Carys

re: Port Majhe. Yes, you can wipe everyone out and still get off the island. Also, if do wipe the port out, there's no mention of it that I saw in Nekataka. I did it once to see what would happen.

Also, his wild mind talent doesn't seem to proc that much.

I'm thinking about doing an Abydon's Challenge run, and to partly get around repairing a lot of weapons, the party will be mainly Monk for unarmed combat. I do have some questions, though, that people who have done it before might know the answers to. First, my party will be: My watcher, who will be monk/chanter. Maybe pure monk, but I like chanter the most of all classes in Deadfire Xoti as Monk/Priest, with one of my two support slots as her focus. Fassina, just because I like her, likely Wiz/Druid Mirke, because Monk. Probably pure, but both of her MC options are great; and either Rekke (as Fighter/Monk) or Ydwin. I like Ydwin more, but I'm worried about focus gain, though I suppose there's enough ranged weapons in the game where I can just always have some for her. Questions: Does armor degrade or just weapons. If it does degrade, how expensive do those repairs get? If an item is used as a stat stick, but never attacked with, does it degrade? For example, if Xoti is casting, does her sickle/lantern get damaged? Do Druid natural attacks get damaged somehow? If so, how do you repair them? If it matters, I'll be using both the BPM and the Community Patch.

I use Cannibal Island as well.

Turn based is my preferred mode of play, and once you get used to it, it can be powerful, just like RTwP can be. One of the big issues that players new to it have, when coming from RTwP is Dexterity. Dex is a very important attribute in RtwP. In TB, it's much less so. It's not a dump stat, but you need to be more character role oriented in when you push it high. Typically, I've found 10 to 12 is fine for casters, and you only really want it high with melee that you want to ensure goes first. The reason for this is casting time. When a melee attacks, weapon speed is added to the next round calculations for initiatve. For casters, the casting time is added /to the current rounds initiative/. If that pushes it past the last init in the round, then the spell goes off the next round. (On a side note, the caster often goes back to back in that case, since thier init is set to 0, or sometimes to the next number after the spell resolution. When it comes to AoE on a fast caster, you have to look at the enemies you want to hit with it. Are they ranged? They'll likely stay put, or not move too far. Are they melee? Will they go before spell resolution? Lay the AoE down right in front of your own melee, with your melee in the yellow safe zone. Targeting AoE is hard when you first start TB, but it becomes easy real soon. Knockdown is much weaker in TB, that is true. As for spell timing, you do know when it will time itself: caster init+spell cast time=resolve number. (This can be modified by buffs/debuffs, like anything else). Now, it can be bumped to the next round, but that's often a good thing. For instance, I've gotten good with Vatnir dropping a freezing pillar in an area where there are either casters or melee I expect to stay put, with it resolving at the start of the next round. So, at 0, of round 2 it drops and does the first damage pulse. Then, since Vatnir didn't do anything in round 1, he goes again at 0 or 1, it pulses again, and the cone of cold spell finishes survivors. TB is not RTwP but slower. It's not to everyone's taste. But, if you do like TB games in general, when you get the hang of this form of it, it can be really fun.

LOL. I just took down the messenger at low level in turn based using a hireling rogue to to tag him with Lovers Kiss and Gouging Strike. Took 130 rounds for the dragon to bleed out Still, I think it was worth it to get early game Vatnir and see how he plays.

I'm a big fan of Touch of Rot as well, and I also like Thrice she was wronged, the chanter invocation. I've found it's viable the whole game long. Chill Fog, too, especially Tekehu's foe only version of it.

Thank you both for the answers.

Hey everyone, I've been playing PoE 1 the last few days. I wanted to see some thing storyline wise, to see if things I did early impacted the trial at the end of act 2. I've been playing a barbarian, which is a class I've not really done anything with in either PoE before. Never really used it in 1, and when I MC Serafen in 2, the barb stuff is mostly to make him less squishy while ciphering. I've been having fun with barb, and especially with Heart of Fury. I want to bring this Watcher into 2, and keep her a barbarian. So, I have a few questions. First, is SC barb worth it? You need to SC to get HoF in 2, since it's PL8 per the Wiki. Is SC barb viable and fun, especially pre PL8? Second, what MC combo's can be fun for a basically all melee character? What I've been thinking is Barb/Chanter (since I love PoE 2 chanter), Barb/Fighter (constant recovery and more melee options), or Barb/Priest (picking whichever God I side with in Act 3), more as a RP pick there. What are pros and cons with those, or with other classes I didn't mention? While I know you can make any two classes work, but what does barb seem to flow well with?

Also, those 3 skulls on the sword over his head show that you're significantly under levelled, as you guessed, for this fight. That does not make it impossible, it will just be harder.

Re-aiming was removed during the development, though there is a mod that puts it back. I don't use that mod, I've never seen the need for it, but that could just be me.

Also, as Boeroer said, many wizard buffs are swift actions in TB, and there is no limit to swift actions. That means you can cast /every/ wizard buff you have in round one, and with no cooldown, cast another spell normally right after. For a melee caster, that is really powerful, as you don't have the RTwP recovery between them.

In turn based mode, every spell has a cast time that is noted in the spell writeup. That's how long that it takes to cast. So, if a wizard had an initiative of 9, as an example, and cast a spell with a cast time of 4, it resolves on 13. That is likely something you already know. Now, there is no upper cap for a round's times. The round ends when the slowest person finishes. So, if the wizard above goes at 9, and all the other party members have gone, and the last enemy goes at 11, the spell will resolve at 2 the next round. This is something the player can track on the initiative list that is provided. You will see exactly when the spell resolves. But, in many cases, the wizard in this example will get to act again in that same round. Here's why. In a typical D&D type game, initiative is rolled every round. In Pillars it is not. It is random on the first round, but after that it is based on three things: armor, the action taken, and the characters Dexterity adjustment. While Dexterity does not have the impact it does in RTwP, it still does play in. A lightly armored character with fast attacks - a dagger rogue for instance - will always be neat the top of the turn order. A low dex, high armored character tends to be low, which can be great for a priest since heal spells tend to be instant or fast cast, so an end of round heal lets you send it where you need it. With a melee character, the game resolves the attack, does the 'when does the person go next' calculation, and sets it up for the next round. For a caster, that is done when spell resolution happens, but, as the character does not have an action /in the current round/, if that 'when do I go next' comes up before the end point of the current round, they get an action in that round. As an example, I've had many times where Xoti has had a low round 1 init and gone last, cast a CT1 heal which goes off at 1 in round 2, and she gets another action at 3ish in round 2. The only time that you would miss a whole round is if the caster goes close to last and casts a long cast time spell when the party and the enemy are all very fast. It should not happen often. As for knockdown, it might look nice, but is much more effective in RTwP. In TB, it basically does nothing on it's own. It doesn't change init, it doesn't cost an action to get up. It doesn't take away an attack. Sometimes, if you knockback with knockdown, and then move away, it might take a guy his round to get back into melee range, and it can interrupt a cast of course. As far as spells being worth it? Yes. Spells are always powerful, it just takes some practice with them in TB to adjust to the way Pillars works in TB.

That is pretty awesome. Thanks for sharing it. I don't think I would have ever seen that interaction otherwise.

As someone who plays a lot of turn based, I've steered clear of Magran's challenge because it negated turn based largest advantage which is being able to take time and plan out things, especially spell placement. I do think it's more doable in turn based, but it's just not appealing to me.