Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

Cobbler in Queens berth or steal from Arkemyr's bedroom I think

Sure you didn't console it in? I'm starting to wonder if it's gated behind some rarely chosen first game option.

I ended up sortof roughly following this advice but not quite, here's what I did, and thank you: 1) screenshotting a face closeup during character creation 2) load the screenshot into irfanview and crop it down to a 210 x 330 pixel rectangle (use the image-change canvas size options to get it exact right) and name that [charactername]_lg.png 3) run the screenshot through the "color temperature" filter in Irfanview and then through as many layers of "oil filter" as you want, resize to 90x141 pixels, then "save as" that as [charactername]_convo.png 4) resize _lg.png down to 76x96 and save as [charactername]_sm.png 5) resize _convo.png down to 76x96 and save as [charactername]_si.png I think that's everything you need to do to get it working. Results are not perfect but if your character is something that's hard to find on the internet in pre-existing art (i.e., not an elf with huge knockers ) it can be a decent substitute. Examples: https://i.imgur.com/hYWiYuX.png https://i.imgur.com/yuqKVSD.png https://i.imgur.com/FCEPzSF.png https://i.imgur.com/dXrUL2D.png

I think I'm going to need to color shift his female Orlan into blue, there's just much Orlan stuff out there. https://imgur.com/jMhspy8 What size/ format are the files that need to be created now?

It's this that I've seen mentioned multiple times and the dialog in that meeting with Eothas itself that makes me think there's another import bug going on. I went through that conversation and he and at the end of it all nothing had changed, no new abilities, not even my standard watcher abilities changes which given all of that seemed....odd I even rushed to the end of the next main quest to see if that would trigger it and still no luck even after . I'd really love if there was some clarity for all of this. I get being circumspect about what carries over and how your choices affect things so the mystery remains but in the same regard when there's major import bugs as well as retcons that mystery quickly becomes whether your game is broken or the bits of your characters past that were significant to you were ignored which is...unfortunate... Bugs are understandable and happen as are retcons when you're dealing with sequels to games with a lot of choice. It's just the lack of information that's somewhat frustrating . Can we please please please get an official answer on which choices carried traits over to make this all nice and simple? Pretty please? I oddly found my old "gift from the machine" bonus after that convo with Eothas. . . but the bonus was on Eder, and it was just the Health bonus, not the Might bonus. That exchange is *definitely* bugged.

More classes need a dampener like effect, it's too useful to lock it behind wizards only.

Oh wow, thanks! I hadn't expected a response anywhere near that fast. Would it be possible to remove "blunted criticals" generally, not just from the Arquebus? I believe pistols, blunderbusses, and arbalests also have it. Thanks again!

I would say that's fair considering druid has less resources (Cipher with drain whip) and it's a melee-spell. It just so happen that most of druid T3 is also mediocre anyway so they won't feel bad using it if they get the chance and don't have to be using giant AoE. Right, but that alone tells the story: one of the best, most effective Cipher powers is basically a fair trade with a Druid power that's a tier lower. It's really telling that one of the most common uses of a pure Cipher these days is to be a backup healer/buffer rather than a "striker" or CC class. Like, ok, you can make it work, but it's no First-Game Mental Binding Crowd Control role. IN the first game, paralyze meant, essentially, auto-hit and auto-crit; now it just means incoming +50% hit-to-crit; it doesn't also need a blink and you miss it duration. And defensive mindweb got nerfed so that if anyone takes damage they drop out of the web, yay A lot of the Cipher powers seem like they got nerfed during development due to general concerns from the first game (CC being too powerful, etc.) but they never got looked at again after all the other balance changes were made to see if the nerfs were still necessary.

Yeah, Body Attunement and Pain Block are probably the the current class staples. They're both very solid powers. Of course, Druids can give the same Robust inspiration that Pain Block gives, except as a Level 3 cast instead of a level 4 one . . .and the druid spell is an AoE. The real advantage of Attunement is that it stacks with Hel-Hyraf's and with Expose vulnerabilities; the real advantage of Pain Block is that it can be cast on a target a decent ways away, quickly, and you can keep casting it repeatedly over a long fight. CIpher isn't bad they just have a very narrow niche right now and are a lot more limited than they need to be. A lot of limitations that made sense in the first game don't really make sense in the second but are still in place anyway.

Ciphers have some real problems. Multiclass-with-physical-damage-class ciphers are pretty universally solid because you can use the melee or ranger/rogue side to build focus first then splurge with your other powers. Past that, ciphers have some real strengths, especially in very long fights where they can be the only source of long term casting support after everyone else has spammed all their abilities. The real problems are 1) most of the Cipher CC powers are relatively weak, short duration, or outmoded by wizard or other-class powers, which is especially a problem since Wizards can switch grimoires but Ciphers cannot. 2) A number of formerly gold-star powers like Mental Binding, Defensive Mindweb, etc., got hit with the nerf bat in a BIG way in deadfire, partly due to the shift to the affliction system (paralyze isn't nearly as a strong a debuff as it was before) but partly for reasons that don't seem explicable (Mental Binding has a six second duration but a cast and recovery time of 3 and 3 seconds respectively -- you're only paralyzing the enemy for the same length of time you're paralyzing yourself, then you need to go get focus to do it again!) 3) A lot of the late game cipher powers seem to be first-draft abilities that either don't work, aren't useful as implemented, or are inferior to other powers other classes have. For example, Haunting Chains, a ninth level Cipher power, is outright worse than the fifth level Wizard spell Ryngrim's enervating Terror -- plus the Wizard spell is an AoE while the Cipher power is single-target! "Ancestor's Honor" gives players an Empower point but doesn't change how many Empower points a character can use per fight -- it's still just one -- so functionally it's just "free camping supplies, the eighth level power slot.". There are some other problems too -- Ciphers can't take Gunner or Marksman; Everyone else moved to per-encounter so the focus mechanic sets them behind now (except in very long fights), etc. The big thing though is they just need a general review pass on their powers. They got one in beta -- it was MUCH worse in beta -- but they need another. Basically beta ciphers were close to unplayable, now they're "ehhh, not as good as other classes but still have a niche." I enjoy playing my cipher but there are a lot of trap options you need to avoid. I suspect players unhappy with the class screwed up and picked some of those trap options (many of which, like Mental Binding, were excellent choices in the first game).

Yup, specifically https://fig-images.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fd3pylr1apgoxnh.cloudfront.net%2Fcampaign_body_images%2Fimages%2F875e66ad29140ec0704d57732579c816a729de29%2Foriginal.jpg%3F1487975427?ixlib=rails-2.1.3&w=570&fit=min&auto=format%2Ccompress&s=4354efe31afd6a8c5d06f5be71d86db9 They said during the campaign that the process of doing the Giant Dungeon just got exhausting and prohibitive and for a lot of reasons it's both easier and better to make 2-3 well crafted narrative medium length dungeons rather than one GIANT dungeon that will end up filled with padding.

I disagree, just to the extent that players can simply choose not to use overpwoered combos. I can choose to only cast time parasite once, not to stack it. etc. But I can't choose to make mental binding worth having (unless I mod the game, which takes a lot of work).

Would someone mind writing a mod that made these two, relatively small changes: 1) remove the "blunted criticals" effect or tweak it to a 0 modifier that had no mathematical effect, and 2) changed the Arquebus to do "crushing" damage type. I'd just like to play around with these changes and see if they throw off game balance or not, but I'm unsure how to do so.

I don't necessarily disagree with those suggestions BUT Buffing underpowered abilities should be a bigger priority. Just as one set of examples, there are a lot of cipher abilities that are useless right now -- mental binding takes longer to cast and recover from than its total duration, for example; Defensive Mindweb was brutally nerfed since the first game; Haunting Chains is literally worse than a level five wizard spell.

Where exactly do you get the Aldris Blade? You could also use Beza's Toothed Blade, which gives an armor penalty on a critical hit. You could also combine this combo with the Gatecrasher gloves which give knockdown on critical hit.

You can get the Mace with 14 int, 5 resolve base. You need two +2 resolve items, stinky Pete or other +resolve pet, then use a plot watcher abolity for Steadfast inspiration and grab it. I just confirmed this is possible in game.

I had a bug where this buff showed up on Eder instead for some reason, presumably because he was first in party order.

Skaen's purpose in the pantheon is to be a bad outlet for anyone who's fighting the system. Remember, these gods were designed to reinforce Engwithan colonialism. Skaen's job is to make sure any rebels or anyone who disputes their place in society 1) engages in strategically useless random violence instead of collective action, and 2) is universally scorned and hated. If Eora were a high school, Skaen would be the god of nerds, except his job is to tell everyone else that it's ok to beat up the nerds.

Do the various Boons transfer over at any point in the story?

Bless you!

Separate chances to hit rolled for each projectile, so they're more consistent. The blunderbuss has a very high "alpha strike" damage -- theoretically higher than the Arquebus or Arbalest. You're unlikely to ever hit that max because of all the separate roles, but you'll rarely ever miss completely, either. So it's very solid consistent punchy damage, which is a great fit with the cipher. Only problem is that right now "blunted criticals" means you do less damage on a critical hit than on a normal hit, so that's a thing.

What I want to know is what happens if you betrayed Skaen.

I haven't tried bows, and I have bad restartitis, but what's been working for me from like level 1-12 has been taking Arms Bearer early and then using an arquebus, two blunderbussi (kitchen stove from old city and serafen's) and a quarterstaff. Open with arquebus, move to blunderbus, fire those, close with quarterstaff. You could probably substitute pistols for any of the guns depending on what you found. Quarterstaff is very important so you have a Crushing damage type that does heavy damage; you could also probably use dual sceptres, but there is at least one really potent endgame quarterstaff that does scaling damage based on Metaphysics skill.

Thanks! This is the second item (found it with console, no idea where or if it drops): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1387190356

Any +Might items that aren't gloves? If so where can they be found? Also looking for the locations of "Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak" and "Upright Captian's Belt".