Jayd

Just wanted to say that I went into the game blind on POTD and have had a grand time. Considered restarting on Vet when I first walked into Gorecci St and the digsite, but after pushing through those I haven't had that tough a time - though it's been a good challenge quite often. My party isn't min-maxed and I've neglected consumables. This is the way I reasoned it: people beat this thing solo. If I can't get through it with a full party I'm just not doing it right.

Well I didn't do the math so I'll defer to you on that. Companions don't fall too far behind if you rotate them constantly. But you definitely do get less experience in your party than you would if you didn't rotate at all - and it takes much more effort and resources to rotate. So it's still quite a punishment and I don't see why it should be.

Yeah I thought of that, though I typically don't think to use items. I've never used drugs and maybe taken about 5 potions throughout my POTD run (level 19 now). Scrolls seem like a good way to go, though. As for sleight of hand, bards are typically semi-roguish in DnD right? So it's probably a hold-over from that.

Yeah, but I more meant it as a concern for SC Chanters in general. MC chanters get to use their other class's abilities and strengths while not casting invocations, *and* they are constantly chanting. SC Chanters just have invocations, chanting, and auto-attacks without any strong martial abilities. I guess they should still be able to hold their own with good gear (medium armor, I guess?) but it seems potentially...unexciting?

You guys saved me some time and frustration. Thanks.

I love the idea of a SC Bellower throwing out nasty invocations. The only thing that gives me pause is wondering whether they would be too weak in-between invocations. I guess there are invocation buffs that can make you stronger in auto-attacking which would last a long time with Bellower power level. Also, are all Chanter summons affected by the current summon scaling bug? I haven't been able to confirm whether all summons are affected or only a few.

Oh, from those quests you get to hunt down artifacts for the specific face? Those then lead to fights under the same category?

This is probably a stupid question, but the second upgrade step on the soulbound items you get for pleasing one of the faces in SSS, like the Slayer's Claw or Survivor's Tusk, is to complete each of the fights associated with that face. But that's what you had to do to get the item in the first place. I just want to confirm that I understand correctly - I have to redo the same fights to get the upgrade; there aren't some other fights in the DLC that I'm supposed to get to or something? I hope this is the right place to ask. General discussion says no spoilers.

I'm currently using a Shifter/Stalker Beastmaster on POTD with the antelope companion, and while it doesn't wow me with incredible damage and durability, it definitely hasn't disappointed me either. It doesn't feel any more likely to get burst down than my other companions. Damage is respectable and keeps up at high levels. One nice thing people tend not to mention is that the pet-based abilities work on the pet's action queue, not the Ranger's queue, so you can have your pet use abilities while the Ranger is in a recovery phase, which is nice for tempo. As for how to maximize, you'll want a party that can inflict DoT effects and afflictions to proc both Predator's Sense and Merciless companion. Since you want the pet to be as great as possible, I feel like you must go single class to get Bonded Fury, Distracting Training, and Shadowed Hunters. I've never used them but they look really nice (BF gives the pet ALL tier 2 inspirations for a base 30s duration!). Stalker helps a lot because of the extra point of armor especially, so definitely go with that. I use Play Dead instead of both heal and revive companion because once you're paying attention you should be able to avoid death with Play Dead and it's much better heals than the heal spell. I actually never picked up heal and revive in my entire playthrough because I found that better handled by my supports. This frees up a lot of points; if you're going single class you shouldn't have an easy time picking upgrades. Make sure to prioritize Concussive Tranquilizer as it's one of the best abilities in the game for its cleanse. Use evasive roll creatively (apply flanks with your pet). Call of the Master is great for when you get more mobile. I ended up writing more than I planned but I hope it's helpful.

Since Watcher is always in the party and therefore gets 100% of all xp, if you rotate companions so frequently as to spread xp across them relatively evenly, they would just all end up significantly behind the Watcher (and content scales to the Watcher when scaling is turned on). If you don't swap anyone, your whole party will always be at the highest level you've reached. This system is an xp punishment for swapping, period.

It is weird because then it would technically be athletics that should govern how hard you can swing a sword. It's weird that you can have people deal huge blows with a morning star but can't lift a log or climb a rope. The root of the problem is that effectively swinging heavy objects requires athletic conditioning while casting spells presumably does not. That said, I think it's something we ought to just overlook in order to enjoy the great balancing benefits it brings. Or, if that's impossible, head canon the fact that magic is physically taxing in this universe so people need strong bodies to channel powerful magic. (It would have been easy and nice if the developers had made this canon from the beginning so we could avoid these threads however many years later.)

One thing you didn't mention is I'm pretty sure the extra deflection makes him less likely to be focused by enemies. Enemies seem programmed to swarm squishies on POTD at least, so there is good reason to invest in caster defenses.

Are all summons broken or only specific ones? Can't seem to find details on this problem (but I know it exists after trying out lashing vine...yikes).

Well, I also actually like having significant game time with max level characters. It annoys me when I can only reach my character's full potential near the very end of a game, which basically makes it pointless to factor high level abilities into a build cuz you'll probably only have them for a few hours. However, I do understand that some people get bored when there are no more levels to be gained. We can't all be totally happy. In any case, I still believe the current bench xp system is egregiously punishing around the middle of the game. Ideally, for me, it would be totally removed and everyone would level at the same pace. If not, it should at least be adjusted so that companions stay not lower than ~1 level below your main.

Not sure what you mean by absolute and comparative terms, but I think it certainly is a major problem that some of my companions are severely underleveled (3 levels is severe on POTD at least) until I have played well beyond the level cap. I understand what you say about enjoying having more people to level up, but from a broader game design perspective I can't see how that satisfaction for players like you is worth the frustrations of players like me for whom several companions are basically unusable in the middle of the game. Your enjoyment is legitimate but I don't think it's a balanced tradeoff.

If I were to guess, the intent is not to discourage but to encourage. I don't follow. The only result of this mechanic is that swapping characters will make your party have less xp than keeping a set squad. How could that possibly encourage swapping? Or do you mean the point is to encourage people to use a single squad for the sake of replayability?

So is it intentional that Intellect increases Forbidden Curse duration and Might increases self-damage? I would really like to play a FF Monk for the sole reason that it actually makes Resolve valuable on a monk (mental discipline is supposed to be their whole thing) but having Intellect be actively detrimental is a two-steps-back situation for me.

What I needed to hear. My mental health thanks you. Sorry for commandeering your thread, OP, I hope my advice helped.

is this PotD with upscaling? Because I would just come back at a higher level (I don't start SSS until 18 or 19 on PotD+upscaling+challenges). I don't have upscaling on at the moment (I've turned it on and off a few times) and I'll happily do this content with it off. I was just really excited to get Survivor's Tusks for my main character. But those guys outleveling me are a problem (and the game tells me I have it hardest because I consumed him in PoE - I didn't really understand the significance of that choice when I did it lol). Their nukes just blow my team up. Here's a question: do I have to go through even more difficult fights to get the Survivor's Tusks? Because then it really wouldn't make sense to suffer through this just to hit a thicker wall before getting what I want.

Ah I just went through this (at level 16 - POTD) and can help. The key for me was realizing that the boars have very high fortitude but, as animals, low will. I had Ydwin with me and spammed Puppet Master and Ringleader on the boars (mostly PM on the bigger boars to make sure I could keep chaining it). This very effectively kept the boars from steamrolling my backline. Meanwhile, I sent my Shifter/Stalker Beastmaster and antelope after the main druid and the ranger in the back. They needed some help from my priest but they took them out. So if you have a Cipher, that's what I'd recommend. If not, perhaps you have another means of CC that targets will. Now I'm going to take advantage of your thread and ask if anyone has secret tech for beating the third fight in the Rite of Passage quest. I'm still level 16 (my tank is 15) and the Maerwalds are three levels above me. I'm close to giving up and going to level up more.

If we're going to be melodramatic over roleplay frustrations in this game, our main concern should be the fact that monks arguably benefit the least from Intellect and Resolve. Monks. Monks are usually my favourite class (along with Druid) because they are a martial class that rely on wisdom, insight, and mental discipline for their power. In my estimation, that's essential for the character of monks. In Pillars it is the opposite and that actually ruins the class for me.

I just double checked. My level 1 companions (I checked both Fassina and Pallegina) have 87,842 xp, while my main has 12,4532. That is almost exactly 70%. It stands to reason that the game is programmed to give benched companions 70% of the experience the party gets. This got me thinking: I recently got Vatnir and he had 100% of the experience he should (even with auto-leveling turned off) when I took him into my party. Both Fassina and Pallegina went right into the roster instead of touching my party. Perhaps that stopped them from coming up to my level before starting to receive the 70%, meaning they just got a flat 70% with no bumps. Either way, I got Pallegina at least when I was very low level so she would be very low regardless. I just don't see the point in giving benched companions reduced xp to begin with. Why punish people for swapping?

I was having a tough time in a fight and decided to try a new party composition. My usual party is at level 16, I brought in Fassina, and found out she could only reach level 13 when I leveled her up! I already knew she would have a bit less experience, but that is ridiculous. You primarily get xp from quests and there are a limited number of quests, so trying to use her or any of my benched companions at this point would be a massive disadvantage. What makes this truly baffling is that you can hire adventurers (which you can min/max to your pleasure) only one level below your max. So I'm not being so heavily penalized for trying new companions, but only for trying the voiced companions that Obsidian created. I cannot get my head around that decision. I don't understand why there are experience penalties at all in this game. How does it enhance the experience? Why should the developers dissuade you from experimenting with your party even slightly? I feel like I must be missing something.

One comment here: if you want to play a Shifter this is probably not a good idea. Giving up helmets means giving up Survivor's Tusks, which is the best Shfiter accessory and the only Soulbound item Shifters can fully benefit from. Shifters also don't constantly use active abilities, which are what benefit from Power Level.

This changes a lot. How can you tell which actions break stealth and which do? Is there a list? And do actions which break stealth not benefit (since their recovery won't actually be in stealth)?