Xsanf

The game crashed after choosing not to deal with Berath in our first conversation and watching the "furry" endgame slide. Sorry for some Russian strings in the crash log (I use English in the game, but main system language is set to Russian). Zip archive with logs and dumps attached. 2019-01-30_235852.zip

Priest cipher....unless your goal is to get special dialogue options, it's a very weak combination. And you can, actually, steal a flag from Mad Morena's chest - you can get to her with or without a bloodbath, it's up to you.

My goodness, maybe, I really should tell Aloth to mentor her a bit...

My, if only you had some patience you might discover an option to hang him on your keep's gates...a hot-tempered ruler is a disaster to his subjects, you know.

Regarding skills (based on my own experience): General advise: all tank characters usually go Athletics+Survival almost in 1:1 proportion to have decent self-heal and tier 2 / tier 3 Damage Reduction camp bonus. All other lads and lasses go 1 Athletics (for their own "oh, sh..." button), and mostly Survival for high tier Accuracy camp bonus. This principle does not apply if a character serves some special purpose (for example, a skillful Mechanics specialist is mandatory for any party, Lore MC/companion for dialogues/scroll reading, etc.). Specialists prioritize their speciality. Personally, I play mostly for story/dialogues than for powerplay (even on PoTD it's possible, even with story companions - just pick Chanter or Paladin for your main), so I take Lore to about 10 on my Watcher (only Watcher handles dialogues in PoE1, no party assistance at all). Other points go to Athletics/Survival in proportions described in the general advise. Mechanics usually goes to Aloth since he is the very first companion you meet + he already has a point at start + very RP for him. 1 point into Athletics gives him a chance to meet his faint in combat with dignity and to avoid broken bones in scripted interactions. Eder is your very general Tank, Athletics+Survival, almost 1:1 proportion (or to get Damage Reduction III camping bonus, other points into Athletics), nothing else. Then his high Athletics will be helpful not only in battle, but in scripted interactions too. I see Kana as ranged Chanter supporting my team with Sure-Handed Ila, and as an off-hand "wizard" (Aloth's Strength is rather pathetic for a pure DD-wizard), so I usually go Lore with him and give him an armful of scrolls (his only problem will be low Dexterity / frequent Interrupt of his actions). Durance - 1 Athletics and Survival mostly. He, as well as other casters, does not need Lore since he has plenty of his own casts (the whole purpose of Lore skill is the usage of scrolls, and dialogue checks, of course). I give him an arquebus (to be Ila-supported+extra spell) enchanted with Fire Lash, and Scion of Flame talent (most of Priest's offensive spells are Fire-type). Sagani - not so familiar with her, maybe, general 1 Athletics/Survival+ damage dealing build. Hiravias - another caster, very good DD and CC, mediocre stats, general 1 Athletics/Survival+ category. Pallegina - good tank companion, general tank category. Can go Lore a bit, but I already have Lore people in my party. Grieving Mother - a caster (not Lore, certainly), needs to hit enemies frequently, so usual 1 Athletics/Survival+ scheme. Maneha - didn't go with her much, she is DD mostly, so, maybe, Athletics+Survival in a somewhat tuned proportion. Zahua - same as Maneha, I dressed him in soulbond staff and so Athletics+Survival in a tuned proportion. Devil of Caroc - well, you know....a huge spoiler: somewhere in WM DLC there is a scripted interaction where you need a person with high Stealth skill. This is the only place in the whole game where I had a need for Stealth specialist. So I went Stealth with her, used her in this interaction, then she went back to warm her gears at the Keep. She could be a bow/crossbow ranged Rogue, so other points could go into Survival and 1 into Athletics as well. But she is fragile, and her damage output isn't impressive at all. My usual party composition: Eder, Aloth, Durance have permanent positions, others are rotated according to the Watcher's own class + quests I want to do at the moment.

Aloth is, actually, the only option if you really mean business. Pallegina potentially would be too, but she is heavily attached to her duties for the Republics. Others are just "hit it and quit it".

Why, it's a perfect built-in age restriction feature. We should allow playing games with nudity, violence, dark humor, etc. only to people with at least a bit of logic and calculation abilities (some people are away from adulting even in their thirties, and some teens can be rather smart and resourceful). Even if one just googles the solution, searching / advise following still requires some time and effort.

Well, you can buy it for cosmetic purposes when you get rich (interiors and exteriors are different for different ships). And for achievements too.

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough: these visitors are recruited through the keep management window, where you usually recruit staff to raise prestige or defenses of your keep. And they are available for recruitment for a limited amount of time, after that they leave the keep.

Hi, as far as I remember, some visitors can be recruited to your garrison, if you have built Barracks in your keep (they are recruited through the same menu as regular staff). Some visitors are unique and are waiting in the Big Hall for you to resolve their problem.

Human. Then Human. Then Wood Elf, but dropped her before Act II. Then Human again. Maybe, I'm too dumb to imagine other races' way of thinking (elves are long-living, and orlans are short-living, furry, etc.), so it's difficult for me to roleplay someone non-human. Of course, in Eora one's culture means more than one's race, but still there are huge differences, and an official guide/almanac/in-game information are rather scarce on that matter - I've spent plenty of time reading various forum threads where people speculate on details.

Well, a couple of general tips. 1. Read carefully descriptions of stats, abilities, weapons/items properties, tooltips which popup on the right side of the screen (about combat, health & death, grimoires and chants, etc.) If you have all the proper information and a bit of logic, you can guide yourself through the game quite well - guides, builds and walkthroughs are usually needed for Veteran and PoTD difficulties. 2. Read your journal if you're lost or misunderstand something - it can reveal information you missed in other words. 3. Know your enemy. For me it's a huge pain to watch, for example, a streamer who uses a vs. Will spell against an enemy with high Will, fails it, then whines: 'tis game is toooo difficult! So pay attention to enemy's defenses and abilities. 4. Two general tactics: abusing doorways and Benny Hill style kite. Only occasional battles with bosses require solid planning. Druid can be built as a shifter or pure caster, these are quite different approaches, with different attributes and skills arrangement. Eder is usually built as a pure tank, Aloth as a half-controller/half-DD (his stats in PoE 1 are pathetic for a DD-wizard, but it's compensated by his versatility and importance for the story plot).

Why not multi with Paladin if he is (actually was, then he came to Dyrwood and became Lord of Caed Nua, and...you know) a servant to the crown? Regarding dialog reactivity we have the following: in the main game the majority of dialogue checks are for Priest subclasses (Magran, Eothas, Berath, Skaen), then we have (descending, both class+subclass checks) Ghost Heart, Wael Priest, Fury, Cipher (pure & specializations), other Druid subclasses (Lifegiver, Animist, Shifter), Goldpact Knights, Ranger (pure, Stalker, Sharpshooter), Bleak Walker, Wizard (pure & specializations), Shieldbearers of St. Elcga, Assassin. Other Rogue options have even lower number of checks. In BoW there are many Priest checks and some Wizard checks, no other classes. Bluff/Diplomacy/Insight are heavily demanded both in the maingame and in BoW. Guess, in the Archmage DLC Aloth or Fassina will be your guides, so don't worry.

Not so immortal, I hope. The Watcher doesn't need to be a god to beat the gods off, he/she can simply use their mind and, probably, the help of some other mighty creature (a handful of archmages is almost equal to one god; we have already used Eothas to weaken gods; maybe, if they are so childish, we can even make them killing each other - use Skaenite methods on Skaen himself, lol). Dozens of options. Btw, regarding pro-gods roleplay, I even don't know what the main antagonist for PoE III could be - Rymrgand himself (he supported Eothas' plan as far as I remember) or yet another anti-animancy cult.

Gods are robots since they were created and programmed by Engwithans (maybe with more advanced AI). So it would be cool to have something like Terminator story plot: say, we dive into some old library to learn how exactly gods were created, what was the life before their creation, maybe even return to the past to influence the future... Personally, I hate Deadfire for the lack of dignified options in dialogues with gods (you are an ***-licker or you are insta-killed); if Josh thought it would be a good idea to rub player's face on the ground - well, he has failed.

I totally agree with the topic starter. In my review on GOG I gave the game 3 out of 5. Graphics is ok, but, man, these lags and freezes (arena sublevel bug has already become the standing joke). Voiceover is awesome, but too expensive, so we have major cuts in the most crucial parts of the game: story plot, sidequests (half of them are just bounty hunting - that's ridiculous, companions' quests are "cheap" in the worst sense of this word), content density (yep, look at the open world in TESIII: Morrowind and then here - and tell me, please, why Morrowind is still popular, and Deadfire is not), and last, but not least, testing. Fortunately, I'm Russian, so I spent about 15 dollars on release and then about 5 dollars on BoW (thought it's worth givin'em a chance at least in DLC, but I was wrong, DLC is rather meh). But for average Russian it's still too much (average salary is about $4/h), so it would be better to wait until next year and buy a bug-fixed game with all DLC's on a sale. I've bought PoE 1 with both DLC's after 3.02 patch and had better experience than those who bought it on release. And yes, Deadfire has lost too much as an RPG game comparing to PoE1.

Well, as for me, reactivity for evildoers in Deadfire is pretty strange. In some places we have appropriate dialogue options (a Huana guy outside of VTC quarters, for example, or Degnos' quest), in other situations we have not, or they are implemented in a rather stupid way. For example, we have dialogue with Biha in The Gullet while obtaining her quest; here we have an aggressive option, but the aggression is addressed to Seduzo, not to Biha. It's stupid, since as stoic and harsh character, I have no empathy to Biha (made children she cannot feed, doesn't want to work, etc.), but I don't know why to do any harm to Seduzo, who owns her ship, and has a free will to take or not to take passengers. Of course, I can always kill Biha as any other NPC, but that's not a way to roleplay. Even Pitli's quest in the same location was more reactive from this point of view.

Well, it seems almost everyone in Eora wants to do "the right thing". Even Thaos thought he was doing "the right thing".

And what about people who didn't / won't buy any DLC? Anyway, any balance questions shouldn't be posted here - maybe, we should have a special pinned topic for all rebalance suggestions. Fixing gamebreaking bugs is more important now, and 2.0 patch has made the situation even worse than it was before.

Emm...could you just buy it from Henric in PM without any cheats? However, I won't be surprised if the majority of old saves are broken after 2.0 patch... Btw, did anyone enchant the bow for Burn/Shock extra damage scaled with Metaphysics? What's the scale proportion, or, maybe, there's some bug with that (can't see any scaling on my battlemage Aloth with high Metaphysics).

Well, maybe the best method to "nerf" this item is raising the difficulty of the lock on the chest it's stored in - Red Hand is cool because it is easy to obtain at low level (if you have any Mechanics specialist in your party). That'll be enough.

By the advice of experienced people I decided to recreate this (updated) bug report here. Issue: some bounty bosses, in particular, Katrenn, Torkar, and Dhwrgas do not drop their respective uniques (Katrenn grimoire, The Maker's Own Power belt, and Precognition amulet). Version 2.0.1.0044, save file after battle with Dhwrgas https://www.dropbox.com/s/ja7ijrwdbp9m94x/Cannwyll%20%28Forest%29%20%284e51b20d-b167-49a9-b9b6-5d79f36d9ed2%29%20%28LAX-2ABCD%29%20%28926221007%29.savegame?dl=0. Lady Epero and Lord Admiral Imp are ok (as for me), also should be checked if Eamund the Fox has any chance to drop his grimoire.

Balance is not about nerfing items into oblivion. Rangers already are a crappy class, without a decent weapon they'll become even more crappy. Maybe, increasing reload time/higher self-damage penalty/some accuracy penalty will make a deal, dunno.

Collar of Eothas' Light (The Deck of Many Things item) description: "by the Eothosian priest" (should be "Eothasian")

2.0.0.0030 patch, Beast of Winter installed. Katrenn does not drop Katrenn's Grimoire after death, and Torkar does not drop The Maker's Own Power unique belt. Savefile before confronting Torkar is https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyg3d66ivbrt2n5/Cannwyll%20%28LiftersRefuge%29%20%284e51b20d-b167-49a9-b9b6-5d79f36d9ed2%29%20%28LAX-2ABCD%29%20%28922585182%29.savegame?dl=0 Other targets from the same quest (Lady Epero and Lord Admiral Imp) are okay, and drop their uniques properly.