kaiki

And I just realized my post was jibberish XD I meant to say, if you have someone with lore 4 there are survival boosting scrolls that add +3 to survival for a certain amount of time.

There are some survival buffing srolls that can be found. The inn in Twin Elms also buffs survival. Between just those two you can get survival 4 in order to complete the quest.

After completing PoE on hard then PotD I went out to try TCS with a pale elf monk. It forced me to play with a different style then I'd used with my other run-throughs. It also gave me perspective on how wide PoE is with different styles of play. I've read that the game provides too much gold & xp, I feel that the amounts are good in that you can skip wide a good amount of loot and quests and still have enough of either. The one issue I've run into on all three of my runs is, what I feel is, an over abundance of different weapon types. Perhaps I will need to run through with all classes but many of the weapon types do not seem useful. I will break down each weapon type and my experiences with each. Hunting Bows - Very useful for a high level hunter that uses the stun on hit ability to lock down a mob and provide surprisingly high damage with all the bonuses that the class gets. War Bows - Used them on my cipher only until I was able to get a blunderbuss. I suspect they would work just as well on hunters as hunting bows, though they wouldn't have the lock down stun due to larger rof. Crossbows - Only useful in lower levels until arbalests become available. Honestly regular crossbows could be dropped from the game and I feel that there wouldn't a noticeable difference. Their damage is lower then arbalests and lack the knockdown on crit, while being much slower then bows. Arbalests - One of the kings of the battlefield. High damage, knockdown on crit and great range. What's even better is they don't have the decrease in accuracy that firearms have. That isn't much of an issue except on PotD where you want every bit of accuracy that you can get. Blunderbusses - Great cipher weapon on difficulties below PotD. Their multiple projectiles can add up to good damage and generate mounds of focus if they all connect. On PotD, at least for ciphers, the accuracy penalty makes them too unreliable. A niche weapon that shines for only one class. Pistols - I feel that they're also a niche weapon as arbalests have pistols on range, knockdown and interrupt. They do work well as a ranged weapon for rogues. Especially since pistols are in the ruffian tree with the other strong rogue weapons. Arquebuses - I'll refer to them as rifles even though that isn't correct in any way, rifle is easier to type. They are the ranged weapon on difficulties below PotD. High damage and DR bypass allows a party to melt tough enemies in a single volley. On PotD I found that it was better to use Arbalests for the higher accuracy, expect for Durance if you take his accuracy buff for rifles. Magical Implements - Wands, Scepters & Rods can all be lumped together. Forgettable. It's odd that there are three types of a weapon type that is only useful at low levels. While the aoe that you can gain from the blast talent is kinda nice at those low levels, you are spending a talent on weapons that has a low base damage that makes it a liability once tougher monsters are encountered. It's iconic for wizards to have their magic wands but they feel poorly implemented in PoE. Better to have your wizard have an arbalest and do real damage. Daggers, Rapiers, Flails - I grouped these three together as I didn't use these weapons during my play-throughs. Daggers and rapiers give accuracy which is nice, but their damage is too low and more damningly they are in the Noble talent tree. Both weapons seem they'd be useful for rogues, but the Noble talent doesn't provide any ranged weapon. Ruffian is such a wonderful talent for rogue that the accuracy bonus becomes a penalty when comparing stiletto with Ruffian vs dagger without Noble. While on difficulties below on PotD where accuracy isn't such an issue you'd want to use higher damage weapons anyway. As for flails, they suffer from being in the Adventurer tree so I never found a use for them. Stilettos, Clubs and Monk Fists - All three are fantastic. Stilettos are amazing for rogues, 'nuff said. Clubs are useful to give to Eder as he has the Ruffian talent and it's easy to get Blesca's Labor which is an amazing weapon. Monk Fists I've seen threads that have said that they are underpowered due to lack of enchantments. On my TCS I used fists for the vast majority of the run. They were fast that allowed me access to my wound abilities quickly, the damage stayed competitive with weapons that were even slower then my fists and a good number of monsters doesn't have crushing DR. Maces, War Hammers, Spears, Swords, Battle Axes - I grouped all these together as in my experience they are almost interchangeable. No group really shines over the others, very well balanced. It all came down to what unique weapon was better. Spears are nice for monks when you need piercing damage due to being in the Peasant talent. Other then that, unique weapons and talents determine which of these weapon types you'll use. Sabres - Fantastic swords for either Eder or a rogue. High base damage with some amazing uniques to be found. As a bonus, they're in the Ruffian talent which includes several other wonderful weapon types. Two-Handed Weapons - I have mixed feelings regarding these weapons. I certainly see that barbarians need the weapons with increased reach so they can inflict carnage while being safe behind the tanks. But, for tanks it makes no sense. Stick to sword and shield. On difficulties below PotD where melee combat is a bit more survivable they can be sort of cool for rp reasons, the drawbacks are too great to be useful otherwise. I've found that in PoE you want your attack speed to be balanced with damage. Too little damage and DR will make your many fast attacks not very useful. Too slow and if you wiff on an attack you could be waiting for awhile to be able to do damage again. With interrupts, knockdowns and all sorts of abilities that can stop attacks I've found if you want to do damage in melee two weapons is the way to go. Their talent increases weapon speed even more so you can have those attacks come at a reasonable speed while having adequate base damage. Two-handed weapons are too slow that when an armoured character attacks and gets interrupted, or whatever, the loss to combined party damage output is really felt. All these factors come together that I've just sold every one of these weapons I get. While writing my rundown of the weapon types I realize that one problem that seemed to pop up now and again was the issue of the weapon talents. Ruffian and Soldier are great. Ruffian for rogues and soldier works for the majority of characters will be using ranged attacks, and tanks. Peasant is useful for some hunter builds and monks. Adventurer, Knight and Noble are all kinda garbage. Soldier and Ruffian have most of the good ranged weapons and two-handed weapons, except for barbarian, don't seem worth it. It leaves each of those three talents with maybe one or two weapons that you'd want to use throughout the game. Unless those weapons are key to an rp concept they can be safely passed on. Those are my thoughts that seem to fit well in this post. The rest are "the music is so awesome!" or "these companion quests are so awesome" and even "the art is so awesome". Those will come later.

I've been enjoying using the +3 skill scrolls myself. Get lore up to 4 and you can spike your mechanics for hard chests, like the Obsidian Lamp chest or you can spike Survival to peacefully get the Ogre to leave Dyrford if you have survival at 2 pre-scroll.

You can use the scrolls that give +3 to mechanics and the +mechanic inn bonuses. Helps you to not need going to 11 in mechanics. There are tons of better inn bonuses though ;p. For increasing mechanics? Don't think so.

Enchant the items that have unique effects for sure. For weapons enchant the unique named weapons. For armor, enchant the armor you know you'll be wearing for the rest of the game. I've enchanted the heaviest armor as I didn't find unique versions.

You can use the scrolls that give +3 to mechanics and the +mechanic inn bonuses. Helps you to not need going to 11 in mechanics.

I agree with OP. There is a surprising lack of "I take the power for myself, mwhahhaah!!!" options in POE. Would have been nice to see them.

I'm doing a TC run myself, I've found athletics is not that useful. I run out of health before I get tired. I have it at 3 and left it there. Lore is very important so you can use scrolls. Since as a fighter you don't have access to magic it will be necessary.

I'm in the process of doing the triple solo achievement after doing my potd run. Here are tips for encounters 2 & 3 2) Get the mobs to chase you to the point they start walking back to their camp then pick them off one at a time. Potd is alot about positioning and buffing yourself. Almost never attack monsters on their terms. 3) You can get the bandits to run over to the trolls to the west and the trolls and bandits will attack each other. Kill the stronger group to keep them balanced until only a couple are remaining. As the posters above have said, positioning, positioning, positioning.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70877-and-now-a-sneek-peek-at-the-making-of-poe-documentary/page-8 Last post on the page. Soon! :D

I suppose it's all in your point of view. That was the objective that my pc was working towards. So I'd judge that I did get a good ending.

Level 3 mechanic for Cilant Lis and Level 5 Athletics in Valewood.

Hello, I do enjoy the crafting system and that every class can benefit not just from upgraded arms & armor but scrolls, food and potions. My one issue with the system is that the different crafting components do not list what they are ingredients for on their "right click for details" page. This would be very helpful as when I start amassing a horde of Skuldr ear and Xaurip tongue I would know if such things could ever be useful or if I should sell them. In my play style by default I don't sell ingredients, so I would enjoy just having that easily accessible information so that I could make better decisions with these items. Thank you for your time

Going through the game with the dev commentary on. Some of it is interesting, though the one for the Temple of Eothas has left a question squirming around in my brain. "Why don't do bell puzzles?" Maybe it was just an off-the-cuff funny thing to say, but I'd like to know what unique challenges bells brought as a puzzle. I'd like the community's thoughts on what could have been the challenges in doing a bell puzzle.

Patch 1.04 is out and no announcement of when we can expect the documentary. Hope is dwindling. I hope this the "we haven't heard back from the documentary makers so we don't have an update to give" silence and not the "the documentary makers were really a band of traveling surfers who took all the money and now are headed to Australia to ride the waves of a fifty year storm" silence. Even if it is the former, please give us a sign that the documentary hasn't shuffled off the mortal coil!

I find the difficulty varies with group composition. My cipher pc with grieving mother tore the encounters apart. But having my pc as a paladin dps made the game more of a challenge.

Endless Paths was my favorite dungeon. I really enjoyed how within a contained space there was such variety in enemies and there was not just a story about a long dead civilization, but an ecosystem and rival societies all within one dungeon. It was the first time where I understood why people enjoy dungeon-centric games like IWD.

I would have enjoyed a companion that was motivated by greed and profit. Considering the amount of money that you come across in the game, that type of personality would fit right in. Or even a Sarevok type character. Just one character who's motives were self centered. That is the level of "evil" I would be comfortable having in my party.

Agreed. I would also like some estimate of when the documentary will be available.

Spy thriller! Need that Alpha Protocol 2!

There's a little orphan boy in the big city who said my death godlike's face is weird.

It's irritating as my pc is a death godlike who doesn't even have a portrait with the same head color. Hehe. Moon godlike have it worse, the male doesn't even have a head model that looks like the portrait

Race is also a scientific term, and it's exactly why it bothers me. Race is a classification below species. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28biology%29 I was referring to the anthropological usage and not the biological usage.

In those settings race is used in place of species. Race fits better as well since "species" is a scientific term while "race" is not. So if in a fantasy, sci-fi or whatever setting race can still fit while species may not. Not saying you're wrong about the different races being different species, it's just terminology.