JerekKruger

Honestly that any food adds to stats is kinda weird when you think about it. Whilst diet is important for physical and mental performance, this doesn't actually equate to eating a single meal and suddenly becoming better in a certain way.

That tends to be my position on the issue and this makes it easier for me to focus on one or two dialogue attributes. That said, I can understand someone not liking the restrictions of what the attributes govern.

Sure, no worries. As Grimnir said in your other thread, and Braven in this, you can't really go wrong with attributes in PoE. So definitely go for whatever you feel will be most fun.

Whilst I can't tell you how to play, I would strongly advise against designing a build specifically to try to unlock all attribute based dialogue options. As someone who also likes RP choices I completely understand why you want to, but having played through the game several times now I can tell you that in the vast majority of cases all they make any real difference to the dialogue. It's not even uncommon to have an NPC reply with exactly the same line to an attribute locked dialogue option as they do to a generic dialogue option. In other cases they will have a unique reply but then immediately return to the standard dialogue tree, sometimes in a slightly jarring fashion. Now there are quests which can be resolved in a "better" way through attribute locked dialogue options, but in most the cases I can remember they have multiple different attribute solutions, so you might have one which can be solved by being clever (Intellect) or noticing something important (Perception), so as long as one of either Intellect or Perception is high enough you can solve them. Also there is often a non-attribute locked method of getting the better resolution to the quest, either through being more careful in your dialogue choices, or through having done something else before hand (e.g. found a quest related note which gives you the required information). Personally, if I was going for a more damage orientated Paladin I'd go with the following: Mig 18 Con 8 Dex 10 Per 16 Int 16 Res 10 In fact, I did roll with this exact attribute spread a few runs back. If you don't like reducing attributes below 10 then I'd go with Con 10 and Per 14. For a damage dealing Paladin Might and Intellect are, in my opinion, the two most important attributes (you could swap them around if you preferred). This build will still fulfil the role of secondary tank very well, since Paladin's are naturally very tanky, and in fact I'd say that for anything but a main tank Paladin raising Resolve above 10 is a waste. Note that this Paladin was designed to use Two-Handed Swords, in particular a unique one which is available fairly early into the game if you know where to look, but is also easily missed if you don't (not sure how you feel about spoilers so I won't specify more than that). The build is designed around the Paladin getting last hits to proc Strange mercy, and later on it will (like basically all Paladins) make use of Sacred Immolation.

Oh, that probably makes a lot more sense, though that backpack baby isn't as tough as the Aerie-Bhaalspawn one.

Wait, are we referring to a different backpack baby? I thought we were talking about the potential baby that Aerie and the Bhaalspawn could have in Throne of Bhaal. I agree. At the very least if they do stick with the Watcher I hope they rework the levelling and progression so there's actually room to improve. But even if they do that, the Watcher has quite possibly killed five dragons, two of the most powerful mages in existence, the immortal leader of a cult who made the gods and much more. What's left in Eora that's really challenging for them?

Agreed. I am all for immunities that make sense (slimes being immune to prone, animats being immune to poison etc.), what I don't like is the use of immunities to make fights tougher without any real reason.

Also backpack baby was badass. It never took any damage no matter what was hitting its father: epic level spells, demigod dragons, ancient undead, none of this phased backpack baby.

Well I guess it's confirmed, the Watcher won't be returning in PoE2, instead we will play "Captain ****"

Usable items have to be fairly weak or risk the ire of the majority of players who didn't back the game. Gaun's Share in PoE was fine is this regard, as as far as my playthroughs go it's just something to sell to Theodan (Heodan?)[That guy who dies really early on ].

I agree regarding meta gaming. The one time I did it was for a build of Boeroer's that used a particular random drop item. My post wasn't so much advocating rest spamming to get the items you need as giving a possible explanation as to why I usually get the gloves. Depending on how you feel about achievements and that sort of thing, you could console them in.

(1) My explanation would be that the nature of the Watcher's awakening is such that even if they did dive into the Salt Well, all those lost memories would be returned immediately after emerging. No real evidence for this apart from the fact that the Watcher's awakening was obviously unusual. (3) Well remember the normal people can see certain spirits without being watchers. The thing that makes watchers unique is they can see all spirits. So for whatever reason (perhaps the one given by WorstUsernameEver) the voices of the spirits in Durgan's Battery are audible to the whole party. (4) One person's definition of cold blood might very well differ to another's. Imagine a pirate ship boarding a merchant and the pirates making it clear that no one will be hurt so long as they don't resist. Then imagine someone resists and is killed. Is that cold blood? In my eyes yes, but I can see how someone could rationalise that as not being cold blood. (5) They had a run in with the Ogres of the Flames-that-Whisper cave and ended up rather dead. Depending on how you resolve that quest you may or may not have been told this by the matron. (6) I'm not sure it's specifically spelled out, but perhaps they were killed by the bandit in the north of the Durgan's Battery exterior map (the guy with St. Ydwen's Redeemer). After all, he's barring the way to the monastery. (8 ) Perhaps she knows but doesn't agree with your reasoning?

Well, random loot isn't actually random. Basically when you open a chest for the first time the loot it will contain is completely determined by the day of the current month. There are tables detailing exactly what each chest contains on each day (though they aren't always completely accurate). The reason I mention this is that, if you have a certain usual quest progression in the early game then it's reasonably likely you'll open the same contains on roughly the same day (obviously the later into the game, the more the variation here) so it might be that I often get the Gloves of Manipulation because I usually do the quests in the same order and arrive at the chest that contains them (one of the ones in Raedric's Hold for me usually) on the same day every time.

Interesting post and in general I agree with you. My problem with Baldur's Gate was that there was a lot of "pointless exploration". What I mean by this is things like having every single door in the city of Baldur's Gate be an openable door leading to a separate building interior map, or having lots of wilderness maps with nothing much going on in them. Now I should qualify this by saying that this sort of thing is not, in of itself, a bad thing. The problem with Baldur's Gate was that most of those doors in the city lead to identikit houses with perhaps a couple of generic NPCs and a chest containing some generic loot; or the wilderness maps being mostly just empty and fairly generic wood- or grassland. I feel that all locations should be worth including in the game. This doesn't mean they have to involve a quest, contain amazing loot or a difficult encounter. Another example of a worthwhile location to my mind would be a house in the city where the occupant fleshes out the lore, or a wilderness map with some nice unique features. I'm all for including more of this sort of thing. On a more general level, I do think the locations in PoE felt a little bit less alive than their BG2 counterparts. I am definitely all for more ambient city and wilderness noises, and larger wilderness maps in PoE2. In Josh's recent Q&A stream he answered a question about this and said that this is something they want to improve in PoE2. Also dynamic weather seems to be a feature they're working on including so yay.

Huh, I never noticed that about Maneha. I tend not to. You can usually rely on getting a pair of Gloves of Manipulation fairly early on in the game and 12 is enough for almost any trap. With the few exceptions I just have Eder or someone else tough run through them. You miss out on a tiny bit of experience doing this but PoE doesn't lack experience.

Is this on the Madhmar Bridge? There's one there that was the death of many TCS runs as it aggros straight away. The general advice is to avoid that map till you're higher level and can resist its stuns more easily.

Don't that Dark Souls games prove that this isn't true? Personally I think the dragon's in the game are in a good place. They are tough if you don't know any clever strategies to beat them, but they should be tough, they're dragons after all. In Skyrim (unmodded) the only thing that's epic about Dragons is their appearance, in Dragon Age Inquisition they are damage sponges but are otherwise not challenging (they're basically MMO tank-n-spank fights), in PoE they're truly fearsome. They're also completely optional in PoE (and in the case of the bog dragons you can even get a fairly nice improvement for dealing with them peacefully) so short of the aforementioned "everything has to be doable and easy" crowd they don't get in the way of the fun.

There seems to be a growing belief amongst gamers they should be able to do everything easily, and they complain of forums when things are too hard. You see this particularly when achievements are hard to get. I have my theories about where this comes from, but that would be going massively off topic.

Well I mean, if you really like rogues for whatever reason then taking one isn't the end of the world. But I just don't like the way they are implemented in PoE and since they are underpowered I am happy to skip them.

I don't think building a Paladin as a pure tank is ever going to be as good as building him in a hybrid tank/support role. There are several good tanky Paladin builds in the build sticky thread. I think a Chanter will be a lot better as an off-tank buffer than a Priest. Honestly though, you probably don't need a separate off-tank as the Lady of Pain does the job well. I'd replace the ranged Rogue with a ranged Cipher, but then I really don't like Rogues.

For the priest, this build seems to be an obvious candidate (it's even a build by Andrea). I can't say for certain what Paladin build Andrea had in mind, but the standard Paladin build would be to go for various party improving buffs and healing spells, then spec into Sacred Immolation at level 13, making sure you have picked up Scion of Flame at some point to maximise its damage.

Second hardest? Is there some secret one not on the wiki? http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Party#List_of_Companions All of the others can be picked up without any combat at all, unless I am mistaken. Once you clear Stalwart of ogres, I mean, but you have to do that for DoC as well. To get Maneha you have to complete the White March part I, which means you have to go through Galvino's lab (amongst other things). I'd say getting Maneha is harder than getting Devil.

Just you wait, PoE2 will end up actually being set in a desert

I just looked them up. They are, indeed, immune to burn and shock, however they are slightly weak against slash (14DR vs their normal 18DR) which is the other component of the Dragon Thrashed. Not sure how big a hit only doing half the usual damage it, but at least you're not doing none.

Seems very likely given that they look to be Aumaua and Vailians which are the obvious races to go with a naval themed campaign which has been strongly hinted at now.