Enoch

Yeah, I think that's fair criticism. Giving players access to Immunities via food (which costs only $ and time spent farming merchants) gives players too easy an out for areas that are supposed to be apex challenges. OK, they have to forego other resting bonuses to use them, but that's still a no-brainer decision once you have even a little bit of knowledge about the foes you'll face.

Have you ever needed an antidote, though? It's the potion that I tend to collect huge amounts of but that I have never once drunk either in PoE1 or Deadfire. The reason for this is that although some afflictions are troublesome, none of them last for very long, and they are all therefore mere nuisances instead of severe problems, even in the heat of battle. This, for me, is one of the main reasons why battle in PoE or Deadfire is never actually scary -- to the extent that it can be in RPGs -- because you know that all effects are temporary. (The system itself, I think, is fairly well balanced, it has to be said.) You don't need them, but it can be helpful if I'm going into a battle with some poison-happy enemies at a level where that might be a challenge. If I remember to, I'll have my front-liners get them in a quickslot and drink one in the early going. It's not like they're a big resource cost, and if it can avoid a paralyze, it can make the fight significantly more manageable.

Note that DEX afflictions are weird, in that "Paralyze (Petrify)" is a unique 4th-tier affliction. So DEX resistance does not immunize one from Paralyze, because Petrifying effects will still Paralyze. That said, DEX resistance is still quite valuable, because Paralyze is probably the most common hard-CC effect that enemies in this game use. (Although many of those-- xaurips, spiders-- can be addressed by drinking an antidote.) I'm OK with resistance as it is. This is in part because you're neglecting the degree to which non-hard-CC debuffs can suck for your party--even with Resistance, you still have to deal with them. The -5 to the associated attribute flows into secondary stats like Defenses, hit points, and Accuracy, and several of the non-top-tier afflictions have other effects that can be a real pain to handle-- MIG afflictions cripple tanks; any RES affliction is terrible for characters who rely on PL scaling abilities; Frightened defangs casters; Confused is a challenge for anyone with a persistent aura effect; etc. Maybe there are a few too many items granting some of them, but every equipment decision involves an opportunity cost (i.e., something else you could be wearing instead, or some other enchantment you could have selected for the item), and it is probably not optimal to be kitting out a party with Resistances as your very first concern, outside of some very specific encounters.

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/1105900830308208640

Heart of Fury makes them good against mobs. But you need a priest with BDD to prevent him from dying constantly. Even more if you use frenzy and the raw damage ticks in. Spirit Storm is very good for CC, it works very often. Priest also very helpful for ACC boosts, as Barbarians don't have any of those built-in like Fighters or Monks do.

Doesn't the expanded Graze range in Turn-Based mode make riposte builds rather terrible? Anyhow, I'd suggest waiting until TB is out of beta before putting significant effort into build write-ups specifically for it. I'm running an MC Iron Hammer right now in TB (don't have any of the special equipment yet, but high Res Trickster/Unbroken), and I am seeing very few Ripostes (tons of grazes). I imagine it's definitely less effective in TB (though some of that might just be me playing on PotD Upscaled without the right gear yet). That said, I am seeing some odd combat behavior. There does not seem to be any consistency in what triggers a Riposte attack. I've seen misses trigger and not trigger. I've seen Resists from the medium shield modal trigger and not trigger. I've even seen a graze trigger (most do not). Is that normal from RTWP? Riposte only grants a chance to counterattack-- you won't do it every time.

Doesn't the expanded Graze range in Turn-Based mode make riposte builds rather terrible? Anyhow, I'd suggest waiting until TB is out of beta before putting significant effort into build write-ups specifically for it.

i have a sneaking suspicion that this is actually an intended nerf (e.g. the designers never intended for this aoe weapon interaction, and they took wayyyy too long to address it, letting people getting used to it) and the reason why no one official appears to be commenting on it is to try to sidestep the player rage at having such a big and late-in-the-cycle power-level cut. There is no way I believe Obsidian and the Deadfire team would try to deceive the playerbase like that. Plenty of devs out there have lost my trust over the years but not Obsidian. The thing that gives me pause is that it happened in stages. First there was a patch that "broke" some AoE weapon (e.g., Citzal's), followed by a subsequent patch that "broke" the rest. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know nuthin' about the technicalities of bug-squashing in big CRPGs, and there could easily be wonky technical explanations for all this. But it feels deliberate.

Everything since 4.1 has launched directly to the live version, and the latest patch has been up for hours there, with no update in the Beta branch. Should we take this as a sign that Obsidian has stopped using the Deadfire Beta branch to test patches for good? (That's a perfectly OK thing for you all to decide-- I'd (we'd?) just appreciate it if you let us know.)

Same here. Maybe they haven't pushed to folks still opted into the Beta branch?

Arcanum was a few cool ideas kludged together into a bad game. (But with good music.) If you really want an Arcanum game, best to hope for a different title in the same setting, with better character writing and an at-least-minimal level of systems design competence.

Better still to make Tekehu wear it.

A Bellower is going to be most optimal when focusing on the direct-damaging invocations, because of the way that power level scaling works. (I.e., it increases DAM, ACC, PEN, and missiles/bounces, so the more of those elements are in the spell, the more a PL boost helps.) As such, Thrice Was She Wronged is your mainstay for the early-mid game. And it's really a pretty decent small-AoE nuke. Group enemies tightly, ideally get their Wounds Combusting-- it's a multi-hit attack, so a Wizard with CW is big boost to damage-- and zap 'em. At one point I tried to test out whether and how PL scaling generated more Thrice attacks, but I lost steam and gave up. I think I was seeing more attack rolls than the base 3 zaps and 1 bounce (upgrade) can account for, but never worked out why and how.

Ydwin was written by Alex Scokel. Alex appears to have left Obsidian recently.

Leap is a fairly expensive ability, given how early you can get a pair of those boots. Also, it's useable out-of-combat-- I already use them to get through the hardest part of ghosting the Bardatto Vault. Unlimited out-of-combat Leaping would make that fairly trivial.

Not a custom party, but I've enjoyed playing a Waelite (single-classed this time) with the companions/sidekicks who pair best thematically: - Rekke, as a Brute. In a certain sense, he's the biggest mystery in the Deadfire. - Xoti, single-classed Monk. Manipulate her into evil mode, because creepy visions are a gift from Wael. - Aloth, Spellblade and Grandmaster of the Leaden Key. - Ydwin, Minkstalker. Scientific inquiry and flexible ethics!

*Island Aumaua sees a puddle* MY TIME TO SHINE!!!

Literally unplayable We joke, but 4.0 & 4.1 broke a lot of things that either were never problems before or were previously diagnosed and fixed. That's quite frustrating as a player. (I've paused my current playthrough until some of the bigger issues get addressed.) Feels like they pushed out a major DLC and the turn-based update with too small a team on the back-end. Hopefully future patches that aren't associated with major content changes will be "cleaner."

Yep. Dead is dead. (IIRC, they also don't appear if you never recruited them.)

3 of the 7 potential Companions being dead before you start the game counts as "substantial" to me.

They can't open combat by chain-casting their 5 best spells. (Among many other things.)

AD&D 2e had no AoOs, and that was the D&D version that all of the IE games except for IWD2 were based.

"Forum Moderator" is not a profession. I do law stuff for the feds.

Just in case anybody thought I was joking.

I had this issue crop up a week or two ago, when I chose to walk away at that decision point. After that point, if I interacted with the disc again, the Destroy option didn't work. When I reloaded a save prior to when I reassembled it, and went through the whole sequence without exiting, I was able to destroy it.