JerekKruger

One requires a Paladin though right? EDIT: not that that's a bad thing, I love Paladins, just checking.

Yeah, I should have specified that it really only shines when dual wielding, ideally dual fists I guess.

I never had the patience to get these talents Out of interest, do the bonuses from Flick of the Wrist apply to Soulbound weapons?

A melee oriented damage dealing Chanter can certainly work, but the majority of his damage will never really he from his weapons since Chanters don't get any Abilities or Talents designed to up their melee damage. If you're okay with that then it could certainly work and the Drake's Ambassador would make a good starting point for your build. On Hard difficulty or lower you should be able to get away with wielding a two-handed sword instead of a sword and shield (might be worth keeping a sword and shield slotted in your secondary weapon slots just in case) without too much difficulty. Other classes that might appeal to you from your description would be Monks and Paladins. Monks can be perfectly viable with weapons, including two-handed ones, and will fulfil the role of melee damage dealer who throws special powers around occasionally. Similarly for Paladins.

I don't get one even on a high intellect monk, so I'm guessing for some reason there isn't one for Torment's Reach. It's a tad annoying since I'd like to be able to place it well, but honestly it does such high damage to the primary target it's good even if you ignore the AoE.

You actually didn't make that argument, or at least not in response to my post. Even if you had, it wouldn't have mattered since it's a terrible argument. First, unless you very much blur the lines of what a god is, this correlation doesn't exist. Secondly, even if it did, what would that matter. If someone defines soul to be some immaterial essence of a being then isn't contingent on a God or gods. The only way it becomes so is when you start to claim that that isn't the definition of a soul, and that's exactly where you're claiming ownership of the word (whether it be for Christianity or religion in general). There's no reason to assume that the two should be linked at all, hence the burden of proof lies on the party claiming that they are (you here). You haven't discharged that burden hence I have nothing to prove. EDIT: by the way, to anyone not familiar with this move, what Zenbane did here is called burden shifting. He realised his argument, or lack thereof, wasn't having the desired effect so decided to go with the "yeah well you prove the opposite" tactic. It's kinda cute when you know to look out for it

If it's a fallacy demonstrate it. Merely saying "X is a fallacy" does not make X a fallacy.

Boeroer's Backlash Bedlam might fit the bill. It's a Cipher build wearing heavy armour (brigandine) which stacks multiple retaliate abilities to generate a fair amount of damage and also focus, which it can then use to use it's powerful Cipher powers.

In the immortal words Gromnir: "HA! Good Fun! Of course souls pre-date Christianity, and all extant religions also. That doesn't contradict what I said. Once again, religion has no monopoly on the word "soul". As for the effort of research, I've read the bible several times (being raised as a Catholic) as well as read commentaries on it. I've also read the Quran through once and the Bhagavad Gita: the latter is far more compelling than any Abrahamic holy book. I've read several apocryphal books of the bible too, which are really interesting. I've also read a fair amount of philosophy regarding religion and epistemology. I continue to read and research religion in general and specific religions in particular because they fascinate me. I can assure you that my atheism is not a product of laziness.

The Christian concept of a soul comes from God (as does literally everything in the Christian world view), but Christians don't have a monopoly on the word "soul" and, if by soul we mean an immaterial essence of a person that may (or may not) continue to exist after their death, there's absolutely no reason one cannot believe in souls but not God or gods. Indeed an awful lot of people do. What is "an atheist in practice"? Atheism isn't a religion, there are no practices associated to it. It's merely a description of a belief, or more accurately a non-belief.

I'm an atheist and I can assure you there's no need to capitalise atheist, we're not part of some monolithic organisation that demands respect. As for what atheists "believe", there's only really one requirement and it's that they don't believe in a God or gods I don't, but that's got nothing to do with atheism, that would be, I don't know, apsychists or something similar. Once again, atheism is about non-belief in gods. To answer the OP: I can see where the idea comes from sure given the main plot. That said, the gods of Eora definitely do exist, so in Eora it's not rational to be an atheist. Also, even putting aside their origins, the setting doesn't explicitly say that there isn't another layer of "real" gods of a God above them that are merely not interventionist. Atheist parents mostly tell their children normal stories before putting them to bed.

Then use console commands and change their builds as you see fit. You only miss out on achievements which, if you're "coming back to the game" you probably have mostly.

Your use of wound binding on that Glass Tsunami build was pretty clever Braven, I have to say.

Option 1: if you're not interested in achievements, or you've already unlocked them, there's nothing stopping you from doing anything you want to your companion's stats. Rearrange them however you want, or even set them all to 500. Now if you want to unlock achievements then that's not going to work, but here we have an alternative: use custom companions. You can make a party of 6 perfectly optimised characters and unlock all (or at least almost all) achievements this way. What do you miss out on? Well banter and a few minor quests (though the latter you can probably switch in companions one by one to do). If this loss is super important to you, then perhaps option 1 is for you. If you want to do both then you're out of luck. Personally I don't understand the interest in ticking off achievements, and it's also very easy to do one of two runs to knock off the achievements if you do care. EDIT: also, as mentioned, attributes are not that important.

Yeah, I haven't commented but it's fun to read about your progress Harpagornis. It's damn impressive too.

I think the current system makes sense. It takes a lot less effort for someone to go from couch to 5k than it does from 5k to marathon, and even more effort to go from first marathon to running a sub 3 hour marathon etc. Practising any skill has diminishing returns, requiring more effort to achieve less improvement. So the current system makes sense. You've got to weigh up whether the maximum benefit is worth the increased investment cost.

I've been giving it some more thought, and I wonder if something like the following could work. Hearth Orlan Mig 10 Con 14 Dex 10 Per 18 Int 16 Res 10 Wielding Llawran's Stick with appropriate enchantments and Durgan refinement (Llawran's Stick gives +20% attack speed). I realise Blade of the Endless Paths would probably be a better choice, but a staff just seems to fit a monk well. Obviously he'll have to have a backup weapon for crush resistant/immune enemies. I plan to make lots of use of Enervating Blows (high perception gives high crit chance, as does Hearth Orlan), Force of Anguish (high intellect and high crit chance mean long duration), Resonant Touch (high intellect means larger AoE, as far as I could tell the damage is unaffected by might). I will also probably take Interrupting Blows which, with a high perception and a fast attack speed should mean a fairly good rate of interruption. So, any thoughts? Is Constitution 14 too low for a low armoured monk? Could any of Might, Dexterity or Resolve be reasonably dropped to 8 without hurting his ability to do his job? Bear in mind this is only for a Hard playthrough and some choices are made for RPy reasons.

What difficulty are you playing on theBalthazar?

Doesn't that self damage only activate once at the start of the ability? If so presumably this would require a Paladin to activate it whilst charmed for this to work so it wouldn't be reliable (especially since you're likely to have used your one use per encounter before they get charmed). To be honest though, a Paladin's high saves and, if needed, Righteous Soul.

Bah, I am still suffering from analysis paralysis. Can't decide whether to go damage or controller and whether to go primarily fists or use a weapon. I really need to learn that this stuff doesn't matter as much as I think it does :D In other news, I did a quick test a determined that Intellect does increase the duration of wounds. This was probably already known but I couldn't find it written anywhere. At Intellect 10 it seems that they last about 30s and at Intellect 18 about 42s. This was done with a stop watch so it's probably not that accurate, but I don't think I made a mistake of 12s. Not sure if that makes Intellect more important for Turning/Iron Wheel Monks?

Nice find Boeroer, I might finally have to create a character who uses morning stars.

Together with the Paladin's great saves and, if needed, Righteous Soul, this would seem to result in a party almost immune from charm attacks. I really hope this doesn't get nerfed since it seems to be working as intended.

As far as I'm aware you can, though I don't think I've ever done so.

The fighter can choose a different ability I guess.

No worries on the thread tangent, I think I've got an answer to my question now. I'm just trying to figure out the fine details now.