JerekKruger

Oh wow! I had no idea that would be the case. That's a huge advantage!

Just to be clear, I am using the Community Patch. The fact that the vanilla Biting Whip is completely uncompetitive is fairly obvious to me since, as you say, a (usually conditional) 10% additive damage bonus just isn't very large even if you ignore the lower focus drain percentage. I'll see if I can track down @MaxQuest's calculations. I'm guessing the aim was to have it still be inferior when it comes to Focus generation, but have the difference be smaller and have the lash be more appealing in it's own right. I assume your advice to take Biting Whip in my case still stands even with the Community Patch? EDIT: oh also thanks again for taking the time to reply 🙂

So is Biting Whip ever with taking in the Community Patch, or is it more of a "less bad" change than a genuinely competitive choice?

So after a brief period of restartitis I am back to this build and I have another question: I have the full Community Patch installed, which means Biting Whip is a 20% Raw lash rather than just +10% Damage. As a veteran of PoE that seems extremely good: essentially a 20% multiplicative damage bonus that ignores armour. First, is this correct? Second, if so is Biting Whip a viable choice for this class combination? The way I see it, I should be able to generate a fair amount of focus by way of AoE Deception powers, so increasing my Focus gain isn't as important. Thoughts?

I was thinking about this some more whilst in the office yesterday (what, you expect me to think about work? Nonsense!) and if it weren't for the Psion's anti-synergy with melee I'd probably prefer them as a subsclass to other Ciphers. I'm not inherently wedded to the idea of generating Focus via Soul Whip, but I do strongly associate Ciphers with the idea of a martial/caster hybrid, so the Psion's Focus mechanic feels like too much of a liability. With the Community Patch I'm guessing a Psion/Trickster could be viable in melee at higher levels: +50 Deflection with Borrowed Instincts and Mirrored Image makes being receiving a Crit quite unlikely. Anyway, will be starting my Beguiler/Trickster tonight, and looking forward to it. Thanks again Boeroer.

Thanks Boeroer, I think that settles it for me: Trickster/Beguiler it is. As an aside, I had never considered Assassin/Soulblades, and whilst it's a fairly one dimensional build it is pretty fun to have +62 Accuracy for your Soul Annihilation! And yeah, I looked at the Psion (especially with the changes in the Community Patch), but having become used to the idea of Ciphers as a kind of martial/caster hybrid I just find Psions odd. Maybe I'll try one in the future though!

It's been a while! I was fairly active on the PoE forums back in the day, and backed Deadfire in the Fig campaign, but despite that I have hardly played it. Part of that was that I found the changes to the game mechanics from PoE jarring: I absolutely loved PoE's mechanics and I just didn't have the energy to learn to love Deadfire's. Perhaps a bigger part though was that Deadfire was released during the third year of my PhD and I just didn't have much time for gaming. Thankfully my PhD is now (successfully) behind me, it has been a long time since I played PoE, and Deadfire has matured a lot (I may have matured a little too). So when the itch to play a CRPG hit me recently, I thought I'd finally get round to playing through Deadfire. After spending altogether too long reading various discussions on this forum and elsewhere I've settled on the core of a character idea. Specifically I want to play as an Old Vailian Ocean Folk Cipher using various "duelist" style weapons (roughly speaking this includes Rapiers, Sabres, Swords, Daggers, Stilettoes, Small Shields and Pistols), emphasizing a flamboyant character (I'll be choosing passionate and clever a fair amount). I took some inspiration from @Aestus's recent Serafen build in this regard. Whilst I have the concept nailed down, I'm struggling to decide on the details, so I thought I'd ask here. First off, what subclass and multiclass to go with? My thoughts at the moment: Soulblade: this is an obvious choice if I'm going for a melee build. Soul Annihilation is a powerful ability, but I honestly think the Concentration on kill is a pretty nice bonus for a melee caster. There doesn't seem to be much downside compared to a generic Cipher. Beguiler: I really like Charm and Dominate (it's a large part of why I've decided to go with a Cipher), and the Beguiler kinda fits nicely with that. I say kinda because when it comes to casting Whispers of Treason or Puppet Master the bonuses aren't a that big (longer range, which is nice for WoT, and 5 Focus if they hit). However quite a lot of good Cipher spells are large Foe AoE Deception spells, and in those cases the Focus return can be quite big. Single class Cipher: the simplest choice. That said, Cipher has less exciting stuff going on at PL 8 and 9 than some classes. Time Parasite is great of course, and since I'm using the full Community Patch Defensive Mindweb could be pretty powerful. Driving Echoes is a big buff, but not particularly exciting. The passives are pretty good: A Soul's Echo makes your many Will targeting spells better and Shared Nightmares seems generically good, with a big synergy with Ascendants (+275% AoE with your free powers) and Soulblades using an AoE weapon like WotEP. I'm probably leaning away from this choice, but could be convinced otherwise. Cipher/Streetfighter: generally speaking I am not a fan of this sort of risk/reward class, but I have to say -50% Recovery is appealing (the other bonuses don't hurt either). What I don't know is (a) how bad the +20% Recovery penalty when not Heating Up or On The Edge is and (b) how easy it is to safely keep Heating Up active in important fights? I will add that from a role-playing point of view Streetfighter fits quite well: I can imagine my character being the kind of person who went out drinking in Old Vailia and getting into fights. Cipher/Trickster: the safer Cipher/Rogue choice since you get access to some pretty powerful defensive self-buffs. The basic question is (a) do the various Trickster powers add significant fun to the build and (b) do they overshadow Cipher powers? I want being a Cipher to be a core part of my character, so don't want to end up hardly using my Cipher powers because it's better to use Trickster powers. I do think this fits my archetype fairly well too. Cipher/Blackjacket: so I've already played through the prologue and a decent chunk of Neketaka with a Devoted/Soulblade using Greatswords. I decided not to carry on because I don't like being locked into a single weapon. When I look at the other Fighter subclasses the only one that stands out as an option is the Blackjacket, but it's a weird one. Generally multiclassing as a Fighter adds some welcome survivability to my build, particularly early on before powers like Borrowed Instincts become available. Blackjackets sacrifice some of that survivability (worse Constant Recovery) in exchange for more flexibility, and I'm struggling to judge whether it's worth it or not. It does mean I can start combat by quickly firing a bunch of pistols before switching to a melee weapon, which is nice, but I don't know if it's worth it beyond that. Maybe a generic Fighter is better, but somehow I don't like taking non-subclass characters (with the exception of Wizards). Thematically I think it's a decent fit, though less good than the two Rogue classes. Other: I'm open to other suggestions, as long as they fit with my character concept (I have no doubt that Arcane Archer/Ascendant or Ghost Heart/Ascendant are fun for example, but they don't fit my idea). I'd also welcome any suggestions on attribute spreads, with the caveat that I don't like dumping stats below 8? Finally, any other interesting info, combos etc. that might impact these builds would be welcome. Thanks in advance 🙂

I'd love to see a Vampire game set in Milton Keynes. I wouldn't want to play it, but I'd love to see it.

I'd guess the highest chance of a turn based version of PoE happens like this: Ten to fifteen years pass Beamdog decides to buy the rights to PoE and create an Enhanced Edition with 16k textures and neural interface support Given how successful their turn-based mode in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Enhanced Edition was, they decide to add a turn based mode into PoE:EE as well It certainly won't be Obsidian doing it, since there's no money to be made from doing so (and almost certainly money to be lost).

I have a love hate relationship with the World of Darkness setting. I don't really want to play games set in (roughly) the real world, however here is something appealing about the sheer amount of detail available as a result. There's also something appealing about being able to set it in the town/city you live in (fingers crossed you don't live in somewhere like Milton Keynes however), visiting places you and your friends are familiar with, though with fabricated secrets added on. But ultimately, it's not really my kind of setting. I quite like Ars Magica's Mythic Europe for a similar reason, and its a setting I find my interesting, though obviously the detail is less in a game set in (roughly) twelfth century Europe.

Same. I mean, it could be good, and that would be great. I just hope their stretch goals so far have been low balled cost wise because I doubt you can develop a whole new game mode for just $125k (I do think $95k$195k [bloody hell these stretch goal numbers are a bit mismatched] for a new race is pretty conservative though, so fingers crossed eh)

Yep, my first thought was games like XCOM and indeed these games emphasise (what video games call) strategy, so if you're looking for the same in a turn based RPG it makes sense to go that direction.

Whilst generic pseudo-Medieval European world are as clichéd as they come, I suspect they're still the most popular settings out there. And so long as that's the case, most CRPGs will pick a generic pseudo-Medieval European world as their setting.

One day someone will make a turn-based game that genuinely has a small handful of really engaging and clever fights, and does away with filler. One day.

There are 12 in the core rulebook so yeah, that's skimpy and a little surprising.

Scandioid or Yorkshoid are also acceptable.

This too. It's a well known fact that a dwarf isn't a dwarf unless they (a) wield an axe or, at a push, a hammer, (b) wear heavy armour, (c) have a great big bushy beard, (c2) are male or at least appear male and (d) are always drunk. Bonus points if they hate/are scared of trees for some reason.

I did actually like Sagani, but notice how her ending had no influence on Deadfire. It's like they want you to believe she never existed! Khelgar is from before this cabal formed so...

Yes, for there is a shadowy cabal of CRPG developers working together to ensure we never get a good dwarf companion.

The impression I get from a lot of software I used day-to-day at work is that that's true for a fair number of other software developers.

I suspect they'll stick with the name Baldur's Gate because it would honestly be a bit weird to do otherwise when the D&D game you've just released is no more a Baldur's Gate game than the one you're proposing not to call Baldur's Gate. Instead I suspect BG will simply come to be a series of D&D CRPGs by Larian. I do hope they're successful. Even if I end up not enjoying BG3, I think it's good for CRPGs as a whole to have as many successful dedicated CRPG developers around. Whether it be borrowing a cool new idea, or simply the confidence that CRPGs can be commercially viable, it's a good thing imo.

My main takeaways were: This isn't Baldur's Gate 3, but I didn't really expect it to be. It was never going to be a continuation of the Bhaalspawn saga because how would that even work after the events of ToB; and I didn't expect Larian to move away from turn-based when (a) that's what they've had success with with D:OS1/2 and (b) that's the easiest and arguably purest way to adapt D&D. I am a tiny bit annoyed that they insisted on calling this BG3 rather than simply announcing a new D&D CRPG franchise (and I'd expect they'd have received a lot less flak if they had) but I guess either they or Wizards wanted to use the hype of announcing a BG game The gameplay itself looked fine. Nothing massively remarkable, but nothing awful either. I prefer RTwP but I enjoy turn based too so I'm not that bothered by that decision. The environments looked nice enough, but I do hope for some variety: one of the things that put me off D:OS1/2 was there only really seemed to be one outdoor tileset. Character models look remarkably similar to DA:I, but so long as they avoid the absurdly oversized weapons of that game that's not really a bad thing. Not much to say about story yet. Overall, as long as I treat this as Dungeons and Dragons: Original Sin rather than I Baldur's Gate game, I'm cautiously optimistic, which is what I was pre-stream, so not much change. Luckily early access will mean plenty of streamers I trust will almost certainly play it to death, and I'll get a better chance to judge it then.

Perhaps some potions taste so disgusting, it takes the drinker a moment to recover 😄 Is there any discernible balance reason behind the differences as far as you can tell? Do longer recovery times correlate with more powerful potions for example?

Same. They'd be so much more interesting if they scaled with PL, and it might make Conjurer's appealing too.

Heh, sadly not. Summoned Weapons do scale, but not with Power Level. Instead they scale with Character Level, reaching Legendary enchantment level at, iirc, level 17. I remember being very disappointed about this when I discovered it on release.