Anthile

Sagani is surprisingly deadly with a hunting bow. You definitely need Penetrating Shot for her, but once you got that and some of the ranger talents like Driving Flight (splash damage) and Stunning Shots (stunlock), she becomes a real killing machine that scores crits with almost every arrow. The best hunting bow in the game is probably Persistence, which you can get relatively early. There's also Prey Maker much later and perhaps easy to miss but I wasn't wowed by it.

Goldpact Knights only get two mentions early on, one in the early quest with Calisca's sister and one with Raedric. There is also a paladin general in one of the Crucible Knight quests. I also had precisely one reference each for my Living Lands and scientist background. I didn't expect much from the former but you would think you could mention to people that you are a scientist from time to time.

Well, at least in the Dark Souls community people try to find ways to one-shot any boss the game has to offer but since Pillars of Eternity isn't exactly a boss-centric game, that pretty much leaves us with the Adra Dragon as only interesting candidate. The good news is, it seems to be possible. The bad news is, you probably need a lot of luck and perhaps a party specifically geared towards this one goal. I haven't done it but I was close a couple of times and that was with the pre-made companions. Just to clarify this, one-shotting means to use a single attack, spell or ability to kill the Adra Dragon from full health. You may use whatever buffs or debuffs you like as long as you kill the dragon in one action. It may tick multiple times like poisons or some spells, which is allowed - if not necessary. I. Do not attempt this if you are easily frustrated. The bastard dragon has insanely high defenses, as well as a permanent fear aura. The real challenge is not the damage but actually hitting. Most of your everything will miss. You cannot immunize yourself against fear in this game so if you try to disspell it with Suppress Affliction or Liberating Exhortation, it's back in seconds. The dragon laughs at your Prayer Against Fear, thanks to his sky high accuracy. II. The key to putting out enough damage is, of course, petrify. By this I mean the tier 6 wizard spell Gaze of the Adragan. III. Stack all the accuracy and might you can get. Intellect doesn't hurt either but it's not as important. Be careful with the stacking so the bonuses actually work with each other. Farmer's Spread seems to get overwritten by Champion's Boon. No breakfast for champions, it seems. I have a paladin with the Zealous Focus aura (+6 to accuracy and 5% crit conversion), Blessing (accuracy gets overwritten by the aura I believe but you still get x1.1 damage), Champion's Boon (+10 might), Girdle of Maegfolc Might (+3 might), Gauntlets of Accuracy (+5 accuracy, I have no idea where I got those from), Cloak of Protection (+10 to all defenses), Stag Helm (+1 dexterity), Glanfathan Stalking Boots (x1.1 damage to flanked enemies but I don't think that ever worked out since Phantom Foes never hits). On top of that we have Potion of Eldritch AIm and Potion of Merciless Gaze on our hotbar. No armor and only Measured Restraint equipped as a weapon but that doesn't do anything so you might as well equip no weapon. IV. You have to find something that can actually dish out enough damage. I had the idea for this challenge after using Minoletta's Concussive Missiles on a petrified victim and saw it dealing ridiculous damage. The adra dragon has 477 endurance on hard difficulty (which should be identical to normal difficulty) which means every of your five missiles has to hit for about 95 damage which is theoretically possible but unfeasible in practice. For some reason the damage on these things is extremely volatile and the grazes can hit harder than the crits. I have no idea how they function. So we have to try another spell - and I tried most. Blast of Frost and Chain Lightning crit for about 150 damage each which is nowhere near enough. Malignant Cloud absolutely never hits. I don't even know how much damage it does. I couldn't get it to hit, ever. All the other spells did even less damage but then I remembered one spell I kinda forgot about: Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring aka blue Ray of Fire. It deals enormous damage per tick but the accuracy is really poor and it's difficult to connect more than a couple of hits. With this spell it's definitely possible. First attempts with Concussive Missiles. I only used a priest later but the effect is less than you would think. PS: Just as I wanted to submit this thread as a failed attempt, encouraging others to do better (after all, I used Aloth) I... kind of did it. I don't really understand why it suddenly worked. Also the first time I got a straight hit with Gaze of the Adragan (by rolling a 99) instead of a graze. Now to do the same in POTD... PPS: Aloth, you handsome devil.

I'm selling these fine xaurip leather shields... The loot distribution seems to be incredibly strange. There is no point in xaurips dropping their gear. Nobody is ever going to use that stuff. So much unenchanted and Fine gear in the lower reaches of the Endless Paths, too. I'm not sure what the devs were thinking there, did they believe I made it to level 11 strangling everyone in my path with my bare hands, Shadows In Zamboula-style? I just don't understand it.

So, Minoletta's Concussive Missiles is pretty ridiculous against petrified targets (then again, what isn't). Every single missile hits for around 70-100 damage, and you got five of them. I wonder if you can kill the adra dragon with a single dose of it. I didn't quite manage it but I believe it should be possible with a properly built wizard - I had to use Aloth with his rather modest stats.

I. Slicken, Chill Fog, Fan of Flames - The power trio. These spells start out amazing and never get any worse. Once a wizard hits level 9 he becomes a force to be reckoned with. Jolting Touch - Technically a potent spell but as indicated by its name, the ranger is rather short and especially early on it's a good way to get yourself killed. Minoletta's Minor Missiles - Magic Missiles this ain't. Surprisingly poor damage and why would you want to have your wizard cause physical damage in the first place? Could be decent if it did raw damage and thus be closer to its IE counterpart. Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp - Just not enough punch for such a close range spell. Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights - A quick daze. Can be useful if you draw aggro but otherwise rather mundane. II. Bewildering Spectacle - AoE confusion is always useful. Decent spell. Curse of Blackened Sight - My favourite tier 2 spell. It's never not useful. Fetid Caress - A much better version of Sunless Grasp that actually prevents your opponent from hitting you back. Ray of Fire - Hits surprisingly hard and you can surgically hit multiple foes with the right positioning. Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon - It's one of those IE spells that does two things at the same time but none particularly well. Necrotic Lance - Powerful single-target spell that deals the rarely resisted corrode damage type. Especially in the early game it can flat out kill many mobs. Rolling Flame - Imagine the awesome Iconic Projection not healing your own party members but instead of healing them, it hurts them too and you got a spell that is simply never useful because enemies tend to blob around your tanks. III. Ardous Delay of Motion - Slowing down your foes sounds like a great idea but Slicken allows you to almost completely neutralize them instead since level 1. Deleterious Alacrity of Motion - Like the classic Haste spell but not all that impressive and it also hurts you. Minoletta's Bounding Missiles - A very strange chain-Magic Missile. I'm not entirely sure what its niche is supposed to be but I certainly wasn't impressed. Crackling Bolt - Behaves almost exactly like the IE Lightning Bolt spell which means it can bounce off walls and potentially hit foes multiple times. So depending on your environment it's either the most damaging spell in the game or just kind of okay. Or you misinterpret what the game understands as wall and you end up killing most of your party, too. Fireball - A far cry from the IE original. It has its heart in the right place but the damage appears very low. Arcane Dampener - Pretty useful to have, especially later in the game when hostile priests become commonplace and they love to buff themselves into oblivion. Noxious Burst - AoE debuff that happens to deal a bit of corroding damage. Not great. IV. Confusion - A superior version of Bewildering Spectacle. A must have. Dimensional Shift - Switching positions with another party member sounds nice but chances are that those are fighting elsewhere and you end up right next to another mob. Not terrible but very specific. Wall of Flame - Looks cool but the damage is ridiculously poor. Minoletta's Concussive Missiles - Would be an amazing spell if it was friendly fire proof as it essentially deals large amount of splash damage around a singular target. Hits hard but difficult to set up. V. Malignant Cloud - The lawyer-friendly version of everyone's favourite IE cheese spell, Cloudkill. Basically a DoT field that deals raw damage. Pretty good but I find it a bit difficult to find a use for it. Torrent of Flame - Blow up everything around you. Not sure if packing a spell for a tactically disadvantageous situation that doesn't actually get you out of said situation is all that wise. Wall of Force - Has pretty much the same problems as Wall of Flame but it causes your victims to hobble for a long time. Not very impressive for a tier 5 spell. Blast of Frost - Like Fan of Flames, but cold. Not sure why it comes so late but it certainly hurts a lot. Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring - Like Ray of Fire, but cold. Kind of redundant, really. Ryngrim's Enervating Terror - Weakens and terrifies for a hilariously long time - with a critical hit it almost lasts a full minute. Good spell but there are better ones, such as... Call to Slumber - A superior version of Slicken. There isn't actually a sleep status in the game so it just knocks them prone. One of the best spells in the game. VI. Chain Lightning - High damage and friendly fireproof. Great spell to follow up a Call to Slumber or Amplified Wave for lots of critical hits. Gaze of the Adragan - Possibly the most powerful spell in the game. Petrify is pretty much a death sentence for anyone. Citzal's Martial Power - Like a terrible Tenser's Transformation. Interesting in theory but just not feasible with the current rest system and spell durations, just like most of the other wizard buff spells. Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar - It's a good spell but sadly overshadowed by the other spells in this tier. Arkemyr's Capricious Hex - I'm not entirely sure if I understand this spell correctly but it seems just awful. If I can petrify or prone, why would I bother with a spell that does less and is random on top? Spells not mentioned I simply did not use or did not use often enough to rate. I know some people swear by Kalakoth's Minor Blights.

Actually, I just tried out Wall of Force as well and has similar issues. It can't punch through any sort of DR. I ended up with critical hits doing 0.7(!) damage on some enemies (but causing hobbling for almost a minute). That's just not enough when you have an AoE prone on the same spell tier. These spells need to be adjusted so they can actually hurt anyone. Otherwise they just become progressively worse.

I found out an interesting method to exploit it even more. Get the Scion of Flame talent (I have it for my paladin), or any other means of acquiring fire DR, equip the boots that grant Consecrated Ground when critically hit and the frequent ticks of the wall will trigger the boots soon enough. I haven't found a real use for it yet but it it's an option. In my opinion, the damage of the spell is too low to be a real asset. I tried it often enough now but it never seemed to be worth the effort.

I managed to clear it on hard with a party of five at level three but the boss is going to be a major pain, depending on your own class and if you chose custom companions. At level four you should be able to do it without having to rest.

Addendum: I was completely wrong about the Wael talent. It might even be the best one for a defensive priest, thanks to the combination of reach and a ranged weapon. Quarterstaves were actually pretty good in the old IE games. Staff of Striking backstabs, anyone? Staff of the Ram? Also those weird transforming staves I never found a use for.

I'm currently running Goldpact and 14/7/7/18/14/18. Seems to work well enough. I'm using greatsword and warhammer/shield.

Pretty sure you just need to land the killing blow in order to trigger the various paladin on-kill talents. Makes for some interesting tactical gameplay.

I wouldn't call myself an advanced player but I played a priest beyond Caed Nua and I believe I can at least give some advice. 1. Priests are not like clerics in the old D&D games who were decent fighters with crazy buffs. They are not like the ungodly engines of destruction like in 3rd edition D&D either. In this game priests are mostly casters and not very good at frontline combat. 2. You are not nearly as tanky as chanters, fighters or paladins, and your accuracy is going to be awful. In my opinion priests are best with reach weapons or ranged weapons. 3. Not unlike like paladins, you choose a deity at the start which demands a certain roleplaying style of you. For example, Eothas wants you to be honest and benevolent. If you are, then your encounter power becomes more potent - and weaker if you don't. There is an option in the menu that shows dispositions for dialogue. Some may find that immersion breaking but I think it's borderline necessary for paladins and priests because it's often not obvious what dialogue choice is tied to what disposition. 4. Each deity is also tied to a talent that gives a massive +10 accuracy bonus for two categories of weapons plus a minor daily spell. Personally I'm not too fond of these talents since the weapon groupings are a bit awkward and you will often feel like you lack flexibility. 5. Priest spells are really powerful. However, there are not very many different spells and quite a few of them seem incredibly situational. The priest's spells are not like a bag of tools but more of a collection of variously sized hammers with a couple of chisels. 6. As for abilities, well, you want a lot of might, which makes damaging and healing spells more powerful - as well as your weapon damage. You also want intelligence which makes your buffs last longer and your AoEs target a larger area.

I'm not entirely sure since I try to avoid such situations in the first place but I don't think you can engage with enemies when you have a ranged weapon equipped. That mostly means that flanking isn't possible and you'd make for an awful tank.

I don't know about any sax but you can get a sweet horn at the blacksmith in Gilded Vale. If you're into that kind of thing.

Yeah, a friend told me about a certain flail in a certain location but I'm mostly asking for adding common weapons to the blacksmith's inventory to avoid a weird weapon vacuum. Interesting. I had no idea such an enchantment existed. I will keep that in mind. I was thinking about picking up that talent that allows piercing DR next but that might be a better solution.

So I have been playing a devout cleric of Eothas. Sadly, it didn't work out too well. If you are unaware, priests have access to a special talent according to their deity that grants a hefty +10 accuracy bonus to two categories of weapons, plus a minor daily spell. It's too good to pass up. Problem is, for priests of Eothas these two weapons are the flail and the morning star. I get it, Eothas' symbol is a sun and stars. Somebody obviously put quite a bit of thought into this. This setup, however, means that any priest of Eothas is restricted to only ever deal crushing damage with his weapons. None of the other priests have this particular problem (mace/greatsword, sword/arquebus, stiletto/club) except for Wael followers, who are doomed to use quarterstaves and rods. I was wondering about that but then I read on the wiki that morning stars used to be crush/pierce instead of simply having a higher interrupt chance. In fact, the item description still refers to it having this property, which is quite confusing. This leads to my second problem. How good are flails? I don't know. So far I have lead two characters to Caed Nua and I have yet to see a single flail. As far as I know, they are as mythical as unicorns. For some reason certain weapons are exceedingly rare in the Eastern Reach. I can accept certain weapons such as guns to be rare, or exotic weapons that do not belong in the region but I have yet to see any flail, sabre, estoc, arquebus or blunderbuss that were not in the hands of a companion. Call me entitled, but I feel like I should be able to purchase any basic weapon at the blacksmith in Gilded Vale. When the rest of my party are all armed to the teeth with Fine weapons while I don't even have access to a basic version I'm supposedly really good with then something is amiss. Right now Hope Eternal is simply not a very good talent, if not an outright trap. All the other deity talents are strictly superior, except for Wael. Nobody ever cares about Wael, though. Pictured: The morning star's misleading description. Turns out, dank spores possess a colossal crush resistance which is how I found out about this issue. I had to use a Fine greatsword in the end, much to the chagrin of my god. Eothas did not die for this.