Balbanes

I liked fish boy. I especially liked having fish boy and pirate orlan in the group. They come from two entirely different worlds, yet their banters have them finding common ground in banging everything that moves. If this were two dude-bros it would be nauseating, but a giant fish and a furry foul-mouthed midget? Weirdly endearing.

At least you'd be sure to rest somewhere safe instead of the "yea just rest in front of an enemy or in the wilds while everyone is low hp." It did?! I just slaughtered whatever random mobs spawned, which were always easier than the scripted encounters. There was no reason to wait until your characters were so weakened that random mobs posed a threat. Hell, sometimes I would chain rest in front of a boss area, to get characters on the cusp leveled up for the big fight.

There's a necklace that kinda does that. It's underwhelming, IIRC.

There's the monk shield which adds deflection (per normal), serves as a dual-handed attack that benefits from monk fist bonuses, and can be modded to add attack bonus as well. Very good for a monk tank.

Yeah. It gets Eder right into the thick of things, distracting/engaging the mobs while the rest of the party buffs up. The party then catches up to Eder and beats the hell out of everything.

I bought nothing, although later I rocked a certain ghost ship. I just closed for boarding at the start of every encounter, damage to the ship be damned.

+1... These crew members even don't join the ship close fighting while I hire all my companions and sidekicks. And I usually won't waste the money to buy a Big Ship capable of free crew members before I'm going to finish the game. New contents are appreciated (whatever if it's free), but this one really do nothing to improve the player experience. Question: can you confirm whether or not gift horses have tonsils? I wouldn't know, because I've never looked one in the mouth.

Maybe every companion shouldn't start at "0" with the Watcher. Eder in particular strikes me as someone who should start at "1," assuming the imported PoE history supports that. Aloth may be a "-1" if you kicked him out of the group in PoE. Etc.

The best DLCs are those that don't just give you new areas to explore, but give you a reason to replay old areas. And that usually means new character creation options. In that vein: Triple class characters, because why not. A new class. No idea what, though. New subclasses. New companions that are interesting enough that you want to take them to old places. Berath's blessings that give you a significant (strategy-changing) advantage in exchange for a similarly significant drawback. The beauty of the "Berath's blessing" idea is that these don't necessarily need to be balanced, so they can get wacky. And players can take as many as they have points for. Some ideas:All armor ratings permanently set to 0, but you get +4 PEN on all attacks. All class resources are halved, but you get PL +3. Gold set at 0 (the Watcher keeps giving it away), but drops are doubled. Can't rest ever (so maluses can't be cleared and four knockouts kills you), but significant attack speed boost. Etc.

Isn't that supposed to be the trade-off, though? If godlikes start off with an advantage over other kith before everyone is kitted up, and if they break even by the endgame, then godlikes are better overall. And the races are supposed to be balanced. That said, I do like the idea of godlike inheriting at least some aspect of their "parent" race. Doesn't make sense that an aumaua-sized godlike aren't generally stronger than orlun-sized godlikes, for example.

Just checked. Apparently it's intended behavior, but perhaps Tekehu's is not. Noted in the bug report.

I came to note this as a bug, but apparently Among the Waves not triggering outside combat is intended behavior. In which case: should Wave Walker (Tekehu's racial bonus) not be triggering outside combat as well? Because right now it does, and he's constantly running ahead of my group in slog zones.

Maia isn't getting her "Among the Waves" bonus. It's listed in her active effects, but she still slogs through just like everyone else. Of note, Tekehu is not affected by those zones. Not sure if the issue is that Maia (alone) isn't getting the bonus, or if the bonus itself is bugged. But wanted to flag, since a quick search did not show this issue.

Eh. I've come around on this. Casters already get 1 (priest or druid) or 2 (wizard grimoire) free spells. With 3 or 4 abilities per power level, and only 2 casts per power level, you really don't need many spells before you run out of casts. Having all spells is useful when you first play, and don't know which ones are useful. But after a couple characters, you barely notice the "missing" spells, because they aren't in your rotation anyway.

Good point about not eliminating content. What if there were a Berath's blessing that protects your ship at the beginning? Same intro, but ship is still functional instead of needing repairs. Then you can do the Port Maje quests or sail into the ocean blue at your leisure. Couple it with the "start at level 4" blessing, and skipping the intro is completely viable.