PrimeJunta

@Karkarov that argument would make more sense if the companions were still like they were in 1.0 -- i.e., they leveled up automatically to match your level when you picked them up. Being able to level them up manually starting from L2 already breaks the illusion that they're characters with independent lives; it wouldn't break any further if we were allowed to pick their L1 abilities as well.

Why do souls, magic, and reincarnation require the existence of a divine power? Philosophically speaking that is. Consider Buddhism: while many varieties recognise various godlike beings, they're subject to rebirth rather than in control of it, and in no way 'necessary' for it: if the brahmaloka was suddenly completely depopulated because all the 'gods' became enlightened and entered nirvana (or, alternatively, screwed up really badly and were reborn as mortals), the wheel of rebirth would keep on turning just like it always did.

@Karkarov care to elaborate on that? 'Cuz I don't see the connection. Imagine that someone modded Pillars so that all talents became available to everyone. Treat spell levels as talents. Why would that not be compatible with the gameplay style?

I'm not at all bothered by the stats, actually, but the first-level talent does annoy me. Lately I've taken a lot to experimenting with various builds and party compositions, and I very much like having "story" companions as part of them. The whole point of that is making the builds like you want them. Having one ability that doesn't fit is by no means game-breaking, but it is significantly annoying. It's like a ding on a new car.

^ what he said That said though you can minmax if you want to, to fairly hilarious effect. Check out @Boeroer's Zerblastian Hurtstacker glass cannon build for example. Dumb-as-a-rock rogues, rangers, and fighters work great too, you just give up all the abilities with a duration. Pure support characters or back-row casters can be glacially slow (DEX 3) without losing much, as you rarely benefit much from being able to chain-cast fast, while putting all those points into PER or MIG will do a quite a bit really (assuming INT is already maxed).

Sure, but it's fun to try different setups. Personally I don't dig Durance as a front-line caster, he's still too fragile. His health usually wears down the quickest in "regular" fights and in tough ones he's too busy casting to do much. So GM and Hiravias have worked out better for me in that role. But I have tried, and it does work.

We know quite a lot. Much of it is discussed in this very thread.

plus Cautious Attack plus Weapon & Shield style ofc

Yeah Raedric is the first fight where consumables are... if not a must, at least a big help, especially if you do it early-ish. The Rauatai Bonebreakers handled it by glugging potions of Power or Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. Oh, and pie. Pie always helps.

They'll have to be. The mob will burn down Obsidian HQ if they aren't and everyone has to start from scratch rather than segueing from WM1 into WM2. (Also, they always have, ever since release anyway.)

I believe that's correct. I did finally figure out how to get the breastplate though, you do need to murder for it, but not Osric.

Note to self: raid the Doemenel manor. They deserve it.

I doubt your problem is with builds. It's more likely that it's with your tactics, or that you're just getting in over your head -- it's quite easy to find extremely tough fights just by poking around. In that case you just should do something else, level up, and try again later. It would help if you described what's going wrong. Getting mobbed? Can't do any damage? Getting disabled? Something else? And which fights? I would suggest you think your roles a bit differently: use Aloth as a crowd controller first, damager second, and Durance as buffer/debuffer first, healer second. The idea with Durance is that if you play your cards right, you won't need the healing since his buffs will stop you from getting hurt in the first place. With Kana, fire off his Invocation as soon as the phrase counter fills up. Reny Daret's Ghost is clearly the best of the level 1 ones; White Worms Writhed can be pretty cool too, and the paralysing one is a good level 2 one. Also, study the enemy's defences and the to-hit number that appears on top of them after you've fought them a bit. If the number is low (say less than 35%), try something else. You should find ways to get it up well past 50% a lot of the time; that's when you start doing real damage. If your melee attacks aren't hitting, find a spell which does, then find something that hits the defences the first spell weakened.

Other than the Disappointer, true. I sometimes murder the nice ladies in the house just to the east of the northern entrance to Gilded Vale because one of them is wearing some really snazzy Vailian threads. And then there's the dude in plate armour near the temple of Eothas, which is AFAIK the earliest you can get that.

(1) It's that glorious beard mang. As long as he's born a white male with reasonable testosterone production, he can get the look close enough to work. And you'll still have foiled his and Woedica's plot even if you let him come back with his memories intact. (2) Yeah that's what I gathered too. A lot of the behind-the-scenes divine plotting was left quite obscure though, I'm kinda hoping they'll build on it in an eventual Pillars 2. The Godhammer wasn't any old bomb, it was built under the direction of Magran and presumably with some of her essence. Durance explains all about it, how it doesn't just destroy his body but also his soul. (3) Yeah Eora is atheist and not-atheist. The Engwithans created the gods with all those machines scattered around Dyrwood. They harvested souls from volunteers (or "volunteers"), stored them, then did some alchemy with them to build the gods out of them. Perhaps they were converted to raw essence first, or perhaps they were somehow amalgamated so that the contributors live on as the gods in some sense. A lot of the Watcher's past lives revolve around the time Thaos was sending missionaries everywhere to spread the word about the gods, so yeah every civilization does know about them. There's even a bunch of information about what they're called in different places.

Not for level 1. So Kana's stuck with those stupid skeletons and Pallegina with Flames even if you'd want to build her as pure support.

Yeah gotta love Edér. He manages to be comic relief without being the dumb sidekick with ha-ha lines; it would've been all too easy to do that by making him the dumb backwoods hick -- all the ingredients for that stereotype are there, right down to the straw he's chewing in the portrait. So big bravo to the writers for going against type!

Yeah I actually really like playing that certain temple now in 2.0. Have to actually figure out how to neutralise those damn archers before they bleed everyone to death. (Very easy with a bunch of rangers with suicide pets. Not so easy with most other classes.)

Hehe paladins make everything better

Yeah rogues especially need a lot of micro. Rangers not so much IMO unless you build them for melee. I haven't had the patience to build a riposte rogue to mid-high level though, although @Boeroer assures us it can be done. I suppose you'd want reasonable Resolve, a couple of defensive talents (Shield and Weapon style, Cautious Attack?), and of course stack all the deflection you can with items. And you could afford to dump Dex since you're relying on the automatic riposte rather than primary attacks. Damnit, now I want to try one.

I wouldn't object to full companion respec. For one thing, I'd give Kana a better level 1 invocation than those paper skeletons.

Okay, what is this and what happened to the real Internet? Stay on script damnit, we're supposed to keep escalating until one of us gets slapped down by the mods and/or announces they're now ignoring the other. Or brings up Hitler, whichever happens first.

Hm, we may be talking past one another. I wasn't saying that chanters are bad (as in ineffective), I was saying I find playing them boring and rote. I wasn't saying that fighters are the best damage dealers, I was saying that they hit a really sweet balance between defence and attack, can switch between the two at will, and that playing with a fighter-based party feels dynamic and exciting. (I also don't particularly enjoy babying a glass cannon.)

I wouldn't object to companions just having somewhat inflated stats, at the expense of minmaxing. Since any build you pick will only focus on a couple of the attributes and none of them would be at the cap, they wouldn't end up more powerful than the PC or hired minmaxed companions. So f ex if you want a resolute rogue for story reasons -- and it does make sense for the DoC -- just distribute her stats like a regular rogue and give the extra Resolve as a bonus.

Yes. If creating a custom party, I usually sell Gaun's Pledge to Heodan in the starting area, refuse to take Aloth onboard, and play up to the conversation with the nice dead dwarf lady. That'll bring me to 3000 + rounding error XP. I'll have about 2000 copper which is enough to hire four L2 companions. They will be exactly one level behind, and since the XP cost per level goes up with levels, the time between my and their leveling up will narrow later into the game.