Ethics Gradient

Per the rules, if you are unable to construct a valid deck out of remaining cards, you are allowed to pick any card out of the box with the Basic trait. However, after you start AD3, you are then allowed to pick any card two ADs lower than the scenario you just played. Even at end-game, there are still a bunch of decent cards in the AD4 deck. It's pretty easy to mildly exploit the rules by finding a way to banish cards in AD6 then forfeiting the scenario.

The card is indeed mostly a niche thing. For most purposes, it is likely outclassed by anything your AD5 caster has at their disposal. The one perk that it does have is that it lacks the Attack trait, and the designers confirmed that to be intentional. So when Ezren or Seoni finds themselves facing a Clay Golem or the Karzoug Statue at the end of AD5, they've at least got something at their disposal. It might not reliably defeat a monster, but it's a quasi-evade that occasionally beats things if you're lucky.

Sorry to thread-hijack, but how long does it usually take for support to reply? It's been 6 days since I contacted them- 6 days that, admittedly, were filled with holidays; still, curious if I should start getting worried that they didn't receive my e-mail. Turnaround is usually a couple days. Though, between Christmas and new years, they've been out of the office for the better part of a week. Support emails probably won't be sorted and read until Tuesday morning, California time. If you still don't get a reply, MrBishop has been been occasionally helping out with support requests when he's not crushing bugs. You could always drop him a PM if you don't hear back from anyone for a while.

For what it's worth, the Heal Bug had a resurgence around the same time as the Valeros Recharge Bug and similar issues. It was working okay a couple months back, but might have been caught up in recent recharge-related problems.

That's precisely the problem with the Magic Expert power. She needs a fair amount of baggage to even be a Lem-lite magic user. Compared to a maxed Backstab where she can do 2d6+4 even unarmed as long as she's alone, or getting free blessing recharges for Dexterity checks, there are a ton better ways for her to get consistent combat bonuses instead of hoping for the cards to align to use and maybe recover a Necklace of Fireballs.

It should. I admit that I haven't rolled up that Thief build see how the app handles it, but that's how it worked tabletop. There are a thin slice of magic items she can use and has a shot at recharging. Aside from the Necklace of Fireballs, she could maybe get some mileage out of the Wand of Enervation, Sihedron Medallion, Wand of Force Missiles or Wand of Scorching Ray. The big problem is that Charisma is a pretty average skill for her. Merisiel tops out with a Charisma of 1d6+2. Seeing as most of the items she'd potentially use with the Magic Expert power require at least an 8 to recharge, she'd have to burn a blessing or keep a Acolyte or Troubador in her deck to provide that chance. To be honest, this power is one of the "legacy" powers that just didn't quite develop as hoped. One of the clues is that the power also applies to recharge checks for magic armors and weapons... and that never really became a thing by the end of RoTR. The game slowly evolved as the Adventure Decks came out, and there are more than a handful of instances where Roles or powers never wound up being as useful as Paizo thought they might be when they first templated out the characters.

Double-check that it isn't already in your collection (B-deck Item). The original set of reward cards just add them to your collection without giving you a free copy you can immediately use. Otherwise check out the troubleshooting steps below. The game should be scanning for missing reward cards each startup. If one is missing, there might be a scenario that didn't get properly recorded as being completed on Legendary. Otherwise, yeah, you may need to wait for the support team to return from the holidays.

I've noticed something similar from time-to-time as well. I'm not convinced it is specifically a RNG issue, but there could be something going on with a shuffle being misapplied or flaking out somehow. Either the game occasionally pulls an Augury-style "reserve and shuffle under" when it doesn't mean to, or the animation fires off without actually reordering the cards. Sometimes it would be really nice if I could cheat and view the contents of a deck before and after a suspect shuffle, but based on revealed top cards, it always appears that anomalous shuffles may just be non-shuffles.

Do check that you're correctly logged into iOS Game Center. Go to the Settings app and scroll down partway to "Game Center." Not being logged-in can cause weird content issues like you're describing. If that still doesn't do the trick, send an email to support@obsidian.net and someone will eventually be able to sort it out for you. Keep in mind that they're off on holiday break, so it's almost guaranteed that you won't get a reply until after new year's.

Er. Yeah. You're absolutely right. Digital mechanics are screwing with my tabletop memory. ... whenever you banish a bane with the Basic trait, remove it from the game; whenever you banish boon with the Basic trait you may remove it from the game. Nonetheless, implementing that in the app where you skip forwards and backwards (or play each scenario multiple times to complete each difficulty) could have weird effects. The current system where it automatically holds back some percentage of Basics or Elites does an ok job thinning out "easy" cards as you progress through the game. Excluding treasure cards, the RoTR decks hold steady around ~500 total cards after the auto-cull kicks in and manages Basics/Elites: But it also does so indiscriminately. If you're looking for a specific Basic card it's unlikely you'll see it again after AD4. I'm not entirely sure how the above chart would look with Treasure cards on since everyone has a slightly different set, but if I get a chance maybe see what how it would work with an Obsidian Edition loadout.

> But can you explain how the elite/rarity system work?? Because none of that **** makes any sense, what card functionality is concerned. Ok, there are various systems in play here. First off, the game has three main "grades" of cards. Basic, Elite, and neither. Starting at AD3, Basic cards start getting removed from the game. And at AD5, Elite cards start getting thinned out as well. In tabletop, the way it works is that when you banish one of those cards after AD3 or AD5 you can remove them from the game permanently. It is a good way to get crap boons out of the game, but you might want to hold on to weaker enemies in the event you discover them in later scenarios. Since replayability in the digital app wasn't really geared for permanent deck changes, it has a system that handles things silently in the background before each scenario is dealt. Starting at AD3, about a quarter of all Basics get randomly selected and held back before each game. And at AD5, a little under half of the Elites get culled as well. That percentage slowly ramps up in subsequent ADs, and by the time you're at AD6, it is really unlikely you'll encounter a card with either of those traits. As far as treasure cards go, there's not always a lot of reasoning behind deck level or rarity. Legendary cards are probably subjectively "better" than other cards at their AD level, but there's really no guarantee. It likely depends on where that card was sourced from, how the developers wanted to "balance" the decks, and at what point they felt it would be best introduced into the game. That, or there's a dart board in the Obsidian break room and treasure cards were randomly assigned. Both are equally valid theories. > This might come down to playstyle but i think some characters and their builds are way overpowered, and the only thing that makes this game hard is including other characters than lini and the sorceress in the party. Those two with the right cards are a right steamroller. Almost all of the characters have a steamroller build with the right cards. However, in the tabletop game you often had to be extremely lucky to pick them up before the adventure path concluded. Replaying scenarios and jumping back-and-forth, while technically rules-legal, is something that generally did not occur much before the app. There are a lot more min-max opportunities now that you can grind for the "perfect" hand.

You probably won't get any sort of official reply since I suspect they're still on holiday, but the basic distribution the community found last year was something along the lines of: Uncommon: 50% Rare: 30% Epic: 17% Legendary: 2% A better visualization would be per chest redeemed since it also takes into account the 25% dice drop. Among the four things you receive, you should get on average: Uncommon: 1.9 cards Rare: 1.1 cards Epic: 0.65 cards Legendary: 0.1 cards Dice: 0.25 sets I'm unsure how precisely the Rune of Wonder doubles the R/E/L odds, but assuming it's just a straight 2x on the weightings, it should probably result in something like: Uncommon: 1.46 cards Rare: 1.31 cards Epic: 0.87 cards Legendary: 0.13 cards Dice: 0.23 sets However it works, using a rune should net you fewer Uncommons, and distributes the benefit among the other rarities based on some secret sauce. There's only so much percentage to go around; doubling the odds on half the cards provides a less-dramatic boost than it sounds. I'm also unsure if equipment sets are still in the mix. Their drop chance is practically a rounding error, so they were not included in the stats above. It's all handled server-side, so the only real way to guess what's going on is to keep notes when you open chests. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

That's been about my experience as well. There's no penalty for losing a scenario every now and then other than "wasting" your time. If things get particularly unenjoyable, consumables can help drag your party through a streak of bad luck. Either way, "losing" in the digital game is far better than playing tabletop. Setup fatigue is a real bummer when you spend ten minutes sorting tiny piles of cards to realize a few turns later that you're cruising toward a loss.

Yeah. That is often the case. While the app is usually smart enough to refresh your DLC licenses or card/dice lists when you buy something, it is guaranteed to do so on launch. Restarts often solve problems like this because it forces that refresh in the event that a transaction glitched out or got interrupted.

Greetings! 1. Yes. It will be added to your collection of cards that the game uses to build scenarios. Additionally, a copy will be placed in your unclaimed stash for immediate use. 2. None of those seven cards are in the Uncommon/Rare or Epic/Legendary DLC packs. For what it's worth, the DLC packs include every card that should be available in the Treasure Chests. All the other stuff that isn't necessarily packaged into the Obsidian edition are seasonal extras or special promos. 3. Pretty much, yeah. Gold is no longer a primary currency for DLC or content. It's been refocused on consumables and the enhancement cards. It would be nice if the store rotate stock... but it is what it is. Lots of people on the steam forums give Obsidian grief for the existence of consumables (claiming it's a Pay-to-win thing). But now that you basically have nothing else to spend your gold on, and with consumables being so cheap, you're somewhat free to use as many consumables as you want without having to resort to spend cash for gold.

Yeah... same here...

The odds of an alt were/are super low. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 200 chests redeemed. In the process of opening those 200 chests, you'll have probably scored about 50 sets of dice.

That behavior has always been the case for a long long time. The popup may be newish, but ever since the introduction of dice, any set gained in excess of six was automatically salvaged. The same process should exist for alternate characters if they're still in the treasure chest RNG pool. I'm not sure what their present salvage value is (used to be half their store price in gold), but depending on the alt, duplicates may still net you 750-3500 gold.

Seriously though, the d4, d8, d10, and d12 all have pictures for their max value. There have been a handful of developer screenshots over the last year-and-a-half where they flaunt their secret dice set.

There are a handful of special interactions depending on if your party has specific cards, or a specific composition of characters. Additionally, I believe there are a handful of examples in the early part of the game where a character that beat a villain (the "champion") might get an extra line or two in the post scenario epilogue, or even in some part of some other scenario if it was relevant. If I recall, Nathan Davis got a bunch of credit for the dialogue. I still really wish the game had the tabletop scenario cards with their paragraph-long descriptions, but his little character-driven stories do an excellent job explaining what's going on in the game. I'm almost entirely certain that the reason it was so easy to fit conditional dialogue into Pathfinder was that they actually used the same in-house conversation flowchart program that they used for Pillars of Eternity. It's not just the "Obsidian touch", the Pathfinder team also had access to some cool in-house tools.

If you're talking about the circular character pictures (tokens) along the right edge of the gameplay screen, it means that they have a card or power that could help out with the present character's check. However, it's been a rather flaky feature ever since the game was released. Sometimes the exclamation mark just pops up for no apparent reason. Even the developers have acknowledged that it is a particularly frustrating bug.

There's no need to show off. Besides, if you're a backer and an investor there's a reasonable chance there will be enough of a return on the investment to cover most of your backer merch (as long as you didn't go too nuts). All it takes is loaning obsidian a grand or two for a couple years! Complicating your tax return for a free t-shirt and video game is totally worth it!

Check that you're logged into iOS Game Center. Open up the Settings app and scroll down about a third of the way. It should be right above Twitter and Facebook settings. Sometimes iOS logs you out when you aren't paying attention...

In case anyone is curious, here's some Deadfire news from the fig investor side of the house. Dear Investor, We are excited to share an update with you about Pillars of Eternity II! Versus Evil has entered into a co-publishing arrangement with Obsidian to provide distribution support and contribute significantly to the marketing budget of the game. These services will help increase exposure, grow the brand, and ultimately help drive sales. In exchange, Versus Evil will be recouping their third-party marketing expenses, with approval and monitoring of these costs by Obsidian. Versus Evil has a strong track record of promoting indie games, including the Banner Saga series, and we believe that their marketing efforts will ultimately both increase investor returns and grow the fanbase of this incredible title. We also wanted to provide you with Obsidian and Versus Evil's take on the deal to give you some insight into why they think it benefit both players and shareholders. "When we started this adventure in developing and funding Pillars of Eternity 2, we went back and forth between whether we wanted to publish Eternity 2 ourselves, or finding a great partner that would let us focus on the game. After our first meeting with Versus Evil we felt we had met a publisher that not only has expertise in publishing, but one that wants to see developers succeed. Even in our first few months of working together, all of us at Obsidian feel we have found a partner that we can collaborate with on a daily basis, and who will truly help Pillars of Eternity 2 be a success." - Feargus Urqhuhart CEO, Obsidian Entertainment “Versus Evil excels with integrating our publishing model with the game development teams. We feel strongly that they are the experts in what their game is, who their customers are, and what the game needs to be in order to satisfy or exceed expectations. By taking this position, and understanding their goals, we can then apply our many years of marketing experience to their product and amplify their voice, their brand and their team. In some cases the games in question are new IPs that need to be established or in other cases, like The Banner Saga or Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, have established audiences through company history or crowdfunding. In the end, our approach is to embrace the community, engage the press, and grow the brand through targeted advertising, boosting social media spends and working with content creators to grab the share of voice. We have committed serious dollars to this campaign and are extremely excited to be part of this launch.” - Steve Escalante General Manager and Founder, Versus Evil. We are extremely excited about how Pillars of Eternity II is shaping up, and can't wait for the final game to launch next year. As always, feel free to reach out to us with any questions. Best, Fig Team

I'm reasonably certain that it was fixed months ago. I'm not about to re-purchase the DLC to check, but I can get to the point where my test iPad requests an Apple ID to buy the campaign. At which point are you getting that error? Have you checked that you're still logged into iOS Game Center? Lots of nutty things can happen if you get logged out...