gkathellar

I.e. the one line excuse as to why they didn't put any extra effort into her. It's simply not believable that a char would not have an ounce of skeptism after being thrown out on the streets. She's not skeptical because as far as she's concerned it's her own fault (and maybe also the Watcher's). No matter what the Republics do to her, in her mind it will always be her own fault. That's what emotional abuse does to a person.

Did you have scaling down on?

... I must reluctantly suggest that doesn't sound half bad.

I really hope it wasn't intentional and always hated the fact that they didn't show in POE, which completely ruined expert mode for me. Simply put, I don't feel like to having indicators divorced from expert increases difficulty like at all. Not having them visible makes the process of combats tedious and not fun to the point I will never run expert mode ever vs I would play expert mode 100% of the time if indicators were there. Seconding (thirding?) this. Removing AoE indicators doesn't make the game tactically deeper or more difficult, except in the sense that you need to eyeball things that you have no reasonable way of guessing. Every time a CRPG says, "this has a 15-foot radius" and doesn't give me a rangefinder for what a fifteen foot radius actually is, I feel a wave of anti-nostalgia.

I agree, they should definitely do that - hell, character creation has a "preview abilities" button, so we know that it's 100% feasible. This. Also it's kinda time to streamline the character respec. Going 20 times through [ability selection -> skill selection -> ~ proficiency selection] is not ok. I would salute a point-buy system, where you can invest all ability points on ability screen at once. I agree that it's not great as-is, but due to the way abilities unlock with PL, just giving the player a pile of points would require a very different leveling GUI.

Save, respec, and then reload?

I feel like there's not a ton to say about celebrants in particular. Grab some summons on the Chanter side, since Priests can't do that, and maybe Scion of Flame if you go for burn damage invocations/spells. You probably won't need healing chants, so you can probably take the straight buffs instead. Priest staples are staples: Suppress Affliction, Consecrated Ground, Devotions for the Faithful. BDD, etc.

Obsidiaaaaaaaaaaaaan! *shakes fist*

And he's a good example of my view: being a tiefling makes Haer'dalis cool, and gives him a few minor bonuses, but there's no mechanics that you can only explore by having him along. If you want a bard other than Haer'dalis, though, your MC can be that bard, and the main thing you'll be missing out on is his character and a couple of cool swords. A similar case in Deadfire would be Xoti, whose unique priest subclass is interesting and distinctive, but has little in the way of toys that only she can access (IIRC, all of her bonus spells other than Blessed Harvest appear on either the Priest of Eothas or the Druid ability list). You can't build another character exactly like Xoti, but if you see a mechanic on her that you really like, you're not required to have her along to use it (except for Blessed Harvest, which I'm okay with). A counterexample would be Pallegina (in either game, incidentally), whose unique paladin order opens up an interesting alpha-striking playstyle that no other character can pull off. I personally like Pallegina and almost always have her in my party for that reason, but if I disliked her, I think it could be frustrating to be locked out of exploring those mechanics. In PoE1, if I want to mess with something like the Fire General, Pallegina is non-optional. Likewise, in Deadfire, something like the Tuono e Fulmine is locked to her character and requires I include her in my five-man squad. Again, this isn't to say that companions shouldn't have unique junk, it's just to say that I think it's best if that unique junk isn't too different from what's otherwise available.

"Hunt a god. Save your soul. GET CRUNK."

...which doesn’t matter because the point of the game isn’t to stop him. You keep saying that, but it seems to me that there's a whole slate of people who felt otherwise. It could be that they're all just unequivocally wrong, or it could be that the point is not as unambiguously, obviously presented as you seem to insist. Yeah, there definitely are some people who manufactured expectations not based on what the game said it was, but rather what they think it should have been. They are free to do so (and thus produce their own disappointment). Doesn’t mean the game didn’t do what it did said it was going to do (and arguably, do it well) Mm, so people who disagree with you are either incorrect in their analysis or intellectually dishonest? Okay then, have fun being right about things. I'm out.

Make thier personality what makes them unique. Or give them a special ability or equipement. Don't wave fun classes in my face and go, "Haha you can't do this." There's something to say for either of these perspectives. When a party member has some unique mechanic, that's can be cool. OTOH, it can be frustrating when the party member is mandatory in order to toy around with the mechanic in question. I think the big thing is finding a middle ground where party members have unique things that are not too different from what's otherwise available.

Skald can still run ancient memory, where most of your healing comes from anyway, but also generates phrases from melee crits. Zerker should help nicely with that. Troub using brisk is still probably going to get faster phrases, but I really feel skald and barbarian are made for each other. They are, although unfortunately Troubadour/Berserker is still usually the stronger of the two. It's unfortunate since, as you say, the synergy is obvious and interesting.

...which doesn’t matter because the point of the game isn’t to stop him. You keep saying that, but it seems to me that there's a whole slate of people who felt otherwise. It could be that they're all just unequivocally wrong, or it could be that the point is not as unambiguously, obviously presented as you seem to insist. Indeed. It might be more accurate if the tagline were, "Follow a god around. Politely ask for the return of your soul." And I mean that's not to bash the premise of following a god around and politely asking for the return of your soul - that could be a totally reasonable story. It's just not the story Deadfire advertises, and only inconsistently the actual story it has.

Yes But how am I supposed to spam Flames of Devotion if I use up all my zeal doing things other than spamming Flames of Devotion?

They're workable-ish, but you can only have one on the field at a time, and they don't do nearly enough damage to justify that. Not worth bothering with after Port Maje, if there. That's too bad maybe they will tweak them before it's over. Yeah, I agree - at this point, pre-combat prep is mostly just "take some drugs." It's a shame. knownastherat's point that you're generally just going to sell them is also valid - most traps have a pretty decent sale price, so the irony is that the point in the game where you're most likely to get some mileage out of them (early) is also the point where you might be hurting for cash and will want to sell them for a bit of other junk.

They're workable-ish, but you can only have one on the field at a time, and they don't do nearly enough damage to justify that. Not worth bothering with after Port Maje, if there.

The myriad of bs like that was almost exclusively in the Codex Collection (which kind of amuses me, in a mean way). IT can't be taken as representative, given that they're more easter eggs than they are items.

To be fair, every unique weapon is viable into the endgame (although some are definitely better than others), and there is at least one decent unique weapon of every type. I snrk'd

In base and WM combined. But maybe it's true for just base game alone as well. I've just picked random weapon type from gamepedia, a war bow, and checked enchantments on uniques: - Borresaine - 2 nonenchantalbe properties - Cloudpiercer - 2 nonenchantalbe properties - Sabra Marie - 2 nonenchantalbe properties - The Rain of Godagh Field - 1 nonenchantable property Caedebald's Blackbow is a summoned weapon so it doesn't count i guess. All unique war bows have something that can't be enchanted. It was true in vanilla game already. I once challenged myself with finding a unique weapons that can be completely recreated by enchanting and i found, like, 2 of them. There's a reason virtually every build posted on these fora uses unique weapons. I'm not saying PoE's itemization is good or better than Deadfire, i'm saying enchanting system in PoE1 wasn't a problem and didn't kill uniqueness of unique weapons. This page might interest you: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Pillars_of_Eternity_enchantments Yep. Unique-in-name-only weapons are limited to Fortanero's Rapier, Durance's Staff, and the junk sold at the Club for Refined and Prestigious Gentlemen, and every suit of unique armor has at least a skill bonus to make it stand out (although Durance's Robes, to be fair, were fake uniques at release). Crafting was always limited to: quality, lash, and slaying property for weapons quality, +1/+2 attribute bonus, and damage-type-proofing for armor. quality for shields

Nah, I mean they're similar in the UI sense, in that you place bright green polygons on the field and they go off if enemies step on them. It was a functional approach, generally balanced by making them unsalable and making traps actually worth a damn.

I agree, Deadfire's system is generally an improvement and the items are a lot more interesting this time around (although aesthetically, Deadfire's armor is pretty lame by comparison).

The funny thing about that is how PoE's traps don't work anything like BG2's, taking far more notes from NWN1 (where, incidentally, they're fine).

Except that many people seem to be confused about what the plot is. The plot is not to stop Eothas from destroying the Wheel. The plot is to find out what Eothas is doing and get your soul back. The impact on the overarching plot is that you succeed in doing everything you set out to do. If so many people are confused about what a story's overarching plot is, that story has a problem.

Ripple sponge or bust