hippofant

This bug is still active and it's bizarre. Good to know that I can swap the order of activation to prevent it though!

I'm pretty sure you can kick her out. Wasn't there a dialogue option like, "I never want to see you again?"

Higher skill levels don't cost more points, but party assist is not one to one. If I recall correctly you need 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16 skill points on a companion to get a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, +6 assist bonus, so having all your companions with lots of skills at 2 will be better than having each one with a few skills at higher levels. That's not how it works. Party Assist is based on the sum of the skills in your party. Having 4 companions with 2 in Survival grants you the exact same amount of Party Assist as if you have 1 companion with 8 in Survival.

Heck no. You can see the green cone it spits out occasionally. It's quite short.

They usually show up on the character's actual stats, if they're relevant there. For example, the Casita will show its actual deflection bonus on your character's deflection value if you mouse over - though sometimes you need to re-equip it. Not sure about the ones that don't show up there though, like damage reduction. I guess combat log for those.

I'm not sure this makes sense. Whether you spread skill points out or concentrate them on one character, the Party Assist effect is the same. (Remember, higher skill levels don't cost more points in PoE2.) The question of whether you want to spread around skills or concentrate them on a party member comes down to whether you want to pass skill checks that check a single party member which could have high thresholds versus skill checks that check all/your lowest party member that could have low thresholds, and I don't know the answer to that.

And of course we had a trial to determine their guilt, right? We confirmed that they were criminals who'd done something immoral? (And, further, determined that those immoral things warranted death? Because, I assume that we don't think stealing a cookie warrants death, as immoral as it may be.) No, we didn't, but that wasn't the question. The question was, if one thing was moral and the other was not according to your own moral code. You get to decide the morality in this question. If you are trying to play a good character, you wouldn't take the bounties you didn't agree with. Presumably, if Maia's target was offered to you as a bounty, that would be one you wouldn't take because, to use your example, he didn't even steal a cookie, as far as we know. Certainly some of the bounties cross a line; Maia's mission clearly did. We entirely trust almost all of these bounty givers without second thought. If someone did something evil according to the person who wants them dead, we go make them dead! We know because we've met Clairio and because we can meta-game the ending slides that Clairio's good folk, but Maia presumably doesn't. For her, she's just <insert random bounty here>, who Atsura says is bad and needs to be killed and will give her 5000 copper for. Even if we agreed that whatever Chornu supposedly did deserves death, we don't even know that Chornu actually did it except that person who wants us to kill Chornu says he did and it's backed up by the magical quest log. So if Atsura says Clairio eats kittens, Maia believes him, and kills Clairio to save the kittens; what's the difference? (Though we know that Maia doesn't kill Clairio, but someone else actually, who we don't know at all, and may actually eat kittens for all we know.) And I don't think most players even get to the point of questioning whether a minor quest giver is lying to them or not. I think most people probably took those bounties without batting an eye. For example, this one is clearly just political assassination: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Bounty_-_Uamoru_the_Pretender And for all we know, Maia has an ending slide too, where the Huana named Uamoru she was working with to take over the Kahanga and reform Huanan society to improve life for all the Huanans got killed by a Watcher who wanted the copper to add a menagerie onto their boat. As PCs in RPGs, we rack up ridiculous extrajudicial kill counts; it seems absurd to morally condemn an NPC who notches one in rather murky circumstances. (Maybe the Unseeing Eye is actually good folk! Maybe I just slaughtered an entire group of devotees because some Priest of Helm got his robes in a twist! Or maybe a sweet electrical katana +3 isn't a worthwhile reason to murder everybody in this house who just want to be left alone!) Edit: To be clear, there are lots of reasons to not like Maia as a character. And you can certainly think that what she does is over the line. But I don't think the line is really because it's an "assassination" compared to all the killing that PCs do. Maybe you do play the game super-straight or maybe you acknowledge that you're RPing a character who's also over the line, but I don't think the line is somehow drawn between Maia's one assassination and all the killing that most PCs are going to do in the game. I don't think the PCs most of us play are that much better than Maia: we kill people all the time to try and get the better result in the grand scheme of things and, in Obsidian games anyways, sometimes we're off and miss the mark. And that's with the benefit of meta-game stuff like saving and reloading and authoritative quest logs and monsters manuals to tell us what's evil and what's not.

No. What's criminal may or may not be immoral, and what's wrong is a matter of perspective. Given the state of the old city, I'd say that the Huana have a pretty broad definition of what's wrong, and yet none of their own behavior meets the standard. In some ways the RDC is a breath of fresh air. They don't say their targets deserve death, just that it's expedient to grant it. Suppose for the sake of argument that the criminal has done something immoral according to your own moral code. Also suppose that the political assassination target has done nothing wrong, also according to your own personal moral code. Is the RDC still a breath of fresh air? And of course we had a trial to determine their guilt, right? We confirmed that they were criminals who'd done something immoral? (And, further, determined that those immoral things warranted death? Because, I assume that we don't think stealing a cookie warrants death, as immoral as it may be.) Heck, half if not most of the Principi bounties are killing pirate hunters... who are just other people on bounties to kill pirates! We're literally on bounties for other bounty hunters. How can bounty hunting be impeccably moral and just? Either they're bad guys and we're killing them as good guys, or we're the bad guys! Why we're talking about bounties in here isn't because we're trying to compare the relative moral values of bounty hunting vs assassination; it's to compare the situations of Maia vs the Watcher. Maia goes talk to some guy, who says he'll pay her to go kill some other guy, and then blah blah blah that guy is bad and evil and blocks Rauataian progress whatever. You go talk to Udita, she tells you that Chornu is a terrible meanie, hunting pirates, and that she'll pay you 4000 copper for his head. What's the difference? Other than the name we ascribe to these acts, which isn't actually a difference at all, more a post-hoc justification to distinguish ourselves. Or Rodul, the captain who's employed by the VTC to protect their ships is "military" whereas Clairio who's employed by the VTC to govern Port Mahe is a "civilian"? These lines are so thin that they may as well be non-existent. It's an Obsidian RPG. We're playing in shades of gray. If Atsura had told the PC to go kill Clairio because Clairio had done all sorts of evil things and for 5000 copper (and if we hadn't met Clairio already so as to have proof to the contrary, which Maia hadn't), most of us would have done it without blinking, cuz $$$ and experience! (Maia violates the RPG standard of full player agency. People feel "betrayed" by Maia having volition of her own as an independent(-ish) character in the game's world, sabotaging their attempt to get the most perfect ending. RPG companions aren't supposed to go off and do their own thing that sabotage the player's desires. She lies to us. (Minor) quest givers never lie to us.)

If it were legal what Maia was doing they would have put bounties on those targets heads officially. But they couldn't because that would have started a premature war with other factions. Or they wanted to make sure someone reliable was doing it. Just because it's legal for me to write code for the CIA doesn't mean it's a good idea for the CIA to hire me, nor does it mean that the CIA's webmaster is doing illegal stuff.

It's okay if the player character does it. Note: Privateers *are* sanctioned. Indeed, that sanctioning--and the limiting of targets to opposing factions--is the *ONLY* difference between a privateer and a pirate. Sanctioned by who? When you take a bounty for the Principi, you're just being sanctioned by pirates. It's not a legal sanction just because it's a quest! Nominally, the Huana are the legal authority in the region. They're really the only people who should be able to legally sanction any bounties. When the other factions give you bounties to kill Huana.... Unless you're just of the opinion that this is an entirely lawless region, and there are no legal authorities, so it's all cool... in which case what Maia is doing is okay too, isn't it? What's the difference between taking an RDC bounty to go sink some Huana/VTC ships versus Maia taking an RDC "bounty" to go kill some Huana/VTC governors?

Blightheart's not great, imo. The cone corrode attack is short-range, so doesn't come into play much with the long-range arquebus attack. Heartbeat heals for 20% of the damage done by the attack, which again doesn't make much sense on a long-range weapon. Blighted Shot is a 1/encounter full attack that hobbles and weakens, which sounds great, except that Rangers are probably already hobbling with upgraded Wounding Shot, and Ranger/Rogues have Hobbling Strike to boost, plus Weakening Blow if you really want that effect. (And level 1 Maia is locked into both abilities.) And the last ability is nearby enemies become distracted for 20s when you get a kill, which I guess is pretty good though maybe a little slow and unreliable for a Perception affliction. I'm not sure if there's an attack roll on it though, and you may get distracted from other sources, such as a melee rogue. And there's the fact that you can't up it to Legendary, only Superb. Right now, on my Maia, I'm using the Thundercrack pistol. It paralyzes for 5 seconds on a crit, and Maia has 106 accuracy, plus Dirty Fighting (rogue ability, 10% hits to crits) and Uncanny Luck (another 5% hit to crit), and then with Driving Flight, it's just stun city all around. Plus 25% shock lash is nice too. Scordeo's is in the offhand, because Eccea's was very disappointing to me. (Low damage number, and raw damage isn't as great any more with how armor and penetration work now.) Thanks for the reply, Hippo. I'll have to take another look at the good, unique pistols vs the arquebusses. But the last time I looked, I thought that Arq's had a significant advantage in Maia's Gunhawk subclass over pistols, but I might be mis-remembering. Also, I have to say that I also love the great range that Maia gets out of using an Arq over a pistol. There's pretty much no enemy in a battle that she can't reach when she's using an Arq. Her subclass works with any gun. Her armor only works with arquebusses.

It's okay if the player character does it.

Blightheart's not great, imo. The cone corrode attack is short-range, so doesn't come into play much with the long-range arquebus attack. Heartbeat heals for 20% of the damage done by the attack, which again doesn't make much sense on a long-range weapon. Blighted Shot is a 1/encounter full attack that hobbles and weakens, which sounds great, except that Rangers are probably already hobbling with upgraded Wounding Shot, and Ranger/Rogues have Hobbling Strike to boost, plus Weakening Blow if you really want that effect. (And level 1 Maia is locked into both abilities.) And the last ability is nearby enemies become distracted for 20s when you get a kill, which I guess is pretty good though maybe a little slow and unreliable for a Perception affliction. I'm not sure if there's an attack roll on it though, and you may get distracted from other sources, such as a melee rogue. And there's the fact that you can't up it to Legendary, only Superb. Right now, on my Maia, I'm using the Thundercrack pistol. It paralyzes for 5 seconds on a crit, and Maia has 106 accuracy, plus Dirty Fighting (rogue ability, 10% hits to crits) and Uncanny Luck (another 5% hit to crit), and then with Driving Flight, it's just stun city all around. Plus 25% shock lash is nice too. Scordeo's is in the offhand, because Eccea's was very disappointing to me. (Low damage number, and raw damage isn't as great any more with how armor and penetration work now.)

We've gone a little off-topic now, but in my game, Maia straight up told me what her mission was, so I'm a little confused as to all the people who were surprised that those were assassinations at the end of the game. She described her mission to me, explained why she did it, I asked her if the other two missives were also assassinations and she said she didn't know. Maaaybe it's because I have high Insight? Also in romance.

Honestly, that doesn't sound very Obsidian-like at all. When has Obsidian ever let us have a everybody-happily-ever-after ending in any game?