scythesong

AoE punch barbarians. I really need to try that sometime.

Speaking as someone who plays using quest-related handicaps over combat handicaps (basically, I challenge myself by limiting what I can do depending on the type of quest resolutions I want instead of something like soloing, for example... and if anyone has ever figured out how to get that cultist of Skaen at the Blood Sands to help you kill the Archdruid Rehstin of Ethik Nôl, please feel free to share) I can also say that even if you choose to minimize the number of people you kill at Raedric's Hold, and even if you decide to hire every major +prestige hireling by mid game (so that you're paying around ~2k worth of wages per cycle) you can STILL accumulate enough cash to buy practically whatever you want by end game as long as you don't waste days needlessly traveling between areas (this is the very worst thing you can do if you have hirelings). Between quest rewards, stronghold taxes and loot from enemies who will try to kill you no matter what you do, you shouldn't even run out cash building Caed Nua structures.

A priest can easily be a frontline while casting spells, that's one of the reasons why the class is so versatile. They're a lot like chanters in that you can set them up in any number of basic roles (tanky melee, melee DPS, ranged, etc) and the best thing about them (their spells) retains its functionality. Durance, in particular, does well with just light/medium armors, a good shield, defensive talents and buffs thanks to his high resolve. Ideally you should give him the option to be tanky whenever he needs to be, especially if you want him to make the most out of that really nasty staff he starts with. Durance has below average dex/per. You should not be relying on him for auto-attacks, and he'll hardly do any damage with very slow attack weapons if you have him casting spells too. Grieving Mother should ideally be in the back row using crowd control spells/nukes. You could make her melee, but then you'll want to use her focus on other spell types. You should take that into consideration if you're mostly interested in her for her CC. The best thing about druids are their spells, Spiritshift is just one other very nice thing about them. Hiravias' Spiritshift is basically a single target DPS boost. You can give Hiravias any available useful ranged weapon, from Golden Gaze to Lenas Êr to a soulbound like Gyrd Háewanes Sténes. The idea is that you want the weapon to offer some kind of utility besides damage, because if what you needed was a damage spike then you'd doing something else besides auto-attacking with a weapon. Eder is pretty versatile but he should be spending most of his time in melee (any weapon will do, depending on build). The fighter's biggest strength is his tankiness combined with reliable DPS. That doesn't mean you shouldn't switch to a good ranged weapon especially if you're trying to kite something (like lurkers or ogres in early game). Ideally you should have both an offensive (usually a two-handed weapon) and defensive (something + shield) setup on him. You could have him dual-wield sabers on a switch if you want higher on-demand DPS.

It's a much nicer deal for solo because you only have 1 character and a ton of resources. The watcher even has a per rest ability that gives you +2 to all stats, useful for beating challenges (non-combat stat-dependent mini-games). It also depends on what you're trying to accomplish, like if you're mostly only interested in killing stuff then feel free to minmax everything. Ultimately you'll want to find some balance between (as close to) maxed out core stats, decent secondary stats and flavor, if you want a well-rounded playthough. I know some people like it when specific characters beat specific challenges.

The particular palm you're looking for is at level 1 actually (near the entrance, it shows up as one of those blue loot interactables so just hold TAB). The scale is for powering up the amulet, allowing it to store part of her essence which will act as the conduit for the possession.

I find the reverse (caster/ranged-heavy party) preferable to a melee-heavy one, since melee range is usually where the weird/worst-case scenarios happen. Like people running around mobs due to weird pathing and triggering a bunch of disengagement attacks, dangerous mobs changing targets or turning this way and that due to whatever target acquisition AI is in place in PotD, or getting screwed by something like the Adra Dragon's AoE attacks. Devil works best for me in a party with Durance. With Durance laying down buffs to improve defenses, Devil becomes easily able to hold her own even in PotD. And since they tend to melee together in my games they just play off each other very well (Devil's Coordinated Positioning has saved both their bacons more than a few times, and Durance even has his whole Painful Interdiction shtick to help with Sneak Attacks and Deathblows). Ironic since they hate each other so much.

You know, with the direction this is going sooner or later we're going to start complaining that dice roll mechanics should just give us good values since it's going to happen anyway. After all, reloading is just so time consuming and unnecessary.

I thought Durance himself made it perfectly clear that he was having some sort of crisis of faith, and yet when you first meet him a nearby statue of Magran comes alive in your presence.

That's one opinion. I prefer mine because something is obviously up with how Durance is yet able to channel Magran's power, which means that Magran knew that whatever she was doing was extremely risky. If you read all of Durance's dialog, you know that she was working through them on a near-fundamental level. I distinctly remember Durance saying that the creation of the Godhammer not only involved the physical, but a lot of something elses even he had trouble explaining. She was merely mitigating things by working through so many people and then apparently allying with Woedica to remove all trace of what she was doing. I believe that in working through Durance, she left a piece of her inside him. And that inexplicable doubt and guilt and shame he felt after using the Godhammer? That was Magran. That was how she felt after being forced to destroy Eothas.

The big difference between the BG series and PoE is the engagement system (which basically only exists to punish squishy characters - they should really get rid of that) and the low duration of buffs. What this means is that in PoE permanent/long lasting effects (from talents/gear/etc) are very important, and you should pay attention to them when building your character. This also means that in PoE your individual non-autoattack actions are VERY important (consider turning on the "pause after ability use" option if you're feeling overwhelmed). The low duration of buffs means that you need to economize your actions and think about your moves very carefully, especially for spellcasters like Durance and Grieving Mother. This becomes more important later on in the game and at higher difficulties. Generally, in PoE you do NOT want to get drawn into an extended fight with something. Hit fast, hit hard, hit right. As previous posters have said, in combat you'll want a dedicated frontline to help keep mobs off spell spammers. Personally I find at least two to be ideal, though one also works if you play at lower difficulties. Your frontline should have high DEFLECTION, the PoE counterpart of AC. High numbers in other defenses is also a big plus. Killing power is another big plus. These characters don't need to have high deflection all the time, but they should have the option to switch to a defensive setup whenever needed. Your spell spammers, usually found at the back so they can cast their spell undisturbed, are there to help control the flow of combat. This is where status effects and damage types come in - pay attention to the little icons that show up on the right of the character portraits at the bottom of the screen. This tells you what to watch out for/what to protect yourself against, important for classes with defensive AoE abilities like Durance or Kana. You should also pay attention to enemy stats (which show up either in the Bestiary or when you mouse over them). This tells your their immunities, defenses and damage reductions (revealed when you attack them), and what status effects/damage types to use against these particular enemies. This is important for characters that specialize in attack abilities like Aloth and Grieving Mother. The "middle row" is a sort of no-man's land that is more build-specific than anything, IMO. This is for characters who want to hit things but who normally don't want to get hit back. PoE gives you a bit of freedom in regard to how you play different classes in a large part because of how accuracy works. As others have mentioned, accuracy is VERY important for damage dealers because all debuffs/damage require good accuracy to land properly. Accuracy = BG2's THAC0 AND spell DC. But if we go by the basics then classes basically have a "default" role: we have the frontlines (Fighters, Barbarians, Monks, Paladins), the spellcasters (Wizards, Druids, Ciphers), the flexible caster classes (Chanters, Priests) and the specialized damage classes (Rogue, Ranger).

Heh, with that particular encounter it doesn't really matter who's tanking. They'll all try to go after your squishiest party members first, a tank character only slows them down a bit and then you'll need to find some other way to manage. Feel free to swap Kana for Eder if you want to confirm it. A large chunk of PotD is like that.

Really? Darn. The corrode Wildstrike/Spirit of Decay talents have always been mainstays for my builds (never tried to solo a druid, so no pressure talent-wise). Extra mileage out of Spirit of Decay would have been nice, and Rot Skulls is just so hassle-free compared to spamming non-essential nukes. Ah well.

You can just kite those. Their undead companions are slow, so you can force a confrontation with only the fastest members of the group. Charmed NPCs also like to switch to ranged attacks, for some reason, so I just have everyone with low will saves use a basic wand and they'll switch to that when they fail their saves. The ones with high will defense recover quickly. The real problem IMO are the fampyr ciphers, high deflect keeps the Darguls busy. Summoned units are invaluable for blocking those kind of attacks at low levels, and especially if you try to take on areas Longwatch Falls early.

TBH I'd take any druid just for spells like Plague of Insects, the build is just a bonus. I like having Hiravias around and Rot Skulls is my go-to spell for when I want him to nuke stuff at range, yep. Goes well with the Spiritshift: Corrode talent line and Spirit of Decay. I usually prefer my druids in the back row though so they can keep casting spellls without being disturbed. Don't bother with extra healing talents on a party druid. They already get healing spells and Survival.

Basically, the whole thing's pretty open ended and there's a lot of "why"s missing from the bigger picture. WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS This is what we know: -Waidwen WAS Eothas (or something approximating a very powerful avatar) and he tried to take the Dyrwood by force. -Magran responded to his attempt to conquer Dyrwood with the Godhammer. -Woedica has been carefully plotting... something... since her fall. We can try to fill in the blanks using info from dialog: -Magran is apparently pro-progress. She supports the use of animancy and is apparently allied with Galawain/Abydon against Woedica. -She does not see Durance, and yet Durance is able to channel her power. -Woedica's plot is extremely meticulous and varied, spanning all the lifetimes of Thaos and culminating in recent events (eg. the Hollowborn phenomenon). -The gods seem more like superpowered sentient avatars of specific concepts/doctrines (from the comments of the delemgan sisters and your conversations with the gods themselves) and they are bound to those concepts/doctrines on a fundamental level. Woedica (being the goddess of established laws and hierarchies) actively works against radical change of the status quo everywhere, for example, even in the conservative Aedyr Empire (her agents interfere with politics there just on general principle, based on Aloth's dialog). -According to Durance, bad things happen when they try to take interact with mortals on a fundamental level (eg. Eothas' possession, the creation of the Godhammer). -They have made a pact which prevents them from interfering with mortal affairs directly. Durance's hypothesis: -Although Waidwen/Eothas displayed plenty of other agenda, he was still the god of renewal/light. Because Eothas attacked the Dyrwood RIGHT BEFORE the start of Waidwen's Legacy then Durance quickly came to the realization (and this makes perfect sense) that Eothas probably discovered Woedica's plot and was ultimately just trying to prevent it. Note that besides Berath, Eothas is the god most affected by Woedica's actions, especially his Gaun aspect. Unlike the passive Berath, however, Eothas was an active god who would regularly communicate with his faithful. The Watcher's hypothesis -Through a combination of gut-feeling, visions (the death of the 11 other individuals who helped create the godhammer) and proximity to both Durance/Magran, the Watcher hypothesizes that Magran was a willing accomplice of Woedica - at least as far as the destruction of Eothas was concerned (it could just be an alliance of convenience at that particular point). Durance's speculation based on the above: -Magran was working closely with Woedica and deserves to be punished just as severely for her actions (particularly the part where she tries to get him killed). Based on his proud/vulgar nature, it's understandable why he latches on to one of worst possible conclusions one can make. My speculation: -The other gods knew about the Leaden Key and its activities but they tolerated the group (whether they agreed with Woedica's methods or not). -Woedica decides to use the Leaden Key in what is possibly the highlight of her plot - a kind of rite of ascension which would involve her consuming thousands of powerful souls to gain MASSIVE power (the Hollowborn phenomena is a side effect). -Eothas discovers the plot but unlike the other deities, he decides to act directly (god of renewal, change was fundamental to his nature so what can you do) by possessing Waidwen. -To punish Eothas for breaking the pact and abusing his power (despite his intentions), Magran works with Woedica (because of Woedica's nature and because Eothas was already working against her) to orchestrate the creation and use of the Godhammer. She probably knew that by working directly through the mortals tasked with creating the weapon, however, she was also dangerously close to breaking the pact herself - to help mitigate this, everyone associated with its creation/use had to die (probably through Woedica's intervention - the Leaden Key?). -Obviously that didn't work. Durance survived (and keeps surviving, thanks to you) and the reason he can channel Magran's power (even though she can't even see him) is probably because he has a shard of the goddess' essence/being/whatever inside of him. -The alliance between Magran and Woedica ended there. -If Deadfire gets an expansion, Durance will probably be the big boss ala reverse Bhaalspawn and you have to kill him before he "eats" Magran and destroys the rest of the deities in his crusade against them heh.

I have no idea. I'm just posting the results of own testing.

I tested this a bit and it seems your party's visual range is a factor (if your dominated target can't see hostiles within YOUR visual range/outside fog of war, the effect ends).

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80644-puppet-master/ I suppose if you get them all (no hostiles left), that counts too.

In my experience if you want to play a "skirmisher" character (that is, someone who likes to fight in melee range but generally doesn't want to get hit) you'll want two dedicated frontliners, like any variation of one Eder/Pallegina and one tanky Kana/Durance. It's just easier to control your character when you have two people keeping the baddies away from the squishies, and the setup works fine even in PotD. If you have only one frontliner, mob overflow usually ends up forcing your skirmisher character to engage potentially dangerous mobs whether you're ready for them or not, and in PotD mobs tend to just slip past a solo frontliner anyway unless you have multiple Vancian casters spamming CC/damage spells (because chanters/ciphers need charge up time for their abilities). I've never seen Defender help that much, it's not a question of mob numbers so much as mob collision (some larger mobs will even end up circling around your entire party just to reach your tank - a lot of nasty things can happen when they do that) and AI pathing limitations (weird things happen when mobs block each other). Also, WM likes to throw a lot of curveballs at traditional 1-tank party setups. I don't see how ciphers can't make good skirmishers, even a wizard can pull that off with the right build/spells. You'll want to stack a lot of +%damage to make up for the 10 might, yes, whether from gear/food/buffs/etc. Ultimately your goal is still to kill stuff, after all. Your build might make doing that easier, but CC is really not that hard to come by and the game just loves throwing +%damage goodies at you.

Pros and cons, everyone has them. You have to find the setup that works best for you.

As a general rule, just assume that offensive abilities (from multiple sources) stack and defensive ones don't. It's easier to keep track of the exceptions rather than the other way around.

It's tricky to spot these especially with WM content. Does anyone know if Maneha actually says something if you remove/include her back into the party, for example? Nothing happens when I do that these days, but it's been forever since I last used her.

Yep, especially since you probably don't want to micro him a lot. There are already too many ability-dependent/glass cannon NPCs to worry about IMO, I consider the fact that you can make Kana semi-autonomous a pretty big plus. I suppose that's also one reason why I don't really like to make tanky chanter-types, because the game already gives you one and his personality can grow on you over time (unlike a certain priest we all know). Anyway you mostly only have to manage his positioning, weapons sets/chants, make sure all his modals are on and give him a few useful "panic button" items (eg. Ring of Unshackling) and he's good to go.

I think that's the reason why the game gives you multiple chant setups (you can even name each one), so you can adjust tactics on the fly. I always have one setup with at least one Blessed Was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe, for example. You never know when you might want to do some emergency re-positioning. If you're not scroll-savvy perma-offensive chants can actually get people killed if someone lands a confuse/charm/dominate/etc on your guys.

I'd say the crucial chanter stats are Int and Per. Int increases the range/duration of your powers and Per makes it so that your offensive powers don't always end up as grazes, a well as increase your chance to crit with them. You don't need to max Per for your character I suppose, but yes a decent amount is very useful. Resolve is not a particularly important stat for a chanter since even Kana (10 Res) can reach very high deflection thanks to a shield, talents and buffs/debuffs. The great thing about Kana is that he has three weapon slots, give him Athletics and he'll have one more fallback heal but in your case Survival might be more useful because you've skipped the early-mid game part. The thing about Might is that ultimately chanters are a lot like rogues in that you can stack a lot of things on them to increase your damage in a party setting (on top of items/food/etc) so that the bonus of your base Might score becomes the equivalent of one just one more buff - but bad accuracy can really screw you up in general, especially since grazes affect the duration of your chants/invocations. Even on PotD a chanter with 10 base Might can still destroy things with The Dragon Thrashed crits. It's really not that big of an issue unless you solo, then you need all the +%damage you can get. Edit: Just noticed this was a resurrected topic