had no problem loading your savegame myself (not so far anyway, but my output log isn't showing any signs of trouble here either); it might be that I have WM 1 & 2 installed whereas if I'm not mistaken you do not. Not sure why that would matter, but it might do. Anyway, trying a new game would tell if the (age of) the save game is somehow an issue.

Dexterity affects everything, actually; attack (/spell/whatever) duration, recovery time, reload time. The only thing it doesn't affect is the short idle time between attack/action cycles. It's the attack speed bonuses that only affect recovery time.

Except if you have low might, you limit your ability to generate focus. The more damage you deal, the more focus you generate. Seeing as that's how you use powers as a cipher, It would be counter-intuitive to have low might. Sure, it'd work- but it wouldn't be nearly as effective as having high might. You can easily have high might without a deficit to your other attributes. Then again, DEX also affects the amount of damage you deal by increasing your attack rate. Which amount of Might vs Dex is optimal rather depends on what kind of build and playstyle you're using.

Do you have any older save games for the same character that you can check, is it happening there as well? And/or what happens if you respec your character at an inn? Perhaps that could clear it up.

I think reinstating the (presumably intended) +1.5 / 3 levels for Constant Recovery and leaving Rapid Recovery as is would be quite fair, really. Gives a nice basis with just CR, and clearly better than VR; and a nice little extra bump from RR (and the Cloak), if you want to go for very high regeration tanking.

It does seem like that, those trolls are big basterds so the charm might well have hit just a bit before its center bit entered the trap area. Anyway, just to be sure you could test out a trap in a random inn, but I'm fairly sure it's just a matter of the trolls not entering far enough into the trap in this case; can't imagine it being trap- or troll-specific, or a bug specific to your installation of the game. As you saw, when I went troll-trapping there was a fair amount of leeway. And to a degree that makes sense as well, really; especially for AOE traps you wouldn't want them to trigger too early anyway.