PrimeJunta

There are a few available late-game, but by then you should've found enough to equip everyone who wants one with one anyway.

Tough call. WM2 will likely get a few patches, then there'll be the Director's Cut, then when Pillars 2 comes out, the Enhanced Edition, then the Collection... going by the precedent Baldur's Gate set, I'd say in... oh, another 15-20 years or so. By which time we'll have the remakes.

I've had great success with frontline Durance also, that maniac.

I find it annoying if they lag behind too much. My strategy is to sell Gaun's Pledge to Heodan in the opening, then beeline for the convo with Caldara without taking Aloth or Eder onboard. This puts me just a hair above 3000 XP. Then I hire as many level 2 hirelings as I need (with the money from Gaun's Pledge I can afford up to four). They will be exactly one level behind, and because higher levels cost more, they will gradually catch up as you go.

Can you dump the skeleton invoc by respeccing? If so I was not aware of that... and despite my strong aesthetic aversion to respec, I would do that if it's possible. (Always assuming they haven't buffed the skellies in 3.0; it would be nice if they became useful...)

Hehe, didn't know about that one. There are lots of exploit-y ways to kill him of course. What I liked about mine was that it wasn't exploit-y, and just uses the spells you have in the way they're intended. Also no spells above level 6 so you can do it quite early.

Yep, Kangaxx is definitely a 'puzzle' fight -- once you figure out a solution, it becomes trivial.

I'm sure it would be easy to make that particular way of killing it not work. Making every clever, borderline-exploity way of killing it not work... not so easy in a game of this complexity. It would also be a colossal waste of resources and would make the game a lot less fun for many of us who enjoy looking for these things. (I figured out a way to kill Firkraag in five rounds or less relatively reliably, using only two moderately-leveled characters. No (skull) trap abuse, just straight-up spells used as designed. I'm sure it's not even the most efficient way but I figured it out all by myself and I'm still kind of proud about that. Cheesing dragons is a proud old-school cRPG tradition.)

That's why I included option 2 in the thought experiment. That way, there wouldn't be any regular/fine/exceptional/superb tiers. Unique weapons would just do different things. Some would have special Lashes, some would inflict status effects on hit or crit, siphon Endurance, Mark, Coordinate, etc. You'd still want to build your character and party around those special attributes, and you'd be upgrading them with Lashes or Slaying depending on your intentions. You'd just skip the basic progression. (Full disclosure: I'm not entirely sure I'd like this myself. However, from the start the fact that you can turn a regular plain ol' half-rusty longsword into a Superb weapon hasn't sat quite right with me. Intuitively I've felt that 'quality' should be inherent to the item, not something you can upgrade, at least not without something as drastic as breaking down and reforging the weapon.)

I've had a lot of fun with paladin + druid + paladin frontline, ranger + ranger + ranger backrow. Give one of the rangers or paladins a background that gives 'em +1 mechanics, it won't be as good as a rogue but it'll get the job done. Use rest bonuses to make up the slack if absolutely necessary. Once CC is enough; if you want Durance in the party he'll get the job done fine. He can fill the front-row position nicely as well, once you have some defensive talents on him. In fact his special Magran talent (sword, arquebus) fits this role nicely as he can participate effectively in the alpha strike and then poke at things with a sword. If you give him Shame or Glory he'll even give a nice +10 ACC bonus to whoever's standing nearby. I'd rather have two paladins than paladin + Edér: the rangers will be doing the bulk of the damage anyway, and two paladins can contribute a megaload of support -- two auras, enough Lay on Hands to keep the pets fighting a looong time, and later Exhortations that get you out of trouble and give nice bonuses. I used a Darcozzi (Inspiring Liberation) and Goldpact (Bonds of Duty). Both are really good, long-duration buffs and you get 2/encounter.

I'd rather have story companions with average-ish stats TBH. That way I can skew their builds any way I like, rather than having to follow the direction set by the stats. (Exception made for INT and casters of course, with average INT they'd just be bad.)

Power is always relative. If weapon enchantments were removed, base damage would have to be buffed or monster defences nerfed to match.

It's a <censored> dragon for crying out loud. If it doesn't wipe your party unless you throw everything you have at it it needs a buff. (Edit: not directed at you @Boeroer)

They're borderline annoying for me. I voted "under 10 seconds" because mostly they are; the initial ones may be quite long though. I'm playing on a late 2013 iMac 27" (i5/3.4 GHz, GeForce 780M/4GB), running Windows 10.

This is not true. On PotD at least you're facing massive mobs all the bleepin' time. If your barb is front and center, with a high INT he will be making a lot of Carnage attacks.

Funny thing that, I never even look at the companion stats...

Hehe, both are good, but you did ask for opinions

I'd pick Pallegina. You already have two casters, adding a third would add a quite a lot of micro.

@Tigranes and others, two thought experiments: would Pillars itemisation be better or worse if -- (1) You could no longer apply "Quality" enchantments to items? I.e., an item could only be Fine, Accurate, or Exceptional etc. if you found it that way. Otherwise keep everything the same: you can still apply lashes, slaying, etc. (2) "Quality" enchantments were dropped altogether? Items would never be Accurate, Damaging, Fine, Exceptional etc. The only things setting them apart would be lashes, Spellbinds, on-hit, on-crit effects etc.

Probably. Those vithrack brains are pretty damn vital though, there aren't that many of them to be had elsewhere, and getting the ones that are isn't easy. Exceptional is sufficient to get items to max enchantment anyway, so not having access to Superb-capable ingredients is a feature, not a bug. It's not just vithrack brains also. You need Berath's bells for Slaying enchantments; they're rare as well. And a whole bunch of less rare stuff that's just highly annoying to scavenge. Without the shop, you're agonising over every Enchantment not to waste those precious ingredients; with it, you can experiment with different ones to see how they mesh with what you're doing. Plus scrolls and potions too of course. Try a Potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion once, they're tasty.

TBH I can't sympathise with the "absolutely no level scaling in any form ever" crowd. BG2 had it. If it was done the same way in Pillars, it would not make things worse.

@DreamWayfarer listed the essentials. My point is, the one thing that barbarians can do that other martial classes can't is Carnage. Without it, the barb is just a fighter with below-average accuracy and defences who can get up to fight again one more time than the fighter. Fighters get better offensive and defensive abilities, and comparable self-healing. Rogues kinda suck at defensive abilities, but they'll wipe the floor with barbs on offence. Without Carnage, even buffed with Frenzy -- which will last a much shorter time -- a barb can't compare to a comparable-level hurty fighter. I.e., Carnage is the barb's reason for being, and its effectiveness is bound to INT. With subpar Carnage, the barb is just a subpar fighter. This makes INT more essential for barbs than it is for casters, even. This strikes me as "off."

I thought this was both cool and clever. If you @Tennisgolfboll just wanna roleplay and get immersed, by all means do, but there is a particular enjoyment in finding ways to beat the game that weren't intended by the developers. That's part of the appeal of complex systems in games for me at least.

I have, for a bit. I found it materially worse than a 3 INT fighter or rogue.

I've... changed my mind. I used to gripe about the too-many interchangeable unique items. Then I started to seriously explore the various properties they have, and discovered that there's a huge amount of fun to be had by optimising characters or parties around them. I'm especially proud of my all-Marking party: split them in pairs and get +10 ACC for everybody. Then there's @Boeroer's time siphon barbarian with Spelltongue, clever ways to make the most of Shod-in-faith, many lulz to be had by equipping the whole party with weapons that inflict Prone on crit etc etc. I mean sure, there are still lackluster "uniques" that only have a unique name, description, and perhaps model, but no unique properties, or unique properties that are so minor they don't really matter, but ... not all that many actually. I.e. at least for me the problem was that I was overwhelmed by the variety and couldn't be arsed to really figure out what those properties meant and how to build characters, combine them with other items, and develop tactics to make the most of them. Once I did, I've started liking the itemization a quite a lot really.