omgFIREBALLS

And the result of this is your melee squad is reduced to a bland mix of semitanks. I much prefer the WoW PvE experience here, where aggro is predictable, monster attack damage is balanced around the assumption that they're hitting a sturdy tank, and they have an array of abilities that bother the whole party or even specifically everyone but the tank, so that nobody gets away with being squishy (and/or inattentive). (We don't need to take the WoW-ness as far as for mobs to religiously chase the tank if they try to kite, however) I mean, monsters (most of them) already have a deep respect for engagement and distance. You can send in a tank to handle "the bulk" of the enemy force, while you surgically pick them off with your melee who will only be attacked by a few of them. This is good design to me, but if the AI were being "reasonable", it sure would ignore that tank. The problem comes when you fight a Big Bad, like in the OP's situation. There is only one monster, and it hits hard. It also has resistances, immunities and saving throws so high that you can't feasibly keep it locked down. Too, it's comical in a tragic way to talk of ways to get out of melee range without eating a disengagement attack. Okay, your melee got out of harm's way, but now they're not doing anything, and if they rejoin the fray, the Big Bad will just say, oh this is a squishier target, yay! (upvote for the poetry) An idea that came to mind as I pondered this whole situation is the following ability. Threatening Gaze Fighter, 1 Discipline, Accuracy vs. Will Intimidates an opponent for X seconds, making it wary of shifting its attention away from the fighter. If the enemy changes target, it will have its accuracy reduced by Y for Z seconds. This penalty is greater the more spare engagement slots the fighter has. So, firstly, even though it says intimidates, it has nothing to do with your intimidate skill, nor is it a resolve affliction. Moving on, I would really like you to look closely at the last sentence. The traditional tank wears a shield, which is +1 engagement, and so this ability encourages that. But if you are tanking many mobs, you have little/no spare engagement, and so it gets narrowed down the the Big Bad handler ability I want it to be. Alternatively it could also be that the ability itself has higher accuracy the more spare engagement you have. So if the Big Bad switches to your melee, at least you get a grace period during which he will have a hard time hitting, and you can prep some defenses or plan your escape. In typing this I realized that Take the Hit is actually a pretty good solution to all I've talked about here, other than being a high level single class fighter ability.

This is something that's been bothering me throughout both PoE titles and all their DLC's. The fact that some fights vs. a Big Bad are reduced to, if you're melee, enjoy facetanking the boss because it's just going to target the squishiest thing it can find at a convenient distance. Anyway, it's a long story with a moderately happy ending, but it won't help you much. So let's address "disengage safely" instead. Any might affliction will make the target unable to engage, and thus be unable to throw disengagement attacks at you. It might help a bit.

What's above your characters' heads? Is it cogwheels or three periods (...)? If it's three periods, they genuinely believe they are supposed to be doing nothing, based on their AI instructions. If it's cogwheels, they are being stupid for no reason. This happens to me as well. If you press the stop button, they will immediately start acting based on their AI. The default keybind for this button is S, so you can just select all and press S when combat starts. Yeah, I wish I had a better solution, especially for a problem that has existed since launch as far as I remember.

Yep. Maybe this can help you pop it. The fact you're saying you downloaded it is what has me confused. It's built into the game, although I believe there's also a mod with similar functionality. All you need to do is press the right key on your keyboard, really. I usually switch to English keyboard layout to pop consoles so I don't have to figure out what key it is on my default.

Okay, I can't speak for Unity Console. It's separate from the game console... right? It's a mod, right? Anyway, I created a custom history where I sacced Devil of Caroc to the blood pool, and was able to give myself her breastplate with the game console just fine. Disables achievements and all that, yes yes, but anyway. After enabling cheats with iroll20s you just enter GiveItem Breastplate_Armor_U_Devil_of_Caroc_Breastplate and that's it.

They actually did change the name, but I already have her ("BOON_Ungwith_SE_AllSkills")

Hello fellow no-resters. I take it you're all used to filling up your buff list to the point that it relays almost no useful information in combat. With the help of @Kvellen I wrote a mod to address this. Please help me make it awesome.

With much thanks to @Kvellen for laying the groundwork, I have created my first mod, one that in three different steps reduces the combat tooltip clutter. See mod page for details. When you've done that, I would appreciate some assistance in making it better. Weird strings - I saw references to a courtesan possibly named Nisanga, who gives +1 to all attributes. Can anyone make sense of this? - There are some Magran's Blessing strings that do not seem related to the shield, for example "Boon_MagransBlessing_SE_CritWatcher", again, can anyone make sense of this? I'm hung up on these two because I've been filtering a ton of things that begin with "boon" (generally Watcher buffs), but I couldn't explain what these were about. Additional things to filter While I probably nailed most of the beneficial auras (please point out any I missed), I'm sure there are tons of item buffs that I haven't addressed. Any that come to mind, please mention! Of course, also goes for buffs that slipped through in any other way. Buffs I chose not to filter I elected to leave the following buffs untouched: Nalpazca reactions to being drugged or not, Street Fighter health level reactions, Stalker Companion Bond, and Psion Soul Mind. If you have strong opinions, make them known. Also, being my first mod, I might have unknowingly not observed various NexusMods customs, so feel free to point out errors like that too.

In the least combative, most curious voice possible: What then is your explanation for Pillars 1 being more of a success, if they both had the same problem? Is it that people simply noticed in Pillars 1 that the complexity level was too high and didn't bother with 2 after that?

I'm curious to hear if anyone has any strong opinions on how to do this. The options, to save y'all some time, are: Thermally Stable (+15 defenses against Fire/Frost) --> Bronze Core (also +15 defenses against Acid) vs. Nonconductive (also +15 defenses against Electricity) and Arcane Interference (+15% resistance against Evocation/Conjuration/Illusion) --> Apostatism (also +15% resistance against Punishment/Condemnation) vs. Arcane Suppression (upgrades the original 15% against Evocation/Conjuration/Illusion to 25%) It's currently the go-to shield for a tanky crusader who just ties down as many enemies as there is space around her to engage, but it could also be the plan B for a melee who needs to bunker up if given too much attention (uses Nerian's Ward for that right now).

Deadfire is "done". Chances of a content patch are pretty much inexistent, chances of a bugfix patch... quite tiny I think your best bet is spawning Benweth with the console, but I can't seem to figure out how to do it. Note that doing so will disable achievements for your playthrough. Failing that, you could probably set the quest outcome with the console and give yourself his loot while you're at it, if killing him is the solution you have in mind. And while I'm here, not to sound too preachy... in the standard encounter Benweth has like five goons helping him. You worked your way to ambushing him alone, and probably had a full party, so the two skulls wouldn't have helped him much I mean he's actually terrified of you in that situation and doesn't even want a fight.

Every time (Suppressed) I feel (Suppressed) like playing (Suppressed) some Pillars 1 (Suppressed), there's (Suppressed) this one (Suppressed) part (Suppressed) of it (Suppressed) that makes (Suppressed) me not.

Oh, that is AWESOME. Thanks! I'll get to work on it, and if all goes well I'll try to make it a full mod, rather than just something that covers only the classes I tend to play. I've made quite some progress, and had like four hours of troubleshooting because of sloppy c/p skills. Might be I can figure all of this out without further help...

Ciphers can rarely cast any of their spells (even the buffs) on themselves, and I doubt you can even cast Soul Ignition on allies. You wouldn't want to outside shenanigans like the one you have in mind, so the game won't let you.

Cheers! I don't think you are correct about the rest though. This isn't merely about the displayed accuracy on the scroll, this is about what I'm seeing in the combat log details. From nuking a bunch of Vailians (I said eccosi so it's fine): 1) The damage was always within the scroll's displayed intervals. I only checked hits and not those that overpenetrated, to keep it simple. Frankly, it's very easy to see given that if the fire levels helping non-burn damage were a tooltip lie, my minimum damage would in fact be my maximum for the crush/freeze attack. The burn/shock attack has a wider damage range, but nonetheless I caused shock damage that wouldn't be within the interval if the fire levels weren't helping. 2) The accuracy was the same for all waves, with the exception of +10 for the burn/shock instances from the ring. Again, no matter which type they actually went for. The only thing I can't figure out is the penetration. All damage instances gain the same amount in the "Level" category, but the shock/burn has a base penetration of 9 whereas the crush/freeze is 7. I don't have Scion of Flame, and if I did, it shouldn't show as base anyway, should it? I thought perhaps Devoted mechanics were playing a trick on me, but even with my favored weapon equipped they are still 9 vs 7. Is this innate to the scroll/spell? If I check the penetration score it lists 7 base. I suppose it's possible that it's just too nerdy for Obsidian to list the different values on the scroll. That could also explain why the scroll itself does not mention the Ring of Focused Flame - the pen/acc displayed is that which pertains to the crush/freeze attack. Do you know of a +water PL item? ^^

That made me think of the Deltro chestpiece with its +2 electricity PL. Turns out that this boosts the spell in its entirety, including the crush/freeze attack. So, Great Maelstrom has a bunch of keywords: Elements, Wind, Electricity, Water, Fire, Storm and since it's a scroll, Scrolls. Items that add PL(/acc/dmg/pen) to these would be awesome. Notably, Magran's Favor is just as good as the Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff (+2 fire vs. +1 fire +1 electricity) and the tooltip doesn't change when I swap these. Just need something useful in the offhand for the axe to be better. Pozzi pet gives +1 fire >:)

Peter works, the hat did not Wait, never mind. Had to equip the hat, then it worked. Who woulda thunk?

Are you trying to loot it from land or sea? You gotta do it from land, AFAIK.

A long time ago, in a thread not so far away, MaxQuest said: P.S. This character might also be into scrolls/arcana as he has nice bonuses. (Can't use actual quote or it won't let me submit the post) So long story short, Great Maelstrom is super strong. But can we make it even stronger? As far as I can tell, attributes have no effect on scrolls. No extra (and safe) AoE from intelligence, no damage from might, no accuracy from perception. Here's what I've gathered does help: - Nature's Resolve (Tikawara buff) - Character level - Arcana and the chromostaff, each adding some accuracy, penetration and damage - Int inspirations for power level (probably also the potion) - Conquerer Stance (fighter) - Disciplined Strikes (fighter) - Ring of Focused Flame / Scion of Flame, for the shock/burn damage instances, even if it elects to do shock damage - Sweet Aroma (+4 acc, Keeper of the Flame) - Cruelty and Curios (+3% damage, Baubles of the Fin) - Infamous Captain - Improved Critical - Captain's Banquet (when it does magic damage) - Effigy's Resentment: Saganever-mind-did-not-do-that-promise! So eh, anyone have any other ideas, available to a Shieldbearer/Devoted? Party buffs are also fine. I will say I wanna get the fireworks started ASAP so lengthy rituals will be avoided, but fire away. On that note, Sworn Enemy does not work. Big +arcana items are nice too. The list has one item on it; The Left Hand of the Obscured (+3).

You went for base SF3, didn't you? Not Soul Harvest I haven't played base SF3, still waiting for the uh, adaptation. That said, the general theme is simply that the AI sucks at macroing or perhaps is slow to get started, so I tend to drown them in a continuous stream of basic melee/ranged units that I don't micro beyond attack moving them somewhere. I don't even use control groups, just the "select whole army" key. Usually I have to defend myself with just my heroes until I've gotten the deathball rolling, but after that the RTS part is lazy-easy. The army comp isn't varied at all, just 1-2 unit types, and all I do is attack move them. Then there are mission specific tricks, for example the first RTS mission (after the tutorial if you count that) where you have to bring down a magical barrier before you can begin the RTS in earnest, where you can just amass a full army and a massive resource stockpile before you actually dispel it, because the AI on the other side is inactive until you do. If you can confirm you're actually talking about Soul Harvest I can give you every trick I remember.

Anyone else find this looks like Torchlight? Also the moral of the discussion on page two is: Some people value immersion over control, and some don't. *nods sagely*

I'm a bit rusty about this but I believe I can explain the last two. Disabling crew: Some (I guess most) ships have what are called "deck defenders" - you can see that number somewhere in the UI. They are entirely exempt from the broadside battles and cannot man the ship, nor be harmed by your cannons. If you board though, they are what you have to contend with (not sure if that's on top of other crew). Speed, from the wiki: (As I recall, it was just bonus 20 speed, but I haven't bothered with ship to ship combat since the last big patch) https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Ship_combat may be enlightening, but it doesn't seem entirely correct.

The thing with RPG combat in general is, if you don't bend the rules of realism a bit you risk reducing physical combat to shield wall formations and polearms. We had a similar discussion in another thread (started about here). Anyway, let's look closer at the dagger. Yes, it's not going to deal as much damage as twenty other weapons you could name. But it has advantages for this particular scenario. Firstly, the dagger is a deceptive weapon. You can hide a dagger. Even if just sheathed-but-visible it's still less intimidating than carrying a loaded gun or a spear or what have you. So if you're looking to assassinate someone who isn't automatically hostile towards or particularly wary of you (think in public or at a banquet), it's a great weapon. Furthermore, let's consider the actual sneaking. Again, the dagger is a very handy weapon for this, because it's, small. You can sheathe it or carry it 'tween your teeth, or just have it in your hand and it's not much of an impediment, as opposed to bulkier, heavier-hitting weapons. We could actually represent this by giving daggers and stilettos +stealth. Anyway, let's go for the kill. If what you're sneaking up on has a throat that can be slit, do you really need to paint the walls with its brains? Covering your victim's mouth while you give them a red smile is a subtle kill, one that might go unnoticed (not in game mechanics, of course). Unloading a firearm at point blank range? Not only extremely noisy, but also making that weapon useless until you reload. Why would you want to? For more "honest" combat, daggers are indeed difficult to justify as being a competitive weapon though.

RTwP (and without it) is way more immersive. It's an actual battle. It's the legendary showdown in which the dragon thrashed, wailed and fell. TB is transmogrified Chess. By no means do I refute your arguments for why people might prefer TB. I agree with them, but this is what heavily tips the scales for me. It's also why I wished for (with little hope of it coming true) battle replays back in Pillars 1. Note that this video is not me hiding the UI and letting the AI play, by the way. I had autopause for completed actions, at which point I turned the UI on, gave an order and turned it off. It wasn't fun to edit that video, and you can see I got a bit lazy in the end

It's freaking Dungeons and Diablo. Paraphrased excerpt of a piece of powergaming advice from those forums back when I played it: Teach your wizard to wear all types of armor. Then stack all the randomly affixed cooldown reduction items you find on them. Now you can largely perma-CC enemies. We can all hope for BG3 to be the next big thing. By the way, cheers to RTwP from here too. It saddens me how RPG's seem to gravitate towards turn based.