dgray62

Ah yes, my mistake. Thanks, Boeroer. But I wonder if this is worth it. Smoke veil costs 2 guile, and is relatively expensive. With tactician I believe that you'll automatically get brilliant while invisible and playing solo, which would allow you to maintain the backstab/smoke veil routine without running away, which isn't possible in all encounters anyway.

Thanks for sharing this. I take it that you consider the +2 PEN and +25% hit to crit from Devoted outweighs the extra resource regeneration from Tactician, Not So Clever Hound? Tactician would also give you more flexibity, i.e., no penalty when you use other weapons such as Dragon's Dowry. But the extra PEN and hit-to-crit would be especially nice with Amra.

I would go with Helwalker/Blood Mage as Jayd suggests. There are a lot of synergies between these subclasses. Not only does Blood Sacrifice give you wounds, but the ample wiz defensive spells make the helwalker much less squishy. And with Concelhaut's Draining Siphon and Concelhaut's Draining Touch (cast from a grimoire—do not select this spell on level up; if you immediately switch grimoires after casting it will last the entire encounter) you'll have plenty of healing.

That's a good point, Exanos. You even get an additional cold attack with spirit tornado.

I think it is worth a try. It would be fun, I think, and would have good survivability if you take escape (for a trickster) to get out of tricky situations or smoke cloud (as an assassin) to go invisible and set yourself up with another assassination attack from stealth. I think it would be fun although maybe not the most OP build from a powerplaying perspective. Those, however, tend to make the game too easy, and are less fun IMO once you have good experience with the game. The pick pocket blessing gives you a chance of getting minor magical items in people's pockets. It's definitely worth selecting instead of Eder's pet if you're going solo. Not that you need the extra cash for solo play....

I have never tried this, but I wonder if it might be fun to play a zealot, maybe with trickster to get extra survivability. You could be a stealthy disabler, dishing out damage and CC with your spells and stealthy attacks. The rogue gets a great corrode damage attack, toxic strike. You could also dual wield frostfall and the acolyte's frostbite, dealing cold AOEs on crit with both weapons, while Frostfall will extend the durations of enemy afflictions on kill. Overall, it could be a very thematic and satisfying build, I suspect. For solo play, you could also try an assassin, to get the assassinate bonus when casting from stealth. Wouldn't work as well in a party tho.

These are some great ideas. I usually don't use summons, but I can see that they can be great for CC if you prepare properly.

You'd probably need BDD then, since you'd be walloped with a mega spike of raw damage. Or just keep suppressing it as thelee suggests. The nice thing about FF is you get a really combo of defense and offense. Due to your high RES, your deflection is high, and when afflictions land they don't last long, and heal you and give you a wound when they expire. But the FF ability you get a really powerful single target attack which you can use throughout the entire. The cipher multi gives you a great mix of offense and defense as well.

Thanks for the information. It seems like most summons they are not worth it unless you build accordingly, such as by equipping the Necklace.

Yes, with the right stats and gear you can continually use the Forbidden Fist ability, healing yourself and gaining wounds while you do heavy damage and apply the powerful enfeebled to your foes. Another thing to keep in mind is that Forbidden Fist ability grows in power, gaining more damage, PEN and accuracy via Transcendent Suffering scaling, just like unarmed attacks. Since it scales with PL, anything that boosts your PL helps. Hence for this is a multiclass for which Nature Godlike works very well.

I agree, this sounds like a fun build. While I have played monks and monk hybrids many times, I never took Dichotomous Soul, because I read posts indicating that the Dichotomous Soul clones do ridiculously low damage with their unarmed attacks because they do not get your abilities, including, most notably, Transcendent Suffering. Has this bug been fixed?

Yes, I have encountered the same brief combat endings, usually when the enemies who swarmed you lose interest and walk back to their original positions. When they get far enough away combat briefly ends. But that doesn't seem to be what is happening in my game. I'll pay closer attention to game log to see if I can get some hints why this is happening.

When slippers of the assassin procs it procs as Shadowing Beyond, not Smoke Veil. I am using Community Patch but don't have deep wounds yet. I am not entirely sure why this is happening; it only happens with Dragon Dowry, not with any other weapon such as the Red Hand. I don't think it's due to combat ending, but I may be wrong. I'll double check. I assumed it was due to the self-damage from volatile runelock. It's not a big deal, since for most battles the extra use of invisibility isn't needed, and when it is, I can open with another weapon. Another Deadfire mystery, I suppose!

I've made it to 14th level so far, just doing the essential quests to get Fire in the Hole and the Kitchen Stove. Wow, it's powerful. Assassinate strikes from stealth with Dragon's Dowry easily does 250 damage at this point, while the two hits from The Red Hand does about the same. Haven't gotten the Kitchen Stove yet but I'm on my way, stealthing through the Undercity. The vessels there don't have a chance. I noticed a quirk with the Dragon's Dowry, however. If you use it for an alpha strike from stealth while wearing the slippers of the assassin and kill your enemy (which almost always is the case), the fire damage from the gun breaks you out of the invisibility. So it's probably not a good idea to use this gun for the alpha strike if you want to maximize assassinate opportunities for a given encounter. That said, most of the time you could just throw up a smoke cloud and sneak out of combat, so it doesn't really matter much except in difficult battles or those encounters in which sneaking away and resetting combat is not possible, such as special encounters, ship battles, and arena fights.

You can just pick the summon invocations when you level up. The only ones that have prerequisites are the upgrades, such as the skellies, wisps, drakes and ogres. To get the upgraded summon you have to select the basic version first.

You might consider a mindstalker wielding hand mortars for excellent ranged DPS and CC.

Very true. The really nice thing about forbidden fist builds is that you get your best weapon, the forbidden fist, right at the start of the game, and it gets better and better as you gain PLs. Various other weapons you can get, like Grave Calling and Seeker's Fang, are icing on the cake.

Celebrants are amazing. Equip them with Sasha's Singing Scimitar and (eventually) Weyc's Wand in the off hand. Empower Her Revenge and then extend the buffs with SoT. I prefer the skald/priest of magran combo for cheaper offensive invocations and a few extra fire nukes to complement the chanter's electric and cold nukes.

Ditto!

Forbidden Fist/Ascendent is a great combo, with some great gear that synergies well with the build. Seeker's Fang is amazing but you get it rather late unfortunately. But you can get Grave Calling much earlier, and it's great on a Transcendent. It paralyzes on crits (and you'll crit a lot), and the paralysis will last awhile due to high INT and Linger Echoes, which leads to more crits. You can permanently paralyze foes with it, although most will be dead before the first expires. And when you fight vessels, it can spawn a foe-only Chill Fog which generates focus for you when it ticks, and can paralyze on crits just like the weapon attack. It's crazy good then!

Thanks for the advice! Yes, I have tried many builds, but this is my first time trying a stealth build. You're right, you really can dish out jaw dropping damage when attacking from stealth on an already afflicted mob. And thanks for the explanation of how you make use of scrolls of withdrawal. I can see that it makes sense to use them after casting a ticking scroll. I was wondering why you recommended their use, and now I see why. Thanks.

Another good reason to go through with this build....exporting gear for future runs.

Not So Clever Hound, I'm really impressed by how powerful this build is. I have not previously played solo or a assassinate from stealth sort of build, but I am amazed by how well it works. Having just reached Neketaka, where skill checks abound, I was wondering how high you recommend that one invests in the various skills. I know that you recommend investments in Arcana, Athletics, and Mechanics, Stealth, Diplomacy & Survival, but I was wondering if you could be more specific in recommending how many points to invest in each. Having never played solo before, any advice here would be most helpful. Needless to say, I'll get visit all the trainers ASAP and will consume an Luminous Adra Potion, and will keep the various unguents and gear with skill bonus on hand. With these bonii in mind, how do you recommend investing the limited skill points available?

Thank you. I have never played in this manner. I'll try doing so. It sounds like fun!

Thanks! How do you handle large mobs early on, when you don't yet have very much guile or Kitchen Stove?