Do-I-Exist

I'm using the beta patch. I sided with the Valian Trading Company. I went through the text sequence to get to Ukaizo, the guardian showed up, and the dragon I freed from the Watershaper's guild fought the guardian. Upon reaching with Ukaizo, the guardian didn't spawn and talk to me at all, and I could walk straight through to the area map. I've beaten the game before in the exact same way and I know the guardian is supposed to come try and stop me.

If you scroll down on the ranger's summary screen, you can see the animal companion's attributes, and the effects and talents affecting them. You don't seem to be able to see their defenses, damage, and accuracy on this screen, however. That said, a menu for the companion would be nice. And I wholeheartedly second your request to be able to access the skill tree in between level ups. I've recently found myself wanting this very functionality when pondering builds for future characters.

I've received this same bug, on two different characters. It seemed to start, in both cases, in the Beast of Winter DLC locations. It's pretty sad that this bug still persists. An update: Even after finishing the Beast of Winter, the issue persists. Randomly on loading a save, wages, and on occasion food and water, are deducted as if several days have passed all at once, depleting all my gold. It sometimes takes several loads until it randomly stops happening... until the next time I need to load a save. This is so difficult and frustrating as to be nearly save-breaking.

Thanks for the responses. As I said, I really want to stay as a pure Cypher, both to get access to the higher level spells, and because I don't want to get too complicated on my first play through. My goal is to play mainly as a caster. The good thing about ascendant is that they can do either damage or CC, as there's no penalty to either. I worry about how much the -1 power level when not ascended is going to hurt. Are they suboptimal for most fights that end quickly? One thing I really loved about the Cipher in the first game was not having to shy away from casting my big and powerful spells in any fight, because everything would reset in the next fight. But does it take too long to reach ascended state in this game? Will I still be useful in smaller fights? The gun is mainly to open combat with a nice big spike of damage to gain a good amount of focus right off the bat. Still, it may take two or three shots to reach ascended state. I'm not really trying to become an expert with weapons, only just good enough to build up focus. And I don't want to sacrifice spell casting ability.

In the first game I played the basic build of opening combat with a blunderbuss to build up focus and spam Cipher abilities- CC when necessary, or just pure damage. Or both, in the case of Silent Screams (loved that spell). I'm hoping to play a similar way in Pillars of Eternity 2. To fit with the whole swashbuckling theme, I love the idea of my Cipher using a blunderbuss or an arquebus from a range. I still want to be able to use a lot of my spells, and I don't want to necessarily focus on just crowd control. The beauty of the Cipher in the first game, for me, was the ability to excel at both crowd control and damage, depending on what the situation called for. I also want to stay as a pure class, for my first play through, because I really want to focus on the Cipher abilities. Now, given that I want to be a ranged attacked, Soul Blade is right out. That leaves Ascendent or Beguiler. I worry about the reduced damage and focus gain from Beguiler, but will the focus refunds from my CC abilities allow me to deal damage well, too? And with Ascendent... I worry that I'd have to invest in another class or weapon to build up focus quicker, and that it will be too unavailable for most fights, and that the loss in power level outside of Ascended mode might be too much. Does anyone have some ideas for best working out what I want to do, here? Is it simply sub-optimal? Would a pure Cipher with no Subclass be best? Lastly, what kind of attribute distribution would be good? I'm not the best at coming up with builds- I just want to try and find a fun concept and play through the game with it.

My basic question here is whether a stat spread of 16, 8, 12, 16, 16, 10 is good for a Wizard that can deal damage or use CC as necessary, and will generally stay at range with light armor. I've been debating about Dexterity vs. Perception. On the one hand, accuracy is great, especially for getting those status effects to hit- Gaze of the Adragon is worthless if it can't hit, and I'd like to be able to reliably lock down the endgame bosses like the dragons. Plus, my last character had low Perception and I missed a lot of dialogue options because of it, so it might be interesting to see those this time around. Action Speed is paramount, however, and I worry how much having Dex at only 12 will hurt. 6% doesn't seem like a whole lot, so is 12 really much better than 10? Is 16 or so worth it? Would my two points in Dex be better spent back in Con, or put into Might or Int? 16 Might and Int is a little on the low side, I think, but I figure it's not hard to raise those with items. I know there is a +3 might belt, and a +4 intellect item as well. I like dealing damage, but I also want access to conversation options, and might rarely shows up, and when it does it's usually for a threat I don't want to make. What are people's thoughts? Lastly, from an RP perspective, is a Mystic Wizard Pale Elf from The White That Wends a good fit? We seem to know so little about TWTW so it's hard to tell. Do Wizards make sense for such a nomadic society? Is Mystic the best Background for it?