Jojobobo

You definitely don't get Sanguine Plate by Caed Nua, but yes I'm going to pick up retaliation gear as soon as possible.

I'll give that a shot, or something similar, thanks. EDIT: Yeah hugging the south wall to sneak into the keep and then using Fan of Flames scroll spam and some traps really helps.

Reviving Exhortation isn't as much a rez as a brief way to get someone cast a couple more spells because it kills the targeted ally after its effect have worn of. It's hardly ever useful in its current form. Zealous Endurance doesn't stack with most other DR, more specifically the level 1 Priest Spell which gives almost double the DR. A spell that becomes castable per encounter at level 9 and considering that hard encounters are far between each other at low levels, you'll have it up whenever you really need the buff. For Reviving Exhortation, I find the key thing is that after the enemy has downed a companion all engagement they have to fear is gone as the enemies have moved on to other team members. In that way, usually after a Reviving Exhortation you can usually consider that companion "safe" for the time being (enemies now elsewhere), allowing them to start DPSing like crazy again. The fact that it's so little cost (per encounter as I mentioned) does make it extremely useful. For the Priest spell, if you're referring to Armor of Faith (the only level 1 spell that does anything to damage thresholds), it actually offers 1 less DR and only lasts 15 seconds rather than a permanent whole battle buff. The radius is better, but honestly when using the Paladin's auras I've not noticed their radius to be that bad in most fights (it usually covers my entire party with a little positioning).

So I've just got to Caed Nua (the very minor spoiler being it's on the main quest path) with my solo build (Fire Godlike Kind Wayfarer; abilities - Flame Devotion, Lay on Hands, Zealous Endurance; talents - the shield one, Vulnerable Attack; my starting stats were 12 Con, 18 Res, 18 Per and the rest 10s) but I'm finding my character completely stun locked by phantoms - as in I literally have no opportunity to attack even once. Possibly, I might be able to slog through a couple of fights using the summonable Animat from the Bronze Horn Figurine, but it's going to be a huge pain and maybe not even possible (for Buried Secrets I only had to fight one to get to the remains, which was quite easy with the Animat - all routes to the main keep in Caed Nua boast at least two and many more Shades/Shadows). Is there something I'm missing here? Anyone have strategies for what can be done to eliminate them?

Never mind, the latest patch (1.04) seems to have fixed it - either that or it fixed itself.

I got them first time somewhere in Raedric's Hold without any funny business, which is great seeing as it's a solo PotD run. Don't worry, it's okay to hate me.

Honestly, I like that it's just single player - tacking on multiplayer is always a massive sink of resources that I'd rather see spent on more single player content.

Play it, all the main bugs (the biggie being not able to save in areas where you recruit a companion without unwanted stat stacking) are all fixed. I'm currently experiencing a bug where my health is shooting up due to getting poisoned and sickened a lot (I'm playing solo on PotD) but this was something I never even noticed on regular PotD play (maybe because I took enemies out a lot faster).

Currently as I'm soloing, you really need to skip some just to get by. If you're intent on doing all fights, make a to do list in Notes in game and list were a fight you can't do is just to get buy. But yes, I too like to fully clear a map.

Anyone else still experiencing this post-patch? My level 4 Paladin has over 1000 health (I'm a tank so I've been sickened or poisoned a lot)! I'm not too bothered as I'm soloing so pretty much my endurance is my health (I lose on knock out, and honestly I need per rest summons to survive a lot of fights so I'm thinking health wouldn't be a concern for this character), but otherwise this would be the kind of bug that would really irritate me in regular 6 member party play.

Azo is bent on continuing his experiments anyway, I think as long as you don't dob him in it doesn't make so much of a difference to him continuing his research along the lines he already was.

I think something that's fairly noteworthy is Reviving Exhortation is a per encounter ability, that's a pretty strong thing to have (seeing as most other revival options either take some time to set up - Chanters - or they're per rest - Priests). I think things like Zealous Endurance is pretty neat too, it's a fairly strong benefit that's in constant effect. Overall, I'm very happy with how Paladins play.

I think Hearth Harvest is pretty good, hatchets give +5 Deflection anyway and it's also rending to bypass some DR - very nice for a tank. You can find it just before act II in NW Woodend Plains. For my current character I'm considering upgrading it to superb and using it all game. A note on The Disappointer - the "Terrible" enchantment is actually of the line "Fine/Exceptional/Superb"; because of this you can use it as a means of getting a fine pistol very early game (it's not hard to obtain ingredients for a fine enchantment) which completely erases the drawbacks of the terrible enchantment. Besides, if you have a Wood Elf or someone with WF: Ruffian it's still decent even with Terrible very early game.

A suggestion I would like to see implemented is double speed also usable in combat. I'm currently trying to solo PotD with a more tanky Paladin (able to take a lot of punishment, but dishing it out takes time) and some of my battles on normal speed can take around 10 minutes to resolve when all I'm looking at is my pally slapping the other guy around and occasionally healing. I really can't see any reason they didn't have this in in the first instance. But yeah, I think maybe removing in auto-leveling is a good idea. In my non-solo playthrough I got to Pallegina much sooner than I would have done naturally just so she didn't learn Field Triage.

I'm soloing PotD with a Paladin a lot like yours (Con 12, Res and Per 18, the rest 10s on character creation). Honestly, I've found them great at tanking - give them a large shield and the shield Talent (also make sure to follow their favoured dispositions) and you should be more than tanky enough. In terms of engagement worries, if you have someone else you can use on your front line I wouldn't worry about it. If you don't maybe consider Hold the Line as others have mentioned, there's also the warhammer Shatterstar one of the outdoors Copperlane vendors sells which is Fine and has +1 engagement - but even then it's not a big deal. Honestly I would favour slightly more DPS on your Paladin and use them to flank enemies Eder engages.

More intelligent disengagement from tanks would be good (I have seen enemies ocasionally disengage, but it's not often), however on the other hand no one asked the OP to min-max like that or to even run a fighter - the latter definitely making things more interesting. I'm currently soloing on PotD and I'm finding the combat perfectly fine.

Again, much thanks.

Okay cool thanks. What about the exhortations? Lay on Hands is classed as "single ally" target like many on the exhortations but works just as well on the Paladin too.

Do the Kind Wayfarers' Talents affect the Paladin also or just your allies? I was curious as the Zealous abilities affect everyone so I didn't know if it would be the same or not for these abilities.

I found the bear to be a huge let down on hard, even with Resilient Companion. I wasn't expecting the same kind of resilience as a fighter, but a modicum of tankiness would have been nice. Now that I'm playing PotD, I can't see myself ever using a PC ranger.

I made sure to get to Pallegina early this time so she doesn't learn it too (well, not "early", but certainly before doing a lot of the Defiance Bay quests like I did last time). I don't need both her and Kana knowing it!

You can pause any time you want and cancel actions. Going onto another enemy after downing one is much more intuitive (even if you have to cancel that action) than having to coordinate them after every downed enemy - there would be vastly more people complaining your party was brain dead for not going onto another target after downing someone than vice versa because the micromanagement would sky rocket. It's called real time with pause for a reason. The slow time button, which I use on significant fights, also greaty stops this probelm.

Is there actually a way? I've tried to delete them but had no joy - I've settled for editing old notes.

I don't see why this should be done. Early level spells like Fan of Flames and Slicken are still very powerful at high levels, per encounter would trivialise combat a great deal.

I'm still not understanding the complaint here, for me using Arcane Assault I realised it didn't track enemies the first time I used it. When a fight starts, most of the time your front liners and the enemy are going to run towards each other and engage in the middle, making it trivial to predict where to use Arcane Assault. Even if the enemy does something slightly unexpected, the reasonable AoE of Arcane Assault (at least combined with Aloth's Armour and some Int boosting equipment) means that you're not really punished for not predicting precisely where the enemy is in the first place. You can also just wait until them have engaged if you want to be 100% sure you're going to hit, granted you're then not whacking out spells as fast as you could have been but most encounters you're not going to be using a spell anyway.