Seriphos

I'm incredibly fragile, so I picked up Trickster for access to Illusion spells to boost my survivability. And the Rogue abilities like Escape and Smoke Veril are great for getting out of tough situations when my Cipher gets swarmed with enemy attention. Which Cipher abilities would you consider great? So basically the MC Ascendant is useless except if you find speed synergies with another class... That's good to know.

What's DoT? Damage over time? I'm currently running an Ascendent/Trickster for RP'ing purposes but I'm still min/maxing where I can. I have MIG 15 CON 3 DEX 22 PER 19 INT 19 RES 5, so I've got all those bases covered. Plus, I'm using an Arbalest and make heavy use of the Rogue's Strike/Pierce the Bell ability to build up my focus at the start of battles which gives a whopping bonus of +5 PEN and +45% damage. I've also picked up all passives that give a bonus to PEN. So I've got that covered as well. And I just checked, and it looks like I don't have the Rapid Casting ability...yet. I don't know how I missed that one. I'm using no armor (only regular clothing) so I have +0% recovery time. Plus, I'm using items to boost my INT. And yes, I have Draining Whip. TBH, generating focus is not the problem for me. I do that fairly quickly-- the problem is not getting enough casts off while in the ascended state which I'll now rectify with getting the Rapid Casting passive.

I feel as if I need to be a single class Cipher to get the most out of the Ascendant subclass. Once I get to max focus and become ascendant, I start casting Disintegration on everyone which is the highest power level spell I have at the moment (I'm only level 16). By the time the ascendant effect wears off and my focus resets to zero, I feel as if the number of casts I can get off amount to the same as if I didn't have the free focus costs. So if I'm at 240 focus and I wasn't Ascendant, I can cast Disintegration 4 times before reaching 0 focus. This is about the same amount of casts I can get off before the ascended effect wears off. So what's the point? Of course, the spells do more damage while ascended, but I don't know if it's worth picking the subclass for just the increase in power level. I wanna add that if I pick a single-class Ascendant, there's the matter of not generating DPS quick enough to attain the ascended state. Also, the higher level Cipher spells aren't that great tbh. Maybe a multiclassed Ascendant really shines once it gets access to level 7 spells. Anyone got recommendations for good level 7 Cipher spells to cast while ascended?

You can only have 5 active companions in your party at any given time. But it seems as if you can only have 8 additional inactive companions that you select from the party management screen. I want to hire more adventurers. Which gamedata file contains this information? Is it even possible to modify?

I've been thinking, what would be a good setting for the next game? I personally want the game to jump another 100 years or so into the future into the Early Modern/Napoleonic period. Some concepts that the game could explore: -Aedyr launching an all-out world invasion trying to reestablish their Empire under an ambitious figure equivalent to Napoleon. -The equivalent of the French Revolution with the peasant rebels executing the ferconyng/mecwyn in Aedyr and disintegrating the monarchy. -The beginning of the Industrial Revolution with a focus on the conflict between Animancy and Science, giving us a modern day sequel to Arcanum that we've all longed for Would would you like to see in the next game?

..background/cultures that are companion-only? For example, Serafen has culture Principi sen Patrena and both Eder/Xoti have the background Farmer. Is there a way to use these companion-only cultures/background on your hired adventurers through modding?