thelee

It might be different on PotD, but I just tried this fight last night (finally getting around to doing FS) and the Oracle is indeed immune to interrupts. Unless there's a second fight with the oracle that I haven't gotten to yet, at least the first fight there's a real easy way to slaughter it: Petrification. Resistance to body afflictions just means "Petrify" turns into "Paralyze" so with Gaze of the Adragan or Petrification you can disable it and just murder it to death before it can do anything.

Holy thread necro, batman! You can just not perjure and just out Rongi as the one who stole the fruit. Why didn't you just do that? It seems exactly like what you want--he basically dies knowing he tried to save the village. I seem to remember outcomes in which no one dies, e.g. Rongi doesn't get outed, and Mumakau goes to kill Tamau but then decides that Tamau isn't worth it, or something like that. I could be wrong, I skim a lot of the time. Also it might surprise you to learn that even in real life, people are not perfectly rational beings. The whole point of the quest is that the tribe at Tikawara is so wrapped up in its social traditions and hierarchies that the huana will do something that is actively harmful to their future, if it means retaining their social order, and the only way to subvert that is to lie to protect a secret. You can blame George RR Martin or whatever, but I call it "mature writing that depicts the shades of grey in an imperfect society", that you can't always have your cake and eat it too and sometimes doing a greater good requires committing some small sins, and it's up to you to decide whether or not that calculus is worth it.

if your character leveled up, but you haven't actually leveled them up yet (there's just a plus sign on their portrait, waiting) the game uses that "not leveled up yet" level to do encounter scaling but uses your current actual character level for difficulty indicators. So you might have no skulls on anything, finish a fight/complete a quest, and then suddenly there's a skull indicator on every single quest because they all just upscaled one level, even though you haven't actually leveled up yet. I think the logic is that otherwise you could "game" the system by having a low-level character that you don't level up until you actually start the quest and then slaughter the entire quest because enemies are stuck at your lower level. FWIW this is how games like Oblivion did quest scaling.

I basically spam spacebar constantly, but there's still a pretty huge difference between rtwp and turn-based to me. I'll probably give it a try once just to see it myself. I hope this really does help boost sales/attach rate a bit, since that's the justification for working on this feature.

Probably related to similar other mentioned issues, such as Vela or other summons. Note the circled accuracy is extremely low despite the fact that it should be getting at least 18 * 3 = +54 accuracy purely from natural level scaling. As it stands, for a high level spell (AL9 for Xoti) it is utterly worthless due to such a low accuracy. Dropbox link to save and output_log: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/koaztgzblmzgvy3/AABC1J_zIkyuJVAjha1AkcPOa?dl=0

WTF "fixing" Wall of Draining when you haven't addressed the fact that Arcane Cleanse apparently cannot be resisted and has no visible to-hit roll against any kind of defense, so we can't at all see how to block it (and Arcane Reflection doesn't work). I think that's the whole point of Arcane Cleanse. It mirrors the D&D spell Mordenkainen's Disjunction, which irrevocably dispelled and even disenchanted items with no save (and had a 1% per level chance of even disenchanting an artifact, which could attract the attention of extraplanar beings). like Arcane Cleanse it was only available at max spell level, and as such *really* had to justify being powerful over the much lower level AL3 Dispel Magic erm I mean Arcane Suppression. Personally I think it would be great if Arcane Cleanse also at least blinked out or even disenchanted items, would make it ever more useful in high level fights. That's one downside of the per-encounter system versus the classic D&D style is that it's too afraid to make permanent or persistent changes to your characters.

Or that people can not do basic tasks without asking you for help, and then paying you a tidy sum just to avoid having to walk like for one in-game hour. Or how most RPG worlds exist in a place where it is incredibly dangerous to be out and about, like everything is trying to kill you, and no level 0 townperson (nor a basic militia) stands a chance at even the most basic encounter in the wilderness; how did civilization even form?

You can time it so that you do the first area without rest then head *straight* to Port Maje (no stopping anywhere), then you can recruit Xoti, and hire any hirelings, then immediately leave town and that leaves you a couple hours to rest with Hylea Bounty or Captain Banquet before they spoil. Then hold onto that resting bonus as long as you can.Ah. Thx. Not a big deal now that I know - I can use it for the Drake fight - just never considered it.Good pt about maintaining the resting bonus. Does that mostly mean not getting injuries or using per rest abilities? Yeah, or even if you have injuries just pushing through if it's only a few. There's a whole thread about no-rest runs, might have useful pointers.

You can time it so that you do the first area without rest then head *straight* to Port Maje (no stopping anywhere), then you can recruit Xoti, and hire any hirelings, then immediately leave town and that leaves you a couple hours to rest your party with Hylea Bounty or Captain Banquet before they spoil. Then hold onto that resting bonus as long as you can.

top tier, near-100% use for all future runs - Skaen: matters more than I thought while still being subtle. Carrying torches into battle (and/or deliberately choosing to use Xoti's Lantern or the special sabre-torch) is definitely something that I've never done before and I enjoy doing. I like the occasional tension of switching away from a torch-based weapon set to do more damage at the expense of losing visibility on distant archers or mages. I also like the tension that some items care about being at night, but doing so also disadvantages you a bit (either with reduced visibility or having to carry suboptimal torches). Torches are club proficiency, and I have definitely wacked bosses with a torch for the -25 will in a pinch. - Ondra: makes the storms more of a real concern, some of them are just friggin massive and won't go away. Ship combat is more brutal until you get a really fast ship, can't just outsail or run away as easily (note: ships aren't just faster on the map, they are faster in the ship encounter as well, which can be pretty brutal if you're unprepared for a fight because it might mean you can't run away or control your distance very well). - Rymygrand: of the different challenges that makes resting more impactful, I like this the most. Once you assemble a good collection of rest bonuses you really don't want to rest if you don't have to, because you might not have the right ingredients to recreate it (or you might be stuck with hardtack). Makes faster ship sailing and more efficient exploration meaningful. Acts as a money sink in a less annoying way than Abydon's. Makes you pay more attention to what stores sell what kind of ingredients (Harbinger's Watch is my A++ location despite being so far out of the way, because of the Lager that gives -15% recovery time for my pukestabber and the ease to make Brew-Battered Ysae). ok tier, fun as a diversion - Berath: basically is a "no knockout" challenge until you get some revive effects. They increased the duration to 10s, so I don't have complaints about it anymore. Can be a bit weird sometimes because "no runnign from encounters" sometimes means including enemies you didn't think were part of the "encounter" - Galawain: I would put this as top-tier due to how it makes fighting beasts much more interesting and challenging, but it's also high-risk. Dragons are beasts, the big cave grub is a beast, as are some megabosses, and if you get really unlucky you could get a nasty bonus on them. I think the worst would either be Bullish (they interrupt and push on any hit) or Unstoppable (can't be afflicted or interrupted) - a nasty buff can significantly make bosses harder, might even make certain megabosses impossible (I haven't tried any megabosses with this on yet). - Hylea: was suprisingly fun, but there's a bug right now where Vela is super squishy now which basically requires you to have 100% withdraw uptime or get one shot, so I would stay away until that gets fixed. buh tier, doing it just for the checkmark - Wael: meh - Eothas: the time constraint is fun for Acts I and II, but with Act III you either way have too much time (because you frontloaded it into Act II) or not enough time (if you planned on doing any of the extra content). I wish they had come up with a way to have a time constraint that didn't basically lock down your ability to explore. - Woedica: I actually prefer the per-encounter system. It also doesn't help that the game is not really balanced for per-encounter, so certain classes/setups become extremely good on this challenge (e.g. cipher, chanter, blood mage). Combining this with Rymrgand would be insane since most prepared foods decay in 1-3 days. - Abydon: I liked it at first, but repairing becomes extremely tedious. I would happily accept less frequent repairs with a proportionally increased cost. Having to be deliberate about what weapons you use is one thing (and makes summoned weapons and fists better), but having to repair/switch weapon or armor after every battle once you get to mid-late game is just super annoying. garbage tier - Magran: not as bad now that you can slow time, but still, wtf

Elaborate? Is it the flat +10s effect of Forbidden Fist?

This. This really annoys me soooo much. It's a weird-ass relic of BG/BG2, where if you tried to rest in town you were ordered to go to an inn instead. Meanwhile, in Deadfire, in town you can wait around for literally days, but you're not allowed to rest for some hours? Why the heck not? Sometimes I want to get my food-based resting bonuses without having to get to the world map.

unless they changed something, nope. you can't even really use the AI settings to differentiate between different penetration situations, I think it just conditions on "light armor vs medium armor vs heavy armor" which is not really useful

Have you considered actually switching out your weapons mid-fight to adapt to PEN/AR situations? Adding in effects that boost PEN or decrease enemy AR? (if all you use are pistols, you are definitely going to run into PEN problems, not to mention all the enemies with piercing immunity) the dragon (I assume you're talking about) can cast Llengrath's Safeguard, which will significantly boost its defenses and AR. It also can regenerate health via Concelhaut's Siphon. Solution: use things like Street Sweeper/Tranquilizing Shot/Arcane Dampener to strip it of its buff durations and use effects that can interrupt it before it can do things like its mega-powered concelhaut's siphon. Be smart and don't melee attack it while it has Cloak of Death active. (it is not that hard to build a PotD party that can basically perma-interrupt the dragon to death, even with stock Obsidian NPCs) Playing on PotD especially requires engaging with some of the deeper and niche-for-lower-difficulties aspects of the games mechanics to play successfully, specifically concentration/interrupts, PEN/AR, and buff/debuff suppression/countering/stripping. edit - Yeah I just noticed OP's party is level 11. You're going to have a bad time with that dragon (and that DLC) on PotD at level 11 without significant metagaming or prior experience, which it sounds like you don't have. Come back several levels higher. Even if you got past the dragon at level 11, I'm pretty sure the Bridge Ablaze section will rip you to shreds I think the target level for BoW is actually level 12 (not 14), but on PotD the difficulty is amped up enough that I wouldn't recommend starting it at level 12 unless you are very min-maxed and metagamed up for the adventure -- i'm not sure party of just stock NPCs would cut it.

That miss chance on spells sounds brutal - and frustrating. I'll keep that in mind. Just remember I was talking about actual hit chance. The game will show you combined hit-and-graze chance, so you will likely do something more often than not (a 35% hit ends up being a 60% "do-anything" chance), but it's important to make that distinction because a good number of spells and abilities have things that only trigger on an explicit hit instead of a graze. Keep in mind that your normal attacks will also have a lowish chance to hit on PotD (by default enemies are generally balanced at similar stats as you if you're at the target encounter level and PotD will buff enemy defenses by +15, so an average 50% "normal" chance to hit becomes only a 35% chance to hit on PotD) so everything will have a harder time connecting on PotD

Yes. Otherwise it's just sloppy job and it kills the narrative. Oh brother, this is the sort of LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE hyperbole that I hate. If missing out on one bit of reactivity in one narrow situation "kills the narrative" I don't know what to tell you.

Tactician and Blood Mage are stupidly good (though you need to be smart about using the tactician to get real good mileage out of it). Forbidden Fist is stupidly bad except in one very narrow metagaming situation that someone on the forums discovered that involves self-confuse (berserker) and equipping some boots that let you hobble yourself repeatedly for very short durations. Bellower and Debonaire are probably a wee bit underpowered, the former because the +PL bonus is buggy or broken so only affects the invocation you're using and nothing else, the latter because the main plus is a charm that only affects kith, which means for most fights you have a lot of downsides and only one small upside (the 15% hit to graze defense if you're not afflicted). The other classes are pretty good and fit in alright. I think there are some random non-critical bugs here and there, something about Arcane Archer not getting the right PL scaling.

You get a piece of armor that has scaling bonuses based on how much your party members like or hate you: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Hearth_Defender%27s_Scale (wiki page might be inaccurate about specific numbers, it's only been sporadically updated for the big item nerf that happened many months ago) Given that half my party tends to be hirelings or the non-fleshed-out companions like mirke or konstanten, it's not very useful to me, but I'm sure people who invest in Eder, Serafen, etc might get mileage out of it.

The plot keeps thickening. About how high should my natural PER be to ensure that I can hit enemies reliably with spells? I feel like getting the most of this class must involve some of the good Druid spells like Plague and Relentless Storm. There's no real good cut-off at which point you hit "reliably." Scratching my perceptions/memories of the early game, a neutral 10 PER on PotD will give you ~1/3 hit odds (plus graze), and therefore going up to e.g. 20 PER can get you close to coin-flip odds of hitting (plus additional graze chance). But there's no significant threshold, each PER gives you a marginal increase in accuracy (kind of the point of the whole pillars system to avoid the stupid cut-offs of older D&D systems). Though Marked Prey and Stalker's Link (and Hunter's Claw, if you go that route) grant their accuracy bonus to spells as well, so you could be diminishing the impact of PER for spells (though to really benefit you need to have a way to boost your pet's engagement limit for synergy with Stalker's Link but I can only recall one effect that does that, priest AL5 spell EDIT: also there's a chanter chant that gives +1). I would also disagree very slightly with Ensign in that dex is also important outside of chain-casting spells because it reduces the window in which your caster can be interrupted, which could be an extremely liability for a caster that you plan on putting into melee range with a stalker/shapeshifting setup (and IIRC druids don't have as many easy sources of concentration unlike a priest or wizard). It's much harder to quantify than a straight-up x% damage bonus or something, but it's a strong enough influence in my play that I only consider Ensign's line of thought on dex for casters I plan on keeping in the back, away from immediate danger.

I had some spell reflect gear on Eder and when attacking a sigiled mage, if I procces the spell reflect it would do infinite damage to the mage. It's not about infinite bouncing two reflects, it's that the first reflect will proc sigil again, except the target is now the mage (because that's where the sigil damage originally came from), which procs sigil again, etc until the mage is dead.

edit: holy crap, the forums ate my post. here it is again, as best as I can remember: Dex is the best stat in this scenario. In terms of net damage, it gives you very close to the stated 3%. Perception is ~2% but drops off at very high accuracy. Might is also ~2% (slightly worse than perception), but doesn't drop off with high accuracy. I would max out dex and then put remainder in might if you're going the high-accuracy route, unless you care about crits specifically and not just net damage (e.g. proccing stunning shots for a single-class ranger). Re: advice about dumping Res to 3. Personally I find that dangerous on PotD+upscaling. There are more enemies, and they will target low deflection, low health, back-of-line party members if they can (ranged rogues especially). I personally do not go below both 8 Con/Res unless I have a very good reason otherwise (e.g. I have great other defenses or support spells/abilities). While it's true that deflection is only really good at extremely high values, it still is free damage you are handing over to the enemy (e.g. almost literally the inverse of perception), and don't forget in Deadfire it also increases debuff durations by +3% per point below 10 (which even if you are extremely good at avoiding enemy attacks--impossible in some situations frankly--you will still get hit by spells and effects). It's basically the difference between a challenging fight and a frustrating fight.

There is little need to upgrade your ship for ship to ship combat, if you are not doing ship to ship combat. If you were to use ship combat system, other ships pack more firepower - Galleon or Junk can disable enemy ship in a single volley. Incidentally, I just went to that guy in Neketaka who sells ships, and the prices are exorbitant. If you get the best possible ship and equip it as best you can, I wonder if you can make it work, financially. I suppose you can, the game is probably designed that way, but the prices are really something. I'm at level 15, and I haven't seen that much extra money just lying around (which is good). For instance, there's a really good firearm available in the Brass Citadel, and even that is something you really have to save money for. eventually you can fight enemies that drop all sorts of superb gear which sells for $$$$. I've had a few games where I've fully loaded up the most expensive ship. YMMV depending on how aggressively you pay money to craft or upgrade items, and whether or not you have some money-sink challenges enabled (Abydon and Rymrgand will cost you).

There is little need to upgrade your ship for ship to ship combat, if you are not doing ship to ship combat. If you were to use ship combat system, other ships pack more firepower - Galleon or Junk can disable enemy ship in a single volley. random observation - with rymrgand's challenge (working on my second run with it on), even if you avoid ship-to-ship combat upgrading your ship for speed can be very useful, simply because some food ingredients spoil and getting to places faster means stretching them more. for example, with my travel speed completely kitted out on the fastest ship I can go from harbinger's watch to nekataka in a couple days or less, which is enough to stock/craft/rest for some food bonuses in harbinger's watch, and do some nekataka stuff while still having non-spoiled fish and roe and stuff for crafting or more resting if needed. it's niche, but it's something for upgrading your ship even if you don't participate in ship combat. (I could say somethign similar for Eothas, but if you're smart about it the time limits really don't matter enough to warrant upgrading your ship just for that.)

Possible self-synergy for dragon thrashed is to also use The Shield Breaks invocation for -3 enemy AR, which gets extra duration with each tick of the chant (basically stretching it into perpetuity). Combined with Thunderous Blows (helwalker multiclass) or some other source of tenacious (a priest support or multiclass, berserker, or any might inspiration plus slayer's claw axe) and the PEN issue might be non existent in most cases on even PotD + upscaling.

I've gotten some superb gear off of some of them. Not nearly in the same large quantities as some of the named ships, but like others said can be a good way to scratch out some extra money.