Lampros

How do you mean? Other than getting slightly fewer abilities from each class (though more altogether) and losing access to the highest level abilities, there doesn't currently seem to be any other way that you are less powerful than you otherwise would have been. Stuff like this? Quoting a Fighter sub-class. A Fighter with no Constant Recovery?! It's what makes him so micro-free and easy to use for me. "Black Jacket - Bonus weapon proficiency, reduced Recovery when switching weapon, but lacks Constant Recovery."

Well I'm pretty sure the boots saved me I picked them up before taking on Raedrics Hold and took on Raedric without any cheap tactics I failed a few times due to how you get surrounded and how easy it is to be knocked out if the enemy gang up on your non-tanks Fortunately shod-in-faith kicked in on my last attempt and it kept everyone's endurance flowing Yeah, taking on Raedric is going to be a nightmare the first time on PotD for me. I am already sweating. And the Spore bounty, my God...

But toward end-game, you should be assumed to have 2 Durganized weapons and the Attack Speed gloves. If so, then I guess 2 Bittercuts are almost always better than 2 Rimecutters? What if I want to wear heavier armor? Is there any scenario where 2 Rimecutters are better? I love using dual rimecutters with vulnerable attack, and I like having high perception and gauntlets of accuracy for endless crits. Ive used dual sabers plenty of times (resolution and purgatory and dual bittercuts with corrosive lash) but I still prefer dual rimecutters with high accuracy. Also what can work really nicely is dual bleak fang with vulnerable attack and ryona's vambraces. There is really so many awesome combinations though. Hmm, I did not consider dual daggers or rapiers (though I did consider them on off-hand with heavier main-hand weapons). They are not very useful for special attacks like FoD though, right? So you'd need to give them to auto-attackers - like Fighters, I guess? Yeah, I am so tempted to break lore for Gimli and giving him dual hammers... Goddamn, Tolkien, why did you not make Gimli a smith?

A Priest of Eothas was one of the characters I was considering, but with Xoti getting her own unique subclass and my possible intention of making Edér a multiclass Fighter/Priest of Eothas I've decided against it. I'm still considering a different type of Priest, though I'm not sure which. I don't think so. There's been a lot of talk about getting half of each class but this isn't very accurate. It seems that multiclass characters can reach at least Power Level 7 abilities (equivalent of level 7 spells in Pillars), possibly PL8, so whilst they won't get the top level stuff they'll still have plenty of powerful abilities to choose from. It isn't just the prospect of losing the very top level class abilities. It's also that - at least from the multi-class descriptions - to do x better, you are forced to do y worse. We shall see.

There's np precondition here, but your reputation changes instantly to Cruel 1 if you were neutral before. (nice if you want to do the Effigy's later without effort) Yes, this is what I thought, too. Hmmm, now I am contemplating whether getting to Cruel 1 and losing some Faith and Conviction is worth getting 2 stat points and more from Gift from the Machine and Effigy. P.S. Anyone tried to kill House of Doemenels? Do you get Cruel 1 from that?

I think for most normal people it's the other way around?

Don't you get Cruel Disposition if you kill both? I so want to kill the entire House of Doumenel (spelling), because that's a time when I need money but I am so afraid of getting the Cruel Disposition penalties for my Wayfarer Paladin.

Unfortunately, multi-classing looks as much a curse as a boon...

Okay, I forgot I had quite a few CC tools - as I didn't really need them at Normal! Once I started using the Wizard's Bewildering Spectacle and the Priest's Repulsing Seal, I was able to control fights much better. Clearing Caed Nua lawn. I think I will be okay. Right now, the most stunning development is how well the Fighter's performing DPS-wise. I am shocked. He has done about 60 percent more damage than anyone else now. More incredibly, he's averaging about 35 percent crit - when nobody else is even averaging more than 5 percent, LOL! Wow. I guess Disciplined Barrage plus the Fighter's inherent Accuracy really makes a monstrous difference, huh? Or at least in the early going. I would be very interested in seeing how he maintains his DPS pace once we hit mid- and late-game, and the Chanter and the Paladin get their uber-AoEs.

Holy fug. Kinda stuck after having the main Paladin leveled to 4 and the rest leveled to 3. I was taking way too much damage in every fight, so I decided to temporarily make the Paladin a 1H/shield tank, and he got the Outworn Buckler. This made the fights a bit more stable - albeit even slower. I am also even thinking about giving my Fighter the Guardian Stance if this is not enough in the future fights. But now where to go? I am afraid to go to the Temple of Eothas; and even more so to go to Caed Nua. And I am stuck in the Mother's Plea Task, because I am terrified to go to the Spores cave. Ideas? Edit: I was premature in my dismissal of the Fighter. He's already pulled way ahead in DPS, and he was the top guy even before my Paladin switched to 1H/shield. I think what I was doing wrong in the previous lost save was not walking the guy to the enemy and instead just clicking on the enemy and hoping the pathfinding will take care of the rest. And yeah, the AI pathfinding is just God-awful - something I didn't notice as starkly until I ran 4 melees...

Bingo. 8 is the lowest I've taken anything.

Yes, I hate dumping stats in general, and this game gives me reasons to do it less. It's also not too immersive to have an Elf with 4 Dexterity!

Thanks; I will try to note that the next run. Yes, the game is definitely losing saves or not showing them at times. I am not accidentally deleting them; it's the game. I am not sure what the cause is. It may have to do with the fact that I have both IE Mod and MaxQuest's mod installed, and there might be some weird glitch when they all interact. I also disabled vanilla auto-save, and that may also be a contributing factor. Either way, I am going to back-up saves every 30-60 minutes of play now. This also likely means I can't do "ironman" runs until this thing stabilizes. Do you or anyone have experience with this while using IE Mod and/or MaxQuest's mod? With vanilla auto-saves disabled? I have not done anything else with the game. Yup; my Paladin started with 18 Intelligence.

Ah, I did not realize crits add duration. Thanks; I will adjust!

Okay, so reinstalled the game, IE mod, Max Quest's mod, etc. - and disabled the Steam Cloud synch. I hope I won't have any more disappearing save issues when I transition from online to offline game-play. And re-started the same set-up. P.S. How do folks do the initial Heodan fight so that he is ensured to live? I have been hit-or-miss here. Sometimes I am able to kite him to relative safety - and other times he has too many engagements to reliably escape, so I have to rush and just keep healing him with Lay on Hands. I cannot imagine I can do this fight without a Paladin or Priest main, because Heodan takes way too much damage initially.

I don't know about dumping Dexterity to that degree frankly. He is going to be super-slow with his Invocations and scroll/trinket spells - if he decides to use them. Elrond (my Chillfog tank) is currently using 18 Might, 18 Intelligence, 12 Perception, and nothing dumped, and he seems to be functioning well. Unlike most D&D-based systems, PoE seems to have no stat that is completely useless to a class or even clearly sub-optimal.

Fug. I verified game cache, and it seems to have uninstalled IE mod and MaxQuest's mod. WTF.

I never had them in party, but that would have been another issue if I had! By the way, does the game save differently if you play "offline" v. "online"? I've had online instability so I've played offline a lot recently. But it seems like I cannot access my offline progress when I get online - and vice versa. So I started online today and realized my offline progress was not saved at all. So in panic, I deleted all saves to see if I could access my offline save that way and re-started the game. And then there was nothing there. Unfortunately, there was nothing there when I went offline, too. So it looks like I have to start yet again.

Going by memory, "Runner's Wounding Shot" works in melee as well (I definitely never switch to ranged with the LoP and wouldn't put a ranged-only talent in the build.) And yes, you can definitely replace 2H talents with DW talents if you'd rather dual-wield Got it; thanks, guys!

I did recruit them the last playthrough, and the problem then was that they filled up my quest log and confused the heck out of me in terms of what I needed to do. It's way too much to have done every quest and have 9-10 companion quests flashing.

So done for the day, and my main Paladin just hit level 4, and the other guys just hit level 3. I avoided Temple of Eothas, and I am killing mobs in wilderness areas (I was a bit surprised I could kill 3 trolls with ease at Black Meadow at level 3 main and level 2 the rest) and doing easy quests. Some observations: 1. As expected, the crowding problem with 4 melees is awful. The problem is made worse by the fact that PoE has just about the worst AI pathing I've seen in an RPG game of this quality, so I have to walk melees to their targets. But on the flip-side, my 2 ranged guys - the Priest and the Wizard - only get hit by ranged attacks. I think I will leave things as is, but I may give the Fighter a pike later as a back-up. 2. Enemy burst damage is rather huge. While I have yet to die, I have lost over half a health in one hit on a number of times on all of my front-liners, so healing has to be super-quick. It is definitely possible to get killed by two crits, and it may eventually happen as things are going. In fact, the level 2 Ooze in Cliant Lis nearly killed my main in one hit! So I am wondering if I made a mistake in leaving only 10 Constitution on all my front-liners. 3. I know it's early, but the Wayfarer Paladin, my main, is easily the MVP so far. His dual wield build - while risky - is killing stuff so fast that Strange Mercy seems to activate non-stop. And he's saved so many guys from near death with his Lay on Hands. In contrast, the dual wield Fighter is frankly doing jack sheet. At this point, I think I would have been better off running 2 Paladins rather than 1 Paladin and 1 Fighter. But it's early going, so we shall see.

Yup. I got to Gilded Vale very fast. Unfortunately, I was almost level 3, so I decided to pick my custom companions after I turned level 3 to save XP. I lost 1250 extra gold in the process though. I think it was a worthwhile exchange, but I am not sure on the math. I killed both Aloth and Eder for their gear; Eder took forever to kill even with a full 6-man group. Jesus. Another issue I am having is that with 4 melee, I am having a lot of indoor fights where one or two guy isn't doing anything at all. But for now I will likely keep the 4 melee set-up, since most of the difficult boss fights don't involve door fights.

My Paladin has 77 hits and a big fat ZERO crits. This is proving to be a most interesting journey

Does Runner's Wounding Shot work with melee weapons or do you need to switch to a ranged weapon? Also, can I just replace the 2H related talents and weapons in this build with their dual wield equivalents? Anyways, this is the closest build to the type of Fighter I want - lots of DPS and yet sturdy and can do quite a bit of CC as well.

Hmm, that's what the red number above the Xaurip says when I click on it? Hmm, so the red numbers are bugged?