PrimeJunta

Pollax for the win. It suggests both the Viking battleax and it crushes. Going over the others -- * Mace: too noble, civilized, and knightly * Quarterstaff: not nasty enough * Warhammer: fits Abydon so much better * Flail, morningstar: already taken by Eothas (and highly theme-appropriate for harvest and light) * Club: already taken by Skaen, would fit though * Fists: this would work thematically but would be pretty restrictive for obvious reasons

Rymrgrand is a Northern deity whose avatar is a great hairy horned ox. That suggests archetypically Northern weapons -- the Viking battleaxe for example. I'd give battleax + pollax: that's two different-sized versions of a similar weapon, with the former archetypically Northern, the other suitably brutal and destructive, and would make a nice contrast with Eothas's flail/morning star combo.

@Yosharian the weak link with that is the monk. He'll need to take damage to use his abilities, and that'll force you to rest. A single cipher is also a bit weak for CC; I suspect that using a wiz/druid/priest instead wouldn't change things much because your frontline will need to rest up to recover health. If you want to minimise resting, I recommend my 2 x paladin + 2 x ranger backbone. The pets can soak hits with no strategic cost, and the paladins can keep them fighting twice as long. Round that off with some CC and you're golden. A cipher is good, but you might want to consider a defensively-built druid also: he'll be able to hold the line when needed and do damage when spiritshifted, and you will have excellent CC for the boss fights when you really need it.

I don't have just one party, but I have a "backbone" that works really well. It's two paladins + two rangers. The pets are in front, the paladins behind them, the rangers in the back. The paladins use their heals to keep the pets in the game as long as possible, while everybody rains ranged or reach-weapon death over their heads. The remaining two slots you can fill as you like. You'll probably want at least one crowd-control character; if you put it in the frontline, a defensively built druid works really well as does a priest of Eothas with Gaun's Share plus shield. For the second-line slot you can add any non-melee character. If you want to go with just one CC character, go with another ranger in the second line, or put your CC'er in the second line and add a fighter, rogue, barbarian, chanter, or even third paladin for extra aura and exhortation goodness in the front.

^ Shh, they'll nerf it.

I'm only mildly irritated at the non-lore names.

Has anyone tried running the Windows version in Wine btw?

Does Infuse with Vital Essence still work that way in the 3.00 beta? I was worried it's a bug because it goes counter to the "no magical healing of Health" thing.

I'm pretty sure they don't. At least I don't ever recall picking a plant from the same spot twice. However...

They'd have to implement containers you can put things in first.

I like the psychology. If something's OP, nerf the bejeezus out of it, then when the peasants show up at the gates, re-buff part of the way back. Works for me, now I'm looking forward to playing a cipher again...

There is a line between principles and zealotry, and crossing it is off-putting.

I have no comment on the (de)conversion or the alacrity thereof; it didn't bother me when I played the game. However... I was struck by the way religious characters were portrayed in the game: sympathetically, believably, and in a nuanced way. This is a big improvement over traditional fantasy cRPG fare, where they're either muhahaha cult fanatics or "For Justice!" type Awful Good paladins, i.e. one-dimensional caricatures.

That's kind of the point.

Depends on the difficulty. On Path of the Damned it's punishing at 6, doable at 8, and fairly easy going at 10, some optional encounters aside. That said, at least for me a big part of the fun is poking my nose where it doesn't belong, getting it bloodied, going somewhere else to level and gear up for a bit, and coming back to show who's boss. You can interrupt your adventures in White March any time if the going gets too tough.

Only problem with identical animal companions is if you use Stalker's Link. They're damn hard to tell apart and you need to pair their attacks with their bosses.

I would pass on the rogue for a first run. They're very stabby but quite fragile and require a lot of micro, so I'd leave them for later. I'd suggest a cipher, or ... and hear me out even if this sounds weird, a paladin. Ciphers are fairly straightforward magic-using fighters, but they're easiest to play ranged, and the gameplay is in my view a bit rote -- you open with the most powerful power you have, wait until you've rebuilt focus, rinse, repeat. Paladins, on the other hand, have crazy-good per-encounter active abilities that can be used at the right time instead of just spammed, as well as passives and modals. Most of them are support, but there's also the Flames of Devotion series which are extremely good for spike damage. Their "natural" stat distribution (high INT, RES, and PER if you want to play it offensively, with Flames of Devotion) are also near-ideal for a PC what with the role-playing. And the different paladin orders aren't all your goody-two-shoes Awful Good. And they make the whole party better. Race and background etc. make very little difference. Stats... if you're not sure what you're doing, don't overdo the minmaxing; it can help if done right but it'll ruin your playthrough if you do it wrong. I.e. don't dump anything below 8. The real meat is in the talents and abilities, and those are worth thinking about. Don't sweat it too much though, while you're unlikely to come up with a real power build the first time around, it's hard to make a complete squib either, and exploring them is fun. And pay special attention to the apparently-lackluster unique abilities various items have: if used cleverly and combined well with each other and various talents and abilities, there's a huge amount of fun to be had with them.

Is this a new 3.0 thing? In 2.03, those numbers are read even when I crit and do a lot of damage. Not those numbers. The numbers when you hover over an enemy to target an attack.

You can do stuff with companion AI. I don't know if it'll help in your case though. Pillars isn't a hard game. It just looks that way. You need to figure out how the mechanics work and start making use of them. You can't brute-force your way through if you don't know what you're doing. If you're not doing damage, it's either because you're not scoring enough hits, or you're not getting through damage reduction. Pay attention to the numbers floating above the enemies when targeting them. You want them high and green, not low and red. If they're low and red, you're not hitting enough: use an attack that targets a different defence (spells for example). These will often reduce the other defences so you'll get more hits that way. (Every attack targets one of Deflection, Fortitude, Reflex, or Will.) If the numbers are gold or green but you're still not doing damage, it's getting soaked by the enemy's damage reduction. Fight them a bit and pay attention to the numbers in the box at top left: that'll tell you what the damage reduction is for various types of damage. Switch to a different damage type, use a weapon or talent that gets through damage reduction, use bigger weapons, or use less armour and dual weapons to hit faster and wear them down through a thousand cuts. If you're getting wrecked, figure out why and counter that. If it's melee damage, boost your Deflection (use shields and items) and Damage Reduction (armour). More likely you're getting hit with some nasty status effect which makes you weak enough to go down quickly. When you start getting hurt, hover over the portrait and look at what status effects are active. Look through your spells to find ways to defend or counter them. Durance for example has a spell that'll defend against or counter every status effect in the game. So for example if you're facing a Drake which has a fear aura, have Durance cast Prayer against Fear. It's not rocket science; just spend a few minutes looking at what the game's telling you and thinking of a way to counter them, instead of just reaching for the first thing that springs to mind.

Absolutely not.

You can anyway cap out the enchantments on Exceptional items, so not being able to Superb them is no big loss.

I think this hits the nail on the head. How often can you truly hit a bunch of mobs. I would prefer to have high single target dps and just drop enemies quicker, especially since this lowers the incoming dmg to your party as well. Then play a fighter, ranger, or rogue. Barbarians can't touch them for single-target damage, no matter how you build them. No, carnage is awesome if you build it up properly (talents, abilities, and especially items).

No I meant paladins synergise especially well with rangers.

Ranger and paladin synergise beautifully. Lay On Hands can keep the pet fighting for really long, and since pets have no health bar there's no strategic cost. Coincidentally paladins also have scads of possibilities for different builds.

Rangers are awesome. You can build them in several different ways too. Gunner, fast-shooter, beastmaster, or sword-and-board all work. Druids are also awesome, although they never were broken as such.