Alhoon

Description I was sure this has already been reported, but couldn't find a thread using search so here goes. This one requires relatively nimble fingers but it's fairly easy to do consistently. As long as you kill your target with one hit, you can go to Stealth Mode before combat begins, resetting visibility and allowing to kill enemies without them having a chance to fight back. You can even kill whole groups of enemies using this method. Since video is probably the best way to demonstrate this particular bug, here goes: Steps to Reproduce the Issue Load a save from here. Hit enemy with Flames of Devotion to oneshot them. Immediately after the hit connects, manually pause the game (cannot be done using autopause features) before the combat starts and reapply Stealth (or just apply stealth without pause, I find pausing better as it allows to set the next action easier but it's not necessary for the bug to occur). You'll be in Stealth Mode again, ready to strike the next opponent.

And -5 Stealth

My vote goes for the Warbows. The fact that I consider Frostseeker to be the weakest of the three (Frostseeker, Saint Omaku, Veilpiercer) is a testament to how ridiculously powerful they all are, obviously discounting the bugs with that Monk buff.

What the hell even is Poison Power level? Is it the same as Acid/Corrode Power level? Or does it just affect poisons?

Assuming you play solo: On top of DoTs on enemies breaking invisibility, sometimes game just decides to drop you from combat if you're invisible. This obviously removes all combat-only buffs, like Invisibility, which in turn puts you back in combat if you're in the middle of enemies. I haven't been able to figure out the condition for this happening, it's quite rare but does happen. Sometimes I run as far away as possible and the combat doesn't break until invisibility is over (if even then). Sometimes I'm in the middle of many dangerous enemies and it decides to drop from combat. If you have autopause on combat start, you can see if this is what's happening to you, as it seemingly pauses you randomly in the middle of the combat.

Description Bugged quest is "Of Like Minds" given by Vailian Trading Company boss Castol. Here's how I did a chain of quests leading to this bug. I had a quest "Blow the Man Down", in which you need to kill Benweth. I did that and cleared the rest of Fort Deadlight. After that, Aeldys sent me a letter starting a quest "Goods and Services", where I was invited back to Fort Deadlight to meet her. I then proceeded to kill her and all her goons. I think this step is what bugs the quest "Of Like Minds". Fortunately I made a save just before I killed Aeldys, downloadable here. Here's what "Of Like Minds" looks like before killing Aeldys: Here's what it looks like after killing her: Now this is the thing. The quest updates after killing Aeldys, but NO MATTER what I do, I cannot make it update past this point. What I've tried: Go to Crookspur, talk to Master Kua, complete his quest "Tip of the Spear". Go to Crookspur, kill Master Kua and everyone else. None of these do ANYTHING towards moving "Of Like Minds" forward. The quest is stuck, and Castol won't advance VTC questline, which was the faction I was looking forward to choosing as my partners for this playthrough. Now, if I only had to go back to savegame before killing Aeldys and sparing her at least as long as I need to complete this quest, that'd be no problem. The problem is, I've already done like 20+ hours of gameplay between killing Aeldys and tackling this quest, and I honestly don't feel like doing all of that again. But I guess there's no other way. Steps to Reproduce the Issue Load a save from here. Either talk to Master Kua to complete "Tip of the Spear" or kill him to confirm none of these advance "Of Like Minds" quest.

It doesn't mean anything. Welcome to Pillars of Eternity, where mechanic descriptions are wrong more times they are right. This is in no way limited to Chanter chants.

Absolutely beats double sabre or sword for a single hit, probably not for DPS. Think is, for my solo PotD playthrough, I don't care about DPS, only single hits as those are what I ever do, either from Stealth or Invisibility.

Well, yeah, basically. Of course the more you stack a single multiplier, the less powerful it becomes, but in this case the only other multipliers are general increase damage modifiers (like backstab, legendary weapon enchant, Might bonus, Two-Handed Style, Crit damage bonuses, Sneak Attack etc.) that already get to so high a number that it's ridiculous and % damage dealt as extra element, which we already get from every possible source. So while stacking it makes it less effective, it's still likely the most effective one.

That damage increase is multiplicative with all other damage increases (since it applies to base damage) but additive with other power level increases, so it's pretty much impossible to say how much it really adds in terms of percentage as that changes. If the staff was obtainable at level 1 without any other power level increases, the increase would be much more than it is for level 20 character that already has multiple other sources of power level (and possibly using Empower too). Finally, I must say I haven't personally tested how much the damage increase is, just that it is there and how it functions. Due to variable range on weapon hit damage, it'd take pretty big sample size to get any meaningful estimation of a number I fear.

Does +power level really gives anything to FoD? It gives more base damage (appears as if you had harder hitting base weapon in combat log), which is really unintuitive but that's how it works. This thread has more info: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/99409-mechanics-power-level-compilation-thread/

The best multiclass option in my opinion is Bleak Walker Paladin. As most bonus damage is now only additive, Flames of Devotion having essentially 40% multiplicative damage increase (50% with Eternal Devotion upgrade) is just huge. Also compared to many other melee attack abilities, it is Fire keyworded ability, which means it benefits from all Fire gear like Ring of Focused Flame, +Fire Power Level pet etc.. Most importantly, if one chooses to use two-handed weapons, the already ridiculously OP Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff is just nuts on this character, as Bleak Walker Flames of Devotion is tagged BOTH Fire and Acid, so the upgraded staff gives +4 to it's skill level, on top of obviously being the best two-handed weapon in the game hands down. Also paladins naturally have VERY high Defenses (my lvl 13 solo character with inadequate gear has 157 Reflex). Last but not least, Bleak Walker nicely complements the Assassin RP wise.

While that sounds good in principle, how do you make enemies difficult if they die before they can do literally anything? BG2 mages can be almost impossible to take down if you don't get to them before they get a stoneskin up, or if you don't have access to breach, disjunction, etc. An umber hulk's confuse spell can really mess up a party, but they aren't that tough. If a low level party isn't equipped with bludgeoning weapons, even skeletons can be tough. Believe me, I know, I've played all of Infinity Engine games (and tabletop Forgotten Realms) far too much, as one can probably infer from my forum handle. Then again, while comparable on some levels to Pillars, the combat in BG and IWD series is vastly different from the one we have here. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Often in Infinity Engine games it boiled down to hard counters -> hard counters, something which game devs these days avoid I feel. Something like using elemental damage weapons to interrupt Stoneskin mages from casting in case Breach or similar combat protection strips were unavailable, using specific hard counters to Umber Hulks (backstab, Barbarian Rage, Chaotic Commands etc.), having many different damage types available for Skeletons (I guess this is true for some enemies in Pillars as well). While I agree that Mage fights for example would be far more interesting in Pillars if they employed tactics like Contingencies in BG2, and if things were made more difficult this way it'd be absolutely awesome, I fear it'd take far too much time and effort and we'd end up never getting them. I feel PotD is so fundamentally broken at the moment and feels like Story Time.

While that sounds good in principle, how do you make enemies difficult if they die before they can do literally anything?

Description: Doing the quest "Velvet Glove, Brass Fist", where you have to get the gloves from Bertenno. Following a conversation options where his debtors show up and insisting on fighting (and killing) them results in a conversation with Bertenno where he doesn't recognize anything has happened. You can even follow the same conversation path up to a point where his debtors should show up again (and the conversation ends) but they won't show up (presumably because they're dead). Quest doesn't seem to be completable this way. Steps to Reproduce the Issue: Load the save from here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/de00eadtp5ywaj6/Galhoon%20%28TheBrassCitadel%29%20%2813c245d9-8a3f-4377-b0d9-8f93c4aa15e5%29%20%28755736910%29.savegame?dl=0 Talk to Bertenno. Follow this conversation with Bertenno: 1-1-1 Hamuto shows up, follow this conversation with him: 1-5-5-5-2 Kill Hamuto and his goons. Talk To Bertenno.

Remember that dual wield full attacks don't backstab for both hits, only the first one. For this reason, two handers (or even single one hander) is better than dual as far as backstabs are concerned.

Shadowing Beyond NEEDS to cost at least 2 Guile, seeing how broken combat reset with Invisibility is. Maybe Enduring Shadows could cost 1 Guile again seeing it's only available for pure Rogues, but honestly, I'd rather they fix the combat reset from the get-go.

Funny you would say that, seeing that Blizzard balancing (at least in World of Warcraft) is pretty much the sole reason everyone is shouting at current age game devs to buff enemies instead of nerfing player characters. The end result is the same, but for some preposterous reasons this is the direction every game should take, because nerfing supposedly feels bad but buffing the enemies for some logic defying reason does not, even when they have exactly the same effect but one takes like a million times more work.

It's good that a class has identity and regaining resources is a great one. I agree with you on that. But in my opinion the Brilliant Invocation has two main problems: 1) 1 resource / 3 sec is WAY too fast. It'd still be great class defining ability if it was maybe once every 10 seconds or even 15, without taking away this aspect of Chanter niche. 2) WHY on earth is this available at plvl 7? Many classes have some spectacularly OP abilities at 8-9 to encourage single classing, and even then multiclassing is still super strong. Brilliant Invocation is arguably the most powerful single ability in the entire game at the moment, and it available for multiclasses? Just makes absolutely no sense. Other than that, the only thing that is actually just plain broken is Fighter / Chanter that can keep themselves immune to all damage, as OP already pointed out. Personally I'd welcome any nerfs really as they just make the game more challenging (something that is direly needed), but these are the only ones that currently break the game completely.

Some additions to Clerith's post: 2h - best damage for backstab rogues

If it helps in locating the bug, this happened to me right at the start of the game, during the first combat sequence on the boat. My character was flanked because of too many enemies engaging and was brought down to 0hp, ending the sequence. As I woke up on the beach, my character had an injury and permanent flanked status. Thankfully I noticed it immediately and reloaded to save before the boat fight.

Actually, power level of attack abilities also increases the base attack damage that is mostly derived from your weapon. I discovered this while testing how Empower affects Flames of Devotion. The increase is very noticeable if you compare base damage (before any bonuses) from combat log between Empowered and non-Empowered attack skills. I also tested whether this is because of Empower or just power level, and modded an equipment to give +10 fire skill power level (Flames of Devotion is tagged as fire skill), and it definitely is power level that boosts base attack damage.

Might is the only additive damage modifier as far as I can tell, additive is only bad once you try to stack several of them. Every damage modifier that says "+x% damage" or similar is only additive now as far as I know, you can easily see this when you mouseover your damage in the inventory screen or check combat log. So Might, Crit damage, weapon enchants, skills, passives, gear, pets, all add to one massive pool that then gets used as a multiplier for the damage. One exception to this is +x% damage dealt as x burn/corrode etc.", these are essentially multipliers of their own.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94695-soloing-potd-the-ultimate-style-in-the-beta/ Here's what I tested mostly in Backer Beta, and it still works great in current version. Not through a lot yet, just starting island mostly but everything has been a breeze so far on PotD.

You'll get more uses later, but they always stay at 1 use per encounter. But you're right, they only recharge on rest. Tooltip could be better. As a sidenote, having played Path of Exile for years, tooltips in this game (and in Pillars 1) are horrendous, ranging from outright wrong descriptions to very vague ones that are barely useful.