Jojobobo

I quickly realised that with good positioning only one or two would hit you, however what I didn't realise and found through a quick search was that the fight could actually be initiated by snaking up the right wall (I was approaching from the front). When you're in this position as I mentioned only one of the tendrils can throw stuff at you so you don't have to chance that opening barrage by approaching them from the front (my fortitude was in the 140-150 region, and I was taking some heavy hits).

After you kill the Radiant Spore, do all the enemies in the area clear? I've got to it finally and rested, but I have no more camping supplies after this so I don't want to be having to clear out anymore insanely hard Vithracks afterwards (which I presume I wouldn't, because of the mind control and all). Maybe there's camping supplies elsewhere on the level, but if there is I haven't found them and as far as I know there's no way to go back to Stalwart. I'm level 16, so barring some additional items I'm about as good as I'll get defensively - doing this fight PotD solo turns out to be extremely masochistic. I'm sure I'll get there but it's going to take me many retries, and afterwards I don't want to be faced with an entire level to clear out. I have kept saves from before, so if push comes to shove I can return from before I entered the level. EDIT: Never mind, I defeated the spore and found out that you can then explore the area freely and the remaining Vithracks are non-hostile. I used the tactic most people do of hugging the right wall so only one tendril can get at you and keeping my fortitude save up with scrolls of defence and whatever food I could get my hand on. Being a Chanter I killed all the sporelings with Dragon Thrashed and then spammed Hearts Grew Bold while remaining in that corner and systematically taking out the tendrils with Instruments of Death - usually the summon would last until I had enough chants stored to produce the next one. Once you take out that first tendril that can hit you, you should be relatively safe.

I think there's a bit too much focus often on the overall best build in terms of damage, rather than going for an interesting "best" build. For me personally, I tend to focus on a build that is the potentially the best at what I wanted them to do, and is also viable. Best two-hander character definitely falls in that kind of category, lacking a little DPS but having many nice advantages (the high base damage being the chief one, as well as having two damage types in the sword and lots of nice uniques). I'd focus on making a two-hander character and trying to optimise them from there. It comes to a point when you've completed an RPG enough times it's less about making a team as damaging as possible and more about trying to do something interesting and unusual which at the same time works mechanistically too.

Another bug I've noticed is Cape of the Master Mystic has stopped triggering invisibility, even when I am being critically hit. I made a thread about it here, but the there's not any extra detail about the bug in the thread. EDIT: Never mind, the bug seems to have fixed itself so it's unlikely to be a severe problem.

Invisibility seems to have stopped activated for the Cape of the Master Mystic even though I'm still getting critical hits in the encounters. It has worked previously for the character, but I thought it's been a while since Invisibility triggered and then sure enough looking at the combat log it's no longer triggering. I can provide saves if desired. EDIT: The bug seems to have resolved itself on saving and a few times, likely just a one off.

Do both, you can't keep someone withdrawn forever and when it drops you're not going to have the +100 defenses (which can form a nice blockage with the right positioning) - plus prone enemies will eventually be able to stand back up and use a powerful invocation. Besides, not everyone wants to have a Priest on their team. As I said this is just a place for spitballing ideas, adding to an existing idea is fine but I'd rather steer clear of total naysaying.

Something that's probably not a bug but a general needless inconvenience is that you can't change chants outside of encounters in combat zones, but you can in non-combat zones (towns or cities). This makes zero difference in terms of gameplay, as if you set fights to their slowest real time setting and instantly pause you can set whatever chant you want before chanting commences at the start of an encounter. However, this is obviously awkward and annoying, and has no logical basis (I find it hard to believe a person can't just choose to say different words from one moment to the next). It seems like if there's already a way to set this in non-combat zones, using those same settings in combat zones would be easy - unless it's a cooldown issue and fiddling with the mechanics would affect cooldown in combat. Still needless inconveniences are a little irritating.

While that is good (and appreciated) a fix for enemies having charm end way prematurely/borderline instantly would be great. I'm at Longwatch Falls currently, and as soon as I get a charm/dominate in on a Broodmother (which is a great thing to do, seeing as Cleansing Flame straight up kills you very fast) the effect ends within a second or two. Loren Tyr obviously mentioned a potential fix, hopefully this would rectify the problem. I am playing solo, and while I appreciate this game was never designed for solo, it's frustrating losing out to quirks in the mechanics rather than errors you yourself are making.

I thought I'd make a thread where a dedicated class build isn't necessary, either because it's a short sketch of an idea or because it's contingent on additional party members in the first place. These should be all proven concepts (as in you've tested them) but they don't have to have been played through. Quite possibly if you've noticed a quirk in the mechanics building an entire party around it and giving it a solid playthrough is a little excessive in terms of your own enjoyment. So anyway, playing a Chanter something I've noticed (which I think Boereor may have picked up on before, he's definitely mentioned testing it) is that while you can't chant while paralysed, petrified or stunned - you can chant while prone. With a Ring of Thorns (or other Preservation item) and Ilfan Byrngar's Solace say hello to +100 defences, while still chanting. Obviously party support is good here (Fighter/Ranger Pet Knock Down, Calling the World's Maw, arbalest crits, etc.) but you're effectively making an immortal character who you can put wherever you like on the field of play and have them put out solid damage with the Dragon Thrashed. All in all, it's very nice - and great at dealing with prone inflicting dragons. If anyone has likeminded either character or party ideas, then this is a place for them.

I wouldn't recommend dumping Dex, spells that increase attack speed only increase your recovery phase (not the spell cast animations phase) and so you're actual cast times are going to be quite increased. In addition, the drop to your Reflex is significant with severe dumpage. At most, I'd probably leave both Dex and Res at 10, which gives you another 5 points to play with which isn't insigificant. Concentration doesn't need to be super high for the game to be manageable on solo, but with a spell caster dumping Res doesn't seem to be the best idea, especially if dumping Dex which will increase your casting times in the first place. While I'm sure the build would be perfectly doable how you're trying to play it, I don't you're not really making any improvements to it with your changes so you will have a needlessly tougher time.

To be honest, it sounds like the combo would be a little overpowering anyway. The point of AoE effects is that they damage/disable a large group of enemies - to have that coming in at +10/15/20 accuracy on every enemy of a certain type in range seems a little much. You've got to remember as well chants benefit from the additional +1 spell/ability accuracy per level that most spells and abilities do, so their base accuracy is quite a lot higher than conventional melee and ranged attacks. My own Chanter is currently level 14, when they max out at 16 they'll hit an unbuffed 100 accuracy with their chants (+5 from Per 15, +5 from Gauntlets of Accuracy, +4 from Gallant's Focus, +45 for level 16, +16 spell/ability accuracy per level, base 25). While that accuracy isn't enormous, the Dragon Thrashed does very respectable damage even on a graze, so I think it's more than enough.

Hi Sking, Do you have a bug in your tracker about +accuracy bonuses from Survival not applying to Chanters' Chants? I think they only apply to melee and ranged attacks anyway, and spells flagged as a ranged weapon attack. Them not working with Chanter chants is likely intentional. Is that spells like minoletta's minor missiles and not typical CC spells? I think so, to be honest I'm just parotting Loren Tyr's knowledge so he'd be the one to tell you properly.

Hi Sking, Do you have a bug in your tracker about +accuracy bonuses from Survival not applying to Chanters' Chants? I think they only apply to melee and ranged attacks anyway, and spells flagged as a ranged weapon attack. Them not working with Chanter chants is likely intentional.

For the dominate effects cast on the player character ending and resetting combat, as I mentioned level 11 of the Endless Paths is pretty good using the three Swamp Spores in the north west corner (clear out the Sporelings and slimes first, then return to them when they're by themselves). These problems seem to happen playing solo more often, so I would recommend it with just the one character. For the character's effects ending prematurely and also potentially ending combat, in addition to Loren Tyr's example, I've found the easiest place to reproduce this is again that same level 11 of the Endless Paths, this time going to the group in the east with the Adragans. I stealthed up to the group, revealed myself, cast Whispers of Treason via Munacra Arret on the most northern of the two Adragans present in PotD and I'd say 9 times out of 10 it will not stay charmed - even with many possible targets around for it to attack. A few of those times combat should also cease and instantly restart (ending all active effects, but not restoring any per encounter uses). This was also playing solo, so again I'd recommend not bringing a party to make it reproducible (it could be that with a party present the bug doesn't occur as often). I'd say the encounter took about 45 minutes due to this bug when it should have taken about 5, so the reproducibility at least for that particular encounter should be high.

You need to speak to Caedman Azo to get access to the restricted area. If you're talking about access to the first area, then you can get a note from a bookcase near Riply or speak to Riply, one of the two should give you access. There are several guides online, if you get stuck again you can just google the quest name and Pillars of Eternity and something should come up.

Again in terms of an easy fix, when you solve Berolt's dilemma his name reads as "*null*" on the resolution text. I'd imagine this wouldn't be a problem to resolve, even if it is again very minor.

Now that I've had a chance to test it, you're correct. Quite possibly it might of been an older version of the game, or maybe it's just that as the effect doesn't say "suppressed" on the enemy I assume both were applying their full effect. Me, and my filthy filthy lies.

I seem to remember blind stacking with fear effects, I'd need to double check which it's too late in the evening for me to bother with right now but I'll give it a shot in the morning so long as someone doesn't pip me to it. Could be that I'm spreading horrible misinformation as per usual

It wouldn't be hard to figure out, using the console minimise your Might, give yourself absurd Intellect, give yourself all the Rogue Strikes, Knock Down, Interdiction/Painful Interdiction, Binding Roots and Threatening Presence and have yourself a ball on Sparfel using your fists to keep the damage double low. Paralysis Scrolls and Gaze of the Adragan traps can also be used to determine their effects. I would do, but I'm too lazy.

As an update on the Charm/Dominate ending prematurely and sometimes causing encounters to end prematurely, on this basis I just had to do a hard reboot of the my laptop as it caused it to freeze when a dominate effect ended and me and it also ended the encounter (added it to the appropriate thread: here). On that basis I think this definitely needs some more attention paying to it. It's the first time since I got my mac's faulty hard drive cable replaced that I've needed to do a hard reboot (it's been running smoothly for 6 months or so) and the first time Pillars has ever made me hard reboot period.

As an update, with encounters ending prematurely, I just had to do a hard reboot of my machine because the game crashed (the first time I've ever had to do it with my mac). I was fighting the swamp spores on level 11 of Caed Nua, and when their dominate effects wore off on me it would cancel the encounter more often than not, and then one of the times this happened the screen completely froze and I couldn't do anything to shut Pillars down. Definitely something that needs looking into, hard reboots of my laptop are not something that I'm especially fond of.

I thought I'd just add in another minor annoying bug I found, I won't bother making a bug report as it such a small thing. When a Paladin uses Sacred Immolation, they use the voice lines for if they'd been targeted by friendly fire, even on solo play. While it's not impairing gameplay, it does tend to take you out of the game a little bit, and with it being an ability that more or less any Paladin will take it would be nice to not have to hear it.

So basically Veteran's recovery + Shod in Faith + % healing buffs make a 'solo package' for any martial class? It does depend a little bit, as to activate Shod in Faith you need to be hit by a critical hit - so there's obviously a line where if you build your character too defensively you don't get the benefit of Shod in Faith, but if they lack enough defence then the damage will out weigh the healing. High DR classes, like this Juggernaut Monk build, get around this somewhat as they don't take much damage in the first place. There are other alternatives to healing, however most of them come late game (Maegfolc Skull, Lost Periapt of the Winding Paths). Personally I find that healing isn't everything, and trying to avoid damage with high defences should normally take priority over healing (though some heals are of course welcome).

No, the entire effect is suppressed. No drop to Per/Dex/Int from blind while stun is in play. -49, -29 from blind (factoring in the perception drop) then -20 from terrified. Stacking up these debuffs is a pretty effective way to avoid harm, even if your defences aren't stellar.

Some do, some don't. When looking at the journal, a fair number of status ailments will tell you what they suppress (e.g. stunned says it overrides prone and stuck, I think) so that's one of the easy ways to tell what will be suppressed. In general, the most severe ailment in the same family will suppress the lesser afflictions, so petrified suppresses all lesser movement afflictions, terrified suppresses frightened, dominate suppresses charmed and weakened (I think) suppresses sickened. So if you mix and match these families, they shouldn't suppress one another (e.g. an enemy can be both petrified and weakened at the same time, with neither suppressing one another). Further I think spell debuffs also stack with all of these, so spell effects that lower deflection will stack with other status lowering ailments (not so sure if that also applies to flanked seeing as it just lowers deflection, but it's a good rule of thumb).