Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

What I'd really like to see is a chart of the break points for the dps tradeoff between Dex and Might for different weapons.

I think ciphers will generally get more focus from blunderbuss + biting whip + penetrating shot, but taking draining whip isn't bad. It's just only going to give 16 focus per blunderbuss shot, max, while you might get more bonus damage and this more bonus focus from biting whip. Matter of emphasis more than better/ worse. Edit: doing the math in my head I think that Biting Whip is going to be a better choice IF you can get your average based damage (before Biting Whip) up to 20 average damage per projectile (from 8-16, or average 12, base). That's a big jump -- roughly two-thirds additional damage I think? but it's doable with a single level one +damage enchantment (for +50% damage) and a Might of 15. Of course penetration etc. also enters into it so draining whip might be the better choice at low levels before you're fully geared out. But once you have, say, Leadspitter I think Biting Whip is at least likely to be the better choice. Of course in reality you probably want both, and the ideal cipher blunderbuss build is something like ruffian skill set at level 2, level 4 Draining Whip, level 6 Biting Whip, level 8 Penetrating Shot.

i've not followed their dev cycle, do you know where they mentioned that? Also, it looks like Obsidian's scheduled for a Saturday Afternoon presentation 4:30-5:30 EST for Pax East, so kinda weird they're there so early since it looks like they left yesterday. So it def doesn't look like we'll be getting another update before then. Although, they had plenty of stuff to work on to fix beforehand either way. Crap . Well I guess I'll stop watching the updates then. The current backer beta does feel like it needs one more solid balancing pass to get everything locked down. But maybe they're doing that behind the scenes anyway.

Right, right. I just meant more that I doubt there will be a single item that's the "best sword" or the "best Blunderbuss" or whatever in the game. Like, Leadspitter is pretty inarguably the best weapon in the Backer Beta, but you could take a normal Blunderbuss and put a -5 DT enchantment on it and a x2 damage enchantment on it and get an equivalent weapon. I think most of the found & quest items follow the same "rules" that crafted ones do.

I *suspect* that the enchantment system is going to make things pretty customizable. It doesn't really seem like there's going to be a single "best weapon" so much as a "best set of options / build", though I suspect that the -DR enchantment is going to be pretty universally popular.

Heh, it's funny, in Tolkien's letters he talks about how he didn't want his translators translating any of the proper nouns and place names either.

Ruffian is also a good choice for ciphers. Good burst damage with the blunderbuss, cast till you run out of focus, decent emergency melee options.

Well, if you went Magran, you could take the Inspired Flame talent and get a bonus to both sword and arquebus, then take weapon focus (soldier?) and get another +10 bonus to Arequebus, right? I think the priests all have special weapon talents in the favored weapons for exactly that reason.

Personally, I plan on playing Blunderbuss Cipher for basically this reason -- I don't like the memorized-spells mechanic and never really have; Ciphers play closer to D&D Sorcerors or Psionicists, with a list of point-cost powers. Otherwise, yeah, priests, druids, and chanters are all pretty flexible. Nice thing with Chanters is you can build them very defensively since they don't really need heavy offensive stats.

I think that's a bit out of date. The general idea is the same but the specifics have changed. Would be nice to get some new formulas from Josh. Yeah, I asked on SA but he didn't respond; that chart also has a few obvious holes like medium weapons and missile weapons and that some spells are labelled "fast" etc. My guess is that either A) it's changing again in the next patch or B) since we're getting close to release that info's gonna come out in the "strategy guide."

The best answer anyone has right now is "it depends." Right now the "best weapon" is really situational. That said ruffian group seems decent for dual-weilders and whichever group has the Estoc is probably pretty good for two-handers -- in both cases because Piercing damage seems to be good against high end armor and because damage reduction is really important.

So does this mean that a chanter's phrases can become redundant if you activate abilities which overlap? For instance if your deflection buff phrase is active but your fighter activates its personal deflection buff they won't stack but rather one will become useless? And what happens if a barbarian activates a -accuracy +damage buff and a chanter has active a +accuracy phrase, is the resultant accuracy modification for the barbarian the single chanter buff (because it's higher) or the debuff and the buff added together? Yes, phrases and other modal buffs can become irrelevant if something else gives the same buff but bigger. On the other hand, if you build your party's skills right you can avoid this problem pretty easily; for example, if the chanter and the paladin both do a Damage Resist buff only the strongest will stack, but if the chanter does enemy damage debuff and the paladin does party buff, the party will get both bonuses. With paladin auras there's a separate issue which is that their AoE range is VERY short so they won't help your whole party. Maybe that changes if the Paladin gets super encouraged, not sure.

My understanding is that this chart is a fairly accurate depiction of weapon speeds: http://i.imgur.com/IvOZuk0.jpg In other words, a "fast" weapon like a rapier or stiletto has a 1 second attack time and a .66 second recovery, while other weapons have a 1 second recovery. Then there's also a "recovery penalty" depending on *how* you're weilding it (two handers get a 1 second recovery). Then armor recovery, etc.

Hah! I haven't played dao since it came out but at the time it had just been so long since I had had a battle map and aoes and a party to position on said map that I remember it being fairly interesting. I'm replaying BG 1 right now and I had forgotten how little positioning really mattered -- I can just charge my guys wherever!

I'm on my phone, and it's been a few years since I've played most of these games, but I'm basically judging by how much tactics and positioning mattered. It mattered some in DOA, didn't really in da2(however you set up, mobs would just *poof* in behind you), and sort of mattered but not really in bg1(because bg1 didn't implement ad&D's attacks of opportunity rules). The gold box games are still the gold standard. I see poe's system as an attempt to hybridize the tactical strengths of the gold box system with rtwp gameplay. It's sort of a bad idea and the game would be better if it were pure turn based but this is a decent compromise.

Personally, playing on hard in the backer beta, I'd say the combat is about on par with DA:O, better than BG 1, much much better than DA2. In some ways it's more similar to the old Gold Box games. Tactical positioning is very, very important. It takes a fair bit of micromanagement but in a good, fun way.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3593502&pagenumber=341&perpage=40#post441834681 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3593502&pagenumber=326&perpage=40#post441234040 SO that's that. As to stacking, http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3593502&pagenumber=341&perpage=40#post441845980 I think that answers most of your questions. Long and short is you can get between +2 and +4 to any given stat by stacking enchantments and long-term Inn buffs but anything more than that is going to be pretty difficult. I don't think anybody knows what the highest check is int he game but the backer beta contains a few around 16+.

Whoa, people are just figuring this out now? It was one of the first things I checked, but I assumed everyone knew already. For what it's worth yeah more hand placed loot would be good but there are very few chests that drop magical items (i.e., an item that isn't just a [quality] weapon or armor) and most of them have a fairly limited loot table, with an range of 1-4 or so items (see: that Skaen temple chest that almost always drops the boots or bracers). All the major rewards are from encounters or quests and those rewards are fixed. Keep in mind the characters in the backer beta are deliberately "under geared". "Fine" loot is actually supposed to be "junk" loot by the time we hit this content, which is why you can sometimes find it in "junk" chests. For what it's worth, after spending 10-20 minutes re-rolling a few chests, I don't really think it's worth the time investment, at least not most of the time. You're better off just playing the game and opening more chests through normal play than you are obsessively reloading the same chest 20 times. But maybe that's a function of my hard drive speed or something. And there's another side too; randomized loot helps a bit with replayability. If every single chest drops the same exact thing every time, it gets predictable.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3593502&pagenumber=341&perpage=40#post441845980

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3593502&pagenumber=341&perpage=40#post441834681 http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3593502&pagenumber=326&perpage=40#post441234040

This is something I'd like just because it would slow down combat and make it functionally turn-based, which would be a nice option to have. RTWP has always been sortof a hybrid format for me; I started with the old Gold Box games and as much as I liked the Infinity Engine I'd like a turn-based option even more.

Anyway, to fill in more detail (won't let me edit?) here's my thought process: -- I feel like the optimal party structure is two frontliners, two medium support/off-tank characters wih ranged and long-reach weapons, and two heavy hitter damage dealer artillery types. -- Fighter seems ideal for a build-tough-and-forget passive build, and same with a nice passive paladin. Chanter similarly you can build defensively and just let them chant and attack. Should cut down on micromanagement. -- I don't want a rogue because they seem to need more micromanagement than I really want to invest in a melee character that isn't my main. -- I want to play a blunderbuss cipher as my main because it should be a fun build that lets me do CC and have decently high Int for conversation options. (ideally I'd like to go int/per/might, but I don't think Per is good enough on ranged characters right now, we'll see if that gets changed). -- I want to use the prewritten companions though so that makes things a little easier. Fighter and Paladin fall right into place. Priest and Chanter are both great 2nd-rank support characters from what I can tell in the beta, and given that Durance is a priest of Magran I should be able to give him and arquebus. I'm a little worried that the writers will make him and Pallegina come into religious conflict in a sort of spock/mccoy kinda way but i'm sure that'll be something I can play around/with. -- All that leaves the PC cipher and Aloth as the characters who'll need actual management, but that's doable.

Because this is an RPG without level scaling, I think it's important that the content be added on "at the end," as it were, otherwise the rest of the game gets too easy. The real question I have is whether or not Josh Sawyer is going to release a "Ropekid mod" like he did for New Vegas.

As of right now, Fighter, Paladin, Priest, Chanter, Cipher, Wizard. Planning on using the standard companions at first.

The unknown variable with skills is how often and for what purpose each of them has in conversation checks with the protagonist character. My guess is that you'll want at least one character deeply specialized in each of the skills, and then some general competence across the board for things like party-wide skill checks to see who's exhausted from swimming the river or whatever.