thelee

I think this particular quest annoyed the completionist in me. Now I can't finish all the quests in an agreeable manner, which is why Maia's quest disturbs me as well. Perhaps I can rationalise it to myself in the end, like I can when my goody-two-shoes paladin slaughters her way through any ship-like thing that might bring an extra copper coin or two earlier I had accidentally disabled personality/reputation indicators and racked up a rationality score of 1 on my priest of wael, which is a disfavored reputation. you better believe i found an in-character justification for that.

are there fewer encounters? Deadfire didn't have that many trash encounters, but I could see some fights or areas on PotD being extremely grindy if they aren't shrunk down.

health is just another resource, and the blood mage is like some weird alchemical philosopher's stone that transmutes potions of minor healing and lay on hands into more spells (it also helps that the wizard comes built-in with concelhaut's siphon and later draining missiles) sure, it can limit the blood mage to be a one-trick pony, but another way I look at it is that of all the spells you have, in a given situation one of those spells is the best to use. Then there's a second-best spell, a third-best spell, a fourth-best spell, etc. You generally cast the first-best spell and don't want to cast the least-best spell, and you move down the list, until you run out of spells. The blood mage gives you the ability to repeatedly cast that first-best spell over and over and over and over again, instead of having to move down your ordered list of spells. missing out on empower is a downer, sure, especially in the mid-late game where you are more likely to actually use empower to empower a spell instead of just replenishing resources due to the quantity of spells, but i think effectively unlimited and controlled resource regen is really just that good (especially when it comes to AL9 spells which can be extremely powerful and which no one normally can cast more than two of after having burned an empower point). but yeah, YMMV, no matter how powerful e.g. that deltro's build was going to be to play i'd personally never go down that play style route so no accounting for style taste here.

odd, my experience was such that blood mage was so good in my party (i rolled a random blood mage hireling for port maje) that i kicked them out before i got to nekataka. possibly if you're just using it to restore random spells after depleting a lot it might be underwhelming, but I was using it to restore specific spells by pre-planning in a fight what I wanted. E.G. chaining together a never-ending sequence of Slickens, Chill Fogs, or Missiles depending, with Concelhaut's mixed in for extra regen. I haven't brought the blood mage out of storage since, but if I had one in FS right now (level 20), I know precisely how I would use him in some fights... chain Petrifications on the "oh look we made a 'body affliction resistant', 'interrupt immune' tough enemy whatchoo gonna do now". Sure i'd whiff a lot in such a situation (2 out of 3), but petrification at +1 PL from blood sacrifice would last long enough to get me multiples and no other mage will let me cast more than two AL9 spells in a fight. Seriously for any non-interrupt immune boss fight you could probably trivialize with one chanter having the AL2 concentration-dispelling song, and a single blood mage repeatedly chaining together Slickens plus other AL1-3 interrupts/spells.

Just to note that a game like Final Fantasy Tactics also had casting times and targets could move. From what I'm seeing, you can retarget in TB mode, right? FFT similarly let you bind your targeting to the square (so if the target moved it would still stay there) or the target itself (so the aoe would follow the target). Just theorycrafting here, but seems like even with retargeting what you're talking about would mean that improving spell cast times (ro faster caster times) becomes much more important in TB.

* the reason why blood mage and tactician are so specially good is because resource regeneration is extremely powerful, and they can do it well with only a small amount of metagaming on classes that weren't designed to have consistent resource regeneration (unlike monk wounds, cipher focus, or chanter phrases). After playing for a while with a modded Aloth Tactician, I'm not nearly as much of a fan of Tactician as I thought I would be. Reason being, 1) to make Tactician really work well, you need a cipher in the group, or at least it really helps 2) once you have a cipher in the group, Ancient Memories is a much less finicky source of Brilliant that requires much less micromanagement 3) Doesn't interact well with Streetfighter Tactician is still probably a fun class and doing a Tactician run could be a neat challenge -- probably great in turn based mode -- but in rtwp it's super finicky and requires more micro than it's worth (imho). TBH, i consider the brilliant tactician just icing on the cake (and it's some pretty stellar icing). The fact that tactician gets back a resource if you successfully interrupt an enemy action alone would get me to put tactician as a top-tier class on its own, even if it retained all the other downsides. Maybe I overweight interrupts, but I find that on PotD+upscaling+challenges interrupts are extremely valuable (albeit a little bit less so over time with end-game content bosses having explicit interrupt immunity and Galawain's challenge possibly adding powerful interrupt-proof beasts). yeah, ok, you can also make a berserker/forbidden fist, get the hobbling boots, and generate a crapton of wounds and health by standing in your own frost effect. doesn't mean the forbidden fist is a great class. (note: again I have to reiterate I'm not saying that Arcane Archer is a bad class, or a steel garotte is a bad class. Heck, the streetfighter is stupidly powerful, but I still would not put the streetfighter on the same tier as blood mage/tactician because resource regen is really something else)

I think I'm just failing to convey to you the distinctions I'm making. If you truly think Arcane Archer and Steel Garotte are on the same tier as Blood Mage or Tactician... I mean, that's your prerogative, but I also think it's objectively wrong*. Other classes can have great multiclassing, but in terms of the new subclasses, blood mage and tactician are on a completely different level of good (also analogously forbidden fist a special level of bad). * the reason why blood mage and tactician are so specially good is because resource regeneration is extremely powerful, and they can do it well with only a small amount of metagaming on classes that weren't designed to have consistent resource regeneration (unlike monk wounds, cipher focus, or chanter phrases).

Almost certainly this. A bajillion things are going on in RTwP so you probably aren't paying attention, whereas I submit that in TB you are basically paying attention to every single attack. Also people are bad at intuitively understanding odds. Not trying to turn this into politics, but this happened with the US elections in 2016 where people interpreted the 66% some odd chance of Clinton winning on 538.com as a "sure thing" when having Trump win one out of three times was actually very very possible (anyone who plays D&D should hopefully have an intuitive understanding of how frequently a 1 out of 3 outcome can actually come up). Similarly, seeing "75%" above an enemy's head might seem like a lot, but really isn't, especially now that 75% includes graze chance (which some abilities don't care about). You still miss one out of every four hits (and you'll graze another one out of every four hits), which comes up a lot.

Blood mage and tactician are "very good" not "the only good". both also require a little bit of work/skill to really exploit to attain "very good" status (tactician especially). Psions do not suck - they are almost extremely purpose-built for multiclassing with a caster, because their focus generation means they have no action economy or opportunity cost concerns with casting (not to mention being a caster will mean not meleeing, e.g. less likely to take incidental damage). Even outside of that, psions are immune to PEN concerns for focus gen, which is highly relevant on PotD+upscaling. Also don't underestimate the focus generation you can get with even a little bit of +PL bonus. Boeroer is right about Ancient and Debonaire. Just to add also that the downsides to the ancient are extremely narrow, so might even be a better general-purpose druid than a vanilla druid (animist) itself. You are also definitely overrating arcane archer and steel garrote. Garrote is nice, but let's be clear it's a 2 zeal ability, and if you want good crowd control you should really roll a dedicated crowd controller which a paladin definitely is not; healing from sneak attack-eligible damage is ok, but also selfish (again a bit of an anti-synergy for a paladin). And frankly I think the bond costs for the arcane archer imbue abilities are too high for the arcane archer to be really that good. No, the garrote passives are good. 15% healing from damage in combo with barb or rogue offense and paladin defenses is no joke. For example, Streetfighter with Garrote's 15% healing from damage is a very very tough tank that hits hard. Combine that with a Herald next to you chanting Old Siec and you're getting 27% healing from the damage that you'll do on TOP of whatever auras you're pumping out. Another combo is Berserker/Garrote being confused and surrounded by minions. Use the Barbaric Shout to debuff everything (allies and foes alike). Then use like Wahai Poraga to hit everything around you. As you carnage and hit everything around you, you get massive healing! i honestly think you have a little bit of tunnel-vision on some classes/combos you like to play, or are reading more into what i'm saying than what i'm actually saying. i didn't say "steel garrote is bad". i am disagreeing with your assessment that "the only good" new stuff were the stuff you listed, when in fact i would put the first two as "disproportionately good" and the other two as in-line with the other subclasses. my stance on the new subclasses has been pretty consistent: blood mage and tactician = S tier, everything else = acceptable, forbidden fist = wtflol. yes, you can find ways to make the 15% heal on sneak-attack eligible targets work well... but the same is true for essentially any other "acceptable" subclass (e.g. you crapping on debonaire without really understanding all their interactions e.g. the 100% hit to crit on any charmed target, not just targets charmed by their roguish charm ability). that's the whole point of synergistic multiclassing. if something is truly not multiclassable in a synergistic way then it's just bad (and i don't think many of these subclasses exist).

It's a little odd. Targeted projectile spells seems to strike unerringly once initially targeted, no matter how far away the enemy goes. The only thing that can prevent it is, as you say, either an interrupt, or the target becoming untargetable (invisible, shadowing beyond, smoke veil). Non-projectile targeted spells do seem to respect range, so things like lay on hands, barring death's door, petrification, do actually miss with "(out of range)" if the target runs too far away. Mostly annoying for buffs because enemies tend not to move most of the time, but I might be running a character away while I'm desperately trying to hit them with a lay on hands.

the FF notes seems unrelated to the fundamental brokenness of the FF design; it was something about fixing an issue with negative duration on their forbidden curse effect.

Blood mage and tactician are "very good" not "the only good". both also require a little bit of work/skill to really exploit to attain "very good" status (tactician especially). Psions do not suck - they are almost extremely purpose-built for multiclassing with a caster, because their focus generation means they have no action economy or opportunity cost concerns with casting (not to mention being a caster will mean not meleeing, e.g. less likely to take incidental damage). Even outside of that, psions are immune to PEN concerns for focus gen, which is highly relevant on PotD+upscaling. Also don't underestimate the focus generation you can get with even a little bit of +PL bonus. Boeroer is right about Ancient and Debonaire. Just to add also that the downsides to the ancient are extremely narrow, so might even be a better general-purpose druid than a vanilla druid (animist) itself. You are also definitely overrating arcane archer and steel garrote. Garrote is nice, but let's be clear it's a 2 zeal ability, and if you want good crowd control you should really roll a dedicated crowd controller which a paladin definitely is not; healing from sneak attack-eligible damage is ok, but also selfish (again a bit of an anti-synergy for a paladin). And frankly I think the bond costs for the arcane archer imbue abilities are too high for the arcane archer to be really that good.

To be fair, TBM is officially labeled "beta" so they sort of openly admit to "half-arsing" it . That's pretty much my only complaint about it, too. I wish it would not be a beta because I want to play the finished version which means I am going to hold off even longer for my proper full playthrough *sigh*. I really wish that Obsidian would fill us in on their roadmap for Deadfire. i'm just glad that it's labeled as open beta because it means there's at least going to be one more content patch, because i'll be damned if they don't fix the bugs with many summons (and Vela) not level-scaling anymore.

What makes this weapon good? I've seen it in the grimoire, but never used it. Not to plug my guide (ok, just a little: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/wizard), but: "Nannasin's Cobra Strike (AL4, transmutation, unique): quite an astounding summoned weapon. Does huge base damage (17-25), starts with 8 PEN by default, is a .7s/4.0s slow weapon, but you automatically dual-wield it. It also has a 1.8m range, which is basically reach akin to a quarterstaff or pike. Importantly, on any hit, you automatically poison the enemy (if they are vulnerable) without any attack rolls, doing 13 raw damage per 3s for 15s, scaling with might and intellect. It doesn't stack, but if you just change targets with each hit you can do a lot of damage over time. Again, this is one of very few summoned weapons that summon a dual-wielded weapon." even if you ignore the auto-poisoning effect, the base damage and PEN combination plus reach makes it one of the best base weapons in the game. it's comparable to monk fists, albeit you don't get as strong of a scaling effect (but you get reach and poison). because it's summoned, it autoscales, even if a bit slowly through the middle levels, but by the time you hit level 17 it's basically competitive with some of the best legendary weapons.

The entire duration you're interrupted or proned (2s or 3s) you cannot establish engagement. If you have squishies who are under pressure, a last-ditch thing you can do is do something to cause interruption to let them escape for free (explosives are good aoe interrupt-on-hits). Some stuff on the topic I wrote up: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/engagement https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/interrupts-vs-concentration Interesting to see how all the RtwP mechanics end up playing out in TB mode though.

Six hundred hours in Deadfire and I never knew this. So Petrify is a quasi-4th level DEX affliction. Yup. It's a little big buggy though. I don't think paralyze will get "upgraded" to petrify on weakness: dexterity enemies, and if you use petrify on a weakness: dexterity, i think actually nothing happens (like literally nothing, i remember wasting some petrify effects). It also means the wood elf racial bonus is possibly a little worse than other similar racial bonuses, since whereas other affliction resistance stuff may give you immunity to a hard crowd control effect (except con and perception resistance), resistance to dexterity still means you can get paralyzed by virtue of a petrify effect from like a delemgan or an enemy mage (though it does mean those really common paralyze poisons do barely anything).

question for someone who hasn't played with TB yet: how is initial initiative determined? (so that tanks can go made to go first, at least early on)

Constant Recovery already works like this in real-time-with-pause mode, why would it be any different in turn-based mode?

This is a thing for RTwP. Normally the workaround is to retarget or to cancel the action. Historical note: in initial backer beta resources were consumed as soon as you began the action thus making it costly to even cancel action. I actually liked it, and would be pleasantly surprised if they effectively brought this back for TB.

All below said as speculation since I haven't touched TB yet. it would affect initiative, no? I'm assuming initiative works more like turn order in something like FFT or HoMM (where it affects how often your turn comes up) rather than D&D where everyone is guaranteed a turn per round. Would prone affect enemy initiative or anything? In RtwP both prone and interrupt blocks enemy movement during the actual interrupt, main difference is that prone takes exactly 3s to recover from, whereas interrupt adds up +2s to current recovery, so it seems like in turn-based the difference would manifest in slightly slower turn order after being proned.

for defensive purposes, hatchet is better, no? if you consider other sources of +deflection, the dagger modal gets a lot worse because it doesn't stack, whereas both the inherent +3 on the hatchet and the -10 debuff "stacks" with any +deflection buffs. (anyway i prefer hatchet + large shield for general purpose tanky defense)

I hadn't thought about these drawbacks but generally in my experience you need the heals early on in a fight to help you stabilize. So you wanna shift early and have the huge PL bonus. Then once you shift back you still have the PL bonus from the staff until you summon the rod so I guess the post shift PL penalty isn't as bad then? There's probably an optimal way to manage all of this though but imo generally early on in a fight is when you're taking the most damage and so you want those massive heal over times on early. Later on in a fight you should be in a stable position (unless facing a boss or something similar) and so you don't care as much about losing the PL then. Interesting dilemma though for sure. That's a good insight, and probably generally true. For cases where I have a tank with Unbending/Unbending Trunk, I activate it at the start of a fight, and rarely ever need to activate it again later on (though occasionally I do). If I never activate it, then that tank might struggle. Even in Deadfire I think the AI frontloads its attacks. Even aside from that, as time goes on you take out enemies, buff up, debuff enemies, etc. Like you said I think the main variance might be fighting a boss or a couple tough enemies, where damage might spike periodically from attacks.

i rolled a kind wayfarer + eothas and it served as decent martial healbot (nothing like a livegiver, mind you). the important thing is to dual-wield, because then you get 2x heals off of flames of devotion, making it comparable to a restore, except you're also dealing damage, buffing party members (depending on upgrade), and doing damage. eothas was chosen because eothas gets a lot of free spells that are useful for a defensive-minded healer, and that way i could reserve more of my skill points for improving the paladin part with passives and auras. i basically didn't use any other paladin skill, reserving all my zeal for spamming flames of devotion, and relying on the priest side to do anything other than flames of devotion. A evoker + magran doubles up on the offensive power, both sides benefit from Magran's Favor axe, and importantly the echo chance you get from the evoker still works on the evocation-keyworded magran bonus spells (even though the +2 PL bonus from the evoker does not). Add on a soulbound upgraded marux amanth for an additional echo chance for the magran spells (10%). (The two echo chances are checked indpendently, so you'll have a net 23.5% chance to echo for magran evocation spells). I haven't actually tried this out (other than to verify the evoker echo works on magran spells) but could be a fun wiz+priest. for any wiz+priest focused on damage, i would strongly encourage picking up champion's boon when you can (it's also a generally good spell for any other priest or priest multiclass). the tenacious inspiration is really really useful for offensive spellcasting, partially for the +5 might, but mostly for the +2 PEN, which also helps counterbalance the fact that your wiz spells are going to be weaker than a single-class.

level scaling is based on the encounter, not on the enemy level. so level scaling can also help enemies stay above your level, not just catch up to your level as you out-level them. this is not to rule out the possibility that level scaling could be screwed up somehow, just that merely the existence of seeing red skulled enemies with level scaling, and not red skulled without isn't enough evidence of that.

Just to also add I just discovered that the unique AL7 spell Maura's Grasping Tentacle in Forgotten Sanctum also fails to do level scaling.