smilehigh

Sorry about the necro, but I just accidentally came across this thread and I would like to chime in and say that there are definitely more ways to make Xoti/Maia romance happen. On my first playthrough I did not look for this outcome specifically and everything just happened naturally. I played a Goldpact Paladin choosing mostly Rational/Stoic dialogue options in dialogues. I also did not encourage any Watcher/Xoti romance stuff. In particular I did not have the two specific dialogues you mention (I spoke with Serafen on the deck of the Defiant, so Eder couldn't hear us) and I did not even have him in my party while speaking to Syri the Siren. I never picked that dialogue line or in any way pushed Xoti towards Maia before their romance happened. I did remove Eder from my party once I arrived in Neketaka and could add Pallegina and Maia to my team. In fact all this time I thought that Xoti/Maia romance was inevitable if you did not go out of your way to discourage it. Game ending spoiler alert:

Potentially useful topic! Are these values for dialogue options with or without party assist?

I had the same idea at first, but then I upgraded the dagger to "male" version and tested it. It worked on male kith in Neketaka (crit = frenzy) but did not work on constructs and imps in Arkemyr's Manor (I critted many times on different enemies but was unable to proc frenzy). Edit: RNG is playing its usual tricks on me though - while testing the ability I critted Arkemyr about 20 times in 4 different battles with no result before finally proccing Frenzy from the dagger.

Cool to know. Now (if it's not too loaded a question) I have to ask: are there more female or male enemies in the game? Non-hostile NPC genders seem to be distributed more or less equally. As for the enemies though, I've never paid attention to be honest as I play zoomed out on my laptop and you can't really distinguish to much from that perspective. Has anyone cared to make at least a rough estimate? Also, just out of curiosity: do only kith (and lagufaeth?) enemies have gender mechanics-wise? Edit: I kinda start to feel like a maniac or a serial killer asking these questions.

@Boeroer Thank you again! Especially for underlining some dubious mechanics behind Debonaire. I was mentally prepared to make do without Persistent Distraction. But when you reminded me that crits on charmed enemies turn them back to hostile mode - well, at this point I see how I would sacrifice too much for too little with this build. So beguiler/trickster or soulblade/trickster it is! Soul Blades profit more from two-handed weapons as soul annihilation only uses the current weapon and not a full attack, right? So rapier/dagger might not be an optimal choice. But hey, when playing with a full party the game is not that hard as to require ultimate optimization. After your comment Beguiler also looks super-viable and interesting. I guess I will have to make a coin toss to be able to pick the one of the two subclasses. Yes, I was originally considering this! I really like Paladins and Priests because Disposition is integrated into their class-mechanics so it gives more meaning to sticking to a certain roleplaying archetype. And Marux Amanth's burn damage would suit Paladin's fire-base abilities theme and perhaps be boosted by Scion of Flame? Besides, my character has an Old Valia Dissident background to boot. Almost too ideal a premise. The problem is I will have to wrap my head around how to retcon him to become a Darcozzi Paladin after settling in Dirwood (and convincing Pallegina to go against the Ducs' orders prior to that in the original game ). ______________________________ A question about Marux Amanth: One of the upgrades is Quick to the Slaughter: +2 Penetration for 20.0 sec at the start of combat. What exactly is meant by start of combat? Does it mean that I've got to have it in my active slot when the combat starts? So for example if I start combat by a shot from Scordeo's Trophy upgraded with Strategic Blitz to get -10% Recovery time and then switch to a melee setup with Marux Amanth - the +2 Penetration will no longer be applied? Also does the "+2 Penetration" duration benefit from high Intellect? ______________________________ Speaking of Intellect: why do you say that Brilliant is not important for a cipher? Does it not extend the duration of Deception/Crowd Control/Buff-Debuff abilities? Or is it an insignificant gain when actually playing the game?

Wow, Boeroer, thanks, man! As usual you are a treasure trove of useful information. I was contemplating Debonaire mainly for flavor (and the cool subclass name). But trickster/beguiler or soulblade trickster seem really enticing too. (I’m probably leaning more towards soulblade in this instance, as I was planning to make a beguiler/priest of Wael on one of the future playthroughs (thou maybe I’ll go Psion on that one, so many options!). I will have to digest everything a bit later today and come back to pester you with additional questions. Hope they don’t distract you too much from your family

Hello! I'm currently finishing my first playthrough of Deadfire with a crusader and am already starting to think of my next build. I have a cipher save file from PoE1 so I would like to multiclass it in my new playthrough. As my cipher is already an established character from the first part of the game I would like to preserve some of his core character/build traits for RP reasons even if some of it may go against power-gaming logic. I will play on PotD unscaled and use a full party of story-companions. Mainly I would like him to: - be a melee-focused character dual-wileding a rapier in one hand and a dagger/stiletto in the other hand as main weapons (although I usually start battles with a ranged shot from stealth and then switch to melee); - favor Passionate and Clever dispositions; - have a somewhat balanced ratio of melee and casting; - not be multiclassed with a monk . Given his "dispositions" I thought I might thematically multiclass him with a Debonaire rogue. One of the obvious options is to make him a Beguiler/Debonaire. But I worry that it could detract from the melee aspect and would make me lean into a ranged shooter/caster playstyle. So another option is to make him Ascendant/Debonaire. This is the choice that I'm favoring right now. Yet another option might be multiclassing him with Trickster or Tactician instead of Debonaire. (Tactician in particular could make use of the Squid's Grasp rapier with its no-flanking enchantment for most of the game, but would miss out on the Seeker's Fang which might be a strongher option for a cipher in late game.) _________________________________________________ My questions to the esteemed community are: 1. Will Ascendant/Debonaire be a viable choice? Are there some hidden synergies/counter-synergies in class abilities that I should be aware of? 2. What weapon/armor/equipment combinations would you suggest? - Seeker's Fang with its raw damage on crit and additional raw damage on hit on enemies with mind affictions seems to synergize with Debonaire's specialization in critting mind-afficted (charmed) targets. Or am I missing something? Also Seeker's Fang comes very late in the game. Rännig's Wrath is available early on and its Redoublement (+1 penetration on Crit) seems to compliment Debonaire's 100% hit-to-crit conversion. Midgame Squid's Grasp might be a decent alternative. - For the off-hand (dagger/stiletto) I'm curious to try the infamous Pukestabber. But maybe there are better options? Rust's Poignard has a cool on-crit ability but it will limit all my melee damage to "pierce" variety and is also quite tricky to get. 3. I'm uncertain about some mechanics: - Seeker's Fang: Aspect of the Spider is a raw DoT that triggers on Hit. Will it trigger on Crit too? Or is it restricted to Hit only? What will happen if I hit a charmed enemy? Will Aspect of the Spider even trigger? Or will it be cancelled by Debonaire's 100% hit-to-crit conversion and only Spider's Patience will be applied? If both effects are applied - will the raw damage from Aspect of the Spider and Spider's Patience stack? Or will one cancel out the other? - Seeker's Fang again: it's a soulbound weapon with different "level 2" upgrades unlockable for cipher and rogue. If I play cipher/rogue multiclass and unlock the 2nd level how will the game determine which soulbound upgrade my character should be given? (Will I get a choice between a cipher-specific or rogue-specific upgrade?) Thank you!

Nice idea, but unless I'm mistaken you can't go higher than Mechanics 3 during character creation, and I don't have mods installed. With mechanics 3 the stash with Dissapointer does not get detected in normal (non-scouting) mode.

Could somebody explain the exact, uh, mechanics involved in finding hidden objects/stashes in PoE? Yes, I know that it is Mechanics skill + scouting mode. But how is success rate calculated exactly? By searching the forums I've found the following explanation in a post from 2016: Is it correct at all? Is it correct for the current build of the game? If this is correct: 1. You can find "The Disappointer" with 0 Mechanics if you enter scouting mode. Does this mean that some hidden objects have a detection value of 0? (So they can always be detected with no points in Mechanics if you enter scouting mode). 2. In the Wiki article about BotEP there is the following description of the location of one of its parts: Does this mean that you can only find some hidden objects only in scouting mode even if your Mechanics skill is high enough? (I.e. if I have Mechanics 13 or higher I will not be able to spot its location if I don't enter scouting mode?) Or is it just a writing/editing quirk on the Wiki? I've played the game several times and I always have one character with high Mechanics in my party and almost always explore in scouting mode. But a user on Steam forums asked how to detect hidden objects and while giving him the usual answer I got curious about the actual math behind the detection process.

By the way - can anyone explain how killing Thaos cures your from eventual madness? Is confronting your past enough? It's somewhat vaguely described in the game.

So, has any of the community members come up with the uniform (armor) color fix for males? Or will it remain bugged forever? Thanks.

While Priests fit into the lore you will be most likely disspointed with how poorly they are integrated into the story and the game world up to a point where your fellow priests do not recognize your allegiance to the same deity or nobody reacts to the fact that you are a priest of a recently killed god that is now almost universally hated in Dyrwood. You will get a couple of lines of dialogue here and there but nothing really immersive. Ciphers at least get an opportunity to solve a certain quest differently from other classes.

Why didn't you pick the priest of Skaen then? (Unless you specifically wanted Berath's favored melee weapons and Symbol of Berath as a spell) Berath is not a particularly "good" deity, more "neutral" in fact. But absorbing the souls from the Machine disrupts the natural cycle and so is not a very Berath-friendly move. Forcefully sacrificing people at the temple of Skaen (allied with Woedica) looks out of character too. The bonuses you get from both these talents are not huge anyway. (Though from purely mechanical point of view they are probably still better than the things you lose from getting 1 point in Cruel).

Brynlod and Magran's Faithful on upscaled PotD for me. All dragon fights including Llengrath are actually kinda easy with a full appropriately-levelled party.

But Devil of Caroc is not in Longwatch Falls.