CottonWolf

I assumed this was exactly the answer.

I think the secret is that the Black Jacket is actually bad, was bad before this change and will continue to be bad afterwards, because the benefit is marginal relative to the loss of constant recovery.

So Eder can become a high-ranking Eothasian at the end of the PoE and can't multiclass as a priest of Eothas in Deadfire? Weird. Not every single religious person is a priest. Potentially even the MC, as there's a clergy background which doesn't require playing a priest.

Wael/Nalpazca really does seem like the secret best combination RP-wise. No. Most companions have their own unique subclasses they have to be. Eder and Aloth seem to be the exceptions, in that they have to be the base class (and potentially all the Ys in X+Y have to be the base class too). Maia's a gunhawk, Teheku's got a unique subclass for both his base classes, Pallegina's presumably either a Five Suns Palladin or a Kind Wayfarer, Serafen's a wild mind if you make him a cipher (not sure about whether he also has a unique barbarian subclass), Xoti's either a priest of Gaun or a sister of the reaping moon. I don't think we know about the sidekicks beyond Fessina.

Berserker/Stalker's even better for AR, because the AR boosts from the barbarian's passive, the AR boost from companion bond and the +2 from frenzy all stack.

Hmmm... For my first run, I'm probably going: MC - female wild orlan - White that Wends - either pure stalker or stalker/berserker Aloth - pure wizard Eder - fighter/rogue Xoti - pure priest Then either: Serafen - either pure cipher or cipher/barbarian (if I go pure stalker) OR Ydwin - pure cipher It's tempting to hold Serafen back for an all faction companion playthrough (aka maximum backbiting and conflict) and just make the first playthrough #godsquad. Second playthrough: MC - male mountain dwarf - Old Valia - pure priest of Wael (with the obvious headcannon he's putting all these directly opposed people together to troll them) Teheku - pure druid Palagina - herald Maia - scout then either Serafen (barbarian) or Rekke as a brawler

I'm almost certain you'll be able to level them from lvl 1, you could in Pillars. All that was set was their starting ability. Every level up after that you had full control. The devs giving their level 1 abilities gives them authorial control to ensure they have skills that they have to have for narrative reasons.

Surely it depends on the range, not the average. The AR piercing weapons are inherently situational. Perhaps you can mop up basically everything with the greatsword, but if the one thing that's left is the massive titan with the high AR you're doing 30% damage against, that's the estoc's time to shine. The average AR might be 5 in that encounter, but it's the max AR that actually matters for the weapon choice/switching.

You know that the overpenetration bonus is an addtive right? So if you are a rogue doing sneak attack with an exceptional weapon, you actually don't get +30% damage, but something like +10% from overpenetration. So with the low base damage of high penetration weapon, it becomes totally meaningless to use them. If they don't change overpenetraion bonus to a seperate multiplier bonus, imo there is NO reason to use high pen weapons like war hammer and estoc. Apart from the fact that they'll be the weapons actually penetrating the high AR enemies?

There's also a pdf of the guidebook, and the if you read the first guidebook before playing the game, you could guess half the plot points in advance.

I use empower constantly, on all my characters. I actually can't imagine not using it. Empowered Minoletta spells are incredible, and an empowered full attack with a melee is generally worth it (empowered accurate wounding shot is great). Never used it to restore resources, because I actually haven't had to. I've complained about its terrible documentation, and I stand by that, but it is powerful. Empowered melee abilities get increased base PEN and damage, for example. Besides, every character gets two empowers per rest, not point only using it on the casters. (Personally, I'd make it one per encounter per character rather than tieing it into the vestigal resting system, but it is what it is on that front.)

Personally I think v2 is more interesting, but conceptually harder to explain to newbies.

I don't know how you're playing your wizard (this is more of a thing for non-conjuration focused wizards), but empowered spells are borderline broken at the moment, they're so powerful. To the extent that I don't know what people are talking about saying casters are underpowered. They utterly destroy melee at group damage and compete (though probably don't match) it at single target damage. Empower is basically limitless, as if you're getting about one character going down per fight (which, considering I'm bad at the game, on veteran I am), you'll be resting about as often than you run out.

Though, of course, in a game about exploration, the world map is potentially a massive spoiler in and of itself.

If it were me, I'd have given them a flat damage/pen bonus for x seconds after switching weapons and offset it with a damage/pen penalty for not having switched weapons in y seconds, with x<y. To keep it in theme, you could even make it so you only get the bonus/avoid the malus if the weapon you're switching to falls under a different proficiency to the weapon you were using before.

So I can see that I have even more to consider. ^^ What about multiclassing fighter with rogue? Any good combos? Especially for tanking/mechanics. Devoted/Streetfighter with the hatchet specialisation makes a good tank/DPS combo. I imagine Unbroken/Streetfighter would be good too. Riposte, powering up and reducing incoming damage as more people engage, flanking anyone they engage with. I'm definitely making Eder a fighter/rogue.

She's still part of a creepy bog cult that traps people and "improves" them by rewriting their minds. Giving her the phylactory seems like the least wise thing it's possible to do in the game.

Poor Rymrgand. Forever misunderstood. He's the more morally questionable Eoran Bhudda. Super-powered mages are best uprooted whenever you find them. It almost never ends well.

Given they already have limited classes, I'd be completely unsurprised if their level 1 talents are fixed for those classes.

Might be worth pointing this out to in the backer beta forum. It's entirely feasible that that's just not occured to them.

It's an issue with scripted interactions generally at the moment. It lists buffs as injuries. When you eat the mushroom the delemgan gives you north of Tikawara, the same thing happens. If you mouse over the supposed "injury" on the scripted interaction screen (the star on each character's portrait) it actually shows a stat boost.

It appears that the ranger pet and the ranger themselves have different rates of detection when stealthed. I'd assumed they shared a stealth score, is that wrong? If so, where is the pet's stealth score shown? (Bonus guess at what's happening: the ranger is using their own score plus the party bonus, the pet is just using the raw ranger score.) Edit: Test times: Zaurip detection time ranger: 1:22. Zaurip detection time pet: 0:05. Okay, that's way beyond raw vs. derived. Are pets using the ranger base? (i.e. 2)

Maybe they're not important enough to have tracked opinion of you. Alas. I wonder more what the infinity snake faction is. I don't think they're been talked about, but they're put at the same importance as the other 4.

Oh, and while I think of it, one more worst in the system that I otherwise really like: Some subclasses are terrible - Specifically Mage Slayer and all the wizard subclasses but Evoker. The negatives all massively outweight the benefits. I'm sure there are other subclasses that suffer the same issue, but they're the only one's I've specifically touched. They either need a reduction in malus or a dramatic increase in bonus.

Weapon wise, I'm expecting the Blade of the Endless Paths (if you forged it) and the Disappointer to return in some form, perhaps Abydon's Hammer too. Beyond that, I doubt anything except Concelhaut's phylactory will come back.