Odd Hermit

The writing and characters are better. The combat is about as flawed and cheesy, having its own pros and cons. Aesthetically it's much nicer looking, of course. The setting IMO is more interesting and a welcome change from typical forgotten realms stuff. My only gripe other than balance issues and bugs - which judging by the patch notes they're actually going to be fairly responsive to player concerns with - is that there's not more companion interactivity/reactivity. What's there is good but it felt like there were many great opportunities for more of it. And multi-companion + PC conversations were few and far between. Perhaps this is due to the quality and how carefully they tied the companions in with the story though.

Went through the entire game, needing supplies to rest added only a small amount of tedium via backtracking. What would be much more fun is having to gauge the risk of travel. Stealth and Survival could play a part in how likely you are to be waylaid successfully. It would not reduce encounters, rather you'd get the jump on a group of hostiles that you can then choose to avoid or engage - this way no one feels like they're getting less loot/combat for taking these skills. This would also make athletics a bigger consideration. Right now you can travel freely knowing you'll never run into combat, so traveling large distances while tired comes with no risk. An additional mode could be added to flesh out the system if necessary, some people may not like it but I'd welcome a more eventful and somewhat slower paced campaign with resource limitations coming into play.

I'm gonna disagree here/give an alternate perspective. Especially with Ila Knocked getting nerfed and Beloved Spirits getting nerfed. I probably won't even take Ancient Memory post-patch. Chant debuffs may be the way to go, and you don't need high int. Or you can focus on using a few strong low level chants to build invocations faster for summoning. Until Int gives linger, I think max int I'd put on a chanter is maybe 15, no higher, and maybe less.

I was using Chill Fog without cheesing its lack of friendly fire. It'll be fine. It's still strong, and Wizards should have high int giving it a decent size no-friendly fire edge.

Well, Slicken is not grease. Grease in some games just slowed things down. Slicken knocks them on their arse into a full CC that gives them penalties to defenses. I do think it could've been tweaked in a different way to keep its AoE field deal, but not without getting rid of that full CC. It was insanely valuable for a level 1 spell.

It needed to happen. Early game Wizard may end up needing a buff though. They still have some strong mid-late game spells(which will probably stay strong). And they're buffing spell ranges on many Wizard spells which should help a ton, since having your Wizard run in short range of a dragon or w/e and getting breath attack one-shot kinda kills a lot of short-range spell tactics. Eldritch Aim is also still strong for getting more reliable hits for full CCs. They haven't fixed/nerfed confusion yet though which needs to happen as well, for Cipher and Wizard. I assume some encounters that are particularly difficult to keep wizards alive through will see some adjustments as well.

You can solo the bear with several builds. Any of the casters can do it if they play their cards right. At least on hard and below. And level 2 doesn't say much for a build. You've only got like 1 talent and 1 ability at that point. Gear, consumables, etc. are more important at that point. He's on normal. Hard and PoD there are 3 bears(2 weaker "young" ones). Although maybe he pulled one alone, not sure. But it says on the youtube it's normal difficulty.

If you're not maxing both might and dex, just max might. You only get 2 flames of devotion per encounter, may as well have them hit as hard as possible before you're doing mediocre damage. I would also say it's definitely not worth taking scion of flames just to buff flames of devotion. The DoT is better value against enemies that matter. Here's how I'd build this style of Paladin (ignore minor threat I just happened to quickly select orlan) -

Yeah, but then you have to have a barbarian in your party. Also staying below 50% and above "I'm about to get KOed" endurance levels is not that simple especially on the difficulties where a racial bonus is going to matter.

You can, but swapping does take time, the delay between swap -> knockdown means it's not a great defensive tool in a pinch. It also takes a weapon set away, and some players may swap between two different defensive sets(I did).

Faith and Conviction seems to give +2 to PC Paladins defenses for each point in your Order's favored traits, and +1 to deflection as well. On top of the already high base bonus. Paladin's abilities are support/healing/defensive mostly, which is better for a low accuracy /damage character. Paladins can dispel and revive friendlies, and toss a substantial heal. They come with an aura which can be +3 DR or +6 accuracy depending on how you want to build your party/how many characters will be in aura range. Fighters OTOH can attempt knockdowns with fairly poor accuracy if using heavy shield, and that's about it. Defender + Wary Defender are great early game bang for the buck sort of talents, but Paladins pull ahead quickly because they're dual purpose tank+support rather than just a tank. Only thing Fighter has over them is higher engagement limit and a bit high deflection if we're talking non-PCs so not paladin getting bonuses to faith and conviction - since apparent cautious attack got a nerf. Fighter's have better accuracy and some CCs, but that won't matter if you're wearing a large shield that wrecks your accuracy anyway.

So give druids scaling unarmed accuracy/ damage rather than scaling the actual shift weapons. What is honestly the worst that could happen? We'd have a sort-of-almost-maybe-kinda viable unarmed druid build outside of shifting? OH NO!

Island Aumauas with Arms Bearer. Also I'd say Arbalest is better, but obviously this is more for fun. You could definitely pull off a gunner party. You can still use a gun on a tank, and just swap to a 1h+shield set up after the opening fire. You'll need to use spells and such too of course, although I bet a 4 rogue 1 priest 1 paladin party could pull it off with pretty minimal spells.

2x Cipher is a total waste IMO. Spell diversity and synergy is what works on PoD. Wizard and/or Druid for their debuffs and DoTs stacking > Ciphers Ciphers have their uses and Pain Block is a really great buff to toss on a tank, but you definitely don't need two of them. Priests are pretty strong though I could see doubling up on them as valid..

First run (Hard) Dwarf Druid PC, maxed Might/Dex/Int Wild Orlan Paladin hired, max Con/Per/Res Wood Elf Cipher hired, max Might/Dex/Int Pallegina always in party on acquired, 'cause she's my favorite Usually took Durance and Aloth, but swapped them around a bit to do other companion stuff ________ Second run, in progress PoD, all hired Wild Orlan Paladin PC tank (Kind Wayfarer)(takes all passionate/benevolent dialogue for Faith and Conviction bonuses), max Con/Per/Res Island Aumaua Paladin, max Might/Dex, decent Con/Res, hangs back w/casters providing +6 accuracy and protects them. Has Pike, 1h+Shield, Arbalest weapon sets for flexibility Wood Elf Priest, max Might/Dex/Int Wood Elf Druid, max Might/Dex/Int Wood Elf Cipher, max Might/Dex/Int Wood Elf Wizard, max Might/Dex/Int Having all the casters is just too good. Stack debuffs/buffs galore. I'm finding Druid to be pretty solid in ways I didn't expect on PoD. Their AoE fields and returning storm provide consistent damage output against difficult to hit enemies via lots of rolls to affect them. Returning Storm, Wicked Briars, Tanglefoot all going at once is great and you can set the latter two up beforehand even.

Hatchet + Small Shield is my caster set-up for when I'm not shoosting with arbalest. No accuracy penalty from small shield so it's nice to have one. Total that's +13 deflection, which you absolutely should be swapping to if a caster ever has to deal with a melee on him. It seems to be instant swapping, there's just a recovery period before you can attack/act again. So swap before that melee enemy actually reaches striking distance when possible. Turn difficulty down to normal or easy. There is no build that will make it good currently. You'll be spending most of your spells per rest being a very sub-par fighter temporarily, and they can't be caster before combat starts either so... it's bad, all there is to it.

You can take a talent to give your shape an elemental attack and peasant weapon focus works as the attack is considered unarmed, dual weapons might work but not sure about that one. Actually scaling the shapes is currently imposible because of the way abilities are implemented they would have to create a completely new ability for each stage, so extra 72 abilities in total. They could scale it well enough, +1 Accuracy and + x.04 damage / level or something, which would be +12 and x1.48 damage The best quality enchant gives +12 Accuracy x1.45 damage IIRC.

Druids absolutely cannot and should not tank, at least not on Hard or PoD. Druid spells are good. They have stronger damage than Wizard, and decent support/healing options. They have some AoE fields of decent duration that repeatedly debuff that can be quite good, and as a straight-nuker they're the best. They're an excellent class for hard and below difficulty. On PoD they're not as good because Wizard's have +15 accuracy spell, better "hard CC" (completely disabling effect), and just overall are better equipped to deal with stat boosted enemies that aren't as easy to deal with via pure damage output. They're still solid enough to consider taking in addition to Wizard though, and have some valuable spells.

It's ~decent for tank, but DR and small amounts of retaliation damage get less valuable as difficulty increases, and it's inferior to tank races that get better all-the-time mitigation. Wild Orlan is by far the best since you can have +3 to deflection stats, on top of a substantial temporary bonus to defenses any time an attack targets your Will which as tank can be quite often. I am basing this opinion on the beta form of Fire Godlike that wasn't bugged and trigger @ 50% endurance properly, I haven't used them post release. I'm not sure whether or not Orlan has to be directly targeting an enemy to get benefit. I haven't used Hearth Orlans much TBH.

Not necessarily as some things target reflex to CC a character. It's true that you may want to slack a little on deflection for monks depending on difficulty though.

God Tier Wood Elves (http://i.imgur.com/LHahjtx.jpg) Wild Orlan(Tanks) Moon Godlike (Only Godlike that has a racial worth a helm, they are butt ugly looking though) Pro Tier Hearth Orlan Island Aumaua (+1 weapon sets is good) Coastal Aumaua Meh Tier Pale Elves (Burn/Freeze DR is decent so they're at top of meh tier) Death Godlike Fire Godlike Garbage Tier Humans Mountain Dwarves (Aumaua is better for damage due to no dex penalty, Poison/Disease resist not a big deal since they're not a tank race) Boreal Dwarves (much too situational) Nature Godlike (easily the worst in the game)

Paladin, you want one. For dispel, revive, and for the +6 accuracy aura. Ideally as your PC so you can take dialogue options to buff Faith and Conviction. I'd honestly take two and skip the fighter, personally. Or get a monk for more prone spam. Fighter gets 2 prones, Monk gets nigh infinite as long as they're taking some damage - and damage is in bigger supply on PoD of course. Monk also debuffs and reflects and has all sorts kooky stuff. Also might swap Cipher out for Druid on PoD. Ciphers are amazing on hard but pretty meh on PoD IMO.

It looks like the whole party is fatigued which is a pretty srs debuff to go into fights with.

Here's a pic to give an idea of what distance for Wood Elf racial looks like relative to character models - http://i.imgur.com/LHahjtx.jpg

Haha I tried, started out serious and quickly went into lazy/modern art mode