Ymarsakar

Od Nua drops unique weapons. It's worth it. Also you should do it along with main quests because the early levels will be boringly weak if you super level yourself first via quests. As for being wiped out.. if you rest and go back up top to your inn, it shouldn't be a problem. On normal you should be able to cruise through many levels without even having to rest. Sure, the encounters there are designed for tougher tactical fights, but it should get real obvious to you when you are in danger of being wiped out. Because you'll have used up all your spells and abilities.

Kage Bunshin on the monk there. I've always found the whole simulacrum cloning trick that never uses up spell slots other than the first spell on BG2 to be hilarious. It takes forever to prepare and can't use those spell sequencers but it was so fun using a single spell to cast so many other spells. I wanted the mage vs mage fights to be much longer so I could use it more. I thought Essential Phantom would be one of those weak spells but looks like Obsidian remembered the whole simulacrum content. A lot of elements in this game, like fireball, are nostalgic elements for DnD or BG2. The Planescape Torment spells were hilarious with Full Motion Video at times for the higher ones. I hope Tides will get some of that in. Also, Barbarian 4 / Monk 16 was one of the multi class mixes in Temple of Elemental Evil or DnD 3.5+ that I liked to use. The monk's trip was very fun since if it hit, it would prone enemies. When those enemies got up, they would get opportunity attacked by my party that surrounded them. Sawyer's revamped monk class feels very strong with the AI option now.

They did a good job with Zahua's model since the scars show up and all. Looks very barbarian like.

Every stat affects combat in a way. They rebalanced drop stats, so you aren't going to get like charisma or something like that where you can drop it in BG 2 and face zero combat penalties. Min maxing in pillars is more about risk vs reward. You take a penalty somewhere in return for a goody somewhere that benefits your build or flavor more. In BG2 for example, if you had greater than 18 strength, your melee damage went exponentially up. If you had extra attacks on and attack bonuses, even more up. Here the attack stats broken down between 3 different attributes: might, dexterity, perception With defensive stats being generally intellect, resolve, and constitution. I say generally because every stat contributes to your defenses, your save rolls. You should read the game wiki about the various game mechanics so you can have a good foundation to start character building in Pillars. Here's a more updated build list for you so you can check it out and experiment. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844 I'm not going to rewrite the paladin build and tactics talk that can be found on these forums, but if you are interested, look through the archives for threads about paladin builds.

For the chanter, like the cipher, many of their best abilities are taken early on. Instead of building for late game abilities that are weak, early game abilities should be polished and fitted with party tactics instead of relying on a single class's late game abilities.

The chanters don't have to use the invocation build however. They can just put chant to death on and rotate through Illya and aoe thrasher fire damage along with 25% fire lash party buff. That way they can kite around like a pull run and gun party, automatically damage anyone near them, and fire arquebus alphas all together at one target. The aoe invocations can be triggered manually, but the AI class is best left to off for phrase chanters. Unless there's a script to activate the combo spells on druid, priests, and wizards (something that works with more user defined options than the AI script written by Obsidian), it's difficult to get it on an auto rotation, but the chanter's chant phrases are already automatically rotated based on user input.

Ciphers and casters are the most micro intensive, whereas the melee classes are just a rolling victory squad, select all and fire.

What I do for wounds is to have my blunderbuss cipher shoot the monk with DR bypass talents off. It does almost no dps given the monks 20 DR full plate. Well, that time was mostly a test and a joke, but the cipher's antipathetic beam can be pretty useful for a monk that everybody likes to ignore. Just remember, Don't cross the beams. I used the solo monk build someone else posted, that prioritized torment's reach, lesser wounds, and iron wheel with duality. Penetrating attack, savage attack, peasant focus, and dual wield would round out the rest of the dps line. There's no space for stunning blows and even anguish can be hard to pick for until you're level 12. I was testing the monk build in 9-11.

Check out IE Mod, it allows you to change the class of your main and other npc companions. http://rien-ici.com/iemod/console Now that I'm working more with the paladin monk chanter cipher ranger wizard combo, alpha damage from start, cc run and gun pulls, as well as forming a battle line and taking damage while dishing it out, feel very fun so far. Different tactics used with same composition, since I don't tend to use over specialized party builds like 1 chanter + 5 rangers. Cipher is one of the classes that benefits the most from micro, other than monk, but that also means it can be annoying if you want to pay attention to the other classes. It's really good for veteran players since we already automated most of our mental attack plans for companion 2-6. The wizard is a lot more fun than what it was when I first started the game and played through the first 2 chapters. A lot of different options and opening combos depending on needs, enemies, and player desire. If my dps is being taken out and I need a lot of dps, I cast alacrity + blights with aggressive on for auto attacks. Auto attacking turret the wizard becomes. If I want to help the cipher use echo, I use essential phantom, use a bunch of summons and spell binded items and it can take a few hits from an ogre too given aloth's full plate. The old BG2 trick of using a lightning bolt in close corridors to zap through an entire army of enemies is still as funny as it was, and also dangerous too since it can backfire easily. There's no auto angle prediction as was the case in Temple of Elemental Evil, so it's difficult to predict what the terrain will do to bounce the bolts and balls.

6 is do able, depending on composition and weapons. Be careful of going into caves or underground though, that's where the hard stuff is. Check the merchant stores first for the items.

High level content White March, DR is very important due to better AI and enemy cc.

Horse archers and killing people before they even see you, is always a strong tactic, as it does not allow return fire except from certain types of enemies or pure number of mobs. I sometimes had 2 ciphers, a chanter, a druid, a wizard, and a paladin. Everyone has a gun. The ciphers cast mental paralysis or the fractured hobble, plus +30% damage debuff, then everyone does a single alpha. Does about 180 damage in total, enough to nearly kill one of the adra wood casters. The chanter's aoe flame lash buff is pretty good since it applies to spells and specials as well. With some good pulls and controls/terrain to herd the enemies, they don't get much chance to get into melee range.

There is also some kind of issue with the stronghold code in 2.01 where people are not leaving or the activations are erroneous. So the merchant guy may be part of the bag of issues.

I use AI mostly for auto attacks. It doesn't know how to do active abilities well, and 2.01 tried to modify it (but the rest of the patch broke it), but unless they allow me to write custom scripts as in (if this, then do that, in this order, wait six seconds, move away from enemy if within x meters), it will be hard to build an optimum script for most people. The chanter's phrase list is basically the same thing, you tell him to do 5 things in a row, irregardless of what happens. Which can be useful at times, if not, turn it off or switch to a different one. Even that basic option would allow some customization of the ai script. I have a mouse key bound to select all party, makes it easier to focus fire. Also a lot of the "hotkeys" that are semi broken in 2.00 would work a lot better if I could string them together and fire them off in 3s, instead of trying to hit a button for each single ability. Macro it, it's the MMORPG age here. If they plan on taking this level cap thing beyond more in White March pt 2 or the sequel, they should seriously consider more automation. And not the kind of automation written by a centralized committee either.

I was fighting an ogre matron and their other ogres would do the battering ram, prone all the front line, and then the matron walks up and does the big hammer blow crit. In those situations, I need to cast lay on hands quickly and probably reinforcing exhortation on the ones getting hit. Itumaak generally benefits the most given his dps and lowish deflection. If the paladin gets jacked instead, then the wizard has to cast slicken immediately in order to buy more time. Good thing ogres are high on fort but low on reflex. Forgot to mention that with lesser wounds on my plate monk, I can have him start the fight, then when everyone hits him, he gets to 10 wounds almost immediately. But after that, he needs protection, so lay on hands or exhortation there is very good. Makes the best use out of defense and offense.

This sounds like something corrupted the animation or texture files via an update. Similar to the gog manual patch. Most people say galaxy works better for them if you are using GOG. If you are on steam, I suggest having steam verify the integrity of files.

The manual patch is a little bit weird for this version at gog, so I think people reported the most success using Galaxy.

That stat was removed accidentally by some patch or other.

"First question: Will this gate me on the main line story or prevent other missions not directly related to the domels?" You can still pass through the crit path even if you Kill Every Faction Leader. It won't prevent other quests, just the quests that came from the Domels cause the npc is dead, there's nothing to trigger it any more. Most of their stuff is thematically and item wise locked to rogues, and I wasn't a rogue, so to me it wasn't much of a loss. As for talents, I would pick greater lay on hands with a paladin with that stat build. If you had 3-5 higher points in perception, upgraded flames of devotion would do a pretty good job of applying more damage. One of the easier ways to stop people from breaking engagement is to have a pike user around and then have them aggro the mobs breaking off. The mobs will then skid to stop. The fighter will probably benefit more from the DR bypass talents, since you won't be hitting much with that door shield accuracy malus. The wizard's third level spells are very good, including firewall and alacrity. If you want more first and second level spells... go find the rings for them. For the cipher, you should be able to head to Dyrford and get the quest to get the unique blunderbuss. Which is better for gaining focus for the cipher, especially if the cipher has -dr bypass or group buffs to his accuracy/attack/reload speed.

They used to be traps, so benefited from mechanics. They got rid of that and made them hazards, but the scaling is rather huge at lower levels. The prone condition is a very powerful cc, while it doesn't debuff the enemy as hard as petrify or paralysis, they still aren't allowed to move or attack.

I also noticed that a lot of the cipher and wizard spells have much lower recovery than normal now. Normal cast spells have the recovery of very close to what used to be only from fast cast spells. That increases the cipher's ability to trigger focus gain from damage, since there's less waiting on those slow spell recoveries.

Probably another AI issue given the number of broken systems in 2.01 Didn't see that issue in 2.00

There are ways to cast ice spells to save the guard, then maybe save the woman. So you would need the chanter's ice trap phrase or a druid, something like that. You have to also bypass the initial falling timbers with a jack or usable adventurer tool to save time. Don't know how much constitution you need for all that.

Like the cipher, a lot of the chanter's goodies come at early levels. And they tend to get used way past where it normally would be ignored. Things like cone aoe paralyze/stun, summons although nerfed to 20s, and passive aura buffs like the paladin except customized, makes them a big boost to other characters. Just in less than obvious ways. The chanter is generally either chanting phrases all the time, or using invocations all the time. There's no time to do both at the same time. Like the cipher, the "build" is pretty non diverse, but it makes up for it with different tactical options and limitless ability use like the cipher. However unlike the cipher which can use pots and do more dps to get more focus for abilities, the chanter is time limited. And unless you use long range pulling, you won't have any extra time. The chanter has some of the same limits as the paladin. Since it fulfills 3 party roles at the same time or in a sequence, I'm not too worried about their high level abilities not scaling with their earlier ones.

That's because you're functionally similar to the IRS, Torm. As welcome as a SWAT team is generally. The way to motivate people in that situation is to generally keep telling them that the more they cooperate, the sooner you will disappear.