PatrioticChief

I don't care for the empower system at all. Be fine with them scrapping it.

Potentially but I don't think (and by think I mean I have no idea I am just assuming) it's gonna be steam workshop compatible so it'd be a ways out before something like that came along if ever.

Well, I would love them to be requested tbh. Women's one are awesome ! Yeah all of those are good

Did that one already: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91743-portraits/?p=1965734 You rock man.

I just powered through PoE and WM for the sole purpose of a save import. Really glad to see you can create a new character because if I was stuck as a Barbarian I was just gonna create a new character from scratch. All in on my soul blade/devoted idea.

I have still had some issue with pathing, particularly in the chamber with the crap ton of traps guarding the entrance in the dungeon. That being said, as a whole, I do think it has improved which is very positive.

Not sure if we are allowed to double dip but I liked this one too if you had the time.

Agreed. I feel like it is difficult to judge until we have that.

Gotcha. I'm cool with that. The only companions that are party locks for me right now are Aloth and Eder. A pity they did not try and do anything unique with them but finding out the unique of the new companions will be interesting. On a side note I ran a shifter last night, but as fun as the constant transformations were, it plays very boring. You don't even get to use one of the five unique abilities more than once in combat. And once you've picked the wild claws you're done in terms of upgrading your shifting abilities. It's a shame. Contrast that with say the Stalker. There are tons of talents available to make a melee ranger a viable and fun alternative to your stereotypical ranged ranger. I played Eder in different play-throughs as an "unbroken," a "devoted" and a generic fighter. Because all of our saves are probably a little different, generic is the only way you can match Eder pretty closely to what we expect. I think an option of Fighter + Rogue works pretty well, but I probably would have made the other option Fighter + Priest (Eothas) instead of straight rogue, though I know there are legit reasons why that was not considered a good story option. Also, I bet there were plenty of play-throughs that had Eder as rogue-like even though I never did. I also never played Aloth as a gish, so his options don't feel right to me, but I'm sure they do to other folks; I actually played him a little like a rogue because he was my mechanician (not sure how common that was). That said, cipher seemed like a better option than rogue because they are also rogue-like and Aloth has that split personality animancy issue. While cipher is ripe for a unique class option, if it is only a multi-class, it is only a partial class. Accordingly, while I think any of us could tweak it a little to our tastes, the choices made seem like a valid design choice and I wouldn't be surprised if they were somewhat based on how we were playing them. I always played Eder as the tank in PoE. I plan on making him a swashbuckler in PoE2 because I've really enjoyed my runs with a dual wielding swashbuckler so far.

Gotcha. I'm cool with that. The only companions that are party locks for me right now are Aloth and Eder. A pity they did not try and do anything unique with them but finding out the unique of the new companions will be interesting. On a side note I ran a shifter last night, but as fun as the constant transformations were, it plays very boring. You don't even get to use one of the five unique abilities more than once in combat. And once you've picked the wild claws you're done in terms of upgrading your shifting abilities. It's a shame. Contrast that with say the Stalker. There are tons of talents available to make a melee ranger a viable and fun alternative to your stereotypical ranged ranger.

Thanks. I wish they all had access to sub classes but it will be interesting to find out what the unique sub classes are. I could not tell from the graphic, does multi classing eliminate the subclass option? Or can I multi class Tekehu as a watershaper/storm speaker?

The linger on chants just seems so low. I guess if I just chant ancient memory and nothing else it can work.

Honestly none of that is too much of a deal breaker. Looks like I can keep Pel as a support tank with kind wayfarer. Eder and Aloth not having a subclass is not a big deal. It will be interesting to see how Tekehu unique sub classes work, but it does look like my healer chanter/druid combination is cooked.

Yeah I tested it and weapons seem to stack with everything. I do not remotely like the aura not stacking, but as a general rule of thumb, I do like the suppression system and how it forces you toward more well rounded characters.

I see so the inspirations cheat around the active ability. What about items? Will an item with say +5 ACC suppress the warrior stance? Thanks again for answering questions.

Now we obviously do not know sub classes yet so this potentially will not work. However, I have been testing several canon party comps based on the the known class compositions and this has been one of the funnest one I have come up with so far. Cypher-Fighter: Soul Blade/Devoted (Player) Fighter-Rogue: None/Street Fighter (Eder) Paladin: Kind Wayfarer (Pellagina) Druid-Chanter: Lifegiver/Troubadour (New fish) Wizard: Evocation (Aloth) I've mowed through the beta with this composition without, in my opinion, any significant cheese. Everyone is fairly durable, even Aloth due to spells. There is added durability due to Chanter summoning meat shields.There is ton of passive healing from Paladin aura, Chanter ancient memory, and Fighter rapid recovery. But there is also a ton of active healing through Paladin lay of hands/kind wayfarer white flame and Druid rejuvenation spells. There is also plenty of damage coming from Aloth, Eder and Watcher. I put quarterstaff on New Fish and clicked his modal for added durability and gave Pellagina morning star and clicked her fortitude damage modal. Eder has saber and halfsword. Watcher has estoc. Aloth casts spells nonstop like a good little wizard but technically he has a wand. I have noticed a little difficulty getting penetration with Eder, especially on those Saints, but outside of that I haven't really noticed any problems. Anyways, I know pellagina isn't always people favorite character so I think if I wanted to remove her I would make Eder a pure fighter tank and turn the Orlan Barbarian into damage dealer. Anyways, I just thought it was a fun competitive comp that might be possible in the released version that does not really focus on any exploits or oversights. Though to be fair I did allocate the attributes very specifically and you might not be able to do that. You couldn't in PoE.

But warrior stance will stack with priest buffs or an ability like disciplined barrage right?

Hey so does this mean class ability accuracy buffs won't stack with the fighter modal? (or does active just mean a modal?) Does Ancient Memory Stack with Exalted Endurance?

Yeah I could see ship combat being fun. I like the idea of it being text based and I think it certainly makes the ship more engaging than Caed Nau. However, it suffers from the same issue PoE, ie, not enough feedback to give the player a clear idea of how things work and interact. I don't think most folk mind a challenge, in fact I prefer it to be tougher, but I like to know the rules and mechanics at play so I can work to manipulate them.

That sucks. I guess I'll be shoehorned into endurance aura then.

Is this a bug or WAD? If it's a bug nbd but I don't understand why I can't stack warrior stance and the aura. Doesn't make sense to me.

Eh. It sucks but we will all appreciate it a ton more when there is less glitches and bugs when we finally get our hand on it. Devs never WANT to delay games so if they do delay it NEEDED to happen.

This is a must have. And yeah I really don't think it would take much of an effort to throw a different pallet on the animals. Not asking for different models.

Oh yeah I always make sure to grab that just didn't recognize the name. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, barring a massive nerf it looks like soulblade + devoted will be my first character in Pillars II. Cannot wait.

They should stack - but the chances don't get added. It's the same with hit-crit conversion from multiple sources. Once an attack roll is done the different abilites will get checked one after another to see if conversion happens. This leads to an overall chance that is not simply added, but the chances not to convert get multiplied (so to speak). So instead of Confident Aim 0.5 + Disciplined Barrage 0.5 = 1 it's like: 0.5 (chance NOT to convert )* 0.5 (chance NOT to convert) = 0.25 chance NOT to convert. In other words: 75% chance to convert. Same with Tactical Barrage 0.5 and the rogue's 0.1 conversion: 0.5 * 0.9 = 0.45 chance NOT to convert --> 55% chance to convert overall. Or Tactical Barrage + Killers Froze Stiff: 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 --> 75% hit-to-crit conversion - not 100%. You can also use this method to determine the proc-chance of weapons after several hits - when they say something like "10% chance to cast Glibberball on hit or crit". As one can see, every additional chance has less and less impact. The overall chance after x tries can never be 100%. Interesting. But it still seems like it would be worth stacking or should I save that pick for something different? Also: What was your take on my devoted/soul blade? Is that viable or should I be supplementing it with some key cypher abilities? EDIT: Thanks for taking the time to answers these questions! I beat PoE a couple of times but always on classic so I am somewhat ignorant of mechanics.