Woopee

RE: rogue mid-tier abilities sucking Why is Withering Strike 3 guile again? Can't understand the logic there.

I found veteran somewhat challenging at first, but after getting a better grasp on how defenses work and how to get around them, I moved up to PotD because my party was obliterating most enemies. The first island is probably the hardest part (and it is indeed brutal, especially if you don't hire adventurers) but I'd say the challenge remains somewhat consistent after that, and there are some end-game encounters in the DLCs that can be hard at max level with a custom party.

I tried it and the spiritual fists don't benefit from Transcendent Suffering. So no, it doesn't really work.

In a kinda similar vein, I noticed that a swashbuckler in Lady Epero's estate runs unerringly to my back line when combat starts despite everyone except one further-up character being in stealth.

Can we get that change to leveling up ASAP? Think I've spent half my time on the level-up screens.

If I'm remembering right, scroll power level is half the character's arcana skill.

My favorite is when you try to disarm a trap and instead your character just walks right into it. The Bridge Ablaze is a particular culprit.

Hi, I'm just looking for some suggestions on fun, powerful builds to try. My previous Watchers have been a Paladin, Assassin/Ghostheart, Soulblade/Bleak Walker, Goldpact/Troubador, and Helwalker. I haven't played much with Fighters, Druids, Priests, or Barbarians so I may prefer a build that shows off what those classes can do. Thanks in advance!

Nope, this was in RTwP. Yes, it is supposed to work like that but it isn't actually suppressing the afflictions. The character stays Charmed (or Paralyzed I guess) for Suppress Affliction's duration then the affliction itself starts ticking down again.

"navel battles" On a serious note, you can outfit your ship to obliterate the enemy very quickly or just rush them and board and skip the fight every time.

The adds drop delayed fireballs and freezing pillars, moving out of those is an easy way to avoid a lot of damage. Also trying to interrupt killing bolt.

Haunting Chains... yeah I don't get it as well. Seems like a complete waste of ability points But maybe I'm overlooking something. Like Fractured Volition - that's also... "errrm?" The problem was eyestrike sucks so my melee cipher was essentially just playing the same as a weaker rogue. Charm doesn't really appeal to me so i'm pretty much done with the cipher for now. curse of blackened sight doesn't appear to have the target restriction like eyestrike so it probably rolls to hit everyone under the template. If soul annihilation was full attack and hit with both weapons.... that might be interesting. Im trying out blood mage now. That will solve the limited number of casts problem you mentioned earlier. Soul Annihilation works really well on multiclasses that can build up focus with other abilities. Like paladin for example can Flames of Devotion for a lot of focus then hit really hard with Soul Annihilation.

I also wondered about that on my last playthrough, was disappointed in what seemed to be described as a grimoire of storied power having nothing special about it.

The charm was shown as suppressed and not ticking down but still active. Should've recorded it or something. I'll try to recreate it.

Hi, just watched my main character beat down everyone else after being charmed by a Dank Spore in the Oathkeeper's Sanctum. I suppressed it, but he stayed charmed so in effect Suppress Affliction actually extended the charm duration because it wasn't ticking down while suppressed. Surely this cannot be the intended behavior.

YEP, I just skip it now after the first time because the fps is so bad. It's an issue throughout the game (I guess I play on a potato?) but especially bad in the SSS arena.

/shrug

Are people really arguing that the narrator saying "...Magran said." after Magran finishes speaking needed to be in the game? LOL

I have never tried one but I'd love to hear more about it.

The sheer amount of time one spends sailing around a mostly-empty sea is kind of absurd. Not sure why you want to do that. I suppose one good reason for not adding that is that you may be attacked by other ships at sea. If you actually guide your ship, you can choose whether to avoid this (and how) or not. I was mostly thinking about late in the game where getting attacked at sea isn't really a thing anymore but I suppose you're right about before that point.

Is it now? K. Next time I'll play blindfolded as well. In all honesty, after level 18 I think I probably could. Developers should probably add this options under "normal difficulty" settings then. When a player with almost zero knowledge about game mechanics (that being me, it's hard to get used to MIGHT not being equivalent to STRENGHT after 2 decades of BG2) finishes the game with virtually no deaths, no reloads, no magic spells, no food buffs - on (what is supposed to be) hardest mode, with virtually no manual imput on game's final battles (not talking Dorudugan here) I'd say game difficulty is deeply flawed. Copmpare this with BG, for example. The game keeps you on your toes from day one to ToB (not me, but I've played BG since '98). Fwiw, I did play with Challenges. Sort of - I never ate food aside Fruit (apart spider battle), and pause is unneccecary. I doubt I ever used it. Same as with fleeing from combat, which I tought is impossible anyway. There were two instances where I felt difficulty to be "as it should be" - namely, S,S,S DLC battle against that annoying disintegrate Cyphers and the one where you fight against your own party. Those were spot-on and required tactics. Naturally, the big lizard afterwards was smooth sailing on autoattack mode again... The second one was in Port Maje, the flooded area. That felt great to beat. I doubt I'll be replaying PoEII again any time soon so no triple crown for me. Unless something drastically changes in combat/XP system. And those ship battles. Not to say that PoEII isn't great - it is. I wouldn't bother posting on it if it weren't. You must wear a seriously thick nostalgia gogles. I don't remember BG or BG2 to be anywhere near as hard as PoE or PoE2 in some places, on hardest difficulty setting both. A very, very exagerated judgement on your part. I have a passable knowledge of the mechanics by now and the game is challenging for me (but take note that I don't min-max and use only story companions, not the kind constructed for ease of play). Firkraag, for instance, is a lot more difficult than anything I've seen in Deadfire, or anything I saw in PoE. I know that there are techniques, but I had to come up with some of them myself. That's one interesting thing: I had to discover a way to beat the dragon. There has been no such necessity in these two games (which are very good, don't get me wrong). Funny, I've always thought PoE dragons (Adra and Alpine specifically) were miles harder than BG dragons. BG dragons never one-shot my tankiest character, rarely had adds, barely had more hp than a PC could have. And there are sooooo many ways to kill BG dragons instantly. Deadfire's are wimpy though, for sure.

I can't see any consistency in how companion levels work. Pallegina only got to level up to 14 when I subbed her into my max level party, but Fassina went all the way to 20. Sometimes when I bring in different people after having them out for a while, they come to my level -1, other times my level -2, other times not even close like Pallegina.

It is kind of weird that physical strength and metaphysical strength are governed by the same stat. Like Yglika said, you can't be a weak mage with strong magic anymore.

Her voice sounds completely out of place to me, and is especially bad when she interjects with "...he says" or whatever as people have already pointed out. I don't know of any other games with such an option though.

The sheer amount of time one spends sailing around a mostly-empty sea is kind of absurd. Not sure why you want to do that.