pi2repsion

If you were very annoyed at bugs, it has substantially improved since then, though there are certainly a bunch of new bugs introduced in 2.0 that need fixing. If you weren't, then despite the many small improvements, it is much the same game now as it was on release.

Cool. Would you happen to have a link? EDIT: Don't bother; I did a search and found a comment from Sawyer back in March 2014 affirming it: here. Well, what can I say, he might not have intended for wizards to be quadratic compared to linear fighters, and I'm not saying they are, but the priests, druids, and wizards surely feel superlinear, if we consider fighters (and rogues, barbarians, etc.) linear. So perhaps he's fine with something like x^1.2 :D

Why do you think they weren't? Here's a point for you to consider. Is it possible to be well aware of the linear warrior, quadratic wizard issue and not consider it to be a problem; not to consider it to be something that needs to be fixed, because it isn't broken in the first place? And the answer is yes, when you are designing party-based single player games, where a single player controls the entire party and what is important is their performance as a team and the player weighs his success as being dependent on party success, unlike party based multiplayer games where each player controls one party member and, while achieving goals remains important, to a large degree the player's personal measure of success will depend on his party member's performance against the performance of the other players' party members. As a designer it can even be liberating, because it frees you to be more inventive and concentrate on classes being good at the roles they are intended for without having to bother overmuch about how they compare to other classes. And it allows you to make some classes much less micromanagement intensive than others (another attribute that is attractive to some players) without having to jump through hoops to give them the same power level. Usually this is done by the simple tradeoff of classes with more tactical options being more powerful when played well, while the classes with fewer options are easier to perform solidly by unspectacularly with, allowing the player who puts together his party to largely dictate how powerful his party is through the selection of party members. (Of course, when you do that you need to ensure that a full party of weaker classes or recommended party setups can fulfill a game on normal difficulty with little trouble). But it is a balance, as there are many conflicting desires, both from the player base and amongst designers. DO the design of POE call for linear fighters and wizards? If so, they have failed magnificently. I didn't bother reading all the project updates during development, but a search of some of the older project updates certainly doesn't suggest so, though it is possible that this changed later in development. Here from update #15, for instance, which had the first rough draft of the four core classes: or from #81 about the role of fighters: contrasted with the role of wizards from #74: In a group centered around magic, the dumb old warrior performs the respectable role of helping control the battlefield via attacks of opportunity, being a beefcake, and delivering a dependable though unspectacular damageoutput, while being able to take more punishment than just about anybody else (at least if you give him a two-hander and a mix of the best offensive and best defensive talents and abilities). It may be a boring job, but somebody has to do it. In a group centered around melee, he'll be standing on top of a mountain of his enemies, by the end of battle, but the battle will likely have taken considerably longer. And I'll completely agree with you on the campaign supply issue; In practice, while it has some impact such as tempting people to save high level spells rather than potentially wasting them and having to buy supplies more often, most of the time it does feel a bit hard to justify the extra bit of jumping through hoops. Carrying food, lamp oil, or whatnot is a classical CRPG approach, but it only really works well when it is ruthlessly enforced and you can't just get around it by investing time without challenge or significant cost.. With the current implementation, and supplies diminishing with difficulty level, it would work better were there either: a) Considerably more areas where you could neither rest nor leave for relaxation - areas where, once you went beyond a certain point, you were effectively locked in until success or death. But it is the usual problem that many players simply don't find this funny, especially if they end up spending hours in an area before discovering that - for whatever reason - they simply can't succeed, so they have to go back to a previous save. And what if they don't have a previous save? Drama. b) a scarcity of resources; You have so much and no more. With all the usual problems that attach to that regarding the possibility of completing the game for less skilled players if they are scarce enough to make experienced players careful. c) a high cost of resources; If the cost means that buying resting supplies is so considerable that whether to buy or not is something you have to meaningfully fit into the budget along with other high-ticket items (enchanting, magic items) there's a good reason for doing so seldom. But again there's the usual problem that it hits the inexperienced much harder than the experienced player. Any of these would, if ruthlessly enforced, result in whether abilities were per-encounter or per-rest matter a lot, but I can't really recommend any of them, because for a great many players, it would be no fun playing with such restrictions. Heck, not even SSI's wonderful Gold Box series back in the 80's and 90's did that ruthlessly. (Though resting in unsafe areas was an unsafe proposition.) My own preferred solution is: No resource limit, rest wherever you like unless it is someplace really special with some awesome scripted fight sequences such as a battles leading up to the final boss, but include a chance of being interrupted by a random encounter (so no healing, no recovering spells if it happens) whenever the party rests somewhere unsafe". It allows players to keep trying to push through so long as they are doing good or feel lucky, with the option of returning to rest somewhere safe if absolutely necessary. EDIT: inserted quotes from updates #74 and #81 regarding casters vs front line melee.

Just add a new copy of Ninagauth's Black Pages using the console, Stoner, if you are so unfortunate that the grimoire you have picked up has been corrupted. This disables achievements, but that's surely a small price to pay. The relevant command is: additem grimoire_high_lvl_ninagauth 1

Fighters make excellent heavily armoured damage-dealers for going toe-to-toe with enemies using a good mix of offensive and defensive abilities and a honking big sword, changing to 1h+shield as necessary, which it will only rarely be. While I am sure there are many players who use fighters as defensive powerhouses either exclusively or part-time, I would not dare venture to guess whether they make up the majority of POE players or not, as fighters by design are pretty damn good at both attacking and defending, and trying to use MMO-type tanking tactics concentrating damage on one or two characters is generally mechanically suboptimal in POE to having the damage spread over several characters on the front line for less risks of point failure and for much easier healing, as most healing is AOE healing.

Not a problem; POTD is perfectly doable with the story companions.

Pfft. Xaurips are D&D Kobolds of POE, which makes Deekin Scalesinger from Neverwinter Nights: SOU and HOTU the obvious comparison.

No particular opinion here from a story perspective - any companion that is well designed pleases me, and if an ogre fit in, fine. On the other hand, I see no particular reason to have an Ogre just to have an Ogre, and it certainly is much harder to fit in an Ogre into the story than any of the kith; How would people in whatever village/town/church react to an Ogre visiting? How would it conceptually manage to walk through doorways that only reach it to the navel? From a practical perspective, an ogre would make a poor companion. Being much larger than the other party members, you'd run into both the usual texture problems of having to apply something made for figures of roughly the same size to something much bigger or having to make separate textures for large and small, which is always a hassle. And not only are they much larger, while they are bipedal humanoids, their skeleton is rather different... again, a known issue with known solutions. As well, there are the navigation issues, as you'd need to either a) be able to move the ogre around everywhere that somebody else could, which would put limit on how small places were available to move through, or b) make a point out of the ogre not being able to go everywhere, and trying this into the plot and general play progression. And then there's the selection circle question - same size or different? What are the implications? None of these issues are by necessity blockers, but they are amongst the reasons that party members in most games that represent them in a 2D or 3D world have roughly the same size unless there are really good reasons not to, as it is less expensive and easier to design for. It is usually much easier to fit in a character that is smaller than the normal range, due to lack of navigation issues of where it can't go (though there's the reverse question of whether one so small should be able to go through where some others cannot), but still... Unless there's a really good reason, the easiest is to keep them roughly the same size. So from a practical perspective, Xaurips or Vithracks seem much easier to deal with than Ogres. But again... since they would be utterly unfamiliar or considered monsters by the people of the locations where kith lived, the game would have to deal with that or it would be severely immersion breaking.

Definitely POTD if you are an infinite engine veteran, 80's-90's CRPG veteran, or a newer player who like tactical challenges. Hard difficulty if not. POTD significantly increases the number of enemies you face, requiring a much more tactical approach to combat. Note that even POTD will most of the time after the early game feel fairly easy if you are an accomplished veteran CRPG player, but you'll have to stay sharp because things can quickly turn pearshaped if you don't. In many ways that's the biggest difference over hard: how quickly things can go terribly wrong if you commit tactical mistakes. If that doesn't sound attractive to you, hard difficulty may be more suited.

Much the same as Flintlockjazz, so I'll keep the same order: Eder is the farmboy who took up the sword to defend his home; he's seen a lot, but he tries not to let it define him. He's quiet, has an understated sense of humour, and he'll have your back. He likes teasing the other party members every now and then, but he's not mean about it. Aloth is the sophisticated wizard with a speech impediment. He is somewhat opinionated, but, like Eder, he has your back. Kana is the gentle giant with an almost childlike inquisitiveness. He's a scholar out to see the world, and he's not going to let minor dangers stand in his way. He is not opposed to violence, but thinks there are generally better solutions. He likes asking the other party members questions, but doesn't always like the answers. Durance is the dour priest suffering from a crisis of faith but refusing to face it. He is very opinionated. He's also the butt-monkey of the jokes of many of the other party members. Sagani is the middle-aged huntress suffering from a mild mid-life crisis due to her peculiar circumstances, but she's friendly, tolerant, and very, very, patient. So long as you help her, she'll have your back. Griving Mother is a riddle within an enigma or whatever. It is obvious what they attempted, but in practice, I'm afraid, it makes her a bit boring when she could have been so much more. Pallegina is the duty-bound paladin, who dislikes her duty but doesn't see herself as having much alternative given her nature. She's polite, fairly honourable, and moderately inquisitive, but not a warm person. Hiravias is... well, this is hard. I see him as a basically goodhearted jerk without a heart of gold - it is tarnished gold, at best. He's both deliberately and accidentally offensive, even when he means well. If you want somebody on your team that you can pity because he's an arsehole that has serious problems interacting with others, he's your Orlan. I am sure there are players for whom his behaviour is funny, but I am not one of them. For what it is worth, going by their conversations with the main character, the other companions, and their interjections during discussions with NPCs, my favourites are Eder and Kana, with Sagani and Aloth as a shared third.

Regarding soulbound, there are four soulbound weapons made such that each class is allowed access to exactly one of them, and one soulbound weapon, the Grey Sleeper, that can be used by everybody. Fighter doesn't get to use Nightshroud because he gets to use the Redeemer, together with the Paladin and the Barbarian. As for Nightshroud and rogues it is quite decent if you decide to dualwield it together with Ravenwing; It has the same problem as the other soulbound weapons that it can't be durgan-steel enchanted, but apart from that its stats are certainly good enough. The main issue is that for rogues it competes with dualwielding two 1h weapons that can both be durgan steel enchanted and, of course, the Tall Grass and Hours of St. Rumbalt 2-handers, both of which are awesome for rogues and can be durgan-steel enchanted. -- As for Greatswords... Most weapon types have ~4 different uniques if not counting those in the club for prestigious gentlemen, which mostly sell uniques that are jokes with stats equal to what you can enchant on a plain weapon; There are only a few types with fewer than four - those I can think of are Arquebus, Blunderbuss, and Pollaxe. (But there are probably more). Greatswords have 6, including the soulbound Redeemer from White March and the two sold by the exclusive club for prestigious gentlemen. One handed swords have 7, also including two from the prestigious gentlemen, and sabres have 5, one from the prestigious gentlemen. If not for that shop with its RPG Codex list of weapons, you'd have roughly the same amount of unique Greatswords, Sabres, and Swords as other weapon types. So, NO, I don't think there are way too many unique Greatswords compared to other weapons.

I love me some dwarves, but the hobbits/orlans trump them at the moment... Yeah, the game sells them short...

You are setting yourself up for a big fat waste of time, I suspect. I suggest you just take items as you find and make the most of them. Much of the gear that anybody would consider 'optimal' arrives late in the game, so what is worth more, equipment that your characters are slightly better off with in the end or equipment you use for a longer period of time? Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that all that matters for you is to have optimal gear in the end. If that's the case, then since as of 2.0 you can freely respec talents for your characters by paying a nominal fee at any shop, you are still better off just taking items as you find them and making most of them, performing an occasional respec if you determine that some character is better off using a slightly different equipment configuration due to something new and shiny you've found, making you have close to optimal gear all the time. As an example, it is silly to waste time on comparing the Coat of Ill Payment - something you only gain access to well into chapter 3 - with an exceptional plate armour, something that you can create at will for a tiny cost once you hit level 8. If the game hasn't handed you enough exceptional plate armours to satisfy your front line when you hit level 8, you'll craft those you need. And when in the fullness of time you get that coat, you can compare them with full knowledge of how the enchant system work (point allocation for various enchants) and make your own informed choice. Or take the rogue - you've already locked yourself into a mindset of daggers vs stilettos; And sure, single- or dual-wielding daggers of stilettos work. But so does using sabres, or maces, or, for that matter, two handed weapons - indeed, some very popular rogue "builds" are based around wielding two handed weapons that can be acquired fairly early in the game, and then upgrading as you go. As for rings, cloaks, bracers and so on and so forth, many of those are randomized, and most of those that are not provide fairly small (but valuable) bonuses. For anybody likely to be hit by attacks, you'll probably want to get +5 or +9 fort/ref/will and +5/+9(/+12) deflection from two such items as and when you happen to find them. So rather than establishing what to aim for, how about playing the game and making the most out of what you find? If you start out focusing on daggers and taking the relevant focus talent, there's nothing to prevent you from respeccing to a 2-hander greatsword type later on, if you find you'd rather do that. Ps: Okay, one exception, as you have a wizard. There is exactly one ring that makes a huge difference for your group, which you might otherwise miss, and that is the Ring of the Selonan that you can acquire fairly early in Pearlwood Bluffs after you have retaken Caed Nua in chapter 1. It gives +2 extra 1st and 3rd wizard level spells, which makes a huge difference to your wizard during chapter 2, and certainly remains a top ring for a wizard throughout the game. And one for your paladin. Since you want Pallegina to tank, presumably with 1h+shield, get her the paladin-only buckler sold in Gilded Vale. Enchant it as you progress. That'll last her throughout the game.

I quite agree that difficulty does not exist in a vaccuum. There is no meaningful way of measuring the difficulty of an encounter that doesn't take party composition into account. I measure the difficulty of fights by: The degree of tactical thinking I have to engage in. The resources I have to expend to win without ever being being in a situation during the fight where I risk losing. These are not independent, and they most certainly depend on party composition, stats, levels, equipment, and available resources. If I can defeat an encounter by spamming a few lowlevel spells with casters or just chop my way through it due to outleveling/outgearing encounters, or burn through them by having chanters singing their damage chant, I have little tactical thinking to do, whereas if an encounter is such that I carefully have to choose from the available spells or abilities during the encounter, it is tactically harder. While some fights that are tactical challenges can be solved by the application of lower powered abilities, mostly they require application of more force in the form of higher level abilities. Since the game allows the player full access to all per rest and per encounter abilities whenever he wishes it after gaining access to the overland map (until the final dungeon of Breith Eaman, and even there you can find camping supplies), whether characters' abilities are per rest or per encounter makes no difference to the level of power characters can bring to defeat encounters, should the player so desire, only to how convenient it is for the player to bring his maximum level of power to bear in an encounter. So when talking about the difficulty of an encounter, I weigh the encounter against what characters can bring to bear if they are rested. When I say in the wizard "omg" thread - and earlier in this thread as well - that I consider wizards to be very powerful, trivializing most content, it has nothing to do with whether their spells are per encounter or per rest and everything to do with how powerful the wizard's spells and synergies with talents are, as they are what determine what a wizard can bring to bear when it matters/when the player wants it. And the spells are very strong indeed if you take advantage of the available synergies, and even more if you use the rest of your party to compensate for the wizard's weaknesses or buff him. (The latter of which should be no surprise; it is a party game, after all. Set up your party to support your raging Barbarian main, and he too will perform much better than one that is unsupported - but possibly not to the degree that a wizard benefits.) To return to the issue of per-rest or per-encounter, it is a logistics issue, and one with a trivial solution: Spend a bit of time buying supplies. As such, the strategic and tactical implications of per-rest abilities/spells are minimal as they do not touch on the player's chance of success, but only the player's weighting of time spent on going to buy supplies due to spending per-rest abilities in encounters and depleting health vs the time spent on those encounters. By gradually making lower level spells per-encounter rather than per rest, the developers have ensured that the player, should he so desire and use spellcasters (which is likely in any game that isn't played as a special challenge), can minimize the time spent in and outside combat dealing with encounters that are much easier than what his party is capable of dealing with - i.e. the encounters that are trivial for his party, while still having the "time spent on getting supplies" matter in the player's logistics calculations when dealing with encounters that are not trivial for his party. This is how it works. How players deal with it is different issue. And if camping supplies were not trivial to restock at will (say they had high scarcity, high cost, or what have you), they'd have a different impact on the game. But they don't, and that's that. I like it, as it allows me to concentrate on the parts I enjoy, the story, equipping characters, having spellcasters spending more time in battle casting spells than conserving spells as they grow more powerful, and having battles that involve a risk of losing require me to carefully think about the choices while tempting me to conserve my more powerful abilities (and thus increasing risk of failure) to save time backtracking for supplies without spending much time on things I don't enjoy, such as frequently backtracking for resources or deliberately extending the duration of fights I stand no risk of losing in the first place, in order to conserve resources so I won't have to backtrack to be ready to fight a battle in which I may stand a risk of losing. Whether you or others prefer resting frequently or not doing so, or giving camping supplies a much larger role in your decisions than justified by how the game works for roleplaying reasons or personal preference is none of my concern; Just like my own preference of preferring the convenience, as stipulated above, they don't affect the question of how the game works, only how we deal with it. ---- As for the "balance" issue, I don't think I have addressed that in past (though others have), because to me, and I am not insisting that anybody else should feel the same, I don't care much about class balance in singleplayer roleplaying games, and don't consider balanced classes to be a worthy design goal in itself for such games. If one class is clearly more powerful than another, that's fine with me. If one is more versatile than another? Equally fine. It certainly helps to distinguish classes from each other. That just means that if I want a bigger challenge next time I play, I'll play without that class in the party, or with a smaller party, or play with home-made restrictions. Or if I want an easier challenge, I'll take two! I'd MUCH rather that than trying to normalize the power of classes by doing away with some of what makes a class fun to play. What matters to me in singleplayer games with classes is that each class be good at what it is designed to do and fun to use, not how it measures up to other classes; So if a class isn't fun to play because it doesn't achieve its design intent, by all means it needs changing! But if it is fun or does succeed and happens to be considered more powerful? Fine.... But I'd be a fool to insist that others share this preference, so I don't.

It seems unlikely for anybody, who played before 2.0, not to notice. As to why it was done? I neither know, nor care. Perhaps there was one text string where one of the +10 numbers overflowed to the next line or the 0 exceeded the border, perhaps somebody thought 9's more aesthetically pleasing than 10's? But if I had to make a guess, I'd guess the reason was more prosaic. Perhaps the introduction of items with even higher values in WMp1 and likely more of the same in part 2 meant that it was time to take a good look at stat progression, and it was decided to shrink the intervals between upgrades to the same defensive stat to delay how long time before stats would run wild. Because +5 to +9 to +12 (as is done now) makes each upgrade feel significant despite the shrinking interval and allows a fourth tier of +14 (or if generous and not shrinking further +15), while +5 to +10 to +12 makes the first upgrade seem significant and the second insignificant, and +5 to +10 to +15, keeping the interval fixed, would put a hypothetical fourth tier at +20...

@Curryinahurry, Of course I gush over the fireball spells and minor blights in the other thread! They are great spells, for level 3, just like the Ninagauth Shadowflames is a great spell for level 4 (and better than the level 3 fireballs). And of course I spam fireballs to finish off trivial encounters in next to no time at higher levels. And while they are insufficient to deal with any real challenge at those levels, as such encounters require me to use Shadowflames, Freezing Pillars, Call to Slumber, etc. the fireballs remain a valuable supplement as I break out the big guns, because, as you say and I have agreed all along, they maintain the power level they have had all along and remain useful and relevant; they have only been overtaken in power and efficiency by higher level spells, not made obsolete. And once level 4 spells become per encounter at level 15 (if the game is thus extended in White March part 2), I'll damn well be spamming both fireballs and frostballs to finish off trivial encounters, with frostballs in preference to fireballs and casting fewer 1st and 2nd level spells. And I'll be using the 5th through 8th level spells to address the real threats. The higher level I get, the less use I have when facing anything tactically challenging for the lower level spells that don't provide unique buffs; not because they don't work, but because they just aren't as powerful as higher level spells. I really, dearly, and sincerely don't understand why are you trying to impute me a motive of dishonesty by holding up my gushing over how good lower level spells are for solving lower level problems while still remaining relevant at higher levels as an example of something you consider to be at variance with my stance in this tread... where I am gushing over the convenience of being able to breeze through trivial encounters at higher levels using lower level spells. That's in line with the point I've been making all the time, that trivial encounters that present no tactical challenges do not require one to use more powerful abilities, that I consider this a good thing, and that I therefore consider turning these lower level abilities into per encounter is good for convenience. I mean, even if you disagree with my conclusion that the convenience is a good thing, and you obviously do, why you'd think there was some type of logical contradiction between my stance on spells like fireball and blights in the other thread and this one is beyond me. ANYHOW, Since I think you consistently seem to fail to either understand my arguments or accept their validity, and (as I see it, though I might be wrong) you seem to think much the same about my arguments, I'd under normal circumstances end it here with an "I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree" since I don't have enough invested in this debate to perpetuate it, and hope you accepted that. But as you furthermore chose to impute me motives (see: "being dishonest" and "don't want to give up your shinies" arguments) as a way of denigrating my person and brushing aside my arguments, which argumentative approach is a no-go in logical debate, I will instead use my last word to you in this thread to urge you to refrain from doing so in the future, and instead grant the people you debate the same respect they extend to you by assuming that you are arguing sincerely.

Ninagauth's Death Ray.

Sure you can.... unless you are additionally playing Trial of Iron. Having one save is a feature of Trial of Iron, not a feature of Path of the Damned.

Now, there's a scary thought, mph. ..."In part two the player will face several of Ninagauth's students, who like to initiate combat by casting Ninagauth's Shadowflame..." Sveveral enemies chaining fast-cast AOE damage/paralyze... Talk about a brutal fight setup.

Minoletta's spellbook:

You can set any number 0-9 to whichever group selection (individual member or multiple members) you like by using the standard ctrl+number; As default 1-6 are defined to refer to the individual party members while selections 7-9 and 0 are undefined.

And if you are in doubt, make sure to enter scouting mode, position your characters, and THEN start the encounter by e.g. having somebody shoot a ranged weapon. (Pause on start of encounter on, of course.) This allows you to cast the very best of your protective or buff spells first with no wasted time and means you won't have to waste time repositioning your casters at battle start, which can make a huge difference in otherwise tricky encounters. Then as enemies move to engage and you are getting nicely buffed up, hit them with ranged CC... and so on and so forth. Pretty standard, really, for an IE veteran, once one has adjusted to buffing being in-combat. And if you are finding encounters to be too hairy, enabling the "pause on ability use" to allow you to maximize the use of your abilities with a minimum of wasted time can make a huge difference. It is too much pausing for trivial encounters, but when push comes to shove, it is invaluable, and it can freely be toggled on and off in the options. Pillars of Eternity is a great game, but rudimentary tactics are enough to carry the day, just like it was in BG and NWN, so as a veteran of those games you should have few problems once you get settled in.

I must disagree with your reasoning, curryinahurry. While it is certainly true that early spells remain relevant at higher levels and as powerful at high levels as at low, I have not denied that, and that is not the same as them having the same power as higher level spells. If you are completing encounters using only the lower level spells when you are high level, then you are not fighting anything that requires you to use your most powerful spells, and the encounter is per definition not a difficult one in the first place, since a difficult one would be one that was a challenge to you and required you to use some of your most powerful resources not to fail. Take Slicken as an example. It is an awesome level 1 spell that remains relevant, but the level 5 Call to Slumber is better in every which way, being foe only, having a larger radius, and having a longer duration. But if high level encounters are designed such that they are trivialized by a wizard spamming Slicken without using more complicated spells, or by some other class using some lowlevel ability, then these are per definition not difficult encounters as you are capable of beating them using your weakest spells. And Fireball is awesome, but Nynagauth's Shadowflame is better. As for debuffs, which lower level debuffs have the power of the 6th level Hex or Gaze? And it goes on; As a general rule, higher level spells are more powerful, because that's part and parcel with the design idea. Which, of course, was my point. The question was never whether lowlevel spells were still relevant or useful - it would have been a failure of the stated design during development if they were not - only that if they are all you need to beat an encounter at a high difficulty level, then you are fighting a trivial encounter and not a challenging one. As for your second point, I find your statement that my argument is poorly reasoned to miss the point: I quite agree that per-encounter spells trivialize the need of strategic hoarding of resources when fighting trivial encounters. That was the entire point. It is, as I said, a matter of convenience to the user. By doing this, it frees the player from devoting significant time for trivial tasks, whether it be buying camping supplies to beat trivial battles quickly or stretching out trivial battles that hold no challenge in the first place in order to conserve resources. There are enough battles as it is, and I find it convenient only having to concentrate on resources when I fight battles that actually have some sort of tactical challenge for the party, just like I prefer facing strategic challenges that aren't trivialized by spending a few minutes jumping through hoops. EDIT: I see you've added a conclusion, so let me address it: As for your final conclusion where you try to look at a hypothetical situation of 10 spells rather than 4 to expose what you consider a false dichotomy, I can only say that I was making statements about how the game works in the context of changing whether spells were per rest or per encounter, which is the subject of discussion in this thread, not a broader statement about how the game might work, were it fundamentally different. Yes, there'd be a different situation if there were 10 spells per level rather than 4. And another situation entirely if there was only 1. And how about if health values were twice as big? Or only one third? Each radically different situation would significantly affect the value of the individual spell and the question of frequency of resting. But none of these situations are relevant to the discussion of whether per encounter spells are needed or balanced in Pillars of Eternity.

Possibly because in most cases just how hard encounters are for you depends less on your level and more on your party composition; Most of the content you have available to you at any given time is of roughly the same overall difficulty if you do side quests as you follow the main quest. When act 2 starts and you get three different main quests to complete, you can do them in any order, and whichever you pursue first is going to feel a bit tough (if you don't do a lot of sidequests first), while whichever you do last is going to be trivial. There are cases where this isn't the case; As an example, the White March content can if you pursue the main quest relentlessly become available considerably before you are likely to be able to deal with it, but there you'll likely be stopped by the very first zone, which starts with a battle that is a pretty good measure for whether you'll be able to deal with the rest of the content. Likewise, you get access to all of the Endless Paths from the moment you retake Caed Nua, but you are unable to plow through all 15 levels in a row without doing a lot of other questing to level up and gain equipment. And the optional dragon encounters are, as they should be, killers for the unprepared. In general it is the case that every area you have access to is one that you should be able to deal with if you've got a sensible party composition of six members and the player skill to match the difficulty you've chosen.

My POTD blaster wizard with base con 3 certainly wins in the "gets knocked out the most" competition, but by mid act3 (and after White March) still only has only been knocked out twice as much as numbers 2 and 3, and the vast majority of those those were during the early and mid-game. Once you've got both Infuse With Vital Essence and Llengrath's Displaced Image (and are willing to use Concelhaut's Siphon when being healed by others in time isn't a certainty) it becomes much less of an issue. And once you hit level 7 and gain access to Ninagauth's Shadowflame from the White March, it becomes a truly minor issue, as your wizard's ability to deal out AOE damage and CC at the same time fast cast actions puts you firmly in control. As for there being no "staying in the back", that depends to a large degree on how many front liners you have - the more front liners you have, the harder it is for most melee enemies to get to your wizard and the more likely it is for enemies to get tied up with the front line. There are exceptions, of course, but they are few and far between after the early temple of Eothas. (And they need to be CCd or burned down swiftly!) Running a con 3 wizard with only 2 front liners and the rest in back has got to be much more dangerous than running 3 or even 4 in front. I run a 4 strong frontline. For ranged to target your wizard, they need to be in range of your wizard since enemy ranged typically have short attack ranges, and if they are in your range and shooting at you, why aren't you crowd controlling them? Well, obviously if there are a lot of ranged enemies, but most encounters have few ranged enemies compared to melee enemies, and ranged enemies are usually happy enough shooting at enemies in their range rather than moving towards your wizard to target him, if he isn't already in their range. So proper tactical placement means that ranged enemies are rarely a major threat to wizards. OP: These are my POTD stats: