Razorchain

After playing a custom party to lvl 7 in Potd where I had a Paladin and Chanter "Walls" or shield fighter who where dishing out absolute minimal damage I got bored and started again. This time I'm using Two handed Estoc/pollaxe fighter and druid offensive spellcaster with a shield as my frontliners assisted by a dual saber wielding barbarian. All are specced offensively with only few points in resolve and perception. I am checking how viable it is going with offensive builds instead of hiding behind deflection tanks in Potd

I find that Warbow is good for exploiting the opportunity to get sneak attacks because its faster. You may have a short window of opportunity to get in a shot especially on potd where you get lots of grazes

Ah, you imagined an implication, and claimed I was wrong based on it. Fair enough. I realize what you were trying to say, but it was relevant to explain why it was wrong, not to convince you personally but for the sake of others reading the thread who might buy into your claims and develop a false impression of the way the game works. Tanks need good Defenses, and they need good armor for when those Defenses fail, which is why "there was a good reason to give a player both high defense and high DR." You're seeing commas where there were periods. At this point you're being pedantic and not worth talking to (which is sad, because I've mostly enjoyed your posts in the past). I also hope that our readers haven't left this thread with bad ideas. I'm hoping that they won't buy into this false "plate or nothing" dichotomy that is just about everywhere in this forum. I hope they take the time to read the combat log and notice that "miss" is feels better than "hits for 8 damage" (or "hits for 3 damage" in your game because DR is just so awesome). I hope they continue to put heavy armor on party members who need it (like Kana), but not party members that don't (like Eder). And I hope that once they do all that, the come back and try to correct people who keep insisting that plate is incredible and everything else is somehow inferior. Toodles. PS: DEF: 118, FORT: 91, REF: 118, WILL: 89 Of course you don't take DR for DR's sake. My backliners have lighter armor, but that's because they are not meant to be taking damage. Let's look at why we use Hvy armour or Plate. On hard difficulty it really doesn't matter, having DR 9 or DR 12 isn't going to make much of a difference because you'll be killing the enemy so fast if you know what you are doing. Now you go to Potd difficulty and now you have more enemies who have +15 accuracy and +15 to all defenses and +25% endurance. This means you'll hit less, which means you'll do less damage, and the fight will be longer which means you'll be hit more often. Thats where the plate comes in, to mitigate the damage you take. The enemy will have easier time to use crowd controls on you and debuff you because even though you have 120 in deflection you might have lower FORT/REF/WILL. And when the enemy stuns/paralyzes/blinds you your deflection will suffer which means you'll get hit. So having decent armour, especially on lower levels is good, especially since your tanks will be doing so little damage anyways. When you have a lvl 3 character with 30 in accuracy because of a shield against a Shade with 75 in deflection you are not going to be hitting and dealing much damage. On hard difficulty you'll be bursting through your enemies, hitting more often, debuffing more often which leads to more hits landing which means they die quickly and you'll have lesser use for hvy armor. I'm playing on Potd with a tanky Paladin as my main and even with 102 in deflection at lvl 5 and Zelous Endurance and Plate armour (unenchanted) I have DR 15 and still he hits the floor sometimes. He gets blinded, paralyzed and stunned even though he has +18 to Fort/Ref/Will

I think it boils down to difficulty. I was running a party on hard where no one of my 3 melee characters had a shield. I had a two hander Paladin as my PC. A one hander crit machine fighter and a dual wielding barbarian. I had no problem getting my deflection high enough, but I still wore hvy armour as I wasnt stacking deflection. But then we have Potd where enemies have higher accuracy and deflection and there are more of them. Higher acc means they will hit more debuffs that lower your defenses which leads to more debuffs and hits. A phantom can literally keep 1 character stunlocked the whole fight or xaurip skirmishers can keep your frontline paralyzed. Because of higher defenses fights will also take longer which means you get hit more often making hvy armour more important. You need 15 higher in your defenses on Potd and even then your will is also important to avoid debuffs which lower your defenses. I found that chanters shine on this difficulty because on lower difficulties fights are over before I can cast a spell or irrelevant because there is only a mop up left when they can finally cast something.

On Potd I've found that hvy armour is a life saver on my tanks. Especially lower levels. There are so many instances they get stunned and paralyzed and then their deflection isnt going to save them. My off tank is a monk (third tank) has Eder's armour because of the second chance and I have a paladin with endurance aura. I dont want him too well protected so he receives wounds and heals my party as a moon godlike

I think it was '87 when my friends older brother ran an adventure for us. We played Warhammer Fantasy RPG, I played a woodsman called Johannes and we went to Nuln and I clove a bandit in half with my axe. It was awesome

There is a supplement for Gurps called steampunk. Then you have Deadlands which is a western steampunk horror/fantasy setting. I'm not quite sure but I think Castle Falkenstein had some steampunk elements in it, never played it though. I came to loathe D&D, I started with the boxed set moved to Ad&d and stopped at 3e. I just remember the days when the combat was a grindfest and when we woke up the player who played the fighter he usually opened his eyes groggily and answered "I chop". Now I mostly play Gurps and have been for the GMing it on and off for the last 20 years. Right now I'm GMing an Ars Magica campaign with a twist using the Gurps rules But systems that are still close to my heart are RuneQuest, Call of Cthulu (chaosium) Fighting Fantasy and Cyperpunk 2020

Actually, it's a cone that originates from your target and flows behind that target. The targeting cone in game is wrong. It's an incredibly effective ability, because it's cheap and causes aoe prone with very little positioning setup. I found that it rarely knocked foes prone for me, maybe I should try it more

If you are going for a ranged Cipher which it looks like according to your stats, you might be better off with some other power than Mind Wave as it's a cone power directly from yourself. Soul Shock will be your bread and butter dmg power for a long time. But as Tigranes said you're probably better off with Whisper of Treason or Eyestrike which blinds your opponents which lowers their accuracy and deflection making them easier to kill.

This happens to me as well. Pretty annoying to lose your precious wounds during battle. I have one question though, does anyone know how wounds are calculated? How much damage you have to receive to get a wound?

You have a talent called cautious attacker or somesuch which gives +10 deflection and -20% speed. It's modal like wary defender, then you can grab superior deflection for extra +5. Won't help with Fort/Ref/Will though. Or you could bring a chanter singing a defensive chant all day long....or you could take a paladin with shielding flames for a +10 deflection for short periods. There are myriad ways to keep your Deflection up. Paladin is actually the best tank in the game in the respect to get highest Deflection, Fort/Ref/Will if you have him/her as your PC. With right dialogue choices you and one talent you can get a +13def and 26 to Fort/Ref/Will

Maerwald? The old watcher? Is he hard to kill? Must admit that I haven't played Potd only hard but he didn't put up much of a fight. Last time I paralyzed him with my cipher while my fighter and barbarian ran up to him and kept him stunlocked on his butt until he died. I sent my Paladin Tank to keep his summon busy while the other 5 characters ganked him.

Slicken is one of the best 1st level spells, you can get everybody on their backside and run in and flank and throw in a fan of flames, which is also a very good 1st level spell. In my first run I had 2 wizards, my main and Aloth and the standard procedure at level 9 was Aloth cast Slicken and PC wizard Chill fog. Aloth would bombard with his arcane assault and spam slicken as needed, while PC wizard would flank and spam fan of flames. At lvl 11 Aloth would throw in some blindness spells just for the fun of it as the blindess duration for Chill Fog is pretty low in comparison. I'm actually pretty happy that lower level spells remain useful through out the game and high might wizard with scion of flames can easily turn a hard encounter into a cakewalk with a couple of well placed Fan of Flames.

Huh. Kana could have been replaced with an autoturret on a tripod in my playthrough, and I wouldn't have known the difference. Talk about low maintenance. Probably used ten invocations over the course of 80 hours, most from accidentally glancing at his Phrase meter. Priests are wonderful, of course, but that's mostly due to the fact that a handful of their spells are too good, greatly overshadowing the rest of the support options in the game, including Paladin's, which are piecemeal by comparison. Unlimited rest exacerbates the problem even more. "How about +20 Accuracy and some Might for my party and -20 Accuracy and some Might for their party, for the whole fight, with the cast of a single spell?" "Sounds balanced." Just like the blindness spell for wizard, it has a 20 sec duration gives -25 to accuracy and -20 to deflection (effectively -24 to deflection as it debuffs perception by -4) and is a 2nd level spell. So at level 11 with decent Int ( I try to go for around 20 for wizards with items) You can spam Oil slicks and blindess all day long, keeping almost all foes blind on their butts. And then you run around critting them with Fan of Flames because of their Reflex penalty.

I think the problem with paladins is that their abilities are just boring and not that good. I'm playing a Paladin tank with a custom party, and yes a fine tank indeed. But when I have to choose ability, there is nothing special to choose. Lay on hands? The priest has healing spells. If I could take the upgrades for Flames of Devotion, Lay on hands and Faith and Conviction as abilites instead of talents I would be happier about the Paladin. Ok, I'm playing as a Paladin of The Shieldbearers of St. Elgca. Why on earth should I waste talent on deflection bonus on ally from lay on hands, how situational is that? If you are playing a shieldbearer then either it's for RP purposes or your aiming for a mean tank build. I thought I could use an ability to increase Faith and Conviction...my fault I know but most of the Paladin abilities are just so lackluster, if Liberating Exhortation was AoE then it might be worth taking, but using a talent on an accuracy bonus for LE??? You would have to be mad to spend it on an ability you rarely use. I wanted to try out a custom made Paladin, yes a great tank, and a decent support for my fighter who is going one handed style, tanking, crit build. I just wished hold the line would add +2 engaged instead of one, it kinds of forces my weapon choice for my paladin.

I would say Passionate/Diplomatic Opposed Stoic/Clever