Nixl

I understand your reasoning, but I still would expect Skaen, Woedica, or even Berath to put pressure on you in some form, such as trying to put the Watcher in enough pain or fear to comply. For example, if Magran is willing to erupt a volcano or Ondra is willing to conjure a massive tsunami, I imagine the gods would have no issue with threatening the Deadfire/Eora with natural disaster unless the Watcher complied. If I recall correctly, the Gods were rather brutal and indifferent to the suffering of "kith." Furthermore, such a vindictive response also would match the natural disasters caused by the gods in PoE1, if the Watcher broke an oath with a god with respect to the souls. If I recall correctly, they were more than willing to harm innocent people to vent their anger and/or teach the watcher a lesson. Hence, I was expecting more out of the gods.

If you want to believe the story is badly written because you want it to be badly written, go ahead. I won't stop you. But I have no problem to theorize that Berath sent the Watcher to talk to Eothas to placate the other gods from doing something early and make sure they don't have enough time to stop Eothas in the end. Rymrgand knew what Eothas was trying to do. Rymrgand only "ally" among the gods is Berath. Eothas plans was to destroy Berath's Wheel. Berath's reaction is *shrug*. If you pick the "power up a god" ending Eothas power up Berath. Berath has an amazing poker face too. That is a distinct possibility, as with the other gods becoming convinced over time, but I did not observe a firm reaction either way. The gods just seemed to shrug it off, even when I borderline insulted them.

I just finished my PotD playthrough and I found Thaumaturge incredibly fun. I thought I would miss out on upper level spells, but Avatar, Pillars of Flame, etc. did more than enough damage to compensate. Furthermore, you can just cast upper level spells through scrolls, such as meteor shower. With respect to stats, I have not decided on an optimal set up yet. You have a lot of buffs to choose that can enhance or mitigate you stat choices. For example, Infuse with Vital Essence is a second tier wizard spell on a .5 second cast that grants +5 to intellect and constitution. With Infuse with Vital Essence as an option, I do not think max intellect is a huge priority, and you can compensate for lower constitution. Another example is the litany spell for Priest that boosts resolve to compensate if you dump it. Once you obtain Avatar, your stats are buffed across the board. Dexterity still is paramount, but there are ways around it too. For example, you can obtain the legendary staff (I forget the name, tied with Nemnok) that grants an action speed bonus that scales with metaphysics. That could lessen the dependency on dexterity, but you cannot obtain it right from the start. Another alternative is Deleterious Alacrity of Motion as Bluewall suggested above. I would dump resolve and max dexterity and split the remaining points between intellect, might, and perception. Perhaps take some points from constitution and compensate with Infuse with Vital Essence. Also, second to dexterity is concentration. Invest in the concentration feat and spirit shield. You will not regret it.

The scene where Eothas emerged from the volcano only to find a barren sea floor and a massive tsunami was one of my favorite parts. That felt like a struggle between gods. I just wished there was more of that in the actual game and not CYOA panels.

That is what I thought, but after Neketaka docks I never saw another hint of it. Additionally, if Berath had the geas, she never seemed to use or reference it again. My only guess was that when Eothas returned part of your soul at Hasongo, you gained a defense, but the topic never came up again. It felt like a missed opportunity to give the gods a more proactive role in the story, whether that be in the form of Berath enforcing the geas/curse or the gods sending monsters/fanatics after you. Honestly, who does not want to see or fight an effigy of Skaen? I understand why the gods cannot stop Eothas directly, but I do not understand why they would let the watcher openly disobey them. At one point they discussed absorbing all the souls of the godlike, but they cannot mobilize fanatics to punish the watcher? Those scenes just came off as toothless. I enjoyed how the story handled the relationship with Berath in the beginning, it just seemed to drop off. I figured Eothas did something to shield you from Berath, but Berath never acknowledges it if I recall correctly. The game did a good job with choices and consequences up until the player can openly disobeying the gods with no consequences (with some exceptions). I just expected an additional fight to result.

I just finished PoE2, and did anyone else find the interactions with the other gods to be toothless and without much consequence? I searched the forum for this type of topic, but I did not find one devoted to just the god interactions. Specifically, I sided with Eothas and openly disobeyed Berath with no consequences. I expected Berath or the other gods would send monsters/fanatics to punish me, but all they did was shrug it off. In contrast, when you arrive at Neketaka Berath was able to assert control and force you to reveal the spirits to the dock master. I never encountered a similar scripted event after that point. Was Berath able to do that the entire time, and if so, why did she and the other gods become so passive? Consequently, those scenes with the gods felt like pointless filler. At Urkaizo, Eothas stated that he had freed me from Berath's control, but what control? Was this meant to be a plot point? Truthfully, I wanted to run into an Effigy of Skaen, but again, I found no consequence to openly disrespecting the gods. It seemed like a missed opportunity

I definitely agree about passives or lack thereof. Your level choices are between spells and more spells for the most part, although that is not necessarily a bad thing in my mind. You potentially end up with a well-rounded caster that can switch between roles. You may not use all the spells consistently, but if you need to switch tactics, you can line up some solid options with the Thaumaturge. Also, Withdraw, Devotion of the Faithful, and Empowered Fireball/Minolleta's Concussive Missiles on the same character is pretty nice. You just need to bring a lot of dexterity and avoid heavy armor.

I am running Priest of Eothas/Evoker on PotD as primarily an offensive caster, although I find I can rotate between damage, heals, buffs, etc as needed. Once PotD is fixed, I plan to run it again, because of how much I enjoyed it. In my opinion, Priest and Wizard spells work well together in a chain cast. Additionally, Priest of Eothas receives withdraw, revive, and other defensive spells for free. I find most of the Eothas deity spells to be very useful in critical situations, especially withdraw. I am focusing on fire-based spells (shining beacon, fireball, etc.). I obtained the ring that grants greater accuracy with fire based spells, as well as the cat and flail that grant increased power levels for fire spells. In the event a target is immune or resistant to fire, I either switch to Minolleta's missiles or to a support role (heals, buffs, etc.). Additionally, empowered minoletta's concussive missiles can single handily win encounters, which you can cast from stealth. I typically start by lining up Spirit Shield (concentration), Devotions of the Faithful (20 accuracy and 4 might), etc. before I cast damage spells. I hope to work in avatar if feasible. One mistake I made is that I kept dexterity and perception at 10. If I had to do it again, I would pump more into dexterity due to all the casting I need to do. Upper level spells have cast times of 4+ seconds and that starts to add up. I started to use Xoti to cast Devotions of the Faithful to save time. I hope that helps, somewhat.

I think your idea of tying it into the existing crew injury/rest system makes perfect sense, it's just that as long as spending time is a non-issue it would just result in players putting their favourite injured party member into the recovery slot and simply waiting/resting the duration with little to no consequences. At that point the entire mechanic may not as well exist. If standing around waiting a few days actually cost me a significant amount in gold/resources when I'm trying to save up for a particular item, upgrade or whatever else, that would at least introduce some semblence of decision-making to the process. But maybe still not enough. I believe time would be be an issue, or at least a bigger issue, for two reason: first, crew wages and upkeep would eat into your resources if you simply rest/wait; and second, the pc cannot be rotated out of the party, and so you either have to spend money upfront to heal the pc with medicine/doctor or rest and endure upkeep costs. At that point, it is a matter of tuning money supply and cost. One could rotate injured party members in and out, but that requires player input, which the current system lacks. The cost in that case would also be losing a companion that is potentially instrumental to your group, such as a tank or healer. Furthermore, the player still would have to ensure that the party does not accumulate wounds faster than it heals.

I largely agree. In it's current guise the rest system may as well not exist - but maybe they were hesitant to completely remove what has been a component of the genre forever (for better or worse). I was kind of hoping Berath's Blessings could've been used for things like this though, something akin to XCOM's 'second wave' options. A couple of ways you could try and make resting relevant is by firstly increasing the occurence of wounds - a 'blessing' which enables a % chance for your party to receive injuries from attacks which take out enough % of their health in one hit. It could roll against the related defense stat (deflection, reflex, fort, will) and inflict an appropriate injury. That way dumping constitution or resolve will not only make a character squishy in general but more likely to get physically injured as well. And from the other side you could impose more of a resource penalty for resting. Significantly increase crew wages so that rest spamming away injuries or replenshing rare 'per rest' abilities and items will at least hurt your wallet. You could slow down the passage of time on the world map to compensate so you're not unfairly penalised for exploring. Or maybe that would be terrible? It's hard to say, but I hope it gets looked at in some way or another. During beta, I suggested something similar. Specifically, that certain creature or boss abilities would apply a wound without a K.O. being a prerequisite. That way would put more emphasis on player input, such as dodging or interrupting enemies. An increase to the cost of ship upkeep could work, although I still lean more towards medicine/wound duration, because it already exists in the crew injury system to an extent. Furthermore, in a setting that has medicine and surgeons, why would cheap hardtack be a cure to all injuries? It is kind of ridiculous when I think about it. As it currently stands, the player input is reduced to putting hardtack in a slot and hitting the rest button.

I just rested for the 2nd time in about 25 hours of gameplay:-). I think you idea could be interesting, but: you have to always have PC in your party. That’s the biggest issue I have, as rotating companion composition to let them heal could be an interesting mechanic. That’s sort of the problem, which previous system couldn’t get over either - you can’t really do a serious damage to PC and companions are they are crucial to enjoyment of the game. Imagine how this system could mess with players questing - even if they didn’t need to be inactive in order to heal, it probably would be undiserabke to stack up woulds on one companion. I plan to go to the Gullet next, and let’s say that Takehu or Serafim are injured, and I want to take them with me, because of story and faction reasons. Having to wait for them to heal could have been annoying. Any long term resource management is in clash with how the game’s bigger structure is designed. I don’t feel like ditching resting (which I feel Deadfire did to some extend) is hurting the game that much. True, but I would find that preferable over the current system. At least then the player would have to decide how to handle wounded companions, as opposed to the current system in which there is no thought to it (i.e., rest with hardtack). Another example is that one could just spam rest for several days/weeks, but they would lose resources in the form of ship upkeep (wages, food, water, etc.). Furthermore, you could ramp up difficulty by reducing available money, and/or increasing the cost of medicine, doctors, and ship upkeep. This would tie into other systems, such as ship maintenance, and actually create some tension for resources. Ultimately, there are no real consequence to the current wound system, so long as resting being free or the cost to healing wounds being borderline free (i.e., hardtack). Edit: I think parts of this system already is in place. I imagine wounds, like any affliction, can receive a time duration. Medicine already exists as a ship supply and could be used at the rest screen in lieu of food. Finally, a doctor/surgeon would reuse the inn resting mechanic, just with a healer instead.

On a related note, I also find the wound system far too lenient. Virtually no resources are lost from a character being knocked out. You just consume hardtack, which is not hard to find or buy, and which also carries the benefit of regenerating empowerment charges. It is borderline irrelevant in my playthrough due to all the food I have come across and the lack of any major resting restrictions. What I also find strange is that the crew system on the Defiant has a more complex version of the wound system than the player. When crew member obtains a wound, it can take several days to heal, unless you use medicine/surgeon. Is there any way this could not be ported over to the player? Specifically, that wounds do not automatically heal upon rest, and instead take time to drop off. I find that far more interesting than the current wound system, especially if you restrict the amount of money the player comes across.

That looks like a fun combo. You gain access to a nice mix of damage spells (Evoker), buffs (Avatar, Crowns of the Faithful), healing (Eothas spells), and summons (Priest). The cast times would be long, but you could combine Avatar (might, perception, intellect buff) and Meteor Shower and/or high pen spells. As a backup, you could reinforce the party with the Eothas defensive spells and summons.

Has anyone had much luck with Priest/Cipher? I wanted to attempt a build, but I am not sure I see much synergy relative to Paladin/Ciper or Rogue/Cipher.

PotD all day, every day. Personally, my favorite part of PoE1 was the first 6-9 levels on PotD with my Priest. I scrounged for every penny, potion, and scroll. Those Shades/Phantoms in the Temple of Eothas were a pain. Of course, once your Priest reaches a certain level, it can wipe the floor with most encounters.

Actually, given what Dragon Age: Inquisition has revealed about the ancient elves, I suspect that franchise wouldn't work for them either. Plenty of shades of grey to be had there. Never played Dragon Age, and so I cannot comment. I more so remember Mass Effect and the Paragon (blue-nice) - Renegade (red-mean) options. Based on some of the posts in this thread, I am starting to see why Bioware implemented such a binary system. It's just a little humorous that someone takes offense to Huana having flaws/issues in PoE2, especially when PoE1 dealt with similar issues. For example, the child sacrifice quest in Twin Elms, in which a tribesman wants to sacrifice the Orlan baby for power. That was an instance where you had a horrendous act (i.e., child sacrifice) committed by an "oppressed" tribe (victims of colonization). Therefore, it is not as if PoE has not broached this subject before. I just assume the poster did not finish the quest.

I am not sure how you can have a meaningful conversation with someone when you put words in their mouth. That or meaningful discussion now means always agreeing. I am not sure Pillars of Eternity is the franchise for you. Even Pillars of Eternity 1 had a questline where you saw/heard colonists and natives commit atrocities against one another (see the Maerwald quest). I am sure you would find that nuance equally problematic. May I suggest Bioware games? I hear they have a nice "blue = good" and "red = bad" option for players. Look. I'm an anthropologist in real life. I know a great deal about the cultures of pre-Columbian Native Americans. A *number* of Native American tribes practiced various forms of slavery prior to the presence of European colonization. There's nothing "racist" about this, it's a literal fact. The Iroquois, the Creek, and the Comanche are probably the most well known, but there's also the Pawnee, the Klamanth, the Haida, the Yurok, and various others. The Haida were one of the few Native American tribes that didn't just take slaves from defeated tribes, but actively engaged in slave *trading* prior to Columbian contact. You have a *really* ****ed up concept of who and what the Native American tribes were. Not a one of them was some pure innocent cultural group who were suddenly victimized by the evil white guy. They were people, who had developed various cultural institutions over the course of thousands of years. They had farming, they had murder, they had metal working, they had slavery, they had marriage, they had rape. Some tribes had fluid gender roles, some tribes had *really* strict and immovable gender roles. All of these things and more can be found in various different tribes in various different places at various different times. Deadfire isn't doing "moral equivalence" except insofar as they are showing the Hauna as being capable of the same degree of good and evil as anybody else, and that *is* actually realistic. Real cultures all have the same *potential* for good and evil. There are no "good guys" in life. You accept that reality is nuanced and cultures do not have "moral superiority" over each other, or you remain in a childlike state with a narrow view of morality, perpetrating stereotypes and inaccurate historical information. Once again, for the people in the back: cultures are *equal*, not inferior or superior, and the many thousands of Native American tribes--just like the Huana in the game--were fully capable of the same degree of good and evil as anybody else. Colonialism is a great evil, yes. But the cultural group being colonized are always themselves *capable of the same things*. A victim can be a victimizer in another circumstance and another time. Just because the Huana are being victimized by the Vailians does not mean they cannot themselves victimize others. That's reality. As an anthropologist I think they've done a great job of showing the Huana in a sympathetic but realistic light where they are not shown as "noble savages" but as a real culture with all the complex mixture of good and bad that involves. I enjoy the fact that they *do not* shy away from depicting the Huana as capable of oppression within their own cultural system, or capable of racism against other groups, or any of that. It's *real*. It's *complex*. It forces you to make *hard* moral choices. That's a *good thing*. I wouldn't waste too much time on that post. Never let facts or nuance get in the way of a good narrative.

Yes and no. You do realize I was comparing the two portraits, right? Oh my god. You actually brought up the Bogdanoff into this. The conflict between the two facets of her duty (obedience to the Ducs vs. working toward the best interest of the Republics) was unmistakable, as was the fact that she was a Godlike and this universe's version of an atheist. If it's a retcon, it's one a mostly enjoy, especially the fact that the feathers stand out a lot more on her brow. Bogdanoff! That's the name, I knew it started "Bog" - something. If you like the PoE2 portrait, that's fine. I do not have issue with that per se, I just believe it is disingenuous to call the revision "suppressed" and terrible, when the PoE1 portrait had similar features. If anything, the PoE2 portrait is an attempt to suppress certain features. Furthermore, there seems to be a lack of range in the current portraits. As for her character, I disagree. There were certainly inklings of conflict, but I do not believe it received much spotlight (or as much spotlight as it needed). Personally, I feel Obsidian ran out of time, and an example would be the out of sequence dialogue sequence with Aloth and the Twin Dryads.

I am not sure I follow here. I am not going to get into the "duality" of the character, because I do not remember the game ever going that far with the characterization for any character. Therefore, I am just going to leave it at that, but I do have one point of disagreement. Specifically, Pallegina's PoE1 portrait was not "ugly" by any means and already had "super-model" qualities to it. If anything, the PoE2 portrait changed her skin tone, jaw, and nose, and made her feathers stick out more from her hair. The revision does go overboard, but I find it more consistent with the PoE1 portrait than the PoE2 portrait. Quite frankly, I find the PoE2 portrait more of a "suppression" of the character than a revision at this point. It would be one thing if there was a range of portrait types, but instead the PoE2 portrait artist was the Oprah of massive jaws (everyone gets a massive jaw!).

I get that uncanny valley feeling from the current portraits. I do not mean to be cruel or offensive to the artist, but I cannot get this image out of my head.

From my perspective, the PoE1 portraits had more range, especially with the female character art. Current art seems to be man-jaw or go home.

I think anon's Aloth captures his PoE1 portrait better though (i.e., a little meek).

I prefer Anon's Eder portrait as well. I will definitely replace Eder and Pallengina's portrait come release. The current portraits for Eder and Pallengina are so different from PoE1 that it is jarring to me. As for Aloth, he is not bad in either, although I still prefer the PoE1 portrait. I do not hate the current artist, but he has a fixation with large jaws. There also is a quality to his portraits that looks so..out of focus? I am not sure how to describe it. In contrast, Anon's Eder looks to have more "detail" to the face.

The edited Pallengina portrait is much more fitting in my opinion. Personally, the PoE1 and PoE2 portraits look so different, especially Pallengina and Eder. I would prefer just to use the PoE1 portraits for them. As for the realism debate, can't we just have a balance of portrait types? Not every female character needs to be a supermodel, but at the same time not all of them need to look like they received plastic surgery to have massive jaws and noses.

Interesting idea, although if empower charges passively regenerate, I imagine there would be even less reason to rest. I also think it would hinge on how long the average fight would last on normal.