Rumpelstilskin

According to wikipedia, "vampire" most likely has origins in Slavic languages, where it sounds like "vampyr". And f and v are mechanically the same sound, v is just vocalized (in German, for instance, v is typically read as f)

To be fair, the best tactic in BG2 was to use wand of cloudkill from far away and then just wait for the mobs to die. At least they fixed that in PoE.

I think it might be one of the main reasons, yes. Balancing a non-linear RPG without auto-leveling (which is - rightfully - despised by many people) is extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible. The last party-based RPG that I played that was almost perfectly balanced, on both normal and hard, was the Banner Saga. But it was not just linear, it was literally on rails. Also, the combat was very tightly focused around the main damage-dealing mechanic, it was basically like chess with hitpoints; most of the time it was even deterministic (i.e. no hit/damage rolls). There were no abilities like paralyze, petrify, dominate; instead there were things like "get +1 defense when standing next to an ally" - so very little room for "cheese". Another example is Legend of Grimrock 2. It was very open, and remained reasonably hard throughout the entire game (with the second final boss being just fiendishly hard), but I think it was largely because there was a lot of manual dexterity involved in combat, and you can't just improve that by doing a couple of fetch quests (as a downside, it often felt frustrating rather than tactically hard because of that)

There is most definitely a connection between your character and Thaos! In the past you betrayed a woman who you cared about deeply on Thaos' orders because she claimed the gods did not exist. If she was right, you're actions had meaning, were horrible! You tried to ask Thaos this question but were refused an answer, and this haunted you till you died. Meeting Thaos in the context of the Biawac reignited this question in your soul, which is why you ultimately needed to find him and ask it to him, in order to get some closure. I mean a connection like "soul tether", or being a possible successor, or something. I know that the PC infiltrated Iowara's group, but is it just because Thaos chose him to do that, since the PC was from the same town (I don't recall any other justification)? As for caring deeply about her, it's for the player to decide, actually. My PC never met her before and left the group because he disliked her

So, is there nothing special that connects the PC to Thaos (contrary to what the story up to the end leads you to believe), or did I miss it? After Iowara dropped a bombshell about the gods being artificial pretty much in the first sentence, and then added there were deeper secrets that only Thaos knew, I was genuinely worried that it was going to be an "I'm your father" thing. Thank god(s) it didn't come to that, but he also added almost nothing to what she said, so it was a bit anticlimactic. Also, does this made-up religion completely sidestep the subject of who created the world and its inhabitants, or did I also miss it? It's not uncommon for polytheistic religions to be rather sketchy about it, but usually there's at least come cursory explanation.

I'm playing on Hard mode. At its hardest - like some of the boss or even miniboss fights - it's a satisfying level of difficulty, IMHO. For the majority of the game though, the general consensus is that it's a very easy game. I agree with that: you can stomp through 95% of the encounters without using most of your abilities or needing to know how the game mechanics work. Auto attack + invulnerable tanks = win. Then every once in a while, you find a nice, fun, difficult fight. Then it's working as intended. If every trash mob fight required several reloads, it would be too taxing even for people who claim it's too easy (instead of "hard" though it would likely be called "cheesy", "unfair", "cheaply bumping up the stats" etc). Mob fights are just about macro attrition management, not using per-rest abilities and losing as little health as possible. Even in the Souls games, while the mobs most certainly can kill you if you are not careful, they are not particularly hard. It's only the boss battles that are genuinely hard.

Thanks. Will do some other stuff first then. With all the talk about rampant outleveling after Act 1, I'm still lvl 11, even though I think I was doing all sub-quests (except some companions', and the bounties).

Can't seem to find the answer. Will probably return and do some bounties first if it does (however incongruous it might be from the RP standpoint..)

It probably depends on the encounter setup. I think I remember some guys returning to their original positions when I ran far enough, even though they could clearly still see me, but I'm also pretty sure the Adra Dragon won't let you end the combat even if run to the other side of the map. Also, you'd need spells, potions, or skills to be able to outrun most enemies.

Take a disengagement hit, run. If you took Fast Runner or had some other means of increased movement speed (e.g. items), you'll eventually shake most/all of them. If you're engaged by many enemies or are 1 hit away from death, well, your fault for getting to that. Hmm is it actually possible to have the combat end before all aggroed monsters are killed? I definitely recall cases where one guy somewhere was still aggroed, and while he couldn't see me and didn't attack, the combat wouldn't end until I kill him.

Trial of Iron is only fun until you die (which will happen, since you can't disengage from a battle even if you see that you are going to lose it)

Ok, just to verify, I can't get this quest if I killed Kolsc instead, can I? I read that a guy in Celestial Sapling was supposed to initiate it, but he doesn't seem to be there.

I think tying taxes to turns and hirelings payments to real days was actually a pretty good idea, even if it's somewhat unrealistic. It prevents you from just resting and accumulating money. Yes, money is generally not a problem in PoE, but it doesn't mean they should have completely dropped the ball on it and left obvious exploits in. That said, I have a strong impression that hirelings take way more than advertised. Paydays seem to be real 24h, but my 3 10cp hirelings always cost me 150cp. I haven't actually timed it (which I should do, it's really not that hard), but it definitely happened more often than once in 5 24h days. Unless their trade union pushed a law that made 'day' mean just an 8 hour shift.

Note that time in the save file can be significantly different from your actual play time (tracked by Steam for instance), since it doesn't include parts that you replayed. Another interesting statistic would be the final time in the game world.

I think aura of fear can be even more annoying than the breath attack. It's not an instakill of course, but it's unavoidable, and its -20 to accuracy hurt you a lot, considering how high its deflection already is. I tried using protection from fear scrolls, but they only give you +50 to defend against it, which doesn't seem to be enough.

I think fort saves should be roughly proportional to the creature's mass

I can answer this one, because it happened in my game. The Dragon's breath attack can friendly fire those Adragons. And if they're even remotely close to each other when it occurs, they will all get one-shotted by it. Right, fair point. Surviving it is pretty tricky though.

Did the 4 adragans that should have shown up by that moment and dominated half of your party present a problem?

Speaking of hirelings for 10cp per day, I have 3 of those, and my hireling paydays always cost me 150cp (they also seem to happen more frequently than once per 24 hours)

Just finished it (on hard, 9/10 level), then checked the guide, and apparently

That depends on the Ranged Weapon, And it depends on the class, And it depends on the Talents, And it depends on the Enemy. First, The only ranged weapons that 'out damage' 2-handers are the super slow ones (the rifles and X-bows). And that being the case, we'd need to start discussing things in "DPS" before we could determine whether a specific ranged weapon is really doing more damage than the specific 2-hander it's being compared to. Second, there are some classes who are built to do LOT more damage in a melee situation than in ranged, and vice versa. (Rangers, for example, are designed to do a ton more damage with ranged weapons, than, say, Fighters. But nothing does more weapon damage than a well built Rogue using a Pike or Esoc. (and someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but a Barbarian's carnage does not work with range weapons at all) Third, there are more Melee-only +Damage talents than there are ranged only +Damage talents. Savage attack, for example, grants +20% melee damage, and it stacks with every other general +Damage talent Fourth, 2-handers offer a wider variety of damage types than the high damage ranged weapons. And those high damage range weapons also suffer critical damage penalties. Fifth, it's hard to sustain effective range weapon use in those situations where you have enemies that teleport right to you. I'm not sure what effect that has on Damage output, but the popular playstyle in this game is typically: Open up an encounter with your Big guns, then switch to melee when the enemy is on top of you. Crossbows outdamage 2-handers (18-26 vs 14-20), while both are "slow" (not sure if it implies that their speed is exactly the same). War bows do almost the same damage (13-20), but at "average" speed. Arbalests and firearms totally outdamage them, but yes, they are the ones that are slower. Edit: crossbows' reload time probably does make them slower, and I think it might even be interrupted. The point about war bows still stands though. Most talents are duplicated for ranged and melee, so sure, if you picked up the melee versions, melee would probably be better for you, but no one forced you to do so in the first place. Pierce resistances would be a very valid reason to use melee, but I haven't yet seen any monsters that were heavily resistant specifically to pierce. It was like that in IE games, (skeletons, oozes for instance), but seemingly not in the Pillars. I actually miss it a bit. And I'm not sure if there are any penalties for using ranged weapons at close range, except maybe lack of engagement.

Sometimes I find it sad that in games when you do a good, selfless thing, you know you'll be rewarded for it, probably even more than for the evil alternative. That rather cheapens it, IMO.

I'm actually a bit confused about the purpose of all 2-handed weapons. Ranged weapons clearly outdamage them, and they can be shot from a safe distance without re-positioning. Seems like the main purpose of melee weapons is to draw aggro due to engagement, but you'd definitely want a shield if you are tanking.