AndreaColombo

ROTFL @ AndreaColumbia I'm taking a bit of a rest from Deadfire at the moment. I may or may not go back to the Streetfighter / Ascendant concept but, if I do, it'll be with an estoc again.

On this, I agree 100%.

I don't see how that would make any sense for the Watcher to do. At the end of PoE the Watcher has zero hard evidence that the gods are artificial. They know beyond doubt, but have nothing to prove it. If they went around telling everyone that the gods are artificial, their claim would be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic driven crazy by their Awakening (a common occurrence in Awakened individuals, if PoE is any indication.) That's beside the point that most people would probably not care even if presented with incontrovertible evidence that the gods were, in fact, artificial. A Watcher that wants nothing to do with artificial gods can choose the Wheel at the beginning of Deadfire. A Watcher that chooses to serve Berath is likely rational enough not to alienate everyone they meet with an unlikely tale no one would believe. Besides, Berath would probably snuff the Watcher in a pinch if they tried to reveal the gods' Big Secret (TM). As for improving what already existed, even discarding the possibility that entropy is inevitable or beyond the Engwithans' power to eliminate, eliminating it doesn't necessarily count as an improvement (it certainly doesn't in my book.) Besides I don't know that we could, or should, consider the Engwithans as a monolithic culture of mindless clones led by an individual who just uploads a single thought to the cloud and the entire Engwithan civilization buys into it like a magic bullet. The creation of artificial gods must have been a hotly debated topic, with contrarians and people with very different ideas as to how the whole thing should go down. How likely is it that nobody would have wanted entropy as part of the whole? I know I would have vociferously protested the notion that entropy should be eliminated, for example.

To make people better so that they wouldn't need gods, yes—chiefly because there weren't any until the Engwithans made them. In the first game it is said that the gods were created specifically because the Engwithans thought as soon as everyone realized there were no gods, chaos and survival of the fittest would ensue across Eora. They didn't explicitly set out to improving the natural order and/or cycle of the souls itself.

Not sure their goal was to improve the natural process per se. They wanted to create gods that reflected existing beliefs and ideals before the general populace found out none existed. In so doing, they regulated the flow of essence through the Wheel, thus mitigating soul ailments—whether this was part of their plan or just a serendipitous corollary, we do not know. At the same time, if entropy was something a portion of kith were already revering, then creating a god that governs it would in keeping with the Engwithans' original goals. Or what if soul entropy was inherent to the process to a point where eliminating was impossible (or outside of the Engwithans' reach at any rate)? Creating a god that controls it rather than keeping unchecked would qualify as an improvement. Last but not least—people don't always act rationally and plot perfect plans, and the Engwithans certainly have a good track record of bad ideas. Their gods seem to follow suit just as well (which is unsurprising, since they're giant clots of Engwithan souls; the apple never falls far from the tree.) Besides, removing entropy isn't necessarily an improvement. It depends on your perspective.

Who's to say soul entropy did not already exist before the Engwithans created their pantheon? The gods merely incarnate concepts that predate them, in which case it would make sense for Rymrgand to also exist. It's not like the Engwithans purposefully created soul entropy to all but guarantee that one day there would no longer be any souls at all.

Psychologically it's not the same to achieve your desired stats within the game's rules set compared to just using the console. Even when exploiting a loophole or shortcoming in the game's rules it feels better than cheating, possibly because that way it feels like I earned it (and that it is technically possible/plausible within the game's rules, as opposed to giving yourself something that would be impossible/unachievable otherwise.) I know, I'm an odd duck like that. Cognitive dissonance and all that.

Is it possible to set colors for an armor item so that it always looks the same regardless of the primary and secondary colors set for the wearer? Say I wanted to make a padded armor that always looked green, for example.

If you're into number crunching, they make a whole lot of difference from a psychological perspective

Technically they don't know you did it. The first game makes it pretty clear that your communication with the blood pool is mental and your companions can't hear it; since it also shows that the others could not see you did it, I believe the sacrifice to the blood pool is not physical (as in, the Watcher did not physically push their companion into the pool) but rather of the soul kind (i.e. you shove their soul in the pool; again, not something your companions would be able to see.)

Total ripoff of the Rule-of-Three from Planescape

I recall Josh saying they made the end portion of the game snappier as a response to criticism of the first game that the Twin Elms section dragged on too long. He contextually admitted they overcorrected.

Whatever, I'll take my bonuses

Not so lame when you consider the Watcher experienced an Awakening. Maybe their awakened self isn't as kind-hearted

How serendipitous—my character's also a generally well-disposed individual who had some momentary lapses of judgment throughout her adventures in the Dyrwood...

As @Boeroer mentioned, higher difficulties are more likely to bite you in the ass earlier, rather than later. One thing to note is that you can change difficulty settings mid-game and the change will affect all areas you haven't visited yet. So if you find Veteran/PotD too hard or otherwise not fun in the early game, you can play at a lower difficulty and switch it up at whatever time (like before landing port in Neketaka, for example.) I usually enjoy playing with level scaling only up for all content as, past a certain level, fights tend to become rather easy even on PotD. God challenges are also good to shake things up. Galawain's Challenge is my personal favorite.

By resting, they cannot. Other than that, they don't behave any differently (I don't believe Arcane Dampener did anything to suppress them without my mod either.) And worry not. This is a forum—we're all here to discuss

How? All I did was prevent the bonus from clearing on rest. If you go out of your way to tailor your food bonuses to each encounter, then yeah, I guess that's cheesing it up a little (not dramatically, IMO.) But I, for one, usually stick to the one food whose bonuses I like.

Not really, and definitely not the same as cheesing Barring Death's Door with an infinite Salvation of Time loop. Playing Easy with no buffs is not the same as playing PotD with the buffs. Give it a try and you'll see (you can even do that with the same save game—save before entering the area with the fight, then do the fight on easy. Reload, collect the bonuses, switch to PotD and go into the same fight again.) Keeping all per-rest bonuses with a mod is no different from doing a no-rest run to keep them. It just removes the inconvenience (and inconvenience is not the same as difficulty or challenge; if you have to resort to inconveniencing the player in order to create a challenge, you may want to rethink your design approach.) YMMV, of course

I am so going to abuse the sh!t out of this...

Ghost Heart / Ascendant is pretty great with either estocs (BotEP, Engoliero do Espirs) or Frostseeker if you prefer ranged. Devoted / Ascendant is similarly good with estocs but less versatile unless you’re happy to suck up the Accuracy penalty when you switch to a different weapon. There are many other good combinations but I’ll let others who have actual in-game experience with them to vouch for them. Just a note that even if the game strongly implies that Maia should use arquebuses, IME she is more powerful with Spearcaster.

Pretty much anything, in my opinion. Cipher would be a very good addition to this party, perhaps multiclassed with a martial class so you can be a damage dealer. Wizard would also fit for AoE nuking (though Tekehu can also fill that role.) SC Ranger Maia has become a staple of my recent playthroughs, as she's oh so powerful with Spearcaster.

When you do the He Waits In Fire quest, you can ally yourself with the Rathun instead of fighting them. If you do, they bestow Magran's Blessing on you before you go find Jadaferlas.

Is it even possible? If yes, how?

That model was actually used in Forgotten Sanctum for the sword called Burden. I could use the black blade that looks like the Sanguine sword, though I personally consider it very anticlimactic when an item doesn't look like its icon/illustration. Either way, I can look into it when I have time to see if I can at least replicate its perks and unlocking conditions.