Helz

I really dig this spell. It goes so well with the Gaun lore. I get a kick out of harvesting the souls of people who've tried to cheat death. Xoti has finished off death knights, a vampire lord, an undead dragon, the Beast of Winter, Concelhaut, the list goes on... I imagine they all got sucked into her lamp.

I don't know the odds, but Wormtongue cannons do start fires. To test, I equipped 1 side of my ship with 4 wormtongues and 1 hullbreaker. In one fight, the first volley caused "loose cargo", the second started a deck fire AND a sail fire, the third caused flooding, and the last two did regular damage. All specials were caused by wormtongue cannons. I use hullbreakers because they do twice as much damage and reload faster. The specials are effective because all crew comes topside to make repairs, exposing them to grape shot, but they complete the repairs before the wormtongues are ready to fire again. On a smaller ship, jibing and firing from the other side would work, but fewer cannons means its less likely RNG will work in your favor.

I try to control the field. I'm playing with a tank (shield) and off-tank (no shield). They grab 2 or 3 each. I've got a little spellblade in the back who seems like a soft target for backstabbers, until they miss and she blinds them. If there are a lot more running free, Aloth or Xoti can summon something. Eder is SC Fighter, Xoti is SC Priest, and Aloth is SC Wizard. Eder is so tanky it's almost overkill (underkill?) but it's nice not having to worry about someone.

It dawned on me last night that turning level scaling up helped smooth out PoE2's difficulty curve. It was challenging the entire time because I rarely out-leveled anything and was often under-leveled. I experienced that spike in PoE so I understand how its frustrating. There is harder content in PoE2 outside the main quest though, and I think it's fair to make you play it. You have to 'gear up' for the DLCs. Now if you do all that and still have no chance it might be unfair. That's true. It's really easy to die in Gorecci Street so if someone is playing on Ironman I can see why it's "the hardest". But its hard like the beginning of Baldur's Gate is hard. I wiped on it so I went and hired a companion.

This describes me pretty well. I've found Veteran mode with full scaling (upwards only) to be a difficult, but doable challenge on my first playthrough. I have lots of experience with these types of games though. I've finished the Beast of Winter, I've almost finished FS, and I'm about a quarter done with the SSS. They are hard, but honestly I thought the game was tough all the way through. That's why I laughed at the thread about Gorecci Street being the hardest fight in the game. It might be the first hard fight, but there are a lot more to come.

You can buy all the ship upgrades from the "resupply" option on the town map. This works for every town.

Oh wow, I was fooled. His first 2-hander was WotEP, which like you said does have extra reach and I started thinking they all do... I'm glad you told me!

My 2 cents: My barbarian started out dual-wielding and switched to 2-handed halfway through, and the extra reach from 2-handed weapons made a big difference with how many enemies he can hit per swing. It also prevents him from whiffing when the enemy moves. I eventually settled on Willbreaker+Lord Darryn's Voulge.

You got all that from a single fight? Okay. Not really, I never used a cipher, chanter, druid, or paladin in my playthrough, but they're essential. I think the fact the PoE2 was a direct continuation of PoE's story probably hurt it. It almost makes it a requirement that you played through the first game.

Not to me, I think the ship combat is fun and wish there was more of it. I cleared most everything with the sloop, but then I bought the biggest ship available with all upgrades so I could fit more crew on board. You made your judgement based on 1 fight? And that's a lazy assumption. Pirates were popular long before Johnny Depp.

I like Dragon Age Origins too. I never touched another DA after Dragon Age 2. I recommend Wasteland 2. It's much uglier than PoE, but the writing isn't bad and the combat is good. I haven't played WL3 yet.

In Wasteland 2, for the first half of the game there's a quest to turn in scrap metal you get from breaking down weapons. For the second half of the game you're in another location and there isn't such a quest, but I figured I'd be a hero when I returned from my mission with 1000s of scrap metal pieces to supply the Rangers for years to come. To avoid spoilers, I brought home my mountain of metal, but there was a plot reason that this wasn't helpful. Completely related, I really like the unlimited weight limit in PoE2. Saves me crawling across the world map with 5 encumbered characters and stashing things where I'll never find them again.

Alpha Protocol was criminally underrated. Critics all played stealthy pistol builds and complained it was broken and boring. I played Shotgun Action Hero and it was so much fun. My favorite Obsidian game is Fallout:NV...the best Fallout since FO2. The PoE games are modern classics. They'll probably become my favorites over time.

No problem, I'm glad it helped

You can go into Preferences, Video or Graphics settings and increase the Gamma value. This might make the colors look a little washed out - if so, turn it down again for the brighter areas.

I do this too. I let every companion join the group, but I only use a fixed party. I don't really like switching teams in and out in RPGs. I think of gearing everyone up as payment for sticking around and guarding the ship. Also, I figure it reflects better on me as a leader if my followers are dressed to kill.

Well, people have unrealistic expectations. Breaking even in game development means you've paid off 50-100 highly skilled people working full time for 3 years to make art. That's a success.

Not me, I waited 2 years to buy it because I already knew it wouldn't be finished. Also, people were calling this a flop way too early. I doubt most people had even finished PoE when the sequel was released. These games are meant to be played for years, so what's the rush? I think that's the tail. If it broke even six months ago, it's a success now. I wish Obsidian would keep polishing it so that in 10 years it could be a classic.

It seems that the obvious challenge is not to steal. This too.

I just had the same bug happen again. I'm in the Beast of Winter DLC temple fighting some Pilgrim Hierophants when they cast Form of the Helpless Beast on my main character. After combat was over, my main character had no weapons, no armor, and combat only buffs/debuffs stayed active. Its clear that polymorph is bugged. Like last time, I'll restart. Now that Obsidian has Microsoft's backing, I wish you would think about supporting this game again.

I don't really agree. Looting a high level ship after boarding will get you at least 2k more gold. A top tier bounty reward is only worth 5k. Operating costs, upgrades, and repairs for ship combat cost money too. I've sunk every enemy ship in the sea, and it hasn't made the most impact for me. OTOH, selling loot is hugely profitable. Very early on, clothes are worth more than weapons. I tend to clear a few islands and dungeons before I turn anything in. My first big haul around level 8 included 10 exceptional greatswords, I made over 60k. My last big sale at level 17 netted over 170k, I bought a Junk with all upgrades. I haven't started any of the DLCs and my party doesn't steal, but I've still managed to get pretty rich. That said, there are many money sinks in this game, so it has paid off to be smart about how I spend my gold.

I don't know the exact amount, but you do get noticeably more loot from boarding. It's the difference between filling maybe 1/2 of the visible loot inventory and having to scroll down to see everything. Plus, you can get cannons - I've looted 3 Vailian Hullbreakers and a lot of lesser ones. But the way to become rich in PoE2 is to be a traveling greatsword salesman. They're everywhere. I've saturated the market so badly in Neketaka that I saw an old lady opening her mail with an exceptional greatsword.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of your points on crafting, but the section above deserves to be framed. Grinding 500 pairs of useless leather pants is poison. I don't care if boar leather is slightly pinker and dragon hide has that greenish tinge. I want Avowed to be mysterious, complex, and deeeeeeep. If it must be a TES game*, please make it Morrowind. * I don't particularly want a TES game, and it won't be one without thousands of mods.

Good questions, sorry I can't answer most of them. From observation, the pool of fighters who appear on deck is drawn from the active party, the non-party companions, and the active ship's crew. Early on, I'd see 2 or 3 ship's crew fight alongside my party, but after every companion was recruited, I rarely see any ship's crew anymore. I've only used the sloop, so I'd guess that more crew will fight on the bigger ships. I can confirm that the more enemy crew you injure before you board, the fewer you'll have to fight. If you get their active crew to zero, they'll be left with their captain and reserve fighters only, and a lot of corpses.

Yeah, the repetitive tilesets have a lot to do with it. It made everything so drab. But also to go from the hay day of 2d video game art, when it was really being mastered, to the eye sore that was early 3d was jarring. I sort of feel bad for dog piling on NWN; it wasn't any one game, it was the whole industry. But to go from BG2 to that? I was so disappointed