blotter

(Edit: Let me know about any problems with the links. I've had a fairly extended struggle with the boards just getting this up without seeing any major glitches in the first place and it's possible that not everything carried over as it should have due to technical or human errors in the process.) Basically, I've been tossing around links for information long enough that I thought it might be a good idea to follow in Sedrefilos’ footsteps and put a lot of it together in one place. This isn't everything by any stretch, and if others want to chip in, feel free. I'll start with some primary sources of information about Deadfire before summarizing some things a bit later on: Deadfire's release date has been announced for April 3rd, 2018. (Warning: 6 hours and 52 minutes long) Updates (Fig) Fereed’s Transcripts of past Q&As: Q&A 1 Q&A 2 Q&A 3 Q&A 4 Q&A 5 Q&A 6 Q&A 7 Q&A 8 Fareed is not planning to produce a transcript of Q&A 9 since it doesn't provide much new information There is no transcript for Q&A 10 either, but you can watch it here J.E Sawyer's Tumblr Page* J.E. Sawyer’s Twitter Page* J.E. Sawyer’s Instagram* World of Eternity Twitter Page Deadfire Twitter Page *Sawyer’s Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram pages also cover a lot of unrelated information/subjects. For a more consolidated and focused source of information from these pages, try the “From the Feed of the Director” Updates linked below. Keep in mind that not all game-pertinent information from Sawyer’s Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram pages make it into these updates, but the updates may also include information that is not present within these pages either. From the Feed of the Director IV Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers (started by AndreaColombo) Infinitron's Josh Sawyer Something Awful PoE2 Posts thread: Note that J.E. Sawyer's Something Awful account name is "Rope Kid". As Enoch pointed out, J.E. Sawyer also posts on reddit from time to time. At the end of the campaign, Obsidian hosted an AMA on reddit. Character Creation/Mechanics Attributes: Attributes will function the same way overall in Deadfire, though the mechanics for interruption and concentration are changing, as may the way in which Perception and Resolve influence them. A marked exception to this exists in regards to Might and Resolve; Might will be replaced with Strength and apply only to weapon/attack damage and Fortitude, while Resolve will apply to healing, spell damage, Deflection, and Will. This decision may be subject to change later on and further information about the reasoning for the change as well as other possibilities being considered can be found here. Character Appearance: Character models have been improved and there will be a few more heads/faces to choose from, but players will not be able to personally customize their character’s facial features. Here are some links to screenshots of Eder, Pallegina, a male fire godlike, and male and female moon godlikes. Class Selection: All classes will have the same starting values for Accuracy, but other features, like Deflection and Endurance/Stamina, will still be influenced by your class choice. The number of available class options is unchanged from Pillars of Eternity 1, but each class will also have three to five (for paladins, priests, and wizards) subclass options to choose from. These subclasses will have various advantages and disadvantages in relation to the base class, some of which will result in more dramatic changes to play-style than others. Base class options are intended to be attractive alternatives to subclasses rather than an afterthought. Some companions will have access to one or more unique classes. Multiclassing is now an option for characters in Deadfire , allowing the player to select two classes of their choice. The only restriction to player character multiclassing pertains to classes which have abilities that are tied to opposed dispositions: you cannot multiclass a character to be both a Bleak Walker (which has Cruelty and Aggression as its favored dispositions) and a Priest of Berath (which has Cruelty as one of its condemned dispositions), for example. You can find far more information on subclass features, multiclassing, and general character progression within Update #40. Note that the video contained within this update also shows features for some of the subclasses that are shown within it that are not mentioned in the written update. MaxQuest has listed their information in this post. Currently, companions are restricted in terms of their multiclassing options to one or two class different class combinations that the developers will set in advance. In addition, subclasses (if any) for companion's single/multiclass options will also be preassigned by the developers. Quillon brought this Fextralife Deadfire Multiclassing video to my attention; it provides a good rundown of multiclassing and its mechanics. Class Talents and Abilities: Talents and abilities are both selectable at rather than being divided between odd and even levels. Classes no longer have per-rest abilities; instead, their abilities are usable per-encounter or tied to the generation of class-based resources, such as Phrases or Focus. The traditional spellcasting classes (wizards, priests, and druids) have a small number of per-encounter uses available for each spell level they are capable of casting, allowing them to cast up to a maximum of two spells from each spell level they have access to per encounter. Barbarians, fighters, paladins, rangers, and rogues have resources tied to their Power Sources, and each ability that they use has a cost associated with the class’ common resource (e.g., a paladin who uses Flames of Devotion would reduce the amount of Zeal they have available for the remainder of the encounter). As mentioned, chanters, ciphers, and monks still use their original method of resource generation, such as suffering damage to gain Wounds in a monk’s case, and expenditure. These classes may be tweaked somewhat overall, but are unlikely to be subject to any major or fundamental changes. One example given was that chanters will now start combat with a small number of Phrases, hastening the process of building up to their Invocations. See J.E. Sawyer’s May 5th tumblr post for his explanation on how per encounter abilities work for the various classes. Empowering Abilities: While class abilities are not subject to per-rest limitations as stated above, there is a per-rest resource that all classes have – the Empower mechanic. Empower is also subject to a usage limit of once per encounter and can be used to increase the effective power level of abilities/spells by +3 or to regain uses of a spell/ability. Endurance/Health: Endurance will not be present in Deadfire; instead, characters will only have Health and will suffer injuries when they are knocked out or via scripted interactions. After sustaining enough injuries, a character will die instead of being knocked out at 0 Endurance. from update #41 provides further details on the injury system. Injuries vary based on the damage type that brought the character to 0 Endurance and subsequent injuries stack, though resting will remove them. The fourth injury sustained by a character is immediately fatal to them. During the beta, each injury initially reduced a character's health by 25%; with the (at the date of this edit) upcoming beta update, this will be changing so that the majority of injuries will inflict penalties but not health reduction, though some injuries will reduce a character's health by 15% (and do nothing else) Engagement: Engagement well be more dangerous/harmful for those affected by it, but it isn’t something that any character with a melee weapon can do by default in Deadfire. Instead, it’s something that particular classes may gain quicker access to and certain weapons grant bonus engagement slots (allowing characters who could not normally engage enemies to engage up to one at a time). Similarly, some enemies/monsters will automatically be able to engage your characters, but it’s not something that all of them can do. Idle Animations: Players will be able to set idle animations for their characters based on personality characteristics ( , for example, which was apparently so sassy that needed to rein it back in a bit). Sawyer has posted a video which shows the idle animations that will be available for the player to select. Companions will have their own unique idle animations, such as Eder smoking his pipe or Aloth dusting himself off or flipping through his grimoire. Portraits: Deadfire will still allow the use of custom portraits, but corresponding watercolor portraits are also being introduced for player/companion portraits, as well as for quest-giving npcs. Custom watercolor portraits would need to be created for custom portraits if you wish to use them, but if no watercolor version is detected, the game will use a scaled-down version of the base portrait instead. Power Level: All classes have an associated Power Source, such as . Related to this Power Source is the progression of Power Level, which determines how abilities scale in terms of damage, duration, and other associated variables. Single class characters advance in Power Level more quickly than multiclass characters, the latter of whom will not have access to the highest level abilities available for either of their classes. Quest Talents: Some talents that the Watcher gained through quest outcomes in Pillars of Eternity 1 may make an appearance in Deadfire as well, though they may end up functioning differently and you will not start the game with access to them. There’s no guarantee that every quest-awarded talent from Pillars of Eternity 1 will make into Deadfire. Races: In general, racial passive abilities have been revised for Deadfire. Specifically, Godlike now gain the equivalent of two racial passive abilities to compensate for their inability to use helmets. Skills: The number of skills in Deadfire have increased from five to seventeen, with seven Active skills which can be used during gameplay/combat and ten Passive skills which are generally used only during dialogues/scripted interactions. These different skill types have separate skill point resources. See Q&A 2 for details. A screenshot taken from Q&A 6 (courtesy of DexGames) reveals the complete list of Active and Passive Skills in the game, but as of not it is slightly outdated: Herbalism was removed/folded into Alchemy and the Explosives skill was added to determine the efficacy of bombs (the Alchemy skill's former job). Sleight of Hand will allow characters to plant items (including explosives) on npcs and Alchemy will make explosives more powerful. Spellcasting Time: Spells can vary in casting time, with certain more powerful spells having long casting times as a trade-off. For example, this may allow a per-encounter fireball to inflict a substantial amount of damage upon enemies, re-targeting them if necessary later on in the casting process, while putting its caster at greater risk of being interrupted before completing the spell. Spells: Wizards, priests, and druids do not automatically gain spells by leveling up. Instead, they have to select them individually as they gain levels the same way that other classes have to select their abilities at level up. Wizards cannot scribe spells in Deadfire as the grimoires themselves have static spell lists, but equipping different grimoires in the Trinkets slot (see the Equipment section for details) will provide access to the spells within them. Additionally, some grimoires will modify spells while they are equipped. Starting Level: The Watcher and his/her companions will be level 1 at the start of Deadfire. Encounters Deadfire will feature a combination of one-off and repeating encounters. In addition, the developers are trying to reduce the amount of “filler” combat in the game in comparison to Pillars of Eternity 1. Encounter design/enemy placement will also include patrolling groups, which can become involved in ongoing encounters. Monsters: Deadfire will feature more variety in enemy attack types and enemies that were featured in Pillars of Eternity 1 will also be getting some adjustments so that fighting them will be somewhat different from encounters in the first game. Update #23 features detailed information on the Naga and Update #8 has concept art for the Engwithan Saint, another monster that you may encounter in the game. Ship Encounters: While sailing, encounters may occur as scripted interactions. The presence or absence of ship upgrades, as described above, will influence options and outcomes for these scripted interactions. Combat encounters involving your ship can involve in-game combat rather than scripted interactions. Equipment Attribute Bonuses: Multiple bonuses to attributes from separate pieces of equipment won’t result in the suppression of the lower bonus in Deadfire, but the types of attribute bonuses are closely tied to specific types of equippable items now so that any items that provide attribute bonuses of the same type will always one of two slots (gloves and boots can both provide bonuses to Dexterity, for example, but helmets and belts never will). Cloaks and Amulets: There will be both a cloak slot and a neck slot for characters, allowing you to equip both simultaneously. Clothing Sets: Deadfire will feature much more variety in terms of the outfits that are present in the game. Damage Resistance/Armor Penetration: Creatures and armors will have base and variant Armor Ratings (AR), which will be shown via tooltips while attacking enemies. Weapons will have Penetration values, which are pitted against enemies’ AR. If the Penetration value is lower than AR, the weapon only deals 30% damage. Penetration values that exceed a target’s AR inflict the normal amount of damage (100%) unless the Penetration value is at least twice as high the target’s AR, in which case the attack deal 130% damage. Edit: Due to feedback from players during the beta, the specifics of interactions between Penetration and AR are set to change. The reduction in damage due to failing to overcome AR will be more gradual, starting at -25% with Penetration that is one point lower than AR, increasing to -50% if Penetration is two points lower, and reaching a maximum of -75% if Pentration is three or more points lower than the target's AR Dual-Wielding: Some ranged weapons, such as pistols, wands, scepters, and blunderbusses, can be dual-wielded in Deadfire. Enchanting System: The focus in Deadfire is on providing more unique weapons and providing stronger incentives for players to exchange old weapons for new ones. Enchanting weapons will no longer provide access to a single list of generic options that can be applied to any weapon. Instead, enchantment will allow you to alter and improve preexisting characteristics of a given weapon: making a Flaming weapon into a Flaming Burst or Flaming Chain weapon for example. Such weapons will also have limitations in terms of how much you can improve their quality. Food: Food consumption is now linked to rest rather than being usable from the inventory screen. Loot: Deadfire will feature random loot, but more important equipment is more likely to be deliberately placed rather appearing randomly throughout the game. Tying the generation of certain types of common/trivial loot from enemies to chance is intended to lower the frequency of “trash drops”, such as Xaurip spears. Unlike in Pillars of Eternity 1, more items will be stackable to reduce the amount of clutter in inventory. This screenshot that J.E. Sawyer posted confirms the implementation of infinite stacking for inventory. Trinkets: Class-specific items are now tied to a trinket slot rather than competing for space with other items. Edit: The Trinkets slot has been reverted back to a Grimoire slot; class-specific trinkets for non-wizard classes will not be appearing in Deadfire. Weapons: The first Q&A reveals that unlike the first Pillars of Eternity, Deadfire will be using individual weapon proficiencies rather than group weapon proficiencies, meaning that you would use resources to become proficient with battle axes, for example, rather than choosing the Weapon Focus: Knight talent. Also unlike the first Pillars of Eternity, weapon proficiencies will not provide accuracy bonuses for the weapons you select. Instead, they allow you to use modal abilities while you are wielding the associated weapon. These modal abilities provide both benefits and drawbacks. Further weapon details (this references talents from Pillars of Eternity 1, see https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Pillars_of_Eternity_Wiki for details on them if necessary): Weapon proficiency modals take the place of equivalent talents from Pillars Eternity 1 and are gained through weapon proficiency options at levels 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, and 19 rather than costing talent points*. It is unlikely that there will be any unarmed proficiency in the game. A fighter’s Weapon Specialization and Weapon Mastery apply to all weapons they’re proficient with. Proficiency with hunting bows provides access to the Rapid Shot modal. Proficiency with war bows provides access to the Power Shot modal. Proficiency with rods provides access to Blast. Proficiency with scepters provides access to the Dangerous Implement modal. Proficiency with pistols allows you to use them in melee to pistol whip enemies. As of the beta (v0.0.0.0004), this modal has been replaced with Rushed Reload. Proficiency with sabers allows you to use a Windmill Slash modal that increases penetration but also increases recovery time. There are no plans to introduce new weapon types to Deadfire, but they are including more novel variations of existing weapon types: Xoti’s sickle is classified as a hatchet, for example . Here's a more extensive list of weapon proficiency modals in the game. *Based on one of Sawyer's responses during Q&A 8 and a prior tweet in which he mentioned potentially moving certain talents (e.g., weapon styles like two weapon style and talents that raise defenses) into the proficiency system, the proficiency system itself may be undergoing a change into a more generalized talent system (while still using its own resources distinct from those tied to ability selection at level up). Gameplay Camping: Resting is no longer restricted by camping supplies. Instead, different food items are used during resting to gain bonuses and/or remove injuries. Combat Log: J.E. Sawyer has provided a screenshot for Deadfire’s combat log, showing its capacity to filter information based on the player character or companion you select. Difficulty Settings: As Enoch noted, there are plans to rename the Easy difficulty setting as well as the Normal and Hard settings. The new settings names are as follows: Relaxed (formerly Easy), Classic (formerly Normal), and Veteran (formerly Hard). Importing Pillars 1 Saves: You can import end-game saves from Pillars 1 when starting Deadfire (see Past Decisions under the Storyline section for details). When you do so, you will be able to adjust your Watcher's sex, race, class, and other characteristics as though you were making a new character. Inspirations and Afflictions: Beneficial effects/buffs in Deadfire are now classified as Inspirations and Harmful effects are classified as Afflictions. Inspirations cancel Afflictions and vice versa. Afflictions and Inspirations are both organized based on the tiers they occupy and the attributes they apply to. Higher tiers indicate more powerful Inspirations or Afflictions. MaxQuest has provided a full list of Inspirations and Afflictions, along with their effects. Level Scaling: You will have the following options for level scaling – full level scaling, partial level scaling (critical path only), or no level scaling. The range for level scaling has upper and lower limits, so activating level scaling does not guarantee that enemies will always be exactly the same level as you. It will be possible to set scaling options so that enemies only ever scale up to your level, but not in the beta. Modding: Deadfire will not come with any modding tools. Modding will be easier in Deadfire than it was for Pillars of Eternity 1, but modding the maximum party size would be difficult if not impossible. New Game+/Berath’s Blessings: Berath’s Blessings is a new gameplay feature that was introduced as one of the stretch goals during Deadfire’s initial campaign. It’s basically a spin on the New Game+ feature (though using it doesn't require you to have completely finished the game first), providing you with a number of points based on in-game achievements that can be spent on blessings (e.g., more attribute points, higher starting copper, choosing a companion to start the game with, etc.) You can also use these points to make the game more difficult rather than making your character more powerful. Party Size: The maximum party size in Deadfire will be five rather than six. Scripted Interactions: The UI for scripted interactions is changing to allow players to more easily switch between party members for various tasks and checks within them. Party members who are too far away will not be able to participate in these scripted interactions. In some cases, actions during scripted interactions are performed exclusively by particular party members, but in others, the entire party contributes bonuses to the character performing a skill-based action based on their ranks in the skill that’s being used. Skill-based bonuses/contributions from other party members will be possible most of the time, and these skill bonuses follow a weighted progression. Scripted interactions in Deadfire will be akin to those from the White March in the sense that they’ll involve broader applications for the abilities and skills that you use while they take place. Sleight of Hand/Pickpocketing: Pickpocketing via Sleight of Hand is done by interacting with an NPC while you are in stealth mode. Rather than initiating dialogue under these circumstances, it produces a pop-up interface which shows the target’s items and indicates the feasibility of stealing them (i.e., items that can be taken without being detected, items that can be taken at the cost of being detected, and items that simply cannot be taken at all). Update #38's Exploring Neketaka confirms that players can try to steal from shops while demonstrating a failed attempt to do so. Stealth: The stealth system has been redesigned for Deadfire; creatures now have vision cones and hearing radii which you will need to avoid in order to prevent detection. Generally, a creature’s vision cone will extend out further than the hearing radius, which will be less critical to preserving stealth, but this may vary for different creatures (Skuldrs will have larger hearing radii due to their superior sense of hearing, for example). VFX Opacity: Visual effects will have their opacity reduced when you pause the game during combat to help improve battlefield visibility. You will be able to adjust this to increase or further decrease effect opacity if you wish. Ship In Deadfire, the Watcher will have a ship rather than a stronghold, providing more freedom to explore the world. You start with a Dyrwoodan sloop, which you use to travel from Dyrwood to the Deadfire Archipelago. from Update #36 shows footage of ship travel over the map as well as a scripted interaction involving the ship and its crew. The Steward of Caed Nua will accompany you to the Deadfire on your ship and will feature more prominently in the game’s storyline. Name: By default, the Watcher’s initial ship is called the Defiant, though you can rename it. Crew: You can hire crew members to man your ship. Crew members can assist you during scripted interactions and ship battles, though conflicts between you and your crew are possible as well. Remaining well stocked on food/water is necessary to keep your crew alive, though even if they all starve you'll still be able to progress through the game (albeit with the risk of dying during the first pirate encounter you face afterwards). Upgrades: Cosmetically, you can customize your ship by changing the sails, painting the hull or adding flags. To improve the ship’s functionality, you can upgrade the ship’s cannon’s, hull, and/or hull. Storyline Companions: There are seven companions, three of whom (Aloth, Eder, and Pallegina) are returning from Pillars of Eternity 1 unless they died in the first game. The new companions in Deadfire are a monk/priest of Gaun named Xoti, a an orlan Cipher/Barbarian named Serafen, and a ranger named Maia Rua (the sister of Kana Rua from Pillars of Eternity 1). Characters with multiple possibilite starting classes, like Serafen and Xoti, are not multiclass by default; you can choose either of their listed classes for single class progression or have them multiclass instead. The plans and system for companion likes/dislikes, reactivity, and relationships are discussed in update #13. Conflicts between companions can potentially escalate to the point that one of them will leave the party, but this will not happen without prior warnings. Through your relationships with companions, you will be able to exert some influence over how your companions develop in terms of personality/perspective, but not to the point of radically changing their outlooks or who they fundamentally are as characters. Dispositions: Aside from Deceptive, which has been replaced with Shady, the dispositions in Deadfire will remain the same as those in the first game. The Watcher’s dispositions may affect their relationship with companions to an extent, but with companion relationships, the focus tends to be on more specific types of behavior as opposed to the broader character traits that dispositions represent. The developers are also planning to make improvements on disposition representation in terms of disposition scaling for dialogue checks and disposition recognition/lack thereof when it is appropriate. DLCs: The developers haven’t shared any specific plans for Deadfire DLCs (that I know of), but pledge options during the campaign allowed the option to purchase a season pass for DLC and J.E. Sawyer likes the idea of a DLC set in the White that Wends or Naasitaq. Update: The product page for Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire - Obsidian Edition shows that at there are plans for least three DLC expansions. Factions: There are four factions that you can join in Deadfire; the indigenous population (known as the Huana), a pirate group of refugees originally from Old Vailia known as the Príncipi sen Patrena, the Royal Deadfire Company from Rauatai, and the Vailian Trading Company. Details and these factions and their histories can found within Updates #28 (for the Principi and the Huana) and #29 (for the Royal Deadfire Company and the Vailian Trading Company). Faction alliances will eventually become exclusive past a certain point (meaning that you can’t be an active member of multiple factions throughout the game), but this point of no return will be made clearer to the player than it was in Pillars of Eternity 1. As a whole, the factions will be more relevant to the storyline throughout more of the game in Deadfire, but you can choose to operate without allying yourself with any of these factions. Fulvano’s Voyage: A number of islands/locations were added to Deadfire over the course of its initial campaign. See updates #9, #12, #14, and #19 for details. In-Game Environments: Some environments in Deadfire will be stranger than those present in Pillars of Eternity 1, and there will be more of a focus on metaphysical areas/implications within the setting. For example, the from Update #35 features some footage of characters exploring the Beyond. Main City: The main hub/”big city” of Deadfire is Nekataka, the largest of the Huana cities. Update #14 features a developer account of the reasoning for having only one big city in Deadfire along with a brief video which shows some gameplay footage within the city. Update #9 contains some information concerning Queen Onekaza II and Prince Aruihi, leaders of the indigenous Huana population, as well as details concerning the foreign nations’ interest in colonizing the area. Update #38 features showing gameplay within the city, including travel between its districts and scripted interactions. Past Decisions: As the campaign launch trailer I provided at the top suggests, Deadfire is a direct sequel to Pillars of Eternity 1 and the main character will be the Watcher. You can import an end-game save from Pillars of Eternity 1, in which case the decisions you made as that character will carry over, or you can start an entirely new game and specify the Watcher’s decisions from the first game. If you played through them, some decisions from the White March expansions may carry over into Deadfire as well. Sidekicks: Sidekicks are like companions in that you can use them to fill up your party and travel alongside you, but they will not be as closely integrated into the storyline and will not have as much reactivity as the companions will. An early list and description of sidekicks can be found within Update #14, but Radora and Bonteru didn’t make the cut. Pug Pug’s thread regarding companions/sidekicks provides information that is more up to date. Tone: Deadfire will be fairly similar to Pillars of Eternity 1 in terms of how dark the story can get, but the game will feature more humor (though there are no plans to make it “wacky”) and one of the developers’ goals is to feature a broader emotional range for events within the game.

It's been a while since I've played that part of the game, but unless he disappears, you don't have to let him go since you could kill him while he's walking away. I agree that extorting money or information from him after dealing with the bandits would have been a simple and appropriate option to include, however. If you killed Calisca and the rest of the caravan at the start of the game, you can gloat to Aufra (Calisca's sister and the mother from the Mother's Plea quest) about having done so, at which point she and her cat turn hostile and have to be put down. However, unless the boost to your Watcher's Cruel disposition benefits them as a priest of Skaen or a Bleak Walker paladin, there's no particular reward for doing this beyond the satisfaction of murdering a terrified pregnant woman and her cat. Ferry Flotsam doesn't pose a moral dilemma for evil characters unless they're driven by a pathological need to screw over absolutely everyone; not even then, actually, since you can still kill Peregund after she pays you. A ruthless character who's driven by greed, such as the one you described, would have an easy choice to make: off the looters and get paid for it or help them out without much promise of payment. The former's obviously preferable from a profit-oriented perspective; who cares if the merchant's happy about it? Sure, the character would probably like to get paid more, but being able to extort Peregund's life savings from her over the cargo is only viable if said cargo is more important to her than her life savings, which is far from guaranteed. Even if you threatened to kill her or something if she didn't pay you more, chances are she's not hauling anything close to her life savings around with her, so the discount is more likely to return superior long-term benefits. As for selling the stuff yourself, that could potentially work, but it's worth keeping in mind that, aside from ostensibly being preoccupied with trying to prevent the memories of your past lives from driving you mad, you're a foreigner who has no real connections in the area and either no reputation or a rapidly worsening one at the rate you're going around carving up peasants and robbing merchants. In taking the cargo for yourself, you're basically gambling on your ability to locate the right buyer and on said buyer's willingness to purchase your goods at the price you're looking for, which is also not assured given the possibility of damage to the merchandise and the fact that you're either unknown or infamous. That said, I don't really see the harm in making it an option to steal the cargo and try to sell it yourself but it shouldn't guarantee a greater reward by a long shot. If certain conditions are met, such as having the Merchant background and sufficient ranks in a skill related to the goods in question (Peregund sells traps in Defiance Bay, if memory serves, so maybe Mechanics), it should be possible to get more gold/rewards for the effort involved, but otherwise the option shouldn't automatically serve as a way to maximize your returns and could reasonably result in you actually earning less. I'm not really sure why a heartless, greedy bastard would actually give the knife to Gordy since it's actually a pretty handy weapon. But whatever: here's a list. I'm assuming you don't mind spoilers here, but I've spoilered some of these anyway just in case. What you can do in Heritage Hill is eviler than shaking down a bandit's hostage or a merchant, at least. Depending on how much they like birds, people might think Songs of the Wild features a rather evil option for its resolution. The dialogue options you get to urge Delem to follow through on his plan are pretty funny and I think one the options you have for getting one of the birds from Llensi, while far from the major leagues of evil, did effectively drive home what a bastard your Watcher is (if you think terrifying little old ladies with grievous bodily harm to their beloved pets is crossing a line, at least). The peaceful option for dealing with the Master Below could be considered pretty heinous. If you have the White March, there's a quest that allows you to sell an escaped slave back into slavery. If you have a jail at your keep, you can sell prisoners into slavery, order the jailer to continuously torture them, or sell them to animancers to use as research subjects. The jailer once asked what to do with a prisoner who had tried to escape and I had to option to instruct him to hack off some of their fingers, but I'm not sure how often that comes up since it only happened to me in one playthrough. As the master of Caed Nua, you can execute a number of your visitors and string them up from your gates. You can also help a slave trader secure routes and contacts within the Dyrwood for a cut of the profits, and you can take advantage of a visiting noble's crisis to loot his coffers under the pretext of protecting him. There are also a few quests that have options which are more along the lines of generic assassinations, like Hard Feelings, His Old Self, and the Changing of the Guard. They're nothing to really write home about, but they're still options for establishing your character as someone who doesn't mind killing decent/honest people for a bit of coin. Unwanted is basically the same setup, but it's worth mentioning since the quest does more to emphasize Eorn's blamelessness and you also have the option to imprison him and thereby subject him to any of the fates I mentioned in #9 above. If you also made the poison, you can give that to Simoc instead of the distilled essence potion. Then you can still convince him that it was what he asked for and thus gain the same reward (Thy Cleft) if your Resolve is high enough. That said, the distilled essence potion has no other use in Pillars 1 and I doubt they'll bother to check to see if you kept it for yourself in Pillars 2. My Watcher only went to the trouble because he figured the essence potion would function similarly to a person's remains or possessions in terms of triggering visions, which he could use to better understand the rituals of the Ethik Nol and potentially utilize them himself. Unfortunately for him he was apparently wrong, but it's not like he lost anything by trying.

The closest thing that I can find to what you're saying about the Eder example is in the same tumblr post that Enoch linked to earlier, wherein the person asking the question, who is not an Obsidian developer, uses the fighter, rogue, or swashbuckler example. All Sawyer says in his response is: And that's it. If this was the example that you've been referring to, then the truth of your assertion remains very much unconfirmed; a general affirmation of the availability of companion multiclassing options that can possibly (and debatably) be taken as implicit support for a more restrictive approach to multiclassing does not overturn numerous official statements to the contrary. If it's not what you were talking about, it might be helpful to back your claims with references before expecting us to take them as fact. However, I could find more direct support for your claim about some companions not having access to subclasses among Sawyer's statements here, where he states that: It's important to remember that this answer was given in response to a question asking whether all companions have unique subclasses, but unlike the multiclassing case above there isn't necessarily any outright contradiction with past statements. Sawyer's response from the first q&a comes close, but we (or at least I) can't rule out the possibility that his affirmation of companion access to subclasses is limited to those companions who have unique subclasses. Beyond that, the tumblr response I quoted above is straightforward enough that the case for concluding that companion subclass restrictions exist is easy to see and hard to dismiss altogether.

Agreed. Flexibility in multiclass options for companions isn't something that the devs talk about just once in the update I linked to earlier, it's touched upon in both Q&A 3 and Q&A 6 as well. Interpreting Sawyer's use of the term "available classes" to mean that they're now deviating from that intention seems like a stretch, especially since readers could interpret that as applying specifically to single class options that are available to the character (the way it did from the start) as opposed to implicitly extending to multiclass options as well now. It's another story if he explicitly acknowledges the change, but I'd be surprised to find out that the changes to the multiclass system, which seem to have been motivated by mechanical concerns, also marked a change in Sawyer's thinking as far as multiclassing freedom not being of narrative concern goes. It's not only that, actually. If you and Fardragon are right, the change effectively makes multiclassing impossible for characters, such as Maia and Aloth, whose available class rosters consist of only a single class. The fact that multiclassing is completely off the table for these characters seems like it'd be worth mentioning outright in an answer to a question about companion multiclassing options even if Sawyer somehow didn't think that taking a 180 in regards to previously mentioned degrees of multiclassing flexibility for companions needed to be specifically acknowledged.

For the machine to distinguish between Dyrwoodans and non-Dyrwoodans, it'd probably be necessary for nationality to somehow make peoples' souls appreciably different on the basis of where they were born, and I'm not sure Obsidian really wants to go *there* any time soon. As far as I recall, the souls have to travel through the machinery to achieve the various outcomes (with the possible exception of outright destroying them), so it's quite possible that Sun in Shadow itself was simply outside of the radius of the effect, in that it was the place the essence was sent away from and because it's far enough removed from the Dyrwood itself that you need help from the gods just to avoid dying on the trip over.

Apparently as far back as the second update he's been locked in as a single-classed wizard unless you multiclass him as whatever else: Also, one thing that comes to mind about the Watershapers is that the name seems a bit reminiscent of the Ondrite title scheme for classes in the White March, where we encounter Galesingers (though Tekehu's chanter subclass is actually Storm Speaker), Tidalfists, and Crescentwards. Aside from fitting her portfolio, we also see Ondrites use water to create a barrier before the reliquary at the Abbey of the Fallen Moon in the expansion, maybe the manipulation of water to create structures/obstacles/routes is more of a common practice for her faithful overall.

You're right. I linked to the wrong Q&A in my last post (but not the initial post, which links to the Q&A video itself where you can watch Sawyer talk about it); Q&A 5's the one that mentions it. His druid subclass is indeed Watershaper according to Sawyer's tumbler page (https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/165191293231/hi-josh-i-was-wodnering-if-all-companions-will), but it sounds like it's an organization as well.

Which I got from Fereed's transcription of Q&A 6. I'm not trying to pass his hard work off as mine.

On Tekehu: I don't think they've released a full sized image of Tekehu's portrait, but you can see a small version here. Edit: And he has been confirmed to be a companion.

Because being a member of the Principi isn't just "being a pirate" in the generic sense. It's being affiliated with a group of pirates which has historically been known for robbing, intimidating, and murdering Huana, to say nothing of their possible complicity in any slave trade that the Huana may be victims of in the game. You honestly don't see how the Huana might find that objectionable? Not necessarily; her emphasis on subterfuge under a veneer of diplomacy could easily require her to distance herself from the Huana as an active faction for reasons of plausible deniability. In terms of authority or executive power, she could very well be in competition with Prince Aruihi or others we haven't heard of rather than at the top of the faction as a whole.

It's possible that they'll change their minds about it, but even if they don't, the cutoff point's supposed to be later in the game than it was for factions in Pillars 1, so you may be able to get a few quests before that point to be somewhat friendly with another faction. More specifically, I'm not sure how well the Huana will react to the Watcher working with the Principi, given the latter group's history of raiding Huana villages and the enmity they've earned through it. Temporary, uneasy alliances seem likely enough given their common enemies, but I'm not sure that this is really the best example of complementary affiliations. If Queen Onekaza II's more or less the faction leader, I'd almost expect it to be easier to reach out to her from a position of allegiance with the Vailian Trade Republics or the Royal Deadfire Company, given her efforts to manipulate them while maintaining a pretense of submission and accommodation. Also, I figured I might as well toss in some links for faction info for anyone who hasn't already seen them: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=256#updates - provides a brief rundown on the impetus for colonization along with some info about Queen Onekaza II and Prince Aruihi (who seem likely to be prominent figures within the Huana faction). https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=311#updates - Faction descriptions, Principi & Huana https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=315#updates - Faction descriptions, Royal Deadfire Company & Vailian Trading Company -- You're welcome, and I can definitely understand where you're coming from as far as using the first few quests or so to get a sense of the groups you're interested in working with/for. As far as going factionless is concerned, I also agree that it'd be nice to have options on how to approach it (e.g., being cordial to factions but largely unaccountable to them as opposed to burning all bridges and killing their agents on sight). Given multiple ways to resolve quests and develop the Watcher's dispositions, I'd imagine this is guaranteed to a point, but to what extent is unclear.

Here's some of what we know about how factions will be handled so far: the point of no return for one faction or another will be communicated more clearly to players past that point, which will be further into the game than in Pillars 1, faction allegiances will be exclusive and prevent affiliation with other factions faction plots will be relevant throughout more of the game, though you will have the option to reject/oppose/ignore all of them and set out on your own

Yeah, especially with the option of multiclassing in Deadfire. Just imagine monks/wizards punching people with grimoires or fighters/wizards clutching their grimoires in the same hands they're holding their shields in. Fortunately, the videos they've shown Aloth's idle animations and do indicate that grimoires aren't around until you need them. That said, I can still see some potential for awkwardness for dual wielders and shield users when it comes time to whip the grimoires back out.

If you watch the for update #40, you'll see them click through the wizard subclasses. The transmuter subclass' description includes the ability to transform into an ogre via an ability called "Form of the Fearsome Brute". There might be a spell that allows something similar, but given that it would almost certainly be a transmutation spell, maybe there won't be in the interests of avoiding redundancy/preserving the transmuter's uniqueness.

People may or may not be expecting too much from companions in the game, but your opinion seems to be overlooking quite a bit here as well. First, there's the update that details some of the goals for companions and how they plan to have their relationships with the Watcher and each other develop for Deadfire: https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire?update=263. Second, there's the Q&As, which emphasize the greater amount of time invested into companions and deliberately draw a distinction between them to preemptively manage expectations for sidekicks in comparison to companions (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/124031593?t=29m20s). Third, the devs also outright state that they intend to make the companions "a lot deeper than they were in Pillars 1" (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/120695299?t=57m19s) and that companion relations are a "big focus" for the game (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/158677319?t=31m07s); they also mention companion relationship quests being present in addition to arc quests (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/122368156?t=48m48s) and that they're considering arc talents for companions (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/120695299?t=47m34s). Even if this doesn't amount to anything unprecedented or revolutionary, and I agree that it probably won't, what they've described here actually sounds similar (for better or worse) to the way companions were handled in DAO minus the latter's gift system.

You're welcome. I looked it up because I also tend to take a dim view of unexplained breaks from lore like this appeared to be. It'd be nice if they could work default grimoires into trinket slots for wizards the way unarmed strikes appear in unoccupied weapon slots in the game, but it's far from a deal-breaker for me either way. Yeah, they probably could have originally come up with something that would have been less sensitive to future gameplay changes. Still, I wonder how far they really could have strayed from the d&d framework of wizards mining enemy grimoires/scrolls for spells and scribbling said spells into their own books to be cast at a later date without running afoul of folks whose expectations for the game as a "spiritual successor" to its IE predecessors caused them to consider that a sticking point.

Retcon it sounds to me: now wizards only need grimoires to cast spells they don't know but they cannot swap out spells in the grimoire anymore. They also can't learn extra spells by spending money, the only spells they themselves can know is the ones they gain at level up. Apparently, Sawyer fielded a question about this back in March: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/158755062421/unless-im-mistaken-in-poe-1-the-in-universe.

The unbroken and streetfighter subclasses might blend well together, with the latter dealing more damage while surrounded and the former making it more dangerous for enemies to disengage once they've entered the fray. The lower Stride (which I assume pertains to movement speed) may be a bit undesirable for a rogue, but since fighter abilities that involve dragging enemies are apparently a more pronounced part of their repertoire in this game, maybe that'll make up for it. Helwalker might pair well with streetfighter since both are likely to want to be in the thick of things and they'll become all the more dangerous while bloodied. Lifegiver, while not exactly synergistic with helwalker, may work well with the monk subclass since it'll make them better at patching themselves up and thereby compensate for the increased incoming damage while wounded. Helwalker plus shifter sounds like a more interesting combo to me what with the post-Spiritshift healing, but Boeroer's probably right about Transcendent Suffering not working with Spiritshift and that substantially diminishes the incentive to use them together as far as I'm concerned. The priest of Wael's access to illusion spells allows them to trigger the assassin subclass' benefit more reliably, which (strangely enough) probably makes them a better fit for the assassin subclass than priests of Skaen. That said, the illusionist subclass would probably be even better alongside assassin given Reflexive Mirror to break out Mirror Images the first time they're hit and the fact that the illusion spells they'll cast will benefit from a bonus to effective power level. Evoker and sharpshooter might play well together if the latter's benefit applies to spells, though slower actions may be a heavy price to pay if it also increases spellcasting time. Sharpshooter's probably better with assassin since ranged attacks make the ambushes that assassins specialize in easier to perform and fighting from a distance may improve their chance of rendering the assassin's damage vulnerability moot. If Flames of Devotion generates Focus, a paladin + soul blade might be able to alternate between FoD and Soul Annihilation to consistently spike their damage output. Since bleak walkers boost their FoD further with Remember Rakkhan Field, they might work particularly well for this.

Sawyer elaborated on the benefits and drawbacks of the Ascendant cipher subclass here. Having a lower effective power level than a standard cipher except at max focus sounds pretty bad to me, but I suppose there are probably builds that may allow it to jump up to the maximum fairly quickly.

Like I said, it seems extreme compared to what they gain and therefore unlikely, but it is worth noting that it's not too far out of line with mechanics that have already been shown for the game. Both the wizard subclasses and the Lifegiver subclass have increased power level for particular spell types via their benefits, for example.

Presumably. Paladins won't be getting per encounter uses for each ability, but rather, each use of a given ability will deduct an amount from a common pool that refreshes per encounter (e.g., using Flames of Devotion might subtract 2 points from the paladin's available Zeal for an encounter - see https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/160349084811/ah-saw-your-something-awful-post-so-these for Sawyer's summary of how ability resources will work for the different classes, paladins included). Based on this information, "less Zeal power" likely means that this common pool won't be as high for Darcozzi paladins (who knows by how much), but at the extreme end of things, it could even refer to power level, which, as I mentioned earlier, has bearing on how abilities scale in terms of damage and other effects. The latter interpretation seems so extreme, though, that I agree that the effect is probably limited to the per encounter pool for abilities rather than making everything they do weaker. The Darcozzi's benefit might also apply to Healing Chain somehow if it's folded into Lay on Hands or there's a similar option to extend its effects to other party members, but I tend to agree that it sounds like a lot to miss out on for a flaming shield every now and then. The loss of auras for Goldpact Knights came as a surprise to me as well, since they seemed like a pretty big part of defining the class in terms of its role as a leader on the front lines.

It's their power source. Conceptually, it refers to what allows a paladin to harness the power of their soul, the force of their convictions. Each class has a different one. For example, a priest's power source is Faith, a chanter's power source is Spirits (if memory serves), and a fighter's power source is Discipline. Mechanically, progression in power level (tied to that source) may determine how often you can use abilities, how powerful these abilities are when you use them, and other scaling variables (e.g., the number of missiles that are generated by Minoletta’s Minor Missiles for wizards based on their power level). Tying it back to paladins/Zeal, your Zeal power level would determine how many times you can use Flames of Devotion in a fight and how much damage it inflicts when you do so.

You might want to include companion deaths as possible answers on the poll so the blood pool-feeders, players who abided by their deaths in combat, and others among us can denote these outcomes. My first Deadfire playthrough be with a character who, after killing Raedric VII and seeing the villagers huddling around the tree, grieving over the bodies they had strung up there as though they were victims of an atrocity rather than participants in it or at least passive enablers of it, decided that all them should be put the sword for their spinelessness and hypocrisy. The game would have let me recruit Eder after that like nothing happened, but I just couldn't think of a way in which that would make sense for his character so he had to die with them. I did choose to feed the souls to Woedica one time out of curiosity in one game before reloading, but I have trouble seeing the motivation for a Watcher to actually do that. Sure, Skaen makes a pitch about getting Thaos' perks as part of the deal (and I couldn't help but think it was a huge missed opportunity not to be able to call out the god of defiance and violent rebellion on his apparent deference to Burned Queen), but considering how we've spent most of the game wrecking or interfering with her/Thaos' plans and so much has been made of her perfect memory and the inevitable retribution that awaits those who transgress against her rule, a last-minute change of heart to empower her seems as likely to leave her better positioned to lop your head off for your trouble as anything else. Especially without any assurances from the goddess herself that your crimes against her faith thus far would be overlooked. As far as the other choices regarding the Engwithan machine are considered, I actually think returning the souls of the Hollowborn to their bodies seems far more thought-provoking and intriguing in its possibilities and implications than Wael's suggestion to randomly shuffle them off wherever. After all, if the Hollowborn make it back to their bodies, all sorts of questions arise: Were the souls conscious within the machine, and if so, how will the decades of bodiless imprisonment shape them? Will they ever be fully connected to their bodies afterward or might they henceforth be prone to drifting away from it at times? Will the Hollowborn inherit memories from their bodies as they settle back into them? If so, how many of them will even be able to develop into autonomous beings under the weight of years spent in a passive, unfeeling haze? Even for those who do, how might the experience interfere with their ability to truly understand others or for others to truly understand them? Were the souls able to retain identities/definition as individual beings or did they begin to "bleed into" each other as a consequence of being bound together for so long and at such an early stage in their existence? In the latter case, you might be inflicting some Village of the Damned type of scenario on the Dyrwood, where what returns is some creepy, emotionless collective of mind-linked children. How reliable is the process of returning the souls to their bodies - especially considering the apparent strain of using the machine and the fact that it's your first time using it this way (or your first time after dozens of lifetimes, I can't remember which)? Are there cases where the souls don't make it to their intended destinations, awkwardly cohabitating bodies with the souls of other Hollowborn, free floating in the air as they dissolve with nothing to anchor them to this world, or twisting into shades as they struggle to sustain themselves without flesh? What happens to the vessels which are roving around as Wichts? Do the animal souls, which have had the advantage of being housed in a living body over the course of their development, prove the stronger and devour the newly returned souls of the Hollowborn, do the Hollowborn prevail and subsume/banish the animal souls, do they come to coexist with each other, or is there a combination of all these outcomes overall, varying from individual to individual? All of these results beg all sorts of questions of their own. And that's without even getting into how the various ways in which their return would impact other Dyrwoodans or to what extent your intentions would mitigate your culpability for any of these outcomes. By contrast, with Wael's option, I'd argue that too little is known to even ask questions aside from very general ones like "where are the souls?", "what are they doing?", and/or "what's happening to them?" It's hard to evaluate or even identify specific possibilities without more details to work with, after all. Furthermore, the number of people who would even know to ask these questions would be limited to you, companions for the final battle (and maybe not even them if they're unable to actually see or make sense of what you've done), and anyone you/your companions choose to tell who believes the story. For everyone else, there's basically no difference between Wael's suggestion, Berath's, or Rymrgand's in terms of the level of mystery involved since, for all they know, the souls of Hollowborn were bound back to the Wheel from day one. Ironically, this seems to be fairly at odds with what the game leads us to believe is his purpose, but I guess calling that into question would actually be considered a perk for him. In the case of Galawain's proposition for the souls, it's arguably crueler than Rymrgand/Ondra's. In a very real way, what you're doing here is tearing the remains of these children to pieces and force-feeding them to their parents/guardians and siblings, in the case of those children or teenagers who managed to be born before the Legacy or during those brief periods where the Leaden Key lapsed in their operation of the machines long enough for newborn souls to slip through. And that's only when the tasty soul bits you're doling out don't find their way into the bellies of monsters and animals that may end up preying on these same families in turn. On top of that, the Dyrwoodans will likely be unwittingly celebrating your decision to mangle and scatter the souls of their Hollowborn offspring this way for generations to come. I'd say that perhaps the greatest advantage of Berath's suggestion is that it allows for the possibility of the souls' return in some form without all the uncertainties or potential moral issues of the ones I've discussed above. Granted, there's still plenty of room to question whether it's morally acceptable to send them back to the Wheel without allowing them a chance to experience this life, but that seems like a much more tidy debate than one in which both sides consider the pros and cons of forcing families to cannibalize the souls of their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews, nieces, or whatever else, for example (with no judgement or condemnation intended against fellow posters, of course). We also don't know what they'd be reborn as or how much of them would carry across from one life to the next, but that's ultimately inevitable in any case where there's enough of the souls left to consider their prospects for their next turn on the Wheel.

Maybe, but Pillars 1 had only six Druid spells from levels 1-8 that deal with fire and/or sunlight: Sunbeam (1st level), Burst of Summer Flame (2nd level), Firebrand (2nd level), Firebug (5th level), Sunlance (6th level), and Firestag (8th level). I suspect there'll probably more spells along these lines in Pillars 2, but not necessarily for every spell level and almost certainly not enough to match the loss of access to an entire category of priest spells, even if a lot of the "Prayer Against..." spells that presumably fall under the category of Protection would probably be popular choices to skip over anyway. Compared to the other priest subclasses, I'm not too worried about priests of Skaen not getting much out multiclassing as rogues. For one thing, the rogue still brings sneak attacks to the table, which may not be one of the priest of Skaen's choices since it's a passive ability and it may be the intrinsic feature of the rogue class as opposed to something it selects at chargen/level up. For another, the rogue multiclass would allow the priest of Skaen more flexibility in terms of how often they can use their rogue abilities while also granting them to opportunity to gain more of them without having to choose them at the expense of new priest spells. And that's without considering the added versatility from a priest of Skaen/trickster combination, or the ability of Protection spells from the priest side to shore up the assassin subclass' weakness. Yeah, somehow it seems like the most overwhelmingly generic subclass to me, even though berserker, assassin, lifegiver, sharpshooter are more or less as derivative in terms of the fantasy staples they correspond to. At least for them, it's pretty clear why they're associated with their particular classes, but a mage slayer could have just as easily been a fighter, ranger, or even rogue subclass. I don't anticipate ever making a mage slayer Watcher and it doesn't really seem to match up with the companions' personalities from what little I know about them, but I might throw it on a recruit or Rekke if I can. Presumably, any companions that have unique subclasses will have to have those subclasses if you choose that class for them. I looked into it a bit more since my last post and the following companions are confirmed to have unique subclasses: Maia, Pallegina (maybe or maybe not depending on the first game, but she'll have a mandatory subclass either way), Serafen, Tekehu, and Xoti. Neither Aloth nor Eder will have unique subclasses of their own (https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/165191293231/hi-josh-i-was-wodnering-if-all-companions-will) but two of the sidekicks will (not Ydwin, but I'd be surprised if Rekke wasn't one of them if the devs keep him in the final sidekick roster). Per the first Q&A (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/119024818?t=23m42s), companions are supposed to have the option to have subclasses even if they don't have unique ones associated with them. The devs might change their minds, though. One thing I do remember reading is that they might impose some multiclassing restrictions for companion subclass selection based on their personalities (e.g., so Eder couldn't be a Bleakwalker paladin), but I can't seem to find a source for that right now. The fighter/priest combination does make sense, though I'll probably avoid making him an Eothasian priest in any of my play-throughs because I think his unresolved questions and doubts regarding Eothas/the Saint's War are as much a part of his character as his faith. Part of me actually wants to avoid making Eder a ranger just because there was a thread about it earlier this year (which admittedly isn't much of a reason, but there it is). The stalker/streetfighter combo occurred to me while I was considering how I might develop Eder if I made him a rogue since it seemed like an interesting multiclass choice and it seemed to fit him best out of the companions. Multiclassing him as a Kind Wayfarer might also be sort of appropriate. There's his distaste for fanatics to consider, but of the order seems humble and laid back enough not to be problematic to him even though they're technically powered by zeal.

I suspect that "power" refers to power level or power source-based resources. See https://jesawyer.tum...l-post-so-these for details. It'd be pretty powerful if it does allow them to refresh per encounter resources, but at the same time, a) you're probably not of much use to anyone while you're munching on corpses (and who knows how long it takes), b) you might be an easy target while you do so, and c) who knows how many enemies leave suitable corpses for you to eat. Spirits, oozes, and blights might more or less disappear when they die, and undead along with animats/other constructs might not be edible. Power level's the other possibility that comes to mind as I mentioned above, and it still has bearing on how potent abilities are despite the move away from 3e-style multiclassing (see https://jesawyer.tum...tly-power-level for details). This may be the more likely explanation as it more closely resembles mechanics that have already been confirmed to exist in the game: power level boosts via empowerment and wizard specialist-type boosts to the power levels of specific sets of spells. If the details on the corpse eater subclass from https://www.bleeding...eternity-ii-e3/ aren't out of date by now, it might also shed light on how the corpse eater operates/lend support to my speculation. Even if this does reinforce the association with power source, I don't think it's all that clear as to whether it'd mean a boost to power level or per encounter uses tied to power source. "Rage counter" sounds more like the latter to me, but who knows. I suppose the Darcozzi paladin order's "lower Zeal power" drawback also raises similar questions: can they use their abilities less frequently and/or is their power level lower? Agreed. I think a psychically generated weapon is a huge part of the appeal for a dedicated melee cipher. The lore (http://forums.obsidi...ate-65-ciphers/) establishes that a cipher can't use their powers to target themselves among other things, but the devil's in the details: it could work as a more tangible variation of the soul whip, for example, or in a fashion similar to the more parasitic powers like Psychovampiric Shield which allow ciphers to redirect stolen energy from other creatures toward themselves. The "Soul Annihilation melee attack" mentioned in the update might sort of fit the bill though. For the priests. I agree that access to druid elemental spells seems overly broad for Eothas and the loss of protection magic doesn't seem overly in keeping with what we know about his character or philosophy. Swapping Berath's prohibition of condemnation spells for Eothas' prohibition on protection spells seems like it'd make more sense to me. Berath's not the most passionate or judgmental god by any stretch, but enough of the lore pertaining to him deals with scenarios of misfortune and ruin for those who try to cheat/deny death that condemnation, which presumably covers spells that deal damage or impose afflictions, still seems to fit for him. Plus, certain epilogues in the game show that he's not personally above doling out divine wrath from time to time. Come to think of it, if restoration spells also include things like removing poison or disease, it's a bit strange that Magran's priests wouldn't be able to do that given the fact that they worship the goddess of purification. I'm still concerned with how rogue abilities will match up to spells in terms of power per use for priests of Skaen, considering how balancing may account for the greater frequency with which rogues can use individual abilities in comparison to spells, and the delayed/limited access to normally out of class spells/abilities for these subclasses (https://jesawyer.tum...-like-priest-of) may exacerbate the issue further. I find the barbarian's mage slayer subclass somewhat boring, but I think meshes well conceptually with the soul blade or assassin (though I expect an assassin combo to be worse given the damage vulnerability). It might blend favorably with the nalpazca monk since the latter would allow the character to maximize benefits from drugs, which they might have a lot more use for since they can't use potions and scrolls. As for the assassin subclass, I understand the reasoning behind its strengths and weaknesses but specifically boosting the incoming damage against a character with the subclass may have the effect of making them even squishier than wizards, which seems a little odd to me. I find myself considering some of the subclasses more for companions than for the Watcher, actually. I could see Eder as a streetfighter/stalker, for example, or Serafen as a beguiler/skald (not that I see any particular synergy in those two subclasses, but I get the feeling they'd match his character). I'm also looking forward to more details on companion-specific subclasses, but I wonder how many will have them besides Xoti and Tekehu.