PrimeJunta

Ditto for the cutscene combat. For one thing, it pulls the rug out from under stealth. If you want to melee backstab, you need to invest a quite a bit in it, and it's really frustrating when your beloved trump card is yanked away from you with no good reason. Moreover, I really can't see how those setpieces would've been worse if they had been handled through normal conversation. Some of them are (Raedric f ex) and they work perfectly well.

It sounds to me that you're simply not playing very well. Path of the Damned isn't exactly easy, but if you play it right it's not at all like that, no matter which classes you take. Also priests are an extremely strong caster class. They have awesome buffs, debuffs, CC, counter, and healing spells. You can manage without them, but having a priest onboard just makes everything... safer. I probably wouldn't try a Trial of Iron run without one, there's simply no other class as good at turning things around when a fight goes pear-shaped. I honestly can't say which one of the three I'd rank highest, it's all a matter of on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other. I'm almost the exact opposite -- I use a lot of L1-3 spells, and only occasionally touch the L4+ ones. Sometimes when I'm close to needing a rest I unload 'em all in a couple of pyrotechnics shows, and a few come in handy in boss fights, but they're more of a luxury than a necessity.

Frankly I'm not sure about the chanter's core mechanic. It sounds good on paper but in practice not being able to use the invocations until late in the encounter just makes the whole thing unwieldy. The cipher plays much better because you can open with something, and the monk plays much better because those fancy moves are the kind of thing you would do when in the thick of it. The chanter is just... not much fun. And I'm not sure a brute-force solution like giving him some "base" phrases (1 at level 3, 2 at level 6, 3 at level 9, 4 at level 12 f.ex., nicely mirroring the "level 1 spells are per-encounter" thing the semi-Vancian casters have) would solve it as much as turn them into cut-rate ciphers. Chanting faster as they level up is a must but not sure it's sufficient. We'll see what they've done with them in 3.0.

Haha awesome! :D

The idea isn't a pure rogue party actually, it's a party with maximised alpha-strike potential which can also survive the aftermath. The objective is to give up as little alpha-strike power to get sufficient followup power to be able to win without undue pain. Yeah, about the scrolls. Paralysis-spam just feels wrong to me. The game isn't all that consumable-friendly actually, as (1) they have to be prepped in quickslots, and (2) using them takes time, i.e. carries and opportunity cost. The latter especially: if you want to use consumables at the start, you'll be late for the alpha strike which is a big trade-off. Frankly I don't think the game would suffer if it allowed pre-quaffing potions. If you like, they could make a limitation that only one potion can be in effect at a time so you wouldn't be able to stack too many. If you dropped the paladin and gave everyone Fast Runner, would it be enough to let you get out of trouble most of the time, I wonder?

No items with spell binding, and I only gave him Shod-In-Faith after I noticed this happening. That said, now the AI has switched to his neighbor. Poor guy, whoever's standing next to the Captain will get clobbered first. Fights against multiple casters really are somewhat tougher than if I had some CC capability. Did Blood Legacy (Kana and Captain at level 7, fighters at level 6) and it got a bit delicate there from time to time. If I tried to stand my ground in the chamber, I got knocked down by those Pillars of Faith and then killed by other means. Then I had some pie and ran away for a bit, then killed them one by one by rush and retreat. That worked. Clearing wilderness maps OTOH is easy-peasy, except Searing Falls and Pearlwood Bluffs which are packed so full of the critters there's no room to fall back and regroup when mobbed. Same thing with dungeon-crawling; quite easy with this setup. The set-pieces in close quarters are troublesome.

Looks fun. Terrible sartorial taste though, I mean the Dandy Hat with Carries Many Scars? Yuck! Don't forget to also have an Int-boosting item to override the Dandy Hat's negative. I've used Hiravias in that role and it's worked out fine. With the right armour and shield he's quite robust and the cone-shaped spells really come into their own. I didn't give him so many defensive talents though, instead I stacked spiritshift damage (Greater Wildstrike), and relied on a paladin to give Zealous Focus. IMO the bonus spell talents are a waste, you're not going to run out of casts if you spread them out intelligently.

Some classes really want balanced stats, notably the monk and barbarian. Not so with many others though. Con is dumpable to 8 or so for most classes, 3 for back-row ones; Int is dumpable for fighters, Mig, Dex, and Per for any tightly-focused support character (support-focused paladin or priest in particular), Dex and Mig for any tightly-focused tank (might still want Per to be able to Interrupt), and so on. But that's okay. While far from perfect, as they are the stats nicely support different builds. Want a damage-focused fighter? Dump Int, average Con and Res, pump Mig and Per, and have above-average Dex. Want a tanky fighter? Dump Int, Mig, and Dex, pump Res, Con, and Per. And so on.

I'm thinking that in Pillars everything is viable. At least I haven't seen a damn-fool counterintuitive rock-stupid idea that you couldn't make work. The question is, how do you play to your strengths and work around the limitations? F.ex. with the CON 3 wizard, you need to find a way to make him survivable, and plenty of ways were listed in this very thread. I think that is incredibly cool by the way.

I quite like spiritshift actually. When you stack the talents, it does a serious amount of damage and is relatively survivable. I use it when a back-row druid gets mobbed, or towards the end of an encounter -- start by firing off a couple of group debuffs and finish up spiritshifted. I haven't really missed longer durations. Although I wouldn't object if the duration limit was dropped, but casting was disabled while 'shifted.

So, just how much damage can you pile onto an alpha strike and still keep the team somewhat viable? Think six minmaxed rogues with Backstab, equipped with arbalests or arquebuses, creeping up on the opposition and firing a Crippling Strike volley. That ought to do an ungodly amount of damage, no? Unfortunately they'd be shredded by any survivors if that's the only trick in their bag, and with the sheer size of the mobs in PotD, there will always be survivors. Since we want our squad to survive to fight another day, we'll need to think of that part as well. What tools do we have available? Swap out one of the rogues for a Flames of Devotion-based paladin, and give him Zealous ChargeThat paladin will be no slouch alpha-striking either although I suspect it won't be quite up to rogueish standards. He'll also be able to get the strike force out of trouble a lot of the time. I think this will largely solve the survivability problem with maps that allow hit-and-run tactics. Some of them don't though. How does our team survive a fight in a confined space? Shadowing BeyondThat'll give two more stealthed alpha strikes per rest. Would just possibly make some close-quarters boss fights winnable. Expensive strategy though, not something you could use all the time unless you want to be running back for supplies all the time. Also, if one of us isn't a rogue, the paladin will be left alone to be clobbered, which is kind of unfortunate. In theory you could use Potions of Fleet Feet to run away when needed so you wouldn't need the pally with the Zealous Charge, but I suspect it would get too expensive fast. I figure I'd go through a dozen of them just clearing Pearlwood Bluffs. Emergency TanksSuppose we build our pally and two of the rogues with some tankiness in them (e.g. keep high Mig and Per for the alpha-strike ability, but trade off some Dex for Res for better Deflection), equip them in heavy armour and give them big shields and, why not, hatchets. Then use them to pin down the enemy while the truly dedicated strikers finish them off. Would it buy enough time to win the fights? Emergency Interrupt-O-MatsSuppose instead of heavy armour + shields, we give them light armour and light, fast weapons + Interrupting Blows. Will they be able to keep the onrushing horde Interrupted long enough for the second row to finish them off? Zealous EnduranceWhat if Mr. Paladin Striker also took Zealous Endurance, and switched to it when things got heated? Would it be enough to tip the balance frequently enough to make it worthwhile? Emergency AlchemyFront line glugs defensive potions that give them ungodly Deflection for a while. Add a Scroll of Defense and a Scroll of Protection. Enough to survive a boss fight? Enough time to glug a Potion of Power, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, or other attack-enhancing one to make them go down faster? I'm not going to get into this right now, perhaps later, but I think it might be fun to try.

This is very weird but I'm not seeing exactly this kind of thing with my Bonebreakers. My paladin officer wears Fine Breastplate (DR 10), everybody else wears plate armour (DR 12). For some reason, the AI really wants to target one of my uglies, he's the one standing next to the paladin. Quite often his health is in the red when everybody else's is in the green, including the pally's who has less to start with. If I move him to the back row he's a bit safer of course. So of course I gave him Shod In Faith. Fires every time. He's our unofficial healer. I honestly don't know why the AI hates his ugly mug so much, but it does. He has the same stats as the other three fighters, with only minor differences in equipment.

Here's my current party, Rauatai Bonebreakers. Going for a standard-equipment military vibe, with a touch of Landsknecht. Captain Haka'aniemi leads the front line, GySgt Rua leads the second line. Rua is wearing his beret dyed in unit colours, Capt Haka'aniemi is wearing a Wilderness Survival version. Guns in the front, arbalests in the back Greatswords in the front, pikes in the back It's really cool to watch them in motion. Hitting W to swap weapons makes eveyrone switch with military precision, they march in order, and in combat when they mob an enemy it's got to be uncomfortable to be at the pointy end of all those things.

I hear that in 3.0 chanters are going to chant faster as they level up, as well as other tweaks. Scatman John to the rescue... Agree about the talents. Ancient Memory is a sad joke.

Cool necro. Class balance has shifted a lot -- like, a LOT -- since April. Right now, the only class I think is underpowered -- and I may be wrong about that -- is the chanter, and that's mostly because of the dual limitation of having to rack up phrases to invoke, and having very little variety in invocations. Meaning, you set up the chanter as a buff-bot and hope you got the right buffs. The phrases and invocations themselves are pretty powerful. Problem is that chanters are kind of useless at doing anything while chanting; they're fairly garbage fighters, they're not robust, so they can't contribute much else than the buffs. I'm not really sure what I'd do with them actually. Maybe give them a bigger choice in invocations early on, and tune the combat abilities so they're not such squibs. We'll see though, I've always dropped Kana mid-game and have never played a PC chanter. This time around I intend to hang onto him as far as I get into this playthrough, so maybe I'll change my mind.

The ogre druids are slow though: shouldn't be a problem to pull the ogre mobs apart and then clobber them one by one, and run away if it starts going pear-shaped. Did that with my Coordinated Warriors and it wasn't difficult. Nalgren the Wise might be difficult though since there's no space for that. Lagufaeth are going to be harder because they move so much faster. (Plus I got a Ring of Unshackling. Yay!) Undead Raedric could be real trouble though, what with the Dominate-spam. I'm sort of banking on figuring out how to deal with them with consumables, other than SoP spam preferably. Maybe find the right food+potion combo, or food+scroll or whatever, plus summons. Pretty sure it's doable.

So a Rauatai princeling and his four bodyguards were exiled from their paradise island, and ended up in plague-ridden Dyrwood... Captain Haka'aniemi (Goldpact Knight) and his four bodyguards (fighters) teamed up with a compatriot, one Gunnery Sergeant Kana, and set up a band of mercenaries righting wrongs and wronging rights for money, and doing it with military discipline and precision. This party has the following objectives: Low-micro. Tactically dynamic: based on mobility and weapon-switching. Any member can perform any role in the party. Explore crafting and consumables. Since there are no casters (unless you count Kana), I'll have to make up for that with scrolls and potions. Explore Soldier weapons as thoroughly as possible. The plan: Everybody gets trained and equipped the same way: Soldier WF, with appropriate talents to build on it. The officers get class-specific support talents of course. Weapon slots are: greatswords or warhammer + shield / pike / arbalest or arquebus. Capt Haka'aniemi takes Zealous Charge for great mobility as soon as he can. He's otherwise focused as pure support/tank. GySgt Rua takes chants which enhance mobility or gunnery. Combat is based on an opening volley on a high-value target, followed by any of a number of tactics, such as run-and-gun, hold the line and gun, phalanx (front line swords, second line pikes), and so on. Self-imposed limitations: Standard-issue visible gear for the men. Everybody wears the same armour, helmet, and shield (if used), cloak (if used), and has the same type of weapons in the weapon slots. Special equipment is allowed if it is visually identical to standard-issue gear. For example, a magic chain helm that looks just like a standard-issue one. Officers are not subject to this rule. However, their outfits must be coordinated with each other or the men. I'm allowing a certain amount of room for interpretation for this, e.g. I would allow GySgt Rua wear Fine Plate Mail if Capt Haka'aniemi is wearing Exceptional Plate Mail. I've started on this and am up to level 5. It's working out well so far; I only used consumables in the Raedric fight and it went down pretty easily. Using W to switch weapons in coordinated fashion a lot, and it's quite cool to see the whole group change from arquebuses and arbalests to greatswords for the front line, pikes for the second line.

PER isn't important for a tank since you won't even be trying to do damage. That said, tank fighters are kind of boring, and tank-and-spank doesn't really work that well because the AI will go for your squishies first, and a lot of the maps are too open to hold a line. You don't need to stress about builds much, or indeed at all if you're playing on Easy. Focus on tactics instead: figure out how the basic mechanics work and what you need to do to (a) stop enemies from harming you and (b) harming the enemies. Read the weapon, ability, and spell descriptions, and look stuff up in the cyclopedia. You will need to use your abilities, spells, and other stuff somewhat intelligently to win even on Easy, no matter how godly your build and party.

Thanks, that makes sense... sort of. I haven't played very far with small-weapon builds, and at least early on they just feel way underpowered. About at which level does the balance start to tip?

I haven't had much luck with small/fast weapons. They just don't seem to do enough damage to do much to tanky enemies (and I always felt that being able to mow through scrubs faster is kind of a bad trade-off). I've tried a few, played a while, felt that it was grindy and frustrating, gone back to greatswords, and felt "Ah, that's more like it." Any of you succeeded in making godly builds with daggers, stilettos, rapiers, or the like? Preferably ones that do not rely on unique characteristics of particular weapons (e.g. Boeroer's awesome time-leeching barbarian). Basically, how do you rack up enough damage or armour penetration per hit to make it worthwhile?

I'm planning a "Rauatai Bonebreakers" party actually. Theme: military. Standard equipment for everyone except the officer! PC: Island Aumaua Goldpact Paladin. Pure tank/support, with Zealous Charge aura. Everyone else: Island Aumaua Fighter, built towards damage. Except maybe I'll take on Kana as ADC. Weapon focus: Soldier. Weapon set 1: Greatsword. Weapon set 2: Pike. Weapon set 3: Arquebus. Self-imposed constraints: Armour: Standard issue, except for the PC officer. I.e., plain-vanilla breastplate or plate armour, self-enchanted to the hilt. The PC officer can wear other armour if it looks military and cool and officer-y. Hand and Key would do it. Other gear: has to look the same on everyone other than the officer. I.e., if one of them wears a cloak, everyone has to wear a cloak. Standard helmets for everyone. Personalized (=unique) weapons are allowed, but only of the approved type. War plan: Open with a volley, then switch to two lines: greatswords up front, pikes in the second row. Proceed to swarm + annihilate the opposition, as the paladin exhorts them to new heights of ferocity. Crank up Lore for all of them so they can use scrolls to make up for the lack of a dedicated caster. Rely on consumables for magical effects. Eat lots of food, as an army marches on its stomach. Why I think it could be fun: I haven't actually used consumables much at all until now, and this would 'force' me to explore the systems since I wouldn't have my usual tools available Zealous Rush makes CC a lot less important because you can get out of trouble pretty easily Should make for an extreme-low-micro party, which would be a change

Taking more than one aura is a bit of a waste of a talent though, as there are many more which build on each other. Mutually exclusive modal abilities all are. I usually play with two paladins, and have no complaints about the damage output. Flames of Devotion do serious damage, and the auras and exhortations boost damage for everybody which more than makes up for the paladin's lower "raw" damage potential. Finding it pretty smooth going with my current party actually. Got all the Marking weapons in use now, which means everybody gives each other +10 ACC all the time. Crits everywhere! (My only complaint is with the loot table RNG. Not a Ring of Unshackling to be found anywhere!)

@Boeroer I tried a party once with three paladins and three chanters. It was lulzy. Not as lulzy as my Brave Sir Robin And The Bards party though. That had one paladin and five chanters. The paladin had Zealous Charge, and they ran away a lot. Portrait related.

I don't think that's quite the problem some of us (myself included) have been having with Pillars items. There are certainly a lot of them. The trouble is that many are effectively interchangeable; finding another unique item doesn't feel like much if the differences aren't all that big really. Another issue I've had is of presentation -- the way they're presented breaks down the special features into specific enchantments, and the crafting system lets you put a lot of those on them, which makes them feel more like Legos than Excalibur. And finally, that the two supposedly-genuinely-unique items in the game -- a certain spear and a certain estoc -- aren't really all that special compared to what you can make yourself or find. There are plenty of Flametongue +2's, but no Carsomyr, Crom Faeyr, Flail of the Ages, or Celestial Fury. Nothing so good and so unique you'd build a character just so you could use it. I believe the Soulbound Weapons were introduced specifically to address these concerns. That said, I've been enjoying the items a good deal more lately. Right now I'm crushing on the Marking weapons -- the ones that give +10 to an ally attacking the same target. In fact my goal is to build a party which uses all of them. My current unlikely favorite is the St. Garam's Spark pistol -- it's the Marking weapon that's the easiest to acquire, and one of only two such ranged weapons.

In my ongoing playthrough (Darcozzi Commendatore), I've given Pallegina Zealous Charge and checked the "keep moving when engaged" gameplay toggle, and hoo boy does it ever completely change the way the game plays. I've had mobile strikers before: used them to rush behind the enemy to gank the soft, high-value targets. It's very effective; from the early game, the Raedric fight for example becomes way easier if you're able to gank the archmages and Favoreds of Berath early on. But, with Zealous Charge, the whole party becomes mobile. It's no longer a game of positioning, it's a game of movement. On big maps, you can pull mobs apart and then crush them one by one; if you're getting overwhelmed, you can pull back in good order, regroup, and then counterattack. If you notice a squishy getting targeted, you can immediately grab a tank to rescue him while pulling back the squishy. The bonus to defense against disengagement attacks means that I can just ignore them most of the time; they're only a real problem with those squishies. The upshot is that the game plays way faster and more dynamically and has less per-character micro. It's more a matter of lassoing the ones you need and putthing them on a target, and keeping the whole thing in motion. It's true that if you're moving you're not recovering or attacking -- but then neither is the opposition. CC becomes much less important, which means you can focus on a whole different set of spells and other abilities. For example, I've got GM in the front line, and instead of opening with one of her wide-area CC's, she's now using the abiltiies that target individual enemies. That one that steals 7 DR and puts it on her instead and is Fast? Yummy. And Aloth can be used very effectively as an Eldritch Knight of sorts -- pop a defensive self-buff, summon a weapon, and go to town, and when the self-buff is about to run out, retreat. In other words, it plays like a whole different game. It's a good deal more IE-like in a way. I wasn't 100% serious about "the best aura" by the way. Playing this way isn't necessarily any more efficient, and it's definitely faster-paced: if you're having trouble staying on top of what happens in the combat without the aura, this isn't going to make it any easier. Also the pathfinding issues become even more obvious. But it sure is different, and I'm hugely impressed that Pillars has this kind of variety in gameplay experience.