TWPE

I can't for the life of me figure out what makes Itumaak special. Does he at least get the wolf's base damage bonus? He seems inferior to every other animal companion. I can't speak to how effective a powder burn build is. But if you go that route, you want it to be your player character. You probably want Island Aumaua for that.

I would really prefer they just take their time and not break the game. No point in rushing them or harassing them for a deadline they may have to defer with more excuses later.

I suppose it is probably easier if I side with the Master. But where's the fun in that?

I've been running a ranger through PotD with an Antelope pet as an offtank (in a party with only a Monk, Chanter, Priest, and lore for CC). They are definitely viable. I don't know if I like Sagani though. I also don't know anything about her unique animal companion. As far as CC goes. Kana can provide some CC. You can also use scrolls (Kana is also good for this since it won't stop his chanting). It's a shame Maneha has such mediocre perception; else she could be built for interrupts. You can also use summons and summon trinkets to redirect damage away from your party (which is also arguably a type of crowd control). I haven't tried a ranged Paladin (just a Darcozzi tank and a Kind Wayfarer with Tall Grass). So, I won't answer that last question (I'm sure someone has got your back though).

(Heh, I'll probably never use him.) I hope all this gives you some ideas though, Efiriel. I still think that if you bring a Priest, it should be the MC. But, here are two ways to use Durance, if you choose to bring him instead.

I know it might sound funny but: take a priest of Magran and give him an arquebus Or to extend on it: - pump might and dex - have decent per - pick one of the following races: boreal dwarf, wood elf, moon godlike or island aumaua - in case of aumaua would take Quick Switch and Arms Bearer; if I am not ok with the micro, than better take other race But that's just for easy/medium encounters. In boss fights, priest is not going to deal damage with weapons. Thanks. I suppose that's a way to use Durance, as well (never used him).

How would you build an Arquebus priest? (I'm genuinely interested.)

I hear you. I've only played on PotD as well. Dunno why I'd bother playing on a lower difficulty. I second Loren Tyr's suggestions. Priest main for the benefit of better holy radiance (and a MC Priest can be built to be far superior to Durance anyways). Then choose either Aloth, Hiravias, or Grieving Mother. You can of course take Durance, and then run another caster class as your main (or even two priests if you wanted to).

What difficulty will you be playing on?

I hope this isn't too much of a spoiler, b ut after the ogres there isn't too many spots down there, that require higher level. It's just quite tedious at some points, but don't worry there will be points where you will need higher level to "comfortably" clear them, if you do those before going on with the main quest, big props to you.^^ Already did. Well except the last floor.

Raven's right. I'm probably enjoying the Endless Paths because I'm on my first playthrough. I enjoy a challenge, though. So, I might be enjoying them because I'm doing each floor under-leveled. For example, I cleared floor 3 ogres with a level 3 MC and level 2 hired adventurers on PotD (Edit: Actually I think it might have been level 4 MC, 3 everyone else respectively... that was a few weeks ago). I learned a lot about what works tactically and what doesn't by doing that. I've had some of the best "by the skin of my teeth" fights in my entire playthrough down there. I'm personally grateful that they're kind of sparse on quests (and even arguably sparse on great loot). Because I can dungeon dive as deep I can get without over-leveling too much (or getting a lot of over-powered weapons). In a second playthrough I'd probably intentionally try them under-leveled again. Maybe I'll still enjoy them because of the challenge.

Hard to decide what his best works are when all of them are so ridiculously creative and effective.

Thanks, Loren Tyr. Heh, to each their own. I'm personally not going to use this to balance non-party members. I'm going to use this to balance hired adventurer party members. I won't go to the extremes in my last example though. I'll just drop a party member from my active party when I get an adventure and tough it out without them for a few turns (or use my druid as a stand in). That way the exp rewards are actually useful (they go to someone I'm actually using for the majority of the game) and my hired adventurers should, in theory, catch up to my MC in level gap. Sounds good. Hopefully you don't have my abysmal luck with getting adventures when you want them. (I will never get that minor adventure I want... I will never be able to finish upgrading my stronghold because of this...) Edit: I can confirm what Loren Tyr said is true. The base 75% for being in reserve stacks with the 75% +X% from adventures. I can also confirm that the reduced party size bonus stacks with the Adventure bonus exp. Further testing is required to verify how these stack, but they do stack. You can see the difference in the adventure report. If you run around with the same number of party members for the entire duration of an adventure, I think it looks something like this: N * (.75 + .75 + X ) * exp = total exp gained Where: X is the the quest bonus exp in decimal form. N is the bonus multiplier for having less people in your active party. However the quest log will only show N * (.75 + X) * exp = quest reward. The adventurer still gets the normal N * .75 * exp while you're running around during the adventure duration and then the quest reward is added on to that at the end (the formula just didn't look as pretty so i simplified it a bit). This should be simple to test once I actually get a legendary adventure. if I run around solo for 5 turns during a legendary adventure the exp multiplier should simply be 3; which will drastically reduce the chances for rounding errors when I test it (I just have to double whatever my solo character got during that time).

If 10% is the bonus, then a party of two insures that everyone at the stronghold gets better exp than they would if they were apart of an active six man party. Theoretically, if you had a bunch of turn ins saved up to quickly pass turns. You could send someone on a legendary adventure. Reduce your active party to one or two. Turn in 3-7 quests to pass 5 turns. Your two active members get 140% exp. Everyone in the stronghold gets 105% exp. The member you send on the adventure gets 230% or 236% (depending.. I'm not sure how the bonuses stack). Again this is assuming that Loren Tyr's theory that the 75% + quest reward exp % reward is on top of the normal 75% stronghold gains. (Edit: Even if it turns out to be wrong, the party member sent on the legendary adventure would still get 175% exp in the above scenario.)

Err yeah on topic (there's a thought). Favorite thing: Party building (Yeah yeah that's not exclusive to just this game, but whatever). Least favorite things: Bugs, graphical clipping issues (grimoires in my game were always buried in the wizards chest like they had been surgically implanted there for some reason), ... ... ... ...Oh, and PATHFINDING.... GRGHGBLARGL path? finding? what path? But, yeah... As far as buffs go... Lost my first ten hours because all 15 of my saves becoming corrupted before I ever tried to reload once and therefore I didn't discover it in time (my second attempt at a first play-through had me paranoid to the point that I would save a new save, quit the game to desktop, then start up the game again every couple maps). That bug alone would have stopped me from continuing the game, if I wasn't confident I could do everything I did during those 10 hours, in less than 1 hour the second time around.

Heh, would be an extremely micro heavy class, but that's not a bad thing.

See the exp rewards from the adventures are useless... UNLESS the exp goes to someone you actually intend to use. That's why I want to figure this out. (That and not understanding mechanics drives me crazy...) As for your question (assuming I understand it). There is no penalty to your active party members exp for having more people in the stronghold. There is no penalty to the people in the stronghold for having more people in the stronghold. So far as I understand it, people in the stronghold always get 75% of whatever a single one of your active party members received. If you run a party of 6 and get 600 xp, each member gets 100, and everyone in the stronghold gets 75 (even if you have 8+ people in the stronghold... they all get 75 each). So it is technically ALWAYS more efficient to have more people in the stronghold as far as total exp gains per quest. However, the people in stronghold will fall far behind if you never use them or send them on adventures. In that case, you're better off just hiring them right before you start using them (even though they'll have a huge gap in exp between hired adventurers and the MC if you hire them later in the game... Edit: if you have the option to choose their level ups turned on, companions like Eder are better off being recruited as late as possible if you don't intent to use them in your main party). Alternating adventures between two party members in stronghold, while running a party of 4 should work though; assuming Loren Tyr's theory of 150% is correct. We just need to know the numbers first to confirm. Either way the bonus exp from running a smaller party will still apply to both the active and the reserve members (yes, there is a bonus for using a smaller party according to the wiki). So, losses should be minimal to your 2 in reserve if you don't get enough adventures to divide between them. I kind of ranted there. If you run a party of 4 but intend to use more than 4 later, you should definitely hire at least one more and give them all your adventures (or two and split them). It won't hurt the exp your active party gets at all. Hope that helps.

Could also do some kind of spell combo system. Two resource pools. Spells using one resource generate the other. It becomes a balancing act. Yin and yang.

I'll try to confirm this as well. Though, 96% of my turns seem to end up being "Nothing new to report" with a smattering of taxes.

Thanks for this. That means that if you're running a party with hired adventurers and you want to try and catch up a specific party member to your MC, you might consider removing that party member from your active party for a grand or legendary adventure. They would receive a net gain in XP in that scenario. If you leave the slot left by that party member empty, then even a major adventure would result in a net gain in XP for that party member (and everyone really). This doesn't apply to generic adventurers, of course. Only Legendary Generic adventures with the 25% xp rewards would be worth removing someone from your active party to do (and you would have to leave that slot empty for the duration of the adventurer). Edit: I'm not sure how big of a bonus you get for 5 man parties. If it is high enough, then the 20% XP grand generic adventures might be worth it too. Double edit: Of course, all my speculation in this post is assuming that we aren't getting 150% + plus bonus% from adventures. Let me know if you can confirm that we are, because that changes things drastically.

I saw the picture and got excited. "Someone made a Nature Godlike Build!" Then I scrolled up... then back down and read the caption...

I don't know what the standard stats (I chose to scale it for high level) are supposed to be, but there is a known bug that causes deflection to rise when you quick save and load in some areas. You could test this yourself to see if the deflection is getting higher every time you save and load. This bug is supposed to be fixed in the next patch (which they are trying to prepare for a beta release ASAP).

I'd still like to know this. If anyone doesn't know but still has some input or experiences regarding this system, feel free to chip in. I'm leaning towards the latter possibility I mentioned above on how this might system work. I had 3 average adventures in a row. The first I just dropped a random companion I never use in. I then proceeded to play the game for like 3 hours without any turns. When I finally got two turns and the adventure concluded, the companion got over 3000 exp (this was my first adventure ever and it was in act 2). Much later in the game (I had like 20 turns with no adventures for some reason), I got the other two average adventures in a row. I proceeded to hire a priest 1 level below me and made sure I had a bunch of tasks to turn in before accepting the first of the two. My priest got 700 exp, and 500 exp respectively. This leads me to believe that the 15% reward is indeed 15% of the total exp your active party got while the adventure was underway. Confirmation would be nice though.

I run both a Paladin and a Chanter in my group. Funnily enough, they are both my main lore users. So, I can't really disagree with you much here. But, to be fair, Dragon Thrashed stacks with itself to produce higher over-all DPS as long as you use no other chants... AND it can be maintained for the entire fight (not to mention it can still be somewhat effective against burn immune enemies). Fair point with the accuracy buffs (accuracy buffs are amazing). But chanter can fulfill different roles in the party by providing disables (wide range paralyze) or crowd control via summons during longer fights. Paladins can use scrolls simultaneously while DPS'ing, healing, and tanking too (though the former two roles need SI to be up... otherwise you have to choose between scrolls/spellbinds and using abilities like Lay on Hands). Fair enough. But that doesn't really negate what I said about Chanters being ideal scroll/spellbind users at all (or about them being only as passive/boring as you make them). It's not like Paladins render them obsolete in that field, and Paladins' efficiency as scroll users begins to dwindle when SI is no longer available.

I may not be an expert on this game like some of you guys (just started playing it this month), but I agree with this. This is exactly how I utilize my chanter on PotD. They are perfect for utilizing spellbinds and scrolls without interfering with their role(s) at all. You want more micro on your chanter? Give them some spellbind items or lore and now you have a caster who is also a tank/damage dealer/healer/utility-support. They are only as boring as you make them. I agree that they can't replace Priest buffs though (the further I get into PotD the more overpowered my priest seems to get).