Rumpelstilskin

i'm pretty sure i found one in a random loot crate (well i assume it was random, since i don't think they would have manually placed all that low-tier loot). which means it's definitely obtainable, but the chances of getting it are not great. maybe just cheat yourself one using console.

Would be cool to have a multiple-barrel pistol that can make several shots before you need to reload it (but reloading would take ages, meaning realistically you'd just have to switch to another weapon). This might be a bit too advanced for the general firearms technology level in PoE though. Maybe a repeating crossbow then?

It's not quite Numenera-style though. With all their scientific prowess, the Engwithians seem to have been surprisingly unimpressive with their weapons tech, since all Engwithian weapons you find in the game are utter schlock.

I think not only it's "not a pure fantasy", it's probably less "fantasy" than the real world. To me, "fantasy" implies a certain fairy-tale feel, some mystery and magic - and I don't mean just throwing fireballs by that. While in PoE even souls and are explained in a completely mechanistic and rationalized way, and it's made clear that it's all there is to it. Even Game of Thrones is more fantasy than that.

I think polytheistic religions are generally a lot more pragmatic than monotheistic ones. People don't "worship" gods as much as they respect their power, and pray just to get help from them (or avoid being punished).

My party was 11-12 when I reached Act 4. I did all quests I was aware of (including Old Nua), except the bounties, and only did Palegina's and Aloth's companion quests. So I'm not sure the XP curve is so broken. When I realized it was a point of no return though, I went back and did the bounties, and yes, they brought me to 12 very quickly. So maybe only the bounties are too opulent.

Yes, that was obviously a deliberate decision by OE, which was probably forced by disabling pre-combat buffs. If all AIs bee-lined to your squishies, keeping the latter alive would be frustratingly hard. So mages would need to be pre-buffed to have a decent chance of surviving and actually using their skills instead of just trying to run away from mobs (which happened quite often in IE games - the running away part I mean - and it wasn't particularly fun). It looks like the engagement system was supposed to fix that. Perhaps the AIs should reasonably try to target your back-liners, but only if they aren't already engaged by your front-liners. Which would make talents that increase your engaged enemies limit extremely valuable.

What do watchers do? Watchers Peek.

Just my personal opinion (well, obviously it is), but I think dumped stats should be heavily penalized, out of RP reasons if nothing else. An Int 3 person is not just a "nice fellow, only a bit slow", it's a clinical imbecile who can hardly tie his shoes, let alone participate in a tactically coordinated squad combat. Possibly there should be an accuracy penalty ("too dumb to use any weapon other than a club"), and maybe even a minimum allowed threshold somewhere around 6, with lower values reserved for monsters and people hit by temporary afflictions (so Int-draining spells would actually become quite painful).

I think they were just afraid of changing the IE formula too much, since their KS obligation was basically "an IE games successor made by the same devs". It's really easy to fix dump stats (by adding harsh, possibly asymmetrical, penalties for going below a certain threshold, if nothing else), and as you said they clearly didn't like the concept themselves, so it's the only explanation I see.

Btw, this thread: - Would you like to suggest an improvement to PoE's combat system, sir? - No tanks

Even DR 23 isn't that common, especially if you're talking piercing damage, which both the estoc and the arquebus do. Sky Dragon only has 21 DR, while Skeletal Fighters and Death Knights have 18. If you want enemies with 23+ Piercing DR, you're looking at Adra Animats, the Adra Dragon, and Greater Rain Blights (scourge of PotD parties everywhere). I assume "Close Shooter" is something that was in beta and was later cut. Which is where this little discussion links back into the larger one: durability is such an all or nothing thing that many people, myself included, would rather field ranged DPS, despite their lower damage, because fielding melee DPS requires you to sacrifice their damage potential in some way, whether by wearing armor or using a reach weapon or sacrificing attribute points, or else expend a significant amount of effort micromanaging them in order to ensure they don't get splattered across the battlefield. You can push ranged DPS all the way, while melee DPS has to hold back out of concern for survivability (though I'd still expect the melee DPS to do better in terms of raw damage output). I only played on hard, but don't enemies have 50% higher DR on PotD as well? I suppose it'd made Arda Dragon absolutely brutal, but hey, everyone wants more challenge. Now as I went through the bestiary again, it does look like monsters generally have lower DRs than I thought they had. But yeah, being ranged itself is such a massive advantage that it's always preferable for a DPSer unless the damage is way worse. Not the least because you don't have to waste time (=attack speed) to re-position. Personally, I still think I prefer arbalests though, especially Aedrin's Wrecker (for its awesome stuns).

Dude. The guy You can already choose to kill either, neither or both of them. Is that not enough choice? Why would you need an option to pat the guy on the back for what he did. As the reviewer said, it's not so uncommon among nobles, and this is actually one of the points where I agree with him the most.

Ranged weapons do not outdamage melee. Arquebuses have shiny high base damage numbers, but they are much, much slower than melee weapons. Even with the Gunner talent, you can still get in 3 attacks with an Estoc for every Arquebus shot, and the melee combatant can take Savage Attack for an additional damage boost and doesn't have to labor under the reduced critical damage bonus of guns/arbalest. I would go so far as to say that even a character specialized in ranged combat (with the possible exception of the Ranger) could be doing more damage if they switched to a two-handed weapon or dual-wielded. The reason ranged DPS builds are so popular isn't because they're more damaging, it's because the nature of the Defense and Attribute systems means that pushing damage as much as you can severely neglects defenses, and it's easier to keep a glass cannon alive in the backline. Especially since Engagement only stops enemies from moving and won't stop them from pivoting to attack a fragile melee DPS character. Also, a ranged character retains the freedom to actually move, which is important for avoiding battlefield hazards and targeting active abilities. Are guns really much, much slower, or just slower? I doubt it's 3 times, since estoc is already slow, and since most enemies have fairly high DR, higher damage is almost always better. War bow has the same damage and speed as melee two-handers for instance. There was a thread in this sub-forum with detailed analysis, and it proved that guns have the best DPS in most common scenarios. I think there are symmetrical skills to boost both ranged and melee, so no win here either. The only problem with guns is overkill, but you can have a specialized fast shooter to finish off almost-dead targets, while the gunners switch to another one. Even if highly specialized melee could slightly outdamage ranged (which I don't think it can, but for the sake of argument), being able to keep distance is such a huge advantage that it would easily negate that. You can test it yourself. Take two characters with equal dex and no armor, one with an arquebus and one with an estoc. Pause the game and set them to attack at the same time. Unpause and watch as the estoc user gets three, sometimes four attacks inbetween each shot. There are symmetrical skills to boost melee and ranged; Penetrating Shot and Vulnerable Attack are identical for example. But there's no ranged equivalent to Savage Attack's damage bonus. Consider two characters with 20 Might and Superb weapons, for a 75% damage increase. The estoc has an average damage of 17 * 1.75 = 29.75. The arquebus has an average damage of 30 * 1.75 = 52.5. Over the span of time in which the arquebus gets one shot for 52.25 damage, the estoc user gets 3 for 89.25. And the estoc user gets more bonus damage on a crit. Of course, more attacks means more applications of DR, so against sufficiently high DR the arquebus will outperform the estoc, right? Well, if both are using their respective anti-DR modals, DR doesn't come into play until it's higher than 10. At 20 DR, the estoc drops to 59.25 while the arquebus drops 43.5. It isn't until 28 DR that the arquebus pulls ahead. Even on PotD, there are very few enemies with DR that high; you're basically looking at the Adra Dragon and Adra Animats. Now, I agree that the advantage of being able to keep distance is huge. I prefer ranged DPS over melee DPS myself. But there's no ranged build, again, with the possible exception of the Ranger, that can match melee in terms of raw damage output. I think anti-DR modals don't make sense if your damage is above 25, so they shouldn't be used in either case. Arquebus has inherent 6 DR, while estoc has 5 (which I think was changed after some patch - I remember it having 3 before). Which makes a break-even DR value about 23, which is not so uncommon, and considering that tough enemies are really the only ones that one should care about, it's even more important. I did test the speed with a character in plate and a gunner trait, and it was almost exactly x3, as you said. However, while a gunner can try and wear lighter armor, for someone who frequently melees it's just too risky. As for savage attack, I just saw a "close shooter" talent on wiki, which increases ranged damage by 10% at "close range", but I don't remember seeing it at any level-up. Is it super-new, or something from the beta?

Ranged weapons do not outdamage melee. Arquebuses have shiny high base damage numbers, but they are much, much slower than melee weapons. Even with the Gunner talent, you can still get in 3 attacks with an Estoc for every Arquebus shot, and the melee combatant can take Savage Attack for an additional damage boost and doesn't have to labor under the reduced critical damage bonus of guns/arbalest. I would go so far as to say that even a character specialized in ranged combat (with the possible exception of the Ranger) could be doing more damage if they switched to a two-handed weapon or dual-wielded. The reason ranged DPS builds are so popular isn't because they're more damaging, it's because the nature of the Defense and Attribute systems means that pushing damage as much as you can severely neglects defenses, and it's easier to keep a glass cannon alive in the backline. Especially since Engagement only stops enemies from moving and won't stop them from pivoting to attack a fragile melee DPS character. Also, a ranged character retains the freedom to actually move, which is important for avoiding battlefield hazards and targeting active abilities. Are guns really much, much slower, or just slower? I doubt it's 3 times, since estoc is already slow, and since most enemies have fairly high DR, higher damage is almost always better. War bow has the same damage and speed as melee two-handers for instance. There was a thread in this sub-forum with detailed analysis, and it proved that guns have the best DPS in most common scenarios. I think there are symmetrical skills to boost both ranged and melee, so no win here either. The only problem with guns is overkill, but you can have a specialized fast shooter to finish off almost-dead targets, while the gunners switch to another one. Even if highly specialized melee could slightly outdamage ranged (which I don't think it can, but for the sake of argument), being able to keep distance is such a huge advantage that it would easily negate that.

Not just for realism sake, it'd also balance out the ranged advantage. But I'm almost sure Obsidian experimented with it, so I guess the decision not to do it was deliberate.

I think the reason is that ranged weapons plainly outdamage melee. Being ranged is a very strong advantage on its own, and usually it's being balanced out by either doing less damage, or heavy circumstantial penalties. In IE games if you wanted to hurt someone real bad, you took a two-hander; in PoE you take an arquebus and do it from a safe distance. So at first I thought that maybe if firing into melee were strongly penalized (not necessarily as strongly as friendly fire, but perhaps a large acc penalty), unless you shoot someone in the back, in which case it gets boni instead, that would create a much more balanced system, and DPSing would even need some tactics to position the shooters. But then I realized that it would just mean that your shooters would first deal with casters and enemy shooters (which they do anyway), and then just safely re-position. So not much changes, except maybe in the most notorious chokepoint scenarios. I guess shooting someone in the back with a crossbow while he's being busy in melee just is a better way of doing damage, so if you have such option, melee does boil down to keeping the enemies busy. That's how it is. It is boring, but someone has to do it. Generally, I think that, while it can possibly be engaging with complete micro-control, in squad tactics games melee is boring on a fundamental level. So a final thought, perhaps the tank doesn't have to be a fighter at all? Might as well be a druid for instance - they have good deflection, and w+s, cautious attack are general talents, so they can pick them up as well. And now your most durable unit is also a healer and a spell-caster.

I found it hilarious in close combat, when my high-def fighter was methodically reloading his arquebus with absolute zen calmness while angry mobs were desperately whaling at him from all directions.

charm and confuse attack deflection that's not true BTW

I think confusion is actually OP the way it works now. First, it seems that instead of acting randomly (as one would expect from a confused person), confused targets become your allies, for all intents and purposes. And what makes it superior to charm/domination is that they don't snap out of it if you attack them, so you can finish them off with complete impunity. our experience is different. as often as not, the confused will wander aimlessly or stand stationary doing nothing. aside: confusion and domination does make our use o' long duration aoe spells more rare as it can lead to quirky results. our summoned adra beetle gets confused by... whatever. our beetle then walks through our wall of fire. our summoned beetle is no longer confused but is genuinely and open hostile towards us. the graze/hit/crit mechanic is unforgiving and it may lead to oddly anti-climactic encounters. petrify need only be effective for a second or two to make a host o' other spells near guaranteed hits or crits. am understanding why many do not like the approach, but our solution would be to address encounter design rather than the mechanics. "What's that? Nothing? Not a single example? None? Two pages dug into a hole, posed with the request to substantiate, even in part, a single one of your claims, yet nothing? Shocking, Gromnir. Simply shocking!" not need to do so as you still haven't gotten over your logic/reason hurdle yet. am not so generous that we would allow you to ignore your silliness in trying distinguishing ie from d&d insta kill and/or hard counter mechanics, and why on earth you think the difference is significant. HA! Good Fun! Hmm, you might be right about confused enemies acting randomly. Perhaps I got the idea of a full allegiance flip because former allies start attacking them immediately. As for grazes being equivalent to full hits, I still disagree. Most (possibly all) hard stuns target either fort or will, but don't lower it, so successive stunning doesn't become easier. They do lower reflex and deflection, but lowering deflection for a short time is obviously not an insta-kill, and reflex spells are not particularly deadly.

I think confusion is actually OP the way it works now. First, it seems that instead of acting randomly (as one would expect from a confused person), confused targets become your allies, for all intents and purposes. And what makes it superior to charm/domination is that they don't snap out of it if you attack them, so you can finish them off with complete impunity.

Maze actually did have a counter - barbarian rage. As for save or else, I much prefer PoE's system. Grazes half the duration, so even if you paralyze someone for 4 secs, it just gives you some breathing room, not that you can forget about this enemy. Same when your character gets charmed for 4 secs - if she uses a heavy weapon, there's a good chance that she won't even have time to hit anyone (allies targeting flipped companions is a problem though, but I'm pretty sure it's an oversight and not a design choice, at least for the player's party). BTW many D&D spells weren't save-or-else either. Hold person, for instance, allowed the target to re-roll every round, so if the target's save was high enough, a single (un)lucky hit wasn't a death sentence.

The reviewer makes a lot of valid points (which everyone seems to agree about), but the review is clearly very biased. For instance, he says that except for the adra dragon fight he could tank-and-spank through everything without thinking. Ok, maybe so, but then he complains about his party targeting his charmed companions, which implies that it happened often enough to become a nuisance. Perhaps he should have re-thought his tactics in those fights? Same for engagement - does he complain that his tank can hold many enemies, or that the enemies can rape his back-line too easily once they get to it? In the latter case, doesn't it mean that naive tank-and-spank hasn't worked out so well?