thelee

hi, i don't think your question makes sense? You have to go through Berath in order to start Deadfire.

slight thread necro, but Kingmaker and especially Wrath of the Righteous are extremely inaccessible IMO. Very relentless curve to learn the extremely complicated mechanics quickly and very punishing for suboptimal builds. Some people are really into that aspect, though. I ended up having to watch a ton of youtube build videos (despite being familiar with 3/3.5e, the PF1e ancestors) because I was getting extremely overwhelmed by the mechanics and decision points. i only played a couple of casual 5e sessions, but imo BG3 is better thought of as an immersive sim RPG (immersive sim = think like the Prey remake which had very open mechanics and world exploration) that just happens to have a D&D 5e flavor, than a D&D 5e game. Lots of very important mechanics that are Larian specials and not D&D rules (the massive interactions with surfaces of various types, extreme verticality, interesting itemization [I don't think stuff like Lightning Charges or Arcane Acuity are D&D]). Even when they are D&D rules, Larian adapts them in a way that make them pretty special or distinct (jumping is a lot easier, the extreme verticality makes athletics a very valuable skill, etc). Combat in BG3 is legit great and is a great argument for turn-based, i don't think it could possibly work as well in RTwP. edit: put another way, if I spend an hour in a single battle in pathfinder crpgs, or classic BG, it's extremely annoying or something has gone really badly. Spending an hour in combat in Deadfire or BG3: very satisfying.

as i mentioned chain lightning will not bounce back to enemies you've already hit. So if there are three enemies: A, B, C and you target A, chain lightning will bounce to B and then to C and then be unable to find another target it hasn't already hit, and give up. some abilities will bounce repeatedly. If you cast firebug, then what will happen is: you target A, firebug will bounce to B, and then to C, and then bounce again randomly to A or B and then again, and then again, etc until all bounces are exhausted. So the number of bounces you see on the tooltip for Chain Lightning is not what you'll see in practice, unless there are lots of enemies. Some abilities bounce to enemies they've already hit, some don't, there's no real pattern, and there's no way to really know without just manually testing.

if you're playing assassin, i might actually suggest might instead of perception (or skip both and just do dexterity). Sneak attack doesn't boost druid DoT damage, and the assassinate bonus will make up for deficiencies in accuracy, just make sure you hit enemies from stealth and only use smoke veil or potions of invisibility (don't use shadowing beyond in combination with spells, it's very flaky, see here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/invisibility-vs-stealth or the assassin section here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/rogue) but intellect is definitely highest priority. i've actually been thinking of doing a similar build myself, and personally i think i'd move away from the lance or the spine despite the overall druid benefits. there are some other stat sticks to use that might be more in sync with a rogue's martial capabilities, like griffin's blade (enchanted to offer +10% spell damage) or azure blade (ancient's mushroom summons will help keep the accuracy bonus procced, and the interrupt chance works with spells: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/126748-list-of-weapons-whose-properties-are-not-limited-to-themselves-ii/) though if you do stick with druid's reliable quarterstaff or pike weapons, they might make for good backstab candidates

it's very possible that the PL adjustment is applied directly to the roll. This happens with martial abilities most obviously (the ones that say "full attack" or "primary attack"), if you empower them there's no evidence of a damage boost in the combat log calculations but you'll definitely be rolling numbers well outside what should be possible. i haven't tested scrolls extensively, but ISTR that they should be getting all the correct PL bonuses and it might be that they just get the damage adjustments directly to their rolls. it's cumulative with inversions, which is similar (but not as strong as) to combining multiplicatively. So the last bounce will be really weak. (This hurts the druid's Firebug a lot, which has a -25% malus, so after just a few bounces you're doing piddling damage.) IIRC, all bounce effects in Deadfire continue to bounce even if one bounce misses. This is different from PoE1 where a miss would stop all bouncing (very annoying). However, abilities in Deadfire vary on whether or not they are allowed to re-affect an enemy they already hit. Chain Lightning will not bounce back to an enemy it already hit, so very often you'll get way fewer hits than you expect. (By contrast, the aforementioned Firebug will happily bounce back to foes it already hit, which helps make up for its massive malus.) If I had to hazard a guess, I would say most bounce effects re-affect an enemy, Chain Lightning is just among a handful of exceptions, probably for balance reasons (I would guess Cleansing Flame also doesn't re-affect enemies).

note - OP is asking about BG1 and 2, not BG3.

no kidding. dorudugan has just collapsed from being a tough puzzle to crack for any given party, to being the easiest megaboss, that literally any setup can take on (with enough time). no needing to worry about resource management or generation, or stacking on defenses or accuracy bonuses, or timing knock ups, dodging fireballs, etc

"many lives" is a chant that automatically plays, bypassing normal action economy and recovery. so you'll be creating skeletons even if you're busy weapon switching (albeit weak skeletons).

To me, it's very very hard to compare the games. They're basically separated by decades. BG1 & 2 are great games, but even the enhanced editions really show their age. BG1's writing is pretty torturous (a lot of faux-middle-ages dialogue), and you'll do tons of aimless wandering through identical-looking and vast, empty wilderness (i basically keep a walkthrough open so i know where to go on any map for the interesting stuff). BG2 has much better writing and better area design, but the system is just creakingly dated compared to more modern CRPGs. to the actual meat of the question, you should just go for Deadfire for now. Then if you're still hankering for more party-based iso-style CRPGs, I would do Wrath of the Righteous or Kingmaker. And if you're still trying to scratch the itch, then go for Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. like xzar_monty said, even if you play a lot of these games to death, there's only a handful of them with no time horizon for more, so you'll probably eventually find your way to Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 in the end. though personally I would skip straight to 3 unless you really want the isometric experience.

wow awesome. this might be the easiest dorudugan tech yet. you don't even need blackjacket for this, am i right? because unlike the recovery reduction stuff, you don't care whether or not your blackjacket (or whomever) ever gets a turn again, you're just dedicating whomever has this weapon to just perma-extending the recovery of the enemy, even if they're forever stuck trying to recover from weapon switching.

i don't understand these. what do you mean "riposte"? and what do you mean "engagement bonus will stop enemies at range?"

did this end up working with dorudugan???

omg that sounds zany. would be insanely micromanagement heavy, but for those up for the task... i actually had a build in poe1 bc there was a unique item that reduced weapon switch times, but combined with poe1's quick switch you actually had less than 0s weapon switch recovery time, which meant it reduced whatever recovery you had active. even though it was a lot of micromanagement, i definitely did do that to have a caster who could basically empty their spellbook at the start of a fight. glad to see that it turns out that the idea is alive and well today

i think they just mean when you recover you can switch to the squid weapon slot and your recovery will go faster because you now have an active +20% action speed bonus. what's the outworn buckler trick?

yeah, on paper just looking at spells conjurer looks kinda lame, but they still keep a bunch of good spells (slicken, combusting wounds, and walls) and the +1 PL from familiar goes a long way to smoothing out the higher recovery time on the non-conjuration spells. i probably put it tied up there with enchantment for second place wizard subclass in terms of what I like to use (evocation is GOAT-ed i think).

those are really great suggestions! In particulary, I didn't know that about Squid's Grasp. No micromanagement is too small! I was switching to the medium shield weapon slot in between attacks just for the slight health gen and defense boost. and yeah, it's funny what having 0s weapon switch can do. For me, for other characters, it's a stretch to even pick up Arms Bearer for a third weapon slot, but with my blackjacket I found myself wanting more than 4, just because of how effortlessly you can switch around to take advantage of the smallest boosts. (I wanted to do Bronlar's as well but that went to a companion. Similar thing with the cudgel and also (not mentioned here) SSS axe - those also went to a different party member though would've been great here)

constentin covered it but just wanted to add that clear out does at least give you two chances for your weapon to hit on your main target. you only get one shot at landing a poison, but you can at least double up your chances of actually hitting hte weapon attack (which is required for the poison). because of the hoops you have to go through to use poisons, poisons are best used if you target the lowest defense (i kept both a fortitude and a will poison in my quick slots), and you target enemies that you aren't currently targeting (for the damage) and/or prioritize an important debuff (storm toxin or stone joint... theoretically fungal bile could be useful, but there are easier ways to knock off 1 AR). simply trying to land a poison for the damage in other situations is going to be a waste of poison and action economy.

ooo that's a good find. so that means my favorite chanter/druid build will be able to apply tons of afflictions on enemies via chants and druid aoes?

huh, really? i had no problem doing this with street sweeper. is it just some order of operations thing with blunderbuss shots and when concussive cleansing effect gets triggered?

how does this help with Nagas? but goddang i never ever made the connection that auranic sigils or the arcane lantern things in FS are destructibles. OK, i guess I have to remember to pick this item up now. for glacierbane it's mostly that it's just boring, not that it's not good. very very hard to justify using over almost any other item category. where you can do more interesting things. all combined i end up almost never ever using war hammers bc the unique items are so underwhelming, they end up being a dead-end category. there's no "chase" item. (but now i guess i'll have to reserve a slot for resounding call)

sorry for double post, but there used to be enchantment points in poe1 and i feel like i read je sawyer talking somewhere on twitter about having a point-based system for stuff in deadfire. but if there were, i'm not sure we have any visibility into it, a purely internal system. i guess it has to be judgment call. that's a pretty tall order to be done across all the items in the game, and some of it is going to feel real bad (kitchen stove's thunderous report seems way too good but any one who nerfs that is probably going to have a mod that sees almost 0 downloads).

you know, i'm not sure even OBS really had a philosophy or design principle. because there are some stuff that is just way too good as a per-encounter ability (kitchen stove with that massively good thunderous report, modwyr with bottom's up). *shrug* edit: my completely random speculation is that items they designed earlier on were more likely to use per-encounter, but they eventually leaned a lot harder on per-rest because it's easier to avoid blowing out encounter balance if things are once/rest.

for me i almost always play with rymrgand's challenge, so there's a real cost to rest-spamming. both monetarily (have to keep replacing food) and also because i can't stock up on good rest bonuses so i end up with lame rest bonuses (if i haven't been paying attention to how long i've been at sea i might literally just be left with water and hardtack). so it's not quite a no-rest challenge, but there's friction that can be a necessary counterbalance for on-rest vs on-encounter abilities. more generally the on-rest mechanics of this game are kind of a poor fit. most of the game is geared around encounters and trying to avoid the tedium of skill resource management between fights, and between empower points and the growing amount of items they added that had on-rest effects, there's a gameplay design tension. generally i'm in favor of the idea that we shouldn't have on-rest effects at all, but in practice i think that would be a huge power creep. outside of generalizations, the trinkets come so late that i'm not sure how much of a harm making those per-encounter would actually hurt the game balance. i actually ended up having lots of fun with the merge trinket from hauane o whe and the fiery core trinket from dorudugan, but at that point there were only like... 6 encounters in the game left, some of them extremely easy, so i ended up using it only like two or three times. would've been nice to have them up in every battle, and i already had to kill megabosses not sure i should be worried about encounter balance for some extremely under-leveled faction/mainquest content. edit: maybe instead of makin them per-encounter, they are multiple uses per rest? i'm just thinking of leaping boots, i really like that item, and 2 uses/rest hit a sweet spot where i didn't feel like hoarding the ability, but i still had to be a little careful with it. edit also to add - the unique amulet you get from assembling across the three DLC really should be per-encounter. a 20s dominate can be pretty powerful, but as a payoff for three DLC, and an amulet slot, and the fact that you can miss with the dominate, really makes it feel underpowered for one/rest usage.

most of the trinkets, honestly. 6s is a really long time for a once/rest effect with huge interrupt risk. my last run i forced myself to use a lot of the trinkets, and most of them were a lot of fun to use (sidenote: holy crap Muatu from SSS is extremely good, especially if you infuse him with souls). i think if their cast times were shrunk down a lot, they would be easier to use w/out causing major distortions in power (once/rest is a pretty hard constraint). that being said there are still trinkets i didn't bother with, but maybe i'd bother with them if they were cheap in terms of action economy. in terms of "normal" items that stand out - i basically don't bother with unique war hammers. bland and niche effects. Sanguine Great Sword - never use, it's really just underwhelming for the hoops you have to jump through to get. Rotward Amulet - too small a resist for such a narrow set of abilities. Futility - the recovery penalty is soooo minor.

iirc mule kick is how some folks figured out how to beat dorudugan in turn-based mode. grave calling is relevant here anyway since it gives a massive acc bonus to vessels